Bedlam

October, 1914

"The world is mad, my masters," The poet had the facts To prove this sweeping statement, In man's punk-headed acts; For since the day when Adam Partook of the wrong tree, We've toiled, and slipped, and blundered; "What fools these mortals be".

Take out your horse or auto, And drive the country roads, And see the fields and orchards Bearing their precious loads. Old Mother Earth produces With lavish hand and free, But half is lost or ruined By man's stupidity.

Ten thousand tons of apples Will surely go to waste While poor folk in the cities Will hardly get a taste. We take good wheat and barley And manufacture bums, Whose wives and little children Are starving in the slums.

The man that's poor as woodwork, And nearly always broke, Can somehow find a nickel To puff away in smoke; While those who have the money To eat and drink their fills, Are sure to over-do it, And run up doctor bills.

If, when the times are peaceful I kill one man, by heck! They'll call it bloody murder, And hang me by the neck. In war-time he's a hero, Who sends through air or sea A bomb to blow a thousand Into Eternity.

And so, dear gentle reader, You see, by all the rules, That earth's whole population Except ourselves are fools.