Why do you make agreements that divide you when you fight
And let the bosses bluff you with the contract's "sacred right"?
Why stay at work when other crafts are battling with the foe?
You all must stick together, don't you know?
The day when you begin to see the classes waging war
You can join the biggest tie-up that was ever known before.
When the strikes all o'er the country are united into one
Then the workers' One Big Union all the wheels shall run.
A. F. of L. Sympathy
BY B. L. WEBER
(Tune: "All I Got was Sympathy")
Bill Brown was a worker in a great big shop,
Where there worked two thousand others;
They all belonged to the A. F. of L.,
And they called each other "brothers."
One day Bill Brown's union went out on strike,
And they went out for higher pay;
All the other crafts remained on the job,
And Bill Brown did sadly say:
CHORUS
All we got was sympathy;
So we were bound to lose, you see;
All the others had craft autonomy,
Or else they would have struck with glee,
But I got good and hungry,
And no craft unions go for me.
Gee! Ain't it hell, in the A. F. of L.
All you get is sympathy.
Bill Brown was a thinker, and he was not a fool,
And fools there are many, we know.
So he decided the A. F. of L.
And its craft divisions must go.
Industrial Unions are just the thing,
Where the workers can all join the fight;
So now on the soap box boldly he stands,
A-singing with all of his might: