It is a very sad story. They took you all bumped and bleeding to the sawmill and they bumped and ripped you more. They cut you in pieces and hammered you day by day.
They did not bump the little, crooked, dissipated, cigaret-stunted trees. They were not worth bumping.
But shake, Mr. Piano. That is why you are on this stage. You were bumped here. All the beauty, harmony and value were bumped into you.
The Sufferings of the Red Mud
One day I was up the Missabe road about a hundred miles north of Duluth, Minnesota, and came to a hole in the ground. It was a big hole—about a half-mile of hole. There were steam-shovels at work throwing out of that hole what I thought was red mud.
"Kind sir, why are they throwing that red mud out of that hole?" I asked a native.
"That hain't red mud. That's iron ore, an' it's the best iron ore in the world."
"What is it worth?"
"It hain't worth nothin' here; that's why they're movin' it away."
There's red mud around every community that "hain't worth nothin'" until you move it—send it to college or somewhere.