Writing under the pen name 'Mike Quinn,' Paul William Ryan was a leftist labor journalist, book author, and poet in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1930s and 1940s. In his life he was a sailor, union activist with the ILWU (Westcoast longshoremen) and NMU (sailors union), newspaper reporter, and member of the Communist Party. The waterfront was his particular journalist beat. Drawings by Bits Hayden.
They Shall Not Die! (Scottsboro Boys)
These Are the Classwar Dead (S.F. General Strike, 1934)
He Said Fight
The Man in the Rain
Three Percent Own All the Wealth
Graduation Greetings
How Much for Spain? (Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939)
Why Down't You Laugh? (Nazi Germany)
Newsie
Little Boy Blue
THEY SHALL NOT DIE! (Scottsboro Boys) PDF version
If the untold martyred Negroes rose
From long forgotten graves;
If the dark soil burst and issued forth
Its hoard of murdered slaves;
If they marched their broken bodies past
In ghastly black parade
Before the men who struck them down
That fortunes might be made;
The sea of lash-torn human flesh,
Rope-strangled throats, gouged eyes,
Charred bodies, bullet-riddled forms
Would shock the very skies.
But still the lords of greed and gain
Would view it all with pride,
Would count each corpse like miser's gold
And not be satisfied.
Too long the trees of Southern hate
Such bloody fruit have borne
As Negroes strangled on boss ropes
For parasites to scorn.
Too oft through balmy Southern air,
The awful, sickening smell
Of burning human Negro flesh
Floats like the breath of Hell.
And now the brutal master class
Puts by its rope and fire,
And turns upon the working class
With copper chairs and wire.
The power plant is humming death
While two boys wait in cells
To take the volts into their bones,
Unless mass protest tells.
What for? Who reaps the gain of this?
Whose pockets bulge? Whose hand
Sets fire to men, pulls lynching ropes
And rule this wretched land?
Who profits by the death of men?
By keeping men in chains?
Whose hand is sowing human skulls
Upon the earth like grains?
That hand is white, but not our hand.
White workers will not kill
Their fellow workers, black or brown,
To do a master's will.
Our martyrs lie with your brave dead
In deep graves side by side,
While workers, black and white, above
Are joining hands with pride.
Here is the challenge bosses fling
At black and white alike:
"December seventh is the day The hand of death shall strike."
We joined our hands. We made a pledge.
This was our battle cry:
We swore before our martyred dead,
THOSE NINE BOYS SHALL NOT DIE!
Let every voice, let every fist
Rise up, for we have willed
To stay the murdering hand of greed;
OUR SONS SHALL NOT BE KILLED!
[To Clarence Norris and Haywood Patterson, the two of the nine innocent Scottsboro Boys who were condemned by brutal boss "justice" to die in the electric chair on December 7th, 1934. Mass protest of the working people saved their lives.]
THESE ARE THE CLASS WAR DEAD PDF version
Stop in your tracks! You passerby,
Uncover your doubting head;
The workingmen are on their way
To bury their murdered dead.
The men who sowed their strength in work
And reaped a crop of lies
Are marching by. Oppression's doom
Is written in their eyes.
Two coffins lead the grim parade
That stops you in your tracks;
Two workers lying stiff and dead
With bullets in their backs.
The blood they left upon the street
Was workers' blood and red;
They died to make a better world,
These are the class war dead!
Stand back, you greedy parasites,
With banks and bellies filled,
And tremble while the working class
Buries the men you killed.
This is our word to those who fell,
Shot down for bosses' gains
We swear to fight until we win,
YOU DID NOT DIE IN VAIN!
[Commemorting the mass funeral march up Market Street for the strikes killed by police on "Bloody Thursday," July 5, 1934]
HE SAID FIGHT PDF version
I talked to an old man.
His neck was wrinkled like a turkey's
His eyes were milky,
And his hand quivered
As he placed it on my shoulder.
Fight, he said.
Fight like hell.
Fight and think and work like hell.
He knew that pretty soon
He was going down
Into the ground.
He seemed to be begging me.
His hand caressed the muscle of my shoulder
Like he was trying to drag strength out of it,
Draw it into his own
Old bones
And feel the fire of life
Strong in his heart.
Fight, he said.
Fight like hell.
He didn't know exactly
What he was trying to tell me.
But I understood him perfectly well.
Fight, he said.
Fight 'em.
Keep on trying.
Keep on figuring.
And fight.
He'd tried.
h, Christ, how he had tried!
And he showed me his bruises,
Proudly,
But with a kind of desperation.
He was trying to transmit
Something to me.
He was ready for the grave.
But he had something in him
That he wanted to transmit to me.
Something he wanted to set afire
Inside me.
Something he wanted
To keep on going,
Keep on fighting —
Then he didn't mind dying.
He wanted me to say some word
That would reassure him —
Some guarantee —
Some promise —
That I wouldn't let go of this thing,
That I'd keep fighting.
All he could do
Was dig his fingers in my shoulder,
Shake his head from side to side,
And tell me to fight,
Like I was his only hope.
He liked me,
But he wasn't sure.
He liked me,
But he knew the temptations,
And he knew how tired a man can get.
Fight 'em, he said.
Fight the bastards.
And keep on fighting.
I know, dad, I said.
I'll fight 'em.
You don't have to worry.
I'll fight like hell.
But he wasn't convinced.He was going down into the ground.
He was going to die,
And he wanted the fight finished.
And even when I promised him,
He wasn't satisfied.
He kept telling me over and over again:
Don't crawl in a hole.
Don't think you're smart.
Don't fall for the me and the mine.
Keep fighting, son.
Don't ever let up.
Just grit your teeth,
And do your bit,
And fight — fight —
Fight 'em like hell.
And I understood him
— Perfectly well.
THE MAN IN THE RAIN PDF version
You go to work and you go there knowing
Some guy don't know where he's going;
Some guy wanders in the rain
Hungry in stomach and in brain.
You work all day, you work all week;
Take it rebellious or take it meek;
But take it you do and your laboring brain
Never forgets the guy in the rain.
The guy in the rain can hypnotize
With sick, humiliated eyes,
And every hour, awake, asleep,
He herds your thoughts like timid sheep.
The hours are long. The pay is small.
The guy in the rain has nothing at all.
Stand up, demand, protest, complain?
You too might wander in the rain.
The man in the rain is gaunt and lean;
He begs with apologetic mien.
He was clubbed to his knees 'til he learned to crawl;
And his moaning makes cowards of us all.
As long as he crawls, we'll crawl the same;
As long as he's humble, we'll share his shame.
There will be no peace for body or brain
As long as that man is out in the rain.
THREE PER CENT OWN ALL THE WEALTH PDF version
Keep off the grass
And out of the fields,
And don't trespass.
Keep out of the buildings
And off the lawns;
You're the working class.
America is the space between the cracks
In the pavement,
And the space between the rail ties,
And the rest of it is fenced and owned
By the top hat guys.
You can sit on a park bench,
If not too long,
But keep off the lawns
You don't belong.
You don't own a damned thing
But muscle and brain;
You're a man without property
Out in the rain.
In those warm mansions,
Three percent
Own all the land,
Reap all the rent.
They've got it all
And want still more,
Step up, America,
And knock on the door.
Tell them that democracy
Is about to begin;
That the joke is over
And you're moving in.
[Western Worker, 1935 ]
GRADUATION GREETINGS PDF version
They've ground it into your thinking
And hammered it into your bones,
That the good rise up like bubbles
And the evil sink like stones.
They've drilled you with guns on the campus,
And taught you the arts of gore;
You're an A-1 competent killer
In line for the coming war.
They gave you a fancy diploma,
With a speech by a wealthy snob;
You're a certified, guaranteed moron,
Let's hope you can find a job.
Come into the world to perfect
Have a look at the hungry men.
Have a look at the lives of workers
And study your lessons again.
The stools of the clerks are many;
The mahogany desks are few.
The breadlines stretch for many a block;
There's room at the end for you.
HOW MUCH FOR SPAIN? PDF version
The long collection speech is done
And now the felt hat goes
From hand to hand its solemn way
Along the restless rows.
In purse and pocket, fingers feel
And count the coins by touch.
Minds ponder what they can afford
And hesitate ... how much?
In that brief, jostled moment when
The battered hat arrives,
Try, brother, to remember that
Some men put in their lives.
[Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939]
WHY DON'T YOU LAUGH? PDF version
Now that you've crushed the little Jew
Shut down his shop,
Insulted his wife
And broken his violin;
Why aren't you happy, Germany?
Why don't you sing and dance?
The Jew is gone.
The few who still remain
Crawl painfully on hands and knees.
You have rubbed their noses in the dirt
And spit upon their children.
Aren't you proud?
Aren't you free?
Weren't the Jews your oppressors?
Aren't you a strong, united race?
You husky, brown-shirted men
Who crashed down the door
Of the little Jewish doctor,
Slapped his wife and raped his daughter,
Made him crawl in the mud on his hands and knees —
What's the matter with you, Germany?
Why don't you laugh?
You have liberated yourself from the Jews.
The little Jew who fiddled for you
In the beer garden —
He'll oppress you no more.
You beat him to death in a concentration camp.
That old lady who sold pretzels on the corner —
She'll oppress you no more.
She died of a broken heart.
The old Jewish tailor sitting cross-legged
On his table —
You need fear him no more.
His old bones couldn't stand your bravery.
Dance, Germany, dance!
Dance upon the graves of your oppressors!
You took an old Jew out in the back alley
And flogged him to death
Until his agony echoed
Around the world.
Now where are you, Germany?
And what have you solved?
What put that grey look in your eyes?
That grey uniform on your son?
That grey helmet on his head?
What makes you a nation of grey, silent people?
What makes you afraid to answer?
Not even the grave is more silent
Than lips that fear to speak.
You stand there all burdened with cartridges
And hand grenades dangling from your belt,
With grey fear and shame looking from your eyes.
No other present than fear,
No other future than murder.
It can't be the Jew, for the Jew is dead
And your boots are stained with his blood.
But tell me, Germany,
Who is responsible for your trouble now?
NEWSIE PDF version
I sell papers.
Don't blame me
For the lies they print
And the news they see.
Getcha paper!
Sports and Finance.
Atom bomb found
In statesman's pants.
Do I make any money
Selling these things?
Yes, lady, I hope
To retire at Palm Springs.
Expert says war profits
Only a joke.
Millionaires say
They're practically broke.
That patch in my pants,
And this dirty old suit?
Why, lady, I wear it
Because it looks cute.
Broker and model
Discovered in bed.
Russia's Joe Stalin
Exposed as a Red.
Yeah, I hear the whiskey
People are thinkin'
O' running my mug
As a Man of Distinction.
Byrnes says we ought to
Declare war on Russia
For seizing the Junkers'
Estates in East Prussia.
Yes, newspaper publishers
Are a generous pack.
They'd gladly give you
The shirt off my back.
Father slays six.
Young girl dismembered.
Bank robber shot.
Yuletide remembered.
They'd never allow me
To earn my beans
If these papers would fit
Into slot machines.
Economists say
Future dark.
Severed head
Found in park.
They're already trying
To sell them on racks
With a slot where the honest
Can drop in the tax,
But they're stolen as soon
As they turn their backs.
No, I never had time
To make a success.
Too busy earning
My living, I guess.
Discouraged? Well, no.
My future lies
With the march of the organized
Working guys.
Do I read these papers?
No, hardly at all.
But I read the handwriting
On the wall.
Here you are, mister.
Read if you wish.
Or it may come in handy
To wrap up a fish.
LITTLE BOY BLUE PDF version
Little Boy Blue,
Come home, come home!
Your worried old parents
Are starving alone.
Where is the little boy
Who took to the road
In search of a job
To help lighten the load?
He fell under the wheels
Of a freight in Merced,
And his frail little body
Is mangled and dead.
Go wake him! Go wake him!
Oh no. Not I.
But I'll waken a storm
That will tremble the sky!
Poems copyright © Mike Quinn (Paul William Ryan) and Bits Hayden all rights reserved.
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