In a letter to every president
Congressman, career politician
Scrawled in spite across the envelope
With all of our conviction
In only took a few hours for his peers
To find him guilty in a trail too fair
A wobblie, immigrant worker
Has no place among the living
"My body if I could choose
To ashes it reduce"
Murdered by the capitalist
November 1915 be careful of what you wish
Who is wrong and who is righteous?
What was stolen from us we will replace
Off with the head on the body we feast
Who is wrong and who is righteous
Will never be our own decision
He yelled fire to the squad with guns
They stopped his heart from beating
Every word he wrote, he spoke, he sung
We are still singing:
"My body if I could choose
To ashes it reduce
And let the breezes blow
My dust to where some flowers grow
Perhaps some fading flower then
Would come to life and bloom again"
If the workers take a notion
They can stop all speeding trains
Every ship upon the oceans
They can tie with mighty chains
Every wheel in the creation
Every mine and every mill
Fleets and armies of all nations
Will at our command stand still