Bread and Roses

Recently I was listening to a commentator on the presidential campaign opine how he was glad that John Edwards star appears to be fading as Edwards was in the forefront of those calling for class warfare. Actually this line seems to be fairly common, particularly from the pages of the Wall Street Journal and similar voices. It’s applied to those who suggest our society is stacked against ordinary people in favor of the rich. Apparently this has become successful strategy. Attaching the phrase “class war” to people who point out the increasing disparity between rich and poor, between the super rich and everyone else, is to show them to be so out of the loop, implying a clinging to some antiquated socialist vision. So not twenty-first century.

Today is the ninety-sixth anniversary of the beginning of the Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Perhaps it is time to stop and think about this issue. Frankly, as I look at what’s going on around us it’s hard to feel there is not a class war going on. And that the super rich are winning.

Perhaps it is a good time to recall how fragile worker’s rights are, indeed how they’re beginning to crumble in our times. The reasons are many. Not least of which flows from the corruption and incompetence of too many in union leadership over too many years. And, frankly, Socialism in most of its dominant forms has proven to be a false god. At least as I see it. Of course the whole thing is way complicated. Among other things, the very successes of the union movement, as one wit observed, allowing the working person to become affluent enough to vote Republican, has been a big part of it, as well. The litany of whys is enormously long.

What I’m most concerned about is how we appear to be lulled to sleep on these issues.

There is trouble in River City, friends.

And those who point it out are being marginalized and all too much, ignored. As James Oppenheim sang to us

As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,

A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,

Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,

For the people hear us singing: “Bread and roses! Bread and roses!”

As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,

For they are women’s children, and we mother them again.

Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;

Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!

As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead

Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.

Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.

Yes, it is bread we fight for — but we fight for roses, too!

As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.

The rising of the women means the rising of the race.

No more the drudge and idler — ten that toil where one reposes,

But a sharing of life’s glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!