And have you fix the where and when
That we must slave and die?
Here’s fifty thousand harvest men
Shall know the reason why!
-Shorty
Hellraisers Journal, Monday June 25, 1917
A Song for the Harvest Workers of the American Mid-West
From Solidarity of June 23, 1917:
SOURCE
Rebel Voices
-ed by Joyce L. Kornbluh
PM Press, Sep 1, 2011
(search: kitten in the wheat)
https://books.google.com/books?id=n2ATBwAAQBAJ
See also:
Solidarity (U. S. Newspaper)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_(U.S._newspaper)
Sabotage by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, April 1915
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015079021849;view=2up;seq=1;size=75
Sabotage by Walker C Smith, 1913
https://iww.org/history/library/WCSmith/sabotage
Hellraisers Journal, Monday March 19, 1917
Seattle, Washington – “Sabotage” Introduced into Tracy Trial
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Walker C. Smith in Courtroom as Sabotage Books Read at Tracy Trial
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday October 1, 1916
From Solidarity: The A. W. O. Marches on to Industrial Freedom
The Agricultural Workers Organization (IWW) Is Coming Back to Stay
The Literary Digest, Volume 61
(New York, New York)
April 1919
https://books.google.com/books?id=lbsvAAAAYAAJ
LD April 19, 1919
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=lbsvAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA153
“What the I. W. W. Black Cat and Wooden Shoe Emblems Mean”
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=lbsvAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.RA2-PA70
“The Kitten in the Wheat”
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=lbsvAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.RA2-PA72
Kitten In The Wheat by Shorty
According to John Neuhouse (per Archie Green), “Kitten in the Wheat” was sung to “The Girl I Left Behind Me.”
THE KITTEN IN THE WHEAT
By SHORTY
A sab-cat and wobbly band,
A rebel song or two;
And then we’ll show the Parasites
Just what the cat can do.
And have you fix the where and when
That we must slave and die?
Here’s fifty thousand harvest men
Shall know the reason why!
The sab-cat purred and twitched her tail
As happy as could be;
They’d better not throw “wobs” in jail
And leave the kitten free
From early spring till late in fall
We toll that men may eat,
And “all for one and one for all,”
Sing wobblies in the wheat.
The sab-cat purred and twitched her tail
And winked the other way;
Our boys will never rot in jail,
Or else the Plutes will PAY.
You shall not keep them in the pen
Or send them forth to die,
Or fifty thousand union men
Shall know the reason why!
Black Cat by Bingo (Ralph Chaplin)
(See link above at AWO Coming Back to Stay)
