Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968). rn The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915.

Kruppism
(From “The Present Hour”)

Percy Mackaye

(American poet and dramatist, born 1875)

CROWNED on the twilight battlefield, there bends

A crooked iron dwarf, and delves for gold,

Chuckling: “One hundred thousand gatlings—sold!”

And the moon rises, and a moaning rends

The mangled living, and the dead distends,

And a child cowers on the chartless wold,

Where, searching in his safety vault of mold,

The kobold kaiser cuts his dividends.

We, who still wage his battles, are his thralls,

And dying do him homage; yea, and give

Daily our living souls to be enticed

Into his power. So long as on war’s walls

We build engines of death that he may live,

So long shall we serve Krupp instead of Christ.