THE BOOK OF DAMN
YANKEES
OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE BOOK OF MANIFEST DESTINY
The south plunges into a new eraThe Yanks get more industrial
Chapter 56
Overall, though, the south was the only part of the U.S. that was really desolate.
2Out west, everything was going great,
3What with mining of gold and silver,
4And cattle ranching,
5qAnd about a billion acres of grain fields,
6And no more Indians getting in the way.
7Up north, rcapitalism was thriving,
8Because the Yanks had been paying pretty close attention when the aindustrial revolution got started in Britain,
9And they had never had any problem getting lots of bcheap labor to work twenty or thirty hours a day in factories,
10cSince lots of cheap labor was arriving by the shipload in New York harbor every day,
11From places like dIreland,
12And eItaly,
13And feastern Europe,
14And everywhere else where there were people who had so little that it seemed better to exchange all your worldly possessions for the price of a steamship ticket to the New World.
15gA lot of these people were regarded as the scum of the earth by the people back home,
16hAnd so they didn’t mind being treated the same way by Yank capitalists who wanted to earn huge profits from the sweat of their brow,
17As long as they could just stay in iAmerica,
18And not get sent back home,
19And get to bring their jchildren up in America,
20Where they would learn how to speak English the kAmerican way,
21lAnd have a chance to get ahead,
22Someday.
23Naturally, all of this seemed reasonable to the Yank capitalists,
24Who proceeded to build giant industrial empires,
25In businesses like msteel,
26And noil,
27And ocoal,
28And prailroads,
29qAnd other stuff too,
30While the immigrants had to work for little more than the hope that it would all be different for their children,
31rBecause they believed in the American Dream,
32Which said that sanyone born in America could grow up to be president someday,
33tAs long as he was a he,
34uAnd white,
35vAnd didn’t talk with a funny accent.
✦ · · ✦ · · ✦
Chapter 56 / 154