factory windows are Always broken
Nicholas Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931)
Factory windows are always broken.
Somebody's always throwing bricks,
Somebody's always heaving cinders,
Playing ugly Yahoo tricks.
Factory windows are always broken.
Other windows are let alone.
No one throws through the chapel-window
The bitter, snarling, derisive stone.
Factory windows are always broken.
Something or other is going wrong.
Something is rotten—I think, in Denmark.
End of factory-window song
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THE CONGO AND OTHER POEMS
Macmillan Company, New York, 1914, pp.105
“In 1977 the glow of the furnaces had already begun to dim. The 50,000 steel jobs in the valley from post WWII had shrunk to 30,000. Steel Companies were being merged, the local mills were antiquated compared to the new modern facilities overseas, which were taking an ever-increasing share of the international market. But, instead of limiting imports our government made it even more costly for American companies to compete by imposing stricter air and water pollution standards.”
