The Walt Whitman Archive
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About this Item
Title: Chicago
Creator: unknown
Date: December 8, 1884
Whitman Archive ID: per.00016
Source: Toronto World 8 December 1884: [1]. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm copy of an original issue. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the periodical poems, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Elizabeth Lorang and Susan Belasco
 image 1 |
Chicago
—By Walt Whitman.
I have looked thee over and taken thy meas-
ure thou Golgotha of the west. Thou callest
thyself the garden city!
ure thou Golgotha of the west. Thou callest
thyself the garden city!
You claim to be the centre of the new dem-
ocracy, of the great free west, of the land of
plenty.
ocracy, of the great free west, of the land of
plenty.
But with all thy democracy doth a man earn
a living easier within thy borders, or have a
happier time because thereof?
a living easier within thy borders, or have a
happier time because thereof?
Does he not toil harder, have coarser fare,
longer hours and a lower margin of subsist-
ence? For a city of democracy must be judged
by the status of its toilers and by the fine
houses of her pork-packing princes.
longer hours and a lower margin of subsist-
ence? For a city of democracy must be judged
by the status of its toilers and by the fine
houses of her pork-packing princes.
Are not your workers being supplanted by
Chinaman, by Polack and by Italian, who
live on a much lower plane?
Chinaman, by Polack and by Italian, who
live on a much lower plane?
And does not the great blot of slavery show
in thy streets more pointedly almost than
anywhere else in a lot of diseased niggers?
in thy streets more pointedly almost than
anywhere else in a lot of diseased niggers?
Blood is the bans of the hustling prosperity
that now attends you and an adept pig-sticker
is the embodiment of thy manhood!
that now attends you and an adept pig-sticker
is the embodiment of thy manhood!