Ralph Chaplin

Ralph Hosea Chaplin (1887 — 1961) was an American illustrator, writer and labor organizer. He was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World.

Quotes
Solidarity Forever (1915)
 * When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run,
 * There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;
 * Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,
 * But the union makes us strong.


 * CHORUS:
 * Solidarity forever,
 * Solidarity forever,
 * Solidarity forever,
 * For the union makes us strong.


 * Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite,
 * Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?
 * Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
 * For the union makes us strong.


 * CHORUS


 * It is we who plowed the prairies; built the cities where they trade;
 * Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid;
 * Now we stand outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made;
 * But the union makes us strong.


 * CHORUS


 * All the world that's owned by idle drones is ours and ours alone.
 * We have laid the wide foundations; built it skyward stone by stone.
 * It is ours, not to slave in, but to master and to own.
 * While the union makes us strong.


 * CHORUS


 * They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
 * But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
 * We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
 * That the union makes us strong.


 * CHORUS


 * In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold,
 * Greater than the might of armies, multiplied a thousand-fold.
 * We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old
 * For the union makes us strong.

Bars and Shadows: The Prison Poems of Ralph Chaplin (1922)
 * Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth
 * lie—
 * Dust unto dust— The calm, sweet earth that mothers all who
 * die
 * As all men must;


 * Mourn not your captive comrades who must
 * dwell—
 * Too strong to strive— Within each steel-bound coffin of a cell, Buried alive;


 * But rather mourn the apathetic throng— The cowed and the meek— Who see the world’s great anguish and its
 * wrong
 * And dare not speak!
 * Mourn Not The Dead

Quotes about Chaplin

 * As a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, Ralph Chaplin did his part to make the organization a success. He wrote songs and poems; he made speeches; he edited the official paper, “Solidarity”. He looked about him; saw poverty, wretchedness and suffering among the workers; contrasted it with the luxury of those who owned the land and the machinery of production; studied the problem of distribution; and decided that it was possible, through the organization of the producers, to establish a more scientific, juster, more humane system of society. All this he felt, intensely. With him and his fellow-workers the task of freeing humanity from economic bondage took on the aspect of a faith, a religion. They held their meetings; wrote their literature; made their speeches and sang their song with zealous devotion. They had seen a vision; they had heard a call to duty; they were giving their lives to a cause—the emancipation of the human race.
 * Scott Nearing, Introduction to Bars and Shadows: The Prison Poems of Ralph Chaplin (1922)


 * The Wobbly poet and newspaperman Ralph Chaplin (author of “Solidarity Forever”) recalled being introduced to Anarchist ideas — Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Most, etc — by an “FAS correspondent” on his way to Detroit via the box car.
 * Shelby Shapiro Freie Arbeter Shtime: The End of an Era (1978)