Let wise men teach and honest men proclaim
The mutual dependence of the rich and poor;
For if the wealthy profit by the poor,
The poor man profits ever by the rich. 
Wealth builds our churches and our colleges;
Wealth builds the mills that grind the million’s bread;
Wealth builds the factories that clothe the poor;
Wealth builds the railways and the million ride. 
God hath so willed the toiling millions reap
The golden harvest that the rich have sown. 
Six feet of earth make all men even; lo
The toilers are the rich man’s heirs at last. 
But there be men would grumble at their lot,
Even if it were a corner-lot on Broadway. 
We stand upon the shoulders of the past. 
Who knoweth not the past how may he know
The folly or the wisdom of to-day? 
For by comparison we weigh the good,
And by comparison all evil weigh. 
“What can we reason, but from what we know?”
Let honest men look back an hundred years—­
Nay, fifty, and behold the wondrous change. 
Where wooden tubs like sluggards sailed the sea,
Steam-ships of steel like greyhounds course the main;
Where lumbering coach and wain and wagon toiled
Through mud and mire and rut and rugged way,
The cushioned train a mile a minute flies. 
Then by slow coach the message went and came,
But now by lightning bridled to man’s use
We flash our silent thoughts from sea to sea;
Nay, under ocean’s depths from shore to shore;
And talk by telephone to distant ears. 
The dreams of yesterday are deeds to-day. 
Our frugal mothers spun with tedious toil,
And wove the homespun cloth for all their fold;
Their needles plied by weary fingers sewed. 
Behold, the humming factory spins and weaves,
The singing “Singer” sews with lightning speed. 
Our fathers sowed their little fields by hand,
And reaped with bended sickles and bent backs;
By hand they bound the sheaves of wheat and rye;
With flails they threshed and winnowed in the wind. 
Now by machines we sow and reap and bind;
By steam we thresh and sack the bounteous grain. 
These are but few of all the million ways
Whereby man’s toil is lightened and he hath gained
Tenfold in comfort, luxury and ease. 
For these and more the millions that enjoy
May thank the wise and wealthy few who gave. 
If the rich are richer the poor are richer too. 
A narrow demagogue I count the man
Who cries to-day—­"Progress and Poverty";
As if a thousand added comforts made
The poor man poorer and his lot the worse. 
’Tis but a new toot on the same old horn
That brayed in ancient Greece and Babylon,
And now amid the ruined walls of Rome
Lies buried fathoms deep in dead men’s dust.