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Take a trip with me in 1913, |
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To Calumet, |
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Michigan, in the copper country. |
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I will take you to a place called |
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Italian Hall, |
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Where the miners are having their big |
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Christmas ball. |
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I will take you in a door and up a high stairs, |
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Singing and dancing is heard everywhere, |
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I will let you shake hands with the people you see, |
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And watch the kids dance around the big |
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Christmas tree. |
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You ask about work and you ask about pay, |
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They'll tell you they make less than a dollar a day, |
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Working the copper claims, risking their lives, |
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So it's fun to spend |
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Christmas with children and wives. |
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There's talking and laughing and songs in the air, |
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And the spirit of |
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Christmas is there everywhere, |
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Before you know it you're friends with us all, |
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And you're dancing around and around in the hall. |
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Well a little girl sits down by the |
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Christmas tree lights, |
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To play the piano so you gotta keep quiet, |
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To hear all this fun you would not realize, |
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That the copper boss' thug men are milling outside. |
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The copper boss' thugs stuck their heads in the door, |
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One of them yelled and he screamed, "there's a fire," |
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A lady she hollered, "there's no such a thing. Keep on with your party, there's no such thing." |
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A few people rushed and it was only a few, "It's just the thugs and the scabs fooling you," |
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A man grabbed his daughter and carried her down, |
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But the thugs held the door and he could not get out. |
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And then others followed, a hundred or more, |
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But most everybody remained on the floor, |
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The gun thugs they laughed at their murderous joke, |
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While the children were smothered on the stairs by the door. |
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Such a terrible sight |
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I never did see, |
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We carried our children back up to their tree, |
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The scabs outside still laughed at their spree, |
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And the children that died there were seventy-three. |
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The piano played a slow funeral tune, |
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And the town was lit up by a cold |
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Christmas moon, |
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The parents they cried and the miners they moaned, "See what your greed for money has done." |
