Who's America?

The Face You Have Seen

April has come

(April of 1941)

The month we were waiting for

Through the dark winter

Begins. . 

The old man with the face you have seen

Tough and kind and none too bright

But lasting

The face you have seen getting on the streetcar

At the mill gate stop

Or the gusty corner

Now under the blood-soaked handkerchief

Looks out at you

With blood oozing down the forehead

From under the handerkerchief

And blood on the collar of the old overcoat. . 

"We'll be in it by April"

They said

Sure enough

The fighting has started

And this old man with the face you have seen

Is the first to get hurt

"Whose America?" somebody asked

And is this the answer?

Another old man

With a face you also have seen a face you have seen

Getting out of limousines

At the bank entrance or the War Department

Asks us to remember '94 (when the army broke the Pullman strike.) That was a time to forget I thought

And I think right now is the worst of all possible times

To ask us to remember. . 

It is April now

The month we were waiting for

But was it for this

That we waited

The berserk cop with the brandished club

The armored bus spraying gas on the pickets

The mobbing howl of the press

And the rabies in Congress—

"to the electric chair with the strikers"?

Whose America anyhow?

Now in this April

We need to find out

Yes, all of us need to know

Whose America

Because if it really isn't the America of the old man

With the face which is our face

Tough and kind and none too bright

But lasting

Then, well we are going to have to do some thinking

Some mighty hard thinking. . 

This is the April we were waiting for

This is the April

This April

Now