Explore "John Hancock Otis" by Edgar Lee Masters on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
As to democracy, fellow citizens, / Are you not prepared to admit / That I, who inherited riches and was to the manor born, / Was second to none in Spoon River / In my devotion to the cause of Liberty?
While my contemporary, Anthony Findlay, / Born in a shanty and beginning life / As a water carrier to the section hands, / Then becoming a section hand when he was grown, / Afterwards foreman of the gang, until he rose / To the superintendency of the railroad, / Living in Chicago, / Was a veritable slave driver, / Grinding the faces of labor, / And a bitter enemy of democracy.
And I say to you, Spoon River, / And to you, O republic, / Beware of the man who rises to power / From one suspender.