Free Land Is Not Enough

Free land is not enough. In earliest days / When man, the baby, from the earth's bare breast / Drew for himself his simple sustenance, / Then freedom and his effort were enough. / The world to which a man is born to-day / Is a constructed, human, man-built world. / As the first savage needed the free wood, / We need the road, the ship, the bridge, the house, / The government, society, and church,- / These are the basis of our life to-day, / As much necessities to modern man / As was the forest to his ancestor. / To say to the new-born, "Take here your land; / In primal freedom settle where you will, / And work your own salvation in the world," / Is but to put the last come upon earth / Back with the dim forerunners of his race / To climb the race's stairway in one life! / Allied society owes to the young- / The new men come to carry on the world- / Account for all the past, the deeds, the keys, / Full access to the riches of the earth. / Why? That these new ones may not be compelled, / Each for himself, to do our work again- / But reach their manhood even with to-day, / And gain to-morrow sooner. To go on- / To start from where we are and go ahead- / That is true progress, true humanity!