Room Enough for All

Room Enough for All

What need of all this fuss and strife,

Each warring with his brother?

Why should we, in the crowd of life,

Keep trampling down each other?

Is there no goal that can be won,

Without a squeeze to gain it—

No other way of getting on

But scrambling to obtain it?

Oh! fellow-men, hear wisdom, then,

In friendly warning call—

"Your claims divide, the world is wide,

There's room enough for all."

What if the swarthy peasant find

No field for honest labor,

He need not idly stop behind

To thrust aside his neighbor.

There is a land with sunny skies,

Which gold for toil is giving,

Where every brawny hand that tries

Its strength can grasp a living.

Oh! fellow-men, remember then,

Whatever chance befall,

The world is wide—where those abide,

There's room enough for all.

From poisoned air ye breathe in courts

And typhus-tainted alleys,

Go forth and dwell where health resorts,

In fertile hills and valleys;

Where every man that clears a bough

Finds plenty in attendance;

Up, leave your loathsome cities, now,

And toil for independence.

Oh! hasten, then, from fevered den,

And lodging cramp and small;

The world is wide, in land beside,

There's room enough for all.

Unattributed

1:27, p. 1

1.21.1860