| Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Chicago Poems. 1916. |
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| 137. I Am the People, the Mob |
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| I AM the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass. | |
| Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me? | |
| I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes. | |
| I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns. | |
| I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget. | 5 |
| Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget. | |
| When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision. | |
| The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then. | |
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