GREETINGS AND IMPRECATIONS FOR '44
Rodell, Fred
Greetings And Imprecations For By FRED RODELL EDITOR'S NOTE: Mr. Rodelis New Year's verse was sent in what should liave been more tlian ample time to reach us for our first issue of ldlflt. An...
...An unprecedented delay in the mails, however, brought it here too late for last week's Jan...
...A Happy New Year to I. F. Stone Whose reporting from Washington ranks alone In digging out all the detailed facts To use on the big boys where the chicken got the axe...
...A Happy New Year to Randolph Paul Who has fought for better taxes with his back to the wall And a Happy New Year to Robert Hutchins Who scoffs at the academic scale of escutcheons...
...A Happy New Year to Eliot Janeway And Morris H. Rubin who thinks in a sane way And a Happy New Year to two women as well—-To Mme...
...A Happy New Year to Hugo Black Who is steering the law on the people's track, Who is proving that justice is not the sport Of the best-paid lawyer before the court...
...A Happy New Year to Charles A. Beard Whom the pseudo-scholars long have feared, To that grand old battler for total truth With the mind of a sage and the heart of a youth...
...But a ratty New Year tp our home-grown Heil-ers, To the Negro hounders and the Jew revilers And a New Year preferably flat on his face To every coot who gives a hoot for color or race...
...3 issue...
...A Happy New Year to Bob La Follette Who can smell the stench of the rich man's wallet In much too much that goes on today In the capital of the U.S.A...
...But a no-good New Year to the Palace Patricians Who hang around the White House to better their positions And a New Year empty of influence and cheer To those who play God at the President's ear...
...But a black New Year to the union haters, To the paid and professional labor-baiters And a New Year somewhat worse than reg'lar To that poison penman, Westbrook Pegler...
...A Happy New Year to Harold Ickes Who won't let greed or reaction lick us While he tosses his knives into each conniver As the late New Deal's last lone survivor...
...So a Happy New Year to every guy Who fought the good fight in the year gone by But a New Year rancid, rank, and rotten To those, and their works, who are best forgotten...
...As '44 rolls around the bend A deep-dyed progressive ought to send His share of seasonal salutation With something resembling discrimination...
...A Happy New Year to Homer Bone Whose statesmanlike stature has steadily grown And a Happy New Year to Harry S. Truman Who will not see money values put ahead of human...
...A Happy New Year to William O. Douglas Whose record is spotless and stainless and bugless As SEC chairman and now as a judge With the sort of integrity you can't buy or budge...
...Happy New Year too to the many I've missed Who also deserve to be on the list Of true progressives who work and who fight That the other list's New Year shall never be bright...
...Chiang and to Fatherine Rodell...
...But a punk New Year to the poll-tax pests, Democracy's brood who have fouled their nests, And a New Year for which they'll not be thankin' To Congressmen Cox and Dies and Rankin...
...A Happy New Year to John L. Lewis Who always knows on whose foot the shoe is And whose fight for a decent deal for labor Makes him no more a traitor than your next-dooi neighbor...
...But a dreary New Year to the Department of State With its truckling to titles, especially second-rate, And a New Year without any post or portfolio To those who embroiled us with Giraud and Badoglio...
...But a bloody bad New Year to each British imperial Who'd rather starve Indians than let them eat cereal And a New Year more nauseous than ever before To the blokes who want the Empire enlarged by the war...
...But a dismal New Year to every dictator North of, or South of, or on the Equator And a New Year of living from hand to mouth To the "nice" dictators in America, South...
...A Happy New Year to old George Norris, To Gifford Pinchot who preserved our forests, To Thurman Arnold and to Charles E. Clark And to young Abe Fortas who has made his mark...
...But a dishonorable New Year to Hirohito Who should be slapped down like a mad mosquito And a New Year full of hara-kiri To every one of his warriors weary...
...But a profitless New Year to the war profiteers, Steeped in billions of blood-money up to their ears And a New Year nastier and even more neurotic To the profiteers whose ads boast they're being patriotic...
...A Happy New Year to John P. Peters Of the health insurance tom-tom beaters And a Happy New Year to Roger Baldwin, The knight of every civil right that ever got called one...
...But a lousy New Year to Adolf Hitler Than whom no living man looms littler And a New Year less than hotsy-totsy To Goering and Goebbels and every Nazi...
...But a cramped New Year to the cartel kings Who'd own the whole world in their own scheme of things And a New Year too cheap to bother to buy up To Standard Oil with its German tie-up...
Vol. 8 • January 1944 • No. 2
