A PLEA.

Columbia, large-hearted and tender,

Too long for the good of your kin

You have shared your home’ s comfort and splendor

With all who have asked to come in.

The smile of your true eyes has lighted

The way to your wide-open door.

You have held out full hands, and invited

The beggar to take from your store.

Your overrun proud sister nations,

Whose offspring you help them to keep,

Are sending their poorest relations,

Their unruly vicious black sheep;

Unwashed and unlettered you take them,

And lo! we are pushed from your knee;

We are governed by laws as they make them,

We are slaves in the land of the free.

Columbia, you know the devotion

Of those who have sprung from your soil;

Shall aliens, born over the ocean,

Dispute us the fruits of our toil?

Most noble and gracious of mothers,

Your children rise up and demand

That you bring us no more foster brothers,

To breed discontent in the land.

Be prudent before you are zealous,

Not generous only — but just.

Our hearts are grown wrathful and jealous

Toward those who have outraged your trust.

They jostle and crowd in our places,

They sneer at the comforts you gave.

We say, shut the door in their faces —

Until they have learned to behave!

In hearts that are greedy and hateful,

They harbor ill-will and deceit;

They ask for more favors, ungrateful

For those you have poured at their feet.

Rise up in your grandeur, and straightway

Bar out the bold, clamoring mass;

Let sentinels stand at your gateway,

To see who is worthy to pass.

Give first to your own faithful toilers

The freedom our birthright should claim,

And take from these ruthless despoilers

The power which they use to our shame.

Columbia, too long you have dallied

With foes whom you feed from your store;

It is time that your wardens were rallied,

And stationed outside the locked door.