| Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Chicago Poems. 1916. |
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| 42. Fellow Citizens |
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| I DRANK musty ale at the Illinois Athletic Club with the millionaire manufacturer of Green River butter one night | |
| And his face had the shining light of an old-time Quaker, he spoke of a beautiful daughter, and I knew he had a peace and a happiness up his sleeve somewhere. | |
| Then I heard Jim Kirch make a speech to the Advertising Association on the trade resources of South America. | |
| And the way he lighted a three-for-a-nickel stogie and cocked it at an angle regardless of the manners of our best people, | |
| I knew he had a clutch on a real happiness even though some of the reporters on his newspaper say he is the living double of Jack London’s Sea Wolf. | 5 |
| In the mayor’s office the mayor himself told me he was happy though it is a hard job to satisfy all the office-seekers and eat all the dinners he is asked to eat. | |
| Down in Gilpin Place, near Hull House, was a man with his jaw wrapped for a bad toothache, | |
| And he had it all over the butter millionaire, Jim Kirch and the mayor when it came to happiness. | |
| He is a maker of accordions and guitars and not only makes them from start to finish, but plays them after he makes them. | |
| And he had a guitar of mahogany with a walnut bottom he offered for seven dollars and a half if I wanted it, | 10 |
| And another just like it, only smaller, for six dollars, though he never mentioned the price till I asked him, | |
| And he stated the price in a sorry way, as though the music and the make of an instrument count for a million times more than the price in money. | |
| I thought he had a real soul and knew a lot about God. | |
| There was light in his eyes of one who has conquered sorrow in so far as sorrow is conquerable or worth conquering. | |
| Anyway he is the only Chicago citizen I was jealous of that day. | 15 |
| He played a dance they play in some parts of Italy when the harvest of grapes is over and the wine presses are ready for work. | |
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