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Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968). rn The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915.

To a Nine-inch Gun

P. F. McCarthy

(This poem came to the New York World office on a crumpled piece of soiled paper. The author’s address was given as Fourth Bench, City Hall Park)

WHETHER your shell hits the target or not,

Your cost is Five Hundred Dollars a Shot.

You thing of noise and flame and power,

We feed you a hundred barrels of flour

Each time you roar. Your flame is fed

With twenty thousand loaves of bread.

Silence! A million hungry men

Seek bread to fill their mouths again.