The Liberty Lamp: Libertarian News & Editorials

Believe it or not folks, I actually am (arguably) a somewhat cultured person. Don't believe me? Well I'll prove it! The following is the opening section of a poem by Maurice Ogden in the aftermath of World War II. It is quite long, so please click on the title link of this post for the complete text.

Hangman
by Maurice Ogden

"Into our town the Hangman came.
Smelling of gold and blood and flame
and he paced our bricks with a diffident air
and built his frame on the courthouse square

The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door

And we wondered, whenever we had the time.
Who the criminal, what the crime.
That Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.

And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead:
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raise the gallows-tree?"

Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope on the gallows-tree..."

This poem goes along quite nicely (or badly depending on how far you look into it) with another famous piece of rhetoric you may be familiar with. Note that the following is from an early supporter of the NAZI party, who suposedly ended up in a concentration camp in the months leading up to the "official" commencement of WWII.

"In Germany, the Nazis came for the
Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak for me."

Remember, kiddies. You might be next!

THINK ABOUT IT.