The Wreck of the General Slocum

from Recluses Unite! by Al Duvall

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lyrics

Pray remember the General Slocum
That death trap of lead paint and oakum
As she burned to a cinder the fraulein and kinder
Leapt into the lifeboats and broke 'em
In those days New York City was thriving
And industrious folk kept arriving
It was beer halls and Germans and Lutheran sermons
that prevented the market from diving
An excursion was held every summer
For the kin of the cobbler and plumber
Everybody was dressed in their picnicking best
But the glamour was soon to be glummer
For in 1904 in those dark days of yore
on the throne sat the big corporation
From greedy directors to corrupted inspectors
an octopus strangled the nation
And the cost- cutting plan of the sweatshopper man
was the model for business and profit
Thus our ill- fated ship was unfit for the trip
and nobody could even get off it
So a flame set by someone unthinking
As the cowardly crew set to drinking
Went to spread without check from the hold to the deck
And the choice came to burning or sinking
For true connoisseurs of disaster
No ferryboat ever surpassed her
Though consumed by the fire And though land beckoned by her
The captain kept pushing her faster
One thousand did die in the wink of an eye
at the hands of a corporate miser
Grieving fathers returned for their families had burned
and they plotted revenge with the Kaiser
All those barons of humbug and hokum
I hope that the anarchists choke 'em
When they're lost in the slum that Kleindeutschland's become
Since the wreck of the General Slocum