Is the swish-bingled use
O' keepin' them noisy old cataracts busy
To give folks a headache and make people dizzy?

"Some poets and children and cripples and fools
They say that them Falls is eternal. That so?
Say, what is Eternity, Nature, and God
Compared to the Inter-Graft Gaslighting Co.?
Could all the durn waterfalls born in creation
Compete with a sugar or soap corporation?
But Nature, you feel,
Has a voice in the deal?
She ain't. For I'm deaf both in that ear and this un--
If Nature talks Money I'm willin' to listen!
So bring on your dredges,
And shovels and sledges,
Yer bricklayers, masons, yer hammers and mauls--
The public be dammed while we dam up the Falls.

"Just look at the plans o' me beautiful dream!
A sewer-pipe conduit to carry the Falls
Past eight hundred mill-wheels (great savin' of steam):
The cliffs to be covered with dump heaps and walls,
With many a smokestack and fly-wheel and pulley,
Bridge, engine, and derrick--say, won't it look bully!
With, furnaces smokin',
And stokers a-stokin'
With factory children a-workin' like Scotches
A-turnin' out chewing-gum, shoe-laces, watches,
And kitchen utensils,
And patent lead-pencils,
And mission-oak furniture, pie-crust, and flannels--
Thus turnin' Niag' to legitimate channels.

"The province o' Beauty," said Senator Grabb,
"Is bossed by us fellers that know what to do.
When Senator Copper hogs half of a State
He builds an Art Palace on Fift' Avenoo.
What people believed in the dark Middle Ages
Don't go in this chapter o' history's pages,
And the worship of mountains
And rivers and fountains
Is sinful, idolatrous, dark superstition--
And likely to lose in a cash proposition.
Ere the good time is past
Let's get busy and cast
Our bread on the waterfall--it'll come back.
We'll first pass the Grabb Bill, and then pass the sack."

FOOTNOTES:

[7] From "At the Sign of the Dollar," by Wallace Irwin. Copyright, 1905,
by Fox, Duffield & Co.

THE FORBEARANCE OF THE ADMIRAL[8]

BY WALLACE IRWIN

I ain't afeard o' the Admiral,
Though a common old tar I be,
And I've oftentimes spoke to the Admiral
Expressin' a bright idee;
For he's very nice at takin' advice
And a tractable man is he.

For once I says to the Admiral,
Unterrified, though polite,
"Don't think me critical, Admiral,