Responsibility

From The Seattle Star, November 7, 1912.
By Berton Braley.
 

 Well, after all, the whole thing’s up to Us,
     However we may try to shift the shame,
     It’s you and I that really are to blame
 If things are in a tangle and a muss.
 
 If Might is Right, if Goodness yields to Greed,
     If Mammon thrives, and God is quite forgot,
     If evil reigns in many a beauty spot,
 It is because We have not taken heed.
 
 The wrongs that live are those we tolerate
     Because we have not tried to make them right;
     If Darkness rules where Justice calls for Light,
 If Love is trampled out by Wrath and Hate,
 
 If little children toll and women slave,
     If some men starve while others feast and waste,
     If Truth is lost and Liberty disgraced,
 If millions fast from childhood to the grave,
 
 It is because, for all our noise and fuss,
     We stay content with matters as they are,
     We have the final choice to make or mar—
 Well, after all, the whole thing’s up to Us!