The Daily Bleed: Ernst Toller, Kathy Acker, WTO, Sex Pistols, Ethel MacDonald, FIJL, Joseph Tortelier, Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, Alexander Schapiro

DECEMBER 1
ERNST TOLLER
Leader of the Munich "soviet" of 1919. Playwright, poet, bohemian, anarchist,
hounded to death by the Nazis.

INTERNATIONAL PRISONERS FOR PEACE DAY. In recognition of war resistors in all countries imprisoned for opposition to war & conscription.

WORLD AIDS DAY.

SAINT ELOI'S DAY. He tried to stop the ritual burning of cats. You've been warned.

& for Gosh Sakes, please keep uppermost in mind, this month is:
Hi Neighbor Month.
National Closed Caption TV Month.
National Stress-Free Family Holidays Month.

& most important of all, the 3rd week of the month is:
Tell Someone They're Doing a Good Job Week.

355 -- Julian Caesar leaves Milano for Gaul, according to Gore Vidal, reckoned while eating a Caesar salad & doubtlessly according to the Julian calendar...
Source: [Robert Braunwart] [Hereafter attributed with symbol: ]

1590 -- Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene is registered for publication with the Stationers' Company.

1662 -- England: Jeepers Pepyers? Samuel Pepys notes the first recorded ice-skating in Britain.

1663 -- Papa Bear?: John Dryden, 32, marries Elizabeth Howard, the daughter of the first Earl of Berkshire. She bears him three sons.

1817 -- Walter Scott, oft considered both the inventor & greatest practitioner of the historical novel, sees anonymous publication of Rob Roy. Demand was huge & a whole ship from Leith to London bulged with nothing but an entire edition of the book.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Roy_%28novel%29

1827 -- Australia: Subscription Library begins with 1,000 volumes, Sydney.

1828 -- Brasil: Brazilian War veterans revolt against Argentina over peace terms. Probably too much peace, not enough war.

1830 -- This is the due date for Victor Hugo to turn over the manuscript of The Hunchback of Notre Dame to his publishers; he misses it.

1831 -- US: Erie Canal closes for entire month due to cold weather. Locals tremble, with the erie silence.

1835 -- Hans Christian Andersen publishes Tales, Told for Children (his first).

1842 -- Philip Spencer, first US naval officer condemned for mutiny, hanged.

1847 -- Julia Davis Moore lives. A “mortuary poet” & competitor for the most famous bad poet in the history of US literature. Drawn to themes of accident, disaster, & sudden death she was said to be "worse than a Gatling gun". Hopefully “The Sweet Singer of Michigan” had a better voice. A favorite of Mark Twain, who was inspired by her to create the character of Emmeline Grangerford in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

1860 -- The first installment of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations is published in "All the Year Round."

1868 -- US: Luther Standing Bear, writer (My People, the Sioux) (exact day unkknown).

1870 -- France: Victor Hugo obtains the release of Louise Michel.
http://www.victorhugo2002.culture.fr/culture/celebrations/hugo/fr/contpg7.htm

1885 -- France:
This month, Formation d'un " groupe ouvrier " de députés socialistes comportant dix-huit membres.
[Sources]

1891 -- Switzerland: International Peace Bureau launched, Berne.

1893 -- Germany: Ernst Toller lives, Samotschin (now Szamocin, Poland). Playwright, poet, pacifist, Expressionist, anarchist, Munich "Soviet" leader. His 1920 play Masse-Mensch (Man & the Masses, 1920) brings widespread fame.
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A German Expressionist involved with other writers in forming an insurrectionary Bavarian "government" when the workers revolt. Anarchists are principal actors: Ehrich Mühsam, Gustav Landauer, Ernst Toller, Ret Marut (aka B. Traven), & others, fought for the development of Workers' Councils & self-managed co-operatives.

Forced to flee Nazi Germany.

Despite success as playwright & poet, Ernst Toller hangs himself in his Manhattan hotel room, convinced his plays are passé.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Toller

Gustav Landauer's participation as Minister of Culture along with Silvio Gesell as Minister of Economics & other anti-authoritarian & extreme libertarian socialists such as the poet/playwrights Erich Muhsam & Ernst Toller, & Ret Marut (the novelist B. Traven), gave the Soviet a distinct anarchist flavor...

— Peter Lamborn Wilson

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWtoller.htm
http://web.archive.org/...www.kontra-punkt.info/arhiva/istorija/12.html#3
http://recollectionbooks.com/anow/world/eu/poland/
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._Traven

Ein Düngerhaufen faulender Menschenleiber;
Verglaste Augen, blutgeronnen,
Zerspellte Hirne, ausgespeiene Eingeweide,
Die Luft verpestet vom Kadavergestank,
Ein einzig grauenvoller Wahnsinnsschrei!

(A dunghill of decaying human corpses;
Eyes of glass, bloodshot
Cleaved brains, vomited bowels,
The air infected by cadavre stench,
A single horrifying bellow of insanity!)

from the poem Leichen im Priesterwald,
“Corpses in the Bois-des-Prêtres,”
from the collection Vormorgen.

1895 -- Henry Williamson, lives, Bedfordshire. English novelist best known for his sensitive but unsentimental handling of nature themes. Best known for four novels published under the title of The Flax Dream (1936), but it is Tarka the Otter, however, that establishes his reputation.

1896 -- Rex Stout lives, Noblesville, Indiana. American author & radical, who wrote over 70 detective novels, 46 of them featuring eccentric, chubby, beer drinking gourmet sleuth Nero Wolfe, whose wisecracking aide & companion in crime solving was Archie Goodwin. Helped start the radical magazine New Masses.

"Compose yourself, Archie.
Why taunt me?

Why upbraid me?

I am merely a genius, not a god."

— Nero Wolfe, in Fer-De-Lance (1934)

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When the anti-Communist hysteria of the late 1940s & 1950s began, Stout was a logical target. He found himself targeted by members of the American Legion, as well as Hoover's FBI. As journalist Herbert Mitgang found when he obtained access to Stout's FBI files for his book Dangerous Dossiers (1988), Stout was one of many writers on Hoover's private enemies list. Stout's FBI file runs to 300 pages (though the FBI would only release 183 heavily blacked-out pages to Mitgang).

But Stout wasn't afraid, knowing that he could rely on both independent means & the love of the public. In 1965, Stout fought back with his novel The Doorbell Rang, in which Nero Wolfe found himself locked in a duel of wits with the FBI. & as any reader of the Nero Wolfe books — especially The Doorbell Rang — knows, in a battle of wits between Wolfe & anyone else, never bet against the fat man.

[Details / context]

1899 -- US: Robert Welch sees Red, discovers there is a Red under every American bed, grows up to invent that wacky John Birch Society.

1904 -- US: W. A. "Tony" Boyle, United Mine Workers (UMW) president, lives.

1905 -- Charles Finney lives. American author (Circus of Dr. Lao).

1907 -- France: sortie à Limoges (France) du premier numéro du bimensuel "Le Combat Social," sous-titré "Organe révolutionnaire des Syndicalistes, Socialistes antiparlementaires et Libertaires." Le journal, dirigé par Jean Peyroux s'arrêtera (pour raisons financières) le 21 avril 1909, après 35 numéros. Il sera remplacé par "L'Insurgé" qui paraîtra en 1910.
http://www.ephemanar.net/decembre01.html#combatsocial

1908 -- While the politicos in Brazil & Argentina threaten war between the two countries, worker's organizations & anarcho-sindicalistas of these two Latin American countries express their cross-border solidarity, & jointly organize a day of protest against the possibility of a conflict.
http://www.anarchie.be/AL/20/histoire.htm

1911 -- US: John & James McNamara plead guilty to bombing the Los Angeles Times building; admission of guilt creates controversy among their supporters who believed them to be innocent. Emma Goldman defends their action in a Mother Earth editorial.

1911 -- Edgar Rice Burroughs begins writing his novel Tarzan of the Apes.

1911 -- France: sortie du premier numéro de "L'Idée Libre," Revue Mensuelle de Culture Individuelle et de Rénovation Sociale. Son principal animateur en sera André Lorulot. Les thèmes abordés y sont variés: hygiène, alimentation, sociologie, littérature, anticléricalisme, etc.

La Revue s'arrêtera en 1940, mais reparaîtra après la seconde guerre mondiale, mais sera alors essentiellement centrée sur l'anticléricalisme.
http://www.ephemanar.net/decembre01.html#ideelibre

1912 -- US: Rustling card system put in place by the Anaconda Mining & Smelter Company. "Agitators" identified by spies are refused cards & therefore work.

1913 -- US: First drive-up gasoline station opens, Pittsburgh.

1914 -- US: Famed labor song "Solidarity Forever" written by IWW songwriter Ralph Chaplin for a hunger march to be lead by anarchist Lucy Parsons in Chicago (on January 17, 1915). aka Lucy Ella Gonzales Parsons
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When the union's inspiration through worker's blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,
For the union makes us strong.
[Chorus]
Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite
Who would lash us into serfdom & would crush us with his might?
is there anything left to us but to organize & fight?
For the union makes us strong
[Chorus]
In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold,
Greater than the might of armies magnified a thousand fold;
We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old,
For the union makes us strong.
[Chorus]: Solidarity forever, Solidarity forever, Solidarity forever,
For the union makes us strong

— Words by Ralph Chaplin

http://www.folkarchive.de/solid.html
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAchaplin.htm
http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/bisbee/primarysources/iww/index.html
http://recollectionbooks.com/siml/library/NopperMoreDangerous.htm

1919 -- US: Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman & 200+ anarchists, labor militants, & radicals are forced to leave the "Land of the Free," deported to Russia on the rust-bucket Buford. Shades of B. Traven's The Death Ship. In America it is axiomatic that we have free speech only if no one practices it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klC8jOVrHq8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST_Xj4wvt8g

1919 -- A.A. Milne play "Mr. Pim Passes By" premiers, Manchester.

1921 -- Russia: Under the pretext of representing the Kropotkin Museum at an anarchist conference in Berlin, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, & Alexander Schapiro are authorized to leave Russia.
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Early this month Goldman & Berkman settle in Riga, Latvia. They write to Harry Weinberger about chances of getting back into the US. Allowed only a temporary visa in Latvia, they seek entry to either Germany or Sweden. They are granted Swedish visas on December 14th, & enroute to Germany, on a train on the 22nd they are arrested by the Latvian secret service; accused of being Bolshevik agents.

1921 -- Silent movie serial "The Adventures of Tarzan" is released.

1921 -- Tanizaki Jun-ichiro plays "Haru no umibe" & "Jugoya monogatari" are produced, Tokyo.

1922 -- US: Capt. Turner, RAF, produces the first skywriting over the US (NYC). It sez:
"Keep a Smile on Your Face & a Song in Yer Heart

While Yer Smashing the State!"

Well, ok... We were just funning you. In "real" life it lamely said, "Hello USA"

1925 -- Joseph Tortelier dies. A carpenter, anarcho-syndicalist, ardent proponent & speaker for the General Strike.
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Tortelier organized "La Ligue des Antipatriotes" (League of Antipatriots) (with Émile Bidault), to fight militarism, the wars it leads to, along with its corollary, patriotism. Also organized the "Ligue des Antipropriétaires." Along with Peter Kropotkin & Elise Reclus, Tortelier was instrumental in influencing the socialist Sébastien Faure to become an anarchist. Joseph Jean-Marie Tortelier

"Aux ventrus déclarant la guerre,
nous avons pour enn'mis: patrons, curés, soldats;
mais c'est contr' le propriétaire
que nous livrons gaiement nos plus joyeux combats.
C'est nous qu'on voit, à l'approche du terme,
à l'appel des copains, accourir d'un pied ferme."

http://theanarchistlibrary.org/...Campaign_poster_for_the_election_of_Nov._16__1890
http://biosoc.univ-paris1.fr/spip.php?article185&var_recherche=Tortelier
http://www.ephemanar.net/decembre01.html#tortelier

1931 -- Russia: With the failure of Nepreryvka, the five-day week, the Soviet authorities attempt ... the six-day week! [1931] - see 26 August & 23 November. Like the five-day week, this measure is sabotaged by workers & peasants taking both the banned Sundays & the new rest days off.
Source: [Calendar Riots]

1934 -- Russia: Sergei Kirov, Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Uncle Josef Stalin's collaborator, assassinated in Leningrad.

1935 -- American filmmaker Woody Allen lives.
"There are only two things that you can control in life: art & masturbation."

1947 -- Aleister Crowley dies at 74.

1948 -- Costa Rica: The army is disbanded. All the other peace-loving nations follow suit.

1951 -- Benjamin Britten opera "Billy Budd" premiers, Covent Garden, London.

1955 -- US: Rosa Parks, an African American, gets busted, refusing to give her bus seat in front to a white man & sit in the back, in Montgomery, Alabama. Sets off a successful year-long bus boycott by blacks & sparks the Civil Rights movement of the next decade.

1955 -- US: Wilhelm Reich "Orgone Energy Contempt Trial" begins. Reich refused to appear in court on the decree motion but did respond in a letter to the Judge regarding the courts unclear jurisdiction of scientific discovery. While the Orgone box is thoroughly discredited, Book Burning remains alive & well, today, as then.
http://www.orgone.org/wr-vs-usa/wr0pph55.htm
http://www.orgone.org/articles/ax6bjmbt.htm
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/banned-books.html
http://www.indexonline.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgone_energy

1958 -- US: Our Lady of Angels School burns, killing 92 students & three nuns, Chicago.

1960 -- SCOTS "SCARLET PIMPERNAL"
Scotland: Ethel MacDonald (b.1909) dies. Glasgow-based anarchist activist &, during the Spanish Revolution, a prisoner aid militant, & a propagandist on Barcelona Loyalist radio, captured by the fascists.

"COME & GET ME"

[Details / context]

1963 -- France (?): After having established the new clandestine structure of the youth organization Federación Ibérica de Juventudes Libertarias (FIJL), the "provisional" Commission of Relations began preparations for today's extraordinary Congress.
[Details / context]

1964 -- US: Martin Luther King speaks to J. Edgar Hoover about his slander campaign. (Edgar is secretly thrilled at this "dressing down.")

1966 -- Prisoners for Peace Day first observed.

1966 -- US: Comedian Dick Gregory is convicted in Olympia, Washington, for his participation in Native American fishing rights protests.
http://www.dickgregory.com/dick/_TOC.html

1966 -- US: Seattle, Washington, police shoot & kill a black youth suspected of car theft.

1966 -- Print Mint store in the Haight-Ashbury opens at 1542 Haight St., Frisco, California.
http://wild-bohemian.com/hipshops.htm

1966 -- US: Nursing Grievances? The Youngstown General Duty Nurses Association (YGDNA) becomes the first nurses in Ohio to engage in a mass resignation or "strike," & according to the American Nurses Association it may be the first concerted action by nurses in a labor dispute in the nation. Nearly 350 of the 400 nurses sign resignations.
http://cwcs.ysu.edu/resources/cwcs-projects/culture/first-nurses-strike-ohio

1967 -- US: Wilt "The Stilt" Chamberlain sets National Basketball Association (NBA) record of 22 free throws misses. Apparently not tall enough to reach the basket.

1967 -- Mad River & the Santana Blues Band appeared at the Straight Theatre, San Francisco.

1968 -- Vietnam: American C-123 develops engine trouble, lightens its load by spraying a full tank of defoliants over two South Vietnamese towns, causing "deaths & widespread birth defects."

1968 -- US: Public release of Rights in Conflict, commonly called the Walker Report.
The National Commission on the Causes & Prevention of Violence, charged with studying & reporting on urban riots, formed a Chicago Study Team headed by Daniel Walker, to investigate the Convention Week disturbances.
They reviewed over 20,000 pages of statements from 3,437 eyewitnesses & participants, 180 hours of film, & over 12,000 still photographs. The Walker Report attached the label "police riot" to the events of Chicago '68. Read an excerpt—the summary to Rights in Conflict.
http://chicago68.com/

1969 -- "Magic" Sam Maghett, the Chicago bluesman best known for his 1964 recording of "High Heel Sneakers," dies after suffering a heart attack in Chicago. He was 32.

1969 -- US: First Draft Lottery, making the Vietnam War look more & more like a crap shoot.

1969 -- US: Black Panthers open the Sidney Miller Free Medical Clinic, Seattle, Washington.
Seattle Radical Timeline

1970 -- Independent People's Republic of South Yemen becomes the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. In honor of this auspicious occasion, twice the number of the usual suspects have been rounded up we suspect.

1970 -- 5,000 protest South Vietnamese Vice President Ky's visit to San Francisco.

1971 -- Muhammed Ali sees a UFO while jogging in New York's Central Park. (Jogging will do that to you?)
"It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up."

       — Muhammed Ali, Butterfly

1976 -- The Sex Pistols, following their first single, "Anarchy in the U.K.," appear on British TV's "Today Show," a replacement for Queen. Interviewer Bill Grundy, taunts them for their "nasty" reputation, provokes bass player Glenn Matlock to say "fuck" on the air. In the resulting uproar, they are banned from all but five cities of their first U.K. tour. By next month, no club or concert hall in Great Britain will book them, after he fucked up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TZ_9-rbslo
http://www.geocities.co.jp/MusicStar/6282/pistols/discography/boot.html
http://www.acc.umu.se/~samhain/summerofhate/pistolsindex.html

1987 -- In Saint-Paul de Vence, France, American essayist, novelist, & playwright James Baldwin dies. Said little about his childhood, commenting only that it "is the usual bleak fantasy, & we can dismiss it with the unrestrained observation that I certainly would not consider living it again."
"Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent."

       — James Baldwin, "Autobiographical Notes" from Notes of a Native Son, 1955

1987 -- England: Department of Trade inspectors are ordered into the giant Guinness company to investigate allegations of misconduct which ends up with four arrests being made, including the chairman Ernest Saunders.

1988 -- Switzerland: World AIDS Day founded by World Health Organization, Geneva.

1989 -- Germany: Boardwalk? In an off the wall (sic) (street) gesture, East Germany drops the communist monopoly from its constitution.
http://www.hasbro.com/search/_/Ntt-monopoly?Ntk=All&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial

1994 -- A Bad Rap? While recovering from gunshot wounds suffered the day before, Tupac Shakur is convicted on charges of sexually abusing a woman in a hotel room.

1995 -- Argentina: Fifteen (mostly soldiers) arrested for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires.

1997 -- Stephane Grapelli, jazz violinist, dies, age 89.

1997 -- US: Basketball's Latrell Sprewell attacks his coach P. J. Carlesimo. NBA players cancel the 1998 season, & walk the picket line, for the right to choke.

1997 -- Sudan: A silent march of women, protesting conscription, is met by a police attack & the arrest of 37 women. Khartoum.

1997 --
Swimming through the pages of her prose, crude drawings & the poetic license of profanity, Kathy Acker gutted every sacred cow; politicians, pimps, feminists, men, her dreams, slabs of the autobiographical, emotional self-mutilation & self-loathing. She sometimes appeared like a lost child teetering on the abyss & at others the winged avenging angel with a scythe for a tongue.

... show details

[ More ]
http://users.rcn.com/scrypt/RIP_Kathy.html

An acquaintance of BleedMeister when she lived in Seattle, & friend of some Bleed subscribers, dies.

She & my old friend Jim Logie were lovers, & frequently visited Left Bank Books while I worked there. She was a great performance artist.

Following her death a friend in San Francisco wrote me:

"At 1 am Kathy died peacefully, surrounded by friends. She had been fighting cancer for months &, while very weak, was in no pain & quite lucid as she went. We'll will miss Kathy, but it was time for both her & her friends to let go."

Her writing influences knew few bounds, ranging from Dickens (her own Great Expectations, written in Seattle) to the cut-up methods of William Burroughs. There are numerous links online, & these are a good start:
The gift of disease - kathy's writing on her cancer no longer appears to be online (2005).
Interview: http://www.altx.com/io/acker.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathy_Acker

1998 -- US: Microradio movement news accounts on the struggle to free the airwaves: "Broadcasts from Tree Radio Berkeley" — Radio4All
Source: [Pirate Radio Kiosk]

1999 -- Illustration: "Police," by R. Cobb
US: WTO Day Two: World Trade Organization delegates, after a "warm" welcome yesterday in Seattle, ("It was a gas") unable to meet because of protesters, attempt to meet again.
Last night a "civil emergency" was declared & a curfew imposed overnite after the facades of several stores (Nike Superstore, The Gap, Starbucks, Radio Shack, et al) are instantly redesigned. Today the downtown area is cordoned off by police, National Guard units brought in. Shoppers flee to the malls. Protests have also occurred around the world as well, including London, Paris, NY & San Francisco.

http://www.indymedia.org/
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/wto/
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/...Finding_Hope_After_Seattle
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=2141

Seattle Radical Timeline

2000 -- US:
Florida...

2001 -- Spain: Los organizadores de la marcha alternativa celebrada en Madrid cifran la asistencia en 15.000 personas.

2001 -- Turkey: Got AAA insurance?: Two anarchists arrested by the Ushak police (in western Anatolia), after distributing 'illegal' leaflets at a trade union meeting. Later, another three are arrested. All are charged with 'membership in an illegal organization' — in this case, the Autonomous Anarchists of Ankara.
http://recollectionbooks.com/siml/library/turkey2001.htm

2002 -- Australia: PM John Howard says Australia will preemptively attack terrorists in foreign countries. In response, & fearful of a pummeling attack of Kangaroos, it is believed Beloved & Respected Comrade Leaders George W. Bush, Richard Perl, Don Rumsfeld, Condalesa Rice, Robert Novak, Dick Cheney & Co. go into hiding in an oil pipe under the White House. Butchering the truth, bombing the town.
http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/sf/1965.htm#Cowboy%20Diplomacy
http://www.peterwerbe.com/bushpages.html

2002 -- US: 500,000 attend the Hollywood Christmas parade, which is interrupted by an evacuation while police check out a transient's backpack. Damn Terrorists hide in the strangest places!

2006 -- US: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles settles 45 lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by priests for $60 million. Gotta love these guys....

2009 -- US: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader President Barack Obama announces he is sending 30,000 extra American troops to Afghanistan within the next six months & start withdrawal in 19 months. Yup.

2010 -- SoylentBrown? Google Earth unveiled at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, allowing users to view the effects of deforestation, impacts & videos on global warming & climate change.
http://www.google.com/earth/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green

3000 --

"Hard work is the novocaine of the soul."
       — Barbara Hambly, The Armies of Daylight

3000 --

"I had been . . . crossing & recrossing the line between sanity & madness so many times that I had all but rubbed it out."

       — Corwin, Prince of Amber, in The Guns of Avalon, by Roger Zelazny

"Aux ventrus déclarant la guerre, nous avons pour enn'mis: patrons, curés, soldats; mais c'est contr' le propriétaire que nous livrons gaiement nos plus joyeux combats. C'est nous qu'on voit, à l'approche du terme, à l'appel des copains, accourir d'un pied ferme."

"Aux ventrus déclarant la guerre,
nous avons pour enn'mis: patrons, curés, soldats;
mais c'est contr' le propriétaire
que nous livrons gaiement nos plus joyeux combats.
C'est nous qu'on voit, à l'approche du terme,
à l'appel des copains, accourir d'un pied ferme."