Tie ’Em Up
Lyrics: George G. Allen.
Tune: Unknown.
We have no fight with brothers of the old A. F. of L.
But we ask you to use your reason with the facts we have to tell.
Your craft is but protection for a form of property.
The skill that you are losing, don’t you see,
Improvements on machinery take your tool and skill away,
And you’ll be among the common slaves upon some fateful day.
Now, the things of which we’re talking, we are mighty sure about.
So, what’s the use to strike the way you can’t win out?
Tie ’em up! Tie ’em up! That’s the way to win.
Don’t notify the bosses till hostilities begin.
Don’t furnish chance for gunmen, scabs, and all their like.
What you need is One Big Union and the One Big Strike.
Why do you make agreements that divide you when you fight
And let the bosses bluff you with the contracts “sacred right”?
Why stay at work when other crafts are battling with the foe?
You all must stick together, don’t you know?
The day when you begin to see the classes waging war,
You can join the biggest tie-up that was ever known before.
When the strikers all o’er the country are united into one,
Then the workers’ One Big Union all the wheels shall run.
Tie ’em up! Tie ’em up! That’s the way to win.
Don’t notify the bosses till hostilities begin.
Don’t furnish chance for gunmen, scabs, and all their like.
What you need is One Big Union and the One Big Strike.