All the world that's manned by idle drones

This morning, listening to the Almanac Singers (or possibly The Weavers') recording of Ralph Chaplin's 1915 syndicalist anthem Solidarity Forever, i noticed that like most recent versions (since the CIO era) of the song, Seeger et al omit two of Chaplin's original six verses:

Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite,
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?
Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
For the union makes us strong.

and

All the world that's owned by idle drones is ours and ours alone.
We have laid the wide foundations; built it skyward stone by stone.
It is ours, not to slave in, but to master and to own.
While the union makes us strong.

I'd noticed this before, but never really thought about why its these two verses that get cut. I don't think they're aesthetically superior to the ones that stay in - the incredible line about standing "outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made ," nor do these verses, intriguingly, speak of the dependence of capital on both "brain and muscle," as does another verse which remains in the Almanac Singers' recording. Still these two redacted passages are certainly no less radical or expressly syndicalist than the song's final verse

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.

So why leave them out?


I'm on a serious Woody Guthrie kick.

Expect a longer, thought piece on academic labor sometime soon. Have good goyishe holidays.