Volunteer Will

Yew see thet field uv wavin’ corn, an’ thet big patch uv wheat;

Yew see them orchards hengin’ low with fruit both ripe an’ sweet?

Yew see my garden loaded down with squashes, peas an’ beans,

An’ see thet henyard full uv fowls, an’ eggs behin’ the scenes?

Yew see a hundred head uv stock, them pigs now fit to kill,

Yew see five hundred fatted sheep off grazin’ on the hill?

Yew see our pantry brimmin’ o’er with goodies sweet an’ rare,

An’ signs uv farm prosperity, an’ plenty everywhere?

Ah, yes, it’s been a wondrous year, the like I never knew,

No sech yieldin’ up uv crops sence back in Eighty-two.

An’ when I think uv this here stuff, an’ Will way off down there,

It makes me shet my first up hard an’ curse out my despair.

I tell yew, sir, there’s murder here, it makes my anger boil,

To think uv how they starved my boy off there on Cuban soil!

They starved him, sir, at San Juan, long sence the battle’s cheer,

An’ I grow sick to think uv it, while plenty wasted here.

A plenty here at home, sir, an’ an’ Will a-starvin’ there,

It makes me shet my first up hard an’ curse out my despair.

Someone’s to blame fur thet air crime, an’ may the good Lord lead

Him frum the wrath uv my right hand, which burns to square thet deed.

Will left the farm an’ j’ined the ranks, a brave young volunteer,

Wuz in the charge at San Juan, an’ wuzzn’t hurt, I hear;

But sickness took him down, an’ then he lay without no care,

An’ couldn’t eat his rations, – an’ he died a-wantin’ there.

It’s hard to die in sech a way, – it’s easy in a fight

When one is full uv loyalty, an’ when the cause is right –

But, sir, there’s vengeance in my heart, it drives me to despair,

To think we hed aplenty here an’ Will a-starvin’ there.

Sept. 16, ‘98

The United States Army beef scandal was a political scandal caused by the widespread issuance of extremely low-quality, heavily adulterated beef products to US soldiers fighting in the Spanish–American War.

The contract for the meat was arranged hurriedly and at the lowest-possible price by Secretary of War Russell A. Alger from the Chicago "big three" meatpacking corporations, Morris & Co, Swift & Co, and Armour & Co. In the atmosphere of pre-regulation-era Chicago, the companies took advantage of Alger's inattention and favorable attitude to the industry (as well as the Army's immediate need for large amounts of cheap beef to provision the expeditionary forces) by further cutting corners and reducing quality on the (already heavily adulterated) product they shipped for the US contract.

As a result, most of the meat arriving in Cuba was found to be so poorly preserved, chemically adulterated and/or spoiled that it was toxic and dangerous to consume. The meat caused an unrecorded number of illnesses and death from dysentery and food poisoning, having an especially deadly effect on the thousands already weakened by the epidemics of malaria and yellow fever which were ravaging the unprotected American troops and would eventually kill twice as many men as the bullets of the Spanish. Since yellow fever frequently causes symptoms similar to bacterial food poisoning (fever, vomiting, severe and/or bloody diarrhea), little connection was made at the time between illness and consumption of the Chicago beef.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_beef_scandal