This Land Their Labors Wrought

In the forests of New England
It built a colony,
And, dreaming of a nation
Where men could dare live free
It paused to wipe its sweaty brow
And set forth then to build
A place where freedom’s promise
Could be, in time, fulfilled.

And labor drove the wagons on
A westward odyssey,
Then turned the rolling prairie land
Into a golden sea;
Labor built the railroads
That spurred us in our quest
And by a steel highway bound
The east coast to the west.

And that selfsame hardy spirit
Of those pioneering men
Which never once did stop to rest
Rolled up its sleeves again,
And built a million factories,
Transformed the land pristine
And forged the greatest industry
The world had ever seen.

Through our patchwork quilt of history,
There runs a common strand:
‘Twas the selfless, rugged toil
That built this blessed land.
And lest we e’er forget them,
I raise my humble pen
In tribute to the builders--
The common working men.

It was not the labor unions
Or any corporation,
Or economic theory
That built the greatest nation;
Or master politician
Who ever had a plan--
But the simple sweat and toil of
The common working man.
(For while dreamers pen their visions
Of how things ought to be,
It is the noble builder who
Makes dreams reality.)

And for this nation’s builders
Who’ve long since gone away,
And those whose honest toil
Sustains us still today,
We should be ever thankful--
And reverent of their lot…

For no dream was built more nobly than
This land their labors wrought.

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