_Charlotte Perkins Gilman_
If fifty men did all the work
And gave the price to five;
And let those five make all the rules--
You'd say the fifty men were fools,
Unfit to be alive.
And if you heard complaining cries
From fifty brawny men,
Blaming the five for graft and greed,
Injustice, cruelty indeed--
What would you call them then?
Not by their own superior force
Do five on fifty live,
But by election and assent--
And privilege of government--
Powers that the fifty give.
If fifty men are really fools--
And five have all the brains--
The five must rule as now we find;
But if the fifty have the mind--
Why don't they take the reins?