ASSISTANT MUSIC
[...]
From as far west as Idaho, down from the glacier peaks of the Rockies,
from as far east as Pennsylvania, down from the Turkey ridges of the Alleghenies,
down from Minnesota 2,500 miles, the Mississippi River runs to the Gulf,
carrying every drop of water that flows down two-thirds the continent, carrying
every brook and rill, rivulet and creek, carrying all the rivers that run down
two-thirds the continent, the Mississippi runs to the Gulf of Mexico,
down the Yellowstone, the milk, the whites in Cheyenne, the cannonball, the
mussel shell, the James and the Sioux, down the Judith, the Grand, the Osage and
the Platte, the skunk, the salt, the black in Minnesota, down the rock, the
Illinois and the Kankakee, the Allegheny, the Monongahela, the Canoa and the
Skingham, down the Miami, the War Bash, the Licking in the Green, the Cumberland,
the Kentucky and the Tennessee, down the Wachatoar, the Wichita, the Red and the
Yazoo, down the Missouri,
3,000 miles from the Rockies, down the Ohio, 1,000 miles from the Allegheny,
down the Arkansas, 1,500 miles from the Great Divide, down the Red,
1,000 miles from Texas, down the Great Valley, 2,500 miles from Minnesota,
carrying every rivulet and brook, creek and rill, carrying all the rivers that
run down two-thirds the continent, the Mississippi runs to the Gulf.
New Orleans to Baton Rouge, Baton Rouge to Natchez, Natchez to Vicksburg,
Vicksburg to Memphis, Memphis to Cairo, we built a dyke a thousand miles long,
men and mules, mules and mud, mules and mud a thousand miles up the Mississippi.
A century before we bought the Great Western River, the Spanish and the French
built dykes to keep the Mississippi out of New Orleans at flood stage. In 40
years, we continued the levy the entire length of the great alluvial Delta, that
mud plane that extends from the Gulf of Mexico clear to the mouth of the Ohio.
The ancient valley built up for centuries by the old river spilling her floods
across the bottom of the continent, a mud Delta of 40,000 square miles, men and
mules, mules and mud, New Orleans to Baton Rouge, Natchez to Vicksburg, Memphis
to Cairo, a thousand miles up the river. And the platters brought their blacks
and their plows and their cotton over to the river, down through the Boone Trace,
down through Cumberland Gap, over from the West to the Big River, West to the
Steamboat Highway, down the highway to the sea. Corn and
[...] we made cotton king. We rolled a million
bales down the river for Liverpool and Leeds. 1860, we rolled four million bales
down the river, rolled them off Alabama, rolled them off Mississippi, rolled them
off Louisiana, rolled them down the river.
We fought a war. We fought a war and kept the West Bank of the river free of
slavery forever, but we left the old South impoverished and stricken, doubly
stricken, because besides the tragedy of war, already the frenzied cotton
cultivation of a quarter of a century had taken toll of the land. We mined the
soil for cotton until it would yield no more and then moved West.
We fought a war, but there was a double tragedy, the tragedy
of land twice impoverished.
Black spruce and Norway pine, Douglas fir and red cedar,
scarlet oak and shagbok hickory, hemlock and aspen. There was lumber in the
north. The war impoverished the old South.
The railroads killed the steamboats, but there was lumber in the north.
Heads up, lumber on the upper river. Heads up,
lumber enough to cover all Europe.
Down from Minnesota and Wisconsin,
down to St. Paul, down to St. Louis and St. Joe, lumber for the new continent of
the West, lumber for the new mill.
There was lumber in the north, coal in the hill, iron and coal down the Menonge
healing, iron and coal down the Ohio, down to Pittsburgh, down to Wheeling, iron
and coal for the steel mill, for the railroads driving West and South,
for the new cities of the great valley.
We built new machinery and cleared new land in the West. Ten million bales, down
to the Gulf, cotton for the spools of England and France. Fifteen million bales,
down to the Gulf, cotton for the spools of Italy and Germany.
We built a hundred cities in a thousand towns. St. Paul in Minneapolis, Davenport
in Kielco, Moline in Quincy, Cincinnati in St. Louis, Omaha in Kansas City,
across to the Rockies and down from Minnesota, 2500 miles to New
Orleans. We built a new continent.
[...]
we built a hundred cities and a thousand towns but at water cost we cut the top
off the we cut the top off wisconsin and sent it down the river we left the
mountains and the hills slashed and burned and moved on
so for the water comes downhill spring and fall
down from the cutover mountains down from the plowed off slopes
from as far west as idaho and as far east as
pennsylvania down every brook and rill rivulet and creek