Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/432

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AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PENNSYLVANIAN

And we shall spread. No pow'r can stop
The movement that is under way
To land old Pittsburgh right on top.
No pow'r on earth can e'er gainsay
Our fitness thus to rise and shine
And 'mid the first hang out our sign.
 
For we have riches, we have force,
And brains and enterprise and grit.
And once there's naught to block our course
We'll surely make a bigger hit
Than here or on a foreign shore
A town has ever made before.
 
Your hand, Sam. Pennypacker, you
Have been to us a friend in need.
Our plans seemed destined to fall through
When to the front you came to plead
Our cause. The legislature heard,
And to its inmost heart was stirr'd.
 
Hence comes that great, that priceless boon.
The famous Greater Pittsburgh bill,
Which means our exaltation soon.
Which means that we shall soon fulfil
Our destiny in royal style,
And be the topmost of the pile.
 
Sing out, then, ye brazen bands!
Ye drums and trumpets rend the air!
The message send throughout all lands
That Greater Pittsburgh is all there.
And will be yet—so please the fates—
King bee in these United States.
 
Whoop!

Even John H. Fow, a member of the house, could not resist the impulse to write some verse. Fow was a character quite unusual. The son of a German butcher, born in Kensington, and much in the rough, he read law. Because of his huge voice he held the soubriquet of “Fog Horn” Fow.

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