"So Shines a Good Deed in a Naughty World"

 

    THERE was a man in our town, and he
        was wondrous rich;
    He gave away his millions to the colleges
        and such;
    And people cried: "The hypocrite! He ought
        to understand
    The ones who really need him are the children
        of this land."

    When Andrew Croesus built a home for children
        who were sick,
    The people said they rather thought he did it
        as a trick,
    And writers said: "He thinks about the drooping
        girls and boys,
    But what about conditions with the men whom
        he employs?"

    There was a man in our town who said that he
        would share
    His profits with his laborers, for that was
        only fair,
    And people said: "Oh, isn't he the shrewd and
        foxy gent?
    It cost him next to nothing for that free
        advertisement."

    There was a man in our town who had the perfect
        plan
    To do away with poverty and other ills of man,
    But he feared the public jeering, and the folks
        who would defame him,
    So he never told the plan he had, and I can hardly
        blame him.

Franklin Adams