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GUANTE: Once again welcome to the stage Fabian Brenes.
(applause)
FABIAN BRENES:
I Am the People, the Mob By Carl Sandburg
I am the people-the mob-the crowd-the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is done
through me? I am the workingman, the
inventor, the maker of the world's food and clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. The
Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I
send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.
I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for
much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The
best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything
but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I
have. And I forget. Sometimes I growl, shake myself
and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then-I
forget. When I, the People, learn to
remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday
and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for
a fool-then there will be no speaker in all the world say
the name: The People, with any fleck of a sneer in his
voice or any far-off smile of derision.
The mob-the crowd-the mass-will arrive then.