Gladiators

I'll tell you all a story that perhaps you do not know
 It all happened in Australia quite some time ago
 I'll tell you of Tom Barker from Westmoreland he came
 From an early age he knew that he was born to Fan the Flames
 Many in their youth and prime they left their own backyard
 Back before the First World War when times were tough and hard
 By boat and train and road they came tired legs and blistered feet
 And they wound up here in Sydney on Castlereagh Street.
 Gladiators of the Working Class, heroes of mine
 Who travelled down this dark road long before my time
 Your actions and the words you spoke are shining in my mind
 As I'm blowing down this old dusty road.
 Tom Glynn and Peter Larkin they came from Erin's Shore
 There was Jack Hamilton and J.B. King, Charlie Reeve and many more
 And Donald Grant I see him still in the Sydney Domain
 Where Sunday after Sunday thousands thrilled as he proclaimed
 "O the men who made this Empire they made it for the few
 "Who feast upon the profits of the labours that we do
 "And now they want the working man to fight for them as well
 "Let those who own this Empire go and fight for it themselves"
 Gladiators of the Working Class, heroes of mine
 Who travelled down this dark road long before my time
 Your actions and the words you spoke are shining in my mind
 As I'm blowing down this old dusty road.
 Prime Minister Billy Hughes that "Little Digger" sod
 He was elected by the workers and he thought that he was God
 Says he for the mines in Broken Hill and the Queensland shearing sheds
 We'll introduce Conscription and get rid of all these Reds
 O Billy was astonished when the Referendum failed
 He rounded up the Wobblies and he filled up all his jails
 With all the wealth and all his might he made a pretty show
 But he couldn't get away with it when the People voted NO.
 Gladiators of the Working Class, heroes of mine
 Who travelled down this dark road long before my time
 Your actions and the words you spoke are shining in my mind
 As I'm blowing down this old dusty road.
 A cartoon in the Wobbly paper it had it cut and dried
 It showed the rich man raking in the loot and the soldier crucified
 And the editor he was thrown in jail and the working folks agreed
 That they'd kick up bloody murder till they saw Tom Barker freed.
 And the Sydney Twelve stood trial when some buildings were burned down
 And the evidence it was stitched up by Detectives for the Crown
 And the brainless brutal jury found them guilty with a leer
 And the Judge says I'll be lenient and give you ten to fifteen years.
 Tom Barker was deported to Chile was sent away
 Where he promptly organised the docks in Valparaiso Bay
 And he wound up in London where the people made him Mayor
 And upon St Pancras Town Hall he raised the Red Flag there.
 He sneaked back into Sydney in the year of '32
 And he watched the Anzac Day parade and his prophecies come true
 For these Heroes in their shabby clothes who fought the Hun and Turk
 Had come home to find that all they'd won was a lifetime of no work.
 Gladiators of the Working Class, Heroes of mine
 If we only had Tom Barker here in all his youth and prime
 His actions and the words he spoke are shining in my mind
 As I'm blowing down this old dusty road.
 I stood at the foot of your grave Tom Glynn here in Botany Bay
 In the shadow of Long Bay jail where they locked you all away
 And I made a vow to your memory as I stood on your burial ground
 That I'd write this song and I'd sing it in your native Galway town.