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The suppression of Solidarity Forever was the closest I had ever come to being censored, and I was not about to pass up my chance. I sat down and fired off an indignant letter about the meaning of Labor Day, faxed it to Chicago and was thinking how to proceed further (WRITER PLANS SING-IN; POLICE CHIEF THREATENS ARRESTS; MAYOR PLEADS FOR CALM), and it was lovely to contemplate. I mentioned the Solidarity affair to a woman friend, and she threw her arms around me and told me she admired me. This is not an everyday occurrence in my life.
The very next day the sponsor called up and said, "Fine. We'll print the lyrics if that's what you want," and my balloon went pfffffffffft. I did the concert, and the words to Solidarity Forever were there in the program, and the audience sang all four verses lustily, including, "They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn./ But without our brain and muscle, not a single wheel can turn./ We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom, when we learn/ That the union makes us strong."
That was that. I came home, and the next day I glanced at the fax I had sent to the sponsor. The tone of self-righteousness was a little mortifying. More than a little. When you write a sanctimonious letter, it is hard to keep it under control; there is a tendency to rise to indecent heights of piety. You don't simply argue the facts at hand, you rise in defense of godliness and decency and the First Amendment and oppressed peoples everywhere. Then, six weeks later, a heavy-set woman jabs her finger at you and accuses you of having filched $3.79 worth of gas and says it in a shrill voice so that a woman filling up her van at a nearby gas pump hears it and looks your way and thinks, "That poor man. I hope he gets some counseling before it's too late."