Franklin Delano tugged at his hair
And tapped on the arms of his big metal chair
Then he said with a sigh, as he polished his glasses,
In a voice that was low, and as smooth as molasses,
"We must treat these Asians as separate classes
And put them where they can't be harming the masses
Can we put them high?
Can we put them low?
Oh where is the best place for them to all go?"
With a snap of his fingers both too soft and sluggish
(For his polio'd nerves were all wiggy and buggish)
But still had a ring that was brutal and thuggish
He smiled and said, "I've the perfect 'solution'!
A cultural cleansing from Asian pollution!
In this nebulous time full of fear and low wages,
And war with each other that rages and rages
And advice both from fools and from Democrat sages
Let's put all these terrible Asians in cages!"
---
"Oh my!" said Republicans hither and yon
"How that Franklin D. President does carry on!
But this lunatic plan, all at once or in stages
Is nincompoop nonsense, that flatly enrages
And fails to foresee how the public's will ages!
We will not, we must not throw Asians in cages!"
---
"Hear! Hear!" said those few who desired restitution
Of small government under the Constitution
"This Democrat dunce with his pen and his ink,
Will be all our undoing, we fear and we think!
There is nary a depth to which he will not sink!
We must not throw Asian folk into the Clink!"
---
"Yes, indeed," said the Pentagon's pencil-necked nerds
"We must stop these executive's damaging words
For he speaks and his words turn at once into turds
And his plan for the Asians is just for the birds!
This racist mistake, it's a crime for the ages,
We will not, we must not put Asians in cages!"
---
"And yet," said Progressives, who'd slithered right in,
"Would you rather we lose at this war and not win?
Would you like if, quite soon, we're all spending in Yen?
No, of course we must act, though the people may chafe
You strike iron while it's hot to keep everyone safe
We say 'Hail to the Chief', though your ire it enrages
Executive orders by hundreds of pages
Must pour from his hand, 'til our fear it assuages
We must now lock up all these Asians in cages!
---
And so it was done, to our shame and our guilt
And we damn near lost every good thing that we built
But from history we learn, and to history we go
For a crack at a future so bright it could glow
And no matter how Leftism strikes and engages
Us all in a battle of wits that enrages
We still have one thing we can say through the ages:
"It sure wasn't us who put Asians in cages."
