--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 21 number: 4 published: 1918-02 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations, “The Day,” *Improvement Era* 21, no. 4 (February 1918): 350." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2104unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2104unse start_page: 350 end_page: 350 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1918-02) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2104unse publication_year: 1918 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1918, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Day The Day The day was when kings owned men. They owned their bodies, minds, their very souls; And with their arch-conspirators, The hireling priests of Babylon, They toyed with them as lions do their prey. Men felt no finer self, hopeless, faithless, lost, Their forces blindly driven by the rod of tyrants. Liberty, a passion crushed to muteness; They were mere chattels to their lords, and slaves unto themselves. Pleasure was found alone in orgies wild: The horn of mead, the roasted flesh, the filthy jest, the theft of virtue, the bloody field! And God on high looked down in awful grief; Grieved? O yes; but changeless in his course He touched the holy fire — the fire of Freedom, That makes of humans — Men. Chattanooga, Tenn. Frank C. Steele.