Stock Exchange
Channel: David Rovics
Date: 12/02/2018

A note of interest particularly for non-Danes:  69 Jagtvej is the address in the Norrebro district of Copenhagen where Folkets Huset -- the House of the People -- was built in 1898.  In 1982 the then-derelict building was squatted, and became Ungdomshuset -- the House of Youth -- until the eviction of the squat in 2007.  (After much popular protest, the youth were "given" a new building by the city that had taken their old building.)  The action that saw the temporary seizure of the stock exchange was planned in this historic center of the international and Danish syndicalist movement, 69 Jagtvej.

Lyrics:

The year was 1918, the place, 69 Jagtvej
The unemployed and hungry gathered to ask why
The bankers and stockbrokers lived like kings and queens
While the ragged children starved behind the scenes
Tens of thousands rallied for action to be taken
For the state to show the poor had not been totally forsaken
When no response was coming, plans began to be arranged
For the taking over of the stock exchange

The syndicalists at Folkets Huset were all well aware
That undercover cops were everywhere
Plans were kept secret so there wouldn't be a snag
When the time came, follow the one wrapped in the red flag
Thousands followed then, knowing not what lay in store
Soon found themselves upon the exchange's floor
Where such ostentatious wealth cried out to be estranged
From the profiteers inside the stock exchange 

The stockbrokers were not harmed, but the cops were kept at bay
As the floor was occupied for much of the day
The Battle of the Borso would be a story to retell
The protest and the prison time would be remembered well 
They didn't overthrow the bankers but the actions of the date
Led directly to reforms of the Danish welfare state
Working class prosperity no longer seemed so strange
From the day the workers took the stock exchange