This portion of the song clearly depicts the struggles and sacrifices the workers faced during this time. What little money they made barely kept them alive, as seen in the quotation "My wife took down and died upon the cabin floor." Many families owned the same plot for generations, only to be driven out by selfish landowners and money-hungry banks. Their homes, families, jobs and traditions were all destroyed, and many were forced to leave the only way of life they had ever known and venture into the unknowns of the West.
