Carl Sandburg (1878–1967), U.S. poet. The People, Yes (1936).
The words were popularized during the anti-war protests of the 1960s, and were echoed in the 1970 movie Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came? starring Brian Keith and Tony Curtis. Allen Ginsberg also recalls the line in his 1972 poem, Graffiti: “What if someone gave a war & Nobody came? Life would ring the bells of Ecstasy and Forever be Itself again.”
