YERTLE THE TURTLE

Yertle the Turtle is a poem by Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, published in
1958.  Yertle, king of the pond, stand on his subjects in an attempt to reach
higher than the moon -- until the bottom turtle burps and he falls into the
mud, ending his rule.

The story, among Seuss's most notable, is widely recognized as condemning
fascism and absolute power; the despotic ruler Yertle was intended to parallel
the dictator Adolf Hitler.

This webpage formerly featured the text of this lovely poem by the late Dr.
Seuss, but in August 2008 I took it down after receiving a cease-and-desist
letter from the legal firm representing his estate.  Since I was not given
permission to distribute that letter, I've paraphrased it below:

Dear Matt;

We noticed your website and here's what to do:
and if you ignore us then we're going to sue!
We see your site has a poem by our client
but with copyright laws you must be compliant!
The story of Yertle is our property
so you can't use it without paying money!

A story of someone who says what to do
and why instead you should think all these things through,
and not just follow orders no matter what
or who or how silly or reasons they've got,
is valuable stuff in our society
and we can't be letting you have it for free!

Take down that poem! We never said that you could
give it away! Why, don't you know that's not good?
We anticipate your co-operation
and hope that this was just an abberation.
We await your reply, sooner the better --
if not, next time, we won't just send a letter!

Sincerely,
A lawyer