As through this world I rambled I've seen lots of funny men. Some will rob you with a six-gun And some with a fountain pen.

The lines contrast two kinds of predation: overt violence (“a six-gun”) and the quieter, socially sanctioned exploitation carried out through paperwork, contracts, and institutions (“a fountain pen”). In Guthrie’s populist idiom, the “funny men” are not merely eccentric characters but figures who profit from others’ labor—bankers, landlords, bosses, or officials—whose harm can be as real as that of an outlaw. The rhyme and plain diction sharpen the moral point: theft is theft, whether committed at gunpoint or behind a desk. The couplet encapsulates Guthrie’s broader critique of economic injustice and his sympathy for working people navigating systems stacked against them.