BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 Cornell University Library HNS .S61 The cry for ustice: olin 3 1924 032 495 883 \B Cornell University B Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924032495883 THE HEA'^'Y SEEDGE MAHOXRI YlirXli {Aiiitricun sculjilor. horn 1S77) The Cry for Justice An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest THE WRITINGS OF PHILOSOPHERS, POETS, NOVELISTS, SOCIAL REFORMERS, AND OTHERS WHO HAVE VOICED THE STRUGGLE AGAINST SOCIAL INJUSTICE SELECTED FROM TWENTY-FIVE LANGUAGES Covering a Period of Five Thousand Years Edited by UPTON SINCLAIR Author of '"Sylvia," "The Jungle," Etc. With an Introduction by JACK LONDON Author of "The Sea Wolf." "The Callofthe Wild." "The Valley of the Moon." Etc.. Etc. ILLUSTRATED WITH REPRODUCTIONS OF SOCIAL PROTEST IN ART PHILADELPHIA THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1915, by The John C. Winston Co. Snttoliuction bp lacft HonHon nPHIS anthology, I take it, is the first edition, the first •*• gathering together of the body of the Uterature and art of the humanist thinkers of the world. As well done as it has been done, it will be better done in the future. There will be much adding, there will be a little subtract- ing, in the succeeding editions that are bound to come. The result will be a monument of the ages, and there will be none fairer. Since reading of the Bible, the Koran, and the Tahnud has enabled countless devout and earnest right-seeking souls to be stirred and uplifted to higher and finer planes of thought and action, then the reading of this humanist Holy Book cannot fail similarly to serve the needs of groping, yearning humans who seek to discern truth and justice amid the dazzle and murk of the thought-chaos of the present-day world. No person, no matter how soft and secluded his own life has been, can read this Holy Book and not be aware that the world is filled with a vast mass of unfairness, cruelty, and suffering. He will find that it has been observed, during all the ages, by the thinkers, the seers, the poets, and the philosophers. And such person will learn, possibly, that this fair world so brutally unfair, is not decreed by the will of God nor by any iron law of Nature. He will learn that the world can be fashioned a fair world indeed by the humans who inhabit it, by the very simple, and yet most difficult process of coming to an understanding of the world. Understanding, after all, is merely sympathy in its fine correct sense. And such sympathy, in its genuineness, makes toward unselfishness. Unselfishness inevitably (3) Introduction connotes service. And service is the solution of the entire vexatious problem of man. He, who by understanding becomes converted to the gospel of service, will serve truth to confute liars and make of them truth-tellers; will serve kindness so that brutality will perish; will serve beauty to the erasement of all that is not beautiful. And he who is strong will serve the weak that they may become strong. He will devote his strength, not to the debasement and defilement of his weaker fellows, but to the making of opportunity for them to make themselves into men rather than into slaves and beasts. One has but to read the names of the men and women whose words burn in these pages, and to recall that by far more than average intelligence have they won to their place in the world's eye and in the world's brain long after the dust of them has vanished, to realize that due credence must be placed in their report of the world herein recorded. They were not tyrants and wastrels, hypocrites and liars, brewers and gamblers, market-riggers and stock-brokers. They were givers and servers, and seers and humanists. They were unselfish. They conceived of life, not in terms of profit, but of service. Life tore at them with its heart-break. They could not escape the hurt of it by selfish refuge in the gluttonies of brain and body. They saw, and steeled themselves to see, clear-eyed and unafraid. Nor were they afflicted by some strange myopia. They all saw the same thing. They are all agreed upon what they saw. The totality of their evidence proves this with unswerving consistency. They have brought the report, these commissioners of humanity. It is here in these pages. It is a true report. But not merely have they reported the human ills. Introduction They have proposed the remedy. And their remedy is of no part of all the jangling sects. It has nothing to do with the complicated metaphysical processes by which one may win to other worlds and imagined gains beyond the sky. It is a remedy for this world, since worlds must be taken one at a time. And yet, that not even the jangling sects should receive hurt by the making fairer of this world for this own world's sake, it is well, for all future worlds of them that need future worlds, that thfeir splendor be not tarnished by the vileness and ugliness of this world. It is so simple a remedy, merely service. Not one ignoble thought or act is demanded of any one of all men and women in the world to make fair the world. The call is for nobility of thinking, nobility of doing. The call is for service, and, such is the wholesomeness of it, he who serves all, best serves himself. Times change, and men's minds with them. Down the past, civilizations have exposited themselves in terms of power, of world-power or of other-world power. No civilization has yet exposited itself in terms of love-of-man. The humanists have no quarrel with the previous civiliza- tions. They were iiecessary in the development of man. But their purpose is fulfilled, and they may well pass, ■leaving man to build the new and higher civilization that will exposit itself in terms of love and service and brother- hood. To see gathered here together this great body of human beauty and fineness and nobleness is to realize what glorious humans have already existed, do exist, and will continue increasingly to exist until all the world beautiful be made over in their image. We know how gods are made. Comes now the time to make a world. Honolulu, March 6, 1915. )9c6nol])ktisment0 The editor has used his best efforts to ascertain what material in the present volume is protected by copyright. In all such cases he has obtained the permission of author and publisher for the use of the material. Such permission applies only to the present volume, and no one should assume the right to make any other use of it without seeking permission in turn. If there has been any failure upon the editor's part to obtain a necessary consent, it is due solely to oversight, and he trusts that it may be overlooked. The following publishers have to be thanked for the permissions which they have kindly granted; the thanks applying aJso to the authors of the works. Mitchell Kennerley Patrick MacGiU, "Songs of the Dead End." Harry Kemp, "The Cry of Youth." Charles Hanson Towne, "Manhattan." Hjalmar Bergstrom, "Lynggaard & Co." Donald Lowrie, "My Life in Prison." John G. Neihardt, "Cry of the People." Frank Harris, "The Bomb." Vachel Lindsay, "The Eagle that is For- gotten" and "To the United States Senate." Frederik van Eeden, "The Quest." Edwin Davies Schoonmaker, "Trinity Church." Walter Lippman, "A Preface to Politics." L. Andreyev, "Sawa." J. C. Underwood, "Processionals." BUss Carman, "The Rough Rider." Percy Adams Hutchison, "The Swordless Christ." DOUBLEDAT, PaGB & Co. Frank Norris, "The Octopus." Helen Keller, "Out of the Dark." Frederik van Eeden, "Happy Humanity." Bouck White, "The Call of the Carpenter." Alexander Irvine, "From the Bot- tom Up." John D. Rockefeller, "Random Reminiscences." G. Lowes Dickinson, "Letters from a Chinese Official." Ben B. Lindsey and Harvey J. O'Higgins, "The Beast." Franklin P. Adams, "By and Large." Edwin Markham, "The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems." Gerald Stanley Lee, "Crowds." Woodrow Wilson, "The New Freedom." (7) 8 Acknowledgments Houghton Mifflin Co. William Vaughn Moody, "Poems." Vida D. Scudder, "Social Ideals." Florence Wilkinson Evans, "The Ride Home." Peter Kropotkin, "Mutual Aid" and "Memoirs of a Revolutionist." Helen G. Cone, "Today." T. B. Aldrich, "Poems." T. W. Hig- ginson, "Poems." Charles Scribneb's Sons H. G. Wells, "A Modern Utopia." Bjornstjeme Bjornson, "Beyond Human Power." Edith Wharton, "The House of Mirth." John Galsworthy, "A Motley." Maxim Gorky, "F6maGordyteff." J. M. Barrie, "Farm Laborers." Walter Wyckoff, "The Workers." The Macmillan Co. John Masefield, "Dauber" and "A Consecration." Jack Lon- don, "The People of the Abyss" and "Revolution." Robert Her- rick, "A Life for a Life." Israel Zangwil), " Children of the Ghetto." Albert Edwards, "A Man's World" and "Comrade Yetta." Walter Rauschenbusch, "Christianity and the Social Crisis." Winston Churchill, "The Inside of the Cup." Rabindranath Tagore, "Git- anjali." Thorstein Veblen, "The Theory of the Leisure Class." Edward Alsworth Ross, "Sin and Society." W. J. Ghent, "Social- ism and Success." Vachel Lindsay, "The Congo." Wilfrid Wil- son Gibson, "Fires." Percy Mackaye, "The Present Hour." Robert Hunter, "Violence and the Labor Movement." Ernest Poole, "The Harbor." The Century Co. Louis Untermeyer, "Challenge." Richard Whiteing, "No. 5 John Street." George Carter, "Ballade of Misery and Iron." James Oppenheim, "Songs for the New Age." H. G. Wells, "In the Days of the Comet." Alex. Irvine, "My Lady of the Chimney Comer." Edwin Bjorkman, "Dinner h, la Tango." Small, Maynabd & Co. Charlotte P. Oilman, "In this Our World" and "Women and Economics." Finley P. Dunne, "Mr. Dooley." Acknowledgments 9 Brentano G. Bernard Shaw, "Preface to Major Barbara" and "The Prob- lem Play." Eugene Brieux, "The Red Robe." W. L. George, "A Bed of Roses." DUFFIELD & Co. Elsa Barker, "The Frozen Grail." H. G. WeUs, "Tono-Bungay." B. W. HUEBSCH James Oppenheim, "Pay Envelopes." Gerhart Hauptmann, "The Weavers." Maxim Gorky, "Tales of Two Countries." G. P. PtTTNAM Sons Antonio Fogazzaro, "The Saint." J. L. Jaur§s, "Studies in Socialism." George H. Doban Co. Will Levington Comfort, "Midstream." Charles E. Russell, "These Shifting Scenes." Frederick A. Stokes Co. Robert Tressall, "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists." Wilhelm Lamszus, "The Human Slaughter House." Olive Schreiner, "Woman and Labor." Alfred Noyes, "The Wine Press." McClurb Publishing Co. Dana Burnet, "A Ballad of Dead Girls." Lincoln Steffens, "The Dying Boss" and "The Reluctant Grafter." The "Masses" John Amid, "The Tail of the World." Dana Burnet, "Sisters of the Cross of Shame." Carl Sandburg, "Buttons." J. E. Spingarn, "Heloise sans Abelard." Louis Untermeyer, "To a Supreme Court Judge." James Pott & Co. David Graham Phillips, "The Reign of Gilt." 10 Acknowledgments Babse & Hopkins R. W. Service, "The SpeU of the Yukon." Univbesitt of Chicago Press August Bebel, "Memoirs." Charles H. Sbrgbl Co. Verhaeren, "The Dawn: Translation by Arthur Symons." Albert and Charles Boni Horace Traubel, "Chants Communal." A. C. McClukg & Co. W. E. B. du Boia, "The Souls of Black Folk." Mother Earth Publishing Co. A. Berkman, "Prison Memories of an Anarchist." Voltairine de Cleyre, "Works." Emma Goldman, "Anarchism." Moffat, Yard & Co. Reginald Wright Kauffman, "The House of Bondage." John Lane Anatole France, "Penguin Island." William Watson, "Poems." Bobbs-Mbrrill Co. Brand Whitlock, "The Turn of the Balance." E. P. Dutton & Co. Patrick MacGill, "Children of the Dead End." Charles H. Kerr Co. "When the Leaves Come Out." Hillacre Bookhouse Arturo Giovannitti, "The Walker." Acknowledgments 11 Henry Holt & Co. Remain RoUand, "Jean-Chiistophe.'' Richard G. Badger {Poet Lore) Andreyev, "King Hunger." Gorky, "A Night's Lodging." Mrs. Arthur Upson Poems by Arthur Upson. New York Times Elsa Barker, "Breshkovskaya." Collier's Weekly Herman Hagedorn, "Fifth Avenue, 1915." Poetry: A Magazine of Verse F. Kiper Frank, "A Girl Strike Leader." lAfe Max Eastman, "To a Bourgeois Litterateur." Walter Scott Publishing Co. (P. P. Simmons Co., New York) Joseph Skipsey, "Mother Wept." Jethro Bithell's translation of Verhaeren in "Contemporary Belgian Poetry" and of Dehmel in "Contemporary German Poetry." Rimbaud's "Waifs and Strays" in "Contemporary French Poetry." Elkin Mathews & Co. William H. Davies, "Songs of Joy." Constable & Co. Harold Mom-o, "Impressions." Duckworth & Co. Hilaire Belloc, "The Rebel." W Acknowledgments Swan, Sonnenschein & Co. Edward Carpenter, "Towards Democracy." Acknowledgments have also to be made to the following artists, who have kindly consented to have their works used in the volume : Mahonri Young, Wm. Balfour Ker, Ryan Walker, Charles A. Winter, Abastenia Eberle, John Mowbray-Clarke, Isidore Konti, Walter Crane, and Will Dyson. Also to Life Publishing Co. and the New Age, London, for permission to use a drawing from their files. ConttntiS BOOK PAGE I. Toil 27 II. The Chasm 73 III. The Outcast 121 IV. Out of the Depths 179 V. Revolt 227 VI. Martyedom 289 VII. Jesus 345 VIII. The Chubch 383 IX. The Voice of the Ages. 431 X. Mammon 485 XL War 551 XII. Country 593 XIII. Children 637 XIV. Humor 679 XV. The Poet 725 XVI. Socialism 783 XVII. The New Day 835 (13)- JLitit ot ]iUu0ttatton0 The Heavy Sledge, Mahonri Young Frontispiece PAGE The Man With the Hoe, Jean Frangois Millet. . 32' The Vampire, E. M. Lilien 62 King Canute, William Balfour Ker 92 The Hand of Fate, William Balfour Ker 116 Without a Kennel, Ryan Walker 134 The White Slave, Abasienia St. Leger Eberle 166 Cold, Roger Bloche 196 The People Mourn, Jules Pierre van Biesbroeck .... 212 The Liberatbess, Theophile Alexandre Steinlen. . . . 238 Outbreak, Kathe Kollwitz 262 The End, Kathe Kollwitz 294 The Surprise, Ilyd Efim/yvitch Repin 318 EccE Homo, Constantin Meunier 348 Despised and Rejected of Men, Sigismund Goetze 372 "To Sustain the Body of the Church, if You Please," Denis Auguste Marie Raffet 394 Christ, John Mowbray-Clarke 420 The Despotic Age, Isidore Konti 438 "Courage, Your Majesty, Only One Step More!" 464 Marriage a la Mode, William Hogarth 496 - Mammon, George Frederick Watts 532 War, Arnold Bocklin 570 London, Paul Gustave Dore 612 A Citizen Lost, Ryan Walker 644 "Oliver Twist Asks for MoRE,"Georfife Cruikshank 656 The Coal Famine, Thomns Theodor Heine 680 (15) 16 . List of Illustrations PAGE "My Solicitor Shall Hear op This!". Will Dyson 710 The Militant, Charles A. Winter 746 The Death of Chattehton, Henry Wallis 778 "Once Ye Have Seen My Face, Ye Dare Not Mock" 806 Justice, Walter Crane 838 The Triumph of Labor, Walter Crane 866 (£D(t0t'0 ptefacr \1y /"HEN the idea of this collection was first thought of, * " it was a matter of surprise that the task should have been so long unattempted. There exist small collections of Socialist songs for singiag, but apparently this is the first effort that has been made to cover the whole field of the literature of social protest, both in prose and poetry, and from all languages and times. The reader's first inquiry will be as to the qualifications of the editor. Let me say that I gave nine years of my life to a study of literature under academic guidance, and then, emerging from a great endowed university, discovered the modern movement of proletarian revolt, and have given fifteen years to the study and interpretation of that. The present volume is thus a blending of two points of view. I have reread the favorites of my youth, choosing from them what now seemed most vital; and I have sought to test the writers of my own time by the touchstone of the old standards. The size of the task I did not realize until I had gone too far to retreat. It meant not merely the rereading of the classics and the standard anthologies; it meant going through a small library of volumes by living writers, the files of many magazines, and a dozen or more scrap-books and collections of fugitive verse. At the end of this labor I found myself with a pile of typewritten manuscript a foot high; and the task of elimination was the most diffi- cult of all. To a certain extent, of course, the selection was self- determined. No anthology of social protest could omit a (17) 18 Preface "The Song of the Shirt," and "The Cry of the Children," and "A Man's a Man for A' That"; neither could it omit the "Marseillaise" and the "Internationale." Equally inevitable were selections from Shelley and Swinburne, Ruskin, Carlyle and Morris, Whitman, Tol- stoy and Zola. The same was true of Wells and Shaw and Kropotkin, Hauptmann and Maeterlinck, Romain Rolland and Anatole France. When it came to the newer writers, I sought first their own judgment as to their best work; and later I submitted the manuscript to several friends, the best qualified men and women I knew. Thus the final version was the product of a number of minds; and the collection may be said to represent, not its editor, but a whole movement, made and sustained by the master-spirits of all ages. For this reason I may without suspicion of egotism say what I think about the volume. It was significant to me that several persons reading the manuscript and writing quite independently, referred to it as "a new Bible." I believe that it is, quite literally and simply, what the old Bible was — a selection by the living minds of a living time of the best and truest writings known to them. It is a Bible of the future, a Gospel of the new hope of the race. It is a book for the apostles of a new dispensation to carry about with them; a book to cheer the discouraged and console the wounded in humanity's last war of liberation. The standards of the book are those of literature. If there has been any letting down, it has been in the case of old writings, which have an interest apart from that of style. It brings us a thrill of wonder to find, in an ancient Egyptian parchment, a father setting forth to his son how easy is the life of the lawyer, and what a Preface 19 dog's life is that of the farmer. It amuses us to read a play, produced ia Athens two thousand, two hundred and twenty-three years ago, in which is elaborately pro- pounded the question which thousands of Socialist "soap- boxers" are answering every night: "Who will do the dirty work?" It makes us shudder, perhaps, to find a Spaniard of the thirteenth century analyzing the evil devices of tyrants, and expounding in detail the labor- policy of some present-day great corporations in America. Let me add that I have not considered it my function to act as censor to the process of social evolution. Every aspect of the revolutionary movement has foimd a voice in this book. Two questions have been asked of each writer: Have you had something vital to say? and Have you said it with some special effectiveness? The reader will find, for example, one or two of the hymns of the "Christian Socialists"; he will also find one of the par- odies on Christian hymns which are sung by the Industrial Workers of the World in their "jungles" in the Far West. The Anarchists and the apostles of insurrection are also represented; and if some of the things seem to the reader the mere unchaining of furies, I would say, let him not blame the faithful anthologist, let him not blame even the writer — let him blame himself, who has acquiesced in the existence of conditions which have driven his fellow-men to the extremes of madness and despair. In the preparation of this work I have placed myself under obhgation to so many people that it would take much space to make complete acknowledgments. I must thank those friends who went through the bulky manuscript, and gave me the benefit of their detailed criticism: George Sterling, Max Eastman, Floyd Dell, Clement Wood, Louis Untermeyer, and my wife. I am so Preface under obligation to a number of people, some of them strangers, who went to the trouble of sending me scrap- books which represented years and even decades of col- lecting: Ehzabeth Balch, Elizabeth Magie PhiUips, Frank B. Norman, Frank Stuhlman, J. M. Maddox, Edward J. O'Brien, and Clement Wood. Among those who helped me with valuable suggestions were: Edwin Bjorkman, Reginald Wright Kauffman, Thomas Seltzer, Jack London, Rose Pastor Stokes, May Beals, Elizabeth Freeman, Arthur W. Calhoun, Frank Shay, Alexander Berkman, Joseph F. Gould, Louis Untermeyer, Harold Monro, Morris Hillquit, Peter Kropotkin, Dr. James P. Warbasse, and the Baroness von Blomberg. The fullness of the section devoted to ancient writings is in part due to the advice of a number of scholars: Dr. Paul Carus, Pro- fessor Crawford H. Toy, Professor William Cranston Law- ton, Professor Charles Burton Gulick, Professor Thomas D. Goodell, Professor Walton Brooks McDaniels, Rev. John Haynes Holmes, Professor George F. Moore, Prof. Walter Rauschenbusch, and Professor Charles R. Lanman. With regard to the illustrations in the volume, I en- deavored to repeat in the field of art what had been done in the field of literature: to obtain the best material, both old and new, and select the most interesting and vital. I have to record my indebtedness to a num- ber of friends who made suggestions in this field — Ryan Walker, Art Young, John Mowbray-Clarke, Martin Bim- baum, Odon Por, and Walter Crane. Also I must thank Mr. Frank Weitenkampf and Dr. Herman Rosenthal of the New York Public Library, and Dr. Chfford of the Library of the MetropoUtan Museum of Art. To the artists whose copyrighted work I have used I owe my thanks for their permission: as likewise to the many Preface 21 writers whose copyrighted books I have quoted. Else- where in the volume I have made acknowledgments to publishers for the rights they have kindly granted. Let me here add this general caution: The copyrighted pas- sages used have been used by permission, and any one who desires to reprint them must obtain similar permission. One or two himdred contemporary authors responded to my invitation and sent me specimens of their writings. Of these authors, probably three-fourths will not find their work included — ^for which seeming discourtesy I can only offer the sincere plea of the limitations of space which were imposed upon me. I am not being diplomatic, but am stating a fact when I say that I had to leave out much that I thought was of excellent quality. What was chosen will now speak for itself. Let my last word be of the hope, which has been with me constantly, that the book may be to others what it has been to me. I have spent with it the happiest year of my lifetime : the happiest, because occupied with beauty of the greatest and truest sort. If the material in this volume means to you, the reader, what it has meant to me, you will live with it, love it, sometimes weep with it, many times pray with it, yearn and hunger with it, and, above all, resolve with it. You will carry it with you about your daily tasks, you will be utterly possessed by it; and again and again you will be led to dedicate yourself to the greatest hope, the most wondrous vision which has ever thrilled the soul of hiunan- ity. In this spirit and to this end the book is offered to you. If you will read it through consecutively, skipping nothing, you will find that it has a form. You will be led from one passage to the next, and when you reach the end you will be a wiser, a humbler, and a more tender-hearted person. ja Consecration By John Masefield NOT of the princes and prelates with periwigged charioteers Riding triumphantly laurelled to lap the fat of the years, Rather the scorned — the rejected — ^the men hemmed in with the spears; The men of the tattered battalion which fights till it dies, Dazed with the dust of the battle, the din. and the cries, The men with the broken heads and the blood running into their eyes. Not the be-medalled Conunander, beloved of the throne, Riding cock-horse to parade when the bugles are blown. But the lads who carried the koppie and cannot be known. Not the ruler for me, but the ranker, the tramp of the road, The slave with the sack on his shoulders pricked on with the goad, The man with too weighty a burden, too weary a load. The sailor, the stoker of steamers, the man with the clout, The chantyman bent atHhe halliards putting a tune to the shout. The drowsy man at the wheel and the tired lookout. Others may sing of the wine and the wealth and the mirth i The portly presence of potentates goodly in girth; — Mine be the dirt and the dross, the dust and sciun of the earth! (23) 2Ji. A Consecration Theirs be the music, the color, the glory, the gold; Mine be a handful of ashes, a mouthful of mould. Of the maimed, of the halt and the blind in the rain and the cold — Of these shall my songs be fashioned, my tale be told. Amen. BOOK I Toil The dignity and tragedy of labor; picttires of the actual condi- tions under which men and women work in mills and factories, fields and mines. '^it Q^an mm tit ^oz* By Edwin Markham (This poem, which was written after seeing Millet's world-famous painting, was published in 1899 by a California school-principal, and made a profound impression. It has been hailed as "the battle-cry of the next thousand years") T3 OWED by the weight of centuries he leans ■'— ' Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, The emptiness of ages in his face. And on his back the burden of the world. Who made him dead to rapture and despair, A thing that grieves not and that never hopes, Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox? Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw? Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow? Whose breath blew out the light within this brain? Is this the thing the Lord God made and gave To have dominion over sea and land; To trace the stars and search the heavens for power; To feel the passion of Eternity? Is this the dream He dreamed who shaped the sims And marked their ways upon the ancient deep? Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf There is no shape more terrible than this — More tongued with censiu-e of the world's blind greed — More filled with signs and portents for the soul — More fraught with menace to the universe. *-By permission of Doubleday, Page & Co. (27) S8 The Cry for Justice What gulfs between him and the seraphim ! Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades? What the long reaches of the peaks of song, The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose? Through this dread shape the suffering ages look; Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop; Through this dread shape humanity betrayed, Plimdered, profaned and disinherited, Cries protest to the Judges of the World, A protest that is also prophecy. O masters, lords and rulers in all lands. Is this the handiwork you give to God, This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched? How will you ever straighten up this shape; Touch it again with immortality; Give back the upward looking and the light; Rebuild in it the music and the dream; Make right the immemorial infamies. Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes? masters, lords and rulers in all lands. How will the Future reckon with this Man? How answer his brute question in that hour When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world? How will it be with kingdoms and with kings — With those who shaped him to the thing he is — When this dumb Terror shall reply to God, After the silence of the centuries? Toil 29 Country %iU {From " The Village") By George Crabbe (One of the earliest of English realistic poets, 1754^1832; called "The Poet of the Poor") OR will you deem them amply paid in health, Labor's fair child, that languishes with wealth? Go then! and see them rising with the sun, Through a long course of daily toil to run; See them beneath the dog-star's raging heat, When the knees tremble and the temples beat; Behold them, leaning on their scythes, look o'er The labor past, and toils to come explore; See them alternate suns and showers engage, And hoard up aches and anguish for their age; Through fens and marshy moors their steps pursue, Where their warm pores imbibe the evening dew; Then own that labor may as fatal be To these thy slaves, as thine excess to thee. Sin ^pH Eaborer By Richard Jefferies (English essajdst and nature student, 1848-1887) i ("OR, weeks and weeks the stark black oaks stood ■•- straight out of the snow as masts of ships with furled sails frozen and ice-bound in the haven of the deep valley. Never was such a long winter. 30 The Cry for Justice One morning a laboring man came to the door with a spade, and asked if he could dig the garden, or try to, at the risk of breaking the tool in the ground. He was starving; he had had no work for six months, he said, since the first frost started the winter. Nature and the earth and the gods did not trouble about him, you see. Another aged man came once a week regularly; white as the snow through which he walked. In summer he worked; since the winter began he had had no employ- ment, but supported himself by going round to the farms in rotation. He had no home of any kind. Why did he not go into the workhouse? "I be af eared if I goes in there they'll put me with the rough 'uns, and very likely I should get some of my clothes stole." Rather than go into the workhouse, he would totter round in the face of the blasts that might cover his weak old limbs with drift. There was a sense of dignity and manhood left still; his clothes were worn, but clean and decent; he was no com- panion of rogues; the snow and frost, the straw of the outhouses, was better than that. He was struggling against age, against nature, against circiunstances; the entire weight of society, law and order pressed upon him to force him to lose his self-respect and liberty. He would rather risk his life in the snow-drift. Nature, earth and the gods did not help him; sun and stars, where were they? He knocked at the doors of the farms and found good in man only — not in Law or Order, but in individual man alone. Toil 31 jFatm %abovtt0 By James Matthew Baeeie (English poet, playwright and novelist, born 1860) GRAND, patient, long-suffering fellows these men were, up at five, summer and winter, foddering their horses, maybe, hours before there would be food for themselves, miserably paid, housed like cattle, and when rheumatism seized them, liable to be flung aside Uke a broken graip. As hard was the life of the women: coarse food, chaif beds, damp clothes their portion, their sweet- hearts in the service of masters who were loath to fee a married man. Is it to be wondered that these lads who could be faithful unto death drank soddenly on their one free day; that these girls, starved of opportunities for womanliness, of which they could make as much as the finest lady, sometimes woke after a holiday to wish that they might wake no more? {From "Sartor Resartus") By Thomas Caelyle (One of the most famous of British essayists, 1795-1881; historian of the French Revolution, and master of a vivid and picturesque prose-style) T T is not because of his toils that I lament for the poor: •'■ we must all toil, or steal (howsoever we name our stealing), which is worse; no faithful workman finds his task a pastime. The poor is hungry and athirst; but for 32 The Cry for Justice him also there is food and drink: he is heavy-laden and weary; but for him also the Heavens send sleep, and of the deepest; in his smoky cribs, a clear dewy haven of rest envelops him, and fitful glitterings of cloud-skirted dreams. But what I do mourn over is, that the lamp of his soul should go out; that no ray of heavenly, or even of earthly, knowledge should visit him; but only, in the haggard darkness, like two spectres. Fear and Indigna- tion bear him company. Alas, while the body stands so broad and brawny, must the soul lie blinded, dwarfed, stupefied, almost annihilated! Alas, was this too a Breath of God; bestowed in heaven, but on earth never to be unfolded! — That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy, were it to happen more than twenty times in the minute, as by some computations it does. The miserable fraction of Science which our imited Mankind, in a wide universe of Nescience, has acquired, why is not this, with all dili- gence, imparted to all? piapa iDut {From "Songs of the Dead End") By Pateick MacGill (A young Irishman, called the "Navvy poet"; born 1890. From the age of twelve to twenty a farm laborer, ditch-digger and quarry- man. As this work goes to press, he is fighting with his regiment in Flanders) AS a bullock falls in the crooked ruts, he fell when the ^~*- day was o'er. The hunger gripping his stinted guts, his body shaken and sore. Ol ■^ H K* ■^ ^ -Ij ;^ ^ ^ — ' V, > Z w § Toil 33 They pulled it out of the ditch ia the dark, as a brute is pulled from its lair, The corpse of the navvy, stiff and stark, with the clay on its face and hair. In Christian lands, with calloused hands, he labored for others' good. In workshop and mill, ditchway and drill, earnest, eager, and rude; Unhappy and gaimt with worry and want, a food to the whims of fate, Hashing it out and booted about at the will of the goodly and great. To him was applied the scorpion lash, for him the gibe and the goad — The roughcast fool of our moral wash, the rugous wretch of the road. Willing to crawl for a pittance small to the swine of the tinsel sty, Beggared and burst from the very first, he chooses the ditch to die — . . . Go, pick the dead from the sloughy bed, and hide him from mortal eye. He tramped through the colorless winter land, or swined in the scorching heat, The dry skin hacked on his sapless hands or blistering on his feet; He wallowed in mire unseen, unknown, where your houses of pleasure rise. And hapless, hungry, and chilled to the bone, he builded the edifice. 34 The Cry for Justice In cheerless model* and filthy pub, his sinful hours were passed, Or footsore, weary, he begged his grub, in the sough of the hail-whipped blast. So some might riot in wealth and ease, with food and wine be crammed, He wrought like a mule, in muck to his knees, dirty. dissolute, damned. Arrogant, adipose, you sit in the homes he builded high; Dirty the ditch, in the depths of it he chooses a spot to die, Foaming with nicotine-tainted lips, holding his aching breast, Dropping down like a cow that slips, smitten with rinder- pest; Drivelling yet of the work and wet, swearing as sinners swear. Raving the rule of the gambling school, mixing it up with a prayer. He lived like a brute as the navvies live, and went as the cattle go. No one to sorrow and no one to shrive, for heaven ordained it so — He handed his check to the shadow in black, and went to the misty lands. Never a mortal to close his eyes or a woman to cross his hands. As a bullock falls in the rugged ruts He fell when the day was o'er, Hunger gripping his weasened guts, But never to hunger more— * A "model" is an English resort for wayfarers, maintained by charity. Toil 35 They 'pulled it out of the ditch in the dark, The chilling frost on its hair, The mole-skinned navvy stiff and stark From no particular where. IBtOuntring tit l^otn* {From "Dauber") By John Masefield (An English poet who has had a varied career as sailor, laborer and even bartender upon the Bowery, New York. Born 1873, his narrative poems of humble life made him famous almost over night) T^HEN came the cry of "Call all hands on deck!" -•- The Dauber knew its meaning; it was come: Cape Horn, that tramples beauty into wreck, And crmnples steel and smites the strong man dumb. Down clattered flying kites and staysails: some Sang out in quick, high calls: the fair-leads skirled, And from the south-west came the end of the world . . . "Layout!" the Bosun yelled. The Dauber laid Out on the yard, gripping the yard, and feeling Sick at the mighty space of air displayed Below his feet, where mewing birds were wheeling. A giddy fear was on him; he was reeling. He bit his lip half through, clutching the jack. A cold sweat glued the shirt upon his back. * By permissiocL of the Macinillan Co. 36 The Cry for Justice The yard was shaking, for a brace was loose. He felt that he would fall; he clutched, he bent, Clammy with natural terror to the shoes While idiotic promptings came and went. Snow fluttered on a wind-flaw and was spent; He saw the water darken. Someone yelled, "Frap it; don't stay to furl! Hold on!" He held. Darkness came down — half darkness — in a whirl; The sky went out, the waters disappeared. He felt a shocking pressure of blowing hurl The ship upon her side. The darkness speared At her with wind; she staggered, she careered. Then down she lay. The Dauber felt her go; He saw her yard tilt downwards. Then the snow Whirled all about — dense, multitudinous, cold — Mixed with the wind's one devilish thrust and shriek, Which whifHed out men's tears, defeated, took hold. Flattening the flying drift against the cheek. The yards buckled and bent, man could not speak. The ship lay on her broadside; the wind's sound Had devilish malice at having got her downed. . . . How long the gale had blown he could not tell. Only the world had changed, his life had died. A moment now was everlasting hell. Nature an onslaught from the weather side, A withering rush of death, a frost that cried, Shrieked, till he withered at the heart; a hail Plastered his oilskins with an icy mail. . . . Toil 37 "Up!" yelled the Bosun; "up and clear the wreck!" The Dauber followed where he led; below He caught one giddy glimpsing of the deck Filled with white water, as though heaped with snow. He saw the streamers of the rigging blow Straight out like pennons from the splintered mast, Then, all sense dimmed, all was an icy blast Roaring from nether hell and filled with ice, Roaring and crashing on the jerking stage, An utter bridle given to utter vice, limitless power mad with endless rage Withering the soul; a minute seemed an age. He clutched and hacked at ropes, at rags of sail, Thinking that comfort was a fairy-tale Told long ago — long, long ago — long since Heard of in other lives — imagined, dreamed — There where the basest beggar was a prince. To him in torment where the tempest screamed, Comfort and warmth and ease no longer seemed Things that a man could know; soul, body, brain. Knew nothing but the wind, the cold, the pain. 3n&oummt in fetotm {From " The Cry of Youth") By Harry Kemp (A young American poet who has wandered over the world as sailor, harvest hand and tramp; born 1883) DEEP in an ore-boat's hold Where great-bulked boilers loom And yawning mouths of fire Irradiate the gloom, 38 The Cry for Justice I saw half-naked men Made thralls to flame and steam, Whose bodies, dripping sweat. Shone with an oily gleam. There, all the sullen night. While waves boomed overhead And smote the lurching ship, The ravenous fires they fed; They did not think it brave: They even dared to joke! I saw them light their pipes And puff calm rings of smoke! I saw a Passer sprawl Over his load of coal — At which a Fireman laughed Until it shook his soul : All this in a hollow shell Whose half-submerged form On Lake Superior tossed 'Mid rushing hills of storm! From the Sailors' Catechism Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able. The seventh, holystone the deck and scrub the cable. Toil 39 &tOfeCC0* {From "The Harbor") By Ernest Poole (American playwright and novelist, bom 1880) AT T^E crawled down a short ladder and through low ' * passageways, dripping wet, and so came into the stokehole. This was a long narrow chamber with a row of glowing furnace doors. Wet coal and coal-dust lay on the floor. At either end a small steel door opened into bimkers that ran along the sides of the ship, deep down near the bottom, containing thousands of tons of soft coal. In the stoke- hole the fires were not yet up, but by the time the ship was at sea the furnace mouths would be white hot and the men at work half naked. They not only shovelled coal into the flames, they had to spread it as well, and at intervals rake out the "clinkers" in fiery masses on the floor. On these a stream of water played, filling the chamber with clouds of steam. In older ships, like this one, a "lead stoker" stood at the head of the line and set the pace for the others to follow. He was paid more to keep up the pace. But on the big new liners this pacer was replaced by a gong. "And at each stroke of the gong you shovel," said Joe. "You do this till you forget your name. Every time the boat pitches the floor heaves you forward, the fire spurts at you out of the doors, and the gong keeps on like a sledge-hanuner coming down on top of your mind. And all you think of is your bimk and the time when you're to tumble in." * By permission of the Macmillan Co. Jfi The Cry for Justice From the stokers' quarters presently there came a burst of singing. "Now let's go back," he ended, "and see how they're getting ready for this." As we crawled back, the noise increased, and swelled to a roar as we entered. The place was pandemonium. Those groups I had noticed around the bags had been getting out the liquor, and now at eight o'clock in the morning half the crew were already well soused. Some moved restlessly about. One huge bull of a creature with limpid shining eyes stopped suddenly with a puzzled stare, and then leaned back on a bunk and laughed up- roariously. From there he lurched over the shoulder of a thin, wiry, sober man who, sitting on the edge of a bunk, was slowly spelling out the words of a newspaper aeroplane story. The big man laughed again and spit, and the thin man jimiped half up and snarled. Louder rose the singing. Half the crew was crowded close around a little red-faced cockney. He was the modern "chanty man." With sweat pouring down his cheeks and the muscles of his neck drawn taut, he was jerking out verse after verse about women. He sang to an old "chanty" tune, one that I remembered well. But he was not singing out under the stars, he was scream- ing at steel walls down here in the bottom of the ship. And although he kept speeding up his song, the crowd were too drunk to wait for the chorus; their voices kept tumbling in over his, and soon it was only a frenzy of sound, a roar with yells rising out of it. The singers kept pounding each other's backs or waving bottles over their heads. Two bottles smashed together and brought a still higher burst of glee. " I'm tired !" Joe shouted. " Let's get out!" Toil 41 I caught a glimpse of his strained frowning face. Again it came over me in a flash, the years he had spent in holes hke this, in this hideous rotten world of his, while I had lived joyously in mine. And as though he had read the thought in my disturbed and troubled eyes, "Let's go up where you belong," he said. I followed him up and away from his friends. As we climbed ladder after ladder, fainter and fainter on our ears rose that yelling from below. Suddenly we came out on deck and slammed an iron door behind us. And I was where I belonged. I was in dazzling simshine and keen, frosty autumn air. I was among gay throngs of people. Dainty women brushed me by. I felt the softness of their furs, I breathed the fragrant scent of them and of the flowers that they wore, I saw their trim, fresh, immaculate clothes. I heard the joyous tumult of their talking and their laugh- ing to the regular crash of the band — all the life of the ship I had known so well. And I walked through it all as though in a dream. On the dock I watched it spell-bound — imtil with hand- kerchiefs waving and voices calling down good-byes, that throng of happy travellers moved slowly out into mid- stream. And I knew that deep below all this, down in the bot- tom of the ship, the stokers were still singing. ^2 The Cry for Justice Caliban in X\z Coal ^iut^ {Fro7n " Challenge") By Louis Untermeyer (American poet, born 1885) /'"^OD, we don't like to complain — ^^ We know that the mine is no lark — But — there's the pools from the rain; But — there's the cold and the dark. God, You don't know what it is — ■ You, in Your well-lighted sky, Watching the meteors whizz ; Warm, with the sim always by. God, if You had but the moon Stuck in Yom- cap for a lamp, Even You'd tire of it soon, Down in the dark and the damp. Nothing but blackness above, And nothing that moves but the cars — God, if You wish for our love. Fling us a handful of stars! To.il 43 lilt jF^rtrtijtt 9?an {From " The Jwngle") By Upton Sinclair (A novel portraying the lives of the workers in the Chicago stockyards; published in 1906) T TIS labor took him about one minute to learn. Before ^ -»• him was one of the Vents of the mill in which the fertilizer was being gr^toid — rushing forth in a great brown river, with a ^ay of the finest dust floating forth in clouds. Jurgis^as given a shovel, and along with half a dozen others it was his task to shovel this fer- tilizer into carts. That others were at work he knew by the sound, and by the fact that he sometimes collided with them; otherwise they might as well not have been there, for in the blinding dust-storm a man could not see six feet in front of his face. When he had filled one cart he had to grope around him until another came, and if there was none on hand he continued to grope till one arrived. In five minutes he was, of course, a mass of fertilizer from head to feet; they gave him a. sponge to tie over his mouth, so that he could breathe, but the sponge did not prevent his lips and eyelids from caking up with it and his ears from filling solid. He looked like a brown ghost at twilight— from hair to shoes be became the color of the building and of everything in it, and for that matter a hundred yards outside it. The building had to be left open, and when the wind blew Durham and Company lost a great deal of fertilizer. Working in his shirt-sleeves, and with the thermometer at over a hundred, the phosphates soaked in through every pore of Jurgis' skin, and in five minutes he had a I^.I^. The Cry jor Justice headache, and in fifteen was almost dazed. The blood was poimding in his brain like an engine's throbbing; there was a frightful pain in the top of his skull, and he could hardly control his hands. Still, with the memory of his four jobless months behind him, he fought on, in a frenzy of determination; and half an hour later he began to vomit-^he vomited until it seemed as if his inwards must be torn into shreds. A man could get used to the fertilizer-mill, the boss had said, if he would only make up his mind to it; but Jurgis now began to see that it was a question of making up his stomach. At the end of that day of horror, he could scarcely stand. He had to catch himself now and then, and lean against a building and get his bearings. Most of the men, when they came out, made straight for a saloon — they seemed to place fertilizer and rattlesnake poison in one class. But Jurgis was too ill to think of drinking — he could only make his way to the street and stagger on to a car. He had a sense of humor, and later on, when he became an old hand, he used to think it fun to board a street-car and see what happened. Now, however, he was too ill to notice it — how the people in the car began to gasp and sputter, to put their handkerchiefs to their noses, and transfix him with furious glances. Jurgis only knew that a man in front of him immediately got up and gave him a seat; and that half a minute later the two people on each side of him got up; and that in a full minute the crowded car was nearly empty — those passengers who could not get room on the platform having gotten out to walk. Of course Jurgis had made his home a miniature fer- tilizer-mill a minute after entering. The stuff was half an inch deep in his skin — his whole system was full of it, Toil 45 and it would have taken a week not merely of scrubbing, but of vigorous exercise, to get it out of him. As it was, he could be compared with nothing known to man, save that newest discovery of the savants, a substance which emits energy for an unlimited time, without being itself in the least diminished in power. He smelt so that he made all the food at the table taste, and set the whole family to vomiting; for himself it was three days before he could keep anything upon his stomach — he might wash his hands, and use a knife and fork, but were not his mouth and throat filled with the poison? And still Jurgis stuck it out! In spite of sphtting head- aches he would stagger down to the plant and take up his stand once more, and begin to shovel in the blinding clouds of dust. And so at the end of the week he was a fertilizer-man for life — he was able to eat again, and though his head never stopped aching, it ceased to be so bad that he could not work. ^itt0bttts^ By James Oppenheim (American poet and novelist; bom 1882) OVER his face his gray hair drifting hides his Labor- glory in smoke. Strange through his breath the soot is sifting, his feet are buried in coal and coke. By night hands twisted and lurid in fires, by day hands blackened with grime and oil. He toils at the foundries and never tires, and ever and ever his lot is toil. 46 The Cry for Justice He speeds his soul till his body wrestles with terrible tonnage and terrible time, Out through the yards and over the trestles the flat-cars clank and the engines chime, His mills through windows seem eaten with fire, his high cranes travel, his ingots roll. And billet and wheel and whistle and wire shriek with the speeding up of his soul. Lanterns with reds and greens a-glisten wave the way and the head-light glares. The back-bent laborers glance and listen and out through the night the tail-light flares — Deep in the mills like a tipping cradle the huge converter turns on its wheel And sizzling spills in the ten-ton ladle a golden water of molten steel. Yet screwed with toil his low face searches shadow-edged fires and whited pits, Gripping his levers his body lurches, grappling his irons he prods and hits. And deaf with the roll and clangor and rattle with its sharp escaping staccato of steam, And blind with flame and worn with battle, into his ton- nage he turns his dream. The world he has builded rises aroimd us, our wonder- cities and weaving rails, Over his wires a marvel has found us, a giory rides in our wheeled mails, For the Earth grows small with strong Steel woven, and they come together who plotted apart — But he who has wrought this thing in his oven knows only toil and the tired heart. Toil JiT {From "Children of the Dead End") By Pateick MacGiIjL (See page 32) At that time there were thousands of navvies working ■^*- at Kinlochleven waterworks. We spoke of water- works, but only the contractors knew what the work was intended for. We did not know, and we did not care. We never asked questioris concerning the ultimate issue of our labors, and we were not supposed to ask questions. If a man throws red muck over a wall today and throws it back again tomorrow, what the devil is it to him if he keeps throwing that same muck over the wall for the rest of his life, knowing not why nor wherefore, provided he gets paid sixpence an hour for his labor? There were so many tons of earth to be lifted and thrown somewhere else; we lifted them and, threw them somewhere else; so many cubic yards of iron-hard rocks to be blasted and carried away; we blasted and carried them away, but never asked questions and never knew what results we were laboring to bring about. We turned the High- lands into a cinder-heap, and were as wise at the begin- ning as at the end of the task. Only when we completed the job, and retmned to the town, did we learn from the newspapers that we had been employed on the con- struction of the biggest aluminium factory in the king- dom. All that we knew was that we had gutted whole mountains and hills in the operations. . . . Above and over all, the mystery of the night and the * By permission of E. P. Button & Co. 48 The Cry for Justice desert places hovered inscrutable and implacable. All around the ancient mountains sat like brooding witches, dreaming on their own story of which they knew neither the beginning nor the end. Naked to the four winds of heaven and all the rains of the world, they had stood there for countless ages in all their sinister strength, undefied and unconquered, until man, with puny hands and little tools of labor, came to break the spirit of their ancient mightiness. And we, the men who braved this task, were outcasts of the world. A blind fate, a vast merciless mechanism, cut and shaped the fabric of our existence. We were men despised when we were most useful, rejected when we were not needed, and forgotten when our troubles weighed upon us heavily. We were the men sent out to fight the spirit of the wastes, rob it of all its primeval hor- rors, and batter down the barriers of its world-old de- fences. Where we were working a new town would spring up some day; it was already springing up, and then, if one of us walked there, "a man with no fixed address," he would be taken up and tried as a loiterer and vagrant. Even as I thought of these things a shoulder of jagged rock fell into a cutting far below. There was the sound of a scream in the distance,- and a song died away in the throat of some rude singer. Then out of the pit I saw men, red with the muck of the deep earth and redder still with the blood of a stricken mate, come forth, bearing between them a silent figure. Another of the pioneers of civilization had given up his life for the sake of society. . . . The plaintive sunset waned into a sickly haze one evening, and when the night slipped upwards to the moimtain peaks never a star came out into the vastness Toil 49 of the high heavens. Next morning we had to thaw the door of our shack out of the muck into which it was frozen during the night. Outside the snow had fallen heavily on the ground, and the virgin granaries of winter had been emptied on the face of the world. Unkempt, ragged, and dispirited, we slunk to our toil, the snow falling on our shoulders and forcing its way insistently through our worn and battered bluchers. The cuttings were full of slush to the brim, and we had to grope through them with our hands vmtil we found the jumpers and hammers at- the bottom. These we held under our coats imtil the heat of oiu- bodies warmed them, then we went on with our toil. At intervals during the day the winds of the mountain put their heads together and swept a whirlstorm of snow down upon us, wetting each man to the pelt. Our tools froze until the hands that gripped them were scarred as if by red-hot spits. We shook uncertain over our toil, our sodden clothes scalding and itching the skin with every movement of the swinging hammers. Near at hand the lean derrick jibs whirled on their pivots like spectres of some ghoulish carnival, and the muck-barrows crunched backwards and forwards, all their dirt and rust hidden in woolly mantles of snow. Hither and thither the little black figures of the workers moved across the waste of whiteness like shadows on a lime-washed wall. Their breath steamed out on the air and disappeared in space like the evanescent and fragile vapor of frying mush- rooms. . . . When night came on we crouched aroimd the hot- plate and told stories of bygone winters, when men dropped frozen stiff in the trenches where they labored. A few tried to gamble near the door, but the wind that 4 60 The Cry for Justice cut through the chinks of the walls chased them to the fire. Outside the winds of the night scampered madly, whistling through every crevice of the shack and threat- ening to smash all its timbers to pieces. We bent closer over the hot-plate, and the many who could not draw near to the heat scrambled into bed and sought warmth under the meagre blankets. Suddenly the lamp went out, and a darkness crept into the corners of the dwell- ing, causing the figures of my mates to assume fantastic shapes in the gloom. The circle around the hot-plate drew closer, and long lean arms were stretched out towards the flames and the redness. Seldom may a man have the chance to look on hands like those of my mates. Fingers were missing from many, scraggy scars seaming along the wrists or across the palms of others told of acci- dents which had taken place on many precarious shifts. The faces near me were those of ghouls worn out in some unholy midnight revel. Sunken eyes glared balefully in the dim unearthly light of the fire, and as I looked at them a moment's terror settled on my soul. For a second I lived in an early age, and my mates were the cave-dwellers of an older world than mine. In the dark- ness, near the door, a pipe glowed brightly for a moment, then the light went suddenly out and the gloom settled again. Toil 51 %^t &ons of tge ddlase ^labe iFrom "The Spell of the Yukon") By Robert W. Service (Canadian poet, born 1876. His poems of Alaska and the great Northwest have attained wide popularity) ^^ T^HEN the long, long day is over, and the Big Boss ' ' gives me my pay, I hope that it won't be hell-fire, as some of the parsons say. And I hope that it won't be heaven, with some of the parsons I've met — All I want is just quiet, just to rest and forget. Look at my face, toil-furrowed; look at my calloused hands; Master, I've done Thy bidding, wrought in Thy many lands — Wrought for the little masters, big-bellied they be, and rich ; I've done their desire for a daily hire, and I die like a dog in a ditch. . . . I, the primitive toiler, half naked and grimed to the eyes, Sweating it deep in their ditches, swining it stark in their styes; Hurhng down forests before me, spanning tumultuous streams; Down in the ditch building o'er me palaces fairer than dreams; Boring the rock to the ore-bed, driving the road through the fen. Resolute, dumb, uncomplaining, a man in a world of men. Master, I've filled my contract, wrought in Thy many lands; 52 The Cry for Justice Not by my sins wilt Thou judge me, but by the work of my hands. Master, I've done Thy bidding, and the light is low in the west, And the long, long shift is over. . . . Master, I've earned it — Rest. ^aniiattan By Charles Hanson Towne (American poet, born 1877) T TERE in the furnace City, in the humid air they faint, ■*■ ■»• God's pallid poor. His people, with scarcely space for breath; So foul their teeming houses, so full of shame and taint, They cannot crowd within them for the frightful fear of Death. Yet somewhere, Lord, Thine open seas are singing with the rain. And somewhere underneath Thy stars the cool waves crash and beat; Why is it here, and only here, are huddled Death and Pain, And here the form of Horror stalks, a menace in the street! The burning flagstones gleam like glass at morning and at noon. The giant walls shut out the breeze — if any breeze should blow; And high above the smothering town at midnight hangs the moon, A red medallion in the sky, a monster cameo. Toil 53 Yet somewhere, God, drenched roses bloom by fountains draped with mist In old, lost gardens of the earth made lyrical with rain; Why is it here a million brows by hungry Death are kissed. And here is packed, one Smnmer night, a whole world's fiery pain! a iSDtpattmtnt'feitorr CUrft {From " The House of Bondage") By Reginald Wright Kauffman (American novelist, born 1877) ■p/'ATIE FLANAGAN arrived at the Lennox depart- ■^ ^ ment store every morning at a quarter to eight o'clock. She passed through the employees' dark en- trance, a unit in a horde of other workers, and registered the instant of her arrival on a time-machine that could in no wise be suborned to perjury. She hung up her wraps in a subterranean cloak-room, and, hurrying to the counter to which she was assigned, first helped in "laying out the stock," and then stood behind her wares, exhibiting, cajoling, selling, until an hour before noon. At that time she was permitted to run away for exactly forty-five minutes for the glass of milk and two pieces of bread and jam that composed her luncheon. This repast disposed of, she returned to the coimter and remained behind it, standing like a war-worn watcher on the ramparts of a beleaguered city, till the store closed at six, when there remained to her at least fifteen min- utes more of work before her sales-book was balanced and the wares covered up for the night. There were 54 The Cry jor Justice times, indeed, when she did not leave the store until seven o'clock, but those times were caused rather by customers than by the management of the store, which could pre- vent new shoppers from entering the doors after six, but could hardly turn out those akeady inside. . The automatic time-machine and a score of more annoying, and equally automatic, human beings kept watch upon all that she did. The former, in addition to the floor-walker in her section of the store, recorded her every going and coming, the latter reported every movement not prescribed by the regulations of the estab- lishment; and the result upon Katie and her fellow- workers was much the result observable upon condemned assassins under the unwinking surveillance of the Death Watch. If Katie was late, she was fined ten cents for each offense. She was reprimanded if her portion of the counter was disordered after a mauling by careless cus- tomers. She was fined for all mistakes she made in the matter of prices and the additions on her salesbook; and she was fined if, having asked the floor-walker for three or five minutes to leave the floor in order to tidy her hair and hands, in constant need of attention through the rapidity of her work and the handling of her dyed wares, she exceeded her time limit by so much as a few seconds. There were no seats behind the counters, and Katie, whatever her physical condition, remained on her feet all day long, unless she could arrange for relief by a fellow- worker 'during that worker's luncheon time. There was no place for rest save a damp, ill-lighted "Recreation Room" in the basement, furnished with a piano that nobody had time to play, magazines that nobody had Toil 56 time to read, and wicker chairs in which nobody had time to sit. All that one might do was to serve the whims and accept the scoldings of women customers who knew too ill, or too well, what they wanted to buy; keep a tight rein upon one's indignation at strolling men who did not intend to buy anything that the shop advertised; be servilely smiling under the innuendoes of the high- collared floor-walkers, in order to escape their wrath; maintain a sharp outlook for the "spotters," or paid spies of the establishment; thwart, if possible, those pre- tending customers who were scouts sent from other stores, and watch for shop-lifters on the one hand and the firm's detectives on the other. "It ain't a cinch, by no means" — thus ran the depart- ing Cora' Costigan's advice to her successor — "but it ain't nothin' now to what it will be in the holidays. I'd rather be dead than work in the toy-department in December — I wonder if the kids guess how we that sells 'em hates the sight of their playthings? — and I'd rather be dead an' damned than work in the accounting depart- ment. A girl friend of mine worked there last year, — only it was over to Malcare's store — an' didn't get through her Christmas Eve work till two on Christmas morning, an' she lived over on Staten Island. She overslept on the twenty-sixth, an' they docked her a half-week's pay. "An' don't never," concluded Cora, "don't never let 'em transfer you to the exchange department. The people that exchange things all belong in the psycho- pathic ward at Bellevue— them that don't belong in Sing Sing. Half the goods they bring back have been used for days, an' when the store ties a tag on a sent-on-approval opera cloak, the women wriggle the tag inside, an' wear it to the theatre with a scarf draped over the string. Thank God, I'm goin' to be married!" 56 The Cry for Justice Si Ctp ftom tfie (Klictto {From the Yiddish of Morris Rosenfeld) (The poet of the East Side Jews of New York City, born 1861. His poems appeared in Yiddish newspapers and leaflets, and are the genuine voice of the sweat-shop workers. The following translation is by Charles Weber Linn) THE roaring of the wheels has filled my ears, The clashing and the clamor shut me in; Myself, my soul, in chaos disappears, I cannot think or feel amid the din. Toiling and toiling and toiling — endless toil. For whom? For what? Why should the work be done? I do not ask, or know. I only toil. I work until the day and night are one. The clock above me ticks away the day. Its hands are spinning, spinning, like the wheels. It cannot sleep or for a moment stay. It is a thing like me, and does not feel. It throbs as tho' my heart were beating there — A heart? My heart? I know not what it means. The clock ticks, and below I strive and stare. And so we lose the hour. We are machines. Noon calls a truce, an ending to the sound, As if a battle had one moment stayed — A bloody field! The dead lie all around; Their wounds cry out until I grow afraid. It comes — the signal! See, the dead men rise, They fight again, amid the roar they fight. Blindly, and knowing not for whom, or why. They fight, they fall, they sink into the night. Toil 67 {From "A Motley") By John Galsworthy (English novelist and dramatist, born 1867) Che held in one hand a threaded needle, in the other ^^ a pair of trousers, to which she had been adding the accessories demanded by our civilization. One had never seen her without a pair of trousers in her hand, because she could only manage to supply them with decency at the rate of seven or eight pairs a day, working twelve hours. For each pair she received seven farthings, and used nearly one farthing's worth of cotton; and this gave her an income, in good times, of six to seven shillings a week. But some weeks there were no trousers to be had and then it was necessary to live on the memory of those which had been, together with a little smn put by from weeks when trousers were more plentiful. Deducting two shillings and threepence for rent of the little back room, there was therefore, on an average, about two shillings and ninepence left for the sustenance of herself and husband, who was fortunately a cripple, and somewhat indifferent whether he ate or not. And looking at her face, so fur- rowed, and at her figure, of which there was not much, one could well understand that she, too, had long established within her such internal economy as was suitable to one who had been "in trousers" twenty-seven years, and, since her husband's accident fifteen years before, in trousers only, finding her own cotton. ... He was a man with a roimd, white face, a little grey mustache curving * By permission of Charles Scribner's Sons. 68 The Cry for Justice down like a parrot's beak, and round whitish eyes. In his aged and unbuttoned suit of grey, with his head held rather to one side, he looked like a parrot — a bird clinging to its perch, with one grey leg shortened and crumpled against the other. He talked, too, in a toneless, equable voice, looking sideways at the fire, above the rims of dim spectacles, and now and then smiling with a peculiar disenchanted patience. No — he said — it was no use to complain; did no good! Things had been like this for years, and so, he had no doubt, they always would be. There had never been much in trousers; not this common sort that anybody'd wear, as you might say. Though he'd never seen any- body wearing such things; and where they went to he didn't know — out of England, he should think. Yes, he had been a carman; ran over by a dray. Oh! yes, they had given him something — four bob a week; but the old man had died and the four bob had died too. Still, there he was, sixty years old — not so very bad for his age. . . . They were talking, he had heard said, about doing something for trousers. But what could you do for things like these, at half a crown a pair? People must have 'em, so you'd got to make 'em. There you were, and there you would be! She went and heard them talk. They talked very well, she said. It was intellectual for her to go. He couldn't go himself owing to his leg. He'd hke to hear them talk. Oh, yes! and he was silent, staring sideways at the fire as though in the thin crackle of the flames attacking the fresh piece of wood, he were hearing the echo of that talk from which he was cut off. "Lor' bless you!" he said suddenly. "They'll do nothing! Can't!" And, stretching out his dirty hand he took from Toil 59 his wife's lap a pair of trousers, and held it up. "Look at 'em! Why you can see right throu' 'em, hnings and all. Who's goin' to pay more than 'alf a crown for that? Where they go to I can't think. Who wears 'em? Some institu- tion I should say. They talk, but dear me, they'll never do anything so long as there's thousands like us, glad to work for what we can get. Best not to think about it, I says." And laying the trousers back on his wife's lap he resumed his sidelong stare into the fire. %^t &ona: of i^t &|iict By Thomas Hood (Popular English poet and humorist; 1799-1845) WITH fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread, — Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt; And still with a voice of dolorous pitch She sang the "Song of the Shirt!" "Work! work! work! While the cock is crowing aloof! And work — work — ^work Till the stars shine through the roof! It's ! to be a slave Along with the barbarous Turk, Where woman has never a soul to save. If this is Christian work! 60 The Cry for Justice " Work — work — work Till the brain begins to swim! Work — work — ^work Till the eyes are heavy and dim! Seam, and gusset, and band. Band, and gusset, and seam, — Till over the buttons I fall asleep. And sew them on in a dream! "O Men, with sisters dear! Men, with mothers and wives! It is not linen you're wearing out, But hiunan creatures' lives! Stitch — stitch — stitch .In poverty, hunger, and dirt, — Sewing at once, with a double thread, A shroud as well as a Shirt! "But why do I talk of Death— That phantom of grisly bone? I hardly fear his terrible shape, It seems so like my own — It seems so like my own Because of the fasts I keep; O God! that bread should be so dear, And flesh and blood so cheap ! ' ' Work — work — ^work ! My labor never flags; And what are its wages? A bed of straw, A crust of bread — and rags. That shattered roof — and this naked floor — A table— a broken chair — And a wall so blank my shadow I thank For something falling there ! Toil 61 ' ' Work — ^work — ^work ! From weary chime to chime! Work — ^work — ^work As prisoners work for crime! Band, and gusset, and seam. Seam, and gusset, and band. Till the heart is sick and the brain benumbed, As well as the weary hand. " Work — work — work In the dull December light! And work — ^work — work When the weather is warm and bright! While underneath the eaves The brooding swallows cling, As if to show me their sunny backs And twit me with the Spring. "0! but to breathe the breath Of the cowslip and primrose sweet — With the sky above my head, And the grass beneath my feet! For only one short hour To feel as I used to feel. Before I knew the woes of want, And the walk that costs a meal! " ! but for one short hour — A respite however brief! No blessed leisure for Love or Hope, But only time for Grief! A httle weeping would ease my heart; But in their briny bed My tears must stop, for every drop Hinders needle and thread!" 62 The Cry for Justice With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread — Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt; And still, with a voice of dolorous pitch, Would that its tone could reach the rich! — She sang this "Song of the Shirt!" •a %on'Oon feitoeatinff 2Dm* {From "The People of the Abyss") By Jack London (California novelist and Socialist; born 1876. The story of his life will be found on p. 732. For the work here quoted London Uved among the people whose misery be describes) A SPAWN of children cluttered the slimy pavement, for all the world like tadpoles just turned frogs on the bottom of a dry pond. In a narrow doorway, so narrow that pprforce we stepped over her, sat a woman with a yoimg babe, nursing at breasts grossly naked and hbelling all the sacredness of motherhood. In the black and narrow hall behind her we waded through a mess of yoimg life, and essayed an even narrower and fouler stairway. Up we went, three flights, each landing two feet by three in area, and heaped with filth and refuse. There were seven rooms in this abomination called a house. In six of the rooms, twenty-odd people, of both sexes and all ages, cooked, ate, slept, and worked. In * By permiasion of the Macmillan Co. THE ^^\MPIRE E. M. LILIEN [Contem-porary German illustrator) Toil 63 size the rooms averaged eight feet by eight, or possibly nine. The seventh room we entered. It was the den in which five men sweated. It was seven feet wide by eight long, and the table at which the work was performed took up the major portion of the space. On this table were five lasts, and there was barely room for the men to stand to their work, for the rest of the space was heaped with cardboard, leather, bimdles of shoe uppers, and a miscellaneous assortment of materials used in attaching the uppers of shoes to their soles. In the adjoining room lived a woman and six children. In another vile hole lived a widow, with an only son of sixteen who was dying of consumption. The woman hawked sweetmeats on the street, I was told, and more often failed than not to supply her son with the three quarts of milk he daily required. Further, this son, weak and dying, did not taste meat oftener than once a week; and the kind and quality of this meat cannot possibly be imagined by people who have never watched human swine eat. "The w'y 'e coughs is somethia' terrible," volunteered my sweated friend, referring to the dying boy. "We 'ear 'im 'ere, w'ile we're workin', an' it's terrible, I say, terrible!" And, what of the coughing and the sweetmeats, I foimd another menace added to the hostile environment of the children of the slums. My sweated friend, when work was to be had, toiled with four other men in his eight-by-seven room. In the winter a lamp burned nearly all the day and added its fumes to the over-loaded air, which was breathed, and breathed, and breathed again. In good times, when there was a rush of work, this 64 The Cry for Justice man told me that he could earn as high as "thirty bob a week." — Thirty shillings! Seven dollars and a half! "But it's only the best of us can do it," he qualified. "An' then we work twelve, thirteen, and fourteen hours a day, just as fast as we can. An' you should see us sweat! Just runnin' from us! If you could see us, it'd dazzle your eyes — tacks flyin' out of mouth like from a machine. Look at my mouth." I looked. The teeth were worn down by the constant friction of the metallic brads, while they were coal-black and rotten. "I clean my teeth," he added, "else they'd be worse." After he had told me that the workers had to furnish their own tools, brads, "grindery," cardboard, rent, light, and what not, it was plain that his thirty bob was a diminishing quantity. "But how long does the rush season last, in which you receive this high wage of thirty bob?" I asked. "Four months," was the answer; and for the rest of the year, he informed me, they average from "half a quid" to a "quid," a week, which is equivalent to from two dollars and a half to five dollars. The present week was half gone, and he had earned fovir bob, or one dollar. And yet I was given to understand that this was one of the better grades of sweating. The Hop-pickers So far has the divorcement of the worker from the soil proceeded, that the farming districts, the civiUzed world over, are dependent upon the cities for the gather- ing of the harvests. Then it is, when the land is spill- ing its ripe wealth to waste, that the street folk, who have been driven away from the soil, are called back to it Toil 65 again. But in England they return, not as prodigals, but as outcasts still, as vagrants and pariahs, to be doubted and flouted by their country brethren, to sleep in jails or casual wards, or under the hedges, and to live the Lord knows how. It is estimated that Kent alone requires eighty thousand of the street people to pick her hops. And out they come, obedient to the call, which is the call of their bellies and of the lingering dregs of adventure-lust still in them. Sliuns, stews, and ghetto pour them forth, and the fes- tering contents of slums, stews, and ghetto are undimin- ished. Yet they overrun the country like an army of ghouls, and the country does not want them. They are out of place. As they drag their squat, misshapen bodies along the highways and byways, they resemble some vile spawn from underground. Their very presence, the fact of their existence, is an outrage to the fresh, bright sun and the green and growing things. The clean, upstanding trees cry shame upon them and their withered crookedness, and their rottenness is a slimy desecration of the sweetness and purity of nature. Is the picture overdrawn? It all depends. For one who sees and thinks life in terms of shares and coupons, it is certainly overdrawn. But for one who sees and thinks life in terms of manhood and womanhood, it can- not be overdrawn. Such hordes of beastly wretchedness and inarticulate misery 'are no compensation for a mil- lionaire brewer who hves in a West End palace, sates himself with the sensuous delights of London's golden theatres, hobnobs with lordlings and princelings, and is knighted by the king. Wins his spurs — God forbid! In old time the great blonde beasts rode in the battle's van and won their spurs by cleaving men from pate to 8 66 The Cry for Justice chin. And, after all, it is finer to kill a strong man with a clean-slicing blow of singing steel than to make a beast of him, and of his seed through the generations, by the artful and spidery manipulation of industry and politics. (Kntiironmfnt {From "Merrie England") By Robert Blatchford \ (This book is probably tlie most widely-circulated of Socialist books in English. Over two miUion copies have been sold in Great Britain, and probably a miUion in America. The author is the editor of the London Clarion; born 1851) SOME years ago a certain writer, much esteemed for his graceful style of saying silly things, informed us that the poor remain poor because they show no efficient desire to be anything else. Is that true? Are only the idle poor? Corne with me and I will show you where men and women work from morning till night, from week to week, from year to year, at the full stretch of their powers, in dim and fetid dens, and yet are poor — aye, destitute — have for their wages a crust of bread and rags. I will show you where men work in dirt and heat, using the strength of brutes, for a dozen hours a day,' and sleep at night in styes, until brain and muscle are exhausted, and fresh slaves are yoked to the golden car of commerce, and the broken drudges filter through the poor-house or the prison to a felon's or a pauper's grave! I will show you how men and women thus work and suffer and faint and die, generation after generation; and I will show you how the longer and the harder these wretches toil Toil 67 the worse their lot becomes; and I will show you the graves, and find witnesses to the histories of brave and noble and industrious poor men whose lives were fives of toil, and poverty, and whose deaths were tragedies. And all these things are due to sin — ^but it is to the sin of the smug hypocrites who grow rich upon the rob- bery and the ruin of their fellow-creatures. By Georg Herwegh (German poet, 1817-1875; took part in the attempt at revolution in Baden in 1848) PRAY and work! proclaims the world; Briefly pray, for Time is gold. On the door there knocketh dread — Briefly pray, for Time is bread. And ye plow and plant to grow. And ye rivet and ye sow. And ye hammer and ye spin — Say, my people, what ye win. Weave at loom both day and night, Mine the coal to mountain height; Fill right full the harvest horn — Full to brim with wine and com. Yet where is thy meal prepared? Yet where is thy rest-hour shared? Yet where is thy warm hearth-flre? Where is thy sharp sword of ire? 68 The Cry jor Justice ContJtntional %it^ ot jflDur CifaiUjation By Max Nordau (A Hungarian Jewish physician, born 1849, whose work, "Degeneration,'' won an international audience) THE modern day laborer is more wretched than the slave of former times, for he is fed by no master nor any one else, and if his position is one of more liberty than the slave, it is principally the liberty of dying of hunger. He is by no means so well off as the outlaw of the Middle Ages, for he has none of the gay independence of the free-lance. He seldom rebels against society, and has neither means nor opportunity to take by violence or treachery what is denied him by the existing condi- tions of hfe. The rich is thus richer, the poor poorer than ever before since the beginnings of history. '^ITfie JFaHure o£ CibiH?atfon By Frederic Harrison (Enghsh essayist and philosopher, born 1831; President of the Positivist Society) I CANNOT myself understand how any one who knows what the present manner is can think that it is satisfactory. To me, at least, it would be enough to condemn modern society as hardly an advance on slav- ery or serfdom, if the permanent condition of industry were to be that which we behold; that ninety per cent of the actual producers of wealth have no home that they can call their own beyond the end of the week; Toil _ 69 have no bit of soil, or so much as a room that belongs to them; have nothing of value of any kind, except as much old furniture as will go in a cart; have the pre- carious chance of weekly wages, which barely suffice to keep them in health; are housed for the most part in places that no man thinks fit for his horse; are separated by so narrow a margin from destitution that a month of bad trade, sickness or unexpected loss brings them face to face with hunger and pauperism. In cities, the increasing organization of factory work makes life more and more crowded, and work more and more a monot- onous routine; in the country, the increasing pressure makes rural life continually less free, healthful and cheer- ful; whilst the prizes and hopes of betterment are now reduced to a minimiun. This is the normal state of the average workman in town or country, to which we must add the record of preventable disease, accident, suffering and social oppression with its immense yearly roll of death and misery. But below this normal state of the average workman there is found the great band of the destitute outcasts — the camp-followers of the army of industry, at least one-tenth of the whole proletarian population, whose normal condition is one of sickening wretchedness. If this is to be the permanent arrange- ment of modern society, civilization must be held to bring a curse on the great majority of mankind. BOOK II The Chasm The contrast between riches and poverty ; the protest of common sense against a condition of society where one-tenth of the people own nine-tenths of the wealth. tfllat ICpIec By Robebt Southey (One of the so-called "Lake School" of English poets, which included Wordsworth and Coleridge; 1774-1843. Poet-Laureate for thirty years. The refrain of this song was the motto of Wat Tyler's rebels, who marched upon London in 1381) "W HEN Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?" Wretched is the infant's lot, Born within the straw-roof 'd cot; Be he generous, wise, or brave. He must only be a slave. Long, long labor, little rest, Still to toil, to be oppress'd; Drain'd by taxes of his store, Punish'd next for being poor: This is the poor wretch's lot. Born within the straw-roof'd cot. While the peasant works, — to sleep. What the peasant sows, — ^to reap, / On the couch of ease to he. Rioting in revelry; Be he villain, be he fool, Still to hold despotic rule. Trampling on his slaves with scorn! This is to be nobly born. " When Adam delved and Eve span. Who was then the gentleman?" (73) 74 The Cry for Justice {From "Sartor Resartus") By Thomas Carlyle (See page 31) * ' ^ I "HE furniture of this Caravanserai consisted of a ■*■ large iron Pot, two oaken Tables, two Benches, two Chairs, and a Potheen Noggin. There was a Loft above (attainable by a ladder), upon which the inmates slept; and the space below was divided by a hurdle into two apartments; the one for their cow and pig, the other for themselves and guests. On entering the house we discovered the family, eleven in number, at dinner; the father sitting at the top, the mother at the bottom, the children on each side, of a large oaken Board, which was scooped out in the middle, like a trough, to receive the contents of their Pot of Potatoes. Little holes were cut at equal distances to contain Salt; and a bowl of Milk stood on the table; all the luxuries of meat and beer, bread, knives and dishes, were dispensed with." The Poor-Slave himself our Traveller found, as he says, broad-backed, black-browed, of great personal strength, and mouth from ear to ear. His Wife was a sun-browned but well-featured woman; and his young ones, bare and chubby, had the appetite of ravens. Of their Philosoph- ical or Religious tenets or observances, no notice or hint. But now, secondly, of the Dandiacal Household: "A Dressing-room splendidly furnished; violet-colored curtains, chairs and ottomans of the same hue. Two full-length Mirrors are placed, one on each side of a table, which supports the luxuries of the Toilet. Several Bot- tles of Perfume, arranged in a pecidiar fashion, stand The Chasm 75 upon a smaller table of mother-of-pearl; opposite to these are placed the appurtenances of Lavation richly wrought in frosted silver. A Wardrobe of Buhl is on the left; the doors of which, being partly open, discover a profusion of Clothes; Shoes of a singularly small size monopolize the lower shelves. Fronting the wardrobe a door ajar gives some slight glimpse of the Bathroom. Folding-doors in the background. — "Enter the Author," our Theogonist in person, "obsequiously preceded by a French Valet, in white silk Jacket and cambric Apron." Such are the two sects which, at this moment, divide the more unsettled portion of the British People; and agitate that ever-vexed country. To the eye of the political Seer, their mutual relation, pregnant with the elements of discord and hostility, is far from consoling. These two principles of Dandiacal Self-worship or Demon- worship, and Poor-Slavish or Drudgical Earth-worship, or whatever that same Drudgism may be, do as yet indeed manifest themselves under distant and nowise considerable shapes: nevertheless, in their roots and subterranean ramifications, they extend through the entire structure of Society, and work unweariedly in the secret depths of English national Existence; striving to separate and isolate it into two contradictory, uncom- municating masses. In numbers, and even individual strength, the Poor- Slaves or Drudges, it would seem, are hourly increasing. The Dandiacal, again, is by nature no proselytizing Sect; but it boasts of great hereditary resources, and is strong by union; whereas the Drudges, split into parties, have as yet no rallying-point ; or at best only co-operate by means of partial secret aMiations. If, indeed, there The Cry for Justice were to arise a Communion of Drudges, as there is already a Communion of Saints, what strangest effects would follow therefrom! Dandyism as yet affects to look down on Drudgism; but perhaps the hour of trial, when it will be practically seen which ought to look down, and which up, is not so distant. To me it seems probable that the two Sects will one day part England between them; each recruiting itself, from the intermediate ranks, till there be none left to enUst on either side. These Dandiacal Manicheans, with the host of Dandyizing Christians, will form one body; the Drudges, gathering round them whosoever is Drudg- ical, be he Christian or Infidel Pagan; sweeping-up like- wise all manner of Utilitarians, Radicals, refractory Potwallopers, and so forth, into their general mass, will form another. I could liken Dandyism and Drudgism to two bottomless boiling Whirlpools that had broken- out on opposite quarters of the firm land; as yet they appear only disquieted, foolishly bubbling wells, which man's art might cover-in; yet mark them, their diameter is daily widening; they are hollow Cones that boil-up from the infinite Deep, over which your firm land is but a thin crust or rind! Thus daily is the intermediate land crumbling-in, daily the empire of the two Buchan- Bullers extending; till now there is but a foot-plank, a mere film of Land between them; this too is washed away; and then — we have the true Hell of Waters, and Noah's Deluge is outdeluged! Or better, I might call them two boundless, and indeed unexampled Electric Machines (turned by the "Machin- ery of Society"), with batteries of opposite quality; Drudgism the Negative, Dandyism the Positive; one attracts hourly towards it and appropriates all the Posi- The Chasm 77 tive Electricity of the nation (namely, the Money thereof) ; the other is equally busy with the Negative (that is to say the Hunger) which is equally potent. Hitherto you see only partial transient sparkles and sputters; but wait a little, till the entire nation is in an electric state; till your whole vital Electricity, no longer healthfully Neu- tral, is cut into two isolated portions of Positive and Negative (of Money and of Hunger); and stands there bottled-up in two World-Batteries! The stirring of a child's finger brings the two together; and then — ^What then? The Earth is but shivered into impalpable smoke by that Doom's-thunderpeal; the Sun misses one of his Planets in Space, and thenceforth there are no eclipses of the Moon. By Charles Matjeice de Talleyrand (French bishop and statesman, 1764-1838) SOCIETY is divided into two classes; the shearers and the shorn. We should always be with the former against the latter. By Alfred Tennyson (Probably the most popular of English lyrical poets; 180&-1892. Made Poet-laureate in 1850, and a baron in 1884) LET US swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind. In the hollow Lotos-land to live and he reclined On the hills hke Gods together, careless of mankind. For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd 78 The Cry for Justice Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd Roimd their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world: Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, Clanging fights and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands. But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong. Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong; Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil. Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil; Till they perish and they suffer— some, 'tis whisper'd — down in hell. By Charles Kingsley (English clergyman and novelist, 1819-1875; founder of the Christian Socialist movement. In the scene here quoted, a young University man is taken by a game-keeper to see the degradation of Enghsh village Ufe) * ' /^^AN'T they read? Can't they practice fight and ^-^ interesting handicrafts at home, as the German peasantry do?" "Who'll teach 'em, sir? From the plough-tail to the reaping-hook, and back again, is all they know. Besides, The Chasm 79 sir, they are not like us Cornish; they are a stupid pig- headed generation at the best, these south countrymen. They're grown-up babies who want the parson and the squire to be leading them, and preaching to them, and spurring them on, and coaxing them up, every moment. And as for scholarship, sir, a boy leaves school at nine or ten to follow the horses; and between that time and his wedding-day he forgets every word he ever learnt, and becomes, for the most part, as thorough a heathen savage at heart as those wild Indians in the Brazils used to be." "And then we call them civilized Englishmen!" said Lancelot. "We can see that your Indian is a savage, because he wears skins and feathers; but your Irish cotter or your English laborer, because he happens to wear a coat and trousers, is to be considered a civilized man." "It's the way of the world, sir," said Tregarva, "judg- ing carnal judgment, according to the sight of its own eyes; always looking at the outsides of things and men, sir, and never much deeper. But as for reading, sir, it's all very well for me, who have been a keeper and dawdled about like a gentleman with a gun over my arm; but did you ever do a good day's farm-work in your life? If you had, man or boy, you wouldn't have been game for much reading when you got home; you'd do just what these poor fellows do — ^tumble into bed at eight o'clock, hardly waiting to take your clothes off, knowing that you must turn up again at five o'clock the next morning to get a breakfast of bread, and, perhaps, a dab of the squire's dripping, and then back to work again; and so on, day after day, sir, week after week, year after year, without a hope or chance of being anything but 80 The Cry for Justice what you are, and only too thankful if you can get work to break your back, and catch the rheumatism over." "But do you mean to say that their labor is so severe and incessant?" "It's only God's blessing if it is incessant, sir, for if it stops, they starve, or go to the house to be worse fed than the thieves in gaol. And as for its being severe, there's many a boy, as their mothers will tell you, comes home night after night, too tired to eat their suppers, and tumble, fasting, to bed in the same foul shirt which they've been working in all the day, never changing their rag of calico from week's end to week's end, or washing the skin that's under it once in seven years." "No wonder," said Lancelot, "that such a Hfe of drudgery makes them brutal and reckless." "No wonder, indeed, sir: they've no time to think; they're born to be machines, and machines they must be; and I think, sir," he added bitterly, "it's God's mercy that they daren't think. It's God's mercy that they don't feel. Men that write books and talk at elec- tions call this a free country, and say that the poorest and meanest has a free opening to rise and become prime minister, if he can. But you see, sir, the misfortune is, that in practice he can't; for one who gets into a gentle- man's family, or into a little shop, and so saves a few pounds, fifty know that they've no chance before them, but day-laborer born, day-laborer live, from hand to mouth, scraping and pinching to get not meat and beer even, but bread and potatoes; and then, at the end of it all, for a worthy reward, half-a-erown a-week of parish pay — or the work-house. That's a lively hopeful prospect for a Christian man!" . . . Into the booth they turned; and as soon as Lancelot's The Chasm 81 eyes were accustomed to the reeking atmosphere, he saw seated at two long temporary tables of board, fifty or sixty of "My brethren," as clergymen call them in their sermons, wrangling, stupid, beery, with sodden eyes and drooping lips — interspersed with more girls and brazen- faced women, with dirty flowers in their caps, whose sole business seemed to be to cast jealous looks at each other, and defend themselves from the coarse overtures of their swains. Lancelot had been already perfectly astonished at the foulness of language which prevailed; and the utter absence of anything like chivalrous respect, almost of common decency, towards women. But lo! the language of the elder women was quite as disgusting as that of the men, if not worse. He whispered a remark on the point to Tregarva, who shook his head. "It's the field-work, sir — the field-work, that does it all. They get accustomed there from their childhood to hear words whose very meanings they shouldn't know; and the elder teach the yoxmger ones, and the married ones are worst of all. It wears them out in body, sir, that field-work, and makes them brutes in soul and in manners. . . ." Sadder and sadder, Lancelot tried to hsten to the conversation of the men roimd him. To his astonish- ment he hardly imderstood a word of it. It was half articulate, nasal, guttural, made up almost entirely of vowels, like the speech of savages. He had never before been struck with the significant contrast between the sharp, clearly defined articulation, the vivid and varied tones of the gentleman, or even of the London street-boy, when compared with the coarse, half-formed growls, as of a company of seals, which he heard round him. That 6 82 The Cry for Justice single fact struck him, perhaps, more deeply than any; it connected itself with many of his physiological fancies; it was the parent of many thoughts and plans of his after- life. Here and there he could distinguish a half sentence. An old shrunken man opposite him was drawing figures in the spilt beer with his pipe-stem, and discoursing of the glorious times before the great war, "when there was more food than there were mouths, and more work than there were hands." "Poor hmnan nature!" thought Lancelot, as he tried to follow one of those unintelligible discussions about the relative prices of the loaf and the bushel of flour, which ended, as usual, in more swearing, and more quarrelling, and more beer to make it up^ — "Poor human nature! always looking back, as the Ger- man sage says, to some fancied golden age, never looking forward to the real one which is coming!" "But I say, vather," drawled out some one, "they say there's a sight more money in England now, than there was afore the war-time." "Eees, booy," said the old man; "but it's got into too few hands." "Well," thought Lancelot, "there's a glimpse of prac- tical sense, at least." And a pedler who sat next him, a bold, black-whiskered bully from the Potteries, hazarded a joke — "It's all along of this new sky-and-tough-it farming. They used to spread the money broad cast, but now they drills it all in one place, like bone-dust under their fancy plants, and we poor self-sown chaps gets none." This garland of fancies was received with great applause; whereat the pedler, emboldened, proceeded to observe, mysteriously, that "donkeys took a beating, but horses kicked at it; and that they'd found out that in Stafford- The Chasm 83 shire long ago. You want a good Chartist lecturer down here, my covies, to show you donkeys of laboring men that you have got iron on your heels, if you only knowed how to use it. ..." Blackbird was by this time prevailed on to sing, and burst out as melodious as ever, while all heads were cocked on one side in delighted attention. "I zeed a vire o' Monday night, A Adre both great and high; But I wool not tell you where, my boys, Nor wool not tell you why. The varmer he comes screeching out. To zave 'uns new brood mare ; Zays I, 'You and your stock may roast, Vor aught us poor chaps care.' "Coorus, boys, coorus!" And the chorus burst out — "Then here's a curse on varmers all As rob and grind the poor; To re'p the fruit of all their works In ■ for evermoor-r-r-r. "A blind owld dame come to the vire, Zo near as she could get; Zays, ' Here's a luck I warn't asleep. To lose this blessed hett. They robs us of our turfing rights Our bits of chips and sticks. Till poor folks now can't warm their hands, Except by varmers' ricks.' "Then, etc." 84 The Cry for Justice And again the boy's delicate voice rang out the ferocious chorus, with something, Lancelot fancied, of 'fiendish exultation, and every worn face lighted up with a coarse laugh, that indicated no mahce — but also no mercy. . . . Lancelot almost ran out into the night — into a triad ' of fights, two drunken men, two jealous wives, and a brute who struck a poor, thin, worn-out woman, for trying to coax him home. Lancelot rushed up to inter- fere, but a man seized his uplifted arm. "He'll only beat her all the more when he getteth home." "She has stood that every Saturday night for the last seven years, to my knowledge," said Tregarva; "and worse, too, at times." "Good God! is there no escape for her from her tyrant?" "No, sir. It's only you gentlefolks who can afford such luxuries; your poor man may be tied to a harlot, or your poor woman to a ruffian, but once done, done for ever." "Well," thought Lancelot, "we English have a char- acteristic way of proving the holiness of the marriage tie. The angel of Justice and Pity cannot sever it, only the stronger demon of Money." SLlton Eocfef By Charles Kingsley (See page 78) * *"\T /"HAT!" shriek the insulted respectabilities, "have * ' we not paid him his wages weekly, and has he not lived upon them?" Yes; and have you not given your sheep and horses their dai y wages, and have they The Chasm 86 not lived on them? You wanted to work them; and they could not work, you knew, imless they were alive. But here hes your iniquity; you have given the laborer nothing but his daily food — ^not even his lodgings; 'the pigs were not stinted of their wash to pay for their sty- room, the man was; and his wages, thanks to your com- petitive system, were beaten down deliberately and con- scientiously (for was it not according to political econ- omy, and the laws thereof?) to the minimmn on which he could or would work, without the hope or the possibility of saving a farthing. You know how to invest your capital profitably, dear Society, and to save money over and above your income of daily comforts; but what has he saved? — ^what is he profited by all those years of labor? He has kept body and soul together — perhaps he could have done that without you or your help. But his wages are used up every Saturday night. When he stops work- ing, you have in your pocket the whole profits of his nearly fifty years' labor, and he has nothing. And then you say that you have not eaten him! By Edward Bellamy (One of the classics of the Socialist movement, this book sold over four hundred thousand copies in the &st years of its publication. Its author was an American school-teacher, 1850-1898) BY way of attempting to give the reader some general impression of the way people lived together in those days, and especially of the relations of the rich and poor to one another, perhaps I cannot do better than compare 86 The Cry for Justice society as it then was to a prodigious coach which the masses of humanity were harnessed to and dragged toil- somely along a very hilly and sandy road. The driver was hunger, and permitted no lagging, though the pace was necessarily very slow. Despite the difficulty of draw- ing the coach at all along so hard a road, the top was covered with passengers who never got down, even at the steepest ascents. The seats on top were very breezy and comfortable. Well up out of the dust their occupants could enjoy the scenery at their leism-e, or critically dis- cuss the merits of the straining team. Naturally such places were in great demand and the competition for them was keen, every one seeking as the first end in life to secure a seat on the coach for himself and to leave it to his child after him. By the rule of the coach a man could leave his seat to whom he Avished, but on the other hand there were many accidents by which it might at any time be wholly lost. For all that they were so easy, the seats were very Lasecure, and at every sudden. jolt of the coach persons were slipping out of them and fall- ing to the ground, where they were instantly compelled to take hold of the rope and help to drag the coach on which they had before ridden so pleasantly. It was naturally regarded as a terrible misfortune to lose one's seat, and the apprehension that this might happen to them or their friends was a constant cloud upon the happiness of those who rode. But did they think only of themselves? you ask. Was not their very luxm-y rendered intolerable to them by comparison with the lot of their brothers and sifters in the harness, and the knowledge that their own weight added to their toil! Had they no compassion for fellow beings from whom fortune only distinguished them? Oh, The Chasm 87 yes; commiseration was frequently expressed by those who rode for those who had to pull the coach, especially when the vehicle came to a bad place in the road, as it was constantly doing, or to a particularly steep hill. At such times, the desperate straining of the team, their agonized leaping and plunging under the pitiless lashing of hunger, the many who fainted at the rope and were trampled in the mire, made a very distressing spectacle, which often called forth highly creditable displays of feeling on the top of the coach. At such times the pas- sengers would call down encouragingly to the toilers of the rope, exhorting them to patience, and holding out hopes of possible compensation in another world for the hardness of their lot, while others contributed to buy salves and liniments for the crippled and injured. It was agreed that it was a great pity that the coach should be so hard to pull, and there was a sense of general relief when the specially bad piece of road was gotten over. This relief was not, indeed, wholly on account of the team, for there was always some danger at these bad places of a general overturn in which all would lose their seats. It must in truth be admitted that the main effect of the spectacle of the misery of the toilers at the rope was to enhance the passengers' sense of the value of their seats upon the coach, and to cause them to hold on to them more desperately than before. If the passengers could only have felt assured that neither they nor their friends would ever fall from the top, it is probable that, beyond contributing to the funds for liniments and bandages, they would have troubled themselves extremely little about those who dragged the coach. 88 The Cry for Justice Hicfi and ^9oor By Leo Tolstoy (Russian novelist and reformer, 1828-1910) THE present position which we, the educated and well- to-do classes, occupy, is that of the Old Man of the Sea, riding on the poor man's back; only, unlike the Old Man of the Sea, we are very sorry for the poor man, very sorry; and we will do almost anything for the poor man's relief. We will not only supply him with food sufficient to keep him on his legs, but we will teach and instruct him and point out to him the beauties of the landscape; we will discourse sweet music to him and give him abundance of good advice. Yes, we will do almost anything for the poor man, anything but get off his back. By Charles Dickens (Celebrated English novelist, 1812-1870. The novel here quoted deals with the French Revolution, and the scene narrates how one of Monseigneur's guests drives away from the palace) NOT many people had talked with him at the recep- tion; he had stood in a little space apart, and Monseigneur might have been warmer in his manner. It appeared under the circumstances, rather agreeable to him to see the common people dispersed before hit; horses, and often barely escaping from being run down. His man drove as if he were charging an enemy, and the The Chasm 89 furious recklessness of the man brought no check into the face, or to the lips, of the master. The complaint had sometimes made itself audible, even in that deaf city and dumb age, that, in the narrow streets without foot- ways, the fierce patrician custom of hard driving endan- gered and maimed the mere vulgar in a barbarous manner. But few cared enough for that to think of it a second time, and, in this matter, as in all others, the conunon wretches were left to get out of their difiiculties as they could. With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman aban- donment of consideration not easy to be understood in these days, the carriage dashed through streets and swept round corners, with women screaming before it, and men clutching each other and clutching children out of its way. At last, swooping at a street corner by a foun- tain, one of its wheels came to a sickening little jolt, and there was a loud cry from a number of voices, and the horses reared and plunged. But for the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would not have stopped; carriages were often known to drive on, and leave their wounded behind, and why not? But the frightened valet had got down in a hurry, and there were twenty hands at the horses' bridles. "What has gone wrong?" said Monsieur, calmly look- ing out. A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the feet of the horses, and had laid it on the basement of the fountain, and was down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal. "Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!" said a ragged and submissive man, "it is a child." "Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his child?" 90 The Cry for Justice "Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis — it is a pity — ^yes." The fountain was a little removed; for the street opened, where it was, into a space some ten or twelve yards square. As the tall man suddenly got up from the ground, and came running at the carriage, Monsieur the Marquis clapped his hand for an instant on his swotd- hilt. "Killed!" shrieked the man, in wild desperation, ex- tending both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him. "Dead!" The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis. There was nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him but watchfulness and eagerness; there was no visible menacing or anger. Neither did the people say anything; after the first cry, they had been silent, and they remained so. The voice of the submis- sive man who had spoken, was flat and tame in its extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over them all, as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes. He took out his purse.^ "It is extraordinary to me," said he, "that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for ever in the way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses. See! Give him that." He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as it fell. The tall man called out again with a most unearthly cry, "Dead!" The Chasm 91 By Emile Zola (French novelist, 1840-1902, founder of the school of "Natural- ism." The present is one of his later works, in which he indicates his hope of the regeneration of French society. The hero is a Cathohc priest who first attempts to reform the Church, and then leaves it) T3IERRE remembered that frightful house in the Rue ■'- des Saules, where so much want and suffering were heaped up. He saw again the yard filthy like a quag- mire, the evil-smelling staircases, the sordid, bare, icy rooms, the families fighting for messes which even stray dogs would not have eaten; the mothers, with exhausted breasts, carrying screaming children to and fro; the old men who fell in comers like brute beasts, and died of hunger amidst filth. And then came his other hours with the magnificence or the quietude or the gaiety of the salons through which he had passed, the whole inso- lent display of financial Paris, and political Paris, and society Paris. And at last he came to the dusk, and to that Paris-Sodom and Paris-Gomorrah before him, which was lighting itself up for the night, for the abominations of that accomplice night which, like fine dust, was little by little submerging the expanse of roofs. And the hateful monstrosity of it all howled aloud mider the pale sky where the first pure, twinkling stars were gleaming. A great shudder came upon Pierre as he thought of all that mass of iniquity and suffering, of all that went on below amid wealth and vice. The bourgeoisie, wielding power, would relinquish naught of the sovereignty which it had conquered, wholly stolen; while the people, the eternal dupe, silent so long, clenched its fists and growled, claim- ing its legitimate share. And it was that frightful injus- 92 The Cry for Justice tice which filled the growing gloom with anger. From what dark-breasted cloud would the thimderbolt fall? For years he had been waiting for that thimderbolt, which low rumbles announced on all points of the horizon. And if he had written a book full of candour and hope, if he had gone in all innocence to Rome, it was to avert that thunderbolt and its frightful consequences. But all hope of the kind was dead within him; he felt that the thunderbolt was inevitable, that nothing henceforth could stay the catastrophe. And never before had he felt it to be so near, amidst the happy impudence of some, and the exasperated distress of others. It was gathering, and it would surely fall over that Paris, all lust and bravado, which, when evening came, thus stirred up its furnace. Mm ^ttngw By Leonid Andeeyev (Russian novelist and dramatist of social protest; born 1871. In this grim symbolical drama is voiced the despair of Russia's intellectuals after the tragic failure of the Revolution. In the first scene King Hunger is shown inciting the starving factory- slaves to revolt; in the second, he presides over a gathering of the outcasts of society, who meet in a cellar to discuss projects of ferocious vengeance upon the idlers in the baU-room over their heads, but break up in a drimken brawl instead. In the present scene, King Hunger tiirns traitor to his victims, and presides as a judge passing sentence upon them. The leisure class attend as spectators in the court-room, the women in evening gowns and jewels, "the men in dress coats and surtouts, carefully shaven and dressed at the wig-makers") Ty'ING HUNGER:— Show in the first starveling. ■'■ ^ {The first starveling, a ragged old man with lacer- ated feet, is conducted into the court-room. A wire muz- zle encases his face.) The Chasm 93 King Hunger: — Take the muzzle off the starvehng. What's your offense, Starveling? Old Man {speaking in a broken voice): — Theft. King Hunger: — ^How much did you steal? Old Man : — I stole a five-potind loaf, but it was wrested from me. I had only time to bite a small piece of it. Forgive me, I will never again King Hunger: — How? Have you acquired an inherit- ance? Or won't you eat hereafter? Old Man: — ^No. It was wrested from me. I only chewed off a small piece King Hunger: — But how won't you steal? Why haven't you been working? Old Man: — There's no work. King Hunger: — But where's your brood, Starveling? Why don't they support you? Old Man: — My children died of hunger. King Hunger: — ^Why did you not starve to death, as they? Old Man: — I don't know. I had a mind to live. King Hunger: — Of what use is hfe to you. Starveling? (Voices of Spectators.) — Indeed, how do they live? I don't comprehend it. — To work. — To glorify God and be confirmed in the consciousness that life— — Well, I don't suppose they exalt Him. — It were better if he were dead. — A rather wearisome old fellow. And what style of trousers! — Listen! Listen! King Hunger (rising, speaks aloud): — Now, ladies and gentlemen, we will feign to meditate. Honorable judges, I beg you to simulate a meditative air. QJf. The Cry for Justice {The judges for a brief period appear in deep thought— they knit their brows, gaze up at the ceiling, prop up their noses, sigh and obviously endeavor to think. Venerable silence. Then with faces profoundly solemn and earnest, silent as before, the judges rise, and simultaneously they turn around facing Death. And all together they bow low and lingering, stretching themselves forward.) King Hunger {mth bent head) : — What is your pleasure? Death (swiftly rising, wrathfully strikes the table with his clenched fist and speaks in a grating voice): — Con- demned — in the name of Satan! (Then as quickly he sits down and sinks into a malicious inflexibility. The judges resume their places.) King Hunger: — Starveling, you're condemned. Old Man: — Have mercy! King Hunger: — Put the muzzle over him. Bring the next starveling. . . . (The next starveling is led into the room. She is a graceful, but extremely emaciated young woman, with a face pallid and tragic to view. The black, fine eyebrows join over her nose; her luxuriant hair is negligently tied in a knot, falling down her shoulders. She makes no bows nor looks around, is as if seeing nobody. Her voice is apathetic and dull.) King Hunger: — ^What's your offense, Starveling? Young Woman: — I killed my child. ((Spectators.) — Oh, horrors! This woman is altogether destitute of motherly feelings. — What do you expect of them? You astonish me. — How charming she is. There's something tragical about her. — Then marry her. The Chasm 95 — Crimes of infanticide were not regarded as such in ancient times, and were looked upon as a natural right of parents. Only with the introduction of humanism into our customs — Oh, please, just a second, professor. — ^But science, my child King Hunger: — ^Tell us. Starveling, how it happened. (J^iih drooping hands and motionless, the woman speaks up dully and dispassionately.) Young Woman: — One night my baby and I crossed the long bridge over the river. And since I had long before decided, so then approaching the middle, where the river is deep and swift, I said: "Look, baby dear, how the water is a-roaring below." She said, "I can't reach, mamma, the railing is so high." I said, "Come, let me lift you, baby dear." And when she was gazing down into the black deep, I threw her over. That's all. King Hunger: — Did she grip you? Young Woman: — No. King Hunger: — She screamed? Young Woman: — Yes, once. King Hunger: — ^What was her name? Young Woman: — Baby dear. King Hunger: — ^No, her name. How was she called? Young Woman: — ^Baby dear. King Hunger (covering his face, he speaks in sad, quivering voice): — Honorable judges, I beg you to simu- late a meditative air. (The judges knit their brows, gaze on the ceiling, chew their lips. Venerable silence. Then they rise and gravely bow to Death.) Death: — Condemned — in the name of Satan! King Hunger (rising, speaks aloud, extending his hands to the woman, as if veiling her in an invisible, black shroud) : — 96 The Cry for Justice You're condemned, woman, do you hear? Death awaits you. In blackest hell you will be tormented and burnt on everlasting, slakeless fires! Devils will rack your heart with their iron talons! The most venomous serpents of the infernal abyss will suck your brain and sting, sting you, and nobody will heed your agonizing cries, for you'll be silenced. Let eternal night be over you. Do you hear, Starveling? Young Woman: — ^Yes. King Hunger: — Muzzle her. {The starveling is led away. King Hunger addresses the spectators in a frank and joyous manner.) Now, ladies and gentlemen, I propose recess for luncheon. Adjudi- cation is a fatiguing affair, and we need to invigorate ourselves. (Gallantly.) Especially our charming matrons and the young ladies. Please! (Joyful exclamations.) —To dine! To dine! — 'Tis about time! —Mamma dear, where are the bonbons? — Yoiu' little mind is only on bonbons! — Which — ^is tried? (Waking up.) — Dinner is ready. Your Excellency. — ^Ah! Why didn't you wake me up before? (Everything assumes at once a happy, amiable, homelike aspect. The judges pull off their wigs, exposing their bald heads, and gradually they lose themselves in the crowd, shake hands, and with feigned indifference they look askance, contemplating the dining. Portly waiters in rich liveries, with difficulty and bent under the weight of immense dishes, bring gigantic portions; whole mutton trunks, colossal hams, high, mountain-like roasts. Before the stout man, on a low stool, they place a whole roasted pig, which is brought in by three. Doubtful, he looks at it.) The Chasm 97 — Would you assist me, Professor? — ^With pleasure, Your Excellency. — And you. Honorable Judge? — Although I am not himgry — but with your leave — — I may, perhaps, be suffered to — (the Abbot modestly speaks, his mouth watering.) {The four seat themselves about the pig and silently they carve it greedily with their knives. Occasionally the eyes of the Professor and of the Abbot meet, and with swollen cheeks, powerless to chew, they are smitten with reciprocal hatred and contempt. Then choking, they ardently champ on. Everywhere small groups eating. Death produces a dry cheese sandwich from his pocket and eats in solitude. A heavy conversation of full-crammed mouths. Munching.) Eontron By Heinrich Heine (German poet and essasTst, one of the most musical and moat mihappy of singers; 1797-1856) IT is in the dusky twilight that Poverty with her mates, Vice and Crime, gUde forth from their lairs. They shim daylight the more anxiously, the more cruelly their wretchedness contrasts with the pride of wealth which gutters everywhere; only Hunger sometimes drives them at noonday from their dens, and then they stand with silent, speaking eyes, staring beseechingly at the rich merchant who hurries along, busy and jingling gold, or at the lazy lord who, like a surfeited god, rides by on his high horse, casting now and then an aristocratically in- different glance at the mob below, as though they were swarming ants, or, at all events, a mass of baser beings, 98 The Cry for Justice whose joys and sorrows have nothing in common with his feelings. . . . Poor Poverty! how agonizing must thy hmiger be where others swell in scornful superfluity! And when some one casts with indifferent hand a crust into thy Jap, how bitter must the tears be wherewith thou moist- enest it! Thou poisonest thyself with thine own tears. Well art thou in the right when thou alliest thyself to Vice and Crime. Outlawed criminals often bear more humanity in their hearts than those cold, blameless citizens of virtue, in whose white hearts the power of evil is quenched; but also the power of good. I have seen women on whose cheeks red vice was painted, and in whose hearts dwelt heavenly purity. By William Blake (English poet and painter of strange and terrible visions. 1757-1827) T WANDER through each chartered street, ■'■ Near where the chartered Thames does flow; A mark in every face I meet, Marks of weakness, marks of woe. In every cry of every man. In every infant's cry of fear. In every voice, in every ban. The mind-forged manacles I hear: How the chimney-sweeper's cry Every blackening church appals, And the hapless soldier's sigh Rims in blood down palace-walls. The Chasm 99 But most, through midnight streets I hear How the youthful harlot's curse Blasts the new-born infant's tear, And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse. a JLitt for a %iU* By Robert Herrick (American novelist, professor in tlie University of Chicago; born 1868. In this novel a young American, hungering for success and about to marry the daughter a great captain of industry, is taken by a strange man, "the bearded Anarch," and shown the horrors of American industrialism) And thus this strange pilgrimage, like another descent -'*■ into purgatory and even unto hell, continued, — ^the shabby bearded Anarch leading his companion from factory, warehouse, and mill to mine and railroad and shop, teaching him by the sight of his own eyes what life means to the silent multitude upon whose bent shoul- ders the fabric of society rests, — ^what that "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" — ^brave aspirations of the forefathers — has brought to the common man in this land of destiny and desire. The wanderer breathed the deadly fumes of smelter and glass works, saw where men were burned in great converters, or torn limb from limb upon the whirliag teeth of swift machines, — done to death in this way and that, or maimed and cast useless upon the rubbish heap of humanity, — ^waste product of the process. "For," as his guide repeated, "in this coimtry, where Property is sacred, nothing is cheaper than himian life. For, remember, the supply of raw labor is inexhaustible." * By permission of the Macmijlan Co. 100 The Cry for Justice He recalled the words of a sleek and comfortable man of business, at the end of the day, with his good dinner comfortably in his belly and a fat cigar between his lips: "There's too much sentimentalism in the air. Some religion less effeminate than Christ's is needed to fit the facts of life. In the struggle the weak must go under, and it is a crime to interfere with natural law." The weak must go imder! Surely if that were the law, any religion that would offer an anodyne to the hopeless were a blessing. But again and again the question rose unan- swered to his lips, — who are the weak? And the sleek one with his cigar said, "Those who go under!" . . . So they passed on their way through squalid factory towns reeking with human vice and disease, through the network of railroad terminals crowded with laden cars rolling forth to satisfy desires. They loitered in busy city stores, in dim basement holes where bread and clothes were making, in filthy slaughter-houses where beasts were slain by beasts. . . . At simset of a glowing day the two sat upon an upper ridge of the hills. All the imperial colors of the firma- ment dyed the western heavens among the broken peaks of the mountains. Below in the lonely valleys were the excoriations of the mines, the refuse, the smudged stains of the rough surface of the earth. The guide pointed into the distance where the huge smelter of Senator •Dexter's mine sent a yellow cloud upward. "Near that is the charred debris where the miners blew up the old works. Below the brow of yonder hills lies that stockade 'where miners, with their women and children, were penned for weeks like wild animals, guarded by the troops of the nation. Beyond is the edge of the great desert, into whose waterless waste others were The Chasm 101 driven to their death. Of these I was one that escaped. Men were shot and women raped. But I tell over old tales known to all. In this place it has been truly a life for a life according to the primitive text — ^but more honest than the cunning and hidden ways of the law. Here the eaten is face to face, at least, with the eater." The twilight came down like a curtain, hiding the scars of man's dominion over the earth. The two sat in silent thought. This was the apex of their journey together, and the end. Behind this lofty table-land of the continent began the grim desert, not yet subdued by man, and beyond came other fertile valleys and other moimtains, and finally another ocean. Thither had been carried the same civilization, the same spirit of conquest and greed, and that noble aspiration after "life, hberty, and the pm-suit of happiness" bore the same fruit in the blood of man. Wherever the victorious race had forced its way, it sowed the seeds of hate and industrial crime. And the flower must bloom, early or late, upon the lonely cattle ranch, in the primeval forest, the soft southern grove, or the virgin valley of the "promised land." Thus spoke the Anarch. In the glimmering twilight the fierce eyes of the bearded one rested upon the wanderer. "Have you seen enough?" "Enough! God knows." "So at last you understand the meaning of it all!" "Not yet!" And from the depth of his being there flashed the demand, "Why have you shown me the sore surface of life? What have you to do with it? And what have I?" His guide replied, "So you still long for the smooth paths of prosperity? You would like to shield your eyes 102 The Cry for Justice from the disagreeable aspects of a world that is good to you? You would still have your comfort and your heart's desire? Yoiir ambitious fancy still turns to the daughter of privilege, dainty and lovely and sweet to the eyes?" (The yoimg man returns to the rich woman whom he had meant to marry.) He knelt and taking the hem of her garment held it in his hands. "See!" He crushed the soft fabric in his hand. "Silk with thread of gold. It is the tears! See!" He touched her girdle with his hands. "Gold and precious stones. They are the groans! See!" He put his fingers upon the golden hair. "A wreath of pure gold! Tears and groans and bloody sweat! You are a tissue of the hves of others, from feet to the crown upon your hair. . . . See!" His hot hands crushed the orchids at her breast. "Even the flower at your breast is stained with blood. ... I see the tears of others on your robe. I hear their sighs in your voice. I see defeated desires in the light of your eyes. You are the Sacrifice of the many — I cannot touch!" 30a6dla. or %le pot of TBa0il By John Keats (One of the loveliest of English poets, 1795-1821; a chemist's assistant, who lived unrecognized and died despairing) "\^ /"ITH her two brothers this fair lady dwelt, * * Enriched from ancestral merchandise. And for them many a weary hand did swelt In torched mines and noisy factories. And many once proud-quiver'd loins did melt In blood from stinging whip,— with hollow eyes The Chasm 103 Many all day in dazzling river stood, To take the rich-ored driftings of the flood. For them the Ceylon diver held his breath, And went all naked to the hungry shark; For them his ears gushed blood; for them in death The seal on the cold ice with piteous bark Lay full of darts; for them alone did seethe A thousand men in troubles wide and dark; Half -ignorant, they turn'd an easy wheel. That set sharp wracks at work, to pinch and peel. lITfi* &on0 of apattfia By Rudyard Kipling (Under this title the English poet has written a striking picture of the social chasm. He figures the world's toilers as the "Sons of Martha," who, because their mother "was rude to the Lord, her Guest," are condemned forever to unrequited toil. "It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock." The poem goes on to tell of the ignorance and torment in which they live — while the Sons of Mary, who "have inherited that good part," live in ease upon their toil. "They sit at the Feet and they hear the Word — they know how truly the Promise runs. "They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and — the Lord he lays it on Martha's Sons." But it appears that for a long period of years Mr. Kipling has refused to permit this radical poem to be reprinted. Under the circumstances, aU that the editor can do is to state that it may be found in the files of the New York Tribune and other newspapers throughout America having the service of the "Associated Sunday Magazines," on April 28, 1907. The editor ventures to doubt if there exists a more dafigefoiis social force than the man of genius who turns his divine gift to the crushing of the efforts of his fellow- men for justice) lOJi- The Cry for Justice E£tl«ction0 Mpon Pobtrtp {From " The New Grub Street") By George Gissing (Novelist of English middle-class life, 1867-1903. Few have ever\ equalled him in the portrayal of the sordid, every-day reahties of poverty. The story of his own tragic life is told in a novel called "The Private Life of Henry Maitland," by Morley Roberts) AS there was sunshine Amy accompanied her husband ■ for his walk in the afternoon; it was long since they had been out together. An open carriage that passed, followed by two young girls on horseback, gave a familiar direction to Reardon's thoughts. "If one were as rich as those people. They pass so close to us; they see us, and we see them; but the dis- tance between is infinity. They don't belong to the same world as we poor wretches. They see everything in a different light; they have powers which would seem supernatural if we were suddenly endowed with them." "Of course," assented his companion with a sigh. "Just fancy, if one got up in the morning with the thought that no reasonable desire that occurred to one throughout the day need remain ungratified! And that it would be the same, any day and every day, to the end of one's life! Look at those houses; every detail, within and without, luxurious. To have such a home as that!" "And they are empty creatures who live there." "They do live, Amy, at all events. Whatever may be their faculties, they all have free scope. I have often stood staring at houses like these until I couldn't believe that the people owning them were mere human beings Hke myself. The power of money is so hard to realize, The Chasm 105 one who has never had it marvels at the completeness with which it transforms every detail of life. Compare what we call our home with that of rich people; it moves one to scornful laughter. I have no sympathy with the stoical point of view; between wealth and poverty is just the difference between the whole man and the maimed. If my lower limbs are paralyzed I may still be able to think, but then there is no such thing in life as walking. As a poor devil I may live nobly; but one happens to be made with faculties of enjoyment, and those have to fall into atrophy. To be sure, most rich people don't imderstand their happiness; if they did, they would move and talk like gods — which indeed they are." Amy's brow was shadowed. A wise man, in Reardon's position, would not have chosen this subject to dilate upon. "The difference," he went on, "between the man with money and the man without is simply this: the one thinks, 'How shall I use my life?' and the other, 'How shall I keep myseK alive?' A physiologist ought to be able to discover some curious distinction between the brain of a person who has never given a thought to the means of subsistence, and that of one who has never known a day free from such cares. There must be some special cerebral development representing the mental anguish kept up by poverty." "I should say," put in Amy, "that it affects every fimction of the brain. It isn't a special point of suf- fering, but a misery that colors every thought." "True. Can I think of a single object in all the sphere of my experience without the consciousness that I see it through the medium of poverty? I have no enjoyment 106 The Cry for Justice which isn't tainted by that thought, and I can suffer no pain which it doesn't increase. The curse of poverty- is to the modern world just what that of slavery was to the ancient. Rich and destitute stand to each other as free man and bond. You remember the line of Homer I have often quoted about the demoralizing effect of enslavement; poverty degrades in the same way." "It has had its effect upon me — I know that too well," said Amy, with bitter frankness. Reardon glanced at her, and wished to make some reply, but he could not say what was in his thoughts. By John Ruskin (English art critic and university professor, 1819-1900; author of many works upon social questions, and master of perhaps the greatest EngHsh prose style) TDRIMARILY, which is very notable and cm-ious, ■'- I observe that men of business rarely know the meaning of the word "rich." At least if they know, they do not in their reasonings allow for the fact, that it is a relative word, implying its opposite "poor" as positively as the word "north" implies its opposite "south." Men nearly always speak and write as if riches were absolute, and it were possible, by following certain scientific precepts, for everybody to be rich. Whereas riches are a power like that of electricity, acting only through inequalities or negations of itself. The force of the guinea you have in your pocket depends wholly on the default of a guinea in your neighbor's pocket. The Chasm 107 If he did not want it, it would be of no use to you; the degree of power it possesses depends accurately upon the need or desire he has for it,— and the art of making your- self rich, in the ordinary mercantile economist's sense, is therefore equally and necessarily the art of keeping your neighbor poor. E^nffffaam & Co. By Hjalmar Bergstrom (Contemporary Danish dramatist, born 1868. The present play deals with the modern industrial struggle. The wife of a great manufacturer has become the victim of melanchoUa after a strike) \ /fRS. LYNGGAARD (absorbed in her memories) : — ■'•*■'■ I shall never forget the day when the people went back to work. I was watching them from my bedroom window. For four months they had been starving — starving, do you understand? — they and theirs. Then they turned up again one winter morning before daylight, and there they stood and shivered in the yards. They had no over-clothes, of course, and they were shaking both from cold and from weakness. And then their faces were all covered with beards, so that one couldn't recognize them. There they stood and waited a long time, a very long time. ... At last Heymarm [the manager] appeared in the doorway and read something from a paper. It was the conditions of surrender, I sup- pose. None of them looked up. Then, as they were about to walk in and begin working, Hejnnann stopped them by holding up his hand, and he said something I couldn't hear. But after a little while I saw Olsen [the strike-leader] standing all by himself in a cleared 108 The Cry for Justice place. {A shiver runs through her at the recollection.) Once I saw a picture of an execution in a prison yard. ... It lasted only a few seconds. Then Olsen said a few words to his comrades and walked away, looking white as a ghost. The crowd opened up to let him pass through. Then the rest stood there for a while looking so strangely depressed and not knowing what to do. And at last they went in, one by one, bent and broken. Mikkelsen: — Olsen wasn't allowed to go back to work? Mrs. Lynggaaed :— It was he who had been their leader, and it was his fault that they had held out as long as they did. And then Olsen began to look for work elsewhere, but none of the other companies would have anything to do with him. Mikkelsen {shrugging his shoulders): — ^War is war. Mrs. Lynggaard : — ^A few months later, as I was taking a walk, I was stopped on the street by Olsen's wife. I tell you, the way she looked made my heart shrink within me. Her husband was completely broken down, she told me. And on top of it all he had taken to drink. Everything she and the children could scrape together, he spent on whiskey. She herself was so far gone with her eighth child that she would soon have to quit work. . . . Then I went home to my husband and begged and prayed him to take Olsen back and make a man of him again. It was the first time during our marriage that I saw him beside himself with rage. There came into his eyes such an evil expression that I wish I had never seen it, for I have never since been able to forget it entirely. But, of course, I guessed who was back of it. (With emphasis.) Then I did the most humiliating thing I have ever done: I went in secret to Heymann and pleaded for that discharged workman. The Chasm 109 Mikkelsen: — Well, and Hejnmann? Mrs. Lynggaard: — Since that moment I hate Hey- mann. There I was, himibling myself before him. And he measured me with cold eyes and said: "If I am to be in charge of this plant, madam, I must ask once for all and absolutely, that no outsiders interfere with the running of it." Mikkelsen: — I don't see that he could have done anything else. Mrs. Lynggaard: — What I cannot forgive myself is that I let myself be imposed upon by that man. I behaved like a coward. At that moment I should have- gone to my husband and said: "This is what has hap- pened — now you must choose between Heymann and me!" But I was so cowardly, that I didn't even tell my husband what I had done. Mikkelsen: — Nor was it proper for you to go behind your husband's back like that. Mrs. Lynggaard {with an expression of abject horror in her fixed gaze): — A little afterwards this thing hap- pened. It was one of the first warm smnmer days, and I was walking in the garden with Jacob. At that time a splendid old chestnut tree was growing in one corner. And there, in the midst of green leaves, and singing birds, Olsen was hanging, cold and dead. And the flies were cradling in and out of his face. . . . (She trembles visibly.) Mikkelsen: — Yes, life is cruel. Mrs. Lynggaard: — And there I perceived for the first time how utterly poor a human being may become. Anjrthing so pitiful and miserable I had never seen before. There was no sign of underclothing between his trousers and the vest. And I don't know why, but it seemed 110 The Cry Jor Justice almost as if this was what hurt me most — much more than that he had hanged himself. . . . And since that day I haven't known a single hour of happiness. By Leo Tolstoy \ (From an essay in which the Russian novelist and reipm>er, ,■■ 1828-1910, has set forth the creed by which he live'<|) ^A y'HAT is the law of nature? Is it to know that my ' ' security and that of my family, all my amusements and pleasures, are purchased at the expense of misery, deprivation, and suffering to thousands of human beings —by the terror of the gallows; by the misfortune of thousands stifling • within prison walls; by the fears inspired by millions of soldiers and guardians of civiliza- tion, torn from their homes and besotted by discipline, to protect our pleasures with loaded revolvers against the possible interference of the famishing! Is it to pur- chase every fragment of bread that I put in my mouth and the mouths of my children by the numberless priva- tions that are necessary to procure my abundance? Or is it to be certain that my piece of bread only belongs to me when I know that everyone else has a share, and that no one starves while I eat? The Chasm 111 •Efit iaDctopu0 * By Frank Norris (The young American novelist, 1870-1902, planned this as the first of a trilogy of novels, the "Epic of the Wheat." The second volume, "The Pit," was written, but his death interrupted the third. The present story narrates the long struggle between the farmers of the San Joaquin valley and the railroad "octopus." The farmers have been beaten, and several of them killed while resisting eviction from their homes. The hero is at a dumer party in San Francisco, at the same time that the widow and child of one of the victims are wandering the streets outside) A LL around the table conversations were going forward -^*- gayly. The good wines had broken up the slight restraint of the early part of the evening and a spirit of good humor and good fellowship prevailed. Young Lambery and Mr. Gerard were deep in reminiscences of certain mutual duck-shooting expeditions. Mrs. Gerard and Mrs; Cedarquist discussed a novel — a strange min- gling of psychology, degeneracy, and analysis of erotic conditions — which had just been translated from the Italian. Stephen Lambert and Beatrice disputed over the merits of a Scotch collie just given to the young lady. The scene was gay, the electric bulbs sparkled, the wine flashing back the Ught. The entire table was a vague glow of white napery, delicate china, and glass as bril- liant as crystal. Behind the guests the serving-men came and went, filling the glasses continually, changing the covers, serving the entries, managing the dinner without interruption, confusion, or the slightest unneces- sary noise. But Presley could find no enjoyment in the occasion. * By permission of Doubleday, Page & Co. tl2 The Cry for Justice From that picture of feasting, that scene of luxury, that atmosphere of decorous, well-bred refinement, his thoughts went back to Los Muertos and Quien Sabe and the irri- gating ditch at Hooven's. He saw them fall, one by one, Harran, Annixter, Osterman, Broderson, Hooven. The clink of the wine glasses was drowned in the explosion of revolvers. The Railroad might indeed be a force only, which no man could control and for which no man was responsible, but his friends had been killed, but years of extortion and oppression had wrung money from all the San Joaquin, money that had made possible this very scene in which he found himself. Because Magnus had been beggared, Gerard had become Railroad King; because the farmers of the valley were poor, these men were rich. The fancy grew big in his mind, distorted, caricatured, terrible. Because the farmers had been killed at the irrigating ditch, these others, Gerard and his family, fed full. They fattened on the blood of the People, on the blood of the men who had been killed at the ditch. It was a half -ludicrous, half-horrible "dog eat dog," an unspeakable cannibahsm. Harran, Annixter, and Hooven were being devoured there under his eyes. These dainty women, his cousin Beatrice and little Miss Gerard, frail, delicate; all these fine ladies with their small fingers and slender necks, suddenly were transfigured in his tortured mind into harpies tearing hiunan flesh. His head swam with the horror of it, the terror of it. Yes, the People would turn some day, and, turning, rend those who now preyed upon them. It would be "dog eat dog" again, with positions reversed, and he saw for an instant of time that splendid house sacked to its foundations, the tables overturned, the pictures torn, the hangings blazing, and The Chasm US Liberty, the red-handed Man in the Street, grimed with powder smoke, foul with the gutter, rush yelling, torch in hand, through every door. At ten o'clock Mrs. Hooven fell. Luckily she was leading Hilda by the hand at the time and the httle girl was not hurt. In vain had Mrs. Hooven, hour after hour, walked the streets. After a while she no longer made any attempt to beg; nobody was stirring, nor did she even try to hunt for food with the stray dogs and cats. She had made up her mind to return to the park in order to sit upon the benches there, but she had mistaken the direction, and, following up Sacramento Street, had come out at length, not upon the park, but upon a great vacant lot at the very top of the Clay Street hill. The ground was unfenced and rose above her to form the cap of the hill, all overgrown with bushes and a few stunted live-oaks. It was in trying to cross this piece of groimd that she fell. . . . "You going to sleep, mammy?" inquired Hilda, touch- ing her face. Mrs. Hooven roused herself a little. "Hey? Vat you say? Asleep? Yais, I guess I wass asleep." Her voice trailed unintelligibly to silence again. She was not, however, asleep. Her eyes were open. A grate- ful numbness had begun to creep over her, a pleasing semi-insensibilty. She no longer felt the pain and cramps of her stomach, even the hunger was ceasing to bite. "These stuffed artichokes are delicious, Mrs. Gerard, murmured young Lambert, wiping his lips with a comer 114 The Cry for Justice of his napkin. "Pardon me for mentioning it, but your dinner must be my excuse." "And this asparagus — since Mr. Lambert has set the bad example," observed Mrs. Cedarquist, "so deUcate, such an exquisite flavor. How do you manage?" "We get all our asparagus from the southern part of the State, from one particular ranch," explained Mrs. Gerard. "We order it by wire and get it only twenty hours after cutting. My husband sees to it that it is put on a special train. It stops at this ranch just to take on our asparagus. Extravagant, isn't it, but I simply can not eat asparagus that has been cut more than a day." "Nor I," exclaimed Julian Lambert, who posed as an epicure. "I can tell to an hour just how long asparagus has been picked." "Fancy eating ordinary market asparagus," said Mrs. Gerard, "that has been fingered by Heaven knows how many hands." "Mammy, mammy, wake up," cried Hilda, trying to push open Mrs. Hooven's eyelids, at last closed. "Mammy, don't. You're just trying to frighten me." Feebly Hilda shook her by the shoulder. At last Mrs. Hooven's lips stirred. Putting her head down, Hilda distinguished the whispered words: "I'm sick. Go to schleep. . . . Sick. . . . Noddings to eat." The dessert was a wonderful preparation of alternate layers of biscuit, glaces, ice cream, and candied chestnuts. 'Delicious, is it not?" observed Julian Lambert, partly to himself, partly to Miss Cedarquist. "This Moscovite foueM — upon my word, I have never tasted its equal." The Chasm 116 "And you should know, shouldn't you?" returned the young lady. "Mammy, mammy, wake up," cried Hilda. "Don't sleep so. I'm frightened." Repeatedly she shook her; repeatedly she tried to raise the inert eyelids with the point of her finger. But her mother no longer stirred. The gaunt, lean body, with its bony face and sunken eye-sockets, lay back, prone upon the groimd, the feet upturned and showing the ragged, worn soles of the shoes, the forehead and gray hair beaded with fog, the poor, faded bonnet awry, the poor, faded dress soiled and torn. Hilda drew close to her mother, kissing her face, twin- ing her arms around her neck. For a long time she lay that way, alternately sobbing and sleeping. Then, after a long time, there was a stir. She woke from a doze to find a police ofl&cer and two or three other men bending over her. Some one carried a lantern. Terrified, smitten dimib, * she was imable to answer the questions put to her. Then a woman, evidently the mistress of the house on the top of the hill, arrived and took Hilda in her arms and cried over her. "I'll take the little girl," she said to the police officer. "But the mother, can you save her? Is shetoo far gone?" "I've sent for a doctor," replied the other. Just before the ladies left the table, young Lambert raised his glass of Madeira. Turning towards the wife of the Railroad King, he said: "My best compliments for a dehghtful dinner." 116 The Cry for Justice The doctor, who had been bending over Mrs. Hooven, rose. "It's no use," he said; "she has been dead some time — exhaustion from starvation." By Anatole France THE law in its majestic equality forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread. PrDBtf00 anb Pobfttp By Henry George (One of the most widely-read treatises upon economics ever published, this book was the fountain head of the single-tax move- ment. The writer was a California journaUst, 1839-1897, who devoted all his life to the propaganda of economic justice) UNPLEASANT as it may be to admit it, it is at last becoming evident that the enormous increase in productive power which has marked the present century and is still going on with accelerating ratio, has no tend- ency to extirpate poverty or to lighten the burdens of those compelled to toil. It simply widens the gulf between Dives and Lazarus, and makes the struggle for existence more intense. The march of invention has clothed mankind with powers of which a century ago the boldest imagination could not have dreamed. But in factories where labor-saving machinery has reached its most wonderful development, httle children are at work; wherever the new forces are anything like fully THE HAND OF FATE WILLIAM BALFOUR KKU (Conlemporary American ilbislniior) Copyright by J . A Mitchell. The Chasm 117 utilized, large classes are maintained by charity or live on the verge of recourse to it; amid the greatest accumu- lations of wealth, men die of starvation, and puny infants suckle dry breasts; while everywhere the greed of gain, the worship of wealth, shows the force of the fear of want. The promised land flies before us like the mirage. The fruits of the tree of knowledge turn, as we grasp them, to apples of Sodom that crxunble at the touch. . . . This association of poverty with progress is the great enigma of our times. It is the central fact from which spring industrial, social, and political difficulties that per- plex the world, and with which statesmanship and phil- anthropy and education grapple in vain. From it come the clouds that overhang the future of the most progres- sive and self-reliant nations. It is the riddle which the Sphinx of Fate puts to om* civilization, and which not to answer is to be destroyed. So long as all the increased wealth which modem progress brings goes but to build up great fortimes, to increase luxury and make sharper the contrast between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent. The reaction must come. The tower leans from its founda- tions, and every new story but hastens the final catas- trophe. To educate men who must be condemned to poverty, is but to make them restive; to base on a state of most glaring social inequality poHtical institutions under which men are theoretically equal, is to stand a pyramid on its apex. BOOK III The Outcast The life of the underworld, of those thrown upon the scrap- heap of the modem industrial machine; vivid and powerful passages portraying the lives of tramps, criminals and prostitutes. By Robert Blatchford (See page 66) T N defending the Bottom Dog I do not deal with hard ■'■ science only; but with the dearest faiths, the oldest wrongs and the most awful relationships of the great human family, for whose good I strive and to whose judgment I appeal. Knowing, as I do, how the hard- working and hard-plajdng public shun laborious thinking and serious writing, and how they hate to have their ease disturbed or their prejudices handled rudely, I still make bold to imdertake this task, because of the vital nature of the problems I shall probe. The case for the Bottom Dog should touch the public heart to the quick, for it affects the truth of our religions, the justice of our laws and the destinies of our children and our children's children. Much golden eloquence has been squandered in praise of the successful and the good; much stern condemnation has been vented upon the wicked. I venture now to plead for those of our poor brothers and sisters who are accursed of Christ and rejected of men. Hitherto all the love, all the honors, all the applause of this world, and all the rewards of heaven, have been lavished on the fortunate and the strong; and the por- tion of the unfriended Bottom Dog, in his adversity and weakness, has been curses, blows, chains, the gallows and everlasting damnation. I shall plead, then, for thos3 who are loathed and tortured and branded as the sinful and unclean; for those who have hated us and wronged (121) 122 The Cry for Justice us, and have been wronged and hated by us. I shall defend them for right's sake, for pity's sake ana for the benefit of society and the race. For these also are of our flesh, these also have erred and gone astray, these also are victims of an inscrutable and relentless Fate. If it concerns us that the religions of the world are childish dreams or nightmares; if it concerns us that our penal laws and moral codes are survivals of barbarism and fear; if it concerns us that our most cherished and venerable ideas of our relations to God and to each other are illogical and savage, then the case for the Bottom Dog concerns us nearly. If it moves us to learn that disease may be prevented, that ruin may be averted, that broken hearts and broken lives may be made whole; if it inspires us to hear how beauty may be conjured out of loathsomeness and glory out of shame; how waste may be turned to wealth and death to life, and despair to happiness, then the case for the Bottom Dog is a case to be well and truly tried. {From "Children of the Dead End") By Patrick MacGill (See pages 32, 47) ' T^WAS towards the close of a fine day on the f ollow- ■L ing summer that we were at work in the dead end of a cutting. Moleskin and I, when I, who had been musing on the quickly passing years, tmrned to Mole- skin and quoted a line from the Bible. * By permission of E. P. Button & Co. The Outcast 123 "Our years pass like a tale that is told," I said. "Like a tale that is told damned bad," answered my mate, picking stray crumbs of tobacco from his waist- coat pocket and stuffing them into the heel of his pipe. " It's a strange world, Flynn. Here today, gone tomorrow; always waiting for a good time comin' and knowiu' that it will never come. We work with one mate this evenin', we beg for crumbs with another on the mornia' after. It's a bad life, ours, and a poor one, when I come to think of it, Flynn." "It is all that," I assented heartily. "Look at me!" said Joe, clenching his fists and squaring his shoulders. "I must be close on forty years, maybe on the graveyard side of it, for all I know. I've horsed it ever since I can mind; I've worked like a mule for years, and what have I to show for it all today, matey? Not the price of an ounce of tobacco! A midsummer scarecrow wouldn't wear the duds that I've to wrap around my hide! A cockle-picker that has no property only when the tide is out is as rich as I am. Not the price of an oimce of tobacco! There is something wrong with men like us, surely, when we're treated like swine iu a sty for all the years of our life. It's not so bad here, but it's in the big towns that a man can feel it most. No person cares for the like of us, Flynn. I've worked nearly ev'rywhere; I've helped to build bridges, dams, houses, ay, and towns! When they were finished, what happened? Was it for us — the men who did the buildin' — ^to live in the homes that we built, or walk through the streets that we laid down? No earthly chance of that! It was always, 'Slide! we don't need you any more,' and then a man like me, as helped to build a thousand houses big as castles, was hellish glad to get 124 The Cry for Justice the shelter of a ten-acre field and a shut-gate between me and the winds of night. I've spent all my money, have I? It's bloomin' easy to spend all that fellows like us can earn. When I was in London I saw a lady spend as much on fm- to decorate her carcase with as would keep me in beer and tobacco for all the rest of my life. And that same lady would decorate a dog in ribbons and fol-the-dols, and she wouldn't give me the smell of a crust when I asked her for a mouthful of bread. What could you expect from a woman who wears the .furry hide of some animal roimd her neck, anyhow? We are not thought as much of as dogs, Flynn. By God! them rich buckos do eat an awful lot. Many a time I crept up to a window just to see them gorgin' themselves." "I have looked in at windows too," I said. "Most men do," answered Joe. "You've heard of old Moses goin' up the hill to have a bit peep at the Promist Land. He was just like me and you, Flynn, wantin' to have a peep at the things which he'd never I lay his claws on." "Those women who sit half -naked at the table have big appetites," I said. "They're all gab and guts, like young crows," said Moleskin. "And they think more of their dogs than they do of men like me and you. I'm an Antichrist!" "A what?" "One of them sort of fellows as throws bombs at kings." "You mean an Anarchist." "Well, whatever they are, I'm one. What is the good of kings, of fine-feathered ladies, of churches, of anything in the country, to men like me and you?" The Outcast 126 W^t Carter and t^z Carpenter* {From " The People of the Abyss") By Jack London (See page 62) I ^HE Carter, with his clean-cut face, chin beard, and ■•■ shaved upper lip, I should have taken in the United States for anything from a master workman to a well- to-do farmer. The Carpenter — well, I should have taken him for a carpenter. He looked it, lean and wiry, with shrewd, observant eyes, and hands that had grown twisted to the handles of tools through forty-seven years' work at the trade. The chief difficulty with these men was that they were old, and that their children, iastead of growing up to take care of them, had died. Their years had told on them, and they had been forced out of the whirl of industry by the younger and stronger competitors who had taken their places. These two men, turned away from the casual ward of Whitechapel Workhouse, were boimd with me for Poplar Workhouse. Not much of a show, they thought, but to chance it was all that remained to us. It was Poplar, or the streets and night. Both men were anxious for a bed, for they were "about gone," as they phrased it. The Carter, fifty-eight years of age, had spent the last three nights without shelter or sleep, while the Carpenter, sixty-five years of age, had been out five nights. But, dear, soft people, full of meat and blood, with white beds and airy rooms waiting you each night, how can I make you know what it is to suffer as you would suffer if you spent a weary night on London's streets? * By permission of the Macmillan Co. ISe The Cry for Justice Believe me, you wovild think a thousand centuries had come and gone before the east paled into dawn; you would shiver till you were ready to cry aloud with the pain of each aching muscle; and you would marvel that you could endure so much and live. Should you rest upon a bench, and your tired eyes close, depend upon it the policeman would rouse you and gruffly order you to "move on." You may rest upon the bench, and benches are few and far between; but if rest means sleep, on you must go, dragging your tired body through the endless streets. Should you, ia desperate slyness, seek some forlorn alley, or dark passage-way, and lie down, the onmipresent policeman will rout you out just the same. It is his busLaess to rout you out. It is a law of the powers that be that you shall be routed out. But when the dawn came, the nightmare over, you would hale you home to refresh yourself, and imtil you died you would tell the story of your adventure to groups of admiring friends. It would grow into a mighty story. Your little eight-hoiu" night would become an Odyssey and you a Homer. Not so with these homeless ones who walked to Poplar Workhouse with me. And there are thirty-five thousand of them, men and women, in London Town this night. Please don't remember it as you go to bed; if you are as soft as you ought to be you may not rest so well as usual. But for old men of sixty, seventy, and eighty, ill-fed, with neither meat nor blood, to greet the dawn unrefreshed, and to stagger through the day in mad search for crusts, with relentless night rushing down upon them agaiu, and to do this five nights and days — dear, soft people, full of meat and blood, how can you ever \mderstand? The Outcast 127 I walked up Mile End Road between the Carter and the Carpenter. Mile End Road is a wide thoroughfare, cutting the heart of East London, and there are tens of thousands of people abroad on it. I tell you this so that you may fully appreciate what I shall describe in the next paragraph. As I say, we walked along, and when they grew bitter and cursed the land, I cursed with them, cursed as an American waif would curse, stranded in a strange and terrible land. And, as I tried to lead them to believe, and succeeded in making them believe, they took me for a "seafaring man," who had spent his money in riotous living, lost his clothes (no unusual occurrence with seafaring men ashore), and was temporarily broke while looking for a ship. This ac- counted for my ignorance of English ways in general and casual wards in particular, and my curiosity con- cerning the same. The Carter was hard put to keep the pace at which we walked (he told me that he had eaten nothing that day), but the Carpenter, lean and hungry, his grey and ragged overcoat flapping mournfully in the breeze, swung on in a lone and tireless stride which reminded me strongly of the plains wolf or coyote. Both kept their eyes upon the pavement as they walked and talked, and every now and then one or the other would stoop and pick some- thing up, never missing his stride the while. I thought it was cigar and cigarette stumps they were collecting, and for some time took no notice. Then I did notice. From the slimy, spittle-drenched sidewalk, they were picking up bits of orange peel, apple skin, and grape stems, and they were eating them. The pits of greengage plums they cracked between their teeth for the kernels inside. They picked up stray crumbs of bread the size of peas, apple cores 128 The Cry for Justice so black and dirty one would not take them to be apple cores, and these things these two men took into their mouths, and chewed them, and swallowed them; and this, between six and seven o'clock in the evening of August 20, year of our Lord 1902, in the heart of the greatest, wealthiest, and mast powerful empire the world has ever seen. These two men talked. They were not fools, they were merely old. And, naturally, their guts a-reek with pavement offal, they talked of bloody revolution. They talked as anarchists, fanatics, and madmen would talk. And who shall blame them? In spite of my three good meals that day, and the snug bed I could occupy if I wished, and my social philosophy, and my evolutionary belief in the slow development and metamorphosis of things — ^in spite of all this, I say, I felt impelled to talk rot with them or hold my tongue. Poor fools! Not of their sort are revolutions bred. And when they are dead and dust, which will be shortly, other fools will talk bloody revolution as they gather offal from the spittle-drenched sidewalk along Mile End Road to Poplar Workhouse. By Horace Greeley. (American editor, 1811-1872; promment abolitionist) \ yf ORALITY and religion are but words to him who ^^ ^ fishes in gutters for the means of sustaining life, and crouches behind barrels in the street for shelter from the cutting blasts of a winter night. The Outcast 129 Wdz ^^ant for tSe 3Io6 j {From ' ' Pay Envelopes " ) \ By James Oppenheim (See page 45) " I 'HE Hunt began early next morning — the Hunt for ■»■ the Job. The hunter, however, is really the hunted. Now and then he bares his skin to the unthinking blows of the world, and runs off to hide himself in the crowd. You may see him bobbing along the turbulent man- currents of Broadway, a tide-tossed derelict in the thousand-foot shadows of the sky-scrapers. The mob about him is lusty with purpose, each unit making his appointed place, the morning rush to work bearing the stenographer to her machine, the broker to his ticker, the ironworker to his sky-dangling beam. In the mighty machine of the city each has his place, each is provided for, each gets the glow of sharing in the world's work. The morning rush, splashed at street crossings with the gold of the Eastern sun, is rippled with fresh eyes and busy lips. They are all in the machine. But our young man crouching in a corner of the crowded car is not of these; slinkitig down Broadway he is aware that the machine has thrown him out and he cannot get in. He is an exile in the midst of his own people. The sense of loneliness and inferiority eats the heart out of the breast; the good of life is gone; the blackness soaks across the city and into his home, his love, his soul. Some go bitter and are for throwing bombs; some despair and are for wiping themselves away; some— the rank and file — are for fighting to the last ditch. Peter pendulated between all three of these moods. In ordi- ISO The Cry for Justice nary times he would have been all fight; in these hard times, drenched with the broadcast hopelessness of men, he knew he was foredoomed to defeat. Only a miracle could gave him. Trudging up Seventy-ninth Street to Third Avenue, fresh with Annie's kiss and the baby's pranks, he had the last bit of daring dashed out of him by a strange throng of men. Before a small Hebrew synagogue, packed in the deep area were forty unemployed workers, jammed crowd-thick against the windows and gate. It was fresh weather, not cold, yet the men shivered. Their bodies had for long been unwarmed by sufficient food or clothing; there was a grayness about them as of famished wolves; their lips and fingers were blue; they were im- shaved and frowzy with some vile sleeping place. Hard times had blotched the city with a myriad of such groups. And as Peter stopped and imagined himself driven at last among them, he saw a burly fellow emerge from the house and begin handing out charity bowls of hot coffee and charity bread. Peter, independent American work- man, was stung at the sight; the souls of these workers were somehow being outraged; they were eating out of the hands of the comfortable, like so many gutter dogs. The rest of the morning Peter dared now and then to present himself at an office to ask work. At some places he tried boldness, at others meekness, and at last he begged, "For God's sake, I have a wife and baby — " He met with various receptions at the hands of clerks, office boys, and bosses. A few were sorry, some turned their backs, the rest hurried him out. Each refusal, each "not wanted in the scheme of things," shot him out into the streets, stripped of another bit of self-reliance. The Outcast 131 In spite of himself, he began to feel his poor appearance, his drooping hp, his broken purpose. He was a failure and the world could not use him. He hardly dared to look a than in the eyes, to lift his voice above a whisper, to make a demand, to dare a refusal. He slunk home at last like a cowed and beaten animal. {From "The Workers") By Waiter A. Wyckoff (A professor in Princeton University who went out and lived for long periods as a laborer, in order to know the facts of industry at first hand) MANY of the men were so weakened by the want and hardship of the winter that they were no longer iu condition for effective labor. Some of the bosses who were in need of added hands were Obliged to turn men away because of physical incapacity. One instance of this I shall not soon forget. It was when I overheard, early one morning, at a factory gate, an interview between a would-be laborer and the boss. I knew the applicant for a Russian Jew, who had at home an old mother and a wife and two young children to support. He had had intermittent employment through- out the winter in a sweater's den, barely enough to keep them all alive, and, after the hardships of the cold season, he was again in desperate straits for work. The boss had all but agreed to take him on for some sort of imskilled labor, when, struck by the cadaverous look of the man, he told him to bare his arm. Up went 138 The Cry for Justice the sleeve of his coat and his ragged flannel shirt, expos- ing a naked arm with the muscles nearly gone, and the blue-white transparent skin stretched over sinews and the outline of the bones. Pitiful beyond words were his efforts to give a semblance of strength to the biceps which rose faintly to the upward movement of the fore- arm. But the boss sent him off with an oath and a con- temptuous laugh, and I watched the fellow as he turned down the street, facing the fact of his starving family with a despair at his heart which only mortal man can feel and no mortal tongue can speak. 'ESe ffiwati Hint By Berton Bealey (Contemporary American poet) WELL, here they are — they stand and stamp and shiver Waiting their food from some kind stranger hand. Their weary limbs with eagerness a-quiver Hungry and heartsick in a bounteous land. "Beggars and bmns?" Perhaps, and largely worthless. Shaky with drink, unlovely, craven, low. With obscene tongues and hollow laughter mirthless; But who shall give them scorn for being so? Yes, here they are — with gaunt and pallid faces. With limbs ill-clad and fingers stiff and blued. Shuffling and stamping on their pavement places, Waiting and watching for their bit of food. The Outcast ISS We boast of vast achievements and of power, Of human progress knowing no defeat, Of strange new marvels every day and hour — And here's the bread line in the wintry street ! Ten thousand years of war and peace and glory, Of hope and work and deeds and golden schemes, Of mighty voices raised in song and story, Of huge inventions and of splendid dreams; Ten thousand years replete with every wonder, Of empires risen and of empires dead; Yet still, while wasters roll in swollen plunder. These broken men must stand in line — for bread I {From "Past and Present") By Thomas Cablyle (See pages 31, 74) AND truly this first practical form of the Sphinx- ' question, inarticulately and so audibly put there, is one of the most impressive ever asked in the world. "Behold us here, so many thousands, millions, and in- creasing at the rate of fifty every hour. We are right willing and able to work; and on the Planet Earth is plenty of work and wages for a million times as many. We ask, If you mean to lead us towards work; to try to lead us, — by ways new, never yet heard of till this new unheard-of Time? Or if you declare that you can- 134 The Cry for Justice not lead us? And expect that we are to remain quietly unled, and in a composed manner perish of starvation? What is it you expect of us? What is it you mean to do with us?" This question, I say, has been put in the hearing of all Britain; and will be again put, and ever again, till some answer be given it. By William Howard Taft (Ex-president of the United States; bom 1857) "A'X /"HAT is a man to do who is starving, and can- * ' not find work?" "God knows." By George Crabbe (See page 29) THEIRS is yon house that holds the parish poor. Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door; There, where the putrid vapors flagging play. And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day; There children dwell who know no parents' care; Parents, who know no children's love, dwell there ; Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed, Forsaken wives and mothers never wed; Dejected widows with unheeded tears, And crippled age with more than childhood-fears; The lame, the blind, and — far the happiest they! — The moping idiot and the madman gay. "1 . ..m ^^ The Cry for Justice W^t Eeti Kobe By Eugene Brietxx (French dramatist, born 1858; author of a series of powerful imas exposing the sources of corruption in French social, [itical and business life. The present play has for its theme ! law as a snare for the feet of the poor a,nd friendless. The ncipal character is a government prosecuting attorney, driven professional ambition and jealousy, and the nagging of his 'e and daughters. A murder has been committed, and the repapers are scolding because the cri min al has not been caught, spicion falls upon a poor wretch of a smuggler, who is hounded i bullied into incriminating himself. At the last moment, when ! case is in the hands of the jury, the prosecuting attorney's con- Bnoe is troubled, and he realizes that he is sending an innocent ,n to the gaUows) /fME. VAGRET: — But — these circumstances, how ^ -*• could you have ignored them up to now? Vagret {his head bowed): — You think I have ignored 3m? — Would I dare to tell you all? I am not a bad m, you'd grant? I wouldn't desire that anyone should ffer through my fault. Well! — Oh! but how it shames 5 to confess it, to say it aloud, after having confessed to myself I Well! When I studied this case, I had got 30 fixed in my head, in advance, that this fellow Etche- re was a criminal, that when an argument in his favor 3sented itself to my mind, I kept it away from me, 'ugging my shoulders. As to the facts about which I am ling you, and from which suddenly my doubt has been rn — at first I sought only to prove to myself that these its were false, taldng, in the testimony of the witnesses, ly what would combat their exactness, repelling all the t, with a frightful naivete in my bad faith. — And in the i, to dissipate my last scruples, I said to myself, like The Outcast 153 you: "It is the affair of the defense, not mine!" Listen and see to just what point the exercise of the profession of prosecutor renders us unjust and cruel; I had, myself — I had a thrill of joy at first, when I saw that the judge, in his questioning, left in the shadow the sum of those Uttle facts. There, that is the trade! you understand, the trade ! Ah ! poor creatures that we are, poor creatures ! Mme. Vagret: — Possibly the jury may not condemn him? Vageet: — It will condemn him. Mme. Vagret: — Or that it will admit some extenuating circumstances. Vagret: — ^No. I urged them too emphatically against this. Was I not ardent enough, my God! violent enough? Mme. Vagret: — That's true. Why should you have developed your argument with so much passion? Vagret: — ^Ah! why! why! Long before the session, it was so well understood by everyone that the accused was the culprit! And then, everyone was trying to rouse my dander, trying to make me drunlc! I was the spokesman for hxmianity, I had to reassure the country, bring peace to the family — I don't know what all else! My first demands were comparatively moderate. But when I saw that famous advocate make the jury weep, I thought I was lost; I felt that the case was getting away from me. Contrary to my custom, I made a reply. When I stood up again, I was like a combattant who goes to meet defeat, and who fights with desperation. From that moment, Etchepare no longer existed, so to speak. I no longer had the care to defend society, or to maintain the accusation — I was fighting against that advocate; it was a tourney of orators, a contest of actors; I had to come out the conqueror at all hazards. I had to BJf. The Cry for Justice onvince the jury, to seize it and tear from it the "Yes" f a verdict. It was no longer a question of Etchepare, tell you; it was a question of myself, of my vanity, f my reputation, of my honor, of my future. It's bameful, I repeat, it's shameful! At any cost, I wanted avoid the acquittal which I felt was certain. And was possessed by such a fear of not succeeding, that I mployed all the arguments, good and bad — even those ^hich consisted in representing to those frightened men tieir homes in flames, their loved ones assassinated. spoke of the vengeance of God upon judges who had o severity. And all that in good faith — or rather with- ut consciousness, in a fit of passion, in a fit of passion gainst the advocate whom I hated with all my forces. . . 'he success was even greater than I could have wished; le jury is ready to obey me, and for myself, my dear — let myself be congratulated, and I pressed the hands rhich were held out to me. — That's what it is to be a rosecutor! Mme. Vageet: — Console yourself. There are perhaps ot ten men in France who would have acted otherwise. Vagret: — You are right. Only — ^if one reflects, it ; precisely that which is frightful. By Kenko Hoshi (See pages 135, 151) ■PHE governing class should stop their luxurious/ ■'- expenditures in order to help the governed class. or only when a man has been provided with the ordinary leans of living, and yet steals, may he be really called thief. The Outcast 155 {From " The Ballad of Reading Gaol") By Oscar Wilde (English poet and dramatist, 1856-1900, leader of the so-caUed "esthetes." The poem from which these extracts are taken was the fruit of his long imprisonment, and is one of the most moving and terrible narratives in English poetry) WITH slouch and swing around the ring We trod the Fools' Parade; We did not care; we knew we were The Devil's Own Brigade : And shaven head and feet of lead Make a merry masquerade. We tore the tarry rope to shreds With blunt and bleeding nails; We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors, And cleaned the shining rails: And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank, And clattered with the pails. We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones, We turned the dusty drill: We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns. And sweated on the mill: But in the heart of every man Terror was lying still. So still it lay that every day Crawled hke a weed-clogged wave; And we forgot the bitter lot That waits for fool and knave, Till once, as we tramped in from work. We passed an open grave. '6 The Cry for Justice With yawning mouth the yellow hole Gaped for a living thing; The very mud cried out for blood To the thirsty asphalt ring: And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair Some prisoner had to swing. Right in we went, with soul intent On Death and Dread and Doom: The hangman, with his little bag. Went shuffling through the gloom: And each man trembled as he crept Into his numbered tomb. That night the empty corridors Were full of forms of Fear, And up and down the iron town Stole feet we could not hear, And through the bars that hide the stars White faces seemed to peer. . . . We were as men who through a fen Of filthy darkness grope : We did not dare to breathe a prayer, Or to give our anguish scope: Something was dead in each of us, And what was dead was Hope. For Man's grim Justice goes its way. And will not swerve aside : It slays the weak, it slays the strong. It has a deadly stride: With iron heel it slays the strong. The monstrous parricide " The Outcast 167 We waited for the stroke of eight : Each tongue was thick with thirst: For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate That makes a man accursed, And Fate will use a running noose For the best man and the worst We had no other thing to do, Save to wait for the sign to come : So, like things of stone in a valley lone. Quiet we sat and dumb : But each man's heart beat thick and quick Like a madman on a drum! With sudden shock the prison-clock Smote on the shivering air. And from all the gaol rose up a wail Of impotent despair, Like the sound that frightened marshes hear From some leper in his lair. And as one sees most fearful things In the crystal of a dream, We saw the greasy hempen rope Hooked to the blackened beam, And heard the prayer the hangman's snare Strangled into a scream. And all the woe that moved him so That he gave that bitter cry. And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats, None knew so well as I : For he who lives more lives than one More deaths than one must die. 58 The Cry for Justice There is no chapel on the day On which they hang a man: The Chaplain's heart is far too sick, Or his face is far too wan, Or there is that written in his eyes Which none should look upon. So they kept us close till nigh on noon, And then they rang the bell, And the Warders with their jingling keys Opened each listening cell, And down the iron stairs we tramped. Each from his separate Hell. Out into God's sweet air we went. But not in wonted way, For this man's face was white with fear. And that man's face was grey, And I never saw sad men who looked So wistfully at the day. I never saw sad men who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that Uttle tent of blue We prisoners call the sky. And at every careless cloud that passed In happy freedom by. • . = The Warders strutted up and down, And kept their herd of brutes, Their uniforms were spick and span, And they were their Sunday suits. But we knew the work they had been at By the quicklime on their boots. The Outcast 159 For where a grave had opened wide There was no grave at all: Only a stretch of mud and sand By the hideous prison-wall, And a little heap of burning lime, That the man should have his pall. For he has a pall, this wretched man, Such as few men can claim; Deep down below a prison-yard, Naked for greater shame, He lies, with fetters on each foot. Wrapt in a sheet of flame! . . . I know not whether Laws be right, Or whether Laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in jail Is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, A year whose days are long. But this I know, that every Law That men have made for Man, Since first Man took his brother's life, And the sad world began. But straws the wheat and saves the chaff With a most evil fan. This too I know — and wise it were If each could know the same — That every prison that men build Is built with bricks of shame. And bound with bars lest Christ should see How men their brothers maim. >0 The Cry for Justice With bars they blur the gracious moon, And blind the goodly sun: And they do well to hide their Hell, For in it things are done That Son of God nor son of Man Ever should look upon! The vilest deeds like poison weeds Bloom well in prison-air: It is only what is good in Man That wastes and withers there : Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate. And the Warder is Despair. For they starve the little frightened child Till it weeps both night and day: And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool, And gibe the old and grey. And some grow mad, and all grow bad. And none a word may say. (From "Utopia") By Sib Thomas More ae of the great classic Utopias, written by the English statesman, 1478-1535; executed upon Tower Hill, for opposing the will of King Henry VIII) N this pojTite, not you onlye, but also the most part of the world, be hke evyll scholemaisters, which be idyer to beate, than to teache, their scholers. For 3at and horrible punishmentes be appointed for theves, The Outcast 161 whereas much rather provision should have ben made, that there were some meanes, whereby they myght get their hvyng, so that no man shoulde be dryven to this extreme necessitie, firste to steale, and then to dye. lilt '^Tutn of ilt ©alancf* By Bhand Whitlock (American novelist and reformer, born 1869; for many years mayor of Toledo, Ohio, and now Minister to Belgium. The present novel is the Hfe-story of Archie Koerner, a boy of the tenements, who is driven to crime by the evil forces of society) * * A LL ready, Archie." •'*- Jimmy Ball touched him on the shoulder. He glanced toward the open grated door, thence across the flagging to the other door, and tried to take a step. Out there he could see one or two faces thrust forward suddenly; they peered in, then hastily withdrew. He tried again to take a step, but one leg had gone to sleep, it prickled, and as he bore his weight upon it, it seemed to swell suddenly to elephantine proportions. And he seemed to have no knees at all; if he stood up he would collapse. How was he ever to walk that distance? "Here!" said Ball. "Get on that other side of him. Warden." Then they started. The Reverend Mr. Hoerr, waiting by the door, had begun to read something in a strange, unnatural voice, out of a little red book he held at his breast in both his hands. ■* Copyright, 1907. Used by special permission of the publishers, Bobbs-Merrill Co. 11 '63 The Cry for Justice "Good-by, Archie!" they called from behind, and he urned, swayed a little, and looked back over his shoulder. "Good-by, boys," he said. He had a glimpse of their aces; they looked gray and ugly, worse even than they lad that evening — or was it that evening when with udden fear he had seen them crouching there behind lim? Perhaps just at the last minute the governor would hange his mind. They were walking the long way o the door, six yards off. The flagging was cold to his )are feet; his slit trouser-legs flapped miserably, reveahng lis white calves. Walking had suddenly become laborious ; le had to lift each leg separately and manage it; he talked much as that man in the rear rank of Company 21 talked. He would have liked to stop and rest an instant, )ut Ball and the warden walked beside him, urged him esistlessly along, each gripping him at the wrist and tpper arm. In the room outside, Archie recognized the reporters tanding in the sawdust. What they were to write that light would be in the newspapers the next morning, but le would not read it. He heard Beck lock the door of he death chamber, locking it hm-riedly, so that he could )e in time to look on. Archie had no friend in the group if men that waited in silence, glancing curiously at him, heir faces white as the whitewashed wall. The doctors leld their watches in their hands. And there before dm was the chair, its oil-cloth cover now removed, its ane bottom exposed. But he would have to step up on he little platform to get to it. "No — ^yes, there you are, Archie, my boy!" whispered Jail. "There!" He was in it, at last. He leaned back; then, as his The Outcast 163 back touched the back of the chair, he started violently. But there were hands on his shoulders pressing him down, until he could feel his back touch the chair from his shoulders down to the very end of his spine. Some one had seized his legs, turned back the slit trousers from his calves. "Be quick!" he heard the warden say in a scared voice. He was at his right where the switch and the indicator were. There were hands, too, at his head, at his arms — hands all over him. He took one last look. Had the governor — ? Then the leather mask was strapped over his eyes and it was dark. He could only feel and hear now — feel the cold metal on his legs, feel the moist sponge on the top of his head where the barber had shaved him, feel the leather straps binding his legs and arms to the legs and the arms of the chair, binding them tightly, so that they gave him pain, and he could not move. Helpless he lay there, and waited. He heard the loud ticking of a watch; then on the other side of him the loud ticking of another watch; fingers were at his wrists. There was no sound but the mumble of Mr. Hoerr's voice. Then some one said: "All ready." He waited a second, or an age, then, suddenly, it seemed as if he must leap from the chair, his body was swelling to some monstrous, impossible, unhuman shape; his muscles were stretched, millions of hot and dreadful needles were piercing and pricking him, a stupendous roaring was in his ears, then a million colors, colors he had never seen or imagined before, colors beyond the range of the spectra, new, undiscovered, summoned by some mysterious agency from distant corners of the 164- The Cry for Justice universe, played before his eyes. Suddenly they were shattered by a terrific explosion in his brain — then darkness. But no, there was still sensation; a dull purple color slowly spread before him, gradually grew lighter, expanded, and with a mighty pain he struggled, groping his way in torture and torment over fearful obstacles from some far distance, remote as black stars in the cold abyss of the imiverse; he struggled back to life — then an appalling confusion, a grasp at consciousness; he heard the ticking of the two watches — then, through his brain there slowly trickled a thread of thought that squirmed and glowed like a white-hot wire. . . . A faint groan escaped the pale lips below the black leather mask, a tremor ran through the form in the chair, then it relaxed and was still. "It's all over." The doctor, lifting his fingers from Archie's wrist, tried to smile, and wiped the perspiration from his face with a handkerchief. Some one flung up a window, and a draught of cool air sucked through the room. On the draught was borne from the death-chamber the stale odor of Russian ciga- rettes. And then a demoniacal roar shook the cell- house. The convicts had been awake. The Outcast 165 %^t ^tMtz-€mtt lOltpotttt {From "Midstream") \ By Will Levington Comfort (\ (American novelist and war-correspondent, bom 1878) WHEN I think of prisons;' of the men who send other men there; of chairs of death and hangings, and of all that bring these things about — it comes to me that the City is organized hell; that there is no end to our cruelty and stupidity. I bought from door to door in city streets the stuff that makes murder; I sat in the forenoon under the corrective forces, which were quite as bUndly stupid and cruel. The women I passed in the night, appeared often in the morning. I talked to them in the nights, and heard them weep in the days; I saw them in the nights with the men who judged them in the days. Out of all that evil, there was no voice; out of all the corrective force there was no voice. The City covered us all. I was one and the other. The women thought themselves beasts; the men thought themselves men — and, voiceless between them, the City stood. The most tragic sentence I ever heard, was from the lips of one of these women. ... I talked with her through the night. She called it her work; she had an ideal about her work. Every turning in^her life had been man-directed. She confessed that she had begun with an unabatable passion; that men had found her sensuousness very attractive when it was fresh. She had preserved a certain sweetness; through such stresses that the upper world would never credit. Thousands of men had come to her; all perversions, all obsessions, all mad- 166 The Cry for Justice Qess, and drunkenness, to her alone in this little room. 3he told of nights when twenty came. Yet there was something inextinguishable about her — something patient and optimistic. In the midst of it all, it was hke a little ^rl speaking: "/ wake up in the morning, and find a man beside me. I am always frightened, even yet, — until I remember. I '■emember who I am and what I am. . . . Then I try to 'Mnk what he is like — what his companions called him — 'juhat he said to me. I try to remember how he looked — because you know in the morning, his face is always turned iway." Does it help you to see that we are all one? . . . Yet [ couldn't have seen then, trained by men and the City. [ belonged to the ranks of the corrective forces in the syes of the City — and she, to the destructive. . . . She srould have gone to the pen, I sitting opposite waiting "or something more important to make a news bulletin. . . From the City's point of view, I was at large, safe md sane. . . . The extreme seriousness with which men regard them- selves as municipal correctives — as soldiers, lovers, nonopolists — has risen for me into one of the most •emarkable facts of life. By Paul Hanna (Contemporary American poet) HTHEY got y', kid: they got y' — ^just like I said they -*• would. You tried to walk the narrow path. You tried, and got an awful laugh; *Lnd laughs are all y' did get, kid — ^they got y' good! THE ■\A'HITE SLAVE ABASTENIA ST. LEGER EBERLE {American sculptor, born 1878) The Outcast 167 They never knew the little kid^ — the kid I used to know; The little bare-legged girl back home, The little kid that played alone — They don't know half the things I know, kid, ain't it so? They got y', kid, they got y' — ^you know they got y' right; They waited till they saw y' limp, Then introduced y' to the pimp — Ah, you were down then, kid, and couldn't fight! I guess y' know what some don't know, and others know damn well — That sweatshops don't grow angels' wings, That workin' girls is easy things. And poverty's the straightest road t' Hell! <€^t "Ca&et" {From " The House of Bondage ") . By Reginald Wright Kauffman \ (See page 53) WHEREVER there is squalor seeking ease, he is there. Wherever there is distress crying for suc- cor, discontent complaining for relief, weariness sighing for rest, there is this missionary, offering the quack sal- vation of his temporal church. He knows and takes subtle advantage of the Jewish sisters sent to work for the education of Jewish brothers; the Irish, the Germans, the Russians, and the Syrians ground in one or another economic mill; the restless neurotic native daughters untrained for work and spoiled for play. He is at the 168 The Cry for Justice door of the factory when it releases its white-faced women for a breath of night air; he is at the cheap lunch-room where the stenographers bolt unwholesome noonday food handed about by underpaid waitresses; he lurks around the corner for the servant and the shop-clerk. He remembers that these are girls too tired to do household work in their evenings, too untaught to find continued solace in books; that they must go out, that they must move about; and so he passes his own nights at the restaurants and theaters, the moving-picture shows, the dancing academies, the dance-halls. He may go into those stifling rooms where immigrants, loiig before they learn to make a half-complete sentence of what they call the American language, learn what they are told are American dances: the whirling "spiel" with blowing skirts, the "half-time waltz" with jerking hips. He may frequent the more sophisticated forms of these places, may even be seen in the more expensive cafes, or may journey into the provinces. But he scents poverty from afar. Wit ^tie0tt&& 0t l^umanttp {From "A History of European Morals") By William E. H. Lecky (English historian and philosopher, 1838-1903. The following much quoted passage may be said to represent the Victorian view of its subject) T TNDER these circumstances, there has arisen in ^-^ society a figure which is certainly the most mourn- ful, and in some respects the most awful, upon which the eye of the moralist can dwell. That unhappy being whose The Outcast 169 very name is a shame to speak; who counterfeits with a cold heart the transports of affection, and submits herself as the passive instrument of lust; who is scorned and insulted as the vilest of her sex, and doomed, for the most part, to disease and abject wretchedness and an early death, appears in every age as the perpetual symbol of the degradation and sinfulness of man. Herself the supreme type of vice, she is ultimately the most efHcient guardian of virtue. But for her, the imchallenged purity of countless happy homes would be polluted, and not a few who, in the pride of their imtempted chastity, think of her with an indignant shudder, would have known the agony of remorse and despair. On that one degraded and ignoble form are concentrated the passions that might have filled the world with shame. She remains, while creeds and civilizations rise and fall, the eternal priestess of humanity, blasted for the sins of the people. By Mary Craig Sinclair (Contemporary American writer) LAST night I woke, and in my tranquil bed I lay, and thanked my God with fervent prayer That I had food and warmth, a cosy chair Beside a jolly fire, and roses red To give my room a touch of light and grace. And I thanked God, oh thanked Him! that my face Was beautiful, that it was fair to men: I thought awhile, then thanked my God again. 170 The Cry for Justice For yesterday, on Broadway I had walked, And I had stopped to watch them as they stalked Then- prey; and I was glad I had no sons To look with me upon those woeful ones — Paint on their lips, and from a corpse their hair, And eyes of simulated lust, astare ! %^t QMoman of i^t &tr«ts< By Robert Blatchfoed (See pages 66, 121) CONSIDER now the outcast Jezebel of the London pavement. Fierce and cunning, and false and vile. Ghastly of visage under her paint and grease. A creature debased below the level of the brute, with the hate of a devil in her soul and the fire of hell in her eyes. Lewd of gestiu'e, strident of voice, wanton of gaze, using lan- guage so foul as to shock the pot-house ruffian, and laugh- ter whose sound makes the blood run cold. A dreadful spectre, shameless, heartless, reckless, and horrible. A creature whose touch is contamination, whose words burn like a flame, whose leers and ogles make the soul sick. A creature living in drunkenness and filth. A moral blight. A beast of prey who has cast down many wounded, whose victims fill the lunatic ward and the morgue; a thief, a liar, a hopeless, lost, degraded wretch, of whom it has been well said, "Her feet take hold of hell; her house is the way to the grave, going down to the chamber of death." The Outcast 171 3n tit fetrann By Ahthue Symons (English poet and critic, bom 1865) WITH eyes and hands and voice convulsively She craves the bestial wages. In her face What now is left of woman? whose lost place Is filled with greed's last eating agony. She lives to be rejected and abhorred, Like a dread thing forgotten. One by one She hails the passers, whispers blindly; none Heeds now the voice that had not once implored Those alms in vain. The hour has struck for her, And now damnation is scarce possible Here on the earth; it waits for her in hell. God! to be spurned of the last wayfarer That haunts a dark street after midnight! Now Shame's last disgrace is hot upon her brow. By Thomas Hood (See page 59) ONE more Unfortunate Weary of breath, Rashly importunate. Gone to her death! Take her up tenderly, Lift her with care; Fashion'd so slenderly, Young, and so fair! 172 The Cry for Justice Look at her garments Clinging like cerements; Whilst the wave constantly Drips from her clothing; Take her up instantly, Loving, not loathing. Touch her not scornfully; Think of her mournfully. Gently and humanly; Not of the stains of her — All that remains of her Now is pure womanly. Make no deep scrutiny Into her mutiny Rash and imdutiful: Past all dishonor. Death has left on her Only the beautiful. Still, for all slips of hers. One of Eve's family — Wipe those poor lips of hers Oozing so clammily. Loop up her tresses Escaped from the comb. Her fair auburn tresses; Whilst wonderment guesses Where was her home? The Outcast 173 Who was her father? Who was her mother? Had she a sister? Had she a brother? Or was there a dearer one Still, and a nearer one Yet, than all other? Alas! for the rarity Of Christian charity Under the sun! 0! it was pitiful! Near a whole city full, Home she had none. Sisterly, brotherly. Fatherly, motherly. Feelings had changed; Love, by harsh evidence, Thrown from its eminence; Even God's providence Seeming estranged. Where the lamps quiver So far in the river. With many a light From window and casement, From garret to basement. She stood, with amazement, Houseless by night. n/f. The Cry for Justice The bleak wind of March Made her tremble and shiver; But not the dark arch, Or the black flowing river: Mad from life's history, Glad to death's mystery Swift to be hurl'd — Anywhere, anywhere Out of the world! In she plunged boldly. No matter how coldly The rough river ran; Over the brink of it, — Picture it, think of it, Dissolute Man! Lave in it, drink of it Then, if you can! Take her up tenderly, Lift her with care; Fashion'd so slenderly, Young, and so fair! Ere her limbs frigidly Stiffen too rigidly, Decently, kindly. Smooth arid compose them; And her eyes, close them. Staring so bhndly! The Outcast 176 Dreadfully staring Thro' muddy impurity, As when with the daring Last look of despairing Fix'd on futurity. Perishing gloomily, Spurr'd by contximely, Cold inhumanity. Burning insanity. Into her rest. — Cross her hands humbly As if praying dumbly, Over her breast! Owning her weakness. Her evil behavior. And leaving, with meekness, Her sins to her Saviour! BOOK IV Out of the T>epths The protest of the soul of man confronted with injustice and groping for a remedy. By Ebenezer Elliott (One of the leaders of the Chartist movement in England, 1781- 1849; known as the "Poet of the People," and by hia enemies as the "Corn-law Rhymer") "\'\ /"HEN wilt thou save the people? * * God of mercy! when? Not kings and lords, but nations! Not thrones and crowns, but men! Flowers of thy heart, God, are they! Let them not pass, like weeds, away! Their heritage a simless day! God save the people! Shall crime bring crime for ever, Strength aiding still the strong? Is it thy will, Father! That man shall toil for wrong? "No!" say thy mountains; "No!" thy skies; "Man's clouded sim shall brightly rise, And songs be heard instead of sighs." God save the people! When wilt thou save the people? God of mercy! when? The people, Lord! the people! Not thrones and crowns, but men! God save the people! thine they are; Thy children, as thy angels fair; Save them from bondage and despair! God save the people! (179) 180 The Cry for Justice Si !&gmn Bt GrLBEET K. Chesteeton (English essayist aad poet, bom 1874) /^ GOD of earth and altar ^-^ Bow down and hear our cry, Our earthly rulers falter, Our people drift and die; The walls of gold entomb us. The swords of scorn divide, Take not Thy thunder from us, But take away our pride. From all that terror teaches. From hes of tongue and pen, From all the easy speeches That comfort cruel men. From sale and profanation Of honor and the sword, From sleep and from damnation. Deliver us, good Lord. Tie in a living tether The priest and prince and thrall, Bind all our lives together, Smite us and save us all; In ire and exultation Aflame with faith, and free, Lift up a hving nation, A single sword to Thee. Out of the Depths 181 By William Shakespeare (One of the series of sonnets in which the English dramatist, 1564- 1616, voiced his inmost soul) TIRED with all these, for restful death I cry — As, to behold desert a beggar bom, And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity. And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And gilded honor shamefully misplaced. And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, And strength by limping sway disabled. And art made tongue-tied by authority, And folly, doctor-hke, controUing skill. And simple truth miscall'd simplicity, And captive Good attending captain 111: — Tired with all these, from these would I be gone, Save that, to die, I leave my Love alone. mxiiXtn in Eontion. feitpt^mlier. 1802 By William Wordswohth (One of the great sonnets of England's poet of nature; 1770-1850. Poet laureate in 1843) O FRIEND ! I know not which way I must look For comfort, being, as I am, opprest To think that now our life is only drest 18S The Cry for Justice For show; mean handy-work of craftsman, cook, Or groom! — We must run ghttering hke a brook In the open sunshine, or we are unblest; The wealthiest man among us is the best; No grandeur now in nature or in book Dehghts us. Rapine, avarice, expense, This is idolatry; and these we adore; Plain living and high thinking are no more: The homely beauty of the good old cause Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, And pure religion breathing household laws. %lt Mutate to " lLt0 9^i&ttafi\t& " By Victor Hugo (The poet and htrmanitarian of France, 1802-1885, has in this passage set forth the purpose of one of the half-dozen greatest novels of the world) OO long as there shall exist, by reason of law and cus- ^ tom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and com- plicates a destiny that is divine, with human fatality; so long as the threp problems of the age — the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night — are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless. Out of the Depths 183 Bounti By Mat Beals (Contemporary American writer and lecturer) COMETIMES I feel the tide of life in me ^ Flood upward, high and higher, till I stand Tiptoe, aflame with energy, a god. Young, virile, glorying in my youth and power. But not for long; the grip of poverty Seizes me, sets my daily task; the eyes Of those I love, looking to me for bread Pierce me like eagles' beaks through very love. I am Prometheus bound; these cares and fears Tear at my vitals, leave me broken, spent. And unavaiUngly 'tis spent, my life. My wondrous life, so pregnant with rich powers. That stuff in me from which heroic deeds, Great thoughts and noble poems might be made Is wrenched from me, is coined in wealth, and spent By others; save that I and mine receive A mere existence, bare of hope and joy, Bare even of comfort. Comrades, stretched and bound In agony on labor's rock, we Uve — And die — ^to fatten vultures! 184 The Cry for Justice ^Q a JFoil'D (Etttop^an Etbolutfonaiw By Walt Whitman (Americas most original and creative poet, 1819-1892; printer and journalist, during the war an army nurse, and later a government clerk, discharged for pubUshing what his superiors considered an "indecent" book) NOT songs of loyalty alone are these, But songs of insurrection also; For I am the sworn poet of every dauntless rebel, the world over, And he going with me leaves peace and routine behind him, And stakes his life, to be lost at any moment. . . . When liberty goes out of a place, it is not the first to go, nor the second or third to go, It waits for all the rest to go — it is the last. When there are no more memories of martyrs and heroes. And when all life, and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any part of the earth. Then only shall liberty, or the idea of liberty, be dis- charged from that part of the earth. And the infidel come into full possession. Out of the Depths 185 C{)ant0 Communal By Horace Tkaubei, (American poet and editor, born 1858; disciple and biographer of Walt Wkitman) YOU will long resist me. You will deceive yourself with initial victories. You will find me weak. You will count me only one against a million. You will see the world seem to go on just as it is. One day confirming another. Presidents succeeding Presidents in unvarying mediocrity. Millionaires dead reborn in mil- lionaire children. Starvation handing starvation on. The people innocently played against the people. Demand and supply cohabited for the production of a bhnd progeny. The landlord suborning the land. The moneylord suborning money. The storelord suborning production. All will seem to go on just as it is. And you who resist me will be fooled. You will say the uni- verse is against me. You will say I am cursed. Or you will in your tenderer moments ask: What's the use? But all this time I will be keeping on. Doing nothing tmusual. Only keeping on. Asleep or awake, keeping on. Compelled to say the say of justice all by myself. Will- ing to wait imtil you are shaken up and convinced. Until you will say it to yourself. And say it to yourself you will. There are things ahead that will stir you out of your indifference or lethargy or doubt. Give you an im- mortal awakening. So you will never sleep again. I do not know just what it will be. But something. And you ■wall know it. when it comes. And then you will understand why I am calm. Why I am not worried by 186 The Cxy for Justice delay. Why I am not defeated by postponements. Why all the big things that seem to be against me do not seem to worry the one little thing that is for me. Why my faith maintains itself against your property. Why my soul maintains itself against injustice. Why I am willing to say words that are thought personally unkind for the sake of a result that is universally sweet. Why I look in your face and see you long before you are able to see yourself. Why you with all your fortified rights doubt and despair. Why I without any right at all am cheerful and confident. Why you tremble when one little man with one little voice asks you a question. Why I do not tremble with all the states and churches and political economies at my heels. %^t^t ^opulatipniee {From "Towards Democracy") By Edward Carpenter (English poet and philosopher, born 1844; disciple of Walt Whitman) "T^HESE populations— -'■ So puny, white-faced, machine-made, Turned out by factories, out of offices, out of drawing- rooms, by thousands all alike — Huddled, stitched up, in clothes, fearing a chill, a drop of rain, looking timidly at the sea and sky as at strange monsters, or running back so quick to their suburban nms and burrows. Dapper, libidinous, cute, with washed-out small eyes — What are these? Are they men and women? Out of the Depths 187 Each denying himself, hiding himself? Are they men and women? So timorous, like hares — a breath of propriety or cus- tom, a draught of wind, the mere threat of pain or of danger? for a breath of the sea and the great mountains! A bronzed hardy live man walking his way through it all; Thousands of men companioning the waves and the storms, splendid in health, naked-breasted, catching the lion with their hands; A thousand women swift-footed and free — owners of themselves, forgetful of themselves, in all their actions — full of joy and laughter and action; Garbed not so differently from the men, joining with them in their games and sports, sharing also their labors; Free to hold their own, to grant or withhold their love, the same as the men: Strong, well-equipped in muscle and skill, clear of finesse and affectation — (The men, too, clear of much brutality and conceit) — Comrades together, equal in intelligence and adventure. Trusting without concealment, loving without shame but with discrimination and continence towards a per- fect passion. for a breath of the sea! The necessity and directness of the great elements themselves ! Swimming the rivers, braving the sun, the cold, taming the animals and the earth, conquering the air with wings, and each other with love — The true, the hiunan society! 188 The Cry for Justice %^z feifiip ot l^umanit? {From "Gloucester Moors") By William Vaughn Moody (American poet and dramatist, 1869-1910) GOD, dear God! Does she know her port, Though she goes so far about? Or bhnd astray, does she make her sport To brazen and chance it out? I watched when her captains passed: She were better captainless. Men in the cabin, before the mast, But some were reckless and some aghast. And some sat gorged at mess. By her battened hatch I leaned and caught Sounds from the noisome hold, — Cursing and sighing of souls distraught And cries too sad to be told. Then I strove to go down and see; But they said, "Thou art not of us!" I turned to those on the deck with me And cried, "Give help!" But they said, "Let be: Our ship sails faster thus." Jill-o'er-the-ground is purple blue, Blue is the quaker-maid, The alder-clump where the brook comes through Breeds cresses in its shade. To be out of the moiling street. With its swelter and its sin! Who has given to me this sweet, And given my brother dust to eat? And when will his wage come in? Out of the Depths 189 By James Russell Lowell (American scholar and poet, 1819-1891, author of many impas- sioned poems of human freedom. An ardent anti-slavery advocate, it was said during the Civil War that his poetry was worth an army corps to the Union) MEN! whose boast it is that ye Come of fathers brave and free, If there breathe on earth a slave, Are ye truly free and brave? If ye do not feel the chain When it works a brother's pain. Are ye not base slaves indeed, Slaves unworthy to be freed? Is true Freedom but to break Fetters for our own dear sake, And, with leathern hearts, forget That we owe mankind a debt ? No! True Freedom is to share All the chains our brothers wear, And, with heart and hand, to be Earnest to make others free! They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak; They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scofBng and abuse. Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think; They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three. 190 The Cry for Justice (Kltgp aflltitttn in a Couttttj? C5urc|)?at& By Thomas Gray (English poet and scholar, 1716-1771 ; Cambridge professor. It is said that Major Wolfe, while sitting in a, row-boat on his way to the night attack upon Quebec, remarked that he would rather have been the author of this poem than the taker of the city) /^FT did the harvest to their sickle yield, ^-^ Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the Poor. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth, e'er gave Await alike th' inevitable hour: — The paths of glory lead but to the grave. . . . Can storied urn, or animated bust. Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust. Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death? Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial flre; Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed. Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre; Out of the Depths 191 But knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll; Chill penury repressed their noble rage. And froze the genial current of the soul. Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen. And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast. The little tyrant of his fields withstood. Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest. Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. The applause of listening senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise. To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land. And read their history in a nation's eyes, Their lot forbade: nor circmnscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined; Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne. And shut the gates of mercy on mankind; The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame. Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learned to stray; Along the cool sequestered vale of Hfe They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. 19S The Cry for Justice 'arSc EanH mutation Bt Cardinal Manning (English prelate of the Cathoho Church, 1808-1892) I "HE land question means hunger, thirst, nakedness, -^ notice to quit, labor spent in vain, the toil of years seized upon, the breaking up of homes; the misery, sick- ness, deaths of parents, children, wives; the despair and wildness which springs up in the hearts of the poor, when legal force, like a sharp harrow, goes over the most sensitive and vital rights of mankind. All this is con- tained in the land question. By Jacob Fisher (Contemporary American poet) T MET her on the Umbrian Hills, ■•■ Her hair unbound, her feet imshod; As one whom secret glory fills She walked alone — ^with God. I met her in the city street; Oh, changed her aspect then! With heavy eyes and weary feet She walked alone — with men. Out of the Depths 193 Pccf ace to " Sl^ajot IBatliara " By G. Bernard Shaw (Irish dramatist and critic, born 1856; recognized as one of the world's most brilliant advocates of Socialism) '' I ^HE thoughtless wickedness with which we scatter -•■ sentences of imprisonment, tortm-e in the sohtary cell and on the plank bed, and flogging, on moral invalids and energetic rebels, is as nothing compared to the stupid levity with which we tolerate poverty as if it were either a wholesome tonic for lazy people or else a virtue to be embraced as St. Francis embraced it. If a man is indo- lent, let him be poor. If he is drunken, let him be poor. If he is not a gentleman, let him be poor. If he is addicted to the fine arts or to pure science instead of to trade and finance, let him be poor. If he chooses to spend his urban eighteen shillings a week or his agricul- tural thirteen shillings a week on his beer and his family instead of saving it up for his old age, let him be poor. Let nothing be done for "the undeserving": let him be poor. Serves him right! Also — somewhat inconsis- tently — blessed are the poor! Now what does this Let Him Be Poor mean? It means let him be weak. Let him be ignorant. Let him become a nucleus of disease. Let him be a standing exhibition and example of ugliness and dirt. Let him have rickety children. Let him be cheap and let him drag his fellows down to his price by selling himself to do their work. Let his habitations turn our cities into poi- sonous congeries of slums. Let his daughters infect our yoimg men with the diseases of the streets and his sons revenge him by turning the nation's manhood into scrofula, 13 194 The Cry for Justice cowardice, cruelty, hypocrisy, political imbecility, and all the other fruits of oppression and malnutrition. Let the undeserving become still less deserving; and let the deserving lay up for himself, not treasures in heaven, but horrors in hell upon earth. This being so, is it really wise to let him be poor? Would he not do ten times less harm as a prosperous burglar, incendiary, ravisher, or murderer, to the utmost limits of humanity's compara- tively negligible impulses in these directions? Suppose we were to abolish all penalties for such activities, and decide that poverty is the one thing we will not toler- ate — that every adult with less than, say, £365 a year, shall be painlessly but inexorably killed, and every hungry half naked child forcibly fattened and clothed, would not that be an enormous improvement on our existing system, which has already destroyed so many civilizations, and is visibly destroying ours in the same way? By Upton Sinclair (See pages 43, 143) NOW the dreadful winter was come upon them. In the forests, all sunamer long, the branches of the trees do battle for Hght, and some of them lose and die; and then come the raging blasts, and the storms of snow and hail, and strew the ground with these weaker branches. Just so it was in Packingtown; the whole district braced itself for the struggle that was an agony, and those whose time was come died off in hordes. All the year round Out of the Depths 195 they had been serving as cogs in the great pacldng- machine; and now was the time for the renovating of it, and the replacing of damaged parts. There came pneimionia and grippe, stalking among them, seeking for weakened constitutions; there was the annual harvest of those whom tuberculosis had been dragging down. There came cruel cold, and biting winds, and blizzards of snow, all testing relentlessly for failing muscles and impoverished blood. Sooner or later came the day when the unfit one did not report for work; and then, with no time lost in waiting, and no inquiries or regrets, there was a chance for a new hand. . . . Home was not a very attractive place — at least not this winter. They had only been able to buy one stove, and this was a small one, and proved not big enough to warm even the kitchen in the bitterest weather. This made it hard for Teta Elzbieta all day, and for the chil- dren when they could not get to school. At night they would sit huddled around this stove, while they ate their supper off their laps; and then Jurgis and Jonas would smoke a pipe, after which they would all crawl into their beds to get warm, after putting out the fire to save the coal. Then they would have some frightful experiences with the cold. They would sleep with all their clothes on, including their overcoats, and put over them all the bedding and spare clothing they owned; the children would sleep all crowded into one bed, and yet even so they could not keep warm. The outside ones would be shivering and sobbing, crawling over the others and trying to get down into the center, and causing a fight. This old house with the leaky weather-boards was a very different thing from their cabins at home, with great thick walls plastered inside and outside with 196 The Cry for Justice mud; and the cold which came upon them was a living thing, a demon-presence in the room. They would waken in the midnight hours, when everything was black; per- haps they would hear it yelling outside, or perhaps there would be deathlike stillness — and that would be worse yet. They could feel the cold as it crept in through the cracks, reaching out for them with its icy, death- dealing fingers; and they would crouch and cower, and try to hide from it, all in vain. It would come, and it would come; a grisly thing, a spectre born in the black caverns of terror; a power primeval, cosmic, shadowing the tortures of the lost souls flung out to chaos and destruc- tion. It was cruel, iron-hard; and hour after hour they would cringe in its grasp, alone, alone. There would be no one to hear them if they cried out; there would be no help, no mercy. And so on until morning — when they would go out to another day of toil, a little weaker, a little nearer to the time when it would be their turn to be shaken from the tree. •Zllif S>ali S)is6t of lit l^unfftp By Li Hung Chang (A poem by the Chinese statesman, 1823-1901 ; known as the "Bismarck of Asia," and said to have been the richest man in the world) ' I "WOULD please me, gods, if you would spare ^ Mine eyes from all this hungry stare That fills the face and eyes of men Who search for food o'er hill and glen. COLD EOGEK BLOCHE {French sculptor; from the Luxembourg Museum) Out of the Depths 197 Their eyes are orbs of dullest fire, As if the flame would mount up higher; But in the darkness of their glow We know the fuel's burning low. Such looks, gods, are not from thee! No, they're the stares of misery! They speak of hunger's frightful hold On Hps a-dry and stomachs cold. "Bread, bread," they cry, these weary men. With wives and children from the glen! O, they would toil the live-long day But for a meal, their lives to stay. But where is it in all the land? Unless the gods with gen'rous hand Send sweetsome rice and strength'ning corn To these vast crowds to hunger born! %^t Eifffit to be Hm By Paul Lafahgue \ (A well-known Socialist writer of France. He and his wife, finding themselves helpless from old age and penury, committed suicide together) DOES any one believe that, because the toilers of the time of the mediaeval guilds worked five days out of seven in a week, they lived upon air and water only, as the deluding political economists tell us? Go to! They had leisure to taste of earthly pleasure, to cherish love, to make and to keep open house in honor of the great God, Leisure. In those days, that morose, h3rpo- 198 The Cry for Justice critically Protestant England was called "Merrie Eng- land." Rabelais, Quevedo, Cervantes, the unknown authors of the spicy novels of those days, make our mouths water with their descriptions of those enormous feasts, at which the peoples of that time regaled them- selves, and towards which "nothing was spared." Jor- daens and the Dutch school of painters have portrayed them for us, in their pictures of jovial life. Noble, giant stomachs, what has become of you? Exalted spirits, ye who comprehended the whole of human thought, whither are ye gone? We are thoroughly degenerated and dwarfed. Tubercular cows, potatoes, wine made with fuchsine, beer from saffron, and Prussian whiskey in wise conjunction with compulsory labor have weakened our bodies and dulled our intellects. And at the same time that mankind ties up its stomach, and the productivity of the machine goes on increasing day by day, the political economists wish to preach to us Malthusian doctrine, the religion of abstinence and the dogma of work! By Antipaeos (Greek, First Century, A. D. The poet celebrates the invention of the water-mill for grinding corn) ' I 'HE goddess has commanded the work of the girls ■•• to be done by the Nymphs; and now these skip lightly over the wheels, so that the shaken axles revolve with the spokes, and pull around the load of the revolving stones. Let us live the life of our fathers, and let us rest from work and enjoy the gifts that the goddess has sent us! Out of the Depths 199 By John Stuart Mill (English philosopher, 1806-1873) T TITHERTO, it is questionable if all the mechanical / ■*■ ■'■ inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil / of any human being. \ 'STfit Sl^an mntn tfif Stone {From "The Man mth the Hoe and other Poems") By Edwin Markham (See page 27) \^ /"HEN I see a workingman with mouths to feed, * * Up, day after day, in the dark before the dawn, And coming home, night after night, thro' the dusk, Swinging forward like some fierce silent animal, I see a man doomed to roll a huge stone up an endless steep. He strains it onward inch by stubborn inch. Crouched always in the shadow of the rock. . . . See where he crouches, twisted, cramped, misshapen! He lifts for their life; The veins knot and darken — Blood surges into his face. . . . Now he loses — now he wins — Now he loses — loses — (God of my soul!) He digs his feet into the earth — There's a movement of terrified effort. . . . It stirs — it moves ! 200 The Cry for Justice Will the huge stone break his hold And crush him as it plunges to the Gulf? The silent struggle goes on aiid on, Like two contending in a dream. By Boethius (Roman philosopher, 470-524) THOUGH the goddess of riches should bestow as much as the sand rolled by the wind-tossed sea, or as many as the stars that shine, the human race will not cease to wail. Cfie aaiolf at tSe SDoor By Charlotte Perkins Gilman (America's most brilliant woman poet and critic; born 1860) THERE'S a haunting horror near us That nothing drives away; Fierce lamping eyes at nightfall, A crouching shade by day; There's a whining at the threshold. There's a scratching at -the floor. To work! To work! In Heaven's name! The wolf is at the door! The day was long, the night was short, The bed was hard and cold; Still weary are the little ones. Still weary are the old. Out of the Depths 201 We are weary in our cradles From our mother's toil imtold; We are born to hoarded weariness As some to hoarded gold. We will not rise! We will not work! Nothing the day can give Is half so sweet as an hour of sleep; Better to sleep than live! What power can stir these heavy limbs? What hope these dull hearts swell? What fear more cold, what pain more sharp Than the life we know so well? . . . The slow, relentless, padding step That never goes astray — The rustle in the underbrush — The shadow in the way — The straining flight — the long pursuit — The steady gain behind — Death-wearied man and tireless brute, And the struggle wild and blind! There's a hot breath at the keyhole And a tearing as of teeth! Well do I know the bloodshot eyes And the dripping jaws beneath! There's a whining at the threshold— There's a scratching at the floor — To work! To work! In Heaven's name! The wolf is at the door! 202 The Cry for Justice T By Robert Herrick (Old English lyric poet, 1591-1674) O mortal man great loads allotted be; But of all packs, no pack like poverty. (CacS Jairainfift ail By Charles Fourier (One of the early French Utopian writers, 1772-1837; author of a theory of social co-operation which is stiU known by his name) THE present social order is a ridiculous mechanism, in which portions of the whole are in conflict and acting against the whole. We see each class in society desire, from interest, the misfortune of the other classes, placing in every way individual interest in opposition to public good. The lawyer wishes litigations and suits, particularly among the rich; the physician desires sick- ness. (The latter would be ruined if everybody died without disease, as would the former if all quarrels were settled by arbitration.) The soldier wants a war, which will carry off half his comrades and secure him pro- motion; the undertaker wants burials; monopolists and forestallers want famine, to double or treble the price of grain; the architect, the carpenter, the mason, want conflagrations, that will burn down a hundred houses to give activity to their branches of business. o By Matthew Arnold (English essayist and poet, 1822-1888) UR inequality materializes our upper class, vul- garizes our middle class, brutalizes our lower class. Out of the Depths 203 By Maxim Gorky (A novel in which the Russian has portrayed the spiritual agonies of his race. In this scene a poor school-teacher voices his despair) "X/'OZHOV drank his tea at one draught, thrust the ■*■ glass on the saucer, placed his feet on the edge of the chair, and clasping his knees in his hands, rested his chin upon them. In this pose, small sized and flexible as rubber, he began: "The student Sachkov, my former teacher, who is now a doctor of medicine, a whist player and a mean fellow all around, used to tell me whenever I knew my lesson well: 'You're a fine fellow, Kolya! You are an able boy. We proletarians, plain and poor people, com- ing from the backyard of life, we must study and study, in order to come to the front, ahead of everybody. Russia is in need of wise and honest people. Try to be such, and you will be master of your fate and a useful member of society. On us commoners rest the best hopes of the country. We are destined to bring into it light, truth,' and so on. I believed him, the brute. And since then about twenty years have elapsed. We proletarians have grown up, but have neither appropriated any wisdom nor brought light into life. As before, Russia is suffering from its chronic disease — a superabundance of rascals; while we, the proletarians, take pleasure in filling their dense throngs." Yozhov's face wrinkled into a bitter grimace, and he began to laugh noiselessly, with his lips only. "I, and many others with me, we have robbed ourselves for the 204 The Cry for Justice sake of saving up something for life. Desiring to make myself a valuable man, I have imderrated my individual- ity in every way possible. In order to study and not die of starvation, I have for six years in succession taught blockheads how to read and write, and had to bear a mass of abominations at the hands of various papas and mammas, who humiliated me without any constraint. Earning my bread and tea, I could not, I had not the time to earn my shoes, and I had to turn to charitable institutions with humble petitions for loans on the strength of my poverty. If the philanthropists could only reckon up how much of the spirit they kill in man while sup- porting the life of his body! If they only knew that each rouble they give for bread contains ninety-nine copecks worth of poison for the soul! If they could only burst from excess of their kindness and pride, which they draw from their holy activity! There is no one on earth more disgusting and repulsive tl^.n he who gives alms. Even as there is no one so miserable as he who accepts them." ^It &ifi:8t of SiuquaUtg {From "The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe") By Daniel Defoe (English novelist and pamphleteer, 1661-1731; many times imprisoned for satires upon the authorities) T SAW the world round me, one part laboring for ■'• bread, and the other part squandering in vile excess or empty pleasures, equally miserable, because the end they proposed still fled from them; for the man of pleas- Out of the Depths 205 ure every day surfeited of his vice, and heaped up work for sorrow and repentance; and the man of labor spent his strength in daily struggling for bread to maintain the vital strength he labored with; so living in a daily circulation of sorrow, living but to work, and working but to live, as if daily bread were the only end of a wearisome life, and a wearisome life the only occasion of daily bread. fefttlemint Mlotfe* {From "A Man's World") ■ By Albebt Edwards ' (Pen-name of Arthur Bullard, American novelist and war- oorrespoDdent) AFTER all, what good were these settlement workers ■• doing? Again and again this question demanded an answer. Sometimes I went out with Mr. Dawn to help in burying the dead. I could see no adequate connec- tion between his kindly words to the bereaved and the hideous dragon of tuberculosis which stalked through the crowded district. What good did Dawn's ministrations do? Sometimes I went out with Miss Bronson, the kindergartner, and listened to her talk to uncompre- hending mothers about their duties to their children. What could Miss Bronson accomplish by playing a few hours a day with the youngsters who had to go to filthy homes? They were given a wholesome lunch at the settlement. But the two other meals a day they must eat poorly cooked, adulterated food. Sometimes I went * By permission of the Macmillan Co. 206 The Cry for Justice out with Miss Cole, the nurse, to visit her cases. It was hard for me to imagine anything more futile than her single-handed struggle against unsanitary tenements and imsanitary shops. I remember especially one visit I made with her. It was the crisis for me. The case was a child-birth. There were six other children, all in one unventilated room; its single window looked out on a dark, choked, airshaft; and the father was a drunkard. I remember sitting there, after the doctor had gone, holding the next young- est baby on my knee, while Miss Cole was bathing the puny newcomer. "Can't you make him stop crying for a minute?" Miss Cole asked nervously. "No," I said with sudden rage. "I can't. I wouldn't if I could. Why shouldn't he cry? Why doii't the other little fools cry? Do you want them to laugh?" She stopped working with the baby and offered me a flask of brandy from her bag. But brandy was not what I wanted. Of course I knew men sank to the very dregs. But I had never realized that some are born there. When she had done all she could for the mother and child, Miss Cole put her things back in the bag and we started home. It was long after midnight, but the streets were still alive. "What good does it do?" I demanded vehemently. "Oh, I know — you and the doctor saved the mother's life — brought a new one into the world and all that. But what good does it do? The child will die — it was a girl — let's get down on our knees right here and pray the gods that it may die soon — not grow up to want and fear — and shame." Then I laughed. "No, there's no Out of the Depths 207 use praying. She'll die all right! They'll begin feeding her beer out of a can before she's weaned. No. Not that. I don't believe the mother will be able to nurse her. She'll die of skimmed milk. And if that don't do the trick there's T. B. and several other things for her to catch. Oh, she'll die all right! And next year there'll be another. For God's sake, what's the use? What good does it do?" Abruptly I began to swear. "You mustn't talk hke that," Miss Cole said in a strained voice. "Why shouldn't I curse?" I said fiercely, turning on her challengingly, trying to think of some greater blas- phemy to hurl at the muddle of life. But the sight of her face, livid with weariness, her lips twisting spasmod- ically from nervous exhaustion, showed me one reason not to. The realization that I had been so brutal to her shocked me horribly. "Oh, I beg your pardon," I cried. She stmnbled slightly. I thought she was going to faint and I put my arm about her to steady her. She was almost old enough to be my mother, but she put her head on my shoulder and cried like a Uttle child. We stood there on the sidewalk — in the glare of a noisy, loath- some saloon — like two frightened children. I don't think either of us saw any reason to go anywhere. But we dried our eyes at last and from mere force of habit walked blindly back to the children's house. On the steps she broke the long silence. "I know how you feel — everyone's hke that at first, but you'll get used to it. I can't tell 'why.' I can't see that it does much good. But it's got to be done. You mustn't think about it. There are things to do, today, tomorrow, all the time. Things that must be done. 208 The Cry for Justice That's how we hve. So many things to do, we can't think. It would kill you if you had time to think. You've got to work — work. "You'll stay too. I know. You won't be able to go away. You've been here too long. You won't ever know 'why.' You'll stop asking if it does any good. And I tell you if you stop to think about it, it will kill you. You must work." She went to her room and I across the deserted court- yard and up to mine. But there was no sleep. It was that night that I first reahzed that I also must. I had seen so much I could never forget. It was something from which there was no escape. No matter how glorious the open fields, there would always be the remembered stink of the tenements in my nostrils. The vision of a sunken-cheeked, tuberculosis-ridden pauper would always rise between me and the beauty of the sunset. A crowd of hurrying ghosts — the ghosts of the slaughtered babies — would follow me everjrwhere, crying "Coward," if I ran away. The slums had taken me captive. Concerning aaiomm {From "Aurora Leigh") By Elizabeth Barrett Browning (English poetess, 1806-1861 ; wife of Robert Browning, and an ardent champion of the Hberties of the Italian people) • T CALL you hard -^ To general suffering. Here's the world half blind With intellectual light, half brutalized With ci\'ilization, having caught the plague Out of the Depths 2C9 In silks from Tarsus, shrieking east and west Along a thousand railroads, mad with pain And sin too! . . . does one woman of you all, (You who weep easily) grow pale to see This tiger shake his cage? — does one of you Stand still from dancing, stop from stringing pearls. And pine and die because of the great sum Of universal anguish? — Show me a tear Wet as Cordelia's, in eyes bright as yours. Because the world is mad. You cannot count. That you should weep for this account, not you! You weep for what you know. A red-haired child Sick in a fever, if you touch him once. Though but so little as with a finger-tip. Will set you weeping; but a million sick — You could as soon weep for the rule of three Or compomid fractions. Therefore, this same world, Uncomprehended by you. — Women as you are. Mere women, personal and passionate. You give us doting mothers, and perfect wives. Sublime Madonnas, and enduring saints! We get no Christ from you, — and verily We shall not get a poet, in my mind. QZllomen and C^conomtc^ By Charlotte Perkins Oilman (See page 200) RECOGNIZING her intense feeling on moral lines, and seeing in her the rigidly preserved virtues of faith, submission, and self-sacrifice — qualities which in the dark ages were held to be the first of virtues, — we 14 210 The Cry for Justice have agreed of late years to call woman the moral superior of man. But the ceaseless growth of human hfe, social Ufe, has developed in him new virtues, later, higher, more needful; and the moral nature of woman, as main- tained in this rudimentary stage by her economic depend- ence, is a continual check to the progress of the human soul. The main feature of her life — ^the restriction of her range and duty to the love and service of her own imme- diate family — acts upon us continually as a retarding influence, hindering the expansion of the spirit of social love and service on which our very lives depend. It keeps the moral standard of the patriarchal era still before us, and blinds our eyes to the full duty of man. •^Eflt mtonstvilnt00 ot llSiitbt& By Grant Allen (English essayist and nature student, 1848-1899) IF you are on the side of the spoilers, then you are a bad man. If you are on the side of social justice, then you are a good one. There is no effective test of high morahty at the present day save this. Critics of the middle-class type often exclaim, of reason- ing like this, "What on earth makes him say it? What has he to gain by talking in that way? What does he expect to get by it?" So bound up are they in the idea of a self-interest as the one motive of action that they never even seem to conceive of honest conviction as a ground for speaking out the truth that is in one. To such critics I would answer, "The reason why I write all this is because I profoundly believe it. I believe the poor Out of the Depths 211 are being kept out of their own. I believe the rich are for the most part selfish and despicable. I believe wealth has been generally piled up by cruel and unworthy means. I believe it is wrong in us to acquiesce in the wicked inequaUties of oiu- existing social state, instead of trying our utmost to bring about another, where right would be done to all, where poverty would be impossible. I believe such a system is perfectly practicable, and that nothing stands in its way save the selfish fears and prej- udices of individuals. And I believe that even those craven fears and narrow prejudices are wholly mistaken; that everybody, including the rich themselves, would be infinitely happier in a world where no poverty existed, where no hateful sights and sounds met the eye at every turn, where all slums were swept away, and where every- body had their just and even share of pleasures and refinements in a free and equal community." SDespafc By Lady Wilde (Irish poetess, mother of Oscar Wilde; wrote under the pen-name of Speranza) TD EFOEE us dies our brother, of starvation; -*— ' Around are cries of famine and despair! Where is hope for us, or comfort or salvation — Where — oh! where? If the angels ever hearken, downward bending, They are weeping, we are sure. At the litanies of human groans ascending From the crushed hearts of the poor. £12 The Cry for Justice We never knew a childhood's mirth and gladness, Nor the proud heart of youth free and brave; Oh, a death-like dream of wretchedness and sadness Is life's weary journey to the grave! Day by day we lower sink, and lower, Till the God-like soul -ndthin Falls crushed beneath the fearful demon power Of poverty and sin. So we toil on, on with fever burning In heart and brain; So we toil on, on through bitter scorning. Want, woe, and pain. We dare not raise our eyes to the blue heavens Or the toil must cease — We dare not breathe the fresh air God has given One hour in peace. ImqmlitiS of ^taltjb By G. Bernard Shaw (See page 193) I AM not bound to keep my temper with an imposture so outrageous, so abjectly sycophantic, as the pretence that the existing inequalities of income correspond to and are produced by moral and physical inferiorities and superiorities — ^that Barnato was five million times as great and good a man as William Blake, and committed suicide because he lost two-fifths of his superiority; that the life of Lord Anglesey has been on a far higher plane than that of John Ruskin; that Mademoiselle Liane de Pougy has been raised by her successful sugar specula- .ll'l.l.S lilMiUE VAN BIESBROECK (Sciiliiliif III' llir Bilqliiii SariaUd and co-operative iiinrettients; horn 1S73) Out of the Depths 213 tion to moral heights never attained by Florence Nightin- gale; and that an arrangement to establish economic equality between them by duly adjusted pensions would be impossible. I say that no sane person can be expected to treat such impudent follies with patience, much less with respect. By William Blake (See page 98) T HEARD an Angel singing ■'■ When the day was springing: "Mercy, pity, and peace. Are the world's release." So he sang all day Over the new-mown hay, Till the sun went down, And haycocks looked brown I heard a Devil curse Over the heath and the furze: "Mercy could be no more If there were nobody poor. And pity no more could be If all were happy as ye: And mutual fear brings peace. Misery's increase Are mercy, pity, peace." At his curse the sxm went down. And the heavens gave a frown. 214 The Cry for Justice T By Jambs Anthony Feoude (English historian, 1818-1894) HE endurance of the inequalities of life by the pojbr is the marvel of human society. By Leonid Andreyev (In this strange drama, which might be called a symboUo tragi- comedy, the Russian writer has set forth the pUght of the educated people of his coontry, confronted by the abject superstition of the peasantry. Savva, a fanatical revolutionist, endeavors to wipe out this superstition by blowing up a monastery fall of drunken monks. But the plot is revealed to the monks, who carry out the ikon, or sacred image, before the explosion, and afterwards carry it back into the ruins. The peasants, arriving on the scene and find- ing the ikon uninjured, hail a supreme miracle; the whole country is swept by a wave of religious frenzy, in the course of which Sawa is trampled to death by a mob. In the following scene Sawa argues with his sister, a reUgious believer. The tramp of pilgrims is heard outside) OAWA (smiling): — The tramp of death! ^ Lipa: — Remember that each one of these would consider himself happy in killing you, in crushing you Uke a reptile. Each one of these is your death. Why, they beat a simple thief to death, a horse thief. What would they not do to you? You who wanted to steal their God! Sawa: — Quite true. That's property too. Lipa: — You still have the brazenness to joke? Who gave you the right to do such a thing? Who gave you Out of the Depths 215 the power over people? How dare you meddle with what to them is right? How dare you interfere with their life? Sawa: — Who gave me the right? You gave it to me. Who gave me the power? You gave it to me— you with your malice, your ignorance, your stupidity! You with your wretched impotence! Right! Power! They have turned the earth into a sewer, an outrage, an abode of slaves. They worry each other, they torture each other, and they ask: "Who dares to take us by the throat?" I! Do you understand? I! Lipa: — But to destroy all! Think of it! Sawa: — What could you do with them? What would you do? Try to persuade the oxen to turn away from their bovine path? Catch each one by his horn and pull him away? Would you put on a frock-coat and read a lecture? Haven't they had plenty to teach them? As if words and thought had any significance to them! Thought — pure, unhappy thought! They have per- verted it. They have taught it to cheat and defraud. They have made it a salable commodity, to be bought at auction in the market. No, sister, life is short, and I am not going to waste it in arguments with oxen. The way to deal with them is by fire. That's what they require — fire! Lipa: — But what do you want? What do you want? Sawa: — What do I want? To free the earth, to free mankind. Man — the man of today — is wise. He has come to his senses. He is ripe for liberty. But the past eats away his soul like a canker. It imprisons him within the iron circle of things already accomplished. I want to do away with everything behind man, so that there is nothing to see when he looks back. I want to take him by the scruff of his neck and turn his face toward the future! 216 The Cry for Justice By John Davidson ' (Scotch poet and dramatist, 1857-1909; after struggling for many years in London against poverty and Hi-health, committed suicide, leaving some of the most strikiiig and original poetry of the present THIS Beauty, this Divinity, this Thought, This hallowed bower and harvest of delight Whose roots ethereal seemed to clutch the stars, Whose amaranths perfumed eternity. Is fixed in earthly soil enriched with bones Of used-up workers; fattened with the blood Of prostitutes, the prime manure; and dressed With brains of madmen and the broken hearts Of children. Understand it, you at least Who toil all day and writhe and groan all night With roots of luxiny, a cancer struck In every muscle : out of you it is . Cathedrals rise and Heaven blossoms fair; You are the hidden putrefying somrce Of beauty and delight, of leisured hours, Of passionate loves and high imaginings; You are the dung that keeps the roses sweet. I say, uproot it; plough the land; and let A svimmer-faUow sweeten all the World. Out of the Depths 217 {From "Death and the Child") By Stephen Crane (American novelist and poet, 1870-1900) ' I "HESE stupid peasants, who, throughout the world, •*■ hold potentates on their thrones, make statesmen illustrious, provide generals with lasting victories, all with ignorance, indifference, or half-witted hatred, moving the world with the strength of their arms, and getting their heads knocked together, in the name of God, the king, or the stock exchange — ^immortal, dreaming, hopeless asses, who surrender their reason to the care of a shining puppet, and persuade some toy to carry their lives in his purse. an Italian B,e0taurant {From " A Bed of Roses") -, By W. L. Geobge (Contemporary English novelist) THEY sat at a marble topped table, flooded with light by incandescent gas. In the glare the waiters seemed blacker, smaller and more stunted than by the hght of day. Their faces were pallid, with a touch of green: their hair and moustaches were almost blue black. Their energy was that of automata. Victoria looked at them, melting with pity. "There's a life for you," said Farwell, interpreting her look. "Sixteen hours' work a day in an atmosphere S18 The Cry for Justice of stale food. For meals, plate scourings. For sleep and time to get to it, eight hours. For living, the rest of the day." "It's .:.wful, awful," said Victoria. "They might as well be dead." "They will be soon," said Farwell, "but what does that matter? There are plenty of waiters. In the shadow of the olive groves tonight in far-off Calabria, at the base of the vine-clad hills, couples are walking hand in hand, with passion flashing in their eyes. Brown peasant boys are clasping to their breast young girls with dark hair, white teeth, red lips, hearts that beat and quiver with ecstasy. They tell a tale of love and hope. So we shall not be short of waiters." ConfffSt By Carlos Wuppeeman (Contemporary American poet) TONIGHT the beautiful, chaste moon From heaven's height Scatters over the bridal earth Blossoms of white; And spring's renewed glad charms imfold Endless delight. Such mystic wonder the hushed world wears, Evil has fled Far, far away; in every heart God reigns instead. . . . Tonight a starving virgin sells Her soul for bread. Out of the Depths 219 ^ ^mi^-^ta 30lanticc By Francis Adams > (English poet and rebel, 1862-1893; his Ufe, a brief straggle with poverty and disease, was ended by his own hand) A LOLL in the warm clear water, ' On her back with languorous limbs She lies. The baby upon her breast Paddles and falls and swims. With half-closed eyes she smiles, Guarding it with her hands; And the sob swells up in my heart — In my heart that miderstands. Dear, in the English country, The hatefullest land on earth, The mothers are starved and the children die And death is better than hirth! ' •SDut ot t^t JeDatlt By Helen Keller (America's most famous bhnd girl, bom 1880, who has come to see more than most people with normal eyes) OTEP by step my investigation of blindness led me ^ into the industrial world. And what a world it is! I must face unflinchingly a world of facts — a world of misery and degradation, of blindness, crookedness, and sm, a world struggling against the elements, against the 220 The Cry for Justice unknown, against itself. How reconcile this world of fact with the bright world of my imagining? My dark- ness had been filled with the hght of intelligence, and, behold, the outer day-lit world was stumbling and grop- ing in social blindness. At first I was most unhappy; but deeper study restored my confidence. By learning the sufferings and burdens of men, I became aware as never before of the life-power that has survived the forces of darkness— the power which, though never completely victorious, is continuously conquering. The very fact that we are still here carrying on the contest against the hosts of annihilation proves that on the whole the battle has gone for humanity. The world's great heart has proved equal to the prodigious undertaking which God set it. Rebuffed, but always persevering; self -reproached, but ever regaining faith; undaunted, tenacious, the heart of man labors towards immeasurably distant goals. Dis- couraged not by difficulties without, or the anguish of ages within, the heart listens to a secret voice that whisp6rs: "Be not dismayed; in the future lies the Promised Land." ^tit0 ot %mt By Thomas Wentworth Higginson (American poet and essayist, 1823-1911; a vehement anti-slavery agitator, he was colonel of the first negro regiment during the Civil War, and in later life became a devoted Socialist) pi^ROM street and square, from hill and glen, ■*• Of this vast world beyond my door, I hear the tread of marching men. The patient armies of the poor. Out of the Depths 221 Not ermine-clad or clothed in state, Their title-deeds not yet made plain, " But waking early, toiling late, The heirs of all the earth remain. The peasant brain shall yet be wise. The untamed pulse grow calm and still; The blind shall see, the lowly rise. And work in peace Time's wondrous will. Some day, without a trumpet's call This news will o'er the world be blown: "The heritage comes back to all; The myriad monarchs take their own." ffi^onli ^^uman Sl^ffffit By Bjobnstjerne Bjornson (Next to Ibsen, the gi-eatest of Norwegian dramatists, 1832 — 1910. In the following scene, from a two-part symbolic drama of the problem of labor and capital, a young clergyman is speaking to a crowd of miners in the midst of a bitterly fought strike) BRATT: — Here it is dark and cold. Here few work hopefully, and no one joyfully. Here the children won't thrive — they yearn for the sea and the daylight. They crave the sun. But it lasts only a little while, and then they give up. They learn that among those who have been cast down here there is rarely one who can climb up again. Several: — That's right! . . . Bratt: — What is there to herald the coming of better things? A new generation up there? Listen to what their young people answer for themselves: "We want a The Cry for Justice good time!" And their books? The books and the youth together make the future. And what do the books say? Exactly the same as the youth: "Let us have a good time! Ours are the hght and the lust of life, its colors and its joys!" That's what the youth and their books say. — They are right! It is all theirs! There is no law to prevent their taking life's sunlight and joy away from the poor people. For those who have the sun have also made the law. — But then the next question is whether we might not scramble up high enough to take part in the writing of a new law. {This is received with thundering cheers.) What is needed is that one gen- eration makes an effort strong enough to raise all coming generations into the vigorous life of full sunlight. Many: — Yes, yes! Bratt: — But so far every generation has put it off on the next one. Until at last our turn has come — to bear sacrifices and sufferings like unto those of death itself! By Heinrich Heine (See page 97) I "HEIR eyelids are drooping, no tears lie beneath ; ■*- They stand at the loom and grind their teeth; "We are weaving a shroud for the doubly dead, And a threefold curse in its every thread — We are weaving, still weaving. "A curse for the Godhead to whom we have bowed In our cold and oiu* hunger, we weave in the shroud; For in vain have we hoped and in vain have prayed ; He has mocked us and scoffed at us, sold and betrayed- We are weaving, still weaving. Out of the Depths 22S "A curse for the king of the wealthy and proud, Who for us had no pity, we weave in the shroud; Who takes our last penny to swell out his purse. While we die the death of a dog — yea, a curse — We are weaving, still weaving. "A ciu"se for our country, whose cowardly crowd Hold her shame in high honor, we weave in the shroud; Whose blossoms are blighted and slain in the germ. Whose filth and corruption engender the worm — We are weaving, still weaving. "To and fro flies our shuttle — ^no pause ia its flight, 'Tis a shroud we are weaving by day and by night; We are weaving a shroud for the worse than dead. And a threefold curse in its every thread — We are weaving — still weaving." ^Iton Eoctte By Charles Kingslet (See pages 78, 84) YES, it was true. Society had not given me my rights. And woe unto the man on whom that idea, true or false, rises lurid, flUing all his thoughts with stifling glare, as of the pit itself. Be it true, be it false, it is equally a woe to believe it; to have to live on a nega- tion; to have to worship for our only idea, as hundreds of thousands of us have this day, the hatred of the things which are. Ay, though one of us here and there may die in faith, in sight of the promised land, yet is it not 22Ji. The Cry for Justice hard, when looking from the top of Pisgah into "the good time coming," to watch the years sUpping away one by one, and death crawUng nearer and nearer, and the people wearjdng themselves in the fire for very vanity, and Jordan not yet passed, the promised land not yet entered? While our little children die around us, Uke lambs beneath the knife, of cholera and typhus and con- sumption, and all the diseases which the good time can and will prevent; which, as science has proved, and you the rich confess, might be prevented at once, if you dared to bring in one bold and comprehensive measm-e, and not sacrifice yearly the lives of thousands to the idol of vested interests, and a majority in the House. Is it not hard to men who smart beneath such things to help crying aloud — "Thou cursed Moloch-Mammon, take my life if thou wilt; let me die in the wilderness, for I have deserved it ; but these little ones in mines and factories, in typhus cellars and Tooting pandemoniums, what have they done? If not in their fathers' cause, yet still in theirs, were it so great a sin to die upon a barricade?" BOOK V %evolt The struggle to do away with injustice; the battle-cries of the new army which is gathering for the deUverance of humanity. 16 SL Q^an'jJ a 9pan for a' "^ICfiat By Robert Burns (Scotland's most popular poet, 1759-1796) T S there, for honest poverty, -'■ That hangs his head, and a' that? The coward slave, we pass him by, We daur be puir, for a' that! For a' that, and a' that, Our toils obscure and a' that. The rank is but the guinea's stamp — The man's the gowd for a' that. What though on hamely fare we dine, Wear hoddin-grey and a' that; Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine — A man's a man for a' that. For a' that, and a' that, Their tinsel show and a' that, The honest man, though e'er sae puir, Is king o' men for a' that. Ye see yon birkie, ca'ed a lord, Wha struts, and stares, and a' that; Though hundreds worship at his word, He's but a coof for a' that: For a' that, and a' that. His riband, star, and a' that; The man of independent mind. He looks and laughs at a' that. (227) SS8 The Cry for Justice A king can make a belted knight, A marqms, duke, and a' that; But an honest man's aboon his might, Gude faith, he maimna fa' that! For a' that, and a' that. Their dignities and a' that, The pith o' sense and pride o' worth Are higher rank than a' that. Then let us pray that come it may, (As come it will for a' that) That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth. May bear the gree and a' that. For a' that, and a' that — It's coming yet, for a' that. When man to man, the warld o'er. Shall brithers be for a' that. By Thomas Jefferson (President of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence, 1743-1826) ALL eyes are opened or opening to the rights of man. ■ The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been bom with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. Revolt 229 Si l^intiication at jl^atutal potitiv. By Edmund Burke (British statesman and orator, 1729-1797; defended the American colonies in Parliament during the Revolutionary War) A SK of politicians the ends for which laws were orig- -^»- inally designed, and they will answer that the laws were designed as a protection for the poor and weak, against the oppression of the rich and powerful. But surely no pretence can be so ridiculous; a man might as well tell me he has taken off my load, because he has changed the burden. If the poor man is not able to support his suit according to the vexatious and expensive manner established in civilized countries, has not the rich as great an advantage over him as the strong has over the weak in a state of nature? . . . The most obvious division of society is into rich and poor, and it is no less obvious that the number of the former bear a great disproportion to those of the latter. The whole business of the poor is to administer to the idleness, folly, and luxury of the rich, and that of the rich, in return, is to find the best methods of confirming the slavery and increasing the burdens of the poor. In a state of nature it is an invariable law that a man's acquisitions are in proportion to his labors. In a state of artificial society it is a law as constant and invariable that those who labor most enjoy the fewest things, and that those who labor not at all have the greatest num- ber of enjoyments. A constitution of things this, strange and ridiculous beyond expression! We scarce believe a thing when we are told it which we actually see before our eyes every day without being in th^ least surprised. S30 The Cry for Justice I suppose that there are in Great Britain upwards of an hundred thousand people employed in lead, tin, iron, copper, and coal mines; these unhappy wretches scarce ever see the hght of the sun; they are buried in the bowels of the earth; there they work at a severe and dis- mal task, without the least prospect of being delivered from it; they subsist upon the coarsest and worst sort of fare; they have their health miserably impaired, and their lives cut short, by being perpetually confined in the close vapors of these malignant minerals. An hun- dred thousand more at least are tortured without remis- sion by the suffocating smoke, intense fires, and con- stant drudgery necessary in refining and managing the products of those mines. If any man informed us that two hundred thousand innocent persons were condemned to so intolerable slavery, how should we pity the unhappy sufferers, and how great would be our just indignation against those who inflicted so cruel and ignominious a punishment! This is an instance — I could not wish a stronger — of the numberless things which we pass by in their common dress, yet which shock us when they are nakedly represented. . . . In a misery of this sort, admitting some few lenitives, and those too but a few, nine parts in ten of the whole race of mankind drudge through life. It may be urged, perhaps, in palliation of this, that at least the rich few find a considerable and real benefit from the wretched- ness of the many. But is this so in fact? . . . The poor by their excessive labor, and the rich by their enormous luxury, are set upon a level, and ren- dered equally ignorant of any knowledge which might conduce to their happiness. A dismal view of the interior of all civil society! The lower part broken and ground Revolt 231 down by the most cruel oppression; and the rich by their artificial method of life bringing worse evils on them- selves than their tyranny could possibly inflict on those below them. 'atfie Slntfquitp of JFrwtiDm By William Cullen Bryant (American poet and editor, 1794^1878; author of "Thanatopsis") O FREEDOM ! thou art not, as poets dream, A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs, And wavy tresses gushing from the cap With which the Roman master crowned his slave When he took off the gyves. A bearded man, Armed to the teeth, art thou; one mailed hand Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow, Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs Are strong with struggling. Power at thee has launched His boltSj and with his lightnings smitten thee; They could not quench the life thou hast from heaven. Merciless Power has dug thy dungeon deep. And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires. Have forged thy chain; yet, while he deems thee bound. The links are shivered, and the prison walls Fall outward; terribly thou springest forth. As springs the flame above a burning pile, And shoutest to the nations, who return Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies. The Cry for Justice By Lord Byron (English poet of liberty, 1788-1824; died while taking part in the war for the liberation of Greece) HEREDITARY bondsmen! know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the blow? By their right arms the conquest must be wrought? By Lafcadio Hearn (A writer of Irish and Greek parentage, 1850-1904; became a lecturer on English in the University of Tokio. Japan's ablest interpreter to the western world) "Permit me to say something in opposition to a -»■ very famous and very popular Latin proverb — In medio tutissimus ibis — "Thou wilt go most safely by taking the middle course." In speaking of two distinct tendencies in literature, you might expect me to say that the aim of the student should be to avoid extremes, and to try not to be either too conservative or too liberal. But I should certainly never give any such advice. On the contrary, I think that the proverb above quoted is one of the most mischievous, one of the most pernicious, one of the most foolish, that ever was invented in the world. I believe very strongly in extremes — in violent extremes; and I am quite sure that all progress in this world, whether literary, or scientific, or religious, or polit- ical, or social, has been obtained only with the assistance of extremes. But remember that I say, "With the as- Revolt ^33 sistance," — I do not mean that extremes alone accom- plish the aim: there must be antagonism, but there must also be conservatism. What I mean by finding fault with the proverb is simply this — ^that it is very bad advice for a young man. To give a yoimg man such advice is very much like telling him not to do his best, but only to do half of his best — or, in other words, to be half-hearted in his imdertaking. ... It is not the old men who ever prove great reformers: they are too cautious, too wise. Reforms are made by the vigor and courage and the self-sacrifice and the emotional convic- tion of young men, who did not know enough to be afraid, and who feel much more deeply than they think. Indeed great reforms are not accomplished by reasoning, but by feeling. CSi JFfrst Ti00ut ot "fWtit %ibneitot" {January 1, 1831) By William Lloyt) Garrison (America's most ardent anti-slavery agitator, 1805-1879. The following pronouncement marked the beginning of the anti-slavery campaign) I AM aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as Truth, and as uncompromising as Justice. On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe 234 The Cry for Justice from the fire into wiiich it has fallen — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — and I will be heard. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. aZBorWns and tEaKinu {From the lAncoln-Douglas debates, 1858) By Abraham Lincoln THAT is the real issue that will continue in this coun- try when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles, right and wrong, throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time. The one is the common right of humanity, the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says "you toil and work and earn bread and I'll eat it." SitiUt^^ to Ptf^iamt Eincoln By the International Workingmen's Association {Drafted by Karl Marx) WHEN an oligarchy of three hundred thousand slaveholders, for the first time in the annals of the world, dared to inscribe "Slavery" on the banner of armed revolt; when on the very spot where hardly Revolt 235 a century ago the idea of one great democratic republic had first sprung up, whence the first declaration of the Rights of Man was issued, and the first impulse given to the European revolution of the eighteenth century, when on that very spot the counter-revolution cynically proclaimed property in man to be "the corner-stone of the new edifice" — ^then the working classes of Europe xmderstood at once that the slaveholders' rebellion was to sound the tocsin for a general holy war of property against labor; and that for the men of labor, with their hopes for the future, even their past conquests were at stake in that tremendous conflict on the other side of the Atlantic. Boston l^gmn By Ralph Waldo Emerson (American essayist, philosopher and poet. The two stanzas following, which may be said to smn up the revolutionary view of the subject of "confiscation," are taken from a poem read in Boston on Emancipation day, January 1, 1863) TODAY unbind the captive. So only are ye imbound; Lift up a people from the dust. Trump of their rescue, sound! Pay ransom to the owner And fill the bag to the brim. Who is the owner? The slave is owner, And ever was. Pay him. S36 The Cry for Justice JBattIt ^gmn of tfie €Untdt Effaolution (1912) {From the Chinese) FREEDOM, one of the greatest blessings of Heaven, United to Peace, thou wilt work on this earth ten thousand wonderful new things. Grave as a spirit, great as a giant rising to the very skies. With the clouds for a chariot and the wind for a steed, Come, come to reign over the earth! For the sake of the black hell of our slavery, Come, enlighten us with a ray of thy sun! . . . In this century we are working to open a new age. In this century, with one voice, all virile men Are calling for a new making of heaven and earth. Hin-Yun, our ancestor, guide us! Spirit of Freedom, come and protect us! ^H^t latbolutfon By Richard Wagner (It is not generally recalled that the composer of the world's greatest music-dramas, 1813-1883, was an active revolutionist, who took part in street fighting in the German Revolution of 1848, and escaped a long imprisonment only by flight. The following is from his contributions to the Dresden Volksbldtter) T AM the secret of perpetual youth, the everlasting ^ creator of life; where I am not, death rages. I am the comfort, the hope, the dream of the oppressed. I destroy what exists; but from the rock whereon I light Revolt 237 new life begins to flow. I come to you to break all chains which bear you down; to free you from the embrace of death, and instill a new life into your veins. All that exists must perish; that is the eternal condition of life, and I the all-destroying fulfil that law to create a fresh, new existence. I will renovate to the very founda- tions the order of things in which you live, for it is the offspring of sin, whose blossom is misery and whose fruit is crime. The grain is ripe, and I am the reaper. I will dissipate every delusion which has mastery over the hiunan race. I will destroy the authority of the one over the many; of the lifeless over the living; of the material over the spiritual. I will break into pieces the authority of the great; of the law of property. Ijet the will of each be master of mankind, one's own strength be one's one property, for the freeman is the sacred man, and there is nothing sublimer than he. . . . I will destroy the existing order of things which divides one himaanity into hostile peoples, into strong and weak, into privileged and outlawed, into rich -and poor; for that makes unfortimate creatures of one and all. I will destroy the order of things which makes millions the slaves of the few, and those few the slaves of their own power, of their own wealth. I will destroy the order of things which severs enjoyment from labor, which turns labor into a burden and enjoyment into a vice, which makes one man miserable through want and another miserable through super-abimdance. I will destroy the order of things which consimies the vigor of manhood in the service of the dead, of inert matter, which sustains one part of mankind in idleness or useless activity, which forces thousands to devote their sturdy youth to the indolent pursuits of soldiery, officialism, speculation and S38 The Cry for Justice usury, and the maintenance of such Uke despicable con- ditions, while the other half, by excessive exertion and sacrifice of all the enjoyment of life, bears the burden of the whole infamous structure. I will destroy even the very memory and trace of this delirious order of things which, pieced together out of force, falsehood, trouble, tears, sorrow, suffering, need, deceit, hypocrisy and crime, is shut up in its own reeking atmosphere, and never receives a breath of pure air, to which no ray of pure joy ever penetrates. . . . Arise, then, ye people of the earth, arise, ye sorrow- stricken and oppressed. Ye, also, who vainly struggle to clothe the inner desolation of your hearts, with the tran- sient glory of riches, arise! Come and follow in my track with the joyful crowd, for I know not how to make distinc- tion between those who follow me. There are but two peoples from henceforth on earth — ^the one which follows me, and the one which resists me. The one I will lead to happiness, but the other I will crush in my progress. For I am the Revolution, I am the new creating force. I am the divinity which discerns all life, which embraces, revives, and rewards. M H>' ^^ y-1 W - -/^ R '7j Revolt 239 By John G. Neihardt (Western poet and novelist, born 1881) TREMBLE before your chattels, Lords of the scheme of things! Fighters of all earth's battles, Ours is the might of kings! Guided by seers and sages, The world's heart-beat for a drum, Snapping the chains of ages. Out of the night we come! Lend us no ear that pities! Offer no almoner's hand! Alms for the builders of cities! When will you understand? Down Tft-ith your pride of birth And your golden gods of trade! A man is worth to his mother, Earth, All that a man has made! We are the workers and makers! We are no longer dumb! Tremble, Shirkers and Takers! Sweeping the earth — we come! Ranked in the world-wide dawn. Marching into the day! The night is gone and the sword is drawn And the scabbard is thrown awayf 2JfO The Cry for Justice {From " Woman and Lain r") By Olive Scheeinek (South African novelist, bom 1859. In the preface to this book one learns that it is only a faint sketch from memory of part of a great work, the manuscript of which was destroyed during the Boer war) THROWN into strict logical form, our demand is this: We do not ask that the wheels of time should reverse themselves, or the stream of life flow backward. We do not ask. that our ancient spinning-wheels be again resus- citated and placed in out hands; we do not demand that our old grindstones and hoes be returned to us, or that man should again betake himself entirely to his ancient province of war and the chase, leaving to us all domestic and civil labor. We do not even demand that society shall immediately so reconstruct itself that every woman may be again a childbearer (deep and overmastering as lies the hunger for motherhood in every virile woman's heart!); neither do we demand that the children we bear shall again be put exclusively into our hands to train. This, we know, cannot be. The past material conditions of life have gone for ever; no will of man can recall them. But this is our demand: We demand that, in that strange new world that is arising alike upon the man and the woman, where nothing is as it was, and all things are assimiing new shapes and relations, that in this new world we also shall have our share of honored and socially use- ful human toil, our full half of the labor of the Children of Woman. We demand nothing more than this, and will take nothing less. This is our "WOMAN'S RIGHT!" Revolt 241 EatJte0 in KfftcIUon By Abigail Adams 1 (Wife of one president of the United States, and mother of another. From a letter to her husband written in 1774, during the session of the &st Continental Congress) T LONG to hear that you have declared an independency. ■*■ And in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remem- ber the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. ... If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves boimd by any laws in which we have no voice or representation. ' SI 2Doir0 ^OVL0t By Henrik Ibsen (Norwegian dramatist, 1828-1906. A play which may be called the source of the modern Feminist movement. In the fol- lowing scene a young wife announces her revolt) NORA: — ^While I was at home with father, he used to tell me his opinions, and I held the same opinions. If I had others, I concealed them, because he wouldn't have liked it. He used to call me his doll-child, and played with me as I played with my dolls. Then I came to live in your house — Helmer: — What an expression to use about our marriage ! Nora (undisturbed): — I mean I passed from father's hands into yours. You settled everything according to 16 2J+2 The Cry for Justice your taste; and I got the same tastes as you; or I pre- ' tended to — I don't know which — both ways, perhaps. When I look back on it now, I seem to have been living here like a beggar, from hand to mouth. I lived by performing tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and father have done me a great wrong. It is your fault that my life has been wasted. Helmer: — Why, Nora, how unreasonable and ungrate- ful you are. Haven't you been happy here? Nora: — No, only merry. And you have always been so kind to me. But your house has been nothing but a play-room. Here I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I used to be papa's doll-child. And the children, in their turn, have been my dolls. I thought it fun when you played with me, just as the children did when I played with them. That has been our marriage, Torvald. . . . And that is why I am now leaving you! Helmer (jumping up): — What — do you mean to say — Nora: — I must stand quite alone, to know myself and my surroundings; so I can't stay with you. Helmer: — Nora! Nora! Nora: — I am going at once. Christina will take me for tonight. Helmer: — You are mad! I shall not allow it. I for- bid it. Nora: — It is no use your forbidding me anything now. I shall take with me what belongs to me. From you I will accept nothing, either now or afterwards. . . . Helmer: — To forsake your home, your husband, and your children! You don't consider what the world will say. Nora : — I can pay no heed to that. I only know what I must do. Revolt 243 Helmer: — It is exasperating! Can you forsake your holiest duties in this world? Nora: — What do you call my holiest duties? Helmer ; — Do you ask me that? Your duties to your husband and your children. Nora: — I have other duties equally sacred. Helmer: — Impossible! What duties do you mean? Nora: — My duties towards myself. Helmer: — Before all else you are a wife and a mother. Nora: — That I no longer believe. I think that before all else I am a human being, just as much as you are — or at least I will try to become one. a (Bid mtilt'Ht&titt By Florence Kiper Frank (American poetess, born 1886) A WHITE-FACED, stubborn little thing Whose years are not quite twenty years, Eyes steely now and done with tears, Mouth scornful of its suffering — The young mouth! — body virginal Beneath the cheap, ill-fitting suit, A bearing quaintly resolute, A flowering hat, satirical. A soul that steps to the sound of the fife And banners waving red to war. Mystical, knowing scarce wherefore — A Joan in a modern strife. ^44 ^he Cry for Justice Comratre Wttta* By Albert Edwards ,^ (The story of an East Side sweat-shop worker who becomes a strike-leader. The present scene describes a meeting in Carnegie Hall) 'W'ETTA stood there alone, the blood mounting to her -'■ cheeks, looking more and more like an orchid, and waited for the storm to pass. "I'm not going to talk about this strike," she said when she could make herself heard. "It's over. I want to tell you about the next one — and the next. I wish very much I could make you vmderstand about the strikes that are coming. . . . "Perhaps there's some of you never thought much about strikes till now. Well. There's been strikes all the time. I don't believe there's ever been a year when there wasn't dozens here in New York. When we began, the skirt-finishers was out. They lost their strike. They went hungry just the way we did, but nobody helped them. And they're worse now than ever. There ain't no difference between one strike and another. Perhaps they are striking for more pay or recognition or closed shops. But the next strike'll be just like ours. It'll be people fighting so they won't be so much slaves like they was before. "The Chairman said perhaps I'd tell you about my experience. There ain't nothing to tell except everybody has been awful kind to me. It's fine to have people so kind to me. But I'd rather if they'd try to understand what this strike business means to all of us workers — this strike we've won and the ones that are coming. . . . * By permission of the MacnuHan Co. Revolt 245 "I come out of the workhouse today, and they tell me a lady wants to give me money to study, she wants to have me go to college Uke I was a rich girl. It's very kind. I want to study. I ain't been to school none since I was fifteen. I guess I can't even talk English very good. I'd hke to go to college. And I used to see pictures in the papers of beautiful rich women, and of course it would be fine to have clothes like that. But being in a strike, seeing all the people suffer, seeing all the cruelty — ^it makes things look different. "The Chairman told you something out of the Chris- tian Bible. Well, we Jews have got a story too — perhaps it's in your Bible — about Moses and his people in Egypt. He'd been brought up by a rich Egyptian lady — a princess — ^just like he was her son. But as long as he tried to be an Egyptian he wasn't no good. And God spoke to him one day out of a bush on fire. I don't remember just the words of the story, but God said: 'Moses, you're a Jew. You ain't got no business with the Egj^ptians. Take off those fine clothes and go back to your own people and help them escape from bondage.' Well. Of course, I ain't like Moses, and God has never talked to me. But it seems to me sort of as if — during this strike — I'd seen a blazing bush. Anyhow I've seen my people in bondage. And I don't want to go to college and be a lady, I guess the land princess couldn't understand why Moses wanted to be a poor Jew instead of a rich Egj'ptian. But if you can understand, if you can understand why I'm going to stay with my own people, you'll understand all I've been trying to say. "We're a people in bondage. There's lots of people who's kind to us. I guess the princess wasn't the only Egyptian lady that was kind to the Jews. But kindness 2J+6 The Cry for Justice ain't what people want who are in bondage. Kindness won't never make us free. And God don't send any more prophets nowadays. We've got to escape all by ourselves. And when you read in the papers that there's a strike — it don't matter whether it's street-car con- ductors or lace-makers, whether it's Eyetalians or Polacks or Jews or Americans, whether it's here or in Chicago — it's my People — the People in Bondage who are starting out for the Promised Land." She stopped a moment, and a strange look came over her face — a look of communication with some distant spirit. When she spoke again, her words were unintel- hgible to most of the audience. Some of the Jewish vest-makers understood. And the Rev. Dunham Den- ning, who was a famous scholar, understood. But even those who did not were held spellbound by the swinging sonorous cadence. She stopped abruptly. "It's Hebrew," she explained. "It's what my father taught me when I was a little girl. It's about the Prom-- ised Land — I can't say it in good English — I " "Unless I've forgotten my Hebrew," the Reverend Chairman said, stepping forward, "Miss Rayefsky has been repeating God's words to Moses as recorded in the third chapter of Exodus. I think it's the seventh verse: — " 'And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; " 'And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.' " "Yes. That's it," Yetta said. "Well, that's what strikes mean. We're fighting for the old promises." Revolt 247 "ilJcto" SflJomm By Olive Schreiner (See page 240) WE are not new! If you would understand us, go back two thousand years, and study our descent; our breed is our explanation. We are the daughters of our fathers as well as our mothers. In our dreams we still hear the clash of the shields of our forebears, as they struck them together before battle and raised the shout of "Freedom!" In our dreams it is with us still, and when we wake it breaks from our own lips. We are the daughters of these men. T5ua^ anu %o&zd By James Oppenheim (In a parade of the strikers of Lawrence, Mass., some young girls carried a banner inscribed, "We want Bread, and Roses too!") AS we come marching, marching, in the beauty of the ■ day, A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill-lofts gray Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun dis- closes. For the people hear us singing, "Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses." As we come marching, marching, we battle, too, for men — For they are women's children and we mother them again. Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes — Hearts starve as well as bodies: Give us Bread, but give us Roses! us The Cry for Justice As we come marching, marching, unnmnbered women dead Go crying through our singing their ancient song of Bread; Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew — Yes, it is bread we fight for — but we fight for Roses, too. As we come marching, marching, we bring the Greater Days — The rising of the women means the rising of the race — No more the drudge and idler — ten that toil where one reposes — But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses! %flt (15reat ^ttiU * ' {From "Happy Humanity") By Frederik van Eeden (The Dutch physician, poet and novelist has here told for American readers a personal experience in the labor struggles of his own country) ABOUT forty of us were sent as delegates to different ' towns to lead and encourage the strikers there. The password was given and a date and hour secretly appointed. On Monday morning, the sixth of April, 1903, no train was to run on any railway in the Nether- lands. Sunday evening I set out, as one of the forty delegates, on the warpath. I took leave of my family, filled a suit- * By permiasioQ of Doubleday, Page & Co. Revolt 249 case with pamphlets and fly-leaves, and arrived in the middle of the night at the Uttle town of Amersfoort, an important railway junction, to bring my message from headquarters that a strike would be declared that night in the whole country. Expecting the Government to be very active and energetic and not unlikely to arrest me, I took an assimied name, and was dressed like a laborer. . . . I stayed a week in that little town, living in the houses of the strikers, sharing their meals and their hours of suspense and anxiety. There was a dark, dingy meeting-room where they all preferred to gather, rather than stay at home. The women also regularly attended these meetings, sometimes bringing their children, and they all sought the comfort of being in company, talking of hopes and fears, cheering each other up by songs, and trying to raise each other's spirits during the long days of inaction. I addressed them, three or four times a day, trying to give them soimd notions on social condi- tions and preparing them for the defeat which I soon knew to be inevitable. I may say, however, that, though I was of all the forty delegates the least hopeful of ulti- mate success, my little party was the last to surrender and showed the smallest percentage of fugitives. I saw in those days of strife that of the two contending parties, the stronger, the victorious one, was by far the least sympathetic in its moral attitude and methods. The strikers were pathetically stupid and ignorant about the strength of their opponents and their own weakness. If they had unexpectedly gained a complete victory they would have been utterly unable to use it. If the political power had shifted from the hands of the Government to those of the leading staff of that general strike, the 250 The Cry for Justice result would have been a terrible confusion. There was no mind strong enough, no hand firm enough among them to rule and reorganize that mass of workers, unaccustomed to freedom, imtrained to self-control, unable to work without severe authority and discipline. Yet the feel- ings and motives of that multitude were fair and just — they showed a chivalry, a generosity, an idealism and an enthusiasm with which the low methods of their power- ful opponents contrasted painfully. Every striker had to fight his own fight at home. Every evening he had to face the worn and anxious face of his wife, the sight of his children in danger of starva- tion and misery. He had to notice the hidden tears of the woman, or to answer her doubts and reproaches, with a mind itself far from confident. He had to fight in his own heart the egotistical inclination to save himself and give up what he felt to be his best sentiment, solidar- ity, the faith towards his comrades. I believe no feeling man of the leisure class could have gone through a week in those surroundings and taken part in a struggle like this without acquiring a different conception of the ethics of socialism and class war. For on the other side there were the Government, the companies, the defendants of existing order, powerful by their wealth, by their routine, by their experience, and supported by the servility of the great public and the army. They had not to face any real danger (the strikers showed no inclination to deeds of Adolence), and the arms they used were intimidation and bribery. The only thing for them to do was to demorahze the striker, to make him an egoist, a coward, a traitor to his comrades. And this was done quietly and successfully. Demoralizing the enemy may be the lawful object of Revolt 251 every war — the unavoidable evil to prevent a greater wrong; yet in this case, where the method of corruption could be used only on one side, it showed the ugly char- acter of the conflict. This was no fair battle with com- mon moral rules of chivalry and generosity; it was a pitiful and hopeless struggle between a weak slave and a strong usurper, between an ill-treated, revolting child and a brutal oppressor, who cared only for the restora- tion of his authority, not for the morals of the child. ^otoec m a l^instiom W^tn ^t gatg €)btaituli it {From "Las Siete Partidas") By Alfonso the Wise (A Spanish king of great learning; 1226-1284) A TYRANT doth signify a cruel lord, who, by force ^*- or by craft, or by treachery, hath obtained power over any realm or country; and such men be of such nature, that when once they have grown strong in the land, they love rather to work their own profit, though it be to the harm of the land, than the common profit of all, for they always live in an ill fear of losing it. And that they may be able to fulfil this their purpose unen- cumbered, the wise of old have said that they use their power against the people in three manners. The first is, that they strive that those under their mastery be ever ignorant and timorous, because, when they be SHch, they may not be bold to rise against them, nor to resist their wills; and the second is, that their victims be not kindly and united among themselves, in such wise that they 252 The Cry for Justice trust not one another, for while they hve in disagreement, they shall not dare to make any discourse against their lord, for fear faith and secrecy should not be kept among themselves; and the third way is, that they strive to make them poor, and to put them upon great imdertakings, which they can never finish, whereby they may have so much harm that it may never come into their hearts to devise anything against their ruler. And above all this, have tyrants ever striven to make spoil of the strong and to destroy the wise; and have forbidden fellowship and assemblies of men in their land, and striven always to know what men said or did; and do trust their counsel and the guard of their person rather to foreigners, who will serve at their will, than to them of the land, who serve from oppression. Sin flDpm %tUtt to tfiz (Emplogersf By " A.E." (George W. Russell) (This remarkable piece of eloquence, published in the Dublia Times at the time of the great strike of 1913, is said to have com- pletely revolutionized public opinion on the question. The author, born 1867, is one of Ireland's greatest poets, and an ardent advocate of agricultural co operation) OiRS: — I address this warning to you, the aristocracy ^ of industry in this city, because, like all aristocracies, you tend to grow blind in long authority, and to be unaware that you and your class and its every action are being considered and judged day by day by those who have power to shake or overturn the whole social order, and whose restlessness in poverty today is making our industrial civilization stir like a quaking bog. You Revolt 263 do not seem to realize that your assumption that you are answerable to yourselves alone for your actions in the industries you control is one that becomes less and less tolerable in a world so crowded with necessitous life. Some of you have helped Irish farmers to upset a landed aristocracy in the island, an aristocracy richer and more powerful in its sphere than you are in yours, with its roots deep in history. They, too, as a class, though not all of them, were scornful or neglectful of the workers in the industry by which they profited; and to many who knew them in their pride of place and thought them all-powerful they are already becoming a memory, the good disappearing with the bad. If they had done their duty by those from whose labor came their wealth, they might have continued unquestioned in power and prestige for centuries to come. The relation of landlord and tenant is not an ideal one, but any relations in a social order will endure if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy which qualifies life for inmiortality. Despotisms endure while they are benevo- lent, and aristocracies while "noblesse oblige" is not a phrase to be referred to with a cynical smile. Even an oligarchy might be permanent if the spirit of hmnan kindness, which- harmonizes all things otherwise incom- patible, were present. . . . Those who have economic power have civic power also, yet you have not used the power that was yours to right what was wrong in the evil administration of this city. You have allowed the poor to be herded together so that one thinks of certain places in Dublin as of a pestilence. There are twenty thousand rooms, in each of which live entire families, and sometimes more, where no functions of the body can be concealed, and delicacy ^54 The Cry for Justice and modesty are creatures that are stifled ere they are born. The obvious duty of you in regard to these things you might have left undone, and it be imputed to ignor- ance or forgetfulness; but your collective and conscious action as a class in the present labor dispute has revealed you to the world in so malign an aspect that the mirror must be held up to you, so that you may see yourself as every humane person sees you. The conception of yourselves as altogether virtuous and wronged is, I assure you, not at all the one which onlookers hold of you. . . . The representatives of labor unions in Great Britain met you, and you made of them a preposterous, an impossible demand, and because they would not accede to it you closed the Conference; you refused to meet them further; you assumed that no other guarantees than those you asked were possible, and you determined dehberately, in cold anger, to starve out one- third of the population of this city, to break the man- hood of the men by the sight of the suffering of their wives and the hunger of their children. We read in the Dark Ages of the rack and thmnbscrew. But these iniquities were hidden and concealed from the knowledge of men in dungeons and torture-chambers. Even in the Dark Ages humanity could not endure the sight of such suffering, and it learnt of such misuse of power by slow degrees, through rmnor, and when it was certain it razed its Bastilles to their foundations. It remained for the twentieth century and the capital city of Ireland to see an oligarchy of four hundred masters deciding openly upon starving one hundred thousand people, and refusing to consider any solution except that fixed by their pride. You, masters, asked men to do that which masters of .labor in any other city in these islands had not dared Revolt 255 to do. You insolently demanded of these men who were members of a trade union that they should resign from that imion; and from those who were not members you insisted on a vow that they would never join it. Your insolence and ignorance of the rights conceded to workers imiversally in the modern world were incred- ible, and as great as your inhumanity. If you had between you collectively a portion of human soul as large as a three-penny bit, you would have sat night and day with the representatives of labor, trying this or that solution of the trouble, mindful of the women and chil- dren, who at least were innocent of wrong against you. But no! You reminded labor you could always have your three square meals a day while it went hungry. You went into conference again with representatives of the State, because, dull as you are, you knew public opinion would not stand your holding out. You chose as your spokesman the bitterest tongue that ever wagged in this island, and then, when an award was made by men who have an experience in industrial matters a thousand times transcending yours, who have settled disputes in industries so great that the sum of your petty enterprises would not equal them, you withdraw again, and will not agree to accept their solution, and fall back again on your devilish policy of starvation. Cry aloud to Heaven for new souls! The souls you have got cast upon the screen of publicity appear like the horrid and writhing creatures enlarged from the insect world, and revealed to us by the cinematograph. You may succeed in your policy and ensure your own damnation by your victory. The men whose manhood you have broken will loathe you, and will always be brooding and scheming to strike a fresh blow. The SS6 The Cry for Justice children will be taught to curse you. The infant being molded in the womb will have breathed into its starved body the vitality of hate. It is not they — it is you who are blind Samsons puUing down the pillars of the social order. You are sounding the death-knell of autocracy in industry. There was autocracy in political life, and it was superseded by democracy. So surely will demo- cratic power wrest from you the control of industry. The fate of you, the aristocracy of industry, will be as the fate of the aristocracy of land if you do not show that you have some humanity still among you. Humanity abhors, above all things, a vacuum in itself, and your class will be cut off from humanity as the surgeon cuts the cancer and alien growth from the body. Be warned ere it is too late. (Bod aim tSe fetrong: SDm0 By Margahet Widdemer (Contemporary American poet) **\^7^E have made them fools and weak!" said the * ^ Strong Ones : "We have bound them, they are dumb and deaf and blind; We have crushed them ia our hands like a heap of crimi- bling sands. We have left them naught to seek or find: They are quiet at our feet!" said the Strong Ones; "We have made them one with wood and stone and clod; Serf and laborer and woman, they are less than wise or human! " "/ shall raise the weak!" saith God. Revolt 257 "They are stirring in the dark!" said the Strong Ones, "They are strugghng, who were moveless like the dead; We can hear them cry and strain hand and foot against the chain, We can hear their heavy upward tread .... What if they are restless?" said the Strong Ones; "What if they have stirred beneath the rod? Fools and weak and blinded men, we can tread them down again " "Shall ye conquer Me?" saith God. "They will- trample us and bind!" said the Strong Ones; "We are crushed beneath the blackened feet and hands; All the strong and fair and great they will crush from out the state; They will whelm it with the weight of pressing sands — They are maddened and are blind!" said the Strong Ones; "Black decay has come where they have trod; They will break the world in twain if their hands are on the rein — " "What is that to mef" saith God. " Ye have made them in their strength, who were Strong Ones, Ye have only taught the blackness ye have known: These are evil men and blind? — Ay, but molded to your mind! How shall ye cry out against your own? Ye have held the light and beauty I have given Far above the muddied ways where they must plod: Ye have builded this your lord with the lash and with the sword — Reap what ye have sown!" saith God. 17 258 The Cry for Justice By Gerhart Hatjptmann (German dramatist and poet, born 1862. The present play is a wonderful picture of the lives of the weavers of Silesia, driven to revolt by starvation. Moritz, a soldier, has just come home to his friends) ANSORGE: — Come, then, Moritz, tell us your opinion, ■^ you that's been out and seen the world. Are things at all like improving for us weavers, eh? Moritz: — They would need to. Ansorge: — We're in an awful state here. It's not livin' an' it's not dyin'. A man fights to the bitter end, but he's bound to be beat at last — to be left without a roof over his head, you may say without ground under his feet. As long as he can work at the loom he can earn some sort o' poor, miserable livin'. But it's many a day since I've been able to get that sort o' job. Now I tries to put a bite into my mouth with this here basket- makin'. I sits at it late into the night, and by the time I tumbles into bed I've earned twelve pfennig. I put it to you if a man can live on that, when everything's so dear? Nine marks goes in one limip for house tax, three marks for land tax, nine marks for mortgage interest — that makes twenty-one marks. I may reckon my year's eamin's at just double that money, and that leaves me twentyrone marks for a whole year's food, an' fire, an' clothes, an' shoes; and I've got to keep up some sort of place to live in. Is it any wonder that I'm behind- hand with my interest payments? Old Baumbrt: — Some one would need to go to Berlia an' tell the King how hard put to it we are. Revolt 259 MoEiTZ : — Little good that would do, Father Baumert. There's been plenty written about it in the newspapers. But the rich people, they can turn and twist things round — as cunning as the devil himself. Old Baumert {shaking his head): — To think they've no more sense than that in Berlin! Ansoege: — And is it really true, Moritz? Is there no law to help us? If a man hasn't been able to scrape together enough to pay his mortgage interest, though he's worked the very skin off his hands, must his house be taken from him? The peasant that's lent the money on it, he wants his rights — what else can you look for from him? But what's to be the end of it all, I don't know. — If I'm put out o' the house. . . . (In a voice choked by tears.) 1 was born here, and here my father sat at his loom for more than forty years. Many was the time he said to mother: Mother, when I'm gone, the house'll still be here. I've worked hard for it. Every nail means a night's weaving, every plank a year's dry bread. A man would think that. . . . Moritz: — They're quite fit to take the last bite out of your mouth — that's what they are. Ansorge: — Well, well, well! I would rather be car- ried out than have to walk out now in my old days. Who minds dyin'? My father, he was glad to die. At the very end he got frightened, but I crept into bed beside him, an' he quieted down again. I was a lad of thirteen then. I was tired and fell asleep beside him — I knew no better — and when I woke he was quite cold. . . . {They eat the food which the soldier has brought, but the old man Baumert is too far exhausted to retain it, and has to run from the room. He comes back crying with rage.) Baumert: — It's no good! I'm too far gone! Now 260 The Cry for Justice that I've at last got hold of somethin' with a taste in it, my stomach won't keep it. {He sits down on the bench by the stove cryiiig.) MoRiTZ {with a sudden violent ebullition of rage) : — And yet there are people not far from here, justices they call themselves too, over-fed brutes, that have nothing to do all the year round but invent new ways of wasting their time. And these people say that the weavers would be quite well off if only they weren't so lazy. Ansorge: — The men as say that are no men at all, they're monsters. MoHiTz: — Never mind, Father Ansorge; we're making the place hot for 'em. Becker and I have been and given Dreissiger {the master) a piece of our mind, and before we came away we sang him "Bloody Justice." Ansorge: — Good Lord! Is that the song? MoRiTz: — Yes; I have it here. Ansorge: — They call it Dreissiger's song, don't they? MoRiTz: — I'll read it to you. Mother Baumert: — Who wrote it? MoRiTz: — That's what nobody knows. Now listen. {He reads, hesitating like a schoolboy, with incorrect accen- tuation, but unmistakably strong feeling. Despair, suffer- ing, rage, hatred, thirst for revenge, all find utterance.) The justice to us weavers dealt Is bloody, cruel, and hateful; Our life's one torture, long drawn out: For lynch law we'd be grateful. Stretched on the rack day after day, Hearts sick and bodies aching. Our heavy sighs their witness bear To spirit slowly breaking. Revolt 261 {The words of the song make a strong impression on Old Baumert. Deeply agitated, he struggles against the tempta- tion to interrupt Moritz. At last he can keep quiet no longer.) Old Baumert {to his wife, half laughing, half crying, stammering): — "Stretched on the rack day after day." Whoever wrote that, mother, knew the truth. You can bear witness ... eh, how does it go? "Ovu- heavy sighs their witness bear" . . . what's the rest? Moritz: — "To spirit slowly breaking." Old Baumert: — You know the way we sigh, mother, day and night, sleepin' an' wakin'. {Ansorge has stopped working, and cowers on the floor, strongly agitated. Mother Baumert and Bertha wipe their eyes frequently during the course of the reading.) Moritz {continues to read): — The Dreissigers true hangmen are. Servants no whit behind them; Masters and men with one accord Set on the poor to grind them. You villains all, you brood of hell Old Baumert {trembling with rage, stamping on the floor) : — Yes, brood of hell ! ! ! MoBiTZ {reads): — You fiends in fashion human, A curse will fall on all hke you. Who prey on man and woman. Ansorge: — Yes, yes, a curse upon them! Old Baumert {clenching his fist, threateningly): — You prey on man and woman. 262 The Cry for Justice MoBiTZ (reads): — Then think of all our woe and want, ye who hear this ditty! Our struggle vain for daily bread Hard hearts would move to pity. But pity's what you've never known, — You'd take both skin and clothing. You cannibals, whose cruel deeds Fill all good men with loathing. Old Baumert (jumps up, beside himself with excite- ment): — Both skin and clothing. It's true, it's all true! Here I stand, Robert Baumert, master-weaver of Kasch- bach. Who can bring up anything against me? . . . I've been an honest, hard-working man. all my life long, an' look at me now! What have I to show for it? Look at me! See what they've made of me! Stretched on the rack day after day. (He holds out his arms.) Feel that! Skin and bone! "You villains all, you brood of hell!!" (He sinks down on a chair, weeping with rage and despair.) Ansorge (flings his basket from him into a corner, rises, his whole body trembling with rage, gasps): — And the time's come now for a change, I say. We'll stand it no longer! We'll stand it no longer! Come what may! 'ti 3- o H K B M o o d H td td > Revolt 263 Stltoit Eocltc'0 S»onB: 1848 By Charles Kingsley (See pages 78, 84, 223) ^^ 7EEP, weep, weep and weep ' * For pauper, dolt and slave! Hark! from wasted moor and fen Feverous alley, stifling den. Swells the wail of Saxon men — Work! or the grave! Down, down, down and down. With idler, knave, and tyrant! Why for sluggards cark and moil? He that will not live by tbil Has no right on English soil! God's word's our warrant! Up, up, up and up! Face your game and play it! The night is past, behold the sun! The idols fall, the lie is done! The Judge is set, the doom begim! Who shall stay it? By G. Bernard Shaw DO not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty what is the matter with the Rich is Uselessness. M4 The Cry for Justice By Robert G. Ingersoll (American lawyer and lecturer, 1883-1899) A"\ /"HOEVER produces anything by weary labor, does * ' not need a revelation from heaven to teach him that he has a right to the thing produced. Eabor (A parody upon a poem by Rudyard Kipling; author unknown. The poem is frequently, but incorrectly, attributed to Mr. Kipling) WE have fed you all for a thousand years, And you hail us still unfed, Tho' there's never a dollar of all your wealth But marks the workers' dead. We have yielded our best to give you rest, And you lie on crimson wool ; For if blood be the price of all your wealth Good God, we ha' paid in full ! There's never a mine blown skyward now But we're buried alive for you; There's never a wreck drifts shoreward now But we are its ghastly crew; Go reckon our dead by the forges red, And the factories where we spin. If blood be the price of your cursed wealth Good God, we ha' paid it in! Revolt 265 We have fed you all for a thousand years, For that was our doom, you know. From the days when you chained us in your fields To the strike of a week ago. You ha' eaten om- lives and ovu* babies and wives, And we're told it's your legal share; But, if blood be the price of your lawful wealth. Good God, we ha' bought it fair! %^t Woio "Eeigng* of 'STfttor" {From "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court") By Mark Twain (It is not generally realized that America's most beloved humorist was deeply stirred by the sight of social injustice, and many times went out of his way to give voice to his feelings. His recently pub- lished biography shows that influences were at work during his lifetime to repress him, and it would seem that such influences are still active after his death. It was found impossible to obtain the publishers' permission to quote a passage of 176 words, which was to have appeared at this place in the Anthology. The passage in question is from the thirteenth chapter of "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." It points out that there were two "Reigns of Terror'' in France; that the evils of the "minor Terror," that of the Revolution, have been made much of, although they lasted only a few months, and caused the death of only ten thousand per- sons; whereas there was another, "an older and real Terror," which had lasted a thousand years, and brought death to hun- dreds of millions of persons. We consider it horrible that people should have their heads cut off, but we have not been taught to see the horror of the life-long death which is inflicted upon a whole population by poverty and tyranny) 266 The Cry for Justice In 'Trafalgar ^quat^ {From "Songs of the Army of the Night") By Francis W. L. Adams (See page 219) ' I "HE stars shone faint through the smoky blue; ■^ The church-bells were ringing; Three girls, arms laced, were passing through, Tramping and singing. Their heads were bare; their short skirts swung As they went along; Their scarf-covered breasts heaved up, as they sung Their defiant song. It was not too clean, their feminine lay. But it thrilled me quite With its challenge to task-master villainous day And infamous night, With its threat to the robber rich, the proud, The respectable free. And I laughed and shouted to them aloud, And they shouted to me ! "Girls, that's the shout, the shout we will utter When, with rifles and spades. We stand, with the old Red Flag aflutter, On the barricades!" Revolt 267 Cfie Orator on tfie ©atricadc {From "Les Miserables") By Victor Hugo (See page 182) I (FRIENDS, the hour in which we Hve, and in which -'- I speak to you, is a gloomy hour, but of such is the terrible price of the future. A revolution is a toll-gate. Oh! the human race shall be delivered, uplifted and con- soled! We affirm it on this barricade. Whence shall arise the shout of love, if it be not from the summit of sacrifice? my brothers, here is the place of junction between those who think and those who suffer; this barricade is made neither of paving-stones, nor of tim- bers, nor of iron; it is made of two mounds, a mound of ideas and a mound of sorrows. Misery here encounters the ideal. Here day embraces night, and says: I will die with thee and thou shalt be bom again with me. From the pressure of all desolations faith gushes forth. Sufferings bring their agony here, and ideas their immor- tality. This agony and this immortality are to mingle and compose our death. Brothers, he who dies here dies in the radiance of the future, and we are entering a grave illumined by the dawn. 268 The Cry for Justice (Etttopt: 'STfie 72nti ana 73rli gtar0 ot %lt&t &tate0 By Walt Whitman (The European revolutions of 1848^9) CUDDENLY out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair ^^ of slaves, Like lightning it le'pt forth half startled at itself, Its feet upon the ashes and the rags, its hands tight to the throats of kings. hope and faith! aching close of exiled patriots' lives! many a sicken'd heart! Turn back unto this day, and make yourselves afresh. And you, paid to defile the People! you liars, mark! Not for numberless agonies, murders, lusts, For court thieving in its manifold mean forms, worming from his simplicity the poor man's wages. For many a promise sworn by royal lips, and broken, and laugh'd at in the breaking. Then in their power, not for all these, did the blows strike revenge, or the heads of the nobles fall; The People scorn'd the ferocity of kings. But the sweetness of mercy brew'd bitter destruction, and the frighten'd monarchs come back; Each comes in state, with his train — hangman, priest, tax- gatherer. Soldier, lawyer, lord, jailer, and sycophant. Revolt 269 Yet behind all, lowering, stealing — lo, a Shape, Vague as the night, draped interminable, head, front, and form, in scarlet folds. Whose face and eyes none may see. Out of its robes only this — ^the red robes, hfted by the arm. One finger, crook'd, pointed high over the top, hke the head of a snake appears. Meanwhile, corpses lie in new-made graves — bloody corpses of young men; The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily, the bullets of princes are flying, the creatures of power laugh aloud, And all these things bear fruits — and they are good. Those corpses of young men. Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets — those hearts pierc'd by the gray lead, Cold and motionless as they seem, live elsewhere with unslaughter'd vitality. They live in other young men, kings! They live in brothers again ready to defy you! They were purified by death — they were taught and exalted. Not a grave of the murder'd for freedom, but grows seed for freedom, in its turn to bear seed. Which the winds carry afar and re-sow, and the rains and the snows nourish. 270 The Cry for Justice Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose, But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering, counsel- ling, cautioning. Liberty! let others despair of you! I never despair of you. Is the house shut? Is the master away? Nevertheless, be ready — ^be not weary of watching; He will return soon — his messengers come anon. %lz SDcati to Xlt Eibfnff By Ferdinand Feeiligrath (German revolutionary poet, 1810-1876. Part of a poem writ- ten after the uprising of 1848, in Berlin, when the people marched past the palace-gates with their slain, and compelled the king to stand upon the balcony and take off his hat to the bodies) ^^/"ITH bullets through and through our breast — our ' ' forehead split with pike and spear. So bear us onward shoulder high, laid dead upon a blood- stained bier; Yea, shoulder-high above the crowd, that on the man that bade us die. Our dreadful death-distorted face may be a bitter curse for aye; That he may see it day and night, or when he wakes, or when he sleeps. Or when he opes his holy book, or when with wine high revel keeps; That always each disfeatured face, each gaping wound his sight may sear,. And brood above his bed of death, and curdle all his blood with fear! Revolt 271 By Sie Leslie Stephen (English essayist and critic, 1832-1904) T FOR one, am fully prepared to listen to any argu- ■*■ 1 ments for the propriety of theft or murder, or if it be possible, of immorality in the abstract. No doc- trine, however well established, should be protected from discussion. If, as a matter of fact, any appreciable number of persons are so inclined to advocate murder on principle, I should wish them to state their opinions openly and fearlessly, because I should think that the shortest way of exploding the principle and of ascertain- ing the true causes of such a perversion of moral senti- ment. Such a state of things implies the existence of evils which cannot be really cured till their cause is known, and the shortest way to discover the cause is to give a hearing to the alleged reasons. By Wendell Phillips (American anti-slavery agitator, 1811-1884) TF there i ■'■ let it era is , anything -that cannot bear free thought, crack. 272 The Cry for Justice 'H^t Sl^a^ft of anarcSg By Percy Bysshe Shelley (English poet of nature and human liberty, 1792-1822, whose whole life was a cry for beauty and freedom. He died in obloquy and neglect, and today is known as "the Poets' Poet") "N yf EN of England, Heirs of Glory, ■'-*■'• Heroes of unwritten story, Nurslings of one mighty mother, Hopes of her, and one another! Rise, like lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number. Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fall'n on you. Ye are many, they are few. What is Freedom! Ye can tell That which Slavery is too well, For its very name has grown To an echo of your own. 'Tis to work, and have such pay As just keeps life from day to day In your limbs as in a cell For the tyrants' use to dwell : So that ye for them are made, Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade; With or without your own will, bent To their defence and nourishment. Revolt 27S 'Tis to see your children weak With their mothers pine and peak, When the winter winds are bleak: — They are dying whilst I speak. 'Tis to hunger for such diet As the rich man in his riot Casts to the fat dogs that lie Surfeiting beneath his eye. 'Tis to be a slave in soul, And to hold no strong control Over your own wills, but be All that others make of ye. By Henbik Ibsen (See page 241) AWAY with the State ! I will take part in that revolu- ■ tion. Undermine the whole conception of a state, declare free choice and spiritual kinship to be the only all-important conditions of any union, and you will have the commencement of a liberty that is worth something. 27Jt. The Cry for Justice Cfirt^tmagf (n Ptisfon (from " The Jungle") By Upton Sinclair (See pages 43, 143, 194) IN the distance there was a church-tower bell that tolled the hours one by one. When it came to mid- night Jurgis was lying upon the floor with his head in his arms, listening. Instead of falling silent at the end, the bell broke out into a sudden clangor. Jurgis raised his head; what could that mean — a fire? God! suppose there were to be a fire in this jail! But then he made out a melody in the ringing; there were chimes.- And they seemed to waken the city — all around, far and near, there were bells, ringing wild music; for fully a minute Jurgis lay lost in wonder, before, all at once, the mean- ing of it broke over him — that this was Christmas Eve! Christmas Eve — ^he had forgotten it entirely! There was a breaking of flood-gates, a whirl of new memories and new griefs rushing into his mind. In far Lithuania they had celebrated Christmas; and it came to him as if it had been yesterday — him^self a little child, with his lost brother and his dead father in the cabin in the deep black forest, where the snow fell all day and all night and buried them from the world. It was too far off for Santa Claus in Lithuania, but it was not too far for peace and good-will to men, for the wonder-bearing vision of the Christ-child. But no, their bells were not ringing for him — ^their Christmas was not meant for him, they were simply not counting him at all. He was of no consequence, like a bit of trash, the carcass of some animal. It was horrible, Revolt 275 horrible! His wife migtit be dying, his baby might be starving, his whole family might be perishing in the cold — and all the while they were ringing their Christ- mas chimes! And the bitter mockery of it — all this was punishment for him! They put him in a place where the snow could not beat in, where the cold could not eat through his bones; they brought him food and drink — why, in the name of heaven, if they must punish him, did they not put his family in jail and leave him outside — ^why could they find no better way to punish him than to leave three weak women and six helpless children to starve and freeze? That was their law, that was their justice! Jurgis stood upright, trembling with passion, his hands clenched and his arms upraised, his whole soul ablaze with hatred and defiance. Ten thousand curses upon them and their law! Their justice — it was a lie, a sham and a loath- some mockery. There was no justice, there was no right, anywhere in it — it was only force, it was tyranny, the will and the power, reckless and unrestrained! These midnight hours were fateful ones to Jurgis; in them was the beginning of his rebellion, of his outlawry and his unbelief. He had no wit to trace back the social crime to its far sources — he could not say it was the thing men have called "the system" that was crushing him to the earth; that it was the packers, his masters, who had bought up the law of the land, and had dealt out their brutal will to him from the seat of justice. He only knew that he was wronged, and that the world had wronged him; that the law, that society, with all its powers, had declared itself his foe. And every hour his soul grew blacker, every hour he dreamed new dreams of vengeance, of defiance, of raging, frenzied hate. S76 The Cry for Justice lSiObbtt& anti (5oiietnment& By Leo Tolstoy (See pages 88, 110, 148) ' I "HE robber generally plundered the rich, the govern- ■•- ments generally plunder .the poor and protect those rich who assist in their crimes. The robber doing his work risked his life, while the governments risk nothing, but base their whole activity on lies and deception. The robber did not compel anyone to join his band, the govern- ments generally enrol their soldiers by force. . . . The robber did not intentionally vitiate people, but the govern- ments, to accomplish their ends, vitiate whole generations from childhood to manhood with false religions and patriotic instruction. "(Kanmrn" in I&tatl (From " A Sociological Study of the Bible ") By Louis Wallis ^^7E saw that the great revolt under David was put * ' down by the assistance of mercenary troops, or hired "strong men," and that by their aid Solomon was elevated to the throne against the wishes of the peasantry. In the Hebrew text, these men of power are called gib- borim. They were among the principal tools used by the kings in maintaining the government. It was the gibborim who garrisoned the royal strongholds that held the country in awe. In cases where the peasants refused to submit, bands of gibborim were sent out by the kings and the great nobles. Through them the peasantry were Revolt S77 "civilized"; and through them, apparently, the Amorite law was enforced in opposition to the old justice. Hence the prophets were very bitter against these tools of the ruhng class. Hosea writes: "Thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy gibborim; therefore shall a tumult arise against thy people; and all thy for- tresses shall be destroyed." Amos, the shepherd, says that when Jehovah shall punish the land, the gibborim shallfall: " Flight shall perish from the swift . . . neither shall the gibbor deliver himself; neither shall he stand that handeth the bow; and he that is swift of foot shall not deliver himself; . . . and he that is courageous among the gibborim shall flee away naked in that day, saith Jehovah." "CKunimn" in mc0t i?lrsmfa {"When the Leaves Come Out") By a Paint Creek Miner (Written during the terrible strike of 1911-12) THE hills are very bare and cold and lonely; I wonder what the future months will bring. The strike is on — our strength would win, if only — 0, Buddy, how I'm longing for the spring! They've got us down — ^their martial lines enfold us; They've thrown us out to feel the winter's sting. And yet, by God, those curs can never hold us, Nor could the dogs of hell do such a thing! S78 The Cry for Justice It isn't just to see the hills beside me Grow fresh and green with every growing thing; I only want the leaves to come and hide me, To cover up my vengeful wandering. I will not watch the floating clouds that hover Above the birds that warble on the wing; I want to use this gun from under cover — • 0, Buddy, how I'm longing for the spring! You see them there, below, the damned scab-herders! Those puppets on the greedy Owners' String; We'll make them pay for all their dirty murders — We'll show them how a starveling's hate can sting! They riddled us with volley after volley; We heard their speeding bullets zip and ring, But soon we'll make them suffer for their folly — 0, Buddy, how I'm longing for the spring! s From Ecclesiastes URELY oppression maketh a wise man mad. political ipiolmcj (From an Anarchist pamphlet published in London; author unknown) T TNDER miserable conditions of life, any vision of the ^^ possibility of better things makes the present mis- ery more intolerable, and spurs those who suffer to the most energetic struggles to improve their lot; and if Revolt 279 these struggles only result in sharper misery, the out- come is sheer desperation. In our present society, for instance, an exploited wage worker, who catches a glimpse of what life and work ought to be, finds the toilsome routine and the squalor of his existence almost intolerable; and even when he has the resolution and courage to con- tinue steadily working his best, and waiting until new ideas have so permeated society as to pave the way for better times, the mere fact that he has such ideas and tries to spread them, brings him into difficulties with his employers. How many thousands of Socialists, and above all Anarchists, have lost work and even the chance of work, solely on the ground of their opinions. It is only the specially gifted craftsman who, if he be a zealous propagandist, can hope to retain permanent employment. And what happens to a man with his brain working actively with a ferment of new ideas, with a vision before his eyes, of a new hope dawning for toiling and agonizing men, with the knowledge that his suffering and that of his fellows in misery is not caused by the cruelty of fate, but by the injustice of other hmnan beings, — what hap- pens to such a man when he sees those dear to him starving, when he himself is starved? Some natures in such a plight, and those by no means the least social or the least sensitive, will become violent, and will even feel that their violence is social and not anti-social, that in striking when and how they can, they are striking, not for themselves, but for human nature, outraged and despoiled in their persons and in those of their fellow sufferers. And are we, who ourselves are not in this horrible predicament, to stand , by and coldly condemn those piteous victims of the Furies and Fates? Are we to decry as miscreants these human beings who act with 280 The Cry for Justice heroic self-devotion, sacrificing their lives in protest, where less social and less energetic natures would lie down and grovel in abject submission to injustice and wrong? Are we to join the ignorant and brutal outcry which stigmatizes such men as monsters of wickedness, gratuitously running amuck in a harmonious and inno- cently peaceful society? No! We hate murder with a hatred that may seem absurdly exaggerated to apologists for Matabele massacres, to callous acquiescers in hangings and bombardments; but we decline in such cases of homi- cide, or attempted homicide, as those of which we are treating, to be guilty of the cruel injustice of flinging the whole responsibility of the deed upon the immediate per- petrator. The guilt of these homicides lies upon every man and woman who, intentionally or by cold indiffer- ence, helps to keep up social conditions that drive himian beings to despair. The man who flings his whole life into the attempt, at the cost of his own life, to, protest against the wrongs of his fellow-men, is a saint compared to the active and passive upholders of cruelty and in- justice, even if his protest destroys other lives besides his own. Let him who is without sin in society cast the first stone at such an one. Revolt 281 By Frank Harris (The English author, born 1855, author of "The Man Shake- speare," has in this novel told the inside story of the Haymarket explosion in Chicago in 1886. The following passage describes the treatment which the strikers received from the police) A MEETING was called on a waste space in Packing- -^*- town, and over a thousand workmen came together. I went there out of curiosity. Lingg, I may say here, always went alone to these strike meetings. Ida told me once that he suffered so much at them that he could not bear to be seen, and perhaps that was the explanation of his solitary ways. Fielden, the Englishman, spoke first, and was cheered to the echo; the workmen knew him as a working-man and liked him; besides, he talked in a homely way, and was easy to understand. Spies spoke in German and was cheered also. The meeting was perfectly orderly when three hundred police tried to dis- perse it. The action was ill-advised, to say the best of it, and tyrannical; the strikers were hurting no one and interfering with no one. Without warning or reason the police tried to push their way through the crowd to the speakers; finding a sort of passive resistance and not being able to overcome it, they used their clubs savagely. One or two of the strikers, hot-headed, bared their knives, and at once the police, led on by that madman, Schaack, drew their revolvers and fired. It looked as if the police had been waiting for the opportunity. Three strikers were shot dead on the spot, and more than twenty were wounded, several of them dangerously, before the mob drew sullenly away from the horrible place. A leader. 282 The Cry for Justice a word, and not one of the police would have escaped alive; but the leader was not there, and the word was not given, so the wrong was done, and went unpunished. I do not know how I reached my room that afternoon. The sight of the dead men lying stark there in the snow had excited me to madness. The picture of one man followed me like an obsession; he was wounded to death, shot through the lungs; he hfted himself up on his left hand and shook the right at the pohce, crying in a sort of frenzy till the spouting blood choked him — "Bestien! Bestien!" ("Beasts! Beasts!") I can still see him wiping the blood-stained froth from his lips; I went to help him; but all he could gasp was, "Weib! Kinder! (Wife, children!)" Never shall I forget the despair in his face. i\ I supported him gently; again and again I wiped the blood from his lips; every breath brought up a flood; his poor eyes thanked me, though he could not speak, and soon his eyes closed; flickered out, as one might say, and he lay there still enough in his own blood; "murdered," as I said to myself when I laid the poor body back; "murdered!" {As a result of this police action, the narrator goes to the next meeting of the strikers with a bomb in his pocket.) The crowd began to drift away at the edges. I was alone and curiously watchful. I saw the mayor and the officials move off towards the business part of the town. It looked for a few minutes as if everything was going to pass over in peace; but I was not reUeved. I could hear my own heart beating, and suddenly I felt something in the air; it was sentient with expectancy. I slowly turned my head. I was on the very outskirts of the crowd, and as I turned I saw that Bonfield had marched out his police, and was minded to take his own way with Revolt 283 the meeting now that the mayor had left. I felt per- sonal antagonism stiffen my muscles. ... It grew darker and darker every moment. Suddenly there came a flash, and then a peal of thunder. At the end of the flash, as it seemed to me, I saw the white clubs falling, saw the police striking down the men running along the side- walk. At once my mind was made up. I put my left hand on the outside of my trousers to hold the bomb tight, and my right hand into the pocket, and drew the tape. I heard a little rasp. I began to count slowly, "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven;" as I got to seven the police were quite close to me, bludgeoning every one furiously. Two or three of the foremost had drawn their revolvers. The crowd were flying in all directions. Suddenly there was a shot, and then a dozen shots, all, it seemed to me. fired by the police. Rage blazed in me. I took the bomb out of my pocket, careless whether I was seen or not, and looked for the right place to throw it; then I hurled it over my shoulder high in the air, towards the middle of the police, and at the same moment I stumbled forward, just as if I had fallen, throwing myself on my hands and face, for I had seen the spark. It seemed as if I had been on my hands for an eternity, when I was crushed to the ground, and my ears split with the roar. I scrambled to my feet again, gasping. Men were thrown down in front of me, and were getting up on their hands. I heard groans and cries, and shrieks behind me. I turned around; as I turned a strong arm was thrust through mine, and I heard Lingg say — "Come, Rudolph, this way;" and he drew me to the sidewalk, and we walked past where the police had been. "Don't look," he whispered suddenly; "don't look." S84 The Cry for Justice But before he spoke I had looked, and what I saw will be before my eyes till I die. The street was one shambles; in the very center of it a great pit yawned, and round it men lying, or pieces of men, in every direc- tion, and close to me, near the side-walk as I passed, a leg and foot torn off, and near by two huge pieces of bleeding red meat, skewered together with a thigh-bone. My soul sickened; my senses left me; but Lingg held me up with superhuman strength, and drew me along. "Hold yourself up, Rudolph," he whispered; " come on, man," and the next moment we had passed it all, and I clung to him, trembling like a leaf. When we got to the end of the block I realized that I was wet through from head to foot, as if I had been plunged in cold water. "I must stop," I gasped. "I cannot walk, Lingg." "Nonsense," he said; "take a drink of this," and he thrust a flask of brandy into my hand. The brandy I poured down my throat set my heart beating again, allowed me to breathe, and I walked on with him. "How you are shaking," he said. "Strange, you neurotic people; you do everything perfectly, splendidly, and then break down like women. Come, I am not going to leave you; but for God's sake throw off that shaken, white look. Drink some more." I tried to; but the flask was empty. He put it back in his pocket. " Here is the bottle," he said. " I have brought enough ; but we must get to the depot." We saw fire engines with poHce on them, galloping like madmen in the direction whence we had come. The streets were crowded with people, talking, gesticulating, like actors. Every one seemed to know of the bomb already, and to be talking about it. I noticed that even Revolt 285 here, fully a block away, the pavement was covered with pieces of glass; all the windows had been broken by the explosion. As we came in front of the depot, just before we passed into the full glare of the arc-lamps, Lingg said — "Let me look at you," and as he let go my arm, I almost fell; my legs were like German sausages; they felt as if they had no bones in them, and would bend in any direction; in spite of every effort they would shake. "Come, Rudolph," he said, "we'll stop and talk; but you must come to yourself. Take another drink, and think of nothing. I will save you; you are too good to lose. Come, dear friend, don't let them crow over us." My heart seemed to be in my mouth, but I swallowed it down. I took another swig of brandy, and then a long drink of it. It might have been water for all I tasted; but it seemed to do me some little good. In a minute or so I had got hold of myself. "I'm all right," I said; "what is there to do now?" "Simply to go through the depot," he said, "as if there were nothing the matter, and take the train." BOOK VI Martyrdom Messages and records of the heroes of past and present who have sacrificed themselves for the sake of the future. facial lnteil& By Vida D. Scuddeb (Professor at Wellesley College, Mass.; born 1861) DEEPER than all theories, apart from all discussion, the mightv instinct for social justice shapes the hearts that are ready to receive it. The personal types thus created are the harbingers of the victory of the cause of freedom. The heralds of freedom, they are also its martyrs. The delicate vibrations of their consciousness thrill through the larger social self which more stohd people still ignore, and the pain of the world is their own. Not for one instant can they know an undiimned joy in art, in thought, in nature while part of their very life throbs in the hunger of the dispossessed. All this by no virtue, no choice of their own. So were they born: the children of the new age, whom the new intuition governs. In every country, out of every class, they gather: men and women vowed to simplicity of life and to social service; possessed by a force mightier than themselves, over which they have no control; aware of the lack of social harmony in our civlHzation, restless with pain, perplexity, distress, yet filled with deep inward peace as they obey the imperative claim of a widened conscious- ness. By active ministry, and yet more by prayer and fast and vigil, they seek to prepare the way for the spiritual democracy on which their souls are set. 19 (289) 290 The Cry for Justice He -^ete Return By Charles-Louis Philippe ^ (A poor and obscure clerk of the municipality of Paris, 1875-1909, who wrote seven volumes of fiction which have placed his name among the masters of French literature. He wrote of the poor whose lives he knew, and his work is characterized by fideUty to truth, beauty of sentiment, and rare charm of style. The following scene is in the home of a workingman, who by heavy sacrifice has suc- ceeded in educating his only son. One day unexpectedly the son returns home) piERRE BOUSSET said, "How does it happen that ■'■ you come to-day?" Jean sat down with slowness enough, and one saw yet another thing sit down in the house. The mother said, "I guess you haven't eaten. I'll make a little chocolate before noon-time." Jean's tongue was loosed. "Here it is. There is some- thing new. It is necessary to tell you: I have left my place!" "How! You have left your place!" They sat up all three — Pierre Bousset with his apron and his back of labor; and Jean saw that he had gray hair. The mother held a saucepan in her hand, careful like a kitchen-servant, but with feelings as if the saucepan were about to fall. Marguerite, the sister, was already weeping: "Ah, my God! I who was so proud!" Pierre Bousset said, "v^d how did you manage that clever stroke?" It was then that Jean felt his soul wither, and there rose up from the depths of his heart all the needs, all the mists of love. It was necessary that they should live side by side and understand one another, and it was M artyrdom 291 necessary that someone should begin to weaken. He said, "Does one ever know what one does?" "Ah, indeed!" said the father. "You don't know what you do?" "There are moments," answered Jean, "when one loses his head, and afterwards I don't say one should not have regrets." "For the matter of losing one's head, I know only one thing: It is that they pay you, and it is up to you always to obey whatever they command." The mother watched the chocolate, from which the steam rose with a warmth of strong nutriment. They loved that in the family, like a Sunday morning indul- gence, like a bourgeois chocolate for holiday folk. She said, "Anyhow, let it be as it will, he's got to eat." Jean went on to speak. His blue eyes had undergone the first transformation which comes in a man's life, when he is no longer Jean, son of Pierre, pupil at the Central school, but Jean Bousset, engineer of applied chemistry. There remained in them, however, the shin- ing of a young girl, that emotion which wakens two rays of sunlight in a spring. And now they kept a sort of supplication, like the sweetness of a naked infant. "Oh, I know everything that you are going to say. You cannot excuse me, because you are not in my place, and I cannot condemn a movement of my heart. You know — I wrote it to you — ^the workers were about to go on strike. At once I said to myself that these were mat- ters which did not concern me; because, when you are taking care of yourself, it is not necessary to look any farther. But Cousin Frangois explained it all to me." "Ah, I told you so!" cried Pierre Bousset. "When you wanted to take Cousin Frangois into your factory. ^92 The Cry for Justice I said to you: 'Relatives, it is necessary always to keep them at a distance. They push themselves forward, and sometimes, to excuse them one is led to commit whole heaps of lowness.' " "In truth," said Jean, "I would never have had to complain of him. On the contrary, he wore his heart on his sleeve." "Oh, all drunkards are Hke that. One says: 'They wear their hearts on their sleeve,' and one does not count all the times when they lead the others away." "Ah, I have understood many things, father. How can I explain everjrthing that I have understood! There are moments still when, to see and to realize — ^that makes in my head a noise as if the world would not stay in place. I tell you again it was rran9ois who made me understand. I saw, in the evenings. I would say to him: 'I am bored, I haven't even a comrade, and I eat at hotel- tables a dinner too well served.' He said: 'Come to my house. You don't know what it is to eat good things, because you don't work, and because hunger makes a part of work. You will have some soup with us, and we will tell you at least that you are happy to be where you are, and to look upon the workingman while playing the amateur.' I said to him: 'But I work, also. To see, to understand, to analyze, to be an engineer! You, it's your arms; me, it's my head and my heart that ache.' He laughed: 'Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! When I come home in the evening with my throat dry and I eat my soup, I also have a headache, and I laugh at you with your heart-ache. I am as tired as a wolf. What's that you call your heart?' " "Yes, he was right there," said Pierre Bousset. "For my part, I don't understand at all how you are going Martyrdom 293 to pull through. You have understood a lot of things! As for me, I understand but one thing, which is you are unhappy over being too happy." Jean went on speaking, with his blue eyes, like a mad- ness, like a ribbon, like a rosette without any reason which a young girl puts on her forehead. A sweetness came out of his heart to spread itself in the room, where the furniture gave off angular and waxy reflections. Marguerite listened, with restlessness, listened to her father, like a child whose habit it is to be guided by her parents. The mother saw to the chocolate, in a state of confusion, shaking her head. "Yesterday I was in the ofSce of the superintendent. It was then that the delegation arrived. It seems to me that I see them again. There were three workingmen. They had taken to white shirts, and they had just washed their hands. You know how the poor come into the homes of the rich. There was a great racket, and their steps were put down with so much embarrassment that one felt in the hearts of the three men the shame of crushed things. I had already thought about that poverty which, knowing that it soils, hides itself, and dares not even touch an object. They said: 'Well, Mr. Superintendent, we have been sent to talk to you. For more than ten years now we have worked in the factory. We get seventy cents a day. That's not much to tell about. We have wives and children, and our seventy cents hardly carries us farther than a glass of brandy and a little plate of soup. We understand that you also have expenses. But we should like to get eighty cents a day, and for us to explain every thing to you, it is necessary that you should con- sent, because money gives courage to the workingman.' The other received them with that assurance of the rich, 29/i. The Cry for Justice sitting straight up in his chair and holding his head as if it dominated your own. He would not have had much trouble, with his education, his habits of a master, his stability as a man of affairs, to put them all three ill at ease. 'Gentlemen, from the first word I say to you: No. The company cannot take account of your wishes. We pay you seventy cents a day, and we judge that it is up to you to lower your life to your wages. As for your insinuations, I shall employ such means as please me to fortify your courage. For the rest, our profits are not what you imagine, you who know neither our efforts nor our disappointments.' It was then, father, that I felt myself your son, and that I recalled your hands, your back which toils, and the carriage wheels that you make. The three workingmen seemed three children in their father's home, with hearts that swell and can feel no more. Ah, it was in vain I thought myself an engineer! On the benches of the school I imagined that my head was full of science, and that that sufficed. But all the blood of my father, the days that I passed in your shop, the storms which go to one's head and seem to come from far off, all that cried out like a grimace, like a lock, like a key.* I took up the argument. 'Mr. Superintendent, I know these men. There is my cousin who works in the factory. Do you imderstand what it is, the hfe of acids, and that of charcoal?' If you could have seen him! He looked at me with eyes, as if their pupils had turned to ice. 'Mr. Engineer, I don't permit either you, who are a child, or these, who are workingmen, a single word to discuss my sayings and my actions! Gentlemen, you may retire.' I went straight off the handle. A door opened at a single burst. * Tout cela criait comme une grimace, comme une serrure, comme une cl6. -^ t: ni 5 3 w H A > s O It" Si ^ =: r =:i --i - cc- S" ? N s a s M artyrdom 295 We have at least insolence, we poor, and blows of the mouth, since their weapons stop our blows of the teeth. I went away like them. They lowered their heads and thought. For my part I cried out, I turned about and cried, 'You be hanged!' " "Ah, now, indeed! I didn't expect anything like that," said Pierre Bousset. "One raises children to make gentle-folk of them, so that they will work a little less than you. Now then, in God's name! go and demand a place of those for whom you have lost your own!" By Henry David Thoreau (The New England essayist, 1817-1862, author of "Walden," went to prison because he refused to pay taxes to a government which returned fugitive slaves to the South. It is narrated that Emerson came to him and asked, "Henry, what are you doing in here?" "Waldo," was the answer, "what ai-e you doing out of here?") T TNDER a government which imprisons any unjustly, ^^ the true place for a just man is also a prison. The proper place today, the only place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own act, as they have already put them- selves out by their principles. It is there that the fugi- tive slave, and the Mexican prisoner on parole, and the Indian come to plead the wrongs of his race, should find them; on that separate but more free and honorable ground, where the State places those who are not with 298 The Cry for Justice say, the ethical part of this question? What about the human and humane part of our ideas? What about the grand condition of tomorrow as we see it, and as we foretell it now to the workers at large, here in this same cage where the felon has sat, in this same cage where the drunkard, where the prostitute, where the hired assassin has been? What about the better and nobler humanity where there shall be no more slaves, where no man will ever be obliged to go on strike in order to obtain fifty cents a week more, where children will not have to starve any more, where women no more will have to go and prostitute themselves; where at last there will not be any more slaves, any more masters, but one great family of friends and brothers. It may be, gentlemen of the jury, that you do not believe in that. It may be that we are dreamers; it may be that we are fanatics, Mr. District Attorney. But so was a fanatic Socrates, who instead of acknowledging the philosophy of the aristocrats of Athens, preferred to drink the poison. And so was a fanatic the Saviour Jesus Christ, who instead of acknowl- edging that Pilate, or that Tiberius was emperor of Rome, and instead of acknowledging his submission to all the rulers of the time and all the priestcraft of the time, pre- ferred the cross between two thieves. By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German philosopher and poet, 1749-1832) A LL those who oppose intellectual truths merely stir -^^ up the fire; the cinders fly about and set fire to that which else they had not touched. y Martyrdom 299 C00ap on Efftmp By John Stuart Mill (English philosopher and economistj 1806-1873) MANKIND can hardly be too often reminded, that there was once a man named Socrates, between whom and the legal authorities and pubhc opinion of his time, there took place a memorable collision. Born in an age and country abounding in individual greatness, this man has been handed down to us by those who best knew both him and the age, as the most virtuous man in it; while we know him as the head and prototype of all subsequent teachers of virtue, the source equally of the lofty inspiration of Plato and the judicious utili- tarianism of Aristotle, the two headsprings of ethical as of all other philosophy. This acknowledged master of all the eminent thinkers who have since lived — ^whose fame, still growing after more than two thousand years, all but outweighs the whole remainder of the names which make his native city illustrious — ^was put to death by his countrymen, after a judicial conviction, for impiety and immorality. Impiety, in denying the Gods recog- nized by the State; indeed his accusers asserted (see the "Apologia") that he believed in no gods at all. Imiporal- ity, in being, by his doctrines and instructions, a "cor- rupter of youth." Of these charges the tribunal, there is every ground for believing, honestly found him guilty, and condemned the man who probably of all then born had deserved best of mankind, to be put to death as a criminal 300 The Cry for Justice S From The Epistle of James speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. By Abturo M. Giovannitti (See page 296) T HEAR footsteps over my head all night. ^ They come and they go. Again they come and they go all night. They come one eternity in four paces and they go one eternity in four paces, and between the coming and the going there is Silence and the Night and the Infinite. For infinite are the nine feet of a prison cell, and end- less is the march of him who walks between the yellow brick wall and the red iron gate, thinking things that cannot be chained and cannot be locked, but that wander far away in the sunlit world, each in a -wild pilgrimage after a destined goal. Throughout the restless night I hear the footsteps over my head. Who walks? I know not. It is the phantom of the jail, the sleepless brain, a man, the man, the Walker. One — two — three — four : four paces and the wall. One — two — three — four: four paces and the iron gate. He has measured his space, he has measured it accu- rately, scrupulously, minutely, as the hangman measures the rope and the grave-digger the cofirn — so many feet. M artyrdom 301 so many inches, so many fractions of an inch for each of the fom- .paces. One — two — three — four. Each step sounds heavy and hollow over my head, and the echo of each step sounds hollow within my head as I count them in suspense and in dread that once, perhaps, in the endless walk, there may be five steps instead of four between the yellow brick wall and the red iron gate. But he has measured the space so accurately, so scrupulously, so minutely that nothing breaks the grave rhythm of the slow, fantastic march. . . . All the sounds of the living beings and inanimate things, and all the noises of the night I have heard in my wistful vigil. I have heard the moans of him who bewails a thing that is dead and the sighs of him who tries to smother a thing that will not die; I have heard the stifled sobs of the one who weeps with his head under the coarse blanket, and the whisperings of the one who prays with his forehead on the hard, cold stone of the floor; I have heard him who laughs the shrill, sinister laugh of folly at the horror rampant on the yellow wall and at the red eyes of the nightmare glaring through the iron bars; I have heard in the sudden icy silence him who coughs a dry, ringing cough, and wished madly that his throat would not rattle so and that he would not spit on the floor, for no sound was more atrocious than that of his sputum upon the floor; I have heard him who swears fearsome oaths which I listen to in reverence and awe, for they are holier than the virgin's prayer; SOS The Cry for Justice And I have heard, most terrible of all, the silence of two hundred brains all possessed by one single, relentless, unforgiving, desperate thought. All this I have heard in the watchful Dight, And the murmur of the wind beyond the walls. And the tolls of a distant bell. And the woeful dirge of the rain. And the remotest echoes of the sorrowful city, And the terrible beatings, wild beatings, mad beatings of the One Heart which is nearest to my heart. All this have I heard in the still night; But nothing is louder, harder, drearier, mightier, more awful than the footsteps I hear over my head all night. . . . All through the night he walks and he thinks. Is it more frightful because he walks and his footsteps sound hollow over my head, or because he thinks and speaks not his thoughts? But does he think? Why should he think? Do I think? I only hear the footsteps and count them. Four steps and the wall. Four steps and the gate. But beyond? Beyond? Where goes he beyond the gate and the wall? He does not go beyond. His thought breaks there on the iron gate. Perhaps ic breaks like a wave of rage, perhaps like a sudden flow of hope, but it always returns to beat the wall like a billow of helplessness and despair. He walks to and fro within the narrow whirlpit of this ever storming and furious thought. Only one thought — constant, fixed, immovable, smister, without power and without voice. A thought of madness, frenzy, agony and despair, a hell-brewed thought, for it is a natural thought. All Martyrdom SOS things natural are things impossible while there are jails in the world — bread, work, happiness, peace, love. But he thinks not of this. As he walks he thinks of the most superhuman, the most unattainable, the most impossible thing in the world: He thinks of a small brass key that turns just half around and throws open the red iron gate. That is all the Walker thinks, as he walks throughout the night. And that is what two hundred minds drowned in the darkness and the silence of the night think, and that is also what I think. Wonderful is the supreme wisdom of the jail that makes all think the same thought. Marvelous is the providence of the law that equalizes all, even in mind and sentiment. Fallen is the last barrier of privilege, the aristocracy of the intellect. The democracy of reason has leveled all the two hundred minds to the common surface of the same thought. I, who have never killed, think like the murderer; I, who have never stolen, reason like the thief; I think, reason, wish, hope, doubt, wait like the hired assassin, the embezzler, the forger, the counterfeiter, the incestuous, the raper, the drunkard, the prostitute, the pimp, I, I who used to think of love and life and flowers and song and beauty and the ideal. A little key, a little key as little as my little finger, a little key of shining brass. All my ideas, my thoughts, my dreams are congealed in a little key of shiny brass. All my brain, all my soul, all the suddenly surging latent powers of my deepest life are in the pocket of a white-haired man dressed in blue. 304 The Cry for Justice He is great, powerful, formidable, the man wit)> the white hair, for he has in his pocket the mighty talisman which makes one man cry, and one man pray, and one laugh, and one cough, and one walk, and all keep awa-x^e and listen and think the same maddening thought. Greater than all men is the man with the white hair and the small brass key, for no other man in the world could compel two hundred men to think for so long the same thought. Surely when the light breaks I will write a hymn unto him which shall hail him greater than Mohammed and Arbues and Torquemada and Mesmer, and all the other masters of other men's thoughts. I shall call him Almighty, for he holds everything of all and of me in a little brass key in his pocket. Everything of me he holds but the branding iron of contempt and the claymore of hatred for the monstrous cabala that can make the apostle and the murderer, the poet and the procurer, think of the same gate, the same key and the same exit on the different sunlit highways of Ufe. My brother, do not walk any more. It is wrong to walk on a grave. It is a sacrilege to walk four steps from the headstone to the foot and four steps from the foot to the headstone. If you stop walking, my brother, no longer will this be a grave, for you will give me back that mind that is chained to your feet and the right to think my own thoughts. I implore you, my brother, for I am weary of the long vigil, weary of counting your steps, and heavy with sleep. Stop, rest, sleep, my brother, for the dawn is well nigh and it is not the key alone that can throw open the gate. Martyrdom 306 By Geobge Washington (First president of the United States, 1732-1799) /^~^OVERNMENT is not reason, it is not eloquence — it ^^ is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action. (From "The Suffragette") By E. Sylvia Pankhurst (English militant leader) Che was then surrounded and held down, whilst the ^— ' chair was tilted backwards. She clenched her teeth, but the doctor pulled her mouth away to form a pouch and the wardress poured in milk and brandy, some of which trickled in through the crevices. Later in the day the doctors and wardresses again appeared. They forced her down on to the bed and held her there. One of the doctors then produced a tube two yards in length with a glass junction in the center and a funnel at one end. He forced the other end of the tube up her nostril, hurting her so terribly that the matron and two of the wardresses burst into tears and the second doctor inter- fered. At last the tube was pushed down into the stomach. She felt the pain of it to the end of the breast bone. Then one of the doctors stood upon a chair holding the funnel end of the tube at arm's length, and poured food down whilst the wardress and the other doctor all gripped her tight. She felt as thougK she 20 306 The Cry for Justice would suffocate. There was a rushing, burning sensation in her head, the drxims of her ears seemed to be bursting. The agony of pain in the throat and breast bone con- tinued. The thing seemed to go on for hours. When at last the tube was withdrawn, she felt as though all the back of her nose and throat were being torn out with it. Then almost fainting she was carried back to the punishment cell and put to bed. For hours the pain in the chest, nose and ears continued and she felt terribly sick and faint. Day after day the struggle continued; she used no violence, but each time resisted and was over- come by force of numbers. Often she vomited during the operation. When the food did not go down quickly enough the doctor pinched her nose with the tube in it, causing her even greater pain. %^e Subjection of ^omm By John Stuart Mill (See pages 199, 299) T N struggles for political emancipation, everybody ^ knows how often its champions are bought off by bribes, or daimted by terrors. In the case of women, each individual of the subject class is in a chronic state of bribery and intimidation combined. In setting up the standard of resistance, a large number of the leaders, and still more of the followers, must make an almost complete sacrifice of the pleasures or the alleviations of their own individual lot. If ever any system of privilege and en- forced subjection had its yoke tightly riveted on the necks of those who are kept down by it, this has. Martyrdom 307 By Margaret Widdemer (See page 256) Che could have loved — her woman-passions beat ^^ Deeper than theirs, or else she had not known How to have dropped her heart beneath their feet A living stepping-stone: The httle hands — did they not clutch her heart? The guarding arms — was she not very tired? Was it an easy thing to walk apart, Unresting, undesired? She gave away her crown of woman-praise, Her gentleness and silent girlhood grace To be a merriment for idle days, Scorn for the market-place: She strove for an unvisioned, far-off good, For one far hope she knew she should not see : These — not her daughters — crowned with motherhood And love and beauty — free. 308 The Cry for Justice CSomff to tSe people {From "Memoirs of a Revolutionist") By Peteh Kropotkin (The Russian author and scientist, born 1842, who renounced the title of prince and spent many years in a dungeon for his faith, has here told his life story) " T T is bitter, the bread that has been made by slaves," ■'■ our poet Nekrasoff wrote. The young generation actually refused to eat that bread, and to enjoy the riches that had been accumulated in their fathers' houses by means of servile labor, whether the laborers were actual serfs or slaves of the present industrial system. All Russia read with astonishment, in the indictment which was produced at the court against Karakozoff and his friends, that these young men, owners of considerable fortunes, used to live three or four in the same room, never spending more than ten roubles (five dollars) apiece a month for all their needs, and giving at the same time their fortunes for co-operative associations, co-operative workshops (where they themselves worked), and the like. Five years later, thousands and thousands of the Russian youth — the best part of it — ^were doing the same. Their watch-word was, "V narod!" (To the people; be the people.) During the years 1860-65 in nearly every wealthy family a bitter struggle was going on between the fathers, who wanted to maintain the old traditions, and the sons and daughters, who defended their right to dispose of their life according to their own ideals. Young men left the mihtary service, the counter and the shop, and flocked to the university towns. Girls, bred in the most aristocratic families, rushed penniless to St. Petersburg, Martyrdom 309 Moscow, and Kieff, eager to learn a profession which would free them from the domestic yoke, and some day, perhaps, also from the possible yoke of a husband. After hard and bitter struggles, many of them won that per- sonal freedom. Now they wanted to utilize it, not for their own personal enjoyment, but for carrying to the people the knowledge that had emancipated them. In every town of Russia, in every quarter of St. Peters- burg, small groups were formed for self-improvement and self -education ; the works of the philosophers, the writings of the economists, the researches of the young Russian historical school, were carefully read in these circles, and the reading was followed by endless discus- sions. The aim of all that reading and discussion was to solve the great question which rose before them: In what way could they be useful to the masses? Gradually, they came to the idea that the only way was to settle among the people and to live the people's life. Young men went into the villages as doctors, doctors' assistants, teachers, village scribes, even as agricultural laborers, blacksmiths, woodcutters, and so on, and tried to hve there in closest contact with the peasants. Girls passed teachers' examinations, learned midwifery or nursing, and went by the himdred into the villages, devoting them- selves entirely to the poorest part of the population. . . . Here and there, small groups of propagandists had settled in towns and villages in various capacities. Black- smiths' shops and small farms had been started, and young men of the wealthier classes worked in the shops or on the farms, to be in daily contact with the toihng masses. At Moscow, a number of young girls, of rich families, who had studied at the Zurich university and had started a separate organization, went even so far 310 The Cry for Justice as to enter cotton factories, where they worked from fourteen to sixteen hours a day, and lived in the factory barracks the miserable life of the Russian factory girls. It was a grand movement, in which, at the lowest esti- mate, from two to three thousand persons took an active part, while twice or thrice as many sympathizers and supporters helped the active vanguard in various ways. With a good half of that army our St. Petersburg circle was in regular correspondence — ^always, of course, in cipher. The literature which could be published in Russia under a rigorous censorship — the faintest hint of Socialism being prohibited — was soon found insufficient, and we started a printing office of our own abroad. Pamphlets for the workers and the peasants had to be written, and our small "literary committee," of which I was a mem- ber, had its hands full of work. Serghei wrote a couple of such pamphlets — one in the Lammenais style, and another containing an exposition of Socialism in a fairy tale — and both had a wide circulation. The books and pamphlets which were printed abroad were smuggled into Russia by thousands, stored at certain spots, and sent out to the local circles, which distributed them amongst the peasants and the workers. All this required a vast organization as well as much traveling about, and a colossal- correspondence, particularly for protecting our helpers and our bookstores from the police. We had special ciphers for different provincial circles, and often, after six or seven hours had been passed in discussing all details, the women, who did not trust to our accuracy in the cipher correspondence, spent all the night in cover- ing sheets of paper with cabalistic figures and fractions. M artyrdom 311 'arte iatt)olutionf0t By Ivan Turgenev (Russian writer, 1818-1883, one of the masters of the novel form. He was imprisoned and later exiled. In the original the present extract is a prose poem. The versification is by Arthur Guiterman) T SAW a spacious house. O'erhung with pall, ■'■ A narrow doorway pierced the sombre wall. Within was chill, impenetrable shade; Without there stood a maid — a Russian maid, To whom the icy dark sent forth a slow And hollow-sounding Voice : "And dost thou know. When thou hast entered, what awaits thee here?" "I know," she said, "and knowing do not fear." "Cold, hunger, hatred. Slander's bhghting breath," The Voice still chanted, "suffering — and Death?" "I know," she said. "Undaunted, wilt thou dare The sneers of kindred? Art thou steeled to bear From those whom most thou lovest, spite and scorn?" "Though Love be paid with Hate, that shall be borne," She answered. "Think! Thy doom may be to die By thine own hand, with none to fathom why, Unthanked, unhonored, desolate, alone, Thy grave unmarked, thy toil, thy love unknown, And none in days to come shall speak thy name." She said: "I ask no pity, thanks or fame." "Art thou prepared for crime?" S12 The Cry for J ustici She bowed her head : "Yes, crime, if that shall need," the maiden said. Now paused the Voice before it asked anew : " But knowest thou that all thou boldest true Thy soul may yet deny in bitter pain,^ So thou shalt deem thy sacrifice in vain?" "E'en this I know," she said, "and yet again I pray thee, let me enter." "Enter then!" That hollow Voice rephed. She passed the door. A sable curtain fell — and nothing more. "A fool!" snarled some one, gnashing. Like a prayer "A saint!" the whispered answer thrilled the air. 3n a 3au00ian prison {From "Memoirs of a Revolutionist") By Peter Kropotkin (See page 308) ONE day in the summer of 1875, in the cell that was next to mine I distinctly heard the light steps of heeled boots, and a few minutes later I caught fragments of a conversation. A feminine voice spoke from the cell, and a deep bass voice — evidently that of the sentry — gj-unted something in reply. Then I recognized the sound of the colonel's spurs, his rapid steps, his swearing at the sentry, and the click of the key in the lock. He said something, and a feminine voice loudly replied: "We did not talk. I only asked him to call the non- Martyrdom 313 commissioned officer." Then the door was locked, and I heard the colonel swearing in whispers at the sentry. So I was alone no more. I had a lady neighbor, who at once broke down tha severe discipline which had hitherto reigned among the soldiers. From that day the walls of the fortress, which had been mute dm'ing the last fifteen months, became animated. From all sides I heard knocks with the foot on the floor : one, two, three, four, . . . eleven knocks; twenty-four knocks, fifteen knocks; then an interruption, followed by three knocks, and a long succession of thirty-three knocks. Over and over again these knocks were repeated in the same suc- cession, until the neighbor would guess at last that they were meant for "Kto vy?" (Who are you?), the letter v being the third letter in our alphabet. Thereupon con- versation was soon established, and usually was conducted in the abridged alphabet; that is, the alphabet being divided into six rows of five letters, each letter marked by its row and its place in the row. I discovered with great pleasure that I had at my left my friend Serdukoff, with whom I could soon talk about everything, especially when we used our cipher. But intercourse with men brought its sufferings as well as its joys. Underneath me was lodged a peasant, whom Serdukoff knew. He talked to him by means of knocks; and even against my will, often unconsciously during my work, I followed their conversatiohs. I also spoke to him. Now, if solitary confinement without any sort of work is hard for educated men, it is infinitely harder for a peasant who is accustomed to physical work, and not at all wont to spend years in reading. Our peasant friend felt quite miserable, and having been kept for nearly two years in another prison before he was brought to the 314 The Cry for Justice fortress — his crime was that he had Hstened to Socialists ■ — he was already broken down. Soon I began to notice, to my terror, that from time to time his mind wandered. Gradually his thoughts grew more and more confused, and we two perceived, step by step, day by day, evi- dences that his reason was failing, until his talk became at last that of a lunatic. Frightful noises and wild cries came next from the lower story; our neighbor was mad, but was still kept for several months in the casemate before he was removed to an asylum, from which he never emerged. To witness the destruction of a man's mind, under such conditions, was terrible. I am sure it must have contributed to increase the nervous irritabil- ity of my good and true friend Serdukoff. When, after four years' imprisonment, he was acquitted by the court and released, he shot himself. By Thomas Bailey Aldeich (New England poet and journalist, 1836-1907) FROM yonder gilded minaret Beside the steel-blue Neva set, I faintly catch, from time to time, The sweet, aerial midnight chime — "God save the Tsar!" Above the ravehns and the moats Of the white citadel it floats; And men in dungeons far beneath Listen, and pray, and gnash their teeth — "God save the Tsar!" Martyrdom 315 The soft reiterations sweep Across the horror of their sleep, As if some demon in his glee Were mocking at their misery — "God save the Tsar!" In his red palace over there, Wakeful, he needs must hear the prayer. How can it drown the broken cries . Wrung from his children's agonies? — "God save the Tsar!" Father they called him from of old — Batuschka! . . . How his heart is cold! Wait till a milhon scourged men Rise in their awful might, and then — "God save the Tsar!" By Elsa Barker i I (Contemporary American poet and novelist. Catherine Breshkov- sky, called "Little Mother" by the Russian peasants, was sentenced to a long term of exile in Siberia when seventy-seven years of age) HOW narrow seems the round of ladies' lives And ladies' duties in their smiling world, The day this Titan woman, gray with years. Goes out across the void to prove her soul! Brief are the pains of motherhood that end In motherhood's long joy; but she has borne The age-long travail of a cause that lies Still-born at last on History's cold lap. 316 The Cry for Justice And yet she rests not; yet she will not drink The cup of peace held to her parching lips By smug Dishonor's hand. Nay, forth she fares, Old and alone,, on exile's rocky road — That well-worn road with snows incarnadined By blood-drops from her feet long years agone. Mother of power, my soul goes out to you As a strong swimmer goes to meet the sea Upon whose vastness he is like a leaf. What are the ends and purposes of song. Save as a bugle at the lips of Life To sound reveille to a drowsing world When some great deed is rising like the sun? Where are those others whom your deeds inspired To deeds and words that were themselves a deed? Those who believe in death have gone with death To the gray crags of immortality; Those who believed in life have gone with life To the red halls of spiritual death. And you? But what is death or life to you? Only a weapon in the hand of faith To cleave a way for beings yet imborn To a far freedom you will never share ! Freedom of body is an empty shell Wherein men crawl whose souls are held with gyves; For Freedom is a spirit, and she dwells As often in a jail as on the hills. In all the world this day there is no soul Freer than you, Breshkovsky, as you stand Facing the future in your narrow cell. For you are free of self and free of fear, Martyrdom 317 Those twin-born shades that lie in wait for man When he steps out upon the wind-blown road That leads to human greatness and to pain. Take in your hand once more the pilgrim's staff — Your delicate hand misshapen from the nights In Kara's mines; bind on yom-, unbent back That long has borne the burdens of the race, The exile's bundle, and upon your feet Strap the worn sandals of a tireless faith. You are too great for pity. After you We send not sobs, but songs; and all our da]^s We shall walk bravelier knowing where you are. In Liberia By Katherine Breshkovsky {Reported by Ernest Poole) As punishment for my attempt at escape I was sentenced ■^*- to four years' hard labor in Kara and to forty blows of the lash. Into my cell a physician came to see if I were strong enough to live through the agony. I saw at once that, afraid to flog a woman "political" without pre- cedent, by this trick of declaring me too sick to be pun- ished they wished to establish the precedent of the sentence in order that others might be flogged in the future. I insisted that I was strong enough, and that the court had no right to record such a sentence unless they flogged me at once. The sentence was not carried out. A few weeks later eight of the men politicals escaped in pairs, leaving dummies in their places. As the guards 318 The Cry for Justice never took more than a hasty look into that noisome cell, they did not discover the ruse for weeks. Then mounted Cossacks rode out. The man-hunt spread. Some of the fugitives struggled through jungles, over moimtains and through swamps a thousand miles to Vladivostok, saw the longed-for American vessels, and there on the docks were re-captured. All were brought back to Kara. For this we were all punished. One morning the Cossack guards entered our cells, seized us, tore off our clothes, and dressed us in convict suits alive with vermin. That scene cannot be described. One of us attempted suicide. Taken to an old prison we were thrown into the "black holes" — foul httle stalls off a low grimy hall which contained two big stoves and two little windows. Each of us had a stall six feet by five. On winter nights the stall doors were left open for heat, but in summer each was locked at night in her own black hole. For three months we did not use our bunks, but fought with candles and pails of scalding water, until at last the vermin were all killed. We had been put on the "black hole diet" of black bread and water. For three years we never breathed the outside air. We struggled constantly against the out- rages inflicted on us. After one outrage we lay like a row of dead women for nine days without touching food, until certain promises were finally exacted from the warden. This "hunger strike" was used repeatedly. To thwart it we were often bound hand and foot, while Cossacks tried to force food down our throats. Kara grew worse after I left. To hint at what hap- pened I tell briefly the story of my dear friend Maria, a woman of broad education and deep refinement. Shortly after my going, Maria saw Madame Sigida strike an official who had repeatedly insulted the women. Two ~ S -B f^ H \i W ^ w ^ Hi HS Cl o W H^ s ci c; r w ^ r^ o > H -/: -n •z B R r-< t?3 o a I—" O •^ n ►^ Kl The Chur.ch 395 I saw poisonous gases from great manufactories spreading disease and death; . . . I saw hideousness extending itself from coal mine and foundry over forest and river and field; I saw money grabbed from fellow grabbers and swindlers, and underneath them the workman forever spinning it out of his vitals. . . . I saw all this, and the plate burned my fingers so that I had to hold it first in one hand and then in the other; ^.nd I was glad when the parson in his white robes took the smoking pile from me on the chancel steps and, turning about, lifted it up and laid it on the altar. It was an old-time altar indeed, for it bore a burnt offering of flesh and blood — a sweet savor unto the Moloch whom these people worship with their daily round of human sacrifices. The shambles are ui the temple as of yore, and the tables of the money-changers, waiting to be overturned. By Emile de Lavelaye (Belgian economist, 1822-1892) IF Christianity were taught and understood conforma- bly to the spirit of its Founder, the existing social organism could not last a day. 396 The Cry for Justice By Clement of Alexandria (Greek Church; 150-215) I KNOW that God has given us the use of goods, but only as far as is necessary; and He has deter- mined that the use be common. It is absurd and dis- graceful for one to live magnificently and luxuriously when so many are hungry. By Teetullian (Earliest of the Latin fathers; 155-222) All is common with us except women. Jesus was our man, God and brother. He restored unto all men what cruel murderers took from them by the sword. Christians have no master and no Christian shall be bound for bread and raiment. The land is no man's inheritance; none shall possess it as property. By St. Cyphian (Latin; 200-258) No man shall be received into oiu- commune who say- eth that the land may be sold. God's footstool is not property. By St. Basil (Gieek Church; 329-379) Which things, tell me, are yours? Whence have you brought your goods into life? You are like one occupying a place in a theatre, who should prohibit others from enter- The Church 397 ing, treating that as his own which was designed for the common use of all. Such are the rich. Because they pre- occupy common goods, they take these goods as their own. If each one would take that which is sufficient for his needs, leaving what is superfluous to those in distress, no one would be rich, no one poor. . . . The rich man is a thief. By St. Ambbose (Latin; 340-397) How far, O rich, do you extend your senseless avarice? Do you intend to be the sole inhabitants of the earth? Why do you drive out the fellow sharers of nature, and claim it all for yourselves? The earth was made for all, rich and poor, in common. Why do you rich claim it as your exclusive right? The soil was given to the rich and poor in common- — ^wherefore, oh, ye rich, do you unjustly claim it for yourselves alone? Nature gave all things in common for the use of all; usurpation created private rights. Property hath no rights. The earth is the Lord's, and we are his offspring. The pagans hold earth as prop- erty. They do blaspheme God. By St. Jerome (Latin; 340-420) All riches come from iniquity, and unless one has lost, another cannot gain. Hence that common opinion seems to me to be very true, "the rich man is unjust, or the heir an unjust one." Opulence is always the result of theft, if not committed by the actual possessor, then by his predecessor. 398 The Cry for Justice By St. John Chrysostom (Greek Church; 347-407) Tell me, whence are you rich? From whom have you received? From your grandfather, you say; from your father. Are you able to show, ascending in the order of generation, that that possession is just throughout the whole series of preceding generations? Its beginning and root grew necessarily out of injustice. Why? Because God did not make this man rich and that man poor from the beginning. Nor, when He created the world, did He allot inuch treasure to one man, and forbid another to seek any. He gave the same earth to be cultivated by all. Since, therefore. His bounty is common, how comes it that you have so many fields, and your neighbor not even a clod of earth? . . . The idea we should have of the rich and covetous — they are truly as robbers, who, standing in the public highway, despoil the passers. By St. Augustine (Latin; 354^30) The superfluities of the rich are the necessaries of the poor. They who possess superfluities, possess the goods of others. By St. Gregory the Great (Latin; 540-604) They must be admonished who do not seek another's goods, yet do not give of their own, that they may know that the earth from which they have received is common to all men, and therefore its products are given in common to all. They, therefore, wrongly think they are innocent who The Church 399 claim for themselves the common gift of God. When they do not give what they have received, they assist in the death of neighbors, because daily almost as many of the poor perish as have been deprived of means which the rich have kept to themselves. When we give necessaries to the needy we do not bestow upon them our goods; we return to'them their own; we pay a debt of justice rather than fulfil a work of mercy. %^t Sinnmns ot CSt(0tianitp* (From "The Call of the Carpenter") By Bouck White (See page 353) I "HE annexing process was started by a Roman citizen ■*• named Saul. Formerly a Jew, he deserted his nation- ality and with it his former name, and called himself there- after Paul. Paul was undeniably sincere. He believed that in reinterpreting the Christian faith so as to make it acceptable to the Romans he was doing that faith a ser- vice. His make-up was imperial rather than democratic. Both by birth and training he was unfitted to enter into the working-class consciousness of Galileans. He was in culture a Hellenist, in religion a Pharisee, in citizenship a Roman. From the first strain, Hellenism, he received a bias in the direction of philosophy rather than economics; from the second, his Pharisaism, he received a bias toward aloofness, otherworldliness; and from the third, his Ro- manism, he received a bias toward political acquiescence and the preservation of the status quo. . . . * By permission of Doubleday, Page & Co. JfiO The Cry for Justice Paul planned to make Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire. It needed a rehgion badly. The catalogue of its vices, in the forepart of the Epistle to the Romans, is proof. Paul the Roman citizen saw nothing but excel- lence in Rome's world-wide empire. Only, it must be redeemed from its laxity of morals. Therefore he would bring to it the Christ as its cleanser and thereby its per- petuator. It was the test of loyal citizenship among the Romans to seek out in every part of the world that which was most rare and valued, and bring it back to Rome as a gift. Thus her sons went forth and returned laden with richest trophies to lay at her feet. They brought to her pearls fron India, gold chariots from Babylon, elephants from interior Africa, high-breasted virgins from the Greek isles, Phidian marbles from Athens. Paul also would be a bringer of gifts to the Rome that had honored him and his fathers with the high honor of citizenship. And the gift he would bring and lay at her feet would be the richest of them all — a religion. . . . Paul was a stockholder in Rome's world corporation. And that stock by slow degrees had blinded him to the injustice of a social system in whose dividends he himself shared. This explains in large part why he accepted the political status quo, and preached its acceptance by others. Students of ethics have difficulty in reconcihng Aristotle's defence of human servitude, "slavery is a law of nature which is advantageous and just," with his insight and logic in other matters. The difficulty resolves itself when it is recalled that Aristotle possessed thirteen slaves, and therefore had exactly thirteen arguments for the righteousness of slavery. Seneca, gifted in other things with fine powers of moral philosophy, saw no monstrousness in Nero that he should rebuke — Seneca The Church 401 was a favorite with Nero, and was using that favoritism to amass an enormous fortune. Paul was too highly- educated — using the term in its academic sense — to be at one with the unbookish Galileans, and he was personally too much the gainer from Rome's empire of privilege to share the insurrectionary spirit of the Son of Mary. . . . Paul was under the spell of Rome's material greatness. His heart was secretly enticed by her triumphal arches, her literature, her palaces on the Palatine, her baths, porticos of philosophy, gymnasia, schools of rhetoric, her athletic games in the arena. He thought of her history, her jurisprudence, her military might, the starry names in her roll of glory, her sweep of empire from the Thames to the Tigris, and from the Rhine to the deserts of Africa; and when, to this summary, came the pleasant reflection that he was a part of this world corporation, one of the privileged few to share in its profits, it was not hard for him to find reasons to justify his desertion of that poverty- stricken and fanatically democratic race of Israel off there in imimportant Palestine. A true Roman, Paul preaches to the proletariat the duty of political passivity. To the Carpenter, with his splendid worldliness, the premier qualification for charac- ter was self-respect, and the alertness and mastery of envirormaent which go with self-respect. But to Paul the primate virtue is submissiveness — "the powers that be!" He sought to cure the seditiousness of the workiag class by drawing off their gaze to a crown of righteousness reserved in heaven for them — a gaseous felicity beyond the' stars. Israel, holding fast to the enrichment of the present fife, had kept its religion from getting off into fog lands, by seeking "a city that hath foundations." But Paul sought to hush all these "worldly" aims; he wooed the toiling 26 Jfi2 The Cry for Justice masses to desire "a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." He was a true yoke-fellow of Pylades, the Roman play-actor, who, wishing to justify his usefulness to the master class, said to Augustus that " it was for the emperor's advantage that the people should have their attention fixed on the playhouse rather than on politics." iSreCace to "S^ajor ^Batbata" By G. Bernard Shaw (See pages 193, 212, 263) CHURCHES are suffered to exist only on condition that they preach submission to the State as at present capitalistically organized. The Church of Eng- land itself is compelled to add to the thirty-six articles in which it formulates its religious tenets, three more in which it apologetically protests that the moment any of these articles comes in conflict with the State it is to be entirely renounced, abjiu-ed, Adolated, abrogated and abhorred, the policeman being a much more important person than any of the Persons of the Trinity. And this is why no tolerated Church nor Salvation Army can ever win the entire confidence of the poor. It must be on the side of the police and the military, no matter what it believes or disbelieves; and as the police and the military are the instruments by which the rich rob and oppress the poor (on legal and moral principles made for the purpose), it is not possible to be on the side of the poor and of the police at the same time. Indeed the religious bodies, as the almoners of the rich, become a sort of auxihary police. The Church ' jOS_ taking off the insurrectionary edge of poverty with coals and blankets, bread and treacle, and soothing and cheering the victims with hopes of immense and inexpensive happi- ness in another world, when the process of working them to premature death in the service of the rich is complete in this. #rince l^agin By Upton Sinclair (Prince Hagen, ruler of the Nibelungs, a race of gold-hoarding gnomes, comes up to visit the land of the eai'th-men, and study Christian civilization. He finds a nmnber of ideas worth taking back to his underground home) "PRINCE HAGEN paused for a moment and puffed in -'- silence; then suddenly he remarked: "Do you know that it is a very wonderful idea — that immortality? Did you ever think about it?" "Yes," I said, "a little." "I tell you, the man who got that up was a world- genius. When I saw how it worked, it was something almost too much for me to believe; and still I find myself wondering if it can last. For you know if you can once get a man believing in immortality, there is no more left for you to desire; you can take everything in the world he ovms — ^you can skin him alive if it pleases you— ;-and he will bear it all with perfect good humor. I tell you what, I lie awake at night and dream about the chances of getting the Nibelungs to believe in inamortahty; I don't think I can manage it, but it is a stake worth playing for. I say the phrases over to myself — you know them all — 'It is better to give than to receive' — 'Lay not up for your- IfiJj. The Cry for Justice self treasures on earth' — 'Take no heed, saying what shall ye eat!' As a matter of fact, I fancy the Nibelungs will prove pretty tough at reforming, but it is worth any amount of labor. Suppose I could ever get them to the self-renoimcing point! Just fancy the self-renunciation of a man with a seventy-mile tunnel full of gold!" Prince Hagen's eyes danced; his face was a study. I watched him wonderingly. "Why do you go to all that bother?" I demanded, suddenly. " If you want the gold, why don't you simply kill the Nibelungs and take it?" "I have thought of that," he rephed; "I might easily manage it all with a single revolver. But why should I kill the geese that lay me golden eggs? I want not only the gold they have, but the gold that they will dig through the centuries that are to come; for I know that the resources of Nibelheim, if they could only be properly developed, would be simply infinite. So I have made up my mind to civilize the people and develop their souls." "Explain to me just how you expect to get their gold," I said. "Just as the capitahst is getting it in New York," was the response. "At present the Nibelimgs hide their wealth; I mean to broaden their minds, and establish a system of credit. I mean to teach them ideals of use- fulness and service, to establish the arts and sciences, to introduce machinery and all the modern improvements that tend to increase the centralization of power; I shall be master — just as I am here — because I am the strongest, and because I am not a dupe." "I see," I said; "but all this will take a long time." "Yes," said he, "I know; it is the whole course of history to be lived over again. But there will be no mistakes and no groping in this case, for I know the way, The Church Ii-OB and I am king. It will be a sort of benevolent despotism — the ideal form of government, as I believe." "And you are sure there is no chance of yoiK plans failing?" "Failing!" he laughed. "You should have seen how they have worked so far." "You have begun applying them?" "I have been down to Nibelheim twice since the death of dear grandpa," said the prince. "The first time, as you imagine, there was tremendous excitement, for all Nibel- heim knew what a bad person I had been, and stood in terror of my return. I got them all together and told them the truth — that I had become wise and virtuous, that I meant to respect every man's property, and that I meant to consecrate my whole endeavor to the developing of the resources of my native land. And then you should have witnessed the scene! They went half wild with rejoicing; they fell down on their knees and thanked me with tears in their eyes : I played the ipater. 'patriae in a fashion to take away yom- breath. And afterwards I went on to explain to them that I had discovered very many wonder- ful things up on the earth; that I was going to make a law forbidding any of them to go there, because it was so dangerous, but that I myself was going to brave all the perils for their sakes. I told them about a wonderful animal that was called a steam-drill, and that ate fire, and dug out gold with swiftness beyond anything they could imagine. I said that I was going to empty all my royal treasure caves, and take my fortune and some of theirs to the earth to buy a few thousand of these wonder- ful creatures; and I promised them that I would give them to the Nibelungs to use, and they might have twice as much gold as they would have dug with their hands, If.06 The Cry for Justice provided they would give me the balance. Of course they agreed to it with shouts of dehght, and the contracts were signed then and there. They helped me get out all my gold, and I took them down the steam-drills, and showed them how to manage them; so before very long I expect to have quite a snug little income." By Niccolo Machiavelli (Italian courtier, author of a famous treatise on statecraft; 1469-1527) A PRINCE has to have particular care that, to see and to hear him, he appears all goodness, integrity, humanity and religion, which last he ought to pretend to more than ordinarily. For everybody sees, but few understand; everybody sees how you appear, but few know what in reality you are, and those few dare not oppose the opinion of the multitude, who have the majesty of their prince to defend them. Cfiildtm of i^t SDtati (Enti* By Patrick MacGill (See pages 32, 47, 122) NEARLY every second year the potatoes went bad; then we were always hungry, although Farley McKeown, a rich merchant in the neighboring village, let my father have a great many bags of Indian meal on * By permission of E. P. Dutton & Co. The Church 407 credit. A bag contained sixteen stone of meal and cost a shilling a stone. On the bag of meal Farley McKeown charged sixpence a month interest; and fourpence a month on a sack of flour which cost twelve shillings. All the people round about were very honest, and paid up their debts when they were able. Usually when the young went off to Scotland or England they sent home money to their fathers and mothers, and with this money the parents paid for the meal to Farley McKeown. "What doesn't go to the landlord goes to Farley McKeown," was a Glen- moman saying. The merchant was a great friend of the parish priest, who always told the people if they did not pay their debts they would bum for ever and ever in hell. "The fires of eternity will make you sorry for the debts that you did not pay," said the priest. "What is eternity?" he would ask in a solemn voice from the altar steps. " If a man tried to count the sands on the sea-shore and took a million years to count every single grain, how long would it take him to co\mt them all? A long time, you'll say. But that time is nothing to eternity. Just think of it! Burning in hell while a man, taking a million years to count a grain of sand, counts all the sand on the sea-shore. And this because you did not pay Farley McKeown his lawful debts, his lawful debts within the letter of the law." That con- cluding phrase, "within the letter of the law, " struck terror into all who listened, and no one, maybe not even the priest himself, knew what it meant. 408 The Cry for Justice 2lncantation0 By Max Eastman (Editor of "The Masses," born 1883) i T REMEMBER a vesper service at Ravello in Italy. ■*■ I remember that the exquisite and pathetically resplen- dent little chapel was filled with ragged and dirty- smelling and sweet, sad-eyed mothers. Some carried in their arms their babies, some carried only a memory in their haggard eyes. They were all poor. They were all sad in that place. They were mothers. Mothers wrinkle-eyed, stooped, worn old, but yet gentle — 0, so gentle and eager to believe that it would all be made up to them and their beloved in Heaven! I see their bodies swajdng to the chant of meaningless long syllables of Latin magic, I see them worked upon by those dark agencies of candle, and minor chord, and incense, and the unknown tongue, and I see that this little dirt-colored coin clutched so tight in their five fingers is going to be given up, with a kind of desperate haste, ere the chmax of these incantations is past. Poor, anguished dupes of the hope of Heaven, poor mothers, pinching your own children's bellies to fatten the wallets of those fat priests! The Church 409 diit fealbatow By Clement Wood (American poet, born 1888) CALVATORE'S dead— a gap ^ Where he worked in the ditch-edge, shovelUng mud; Slanting brow; a head mayhap Rather small, like a bullet; hot southern blood; Surly now, now riotous With the flow of his joy; and his hovel bare. As his whole life is to us — A stone in his belly the whole of his share. Body starved, but the soul secure, Masses to save it from Purgatory, And to dwell with the Son and the Virgin pure — Lucky Salvatore! Salvatore's glad, for see On the hearse and the coffin, purple and black, Tassels, ribbons, broidery Fit for the Priest's or the Pope's own back; Flowers costly, waxen, gay, And the mates from the ditch-edge, pair after pair; Dirging band, and the Priest to pray, And the soul of the dead one pleasuring there. Body starved, and the mind as well. Peace — let him rot in his costly glory, Cheated no more with a Heaven or Hell — Exit Salvatore. 410 The Cry for Justice From Micah HEAR this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, that abhor judg- ment, and pervert all equity. They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets divine for money. . . . Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusa- lem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest. 'W^t feamt By Antonio Fogazzaeo (Italian poet and novelist, 1842-1911. A devout Catholic, he endeavored to reform the Church from within. The present novel created a tremendous sensation in Italy, and was placed upon the "Index." In this scene "the Saint" pleads with the Pope) ' '\ /f AY I continue. Your Holiness?" iVi xhe Pope, who while Benedetto had been speaking had kept his eyes fixed on his face, now bowed his head slightly, in answer. "The third evil spirit which is corrupting the Church does not disguise itself as an angel of light, for it well knows it cannot deceive; it is satisfied with the garb of common, human honesty. This is the spirit of avarice. The Vicar of Christ dwells in this royal palace as he dwelt in his episcopal palace, with the pure heart of poverty. Many venerable pastors dwell in the Church with the same heart, but the spirit of poverty is not preached sufficiently, not preached as Christ preached it. The lips of Christ's min- The Church Ul isters are too often over-complaisant to those who seek riches. There are those among them who bow the head respectfully before the man who has much, simply because he has much ; there are those who let their tongues flatter the greedy, and too many preachers of the word and of the example of Christ deem it just for them to revel in the pomp and honors attending on riches, to cleave with their souls to the luxury riches bring. Father, exhort the clergy to show those greedy for gain, be they rich or poor, more of that charity which admonishes, which threatens, which rebukes. Holy Father! " Benedetto ceased speaking. There was an expression of fervent appeal in the gaze fixed upon the Pope. "Well?" the Pontiff murmured. Benedetto spread wide his arms, and continued: "The Spirit urges me to say more. It is not the work of a day, but let us prepare for the day — not leaving this task to the enemies of God and of the Church — ^let us prepare for the day on which the priests of Christ shall set the example of true poverty; when it shall be their duty to live in poverty, as it is their duty to live in chastity; and let the words of Christ to the Seventy-two serve them as a guide in this. Then the Lord will surround the least of them with such honors, with such reverence as does not to-day exist in the hearts of the people for the princes of the Church. They will be few in number, but they will be the light of the world. Holy Father, are they that to-day? Some among them are, but the majority shed neither light nor darkness." At this point the Pointiff for the first time bowed his bead in sorrowful acquiescence. 4-12 The Cry for Justice %lt /Rtto Eonte By Robert Buchanan (See page 367) A THOUSAND starve, a few are fed, ■**■ Legions of robbers rack the poor, The rich man steals the widow's bread. And Lazarus dies at Dives' door; The Lawyer and the Priest adjust The claims of Luxury and Lust To seize the earth and hold the soil. To store the grain they never reap ; Under their heels the white slaves toil, While children wail and women weep! — The gods are dead, but in their name Humanity is sold to shame. While (then as now!) the tinsel'd Priest Sitteth with robbers at the feast. Blesses the laden blood-stain'd board. Weaves garlands round the butcher's sword, And poureth freely (now as then) The sacramental blood of Men! %^t ^tit^i ana i^t 2DrtiI By Feodor Dostoyevsky (The Russian realist, 1821-1881, wrote this little story upon the wall of his Silberian prison) ' 'T-JELLO, you Httle fat father!" the devil said to the ■*■ -^ priest. "What made you lie so to those poor, misled people? What tortures of hell did you depict? Don't you know they are already suffering the tortures of The Church 413 hell in their earthly lives? Don't you know that you and the authorities of the State are my representatives on earth? It is you that make them suffer the pains of hell with which you threaten them. Don't you know this? Well, then, come with me!" The devil grabbed the priest by the collar, lifted him high in the air, and carried him to a factory, to an iron foimdry. He saw the workmen there running and hurry- ing to and fro, and toiling in the scorching heat. Very soon the thick, heavy air and the heat are too much for the priest. With tears in his eyes, he pleads with the devil: "Let me go! Let me leave this hell!" "Oh, my dear friend, I must show you many more places." The devil gets hold of him again and drags him off to a farm. There he sees workmen threshing the grain. The dust and heat are insufferable. The overseer carries a knout, and unmercifully beats anyone who falls to the ground overcome by hard toil or hunger. Next the priest is taken to the huts where these same workers live with their families — dirty, cold, smoky, ill- smelling holes. The devil grins. He points out the poverty and hardships which are at home here. "Well, isn't this enough?" he asks. And it seems as if even he, the devil, pities the people. The pious servant of God can hardly bear it. With uplifted hands he begs: "Let me go away from here. Yes, yes! This is hell on earth!" "Well, then, you see. And you still promise them another hell. You torment them, torture them to death mentally when they are already all but dead physically. Come on! I will show you one more hell — one more, the very worst." He took him to a prison and showed him a dungeon. 4-/4 The Cry for Justice with its foul air and the many human forms, robbed of all health and energy, Ijdng on the floor, covered with vermin that were devouring their poor, naked, emaciated bodies. "Take off your silken clothes," said the devil to the priest, "put on your ankles heavy chains such as these poor unfortunates wear; lie down on the cold and filthy floor — and then talk to them about a hell that still awaits them!" "No, no!" answered the priest, "I cannot think of anything more dreadful than this. I entreat you. let me go away from here!" "Yes, this is hell. There can be no worse hell than this. Did you not know it? Did you not know that these men and women whom you are frightening with the picture of a hell hereafter — did you not know that they are in hell right here, before they die?" fflMork accortimff to tfii Bilile (A pamphlet written by T. M. Bondareff, a Siberian peasant and ex-serf, at the age of sixty-seven) '' I 'HEY often arrest thieves in the world; but these cul- -^ prits are rather rogues than thieves. I have laid hands on the real thief, who has robbed God and the church. He has stolen the primal commandment which belongs to us who till the fields. I will point him out. It is he who does not produce his bread with his own hands, but eats the fruit of others' toil. Seize him and lead him away to judgment. All crimes such as robberies, murders, frauds and the like arise from the fact that this command- ment is hidden from man. The rich do all they can to avoid working with their hands, and the poor to rid them- The Church A15 selves of the necessity. The poor man says, "There are people who can live on others' labor; why should not I?" and he kills, steals and cheats in consequence. Behold now what harm can be done by white hands, more than all that good grimy hands can repair upon the earth! You spread out before the laborer the idleness of your life, and thus take away the force from his hands. Your way of living is for us the most cruel of offences, and a shame withal. You are a hundred-fold more wise and learned than I am, and for that reason you take my bread. But because you are wise you ought rather to have pity on me who am weak. It is said, "Love thy neighbor as thy- self. ' ' I am your neighbor, and you are mine. Why are we coarse and untaught? Because we produce our own bread, and yours too! Have we any time to study and educate oxurselves? You have stolen oiu- brains as weU as our bread by trickery and violence. f- How blind thou art, wise man; thou that readest the scriptures, and seest.not the way in which thou mightest free thyself, and the flock committed to thee, from the burden of sin! Thy blindness is like unto that of Balaam, who, astride his ass, saw not the angel of God armed with a sword of fire standing in the way before him. Thou art Balaam, I am the ass, and thou hast ridden upon my back from childhood! ^1-16 The Cry for Justice By Leo Tolstoy (In this novel the greatest of modern religious teachers has presented his indictment of the government and church of his country. The hero is a Russian prince who in early youth seduces a peasant girl, and in 'after life meets her, a prostitute on trial for murder. He follows her to Siberia, in an effort to reclaim her. Near the end of his story Tolstoi introduces this scene. The Eng- lishman may be said to represent modern science, which asks ques- tions and accumulates futile statistics; while the old man voices the peculiar Christian Anarchism of the author, who at the age of eighty-two left his home and wandered out into the steppes to die) TN one of the exiles' wards, Nehludof [the prince] ■^ recognized the strange old man he had seen crossing the ferry that morning. This tattered and wrinkled old man was sitting on the floor by the beds, barefooted, wearing only a dirty cinder-colored shirt, torn on one shoulder, and similar trousers. He looked severely and inquiringly at the new-comers. His emaciated body, visible through the holes in his dirty shirt, looked misera- bly weak, but in his face was more concentrated serious- ness and animation than even when Nehludof saw him crossing the ferry. As in all the other wards, so here also the prisoners jumped up and stood erect when the official entered; but the old man remained sitting. His eyes glittered and his brow frowned wrathfully. "Get up!" the inspector called out to him. The old man did not rise, but only smiled contemptu- ously. "Thy servants are standing before thee, I am not thy servant. Thou bearest the seal. . . ." said the old man, pointing to the inspector's forehead. The Church 417 "Wha — a — t?" said the inspector threateningly, and made a step towards him. "I know this man," said Nehludof. "What is he imprisoned for?" " The police have sent him here because he has no pass- port. We ask them not to send such, but they will do it," said the inspector, casting an angry side glance at the old man. "And so it seems thou, too, art one of Antichrist's army?" said the old man to Nehludof. "No, I am a visitor," said Nehludof. "What, hast thou come to see how Antichrist tortures men? Here, see. He has locked them up in a cage, a whole army of them. Men should eat bread in the sweat of their brow. But He has locked them up with no work to do, and feeds them like swine, so that they should turn into beasts." "What is he saying?" asked the Englishman. Nehludof told him the old man was blaming the in- spector for keeping men imprisoned. "Ask him how he thinks one should treat those who do not keep the laws," said the Englishman. Nehliidof translated the question. The old manlaughedstrangely, showing his regular teeth. "The laws?" he repeated with contempt. "First Antichrist robbed everybody, took all the earth, and all rights away from them— took them all for himself — killed all those who were against him — and then He wrote laws forbidding to rob and to kill. He should have written those laws sooner." Nehliidof translated. The EngHshman smiled. "Well, anyhow, ask him how one should treat thieves and murderers now?" 27 4-18 The Cry for Justice Nehliidof again translated the question. "Tell him he should take the seal of Antichrist off from himself," the old man said, frowning severely; "then he will know neither thieves nor murderers. Tell him so." "He is crazy," said the EngUshman, when Nehliidof had translated the old man's words; and shrugging his shoul- ders he left the cell. "Do thine own task and leave others alone. Every one for himself. God knows whom to execute, whom to pardon, but we do not know," said the old man. "Be your own chief, then chiefs will not be wanted. Go, go," he added, frowning angrily, and looking with glittering eyes at Nehliidof, who lingered in the ward. "Hast thou not gazed enough on how the servants of Antichrist feed lice on men? Go! Go!" {From "Challenge") By Louis Untermeyer (See pages 42, 418) T T was Sunday — ^ Eleven in the morning; people were at church — Prayers were in the making; God was near at hand — Down the cramped and narrow streets of quiet Lawrence Came the tramp of workers marching in their hundreds; Marching in the morning, marching to the grave-yard, Where, no longer fiery, underneath the grasses, Callous and uncaring, lay their friend and sister. In their hands they carried wreaths and drooping flowers, Overhead their banners dipped and soared Uke eagles — The Church 419 Aye, but eagles bleeding, stained with their own heart's blood — Red, but not for glory — red, with wounds and travail. Red, the buoyant symbol of the blood of all the world. So they bore their banners, singing toward the grave-yard, So they marched and chanted, mingling tears and tributes. So, with flowers, the dying went to deck the dead. Within the churches people heard The sound, and much concern was theirs — God might not hear the Sacred Word — God might not hear their prayers! Should such things be allowed these slaves — To vex the Sabbath peace with Song, To come with chants, like marching waves. That proudly swept along. Suppose God turned to these — and heard! Suppose He listened unawares — God might forget the Sacred Word, God might forget their prayers! And so (the tragic irony) The blue-clad Guardians of the Peace Were sent to sweep them back — ^to see The ribald Song should cease; To scatter those who came and vexed God with their troubled cries and cares. Quiet — so God might hear the text; The sleek and unctuous prayers! I^20 The Cry for Justice Up the rapt and singing streets of little Lawrence Came the stolid soldiers; and, behind the bluecoats, Grinning and invisible, bearing unseen torches. Rode red hordes of anger, sweeping all before them. Lust and Evil joined them— Terror rode among them; Fury fired its pistols; Madness stabbed and yelled. Through the wild and bleeding streets of shuddering Lawrence, Raged the heedless panic, hour-long and bitter. Passion tore and trampled; men once mild and peaceful. Fought with savage hatred in the name of Law and Order. And, below the outcry, like the sea beneath the breakers, Mingling with the anguish, rolled the solemn organ. . . . Eleven in the morning — people were at church — Prayers were in the making — God was near at hand — It was Sunday! By Isaiah T Tear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ■^ ■*• ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord. . . . Bring no more vain obla- tions. . . . When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea when ye make many prayers I will not hear; your hands are full of blood. a The Church W %.9 tfie Preacher {From "In This Our World") By Charlotte Perkins Oilman (See pages 200, 209) 'PR'EACH about yesterday, Preacher! ■'■ The time so far away: When the hand of Deity smote and slew, And the heathen plagued the stiff-necked Jew; Or when the Man of Sorrow came. And blessed the people who cursed his name — Preach about yesterday, Preacher, Not about today! Preach about tomorrow. Preacher! Beyond this world's decay: Of the sheepfold Paradise we priced When we pinned our faith to Jesus Christ; Of those hot depths that shall receive The goats who would not so believe — Preach about tomorrow. Preacher, Not about today! Preach about the old sins. Preacher! And the old virtues, too : You must not steal nor take man's life. You must not covet your neighbor's wife. And woman must cling at every cost To her one virtue, or she is lost — Preach about the old sins. Preacher! Not about the new! l^22 The Cry for Justice Preach about the other man, Preacher! The man we all can see ! The man of oaths, the man of strife, The man who drinks and beats his wife. Who helps his mates to fret and shirk When all they need is to keep at work — Preach about the other man. Preacher! Not about me! %^z Kfluctant T£>uttt By Lincoln Steffens (The president of a powerful public service corporation has become disturbed in conscience, and calls in a student of social conditions) ' * 'V/'OU'RE unhappy because you are bribing and •^ corrupting, and you ask my advice. Why? I'm no ethical teacher. You're a churchman. Why don't you go to your pastor?" "Pastor!" he exclaimed, and he laughed. The scorn of that laugh! "Pastor!" He turned and walked away, to get control, no doubt. I kept after him. "Yes," I insisted, "you should go to the head of your church for moral counsel, and — for economic advice you should go to the professor of economics in " He stopped me, facing about. "Professor!" he echoed, and he didn't reflect my tone. I was serious. I wanted to get something from him. I wanted to know why our practical men do not go to these professions for help, as they go to lawyers and The Church 423 engineers. And this man had given time and money to the university in his town and to his chm-ch, as I re- minded him. "You support colleges and churches, you and your kind do," I said. "What for?" "For women and children," he snapped from his distance. By Savonarola (Italian religious reformer, 1452—1498; hanged and burned by his enemies) T3 UT dost thou know what I would tell thee? In the -I — ' primitive church, the chalices were of wood, the prelates of gold. In these days the church hath chalices of gold and prelates of wood. (From "The Canterbury Tales") By Geoffrey Chaucer (Early EngUsh poet, 1340-1400) THAN peyne I me to strecche forth my necke. And est and west upon the people I bekke. As doth a pigeon, syttyng on a loft; Myn hondes and my tonge move so oft. That it is joye to see my busynesse. Of avarice and of suche ciu-sedness Is al my preching, for to make hem free To give their pence, and namely unto me. . . . J^%Jf- The Cry for Justice Therfor my theem is yit, and ever was, The root of evils is cupidity. Thus can I preche agayn the same vice Which that I use, and that is avarice. But though myself be gilty in the same, Yit can I maken other folks to blame. 'EtomtietS Ctntutp feocialisfm By Edmond Kelly (American lawyer and Socialist, 1851-1909) IT seems inconceivable that the same civilization should include two bodies of men living in apparent harmony and yet holding such opposite and inconsistent views of man as economists on the one hand and theologians on the other. To these last, man has no economic needs; this world does not count; it is merely a place of probation, mitigated sometimes, it is true, by ecclesiastical pomp and episcopal palaces; but serving for the most part as a mere preparation for a future existence which will satisfy the aspirations of the human soul — the only thing that does count, in this world or the next. So while to the economist man is all hog, to the theologian he is all soul; and between the two the devil secures the vast majority. The Church J^25 {From "A Lay Sermon to Preachers") By Henby Arthur Jones (English dramatist, bom 1851) T BELIEVE — I stand accountant for the words to That •*• which gave me the power of thinking and writing them — I believe that if the time and money and thought now given in England to the propagation of wholly incredible doctrines, which are no sooner uttered in one pulpit than they are repudiated in another — if this time and money and thought were given to the understanding and scattering abroad of the simplest laws of national economy, of physiologj', of health and beauty, in another generation our England would be greater and mightier than she has ever been. I believe a knowledge of the necessity of fresh air, of the value of beauty, of the certain disease and national corruption and deathfulness hidden in our present commercial system, to be worth far more than all the books on theology ever written. I believe faith in constant ventilation and constant outdoor exercise to be a greater religious necessity than faith in any doctrine of any sect in England today. 426 The Cry for Justice (13ati in i^t ^orlb {From "Gitanjali") By Rabindeanath Tagore (Most popular of Hindoo poets, who recently achieved international fame, and received the Nobel prize) T EAVE this chanting and singing and telHng of beads! ■I — ' Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark comer of a temple with doors all shut? Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee! He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the pathmaker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered with dust. Put off thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil! Deliverance? Where is this deliverance to be found? Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation; he is bound with us all for ever. Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense! What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained? Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow. ^tit0t0 {From "Songs for the New Age") By James Oppenheim (See pages 45, 129, 147) ■pRIESTS are in. bad odor, -- ■'- And yet there shall be no lack of them. The skies shall not lack a spokesman, Nor the spirit of man a voice and a gesture. The Church ^27 Not garbed nor churched, Yet, as of old, in loneliness and anguish, They shall come eating and drinking among us, With scourge, pity, and prayer. {From "The Book of The People") By Robert de Lamennais (French philosopher and religious reformer, 1782-1854) "V/'OUE, task is to form the universal family, to build the J- City of God, and by a continuous labor gradually to translate His work in Humanity into fact. When you love one another as brothers, and treat each other reciprocally as such; when each one, seeking his own good in the good of all, shall identify his» own life with the life of all, his own interests with the interests of all, and shall be always ready to sacrifice himself for all the members of the common family — then most of the ills which weigh upon the human race will vanish, as thick mists gathered upon the horizon vanish at the rising of the Sim. BOOK IX The Voice of the Ages Records from all the past history of mankind from twenty-five different races ; the earliest .being about 3500 B. C. (From "The Ancient Lowly") By C. Osborne Ward (American historian, who was forced to pubHsh at his own expense the results of his life-time researches into the early history of the working class) T^HE great strikes and uprisings of the working people -•• of the ancient world are almost unknown to the living age. It matters little how accounts of five immense strike-wars, involving destruction of property and mutual slaughter of millions of people, have been suppressed, or have otherwise failed to reach us; the fact remains that people are absolutely ignorant of these great events. A meagre sketch of Spartacus may be seen in the encyclo- pedias, but it is always ruined and its interest pinched and bhghted by being classed with crime, its heroes with criminals, its theme with desecration. Yet Spartacus was one of the great generals of history; fully equal to Hannibal and Napoleon, while his cause was much more just and infinitely nobler, his life a model of the beautiful and virtuous, his death an episode of surpassing grandeur. Still more strange is it, that the great ten-years' war of Eunus should be unknown. He marshalled at one time an army of two htmdred thousand soldiers. He manceu- vered them and fought for ten full years for liberty, defeating army after army of Rome. Why is the world ignorant of this fierce, epochal rebellion? Almost the whole matter is passed over in silence by our histories of Rome. In these pages it will be read as news, yet should a similar war rage in our day, against a similar condition 432 The Cry for Justice of slavery, its cause would not only be considered just, but the combatants would have the sympathy and sup- port of the civilized world. The great system of labor organization explained in these pages must likewise be regarded as a chapter of news. The portentous fact has lain in abeyance century after century, with the human family in profound ignorance of an organization of trades and other labor unions so powerful that for hundreds of years they undertook and successfully conducted the business of manufacture, of distribution, of piu'veying provisions to armies, of feeding the inhabitants of the largest cities in the world, of invent- ing, supplying and working the huge engines of war, and of collecting customs and taxes — ^tasks confided to their care by the state. Our civilization has a blushingly poor excuse for its profound ignorance of these facts ; for the evidences have existed from much before the beginning of our era. . . . They are growing fewer and dimmer as their value rises higher in the estimation of a thinking, appreciative, gradually awakening world. By Plutarch (Greek historian, A. D. 50-120; author of numerous biographical sketches. It has been said; He stands before us as the legate, the ambassador, and the orator on behalf of those institutions whereby the old-time men were rendered wise and virtuous) AA T^HEN the love of gold and silver had once gained ' ' admittance into the Lacedaemonian commonwealth, it was quickly followed by avarice and baseness of spirit The Voice of the Ages 433 in the pursuit of it, and by luxury, effeminacy and pro- digality in the use. Then Sparta fell from almost all her former virtue and repute. . . . For the rich men without scruple drew the estate into their own hands, excluding the rightful heirs from their succession; and all the wealth being centered upon the few, the generality were poor and miserable. Honorable pursuits, for which there was no longer leisure, were neglected; the state was filled with sordid business, and with hatred and euAry of the rich. . . . Agis, therefore, believing it a glorious action, as in truth it was, to equahze and repeople the state, began to sound the inclinations of the citizens. He found the young men disposed beyond his expectation; they were eager to enter with him upon the contest in the cause of virtue, and to fling aside, for freedom's sake, their old manner of life, as readily as the wrestler does his garment. But the old men, habituated and confirmed in their vices, were most of them alarmed. These men could not endure to hear Agis continually deploring the present state of Sparta, and wishing she might be restored to her ancient glory. . . . Agis, nevertheless, little regarding these rumours, took the first occasion of proposing his measure to the council, the chief articles of which were these: That every one should be free from their debts; all the lands to be divided into equal portions. . . . The people were transported with admiration of the young man's generosity, and with joy that, after three hundred years' interval, at last there had appeared a king worthy of Sparta. But, on the other side, Leonidas was now more than ever averse, being sensible that he and his friends would be obliged to contribute with their 434 The Cry for Justice riches, and yet all the honour and obligation would redound to Agis. [Sparta had two kings, Leonidas and Agis.] From this time forward, as the common people followed Agis, so the rich men adhered to Leonidas. They besought him not to forsake their cause; and with persuasions and entreaties so far prevailed with the council of Elders, whose power consisted in preparing all laws before they were proposed to the people, that the designed measure was rejected, though but by one vote. [Attacked by his enemies, Agis sought refuge in a temple.] Leonidas proceeded also to displace the ephors, and to choose others in their stead; then he began to consider how he might entrap Agis. At first, he endeav- ored by fair means to persuade him to leave the sanctuary, and partake with him in the kingdom. The people, he said, would easily pardon the errors of a young man, ambitious of glory. But finding Agis was suspicious, and not to be prevailed with to quit his sanctuary, he gave up that design; yet what could not then be effected by the dissimulation of an enemy, was soon after brought to pass by the treachery of friends. Amphares, Damochares, and Arcesilaus often visited Agis, and he was so confident of their fidelity that after a while he was prevailed on to accompany them to the baths, which were not far distant, they constantly return- ing to see him safe again in the temple. They were all three his familiars; and Amphares had borrowed a great deal of plate and rich household stuff from the mother of Agis, and hoped if he could destroy her and the whole family, he might peaceably enjoy those goods. And he, it is said, was the readiest of all to serve the purposes of Leonidas, and being one of the ephors, did all he could to incense the rest of his colleagues against Agis. These men. The Voice of the Ages 435 therefore, finding that Agis would not quit his sanctuary, but on occasion would venture from it to go to the bath, resolved to seize him on the opportunity thus given them. And one day as he was returning, they met and saluted him as formerly, conversing pleasantly by the way, and jesting, as youthful friends might, till coming to the turn- ing of the street which led to the prison, Amphares, by virtue of his office, laid his hand on Agis, and told him, "You .must go with me, Agis, before the other ephors, to answer for your misdemeanors." At the same time Damochares, who was a tall, strong man, drew his cloak tight around his neck, and dragged him after by it, whilst the others went behind to thrust him on. So that none of Agis' friends being near to assist him, nor any one by, they easily got him into the prison, where Leonidas was abeady arrived, with a company of soldiers, who strongly guarded all the avenues; the ephors also came in, with as many of the Elders as they knew to be true to their party, being desirous to proceed with some semblance of justice. And thus they bade him give an account of his actions. To which Agis, smiling at their dissimulation, answered not a word. Amphares told him it was more seasonable for him to weep, for now the time was come in which he should be punished for his presumption. Another of the ephors, as though he would be more favorable, and offering as it were an excuse, asked him whether he was not forced to what he did by Agesilaus and Lysander. But Agis answered, he had not been constrained by any man, nor had any other intent in what he did but to follow the example of Lycurgus, and to govern conformably to his laws. The same ephor asked him whether now at least he did not repent his rashness. To which the young man answered that though he were to suffer the extremest 436 The Cry for Justice penalty for it, yet he could never repent of so just and glorious a design. Upon this they passed sentence of death on him, and bade the officers carry him to the Dechas, as it is called, a place in the prison where they strangle malefactors. And when the officers would not venture to lay hands on him, and the very mercenary soldiers declined it, believing it an illegal and a wicked act to lay violent hands on a king, Damochares, threaten- ing and reviling them for it, himself thrust him into the room. For by this time the news of his being seized had reached many parts of the city, and there was a conco'urse of people with lights and torches about the prison gates, and in the midst of them the mother and the grandmother of Agis, crying out with a loud voice that their king ought to appear, and to be heard and judged by the people. But this clamour, instead of preventing, hastened his death; his enemies fearing, if the tumult should increase, he might be rescued during the night out of their hands. Agis, being now at the point to die, perceived one of the officers bitterly bewailing his misfortune. "Weep, not, friend," said he, "for me, who die innocent, by the lawless act of wicked men. My condition is much better than theirs." As soon as he had spoken these words, not showing the least sign of fear, he offered his neck to the noose. The Voice of the Ages 437 %^t Eabor i^roblcm in (Eggpt {From the Book of Exodiis) (Hebrew, B. C. Fourteenth Centiiry; a record of one of the earliest of labor disputes) OHARAOH said, "Who is the Lord, that I should *- hearken unto his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, and moreover I will not let Israel go. . . . Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, loose the people from their work? get you unto your burdens. . . . Let heavier work be laid upon the men, that they mav labour therein; and let them not regard lying words. . . . Ye are idle, ye are idle; therefore ye say, Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord. Go therefore now, and work; for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks." And the officers of the children of Israel did see that they were in evil case, when it was said, "Ye shall not minish aught from your bricks, your daily task." And they met Moses and Aaron, who stood in the way, as they came forth from Pharaoh: and they said unto them, "The Lord look upon you and judge; because you have made our savour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us." And Moses retiu'ned .unto the Lord, and said, "Lord, wherefore hast thou evil entreated this people? Why is it that thou hast sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath evil entreated this people; neither hast thou delivered thy people at all." Then the Lord said imto Moses, "Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh: for with a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land." 438 The Cry for Justice By Tommaso Campanella (Italian philosopher, 1568-1639. Translation by John Addington Symonds) I ^HE people is a beast of muddy brain ■^ That knows not its own strength, and therefore stands Loaded with wood and stone; the powerless hands Of a mere child guide it with bit and rein; One kick would be enough to break the chain, But the beast fears, and what the child demands It does; nor its own terror understands, Confused and stupefied by bugbears vain. Most wonderful ! With its own hand it ties And gags itself — gives itself death and war For pence doled out by kings from its own store. Its own are all things between earth and heaven; But this it knows not; and if one arise To tell this truth, it kills him unforgiven. From Ecclesiastes (Hebrew, B.C. 200) 'I "HEN I returned and saw all oppressions that are ■^ done under the sun: and behold, the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power, but they had no comforter. Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive; yea, better than them both did I esteem him which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun. ~S2 O o ta ■a The Voice of the Ages 439 '^i'btti\x& (Btaccfiusf {Tribune of the Roman People) By Plutarch (Greek, A.D. 50-120) I "IBERIUS, maintaining an honorable and just cause, ■*■ and possessed of eloquence sufficient to have made a less creditable action appear plausible, was no safe or easy antagonist, when, with the people crowding around the hustings, he took his place and spoke in behalf of the poor. "The savage beasts," said he, "in Italy, have their particular dens, they have their places of repose and refuge; but the men who bear arms, and expose their lives for the safety of their country, enjoy in the mean- time nothing in it but the air and light; and, having no houses or settlements of their own, are constrained to wander from place to place with their wives and children." He told them that the commanders were guilty of a ridicu- lous error, when, at the head of their armies, they exhorted the common soldiers to fight for their sepulchers and altars; when not any amongst so many Romans is pos- sessed of either altar or monument, neither have they any houses of their own, or hearths of their ancestors to defend. They fought indeed and were slain, but it was to maintain the luxury and the wealth of other men. They were styled the masters of the world, but had not one foot of ground they could call their own. 440 The Cry for Justice Captibe (Boon ^ttrnDtng Captain 311 By Euripides (Athenian tragic poet, B.C. 480-406; the most modern of ancient writers. Translation by John Addington Symonds) T~^OTH some one say that there be gods above? ■' — ^ There are not; no, there are not. Let no fool. Led by the old false fable, thus deceive you. Look at the facts themselves, yielding my words No undue credence; for I say that kings Kill, rob, break oaths, lay cities waste by fraud, And doing thus are happier than those Who live calm pious lives day after day. How many little states that serve the gods Are subject to the godless but more strong, Made slaves by might of a superior army! Pofatctp By Alcaeus (Greek l5Tic poet, B.C. 611-580,' banished for his resistance to tyrants. Translation by Sir William Jones) 'T~'HE worst of ills, and hardest to endure, ■^ Past hope, past cure, Is Penury, who, with her sister-mate Disorder, soon brings down the loftiest state, And makes it desolate. This truth the sage of Sparta told, Aristodemus old, — "Wealth makes the man." On him that's poor Proud Worth looks down, and Honor shuts the door. The Voice of the Ages 441 'atSf Btffsar'g Complaint (Ancient Japanese classic) '' I "HE heaven and earth they call so great, -^ For me are very small; The sun and moon they call so bright, For me ne'er shine at all. Are all men sad, or only I? And what have I obtained — What good the gift of mortal life, That prize so rarely gained — If nought my chilly back protects But one thin grass-cloth coat, In tatters hanging like the weeds That on the billows float? If here in smoke-stained, darksome hut, Upon the bare cold ground, I make my wretched bed of straw, And hear the mournful sound — Hear how mine aged parents groan, And wife and children cry, Father and mother, children, wife, Huddling in misery— If in the rice-pan, nigh forgot. The spider hangs its nest, And from the hearth no smoke goes up Where all is so unblest? Shame and despair are mine from day to day, But, being no bird,' I cannot fly away. Ji-^2 The Cry for Justice Sittt Ealior By Haggai (Hebrew prophet, B.C. 515) H E that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. By Abistophanes (Greek comedy writer and satirist; B.C. 450-380. There is probably not a Socialist in the world who has not been asked the question: "Who will do the dirty work?" It is interesting to see this difficulty set forth in a comedy which was staged in Athens in the year 408 B.C. Chremylus and Blepsidemus, two citizens, have taken in charge Plutus, the god of wealth, who is bhnd. They have undertaken to cure him of his blindness; but an old hag by the name of Poverty appears, and offers to convince them that their success would mean a calamity to the human race) CHREMYLUS: — As matters now stand (who will dare contradict it?) the life of us men is compos'd Of a system where folly, absurdity, madness, ay, raving downright is disclosed; Since, how many a knave we see revel in wealth — the rich heap of his ill-gotten store — And how many a good man, by fortune unblest, with thee begging bread at the door! {Turns to Poverty.) I say, then, there is but one thing to be done, and if we succeed, what a prize Will we bring to mankind! That thing it will be — to give Plutus the use of his eyes. The Voice of the Ages ^S Poverty: — A pest on your prate, and palavering stuff! back! begone with ye, blockheads, to school! You pair of old dotards, you drivelling comrades in trifling and playing the fool! If the plan ye propose be accomplish'd at last nothing worse could mankind e'er befall. Than that Plutus should have the full use of his eyes, and bestow himself equal on all! See you not, that at once, to all arts there would be, to each craft that you reckon, an end? If these were exploded (so much to your joy), say who ihen should there be, who would lend To the forge, to the hammer, the adze or the loom — to the rule or the mallet — his hand? Not a soul! The mechanic, the carpenter, shipwright — would all be expelled from the land. Where would tailor, or cobbler, or dyer of leather, or bricklay'r, or tanner be found? Who would e'er condescend in this golden vacation, to till, for his bread's sake, the ground? Blepsidemus: — Hold, hold, jade! Whatever essentials of life in your catalogue's column you string, Our servants, of course, shall provide us. Poverty: — Your servants? and whence do you think they shall spring? Blepsidemus : — We shall buy them with cash — Poverty: — ^But with cash all the world as well as yoiu-self is supplied! Who will care about selling? Blepsidemus: — Some dealer, no doubt, coming down from the Thessaly side, (A rare kidnapping nest) who may wish to secure a good bargain to profit the trade. 44^ The Cry for Justice Poverty (impatiently): — You will not understand! In the lots of mankind when this grand revolution is made 'Twill at once put an end to all wants — and of course then, the kidnapper's business will cease : For who will court danger, and hazard his life, when, grown rich, he may live at his ease? Thus each for himself will be forced to turn plowman, to dig and to delve and to sweat; Wearing out an existence more grievous by far than he ever experienced yet. Chremylus: — Cm-ses on you! Poverty: — You'll not have a bed to lie down on — no goods of the sort will be seen! Not a carpet to tread on — for who, pray, will weave one, when well stock'd his coffers have been? Farewell to your essences, perfiunes, pastilles! When you lead to the altar your bride Farewell to your roseate veil's drooping folds, the bright hues of its glittering pride ! Yet forsooth "to be rich" — say what is it, without all these gew-gaws to swell the detail? Now with me, every item that wish can suggest springs abundant and never can fail; For who, but myself, urges on to his toil, like a mistress, and drives the mechanic? If he flags, I but show him my face at the door, and he hies to his work in a panic ! Chremylus: — Pshaw! What good can you bring but sores, blisters and blains, on the wretch as he shivering goes From the baths' genial clime driv'n forth to the cold, at the certain expense of his toes? The Voice of the Ages 44^ What, but poor little urchins, whose stomachs are craving, and little old beldames in shoals; And lice by the thousand, mosquitoes and flies? (I can't count you the cloud as it rolls !) Which keep humming and buzzing about one, a language denying the respite of sleep, In a strain thus consoling — ^"Poor starveling, awake, tho to hunger!" — yet up you must leap! Add to this, that you treat us with rags to our backs and a bundle of straw for a bed (Woe betide the poor wretch on whose carcass the bugs of that ravenous pallet have fed!) For a carpet, a rotten old mat — for a pillow, a great stone picked out of the street — And for porridge, or bread, a mere leaf of radish, or stem of a mallow, to eat. The head that remains of some wreck of a pitcher, by way of a seat you provide; For the trough we make use of in kneading, we're driven to shift with a wine barrel's side, — nd this, too, all broken and split: — in a word, your magnificent gifts to conclude, (Ironically) To mankind you indeed are a blessed dispenser of mighty and manifold good! . . . On my word, dame, your fav'rites are happily off, after striving and toiling to save,. If at last they are able to levy enough to procure them a cheque to the grave! 446 The Cry for Justice 'H^t £ato)?cr and tfie iFarmtt (Eg3T)tian; B.C. 1400, or earlier. A letter from a father to his son, exhorting him to stick to the study of his profession) T T is told to me that thou hast cast aside learning, and ■'■ givest thyself to dancing; thou turnest thy face to the work in the fields, and castest the divine words behind thee. Behold, thou rememberest not the condition of the fellah (farmer) when the harvest is taken over. The worms carry off half the corn, and the hippopotamus devours the rest; mice abound in the fields, and locusts arrivej the cattle devour, the sparrows steal. How miserable is the lot of the fellah! What remains on the threshing-floor, robbers finish it up. The bronze . . . are worn out, the horses die with threshing and plowing. Then the scribe (lawyer) moors at the bank, who is to take over the harvest for the goveriunent; the attendants bear staves, the negroes carry palm sticks. They say, "Give corn!" But there is none. They beat the fellah prostrate; they bind him and cast him into the canal, throwing him headlong. His wife is bound before him, his children are swung off; his neighbors let them go, and flee to look after their corn. But the scribe is the leader of labor for all; he reckons to himself the produce in winter, and there is none that appoints him his tale of produce. Behold, now thou knowest! The Voice of the Ages 44'^ JFarmer anii Eatoger asain {From "The Vision of Piers Plowman") By William Langland (One of the earliest of English social protests, a picture of the misery of the workers of the fourteenth century) Come were for ploughing, and played full seldom, ^ Set their seed and sowed their seed and sweated hard, To win what wastrels with gluttony destroy. . . . There wandered a hundred in hoods of silk, Serjeants they seemed, and served at the Bar, Pleading the Law for pennies and for pounds, Unlocking their lips never for love of our Lord. Thou mightest better mete the mist on Malvern hills Than get a mutter from their mouths — save thou show thy money! %lt affftator By Isaiah (Hebrew prophet, B.C. 740) T^OR Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, ^ And for Jerusalem's sake will I not rest, Until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, And the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. Upon thy walls, Jerusalem, have I set watchmen. Who shall never hold their peace, day and night. Go through, go through the gates; Prepare ye the way of the people! Lift up a standard to the peoples! Ji48 The Cry for Justice %^t Sl^uckrafecr in ^et&ia By Nizami (Persian poet, A.D. 1200) I ^HEUE was a king who oppressed his subjects. An -*• informer came to him, and said, "A certain old man has in private called thee a tyrant, a disturber, and blood- thirsty." The king, enraged, said, "Even n-.w I put him to death." While the king made preparations for the execution, a youth ran to the old man, and said, "The king is ill-disposed to thee; hasten to assuage his wrath." The sage performed his ablutions, took his shroud, and went to the king. The tyrant, seeing him, clapped his hands together, and with eye hungry for revenge, cried, "I hear thou hast given loose to thy speech; thou hast called me revengeful, an oppressive demon." The sage replied, "I have said worse of thee than what thou re- peatest. Old and young are in peril from thy action; town and village are injured by thy ministry. Apply thy understanding, and see if it be true; if it be not, slay me on a gibbet. I am holding a mirror before thee; when it shows thy blemishes truly, it is a folly to break the mirror. Break thyself!" The king saw the rectitude of the sage, and his own crookedness. He said, "Remove his burial spices, and his shroud; bring to him sweet perfumes, and the robe of honor." He became a just prince, cherishing his subjects. Bringforwardthy rough truth; truth from thee is victory; it shall shine as a pearl. The Voice of the Ages 449 By Jeremiah (Hebrew prophet, B.C. 630) ■ ("OR among my people are found wicked men; they ■^ lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit; therefore they are become great, and waxen rich. They are waxen fat, they shine; yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked; they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge. Shall I not visit them for these things? saith the Lord; shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so; and what will ye do in the end thereof? (3tatttt& in atSen0 {From "The Frogs") By Aristophanes (Greek comedy, produced B.C. 405) TV^EEP silence — keep peace — and let all the profane -^ ^ From our holy solemnity duly refrain; Whose souls unenlightened by taste, are obscure; Whose poetical notions are dark and impure; Whose theatrical conscience Is sullied by nonsense; 29 450 The Cry for Justice Who never were train'd by the mighty Cratinus In mystical orgies poetic and vinous; Who delight in buffooning and jests out of season; Who promote the designs of oppression and treason; Who foster sedition, and strife, and debate; All traitors, in short, to the stage and the state; Who surrender a fort, or in private, export To places and harbors of hostile resort. Clandestine consignments of cables and pitch; In the way the Thorycion grew to be rich From a scoundrelly dirty collector of tribute ! All such we reject and severely prohibit: All statesmen retrenching the fees and the salaries Of theatrical bards, in revenge for the railleries. And jests, and lampoons, of this holy solenmity, Profanely pm^suing their personal enmity. For having been flouted, and scoff'd, and scorn'd, All such are admonish'd and heartily warn'd! We warn them once, We warn them twice, We warn and admonish — ^we warn them thrice, To conform to the law, To retire and withdraw — While the Chorus again with the formal saw (Fixt and assigh'd to the festive day) Move to the measure and march away! The Voice of the Ages 451 ^utt jFootr agitation By Martin Luther (German religious reformer, 1483-1564) ' I "HEY have learned the trick of placing such conunodi- ■l- ties as pepper, ginger, saffron, in damp vaults or cellars in order to increase the weight. . . . Nor is there a single article of trade whatever out of which they cannot make unfair profit by false measuring, counting or weighing. They produce artificial colors, or they put the pretty things at the top and bottom and the ugly ones in the middle; and indeed there is no end to their trickery, and no one tradesman will trust another, for they know each other's ways. ^all gitmt By Habakkuk (Hebrew prophet, B.C. 600) ' I "HEY take up all of them with the angle, they catch ^ them in their net, and gather them in their drag; therefore they sacrifice unto their nets, and bum incense unto their drags; because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous. By Martial (Latin poet, A.D. 43-104) T F you are a poor man now, Aemihanus, a poor man ■^ you will always be. Nowadays, riches are bestowed on no one but the rich. 452 The Cry for Justice By Cato, the Censoh (Latin, B.C. 234r-149) SMALL thieves lie in towers fastened to wooden blocks; big ones strut about in gold and silver. ?9ro0pftitg (From the Book of Job) (Hebrew, B.C. Fourth Century) THOU hast taken pledges of thy brother for nought, and stripped the naked of their clothing. Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry. But as for the mighty man, he had the earth; and the honourable man, he dwelt in it. Thou hast sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken. %^z Eeatrfno; Citijtn By Horace (Latin poet, B.C. 65-8. Translation by John Milton) AT ynOM do we count a good man? Whom but he ^ ' Who keeps the laws and statutes of the senate, Who judges in great suits and controversies, Whose witness and opinion wins the cause? But his own house, and the whole neighborhood, Sees his foul inside through his whited skin. The Voice of the Ages 453 By Im Bang (Korean poet, 1640-1722) ' I ""HE next hell had inscribed on it, "Deceivers." I saw ^ in it many scores of people, with ogres that cut the flesh from their bodies, and fed it to starving demons. These ate and ate, and the flesh was cut and cut till only the bones remained. When the winds of hell blew, then flesh returned to them; then metal snakes and copper dogs crowded in to bite them and suck their blood. Their screams of pain made the earth to tremble. The guides said to me, "When these offenders were on earth they held high office, and while they 'pretended to be true and good they received bribes in secret and were doers of all evil. As Ministers of State they ate the fat of the land and sucked the blood of the people, and yet advertised them- selves as benefactors and were highly applauded. While in reality they lived as thieves, they pretended to be holy, as Confucius and Mencius were holy. They were deceivers of the world, and robbers, and so are punished thus." By Martin Liither (A picture of the conditions which brought on the Peasants' War in Germany, 1525) BEFORE all, if the princes and lords wish to fulfill the duties of their office they must prohibit and banish the vicious system of monopolies, which is altogether unen- durable in town or country. As for the trading companies. JjBJj. The Cry for Justice they are thoroughly corrupt and made up of great injus- tices. They have every sort of commodity in their own power and they do with them just as they please, raise or lower the prices at their own convenience and crush and ruin all the small shop people — just as the pike does with the small fish in the water — as if they were lords over God's creatures and exempt from all laws of authority and religion. . . . How can it be godly and just that in so short a time a man should grow so rich that he can outbid kings and emperors? They have brought things to such a pass that all the rest of the world must carry on business with risk and damage, gaining today, losing tomorrow, while they continually grow richer and richer, and make up for their losses by higher profits; so it is no wonder that they are appropriating to themselves the riches of the whole world. SnUmptrate &pefc8 {From the Epistle of James) (A.D. 100 to 120) GO to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasures together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have The Voice of the Ages 4^5 lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just: and he doth not resist you. Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coining of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the. precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord drawcth nigh. By Marcus Aueelius (Roman emperor and philosopher, A.D. 121-180) AND these your professed pohticians, the only true *• practical philosophers of the world (as they think themselves) so full of affected gravity, or such professed lovers of virtue and honesty, what wretches be they in very deed; how vile and contemptible in themselves! O man, what ado dost thou make! a^urdft ftp &tatutt {From " The Sayings of Mencius") (Chinese classic, B.C. 300) KING HWUY of Leang said, "I wish quietly to receive your instructions. Mencius replied, "Is there any difference between killing a man with a stick, and with a sword?" "There is not," was the answer. 1^56 The Cry for Justice Mencius continued, "Is there any difference between doing it with a sword and with government measures?" "There is not," was the answer again. Mencius then said, "In your stalls there are fat beasts; in your stables there are fat horses. But your people have the look of hunger, and in the fields are those who have died of famine. This is leading on beasts to devour men. Beasts devour one another, and men hate them for doing so. When he who is called the parent of the people conducts his government so as to be chargeable with leading on beasts to devour men, where is that parental relation to the people?" Hcbukinfi: a '^Egrant By Sadi (Persian poet, A.D. 1200) TN a certain year I was sitting retired in the great ■'- mosque at Damascus, at the head of the tomb of Yahiya the prophet (on whom be peace!). One of the kings of Arabia, who was notorious for his injustice, happened to come on a pilgrimage, and having performed his devotions, he uttered the following words: "The poor and the rich are servants of this earth, and those who are richest have the greatest wants." He then looked towards me, and said, "Because dervishes are strenuous and sin- cere in their commerce with heaven, unite your prayers with mine, for I am in dread of a powerful enemy." I replied, "Show mercy to the weak peasant, that you may not experience difiiculty from a strong enemy. It is criminal to crush the poor and defenceless subjects The Voice of the Ages 457 mth the arm of power. He liveth in dread who befriendeth not the poor; for should his foot slip, no one layeth hold of his hand. Whosoever soweth bad seed, and looketh for good fruit, tortureth his imagination iu vain, making a false judgment of things. Take the cotton out of thine ear, and distribute justice to mankind; for if thou refusest justice, there will be a day of retribution. "The children of Adam are limbs of one another, and are all produced from the same substance; when the world gives pain to one member, the others also suffer uneasiness. Thou who art indifferent to the sufferings of others de- servest not to be called a man." %lt (Kloqutnt peasant (Egyptian, B.C. 2000 or earlier) An interesting primitive protest against injustice is the -^^- story of the Eloquent Peasant, which was one of the most popular of ancient Egyptian tales, and is found in scores of different papyri. The story narrates how a peasant named Rensi was robbed of his asses by the henchmen of a certain grand steward. In spite of all threats the peasant persisted in appealing against the robber to the grand steward himself. The scene is de- scribed in "Social Forces and Religion in Ancient Egypt," by James Henry Breasted, as follows : "It is a tableau which epitomizes ages of social history in the East: on the one hand, the brilliant group of the great man's sleek and subservient suite, the universal type of the official class; and, on the other, the friendless and forlorn figure of the despoiled peasant, the pathetic personification of the cry for social justice. This scene 458 The Cry for Justice is one of the earliest examples of that Oriental skill in setting forth abstract principles, so wonderfully illustrated later in the parables of Jesus. Seeing that the grand steward makes no reply, the peasant makes another effort to save his family and himself from the starvation which threatens them. He steps forward and with amazing eloquence addresses the great man in whose hands his case now rests, promising him a fair voyage as he embarks on the canal, and voicing the fame of the grand steward's benevolence, on which he had reckoned. 'For thou art the father of the orphan, the husband of the widow, the brother of the forsaken, the kilt of the motherless. Let me put -thy name in this land above every good law, leader free from avarice, great man free from littleness, who destroys falsehood and brings about truth. Respond to the cry which my mouth utters; when I speak, hear thou. Do justice, thou who art praised, whom the praised praise. Relieve my misery. Behold me, I am heavy laden; prove me, lo I am in sorrow.' " To follow the account of the incident in other records, the grand steward is so much pleased with the peasant's eloquence that he goes to the king and tells him about it. "My Lord, I have foimd one of these peasants, excellent of speech, in very truth; stolen are his goods, and he has come to complain to me of the matter." His majesty says, "As thou wishest that I may see health, lengthen out his complaint, without reply to any of his speeches ! He who desireth him to continue speaking should be silent; behold, bring us his words in writing that we may listen to them." So he keeps the peasant pleading for many days. The story quotes nine separate speeches, of constantly increas- The Voice of the Ages 459 ing bitterness and pathos. The peasant is beaten by the servants of the grand steward, but still he comes. "Thou art appointed to hear causes, to judge two litigants, to ward off the robber. But thou makest common cause with the thief. . . . Thou art instructed, thou art educated, thou art taught — but not for robbery. Thou art accustomed to do like all men, and thy kin are likewise ensnared. Thou the rectitude of all men, art the chief transgressor of the whole land. The gardener of evil waters his domain with iniquity that his domain may bring forth falsehood, in order to flood the estate with wickedness." In spite of his eloquence, the grand steward remains unmoved. The peasant appeals to the gods of Justice; and in the ninth address he threatens to make his plea to the god Anubis, who is the god of the dead — meaning thereby that he will commit- suicide. None of the extant papyri informs us as to the outcome of the whole pro- ceedings. Pra^ftief Qfllttj^ont ^n&'tott {From The Iliad) By Homer (Greek epic poet, B.C. 700?) T^RAYERS are Jove's daughters of celestial race, ■»- Lame are their feet, and wrinkled is their face; With homely mien and with dejected eyes, Constant they follow where injustice flies. Injustice, suave, erect, and imconflned. Sweeps the wide earth, and tramples o'er mankind — While prayers to heal her wrongs move slow behind. 460 The Cry for Justice 'dlit buffering ot momm By Herbert Spencer (English philosopher, 1820-1903) T N the history of humanity as written, the saddest part ■'■ concerns the treatment of women; and had we before us its unwritten history we should find this part still sadder. I say the saddest part because there have been many things more conspicuously dreadful — cannibalism, the torturing of prisoners, the sacrifice of victims to ghosts and gods— these have been but occasionally; whereas the brutal treatment of woman has been universal and constant. If looking first at their state of subjection among the semi-civilized we pass to the uncivihzed, and observe the lives of hardship borne by nearly all of them; if we then think what must have gone on among those still ruder peoples who, for so many thousands of years roamed over the uncultivated earth; we shall infer that the amount of suffering which has been and is borne by women is utterly beyoijd imagination. Dtborce in SLncitnt Babylon {From the Code of Hammurabi) (B.C. 2250) ANU and Baal called me, Hammurabi, the exalted •^*- prince, the worshipper of the gods, to cause justice to prevail in the land, to destroy the wicked and evil, to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak, to enlighten the land and to further the welfare of the people. The Voice of the Ages 461 Hammurabi, the governor named by Baal am I, who brought about plenty and abundance. § 142: If a woman shall hate her husband and say: "Thou shalt not have me," they shall inquire into her antecedents for her defects. ... If she have not been a careful mistress, have gadded about, have neglected her house and have belittled her husband, they shall throw that woman into the water. W^t ^atablt ot tfie ^feungtp 2D0S {From the Gospel of Buddha) (Hindu Bible, B.C. 600) I "HERE was a wicked tyrant; and the god Indra, ^ assuming the shape of a hunter, came down upon earth with the demon Matali, the latter appearing as a dog of enormous size. Hunter and dog entered the palace, and the dog howled so woefully that the royal buildings shook with the soimd to their very foundations. The tyrant had the awe-inspiring hunter brought before his throne and inquired after the cause of the terrible bark. The hrniter said, "The dog is hungry," whereupon the frightened king ordered food for him. All the food pre- pared at the royal banquet disappeared rapidly in the dog's jaws, and still he howled with portentous significance. More food was sent for, and all the royal store-houses were emptied, but in vain. Then the tyrant grew des- perate and asked: "Will nothing satisfy the cravings of that woeful beast?" "Nothing," replied the hunter, "nothing except perhaps the flesh of all his enemies." "And who are his enemies?" anxiously asked the tyrant. The hunter replied: "The dog will howl as long as there JfB^ The Cry for Justice are people hungry in the kingdom, and his enemies are those that practice injustice and oppress the poor." The oppressor of the people, remembering his evil deeds, was seized with remorse, and for the first time in his life he began to listen to the teachings of righteousness. 'arfie iRaturr of HmffiS {From the First Book of Samuel) (Hebrew, B.C. Eleventh Century) AND Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the • people that asked of him a king. And he said: " This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you; he will take your sons, and appoint them for him- self, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.^ And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and ihstrmnents of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and yom* goodliest yoxmg men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He Avill take the tenth of your sheep; and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day." The Voice of the Ages 463 {From the She-ching) (Chinese classic, B.C. 1000) A FISH in some translucent lake ■'*■ Must ever live to fear a prey He cannot hide himself away From those who come the fish to take. I, too, may not escape the eyes Of those who cause these miseries; My sorrowing heart must grieve to know My country's deep distress and woe. {From the Edda) (Scandinavian legends of great antiquity, collected, A.D. 1100, by Saemund) KING FROTHI called his slaves renowned for strength, Fenia and Menia, and bade them grind for gold. The maidens ground through many years, they ground endless treasures; but at last they grew weary. Then Frothi said, "Grind on! Rest ye not, sleep ye not, longer than the cuckoo is silent, or a verse can be sung." The weary slaves ground on, till lo! from the mighty mill is poured forth an army of men. Now hes Frothi slain amid his gold. Now is Frothi's peace forever ended. Ifilf. Tine Cry for Justice ((l^t ^a'tatt of 3lu0tic£ By Manu (Hindu poet, B.C. 1200 ) INIQUITY, committed in this world, produces not fruit immediately, but, like the earth, in due season, and advancing by little and little, it eradicates the man who committed it. He grows rich for a while through unrighteousness; then he beholds good things; then it is that he vanquishes his foes; but he perishes at length from his whole root upwards. Justice, being destroyed, will destroy; being preserved, will preserve; it must never therefore be violated. Be- ware, judge! lest justice, being overturned, overturn both us and thyself. By Isaiah (Hebrew prophet, B.C. 740) WOE unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; to turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless! And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desola- tion which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory? Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned awav, but his hand is stretched out still. THE SEA OF BLOOD ''CouKAGE, Your Majesty, only one step more" (Example of Russian cartoonitig, pnlilidied at the height of the Revolution of 1905) The Voice of the Ages 465 €omtvnins HfllealtS Hesiod (Greek poet, B.C. 650) "\^ ynO, or by open force, or secret stealth, ^^ Or perjured wiles, amasses wealth, (Such many are, whom thirst of gain betrays) The gods,, all seeing, shall o'ercloud his days; His wife, his children, and his friends shall die. And, like a dream, his ill-got riches fly. (From the Instructions of Ptah-Hotep) (Egyptian, B.C. 3650; the oldest book in the world) IF thou be great, after being of no account, and hast gotten riches after squalor, being foremost in these in the city, and hast knowledge concerning useful matters, so that promotion is come unto thee; then swathe not thine heart in thine hoard, for thou art become a steward of the endowment of the God. Thou art not the last, others shall be thine equal, and to them shall come what has come to thee. (From the Icelandic, Eleventh Century) T SAW the well-filled bams •*■ Of the child of wealth; Now leans he on the staff of the beggar. Thus are riches, As the glance of an eye, They are an inconstant friend. 30 466 The Cry for Justice By VmaiL (Latin epic poet, B.C. 70-19) /^^URST greed of gold, what crimes thy tyrant power ^^ has caused! {From the "Antigone" of Sophocles) (Greek tragic poet, B.C. 440) TV To such ill device ^ ^ Ever appeared, as money to mankind: This is it that sacks cities, this routs out Men from their homes, and trains and turns astray The minds of honest mortals, setting them j Upon base actions; this revealed to men Habits of all misdoing, and cognizance Of every work of wickedness. (From the Book of Good Counsels) (Sanscrit, B.C. 300) AT Health is friends, home, father, brother, title to ' " respect, and fame; Yea, and wealth is held for wisdom — that it should be so is shame. {From the "Medea" of Euripides) (Greek tragic poet, B.C. 431) OPEAK not so hastily: the gods themselves ! ^ By gifts are swayed, as fame relates; and gold I Hath a far greater influence o'er the souls Of mortals than the most persuasive words. The Voice of the Ages 467 {From "The Convivio" of Dante Alighieri) (Italian epic poet, 1265-1321) T AFFIRM that gain is precisely that whicli comes oftener ■'■ to the bad than to the good; for illegitimate gains never come to the good at all, because they reject them. And lawful gains rarely come to the good, because, since much anxious care is needful thereto, and the anxious care of the good man is directed to weightier matters, rarely does the good man give sufficient attention thereto. Wherefore it is clear that in every way the advent of these riches is iniquitous. . . . Let us give heed to the life of them who chase riches, and see in what security they live when they have gath- ered of them, how content they are, how reposeful! And what else, day by day, imperils and slays cities, countries and single persons so much as the new amassing of wealth by anyone? Which amassing reveals new long- ings, the goal of which may not be reached without wrong to someone. . . . Wherefore the baseness of riches is manifest enough by reason of all their characteristics, and so a man of right appetite and of true knowledge never loves them; and not loving them does not unite himself to them, but ever wishes them to be far removed from him, save as they be ordained to some necessary service. . . . 468 The Cry for Justice %^z Prrtfct Citp {From " The Republic" of Plato) (Greek philosopher, B.C. 429-347) \^ 7"E have, it seems, discovered other things, which our * * guardians must by all means watch against, that they may nowise escape their notice and steal into the city. What kinds of things are these? Riches, said I, and poverty. B Concetnmg: Sntiepctttifnce By Lucretius (Latin poet, B.C. 95-52) UT if men would live up to reason's rules, They would not bow and scrape to wealthy fools. (From The Hitopadesa) (Hindu religious work, B.C. 250) T T is better to abandon life than flatter the base. Im- ^ poverishment is better than luxury through another's wealth. Not to attend at the door of the wealthy, and not to use the voice of petition, these imply the best life of a man. The Voice of the Ages 469 By Xenophon (Greek historian, B.C. Fourth Century) T F you perfume a slave and a freeman, the difference of ■*■ their birth produces none in the smell; and the scent is perceived as soon in the one as the other; but the odor of honorable toil, as it is acquired with great pains and application, is ever sweet and worthy of a brave man. By Dante Alighieri (Itahan epic poet, 1265-1321) A"\ /"HAT! You say a horse is noble because it is good *" in itself, and the same you say of a falcon or a pearl; but a man shall be called noble because his ancestors were so? Not with words, but with knives must one answer such a beastly notion. By Omar Khayyam (Persian poet, Eleventh Century) TN this world he who possesses a morsel of bread, and ■*• some nest in which to shelter himself, who is master or slave of no man, tell that man to live content; he possesses a very sweet existence. 47C The Cry for Justice flD5< JFrwtiom {Negro Slave Song) OH! Freedom, oh! Freedom, Oh! Freedom, over me; And before I'll be a slave I'll be buried in my grave. And go home to my God And be free. Jfwuome By John Baebour (English poet, Fourteenth Century) A I FREDOME is a nobill thing! Fredome mayse man to haiff liking! Fredome all solace to man giffis : He levys at ese that frely levys; A noble hart may haiff nane ease, Na ellys nocht that may him plese, Gyff fredome failythe: for fre liking Is yeamyt ow'r all othir thing Na he, that ay hase levyt fre. May nocht knaw weill the propyrte. The angry, na the wretchjrt dome. That is cowplyt to foule thyrldome. Bot gyff he had assayit it. Than all perquer he suld it wyt; And suld think fredome mar to pryse Than all the gold in warld that is. The Voice of the Ages 471 {Ancient Greek Inscription) T^IETY has raised this house from the first foundation ^ even to the lofty roof; for Macedonius fashioned not his wealth by heaping up from the possessions of others with plundering sword, nor has any poor man here wept over his vain and profitless toil, being robbed of just hire; and as rest from labor is kept inviolate by the just man, so let the works of pious mortals endure. (From the Book of Enoch) (Hebrew work of the Second Century, B.C., preserved only in the Ethiopic tongue) WOE unto you who despise the himable dwelling and inheritance of your fathers! Woe unto you who build your palaces with the sweat of others! Each stone, each brick of which it is built, is a sin! ^titit in ^obntv By Confucitjs (Chinese philosopher, B. C. 500) RICHES and honor are what men desire; but if they attain to them by improper ways, they should not continue to hold them. Poverty and low estate are what men dislike; but if they are brought to such condition by improper ways, they should not feel shame for it. Ii.112 The Cry for Justice 9?(lUonaiw0 in Eomc By Cicero (Latin statesman and orator, B. C. 106-43) A S to their money, and their splendid mansions, and their ■'*• wealth, and their lordship, and the deUghts by which they are chiefly attracted, never in truth have I ranked them amongst things good or desirable; inasmuch as I saw for a certainty that in the abundance of these things men longed most for the very things wherein they abounded. For never is the thirst of cupidity filled nor sated. And not only are they tortured by the longing to increase their possessions, but they are also tortured by fear of losing them. By Ezekiel (Hebrew prophet, B. C. 600) ' I "HE word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of -*• man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say imto them. Thus saith the Lord God unto the shepherds: Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed : but ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled The Voice of the Ages ' 473 them. And they were scattered, because there is no shep- herd. . . My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill; yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them. Therefore ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord; as I live, saith the Lord God, . . . Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand. ... I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to he down. . . . And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid. And ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord God. JL(i\iit0 ot jFa0|)ton By Isaiah (Hebrew prophet, B. C. 740) THE Lord standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people. The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof; for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord God of Hosts. Moreover the Lord saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet; therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts. In that day the Lord will take away the 474 The Cry for Justice bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, the chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers, the bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings, the rings, and nose jewels, the changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins, the glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the veils. And it shall come to pass that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair, baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty. Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war. And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground. Concetning 'Mn&tict (Ancient Hindu Proverb) JUSTICE is so dear to the heart of Nature, that if in the last day one atom of injustice were found, the universe would shrivel like a snake-skin to cast it off forever. By Marcus Aukelius (Roman emperor, A. D. 121-180) TN the whole constitution of man, I see not any virtue ■'■ contrary to justice, whereby it may be resisted and opposed. The Voice of the Ages Ji.75 By Sadi (Persian poet, A.D. 1200) " I ""AKE heed that he weep not; for the throne of the ^ Ahnighty is shaken to and fro when the orphan sets a-crying. Beware of the groans of the wounded souls, since the hidden sore will at length break out; oppress not to the utmost a single heart, for a single sigh has power to overset a whole world. {From "The Koran") (Bible of Mohammedanism; Arabic, A.D. 600) JUSTICE is an unassailable fortress, built on the brow of a mountain which cannot be overthrown by the violence of torrents, nor demolished by the force of armies. "Do you desire," said Abdallah, "to bring the praise of mankind upon your action? Then desire not unjustly, or even by your right, to grasp that which belongs to another." T (Arabian proverb, Sixteenth Century) HE exercise of equity for one day is equal to sixty years spent in prayer. By Nintoku (Japanese emperor, Fourth Century) ■ F the people are poor, I am the poorest. ^76 The Cry for Justice By Plutarch (Greek historian, A.D. 50-120) ' I 'HE Athenians fell into their old quarrels about the ■'- government, there being as many different parties as there were diversities in the country. The Hill quarter favoured democracy, the Plain, oligarchy, and those that lived by the Seaside stood for a mixed sort of govern- ment, and so hindered either of the other parties from prevailing. And the disparity of fortune between the rich and the poor at that time also reached its height; so that the city seemed to be in a truly dangerous condi- tion, and there appeared no other means for freeing it from disturbances and settling it but a despotic power. All the people were indebted to the rich; and either they tilled their land for their creditors, paying them a sixth part of the increase, or else they engaged their body for the debt, and might be seized, and either sent into slavery at home, or sold to strangers; some (for no law forbade it) were forced to sell their children, or fly their country to avoid the cruelty of their creditors; but the most part and the bravest of them began to combine together and encom-age one another to stand it, to choose a leader, to Uberate the condemned debtors, divide the land, and change the government. Then the wisest of the Athenians, perceiving Solon was of all men the only one not implicated in the troubles, that he had not joined in the exactions of the rich, and was not involved in the necessities of the poor, pressed him to succour the conmionwealth and compose the dif- ferences. . . , The Voice of the Ages 477 The first thing which he settled was, that what debts remained should be forgiven, and no man, for the future, should engage the body of his debtor for security. €ontttnins %anti By Solon (Greek lawgiver, B.C. 639-559) ■" I "HE mortgage stones that covered her, by me ■*■ Removed, the land that was a slave is free. Deutebonomy (Hebrew, B.C. 700?) THESE are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth. ... At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbor shall release it, he shall not exact it of his neighbor, or of his brother; because it is called the Lord's release. Leviticus (Hebrew law-book, B.C. 700?) AND the Lord spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai, • saying: . . . "The land shall not be sold for ever; for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me." 478 The Cry for Justice (From "Discourse on the Origin of Inequality") By Jean Jacques Rousseau (French novelist and philosopher, 1712-1778; father of the French Revolution) ^ I "'HE first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, ■'■ bethought himself of saying. This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, " Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody." EatitcaUs(m By Confucius (Chinese philosopher, B.C. 500) I "HINGS have their root and their completion. It -'- cannot be that when the root is neglected, what springs from it will be well ordered. The Voice of the Ages 479 Peeking Cau0e0 By Plato (Greek philosopher and poet, B.C. 428-347) TV TEITHER drugs nor charms nor burnings will touch ■'■ ^ a deep-lying political sore any more than a deep bodily one; but only right and utter change of constitu- tion; and they do but lose their labor who think that by any tricks of law they can get the better of those mischiefs of commerce, and see not that they hew at a hydra. Concnning; Wi&wii^* {From "The Koran") (Arabic, A.D. 600) " I "0 him who is of kin to thee give his due, and to the ■»■ poor and to the wayfarer: this will be best for those who seek the face of God; and with them it shall be well. Whatever ye put out at usury to increase it with the substance of others shall have no increase from God: but whatever ye shall give in alms, as seeking the face of God, shall be doubled to you. {From the Psalms) (Hebrew, B.C. 200) LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart. . . . * As used in the Bible, and other ancient writings, the word usury means, not excessive interest-taking, but all interest-taking whatever. 480 The Cry for Justice He that putteth his money not out to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved. By Aristotle (Greek philosopher, B.C. Fourth Century) T TSURY is the most reasonably detested of all forms of ^-^ money-making; it is most against nature. {From "Essay on Riches") By Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam (Enghsh philosopher and statesman, 1561-1626) THE ways to enrich are many, and most of them foul. . . . Usury is the certainest means of gain, though one of the worst; as that whereby a man doth eat his bread with sweat of another's face, and besides, doth plough upon Sundays. By Marcus Axjrelius (Ronaan emperor, A.D. 121-180) A S thou thyself, whoever thou art, wert made for the ■^*- perfection and consummation of a common society; so must every action of thine tend to the perfection and consummation of a life that is truly sociable. Whatever The Voice of the Ages 4^1 action of thine that, either immediately or afar off, hath not reference to the common good, that is an exorbitant and disorderly action; yea, it is seditious; as one among the people who from a general consent and miity should factiously divide and separate himself. By Wang-An-Shih (Chinese statesman, Eleventh Century) I ^HE State should take the entire management of ■•• commerce, industry, and agricultiu-e into its own hands, with a view to succoring the working classes and preventing their being ground to the dust by the rich. W^e Promise (From the Psalms) (Hebrew, B.C. 200) I "'HE Lord shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the ■'■ poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence; and precious shall their blood be in his sight. 31 48S The Cry for Justice %^t Co^^oprtatitie Commonbealtg By Isaiah II, the Prophet of the Exile (B.C. 550) AND they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and ■ they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat; for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. BOOK X Mammon Wealth, and the crimes that are committed in its name, and the protests of the spirit of humanity against its power in society. By John Milton (English lyric and epic poet, 1608-1674) MAMMON led them on— Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts Were always downward bent, admiring more The riches of Heaven's pavement, trodden gold, Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed In vision beatific. By him first Men also, and by his suggestion taught. Ransacked the centre, and with impious hands Rifled the bowels of their mother earth For treasures better hid. Soon had his crew Opened into the hill a spacious wound. And digged out ribs of gold. Let none admire That riches grow in Hell; that soil may best Deserve the precious bane. By Thomas Hood (See pages 59, 171) GOLD! Gold! Gold! Gold! Bright and yellow, hard and cold. Molten, graven, hammer'd, and roU'd; Heavy to get, and light to hold; (485) 486 The Cry for Justice Hoarded, barter'd, bought, and sold, Stolen, borrow'd, squander'd, doled: Spurn'd by the young, but hugg'd by the old To the very verge of the chin-chyard mould; Price of many a crime untold: Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold! Good or bad a thousand-fold! How widely its agencies vary — To save — to ruin — to curse — ^to bless — As even its minted coins express. Now stamp'd with the image of Good Queen Bess, And now of a bloody Mary. Mottbttn jFarmer: Ueto &t?Ie Bt Alfred Tennyson (See page 77) I AOSN'T thou 'ear my 'erse's legs, as they canters -■ — ^ awaay, Proputty, proputty, proputty — that's what I 'ears 'em saay. Proputty, proputty, proputty — Sam, thou's an ass for thy paains, Theer's moor sense i' one o' 'is legs nor in all thy braains. Me an' thy muther, Sammy, 'as bean a-talkin' o' thee; Thou's beSn talkin' to muther, an' she bean a tellin' it me. Thou'll not marry for mimny — ^thou's sweet upo' parson's lass — Noa — ^thou'll marry for luw — an' we boath on us thinks tha an ass. M ammon 4^7 Seea'd her todaay goa by — Saaint's daay — they was ring- ing the bells. She's a beauty thou thinks — an' soa is scoors o' gells, Them as 'as munny an' all — wot's a beauty? — the flower as blaws. But proputty, proputty sticks, an' proputty, proputty graws. Doant't be stunt : taake time : I knaws what maakes tha sa mad. Wam't I craazed fur the lasses mys6n when I wur a lad? But I knaw'd a Quaaker feller as often 'as towd ma this: "Doan't thou marry for miumy, but goa wheer mimny is!" iRoto 3 Eag 9^e 2Doton to &I«p By John D. Rockefeller (American capitalist, born 1839) ^ I "HEN, and indeed for many years after, it seemed as -^ though there was no end to the money needed to carry on and develop the business. As our successes began to come, I seldom put my head upon the pillow at night without speaking a few words to myself in this wise: "Now a little success, soon you will fall down, soon you will be overthrown. Because you have got a start, you think you are quite a merchant; look out, or you will lose your head — go steady." These intimate con- versations with myself, I am sure, had a great influence on my life. 488 The Cry for Justice From Ecclesiasticus A MERCHANT shall hardly keep himself from -^*- wrong-doing; and a huckster shall not be acquitted of sin. ISasft anil ^tt0tnt By Thomas CablyLe (See pages 31, 74, 133) WHAT is it, if you pierce through his Cants, his oft- repeated Hearsays, what he calls his Worships and so forth, — what is it that the modem English soul does, in very truth, dread infinitely, and contemplate with entire despair? What is his Hell, after all these reputable, oft-repeated Hearsays, what is it? With hesi- tation, with astonishment, I pronounce it to be: The terror of "Not succeeding"; of not making money, fame, or some other figure in the world, — chiefly of not making money! Is not that a somewhat singular Hell? By Arthur Hugh Clottgh (English poet and scholar, friend of Tennyson and Matthew Arnold,. 1819-1861) AS I sat at the caf6, I said to myself, • They may talk as they please about what they call pelf. They may sneer as they like about eating and drinking. Mammon 4^9 But help it I cannot, I cannot help thinking, How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! How pleasant it is to have money. I sit at my table en grand seigneur, And when I have done, throw a crust to the poor; Not only the pleasure, one's self, of good Uving, But also the pleasure of now and then giving. So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! So pleasant it is to have money. . . . I drive through the streets, and I care not a d — ^n; The people they stare, and they ask who I am; And if I should chance to run over a cad, I can pay for the damage if ever so bad. So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! So pleasant it is to have money. We stroll to our box and look down on the pit, And if it weren't low should be tempted to spit; We loll and we talk until people look up, And when it's half over we go out to sup. So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! So pleasant it is to have money. The best of the tables and best of the fare — And as for the others, the devil may care; It isn't our fault if they dare not afford To sup like a prince and be drunk as a lord. So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! So pleasant it is to have money. J^90 The Cry for Justice ?Htopia By Sir Thomas More (See page 160) nPHEY marveile also that golde, whych of the owne -'■ nature is a thinge so iinprofytable, is nowe amonge all people in so hyghe estimation, that man him selfe, by whome, yea and for the use of whome it is so much set by, is in muche lesse estimation, then the golde it selfe. In so muche that a limipyshe blockehedded churle, and whyche hathe no more wytte then an asse, yea and as ful of noughtynes as of follye, shall have nevertheless manye wyse and good men in subjectyon and bondage, only for this, bycause he hath a greate heape of golde. Whyche yf it shoulde be taken from hym by anye for- tune, or by some subtyll wyle and cautele of the lawe, (whyche no lesse then fortune dothe bothe raise up the lowe, and plucke downe the highe) and be geven to the moste vile slave and abject dryvell of all his housholde, then shortely after he shal goo into the service of his servaunt, as an augmentation or overplus beside his money. But they muche more marvell at and detest the madnes of them, whyche to those riche men, in whose debte and daunger they be not, do give almost divine honoures, for none other consideration, but bicause they be riche: and yet knowing them to bee suche nigeshe penny fathers, that they be sure as longe as they live, not the worthe of one farthinge of that heape of gold shall come to them. These and such like opinions have they conceaved, partely by education, beinge brought up in that common wealthe, whose lawes and customes be farre different from these kindes of folly, and partel'*^ by good litterature and learning. M ammon 491 'd^t Ctoton of ^iltr SDlibt By John Ruskin (See page 106) IT is physically impossible for a well-educated, intel- lectual, or brave man to make money the chief object of his thoughts; as physically impossible as it is for him to make his dinner the principal object of them. All healthy people like their dinners, but their dinner is not the main object of their lives. So all healthily minded people like making money — ought to like it, and to enjoy the sensation of winning it: but the main object of their life is not money; it is something better than money. SDon 3uan By Lord Byron (See pages 233, 340) OH, Gold! Why call we misers miserable? Theirs is the pleasure that can never pall; Theirs is the best bower-anchor, the chain-cable Which holds fast other pleasures great and small. Ye who but see the saving man at table And scorn his temperate board, as none at all. And wonder how the wealthy can be sparing, Know not what visions spring from each cheese- paring. . . . Perhaps he hath great projects in his mind To build a college, or to found a race, 492 The Cry for Justice An hospital, a church — and leave behind Some dome surmounted by his meagre face; Perhaps he fain would liberate mankind, Even with the very ore that makes them base; Perhaps he would be wealthiest of his nation. Or revel in the joys of calculation. . . . " Love rules the camp, the court, the grove — for love Is heaven, and heaven is love:" so sings the bard; Which it were rather difficult to prove (A thing with poetry in general hard). Perhaps there may be something in "the grove," At least it rhymes to "love"; but I'm prepared To doubt (no less than landlords of their rental) If "courts" and "camps" be quite so sentimental. But if Love don't. Cash does, and Cash alone: Cash rules the grove, and fells it too besides; Without cash, camps were thin, and courts were none; Without cash, Malthus tells you, "take no brides." So Cash rules Love the ruler, on his own High ground, as virgin Cynthia sways the tides: And as for "Heaven being Love," why not say honey Is wax? Heaven is not Love, 'tis Matrimony. By William Shakespeare \ (See page 181) GOLD? yellow, glittering, precious gold? . . . This yellow slave Will knit and break religions; bless the accursed; Make the hoar leprosy adored; place thieves. And give them title, knee and approbation With senators on the bench. Mammon 493 ^^t €o.bt ot St^ammon {From "The Faerie Queene") By Edmxind Spenser (Old EngUsh poet, 1552-1599) At last he came unto a gloomy glade -^*- Cover'd with boughs and shrubs from heavens light, Whereas he sitting found in secret shade An uncouth, salvage, and uncivile wight, Of griesly hew and fowle ill-favour'd sight; His face with smoke was tand, and eies were bleard, His head and beard with sout were ill bedight, His cole-blacke hands did seem to have ben seard In smythes fire-spitting forge, and nayles like clawes appeard. . . . And romid about him lay on every side Great heapes of gold that never could be spent; Of which some were rude owre, not purifide. Of Mulcibers devom-ing element; Some others were new driven, and distent Into great ingowes and to wedges square; Some in round plates withouten moniment; But most were stampt, and in their metal bare The antique shapes of kings and kesars straimg and rare. . . . "What secret place," quoth he, "can safely hold So huge a mass, and hide from heavens eie? Or where hast thou thy woime, that so much gold Thou canst preserve from wrong and robbery?" "Come thou," quoth he, "and see." So by and by 4^4 The Cry for Justice Through that black covert he him led, and f ownd A darksome way, which no man could descry. That deep descended through the hollow grownd. And was with dread and horror compassed arownd. . . . So soon as Mammon there arrived, the dore To him did open and affoorded way: Him followed eke Sir Guyon evermore, Ne darknesse him ne daimger might dismay. Soone as he entred was, the dore streightway Did shutt, and from behind it forth there lept An ugly feend, more fowle then dismall day: The which with monstrous stalke behind him stept, And ever as he went dew watch upon him kept. Well hoped hee, ere long that hardy guest, If ever covetous hand, or lustful! eye. Or lips he layd on thing that likte him best, Or ever sleepe his eie-strings did untye. Should be his pray: and therefore still on hye He over him did hold his cruell clawes, Threatning with greedy gripe to doe him dye, And rend in peeces with his ravenous pawes, If ever he transgrest the fatall Stygian lawes. In all that rowme was nothing to be scene But huge great yron chests, and coffers strong. All bard with double bends, that none could weene Them to efforce by violence or wrong; On every side they placed were along. But all the grownd with sculs was scattered And dead mens bones, which round about were flong; Whose Uves, it seemed, whilome there was shed, And their vile carcases now left unburi^d. M ammon 495 By George MacDonald (Scotch novelist and clergyman, 1824r-1905) THE croak of a raven hoar! A dog's howl, kennel-tied! Loud shuts the carriage-door: The two are away on their ghastly ride To Death's salt shore! Where are the love and the grace? The bridegroom is thirsty and cold! The bride's skull sharpens her face ! But the coachman is driving, jubilant, bold, The devil's pace. The horses shiver'd and shook Waiting gaunt and haggard With sorry and evil look; But swift as a drunken wind they stagger' d 'Longst Lethe brook. Long since, they ran no more; Heavily pulling they died On the sand of the hopeless shore Where never swell'd or sank a tide, And the salt burns sore. Flat their skeletons He, White shadows on shining sand; The crusted reins go high To the crumbhng coachman's bony hand On his knees awry. 496 The Cry for Justice Side by side, jarring no more, Day and night side by side. Each by a doorless door, Motionless sit the bridegroom and bride On the Dead-Sea-shore. S>noh0 and Siparrfase {From " The Book of Snobs") By William Makepeace Thackebat (English novelist and satirist of manners, 1811-1863) T3E0PLE dare not be happy for fear of Snobs. People ■'- dare not love for fear of Snobs. People pine away lonely under the tyranny of Snobs. Honest kindly hearts dry up and die. Gallant generous lads, blooming with hearty youth, swell into bloated old bachelorhood, and burst and tumble over. Tender girls wither into shrimken decay, and perish solitary, from whom Snobbishness has cut off the common claim to happiness and affection with which Nature endowed us all. My heart grows sad as I see the blundering tyrant's handiwork. As I behold it I swell with cheap rage, and glow with fury against the Snob. Come down, I say, thou skulking dullness. Come down, thou stupid bully, and give up thy brutal ghost! And I arm myself with the sword and spear, and taking leave of my family, go forth to do battle with that hideous ogre and giant, that brutal despot in Snob Castle, who holds so many gentle hearts in torture and thrall. o > u ^ > o Mammon 497 By John Boyle O'Reilly (Irish-born American journalist, 1844-1890) ■" I ^HE thirsty of soul soon learn to know ■*- The moistureless froth of the social show, The vulgar sham of the pompous feast Where the heaviest purse is the highest priest; The organized charity, scrimped and iced. In the name of a cautious, statistical Christ. Panftp JFait (From "The Pilgrim's Progress") By John Bunyan (English tinker and religious rebel, who was put in prison and there wrote one of the world's great allegories; 1628-1688) THEN I saw in my dream, that when they were got out of the wilderness, they presently saw a town before them, and the name of that town is Vanity; and at the town there is a fair. kept, called Vanity Fair. It is kept all the year long. ... At this fair are all such merchandise sold as houses, lands, trades, places, honors, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms, lusts, pleasures; and delights of all sorts, such as harlots, wives, husbands, children, masters, servants, lives, blood, bodies, souls, silver, gold, precious stones, and what not. And moreover, at this fair there are at all times to be seen jugglings, cheats, games, plays, fools, apes, knaves, and rogues, and that of every kind. 32 498 The Cry for Justice Here are to be seen, too, and that for nothing, thefts, murders, adulteries false-swearers, and that of a blood- red color. '^gt &in0 of ^otitt^ By Bebnaed Vaughan (The sermons of a Jesuit priest, in Mayfair, London, which caused great excitement among the "Smart Set") COCIETY nowadays, as we all know, is every bit as ^ material as it was when Dives was alive. It still cares very little, indeed, for what it cannot either put on or into itself. It is self-centred. Its fair votaries must be set up by the best man-milliner, and fed up by the best man-cook; and then, provided they are known at the opera by their diamonds, in Mayfair by their motors, and at Cowes by their yacht, nothing else matters, espe- cially if they happen to have a house at Ascot and a laimch at Henley for the racing weeks. It is not so much persons as things that count in this age of materialism. Hence there is but one sin less pardonable than that of being dull, and that is being' poor. After all, there may be some excuse for dulness if you have money, but there is simply none at all for poverty, which like dirt on one's shoes, or dust on one's gown, must be brushed away from sight as soon as pos- sible. Not even poor relatives are tolerated or recog- nized, except occasionally on an "off-day," when, like some unfortunate governesses in such households, they may be asked to look in at tea-time, when nobody is there. Surely all this is very contemptible, and alto- gether unworthy of old English traditions. Yes, but old Mammon 499 English traditions, with rare exceptions, are being swept away by the iacomiag tide of millionaire wealth, so that, nowadays, it matters httle what you are, but much, nay, everything, what you have. If you command money, you command the world. If you have none, you are nobody, though you be a prince. {From a leading London newspaper) T7ATHER VAUGHAN'S knotted lash is sharp, and he ■'■ wields it sternly, but it does not raise one weal on the delicate flesh of these massaged and manicured Salomes and Phrynes. His scorn is savage, but it does not pro- duce more than a polite smile on these soft, faultless faces. His contempt is bitter, but it does not make a single modish harlot blush. They are dimly amused by the excitement of the good man. They are not in the least annoyed. They are, on the contrary, eager to ask him to dinner. What a piquant sensation to serve adultery with the sauce of asceticism! Father Vaughan says that if King Herod and Herodias and Salome were to arrive in Mayfair they would be petted by the Smart Set. The good father, in the inno- cence of his heart, underacts the role of Sa-vaughan-rola. Herod and Herodias and Salome have arrived. They are here. We know them. We see them daily. Their names are in the newspapers. They were at Ascot. They are present at the smartest weddings at St. George's, Hanover Square. Do we despise them? Do we boycott them? Do we cut them. By no means. We honor and reverence them. We may talk about their bestialities in the privacy of the boudoir and the smoking-room, but in public the theme is discreetly evaded. 600 The Cry for Justice iFKti) mtnm, I9l5 \ By Hermann Hagedorn \ (American poet, born 1882. The following poem is a rondd, an interesting case of the use of an artificial old French verse-form in a vital way) ' I 'HE motor cars go up and down, , ■•- The painted ladies sit and smile. \ Along the sidewalks, mile on mile, \ Parade the dandies of the town. / The latest hat, the latest gown, The tedium of their souls beguile. The motor cars go up and down. The painted ladies sit and smile. In wild and icy waters drown A thousand for a rock-bound isle. Ten thousand in a black defile Perish for justice or a crown. The motor cars go up and down. . . . {From " The House of Mirth") By Edith Wharton (Contemporary American novelist) THE environment in which Lily found herself was as strange to her as its inhabitants. She was unac- quainted with the world of the fashionable New York hotel — a world over-heated, over-upholstered, and over- * Copyright, 1905. By permission of Charles Scribner'fa Sons. Mammon SOI fitted with mechanical appliances for the gratification of fantastic requirements, while the comforts of a civiUzed Ufe were as unattainable as in a desert. Through this atmosphere of torrid splendor moved wan beings as richly upholstered as the furniture, beings without defin- ite pursuits or permanent relations, who drifted on a languid tide of curiosity from restaurant to concert-hall, from pahn-garden to music-room, from "art-exhibit" to dressmaker's opening. High-stepping horses or elabo- rately equipped motors waited to carry these ladies into vague metropolitan distances, whence they returned, still more wan from the weight of their sables, to be sucked back into the stifling inertia of the hotel routine. Some- where behind them in the background of their lives, there was doubtless a real past, peopled by real himian activi- ties: they themselves were probably the product of strong ambitions, persistent energies, diversified contacts with the wholesome roughness of life; yet they had no more real existence than the poet's shades in limbo. Lily had not been long in this palHd world without discovering that Mrs. Hatch was its most substantial figure. . . . The daily details of her existence were as strange to Lily as its general tenor. The lady's habits were marked by an Oriental indolence and disorder pecu- harly trying to her companion. Mrs. Hatch and her friends seemed to float together outside the bounds of time and space. No definite hours were kept; no fixed obligations existed: night and day floated into one another in a blur of confused and retarded engagements, so that one had the impression of lunching at the tea-hour, while dinner was often merged in the noisy after-theatre sup- per which prolonged Mrs. Hatch's vigil until daylight. Through this jumble of futile activities came and went a 502 The Cry for Justice strange throng of hangers-on — manicures, beauty-doctors, hair-dressers, teachers of bridge, of French, of "physical development." . . . Mrs. Hatch swam in a haze of indeterminate enthusiasms, of aspirations culled from the stage, the newspapers, the fashion-journals, and a gaudy world of sport still more completely beyond her com- panion's ken. '2t6e paragfttic JFfinaU {From " Woman and Labor ") By Olive Schbeiner (In the preface to this book, it is explained that it is only a faint sketch from memory of part of a great work, the manuscript of which was destroyed during the Boer war) IN place of the active laboring woman, upholding society by her toil, had come the effete wife, concubine or prostitute, clad in fine raiment, the work of others' fingers; fed on luxurious viands, the result of others' toil, waited on and tended by the labor of others. The need for her physical labor having gone, and mental industry not having taken its place, she bedecked and scented her person, or had it bedecked and scented for her, she lay upon her sofa, or drove or was carried out in her vehicle, and, loaded with jewels, she sought by dissipations and amusements to fill up the inordinate blank left by the lack of productive activity. And the hand whitened and the frame softened, till at last, the very duties of mother- hood, which were all the constitution of her life left her, became distasteful, and, from the instant when her infant came damp from her womb, it passed into the hands of M amnion 503 others, to be tended and reared by them; and from youth to age her offspring often owed nothing to her personal toil. In many cases so complete was her enervation, that at last the very joy of giving hfe, the glory and beatitude of a virile womanhood, became distasteful; and she sought to evade it, not because of its interference with more imperious duties to those already born of her, or to her society, but because her existence of inactivity had robbed her of all joy in strenuous exertion and endurance in any form. Finely clad, tenderly housed, life became for her merely the gratification of her own physical and sexual appetites, and the appetites of the male, through the stimulation of which she could maintain herself. And, whether as kept wife, kept mistress, or prostitute, she con- tributed nothing to the active and sustaining labors of her society. She had attained to the full development of that type which, whether in modern Paris or New York or London, or in ancient Greece, Assyria, or Rome, is essen- tially one in its features, its nature, and its results. She was the "fine lady," the hrnnan female parasite — the most deadly microbe which can make its appearance on the surface of any social organism. Wherever in the history of the past this type has reached its full development and has comprised the bulk of the females belonging to any dominant class or race, it has heralded its decay. In Assyria, Greece, Rome, Persia, as in Turkey today, the same material conditions have pro- duced the same social disease among the wealthy and dominant races; and again and again, when the nation so affected has come into contact with nations more healthily constituted, this diseased condition has contrib- uted to its destruction. 504 The Cry for Justice {From "Beyond the Breakers") By George Sterling (California poet, born 1869) T N Babylon, high Babylon, ■*• "What gear is bought and sold? All merchandise beneath the sun That bartered is for gold; Amber and oils from far beyond The desert and the fen. And wines whereof our throats are fond — ' Yea! and the souls of men! In Babylon, grey Babylon, What goods are sold and bought? Vesture of linen subtly spun, And cups from agate wrought; Raiment of many-colored silk For some fair denizen. And ivory more white than milk — Yea! and the souls of men! . . . In Babylon, sad Babylon, What chattels shall invite? A wife whenas your youth is done. Or leman for a night. Before Astarte's portico The torches flare again; The shadows come, the shadows go — Yea! and the souls of men! Mammon SOS In Babylon, dark Babylon, Who take the wage of shame? The scribe and singer, one by one, That toil for gold and fame. They grovel to their masters' mood, The blood upon the pen Assigns their souls to servitude — Yea! and the souls of men! SDinner a la '^anso By Edwin Bjorkman (American critic, born in Sweden 1866) TT is after eight o'clock in one of the smaller dining- ^ rooms of a fashionable New York hotel. The middle of the room is cleared for dancing. At one end a small orchestra is working furiously at a melody that affects I the mind like the triple-distilled essence of nervous unrest. V Every table is occupied by merry groups of men and women in evening dress. Above our heads are strung almost invisible wires, to which are attached colored lanterns, gaudy mechanical butterflies, and huge red and green toy balloons. Just as we enter, a stoutish, heavy-faced chap with a monocle slaps the next man on the back and cries out: "We must be gay, old boy!" The open square in the middle is filled with dancers. They trip and slide and dip. They side-step and back- step and gyrate. They wave their arms hke pump- handles, or raise them skyward, palm to palm, as if in prayer. There are among them young girls with shining 506 The Cry for Justice faces full of inarticulate desire; simpering young men with a leer lurking at the bottom of their vacant stares; stiff-legged and white-haired old men with drooping eye- lids; and stern-jawed matrons with hand-made faces of a startling purple hue. But on every face, young or old, bright or dull, there beams a smile or clings a smirk, for the spirit of the place demands gaiety at any price. On the tables are strewn gaily trimmed packages that open with a report, and yield up gaily colored paper caps. Rubicund gentlemen place the caps over their bald spots, while women pick the big butterflies to pieces, and put the fragments into their hair until they look like barbarous princesses. Men and women drink and dance, feast and flirt, sing and laugh and shout. . . . Gay is the scene indeed: gay the music and the laughter; gay the wine that sparkles in the glasses; gay the swirling, swaying maze of dancing couples ; gay the bright balloons and brilliant dresses of the women. And it is as if my mind's eye saw these words written in burning letters on the wall: Leave care behind, all ye that enter here! But out there on Fifth Avenue a lot of unkempt, unreasonable men and women are marching savagely behind a black flag. Mammon 507 (B\ii\0 ot (15oIti By William Shakespeare (See pages 181, 492) /^ THOU sweet king killer, and dear divorce ^~^ 'Twixt natural son and sire! thou bright defiler Of Hymen's purest bed! thou valiant Mars; Thou ever young, fresh, loved, and delicate wooer, Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow That lies on Dian's lap! thou visible god. That solder'st close impossibilities. And mak'st them kiss; that speak'st with every tongue, To every purpose! thou touch of hearts! Think, thy slave, man, rebels; and by thy virtue Set them into confounding odds, that beasts May have the world in empire. By Thoestein Veblen (American university professor) '' I "HE function of dress as an evidence of ability to ^ pay does not end with simply showing that the wearer consimaes valuable goods in excess of what is re- quired for physical comfort. Simple conspicuous waste of goods is effective and gratifying as far as it goes; it is good prima fade evidence of pecuniary success, and consequently prima facie evidence of social worth. But dress has subtler and more far-reaching possibilities than * By pemussion of the Macmillan Co. 508 The Cry for Justice this crude, first-hand evidence of wasteful consumption only. If, in addition to showing that the wearer can afford to consume freely and uneconomically, it can also be shown in the same stroke that he or she is not under the necessity of earning a livehhood, the evidence of social worth is enhanced in a very considerable degree. Our dress, therefore, in order to serve its purpose effectually, should not only be expensive, but it should also make plain to all observers that the wearer is not engaged in any kind of productive labor. In the evolutionary pro- cess by which our system of dress has been elaborated into its present admirably perfect adaptation to its purpose, this subsidiary Une of evidence has received due attention. A detailed examination of what passes in popular apprehension for elegant apparel will show that it is contrived at every point to convey the impression that the wearer does not habitually put forth any useful effort. It goes without saying that no apparel can be considered elegant, or even decent, if it shows the effect of manual labor on the part of the wearer, in the way of soil or wear. The pleasing effect of neat and spotless garments is chiefly, if not altogether, due to their carrying the suggestion of leisure — exemption from personal con- tact with industrial processes of any kind. Much of the charm that invests the patent-leather shoe, the stainless hnen, the lustrous cylindrical hat, and the walking-stick, which so greatly enhance the native dignity of a gentle- man, comes of their pointedly suggesting that the wearer cannot when so attired bear a hand in any employment that is directly and immediately of any human use. . . . The dress of women goes even farther than that of men in the way of demonstrating the wearer's abstinence from productive employment. It needs no argument to M ammon 609 enforce the generalization that the more elegant styles of feminine bonnets go even farther towards making work impossible than does the man's high hat. The woman's shoe adds the so-called French heel to the evidence of enforced leism'e afforded by its polish; because this high heel obviously makes any, even the simplest and most necessary manual work extremely difficult. The like is true even in a higher degree of the skirt and the rest of the drapery which characterizes woman's dress. The substantial reason for our tenacious attachment to the skirt is j ust this : it is expensive and it hampers the wearer at every turn and incapacitates her for all useful exertion. The hke is true of the feminine custom of wearing the hair excessively long. But the woman's apparel not only goes beyond that of the modem man in the degree in which it argues exemp- tion from labor; it also adds a pecuhar and highly char- acteristic feature which differs in kind from anything habitually practiced by the men. This feature is the class of contrivances of which the corset is the typical example. The corset is, in economic theory, substantially , a mutilation, undergone for the purpose of lowering the subject's vitality and rendering her permanently and obviously unfit for work. It is true, the corset impairs the personal attractions of the wearer, but the loss suffered on that score is offset by the gain in reputability which comes of her visibly increased expensiveness and infirmity. It may broadly be set down that the womanliness of woman's apparel resolves itself, in point of substantial fact, into the more effective hindrance to useful exertion [ offered by the garments peculiar to women. 510 The Cry for Justice %^t l^anitp of l^nman WLi^lt& By Samuel Johnson (English essayist and poet, 1709-1784. The poem from which these lines are taken is a paraphrase of the Roman poet Juvenal) BUT, scarce observed, the knowing and the bold Fall in the general massacre of gold; Wide wasting pest! that rages unconfined. And crowds with crimes the records of mankind; For gold his sword the hireling ruffian draws. For gold the hireling judge distorts the laws; Wealth heaped on wealth, nor truth nor safety buys. The dangers gather as the treasures rise. Eettctgf from a CSintsfj flDfficlal By G. Lowes Dickinson (This little book, pubhshed anonymously, was taken for a genuine document by many critics, among others, Mr. William Jennings Bryan, who wrote an elaborate answer to it. The writer is an English university lecturer) WHEN I review my impressions of the average Eng- lish citizen, impressions based on many years' study, what kind of man do I see? I see one divorced from Nature, but unreclaimed by Art; instructed, but not educated; assimilative, but incapable of thought. Trained in the tenets of a religion in which he does not believe — ^for he sees it flatly contradicted in every relation of life — he dimly feels that it is prudent to conceal under a mask of piety the atheism he is hardly intelligent eno,ugh M ammon 511 to avow. His religion is conventional; and, what is more important, his morals are as conventional as his creed. Charity, chastity, self-abnegation, contempt of the world and its prizes — these are the words on which he has been fed from his childhood upward. And words they have remained, for neither has he anywhere seen them practiced by others, nor has it ever occmred to him to practice them himself. Their influence, while it is strong enough to make him a chronic hypocrite, is not so strong as to show him the hypocrite he is. Deprived on the one hand of the support of a true ethical standard, embodied in the life of the society of which he is a mem- ber, he is duped, on the other, by lip-worship of an im- potent ideal. Abandoned thus to his instinct, he is con- tent to do as others do, and, ignoring the things of the spirit, to devote himself to material ends. He becomes a mere tool; and of such your society is composed. By your works you may be known. Your triimiphs in the mechanical arts are the obverse of your failiu-e in all that calls for spiritual insight. By Ralph Hodgson : (Contemporary English poet, who publishes his work in tiny pamphlets with quaint illustrations) I SAW with open eyes Singing birds sweet Sold in the shops For the people to eat, Sold in the shops of Stupidity Street. 512 The Cry for Justice I saw in vision The worm in the wheat; And in the shops nothing For people to eat; Nothing for sale in Stupidity Street. ^d^e &)oul0 Pf Blacfc JFoIft By W. E. Burghardt Du Bois (Professor in the University of Atlanta, born 1868; a prominent advocate of the rights of his race) T N the Black World, the Preacher and Teacher embodied ■'■ once the ideals of this people, — ^the strife for another and a juster world, the vague dream of righteousness, the mystery of knowing; but today the danger is that these ideals, with their simple beauty and weird inspiration, will sudderdy sink to a question of cash and a lust for gold. Here stands this black young Atalanta, girding herself for the race that must be run; and if her eyes be still toward the hills and sky as in the days of old, then we may look for noble running; but what if some ruthless or wily or even thoughtless Hippomenes lay golden apples before her? What if the negro people be wooed from a strife for righteousness, from a love of knowing, to regard dollars as the be-all and the end-all of life? What if to the Mammonism of America be added the rising Mammonism of the re-born South, and the Mammonism of this South be reinforced by the budding Mammonism of its half-awakened black millions? Whither, then, is the new-world quest of Goodness and Beauty and Truth gone glimmering? M amvion 613 Co=opctation anli IJationalitp By " A.E." (George W. Russell) (See page 252) ^^ /"HEN steam first began to puff and wheels go round * ' at so many revolutions per minute, the wild child humanity, who had hitherto developed his civilization in picturesque unconsciousness of where he was going, and without any set plan, was caught and put in harness. What are called business habits were invented to make the hfe of man run in harmony with the steam engine, and his movements rival the train in punctuality. The factory system was invented, and it was an instantaneous success. Men were clothed with cheapness and uni- formity. Their minds grew numerously alike, cheap and uniform also. They were at their desks at nine o'clock, or at their looms at six. They adjusted themselves to the punctual wheels. The rapid piston acted as pacemaker, and in England, which started first in the modem race for wealth, it was an enormous advantage to have tire- less machines of superhiunan activity to make the pace, and nerve men, women and children to the fullest activity possible. Business methods had a long start in Eng- land, and irregularity and want of uniformity became after a while such exceptions that they were regarded as deadly sins. The grocer whose supplies of butter did not arrive week after week by the same train, at the same hour, and of the same quality, of the same color, the same saltness, and in the same kind of box, quarrelled with the wholesaler, who in his turn quarrelled with the pro- ducer. Only the most machine-like race could win custom. After a while every country felt it had to be drilled or 33 514 The Cry for Justice become extinct. Some made themselves into machines to enter the English market, some to preserve their own markets. Even the indolent Oriental is getting keyed up, and in another fifty years the Bedouin of the desert will be at his desk and the wild horseman of Tartary will be oiling his engines. 'd^t Communist S@ani£f0to By Karl Mahx and Feederick Engels (Published in 1848, the charter of the modern Socialist movement) ' I ^HE bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, ■'- has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idylhc relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors," and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment." It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimental- ism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. Mammon 515 i^ortrait ot an American By Louis Untekmeyer (See pages 42, 418) T TE slobbers over sentimental plays ■'■ ■•■ And sniffles over sentimental songs. He tells you often how he sadly longs For the ideals of the dear old days. In gatherings he is the first to raise His voice against "our country's shameful wrongs." He storms at greed. His hard, flat tone prolongs The hjTnns and mumbled platitudes of praise. I heard him in his office Friday past. "Look here," he said, "their talk is all a bluff; You mark my words, this thing will never last. Let them walk out — they'll come back quick enough. We'll have all hands at work — and working fast! How do they think we're running this- — for lovef" By J. PiERPONT Morgan (American banker; testimony before the United States Commission on Industrial Relations) QUESTION: Do you consider ten dollars a week enough for a 'longshoreman with a family to support? Answer: If that's all he can get, and he takes it, I should say it's enough. 516 The Cry for Justice By Harold Monro (Contemporary English poet) T TE'S something in the city. Who shall say ■'■ -*• His fortune was not honorably won? Few people can afford to give away As he, or help the poor as he has done. Neat in his habits, temperate in his life : Oh, who shall dare his character besmirch? He scarcely ever quarrels with his wife, And every Sabbath strictly goes to church. He helps the village club, and in the town Attends parochial meetings once a week, Pays for each purchase ready-money down : Is anyone against him? — Who will speak? There is a widow somewhere in the north, On whom slow ruin gradually fell. While she, believing that her God was wroth, Suffered without a word — or she might tell. And there's a beggar somewhere in the west, Whose fortune vanished gradually away: Now he but drags his limbs in horror lest Starvation feed on them — or he might say. And there are children stricken with disease. Too ignorant to curse him, or too weak. In a true portrait of him all of these Must figure in the background — ^they shall speak. M ammon 517 ilJcto i^arfetwgf of &in {From "Sin and Society") By Edwaed Alswoeth Ross (American college professor, born 1866, a prominent advocate of academic freedom) nPODAY the sacrifice of life incidental to quick suc- ^ cess rarely calls for the actual spilling of blood. How decent are the pale slayings of the quack, the adulterator, and the purveyor of polluted water, com- pared with the red slayings of the vulgar bandit or assassin! Even if there is blood-letting, the long-range, tentacular natm-e of modern homicide ehminates all personal col- hsion. What an abyss between the knife-play of brawlers and the law-defying neglect to fence dangerous machinery in a mill, or to furnish cars with safety couplers! The pro- viding of unsuspecting passengers with "cork" life-pre- servers secretly loaded with bars of iron to make up for their deficiency in weight of cork, is spiritually akin to the treachery of Joab, who, taking Amasa by the beard "to kiss him," smote Amasa "in the fifth rib"; but it wears a very different aspect. The ciurent methods of aimexing the property of others are characterized by a pleasing indirectness and refinement. The furtive, appre- hensive manner of the till-tapper or the porch-climber would jar disagreeably upon the tax-dodger "swearing off" his property, or the city official concealing a "rake- off" in his specifications for a public building. The work of the card-sharp and the thimblerigger shocks a type of man that will not stick at the massive "artistic swindling" of the contemporary promoter. . . . One might suppose that an exasperated pubhc would 518 The Cry for Justice sternly castigate these modern sins. But the fact is, the very qualities that lull the conscience of the sinner blind the eyes of the on-lookers. People are sentimental, and bastinado wrong-doing not according to its harmful- ness, but according to the infamy that has come to attach to it. Undiscerning, they chastise with scorpions the old authentic sins, but spare the new. They do not see irthat boodling is treason, that blackmail is piracy, that I'fembezzlement is theft, that speculation is gambling, that tax dodging is larceny, that railroad discrimination is / treachery, that the factory labor of children is slavery, that deleterious adulteration is murder. It has not come home to them that the fraudulent promoter "devours widows' houses," that the monopolist "grinds the faces of the poor," that mercenary editors and spellbinders "put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter." The cloven hoof hides in patent leather; and to-day, as in Hosea's time, the people "are destroyed for lack of knowledge." The mob lynches the red-handed slayer, when it ought to keep a gallows Haman-high for the venal mine in- spector, the seller of infected milk, the maintainer of a fire-trap theatre. The child-beater is forever blasted in reputation, but the exploiter of infant toil, or the con- cocter of a soothing syrup for the drugging of babies, stands a pillar of society. The petty shoplifter is more abhorred than the stealer of a franchise, and the wife- whipper is outcast long before the man who sends his over-insured ship to founder with its crew. M ammon 619 By Jack London FAR better to have the front of one's face pushed in by the fist of an honest prize-fighter than to have the hning of one's stomach corroded by the embalmed beef of a dishonest manufacturer. By H. G. Wells (English novelist, born 1866; author of many strange romances of modern science, and later, of penetrating studies of social injustice and hypocrisy. The present novel tells of the career of a financial potentate who begins life with a patent-medicine business) It was my uncle's genius that did it. No doubt he ■'■ needed me — I was, I will admit, his indispensable right hand; but his was the brain to conceive. He wrote every advertisement; some of them even he sketched. You must remember that his were the days before the Times took to enterprise and the vociferous hawking of that antiquated Encyclopaedia. That allur- ing, button-holing, let-me-just-tell-you-quite-soberly-some- thing-you-ought-to-know style of newspaper advertise- ment, with every now and then a convulsive jump of some attractive phrase into capitals, was then almost a novelty. "Many people who are MODERATELY well think they are QUITE well," was one of his early efforts. The jerks in capitals were, "DO NOT NEED DRUGS OR MEDICINE," and "SIMPLY A PROPER REGIMEN TO GET YOU IN TONE." One was warned against the chemist or druggist who pushed "much-advertised nostrums" on one's attention. That 620 The Cry for Justice trash did more harm than good. The thing needed was regimen — and Tono-Bungay! Very early, too, was that bright little quarter column, at least it was usually a quarter column in the evening papers: "HILARITY— TONO-BUNGAY. Like Moun- tain Air in the Veins." The penetrating trio of ques- tions: "Are' you bored with your Business? Are you bored with your Dinner? Are you bored with your Wife?" • — that, too, was in our Gower Street days. Both these we had in our first campaign when we worked London south, central, and west; and then, too, we had our first poster,— the HEALTH, BEAUTY AND STRENGTH one. That was his design; I happen still to have got by me the first sketch he made for it. . . . By all modern standards the business was, as my uncle would say, "absolutely hona fide." We sold our stuff and got the money, and spent the money honestly in lies and clamor to sell more stuff. Section by section we spread it over the whole of the British Isles; first working the middle-class London suburbs, then the outer suburbs, then the home comities, then going (with new bills and a more pious style of "ad") into Wales, a great field always for a new patent-medicine, and then into Lancashire. My uncle had in his inner office a big map of England, and as we took up fresh sections of the local press and om- consignments invaded new areas, flags for advertisements and pink underlines for orders showed our progress. "The romance of modern commerce, George!" my uncle would say, rubbing his hands together and drawing in air through his teeth. "The romance of modem com- merce, eh? Conquest. Province by Province. Like sogers." M ammon 621 We subjugated England and Wales; we rolled over the Cheviots with a special adaptation containiag eleven per cent, of absolute alcohol; "Tono-Bungay: Thistle Brand." We also had the Fog poster adapted to a kilted Briton in a misty Highland scene. . . . As I look back at them now, those energetic years seem all compacted to a year or so; from the days of our first hazardous beginning in Farrington Street with barely a thousand pounds' worth of stuff or credit all told — and that got by something perilously like snatch- ing — to the days when my imcle went to the public on behalf of himself and me (one-tenth share) and our silent partners, the drug wholesalers and the printing people and the owner of that group of magazines and newspapers, to ask with honest confidence for £150,000. Those silent partners were remarkably sorry, I know, that they had not taken larger shares and given us longer credit when the subscriptions came pouring in. My uncle had a clear half to play with (including the one-tenth under- stood to be mine). £150,000 — think of it! — for the goodwill in a string of lies and a trade in bottles of mitigated water! Do you realize the madness of the world that sanctions such a thing? Perhaps you don't. At times use and wont certainly blinded me. If it had not been for Ewart, I don't think I should have had an inkling of the wonder- fulness of this development of my fortunes; I should have grown accustomed to it, fallen in with all its delu- sions as completely as my uncle presently did. He was immensely proud of the flotation. "They've never been given such value," he said, "for a dozen years." But Ewart, with his gesticulating hairy hands and bony wrists, is single-handed 'chorus to all this as it plays 52% The Cry for Justice itself over again in my memory, and he kept my funda- mental absurdity illuminated for me during all this aston- ishing time. "It's just on all fours with the rest of things," he remarked; "only more so. You needn't think you're anything out of the way." fil^an tfit 'B.tUtmzt By Ralph Waldo Emerson (See page 235) IT is only necessary to ask a few questions as to the progress of the articles of commerce from the fields where they grew, to our houses, to become aware that we eat and drink and wear perjury and fraud in a htm- dred commodities. We are all implicated in this charge. The sins of our trade belong to no class, to no individual. Everybody partakes, everybody confesses, yet none feels himself accountable. The trail of the serpent reaches into all the lucrative professions and practices of man. Nay, the evil custom reaches into the whole institution of property, until our laws which establish and protect it seem not to be the issue of love and reason, but of selfishness. M ammon ^0 a Cettain K(c8 goung lR,uUr By Clement Wood (A sonnet which was widely circulated at the time of the Colorado coal-strike of 1913-14) '^TL 7'HITE-FINGERED lord of murderous events, * ' Well are you guarding what your father gained; With torch and rifle you have well maintained The lot to which a heavenly providence Has called you; laborers, risen in defense Of liberty and life, lie charred and brained About your mines, whose gutted hills are stained With slaughter of these newer innocents. Ah, but your bloody fingers clenched in prayer! Your piety, which all the world has seen! The godly odor spreading through the air From your efficient charity machine! Thus you rehearse for your high rdle up there, Ruling beside the lowly Nazarene! Feom the Politics of Aristotle (See page 480) A TYRANT must put on the appearance of imcommon devotion to rehgion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god- fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side. 521^ The Cry for Justice By Amos (Hebrew prophet, B. C. 760) T HATE, I despise your feasts, and I will take no ■^ delight in your solemn assemblies. Yea, though you offer me your biu-nt offerings and meal offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. Comerninff CJarftp By John R. Lawson ^' (Part of a statement before the United States Commission on Industrial Relations, 1915. The writer was the representative of the miners in charge of the Colorado strike, and went to work as a pit-boy at the age of eight) I "HERE is another cause of industrial discontent. •*• This is the skillful attempt that is being made to substitute Philanthropy for Justice. There is not one of these foundations, now spreading their millions over the world in showy generosity, that does not draw those millions from some form of industrial injustice. It is not their money that these lords of commercialized virtue are spending, but the withheld wages of the American working-class. I sat in this room and heard a great philanthropist read the list of activities of his Foundation "to promote the well-being of mankind." An international health commission to extend to foreign countries and peoples M ammon 625 the work of eradicating the hookworm; the promotion of medical education and health in China; the investi- gations of vice conditions in Europe; one hundred thou- sand dollars for the American Academy in Rome, twenty thousand a year for widows' pensions in New York, one million for the relief of Belgians, thirty-four millions for the University of Chicago, thirty-four naillions for a Gen- eral Education Board. A wave of horror swept over me during that reading, and I say to you that that same wave is now rushing over the entire working-class of the United States. Health for China, a refuge for birds in Louisiana, food for the Belgians, pensions for New York widows, university training for the elect — and never a thought or a dollar for the many thousands of men, women and children who starved in Colorado, for the widows robbed of husbands and children of their fathers, by law-violating conditions in the mines. There are thousands of this great philanthropist's former employees in Colorado today who wish to God that they were in Belgium to be fed, or birds to be cared for tenderly. CrotolJgs \ By Gerald Stanley Lee \ (Contemporary American author and lecturer, formerly a clergyman) AS I have watched my fellow human beings, what I • have come to want most of all in this world is the inspired employer — or what I have called the inspired milUonaire or organizer; the man who can take the ma- chmes off the backs of the people, and take the machines out of their wits, and make the machines free their bodies and serve their souls. 626 The Cry for Justice If we ever have the inspired employer, he will have to be made by the social imagination of the people, by creating the spirit of expectation and challenge toward the rich among the masses of the people. . . . Nothing is more visionary than trying to run a world without dreams, especially an economic world. It is because even bad dreams are better in this world than having no dreams at all that bad people so-called are so largely allowed to run it. In the final and practical sense, the one factor in eco- nomics to be reckoned with is Desire. \ By Lincoln Steffens (American writer upon social problems, born 1866. A story of the political leader of a corrupt city, who lies upon his death-bed, and has asked to have the meaning of his own career made plain to him) ^ * AA /"HAT kind of a kid were you. Boss?" I began. * * "Pretty tough, I guess," he answered. "Bom here?" "Yes; in the Third Ward." "Tough then as it is now?" "Tougher," he said. "Produces toughness the way Kansas produces com," I remarked. "Father?" I asked. "Kept a saloon; a driver before that." "Mother a girl of the ward?" "Yes," he said. "She was brought up there; but she came to this country with her father from England, as a baby." M ammon 527 "What sort of woman was she?" "Quiet," he said; "always still; silent-like; a worker. Kept the old man straight — some; and me too — 's well as she could. She's th' one that got him off th' wagon and started in th' Uquor business." "You were poor people?" "Yes." "And conunon?" "Y-yes-s." "A child of the people," I commented' "the common people." He nodded, wondering. "One of the great, friendless mass of helpless hu- manity?" He nodded. "That wasn't your fault, was it?" I said. "Not to blame for that? That's not your sin, is it?" He shook his head, staring, and he was so mystified that I said that most people were "pretty terribly pun- ished for being born poor and common." He nodded, but he wasn't interested or enlightened, apparently. "And you learned, somehow, that the thing to do was to get yourself on, get up out of it, make a success of your life?" "Yes," he said slowly. "I don't laxow how, but I did get that, somehow." "That was the ideal they taught you," I said. "Never heard of getting everybody on and making a success of society; of the city and State?" But this hne of questioning was beyond him. I changed my tack. . . . "In that first interview we had," I said, "you insisted that, while the business boss was the real boss, the 5S8 The Cry for Justice sovereign, you had some power of your own. And you described it today as the backing of your own ward, which, you said, you had in your pocket. When you became boss, you got the backing, the personal support, of other wards, didn't you?" "Seven of 'em," he coxmted. "Made th' leaders myself." "And you developed a big personal following in other wards, too?" "Sure," he said; "in every one of them. I was a popular leader; not only a boss, but a friend with friends, lots of 'em. The people liked me." "That's the point," I said. "The people liked you." He nodded warmly. "The common people," I went on, and he was about to nod, but he didn't. And his fingers became still. "Your own people — the great helpless mass of the friend- less mob — hked you." His eyes were fixed on mine. "They followed you; they trusted you." I paused a moment, then I asked: "Didn't they. Boss?" "Yes," he said with his lips alone. "They didn't set a watch on you, did they?" I con- tinued. "They voted as you bade them vote, elected the fellows you put on the tickets of their party for them. And, after they elected them, they left it to them, and to you, to be true to them; to stick to them; to be loyal." His eyes fell to his fingers, and his fingers began again to pick. "And when your enemies got after you and accused you," I said, "the people stuck by you?" No answer; only the fingers picked. Mammon 529 "The great, friendless mass— the hopeful, hopeless majority— they were true to you and the party, and they re-elected you." His eyes were on mine again, and there was light in them; but it was the reflected light of fire, and it burned. "And you — ^you betrayed them," I said; and I hurried on, piling on the fuel, all I had. "They have power, the people have, and they have needs, great commcii needs; and they have great common wealth. All your fat, rich franchises, all your great social values, the values added to land and franchise by the presence of the great, common,, numerous mass, all the city's public property — all are theirs, their common property. They own enough in common to meet all their great common needs, and they have an organization to keep for them and to develop for their use and profit all these great needed social values. It is the city; the city government; city. State, and national. And they have, they breed in their own ranks, men like you, natural political leaders, to go into public life and lead them, teach them, represent them. And they leave it all to you, trusting you. And you, all of you — not you alone. Boss, but all of you: ward leaders; i?tate leaders; all the national political bosses — ^you all betray them. You receive from them their votes, so faithfully given, and you transform them into office-holders whom you teach or corrupt and com- pel to obey you. So you reorganize the city government. You, not the Mayor, are the head of it; you, not the council, are its legislature; you, not the heads of depart- ments, are the administrators of the property and the powers of the people of your city; the common, helpless, friendless people. And, having thus organized and taken over all this power and property and — this beautiful faith, 34 530 The Cry for Justice you do not protect their rights and their property. What do you do with it, Boss?" He started. He could not answer. I answered for him: "You sell 'em out; you turn over the whole thing — the city, its property, and its people — to Business, to the big fellows; to the business leaders of the people. You deliver, not only franchises, privileges, private rights and public properties, and values. Boss: you — all of you together — have delivered the government itself to these men, so that today this city, this State, and the national government represent, normally, not the people, not the great mass of common folk, who need protection, but — Business; preferably ba!d business; privileged business; a class; a privileged class." He had sunk back among the pillows, his eyes closed, his fingers still. I sounded him. "That's the system," I repeated. "It's an organiza- tion of social treason, and the political boss is the chief traitor. It couldn't stand without the submission of the people; the real bosses have to get that. They can't buy the people — too many of them; so they buy the people's leaders, and the disloyalty of the political boss is the key to the whole thing." These was no response. I plumbed him again. "And you — ^you believe in loyalty, Boss," I said — "in being true to yoxu- own." His eyes opened. "That's your virtue, you say, and you said, too, that you have practiced it." "Don't," he murmured. M amnion 631 ^ Ballati of SDeaH (16irl0 By Dana Burnet (American poet, bom 1888) OCARCE had they brought the bodies down ^*-' Across the withered floor, Than Max Rogosky thundered at The District Leader's door. Scarce had the white-lipped mothers come To search the fearful noon, Than little Max stood shivering In Tom McTodd's saloon! In Tom McTodd's saloon he stood, Beside the silver bar. Where any honest lad may stand, And sell his vote at par. "Ten years I've paid the System's tax," The words fell, quivering, raw; "And now I want the thing I bought — Protection from the law!" The Leader smiled a twisted smile : "Your doors were locked," he said. " You've overstepped the hmit. Max — A hundred women. . . . dead!" Then Max Rogosky gripped the bar And shivered where he stood. "You hsten now to me," he cried, "Like business fellers should! 532 The Cry for Justice "I've paid for all my hundred dead, I've paid, I've paid, I've paid." His ragged laughter rang, and died — For he was sore afraid. "I've paid for wooden hall and stair, I've paid to strain my floors, I've paid for rotten fire-escapes, For all my bolted doors. "Your fat inspectors came and came — I crossed their hands with gold. And now I want the thing I bought. The thing the System sold." The District Leader filled a glass With whiskey from the bar, (The httle silver counter where He bought men's souls at par.) And well he knew that he must give The thing that he had sold. Else men should doubt the System's word, Keep back the System's gold. The whiskey burned beneath his tongue: "A hundred women dead! I guess the Boss can fix it up, Go home — and hide," he said. All day they brought the bodies down From Max Rogosky's place — And oh, the fearful touch of flame On hand and breast and face! jNIAAIAION george frederick watts (English paitikr, mciiilivr of the Royal Aauhiiiij. 1817-1904) M ammon 533 All day the white-lipped mothers came To search the sheeted dead; , And Horror strode the blackened walls. Where Death had walked in red. But Max Rogosky did not weep. (He knew that tears were vain.) He paid the System's price, and lived To lock his doors again. T By William Shakespeare (See pages 181, 492, 507) HE strongest castle, tower and town. The golden bullet beats it down. By May Beals (A tragedy at Coal Creek, Tennessee, May 19, 1902) THE lord of us he lay in his bed — Good right had he, good right ! But we were up before night had fled, Out to the mine in the dawning red; Slaves were we all, by hunger led Into the land of night. The master knew of our danger well, We also knew — we knew. His greed for profits had served him well, 534 The Cry for Justice But he over-reached him, as fate befell, And I alone am left to tell. Death's horrors I lived through The master dreamed, mayhap, of his gold, But we were awake — awake, Buried alive in the black earth's mold; And some who yet could a pencil hold. Wrote till their hands in death grew cold, For wife or sweetheart's sake. Letters they wrote of farewell — farewell. To mother, sweetheart, wife: What words of comfort could they tell — Comfort for those who loved them well. Up from the jaws of the earth's black hell That was crushing out their life. The master cursed, as masters do — Good right had he, good right ! But the fear of our vengeance stirred him, too; He sailed, with some of his pirate crew, To Europe, and reveled a year or two; Great might has he — great might I Mammon 535 EomancE By Setmoue Deming (Contemporary American writer) nPHE old idea of romance: The country boy goes to ■'■ the city, marries his employer's daughter, enslaves some himdreds of his fellow humans, gets rich, and leaves a public library to his home town. The new idea of romance: To undo some of the mischief done by the old idea of romance. 'E^t S»Dur0 Crtanli By Sir Walter Raleigh (Written by the English soldier and statesman, 1552-1618, just before his execution) GO, Soul, the body's guest. Upon a thankless errand; Fear not to touch the best; The truth shall be thy warrant: Go, since I needs must die, And give them all the lie. Go tell the Court it glows And shines like rotten wood; Go tell the Church it shows What's good, but does no good: If Court and Church reply Give Court and Church the lie. 586 The Cry for Justice Tell Potentates they live Acting, but oh! their actions; Not loved, unless they give, Nor strong but by their factions: If Potentates reply. Give Potentates the lie. Tell men of high condition, That rule affairs of state. Their purpose is ambition; Their practice only hate: And if they do reply, Then give them all the He. . . . Tell Physic of her boldness; Tell Skill it is pretension; Tell Charity of coldness; Tell Law it is contention: And if they yield reply, Then give them all the he. . . . So when thou hast, as I Commanded thee, done blabbing; Although to give the lie Deserves no less than stabbing: Yet stab at thee who will. No stab the Soul can kill. M ammon 537 ^tttvx\itt 31 0t By Lascelles Aberckombie (Contemporary English poet) WHAT is he hammering there, That devil swinking in Hell? Oh, he forges a cunning New Year, God knows he does it well. Mill and harrow and rake, A restless enginery Of men and women to make Cruelty, Harlotry. feiigfttrgf of tfic CrogSgf of fefiamj By Dana Burnet ' (See page 531) THE Sisters of the Cross of Shame, They smile along the night; Their houses stand with shuttered souls And painted eyes of Ught. Their houses look with scarlet eyes Upon a world of sin; And every man cries, "Woe, alas!" And every man goes in. The sober Senate meets at noon, To pass the Woman's Law, The portly Churchmen vote to stem The torrent with a straw. 538 The Cry for Justice The Sister of the Cross of Shame, She smiles beneath her cloud — (She does not laugh till ten o'clock, And then she laughs too loud.) And still she hears the throb of feet Upon the scarlet stair. And still she dons the cloak of shame That is not hers to wear. The sons of saintly women come To kiss the Cross of Shame; Before them, in another time. Their worthy fathers came. . . . And no man tells his son the truth. Lest he should speak of sin; And every man cries, "Woe, alas!" And every man goes in. {From "A Bed of Roses") By W. L. George (Contemporary English novelist. The Ufa-story of a woman wage-earner who is driven by the pressure of want to a career of shame. In the following scene she argues with a suffrage-worker, who has called upon her, in ignorance of her true character) THE woman's eyes were rapt, her hands tightly clenched, her lips parted, her cheeks a little flushed. But Victoria's face had hardened suddenly. "Miss Welkin," she said quietly, "has anything struck you about this house, about me?" M ammon 639 The suffragist looked at her uneasily. "You ought to know whom you are talking to," Vic- toria went on, "I am a. . . . I am a what you would probably call . . . well, not respectable." A dull red flush spread over Miss Welkin's face, from the hne of her tightly pulled hair to her stiff white collar; even her ears went red. She looked away into a comer. "You see," said Victoria, "it's a shock, isn't it? I ought not to have let you in. It wasn't quite fair, was it?" "Oh, it isn't that, Mrs. Ferris," burst out the suffragist, "I'm not thinking of myself. . . . Our cause is not the cause of rich women or poor women, of good women or bad; it's the cause of woman. Thus, it doesn't matter who she is, so long as there is a woman who stands aloof from us there is still work to do. I know that yours is not a happy life; and we are bringing the hght." "The light!" echoed Victoria bitterly. "You have no idea, I see, of how many people there are who are bring- ing the light to women like me. There are various religious organizations who wish to rescue us and house us comfortably under the patronage of the police, to keep us nicely and feed us on what is suitable for the fallen; they expect us to sew ten hours a day for these privileges, but that is by the way. There are also many kindly souls who offer little jobs as charwomen to those of us who are too worn out to pursue our calling; we are offered emigration as servants in exchange for the power of commanding a. household; we are offered poverty for luxury, service for domination, slavery to women instead of slavery to men. How tempting it is!" . . . The suffragist said nothing for a second. She felt shaken by Victoria's bitterness. . . . "The vote does not mean everything," she said reluctantly. "It will 640 The Cry for Justice merely ensure that we rise like the men when we are fit." "Well, Miss Welkin, I won't press that. But now, tell me, if women got the vote to-morrow, what would it do for my class?" "It would be raised. . . ." "No, no, we can't wait to be raised. We've got to live, and if you 'raise' us we lose our means of livelihood. How are you going to get to the root cause and lift us, not the next generation, at once out of the lower depths?" The suffragist's face contracted. "Everything takes time," she faltered. "Just as I couldn't promise a charwoman that her hours would go down and her wages go up the next day, I can't say that ... of course your case is more difficult than any other, because . . . because. . . ." "Because," said Victoria coldly, "I represent a social necessity. So long as yoiu' economic system is such that there is not work for the asking for every human being — work, mark you, fitted to strength and ability — so long on the other hand as there is such uncertainty as pre- vents men from marrying, so long as there is a leisure class who draw luxury from the labor of other men; so long will my class endure as it endured in Athens, in Rome, in Alexandria, as it does now from St. John's Wood to Pekin." M ammon 541 %^z idling ot Eofae {From "Lovers Coming of Age") By Edward Carpenter (See page 186) I ^HE commercial prostitution of love is the last outcome -'- of our whole social system, and its most clear con- demnation. It flaunts in our streets, it hides itself in the garment of respectability under the name of matrimony, it eats in actual physical disease and death right through our midst; it is fed by the oppression and the ignorance of women, by their poverty and denied means of liveli- hood, and by the hypocritical puritanism which forbids them by millions not only to gratify but even to speak of their natural desires; and it is encouraged by the callousness of an age which has accustomed men to buy and sell for money every most precious thing — even the hfe-long labor of their brothers, therefore why not also the very bodies of their sisters? %lz ffiutcfict'js &tall {From "Les Villes Tentaculaires:" The Octopus Cities) By Emile Veehaeren (Belgian poet, born 1855. When Maurice Maeterlinck was suggested as a member of the French Academy, he recommended that the honor should be conferred upon Verhaeren instead. Begin- ning his career as a decadent and victim of disease, Verhaeren evolved into a rhapsodist of modern civilization. No poet has ever approached him in the portrayal and interpretation of factories, forges, railroads, and all the phenomena of industrialism. Of late he has become an ardent Socialist. The poem here quoted is from 5Jf.2 The Cry for Justice a book portraying the sins and agonies of great cities. Only portions of the poem could be printed in a work intended for general circula- tion in Enghsh; but even of these passages the editor will venture the assertion that never before has the horror of prostitution been so packed into human speech) T TARD by the docks, soon as the shadows fold -'• -I- The dizzy mansion-fronts that soar aloft, When eyes of lamps are bm-ning soft, The shy, dark quarter lights again its old Allurement of red vice and gold. Women, blocks of heaped, blown meat. Stand on low thresholds down the narrow street. Calling to every man that passes; Behind them, at the end of corridors. Shine fires, a curtain stirs And gives a glimpse of masses Of mad and naked flesh in looking-glasses. Hard by the docks The street upon the left is ended by A tangle of high masts and shrouds that blocks A sheet of sky; Upon the right a net of grovelling alleys Falls from the town— and here the black crowd rallies And reels to rotten revelry. It is the flabby, fulsome butcher's stall of luxury. Time out of mind erected on the frontiers Of the city and the sea. Far-saiUng melancholy mariners Who, wet with spray, thru grey mists peer. Cabin-boys cradled among the rigging, and they who steer M ammon 543 Hallucinated by the blue eyes of the vast sea-spaces, All dream of it, evoke it when the evening falls; Their raw desire to madness galls; The wind's soft kisses hover on their faces; The wave awakens rolling images of soft embraces; And their two arms implore Stretched in a frantic cry towards the shore. And they of offices and shops, the city tribes. Merchants precise, keen reckoners, haggard scribes, Who sell their brains for hire, and tame their brows, When the keys of desks are hanging on the wall. Feel the same galling rut at even-fall. And run like hunted dogs to the carouse. Out of the depths of dusk come their dark flocks. And in their hearts debauch so rudely shocks Their ingrained greed and old accustomed care. That they are racked and ruined by despair. It is the flabby, fulsome butcher's stall of luxury, Time out of mind erected on the frontiers Of the city and the sea. Come from what far sea-isles or pestilent parts? Come from what feverish or methodic marts? Their eyes are filled with bitter, cunning hate. They fight their instincts that they cannot sate; Around red females who befool them, they Herd frenzied till the dawn of sober day. The panelling is fiery with lewd art; Out of the wall nitescent knick-knacks dart; Fat Bacchuses and leaping satyrs in Wan mirrors freeze an unremittiag grin. . . . 544 The Cry for Justice And women with spent loins and sleeping croups Are piled on sofas and arm-chairs in groups, With sodden flesh grown vague, and black and blue With the first trampling of the evening's crew. One of them slides a gold coin in her stocking; Another ya'mis, and some their knees are rocking; Others by bacchanalia worn out. Feeling old age, and, sniffing them. Death's snout, Stare with wide-open eyes, torches extinct. And smooth their legs with hands together linked. . . , It is the flabby, fulsome butcher's stall of luxiu-y, Wherein Crime plants his knives that bleed. Where lightning madness stains Foreheads with rotting pains. Time out of mind erected on frontiers that feed The city and the sea. By Maxim Gorky (Perhaps the most famous novel of the Russian writer, the life- story of the son of a prosperous merchant, a youth who wrecks him- seH in a vain search for some outlet for his energies, and at the end commits suicide) ' ' "\ JL /"HERE is the merchant to spend his energy? * * He cannot spend much of it on the Exchange, so he squanders the excess of his muscular capital in drinking-bouts in kabaky; for he has no conception of other applications of his strength, which are more pro- ductive, more valuable to life. He is still a beast, and fife has already become to him a cage, and it is too nar- Mammon 545 row for him with his splendid health and predilection for Ucentiousness. Hampered by culture, he at once starts to lead a dissolute life. The debauch of a merchant is always the revolt of a captive beast. Of course this is bad. But, ah! it will be worse yet, when this beast shall have gathered some sense and shall have disciplined it. Believe me, even then he will not cease to create scandals, but they will be historical events. For they will emanate from the merchant's thirst for power; their aim will be the omnipotence of one class, and the mer- chant will not be particular about the means toward the attainment of this aim. "Where am I to make use of my strength, since there is no demand for it? I ought to fight with robbers, or tmn a robber myself. In general I ought to do some- thing big. And that would be done, not with the head, but with the arms and breast. While here we have to go to the Exchange and try to aim well to make a rouble. What do we need it for? And what is it, anyway? Has life been arranged in this form forever? What sort of life is it, if everyone finds it too narrow for him? Life ought to be according to the taste of man. If it is nar- row for me, I must move it asimder that I may have more room. I must break it and reconstruct it. But how? That's where the trouble UesI What ought to be done that life may be freer? That I don't under- stand, and that's all there is to it!" 30 5^6 The Cry for Justice By Richard Dehmel * (Contemporary German poet, born 1863) I "HIS was the last time. I was lounging in -^ The night-caf^ that hghts the suburb gloom, Tired with the reek of sultry sofa plush, And with my glowing toddy, and the steam Of women sweating in their gowns: tired, lustful. Clouds of tobacco smoke were wavering through The laughter and the haggling cries and shrieks Of painted women and the men they drew. The rattling at the sideboard of the spoons Cheered on the hubbub of the mart of love Uninterrupted like a tambouritie. . . . I was about to choose, when, where 1 sate, The crimson curtain of the door was split, And a fresh couple entered. A cold draught Cut through the heated room, and some one swore; But through the crowd the pair stepped noiselessly. Over against me at the transverse end Of the corridor, whence they could sweep the room, They took their seats. The chandelier of bronze Himg o'er them like an awning heavy, old. And no one seemed to know the couple, but At my right hand I heard a hoarse voice pipe: "I must have come across that pair before." He sat quite still. The loud gray of the air Almost recoiled before his callous brow. Which wan as wax rose into his sparse hair. M ammon 547 His great pale eye-lids hung down deep and shut, On both sides lay around his sunken nose Their shadows, and through his thin beard shone the skin. And only when the woman at his side. Less tall than he, and of a lissom shape, Hissed, giggling, in his ear some obscene word. Half rose of one black eye the heavy lid. And slowly round he turned his long, thin neck, As when a vulture limges at a corpse. And silent and more silent grew the room; All eyes were fixed upon the silent guest, And on the woman squatted, strange to see. "She is quite yoimg" — a whispering round me went; And with a child's greed she was drinking milk. Yet almost old she seemed to me, whenever Her tongue shot through a gap in her black teeth. Her pointed tongue out of her hissing mouth. While her gray, eager glance took in the room; The gaslight in it shone like poisonous green. And now she rose. He had not touched his glass; A great coin lit the table. She went out; He automatically followed her. The crimson curtain round the door fell to. Once more the cold draught shivered through the heat, But no one cursed. Through me a shiver ran. I did not choose a partner — suddenly I knew them: it was Syphilis and Death. BOOK XI JVar Pictures of a terrible evil, and denunciations of it, which will be found especially timely at the present hour. 3 ferns t^t 15attU (From " The Cry of Youth") ^ By Harry Kemp (See pages 37, 351) T SING the song of the great clean guns that belch ■*■ forth death at will. Ah, but the wailing mothers, the lifeless forms and still! I sing the songs of the billowiag flags, the bugles that cry before. Ah, but the skeletons flapping rags, the lips that speak no more! I sing the clash of bayonets and sabres that flash and cleave. And wilt thou sing the maimed ones, too, that go with pinned-up sleeve? I sing acclaimed generals that bring the victory home. Ah, but the broken bodies that drip like honey-comb! I sing of hearts triumphant, long ranks of marching men. And wilt thou sing the shadowy hosts that never march again? (551) 552 The Cry for Justice {From '^Beyond the Breakers") By George Sterling (See page 504) ' I ^HE night was on the world, and in my sleep ■*■ I heard a voice that cried across the dark: "Give steel!" And gazing I beheld a red, Infernal stithy. There were Titans five Assembled, thewed and naked and malign Against the glare. One to the furnace throat. Whence issued screams, fed shapes of human use — The hammer, axe and plow. Those molten soon; Another haled the dazzling ingot forth With tongs, and gave it to the anvil. Two, With massy sledges throbbing at the task. Harried the gloom with unenduring stars And poured a clangorous music on the dark. With loud, astounding shock and counter-shock Incessant. And the fifth colossus stood The captain of that labor. From his form Spread wings more black than Hell's high-altar — ribbed As are the vampire-bat's. The night grew old. And I was then aware they shaped a sword. . . . In that domain and interval of dream 'Twas dawn upon the headlands of the world. And I, appalled, beheld how men had reared A mountain, dark below the morning star — A peak made up of houses and of herds. Of cradles, yokes and all the handiwork War 553 Of man. Upon its crest were gems and gold, Rare fabrics, and the woof of hmnble looms. Harvests and groves and battlements were made Part of its ramparts, and the whole was drenched With oil and wine and honey. Then thereon Men boimd their sons, the fair, alert and strong. Sparing no household. And when all were bound, Brands were brought forth: the mount became a pyre. Black from that red unmensity of flame, A tower of smoke, upcoiling to the sky. Was shapen by the winds, and took the form Of him who in the stithy gave command. A shadow between day and men he stood; His eyes looked forth on nothingness; his wings Domed desolations, and the scarlet sun Glowed through their darkness like a seal that God Might set on Hell forever. Then the pyre Shrank, and he reeled. Whereat, to save that shape Their madness had evoked in death and pain, Men rose and made a second sacrifice. &artor EfgfartuiS By Thomas Carltle (See pages 31, 74. 133, 488) '\"\ /"HAT, speaking in quite unofficial language, is the '^' net-purport and upshot of war? To my own knowledge, for example, there dwell and toil, in the British village of Dumdrudge, usually some five hundred souls. From these, by certain "Natural Enemies" of the French, there are successfully selected, during the 654 The Cry for Justice French war, say thirty able-bodied men: Dumdrudge, at her own expense, has suckled and nursed them: she has, not without difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to manhood, and even trained them to crafts, so that one can weave, another build, another hammer, and the weakest can stand under thirty stone avoirdupois. Never- theless, amid much weeping and swearing, they are selected; all dressed in red, and shipped away, at the public charges, some two thousand miles, or say only to the south of Spain; and fed there till wanted. And now to that same spot, in the south of Spain, are thirty similar French artisans, from a French Dumdrudge, in like manner wending; till at length, after infinite effort, the two parties come into actual juxtaposition, and Thirty stands fronting Thirty, each with- a gun in his hand. Straightway the word "Fire!" is given and they blow the souls out of one another, and in place of sixty brisk useful craftsmen, the world has sixty dead carcasses, which it must bury, and anew shed tears for. Had these men any quarrel? Busy as the Devil is, not the smallest! They lived far enough apart; were the entirest strangers; nay, in so wide a Universe, there was even, unconsciously, by Commerce, some mutual helpfulness between them. How then? Simpleton! their Governors had fallen out; and, instead of shooting one another, had the cunning to make these poor blockheads shoot. — ^Alas, so is it in Deutschland, and hitherto in all other lands; still as of old, "what devilry soever Kings do, the Greeks must pay the piper!" — In that fiction of the English Smollett, it is true, the final Cessation of War is perhaps prophet- ically shadowed forth; where the two Natural Enemies, in person, take each a Tobacco-pipe, filled with Brim- stone; Ught the same, and smoke in one another's faces, W ar 55 S till the weaker gives in: but from such predicted Peace- Era, what blood-filled trenches, and contentious centuries, may still divide us! By KilSER WiLHELM OF GERMANY (Speech delivered in 1891) RECRUITS! Before the altar and the servant of God you have given me the oath of allegiance. You are too young to know the full meaning of what you have said, but your first care must be to obey im- plicitly all orders and directions. You have sworn fidelity to me, you are the children of my guard, you are my soldiers, you have surrendered yourselves to me, body and soul. Only one enemy can exist for you — my enemy. With the present SociaUst machinations, it may happen that I shall order you to shoot your own relatives, your brothers, or even your parents — which God forbid — and then you are bound in duty impHcitly to obey my orders. •^Sf Cominff of Mat By Leo Tolstoy (See pages 88, 110, 148, 276, 374, 416) THE bells will peal, long-haired men will dress in golden sacks to pray for successful slaughter. And the old story will begin again, the awful customary acts. The editors of the daily Press will begin virulently to stir men up to hatred and manslaughter in the name of 566 The Cry for Justice patriotism, happy in the receipt of an increased income. Manufacturers, merchants, contractors for military stores, will hurry joyously about their business, in the hope of double receipts. All sorts of Government officials will buzz about, fore- seeing a possibihty of purloining something more than usual. The military authorities will hurry hither and thither, drawing double pay and rations, and with the expectation of receiving for the slaughter of other men various silly little ornaments which they so highly prize, as ribbons, crosses, orders, and stars. Idle ladies and gentlemen will make a great fuss, entering their names in advance for the Red Cross Society, and ready to bind up the wounds of those whom their husbands and brothers will mutilate; and they will imagine that in so doing they are performing a most Christian work. And, smothering despair within their souls by songs, licentiousness, and wine, men will trail along, torn from peaceful labor, from their wives, mothers and children — hundreds of thousands of simple-minded, good-natured men with murderous weapons in their hands — anywhere they may be driven. They will march, freeze, hunger, suffer sickness, and die from it, or finally come to some place where they will be slain by thousands or kill thousands themselves with no reason — ^men whom they have never seen before, and who neither have done nor could do them any mischief. And when the number of sick, wounded, and killed becomes so great that there are not hands enough left to pick them up, and when the air is so infected with the putrefying scent of the "food for powder" that even the authorities find it disagreeable, a truce will be made, the wounded will be picked up anyhow, the sick will be War 557 brought in and huddled together in heaps, the killed will be covered with earth and lime, and once more all the crowd of deluded men will be led on and on till those who have devised the project, weary of it, or till those who thought to find it profitable receive their spoil. And so once more men will be made savage, fierce, and brutal, and love will wane in the world, and the Christian- izing of mankind, which has already begun, will lapse for scores and hundreds of years. And so once more the men who reaped profit from it all, will assert with assur- ance that since there has been a war there must needs have been one, and that other wars must follow, and they will again prepare future generations for a con- tinuance of slaughter, depraving them from their birth. By William Cowper (EngHsh poet, 1731-1800) OFOR a lodge in some vast wilderness. Some boundless contigTiity of shade. Where rumor of oppression and deceit. Of unsuccessful or successful war. Might never reach me more. My ear is pained. My soul is sick, with every day's report Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled. There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart. It does not feel for man; the natural bond Of brotherhood is severed as the flax That falls asunder at the touch of fire. 558 The Cry for Justice He finds his fellow guilty of a skin Not colored like his own; and having power To enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause Dooms and devotes him as his la^\'ful prey. Lands intersected by a narrow frith Abhor each other. Mountains interposed Make enemies of nations, who had else Like kindred drops been mingled into one. Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys; And, worse than all, and most to be deplored, As human nature's broadest, foulest blot. Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat With stripes, that Mercy, with a bleeding heart, Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast. tlSt ©igloto Papwef By James Russell Lowell (These poems, first published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1846, voiced the bitter opposition of New England to the Mexican war as a slave-holders' enterprise) THRASH away, you'll hev to rattle On them kittle-drums o' yoimi, — 'Tain't a knowin' kind o' cattle Thet is ketched with mouldy com; Put in stiff, you fif er feller, Let folks see how spry you be, — Guess you'll toot till you are yeller 'Fore you git ahold o' me ! . . . War 559 Ez fer war, I call it murder, — There you hev it plain an' flat; I don't want to go no furder Than my Testyment fer that; God hez sed so plump an' fairly, It's ez long ez it is broad, An' you've got to git up airly Ef you want to take in God. 'Tain't your eppyletts an' feathers Make the thing a grain more right; 'Tain't afollerin' your bell-wethers Will excuse ye in His sight; Ef you take a sword an' dror it, An' go stick a feller thru, Guv'mint ain't to answer for it, God'll send the bill to you. Wut's the use o' meetin'-goin' Every Sabbath, wet or dry, Ef it's right to go amowin' Feller-men like oats an' rye? I dunno but wMi it's pooty Trainin' round in bobtail coats, — But it's curus Christian dooty This 'ere cuttin' folks's throats. . . . Tell ye jest the eend I've come to Arter cipherin' plaguey smart, An' it makes' a handy sum, tu. Any gump could larn by heart; Laborin' man an' laborin' woman Hev one glory an' one shame. Ev'y thin' thet's done inhuman Injers all on 'em the same. 660 The Cry for Justice 'Tain't by turnin' out to hack folks You're agoin' to git your right, Nor by lookin' down on black folks Coz you're put upon by white; Slavery ain't o' nary color, 'Tain't the hide thet makes it wus, All it keers fer in a feller 'S jest to make him fiU its pus 1:0 a il5(n«=fncj ClBun ~-^ By p. F. McCahthy (This poem came to the New York World office on a crumpled piece of soiled paper. The author's address was given as Fourth Bench, City Hall Park) WHETHER your shell hits the target or not. Your cost is Five Hundred Dollars a Shot. You thing of noise and flame and power, We feed you a hundred barrels of flour Each time you roar. Your flame is fed With twenty thousand loaves of bread. Silence! A million hungry men Seek bread to fill their mouths again. War 661 Bruppi^m (JFrom " The Present Hour") By Percy Mackaye (American poet and dramatist, born 1875) CROWNED on the twilight battlefield, there bends A crooked iron dwarf, and delves for gold, Chuckling: "One hundred thousand gatlings — sold!" And the moon rises, and a moaning rends The mangled living, and the dead distends, And a child cowers on the chartless wold, Where, searching in his safety vault of mold, The kobold kaiser cuts his dividends. We, who still wage his battles, are his thralls, And dying do him homage; yea, and give Daily our living souls to be enticed Into his power. So long as on war's walls We build engines of death that he may live. So long shall we serve Krupp instead of Christ. By The Empress Catherine II op Russia (1729-1796) I ^HE only way to save our empires from the en- -'■ croachment of the people is to engage in war, and thus substitute national passions for social aspira- tions. 36 662 The Cry for Justice I By Frederick the Great of Prussia (1712-1786) F my soldiers were to begin to reflect, not one of them would remain in the ranks. SDttv jFatftcr mwt ^tt in ^taittn (From "The Human Slaughter-House") By Wilhblm Lamszus \ .' (A novel by a Hamburg school-teacher, published in 1913. Although banned by the authorities in some places, over 100,000 copies were sold in Germany in a few weeks) WE rejoined the Colors on Friday. On Monday we are to move out. Today, being Simday, is full- dress Church Parade. I slept badly last night, and am feeling uneasy and limp. And now we are sitting close-packed in church. The organ is playing a voluntary. I am leaning back and straining my ears for the sounds in the dim twilight of the building. Childhood's days rise before my eyes again. I am watching a little solemn- faced boy sitting crouched in a corner and listening to the divine service. The priest is standing in front of the ftltar, and is intoning the Exhortation devoutly. The choir in the gallery is chanting the responses. The organ thunders out and floods through the building majes- tically. I am rapt in an ecstasy of sweet terror, for the Lord God is coming down upon us. He is standing before me and touching my body, so that I have to close my eyes in a terror of shuddering ecstasy. . . . War 563 That is long, long ago, and is all past and done with, as youth itself is past and done with. . . . Strange! After all these years of doubt and unbelief, at this moment of lucid consciousness, the atmosphere of devoutness, long since dead, possesses me, and thrills me so passionately that I can hardly resist it. This is the same heavy twihght — these are the same yearning angel voices — the same fearful sense of rapture — I pull myself together, and sit bolt upright on the hard wooden pew. In the main and the side aisles below, and in the galleries above, nothing but soldiers in uniform, and all, with level faces, turned toward the altar, toward that pale man in his long dignified black gown, toward that sonorous, imctuous mouth, from whose lips flows the name of God. Look! He is now stretching forth his hands. We incline oiu heads. He is pronouncing the Benediction over us in a voice that echoes from the tomb. He is blessing us in the name of God, the Merciful. He is blessing our rifles that they may not fail us; he is blessing the wire-drawn guns on their patent recoilless carriages; he is blessing every precious cartridge, lest a single bullet be wasted, lest any pass idly through the air; that each one may account for a hundred human beings, may shatter a hundred himian beings simultaneously. Father in Heaven! Thou art gazing down at us in such terrible silence. Dost Thou shudder at these sons of men? Thou poor and shght God! Thou couldst only rain Thy paltry pitch and sulphm- on Sodom and Gomor- rah. But we, Thy children, whom Thou hast created, we are going to exterminate them by high-pressure machin- ery, and butcher whole cities in factories. Here we stand, and while we stretch our hands to Thy Son in prayer, 664 The Cry for Justice and cry Hosannah! we are hurling shells and shrapnel in the face of Thy Image, and shooting the Son of Man down from His Cross like a target at the rifle-butts. And now the Holy Communion is being celebrated. The organ is playing mysteriously from afar off, and the flesh and blood of the Redeemer is mingling with our flesh and blood. There He is hanging on the Cross above me, and gazing down upon me. How pale those cheeks look! And those eyes are the eyes as of one dead! Who was this Christ Who is to aid us, and Whose blood we drink? What was it they once taught us at school? Didst Thou not love mankind? And didst Thou not die for the whole human race? Stretch out Thine arms toward me. There is something I would fain ask of Thee. ... Ah! they have nailed Thy arms to the Cross, so that Thou canst not stretch out a finger toward us. Shuddering, I fix my eyes on the corpse-like face and see that He died long ago, that He is nothing more than wood, nothing other than a puppet. Christ, it is no longer Thee to whom we pray. Look there! Look there! It is he. The new patron saint of a Christian State! Look there! It is he, the great Genghis Khan. Of him we know that he swept through the history of the world with fire and sword, and piled up pyramids of skulls. Yes, that is he. Let us heap up mountains of human heads, and pile up heaps of human entrails. Great Genghis Khan! Thou, our patron saint! Do thou bless us! Pray to thy blood-drenched father seated above the skies of Asia, that he may sweep with us through the clouds; that he may strike down that accursed nation till it writhes in its blood, till it never can rise again. A red War 665 mist swims before my eyes. Of a sudden I see nothing but blood before me. The heavens have opened, and the red flood pours in through the windows. Blood wells up on the altar. The walls run blood from the ceiling to the floor, and — God the Father steps out of the blood. Every scale of his skin stands erect, his beard and hair drip blood. A giant of blood stands before me. He seats himself backward on the altar, and is laughing from thick, coarse lips — ^there sits the King of Dahomey, and he butchers his slaves. The black executioner raises his sword and whirls it above my head. Another moment and my head will roll down on the floor — another moment and the red jet will spurt from my neck. . . . Murderers, murderers! None other than murderers! Lord God in Heaven! Then— The church door opens creaking — Light, air, the blue of heaven, burst in. I draw a breath of relief. We have risen to our feet, and at length pass out of the twilight into the open air. My knees are still trembUng imder me. We fall into hne, and in our hob-nailed boots tramp in step down the street toward the barracks. When I see my mates marching beside me in their matter-of-fact and stohd way, I feel ashamed, and call myself a wretched coward. What a weak-nerved, hysterical breed, that can no longer look at blood without fainting! You neuras- thenic offspring of your sturdy peasant forebears, who shouted for joy when they went out to fight! I pull myself together and throw my head back. I never was a coward, and eye for eye I have always looked my man in the face, and will so do this time, too, happen what may. 666 The Cry for Justice By Mark Twain (At this place in the Anthology- occurred another passage from the pen of the late Samuel L. Clemens, for the reproduction of which permission was refused. See page 265. The passage is part of the "War Prayer," which was withheld from the world until after its author's death. The passage pictures the assembling of soldiers in church, and the prayer of the chaplain for victory. In answer to the prayer, God sends down a white-robed messenger who voices the unspoken meaning of the prayer: that the bodies of men should be blown to atoms; that women sho\ild be widowed, and children orphaned, ripening harvests desolated, and beautiful cities laid in ashes. "For our sakes, who adore Thee, Lord, bl^st their hopes, bhght their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask of one Who is the Spirit of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset, and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Grant our prayer, O Lord, and Thine be the praise and honor and glory, now and forever. Amen." The messenger then bids the chaplain speak, and say if he stiU wants what he prayed for. The passage closes with the remark that it was generally agreed that the messen- ger was a lunatic. And Mr. Clemens' biographer adds the charmingly naive comment that the reason the War Prayer was withheld was that its author "did not care to invite the public verdict that he was a lunatic, or even a fanatic with a mission to destroy the illusions and traditions and conclusions of mankind") War 567 %^t IWn&im of aaat By Richard Lb Gallienne (American poet, bom in England, 1866) WAR I abhor, and yet how sweet The sound along the marching street Of drum and fife, and I forget Wet eyes of widows, and forget Broken old mothers, and the whole Dark butchery without a soul. Without a soul, save this bright drink Of heady music, sweet as hell; And even my peace-abiding feet Go marching with the marching street — For yonder, yonder goes the fife. And what care I for human life! The tears fill my astonished eyes. And my full heart is like to break; And yet 'tis all embannered lies, A dream those little drummers make. O, it is wickedness to clothe Yon hideous grinning thing that stalks, Hidden in music, like a queen. That in a garden of glory walks, Till good men love the thing they loathe. Art, thou hast many infamies, But not an infamy like this — Oh, snap the fife, and still the drimi, And show the monster as she is! 668 The Cry for Justice Ea? SDoton gout atm0 By Baroness Bertha von Suttner (Austrian novelist and peace advocate, 1850-1914. Her protest against war, published in 1889, made a deep impression throughout Europe. In the following scene a woman is taken to visit a field of battle with the hospital-corps) NO more thunder, of artillery, no more blare of trimipets, no more beat of drum; only the low moans of pain and the rattle of death. In the trampled ground some redly-glimmering pools, lakes of blood; all the crops destroyed, only here and there a piece of land left un- touched, and still covered with stubble; the smiling vil- lages of yesterday turned into ruins and rubbish. The trees burned and hacked in the forests, the hedges torn with grape-shot. And on this battle-ground thousands and thousands of men dead and dying — dying without aid. No blossoms of flowers are to be seen on wayside or meadow; but sabres, bayonets, knapsacks, cloaks, over- turned ammunition wagons, powder wagons blown into the air, cannon with broken carriages. Near the cannon, whose muzzles are black with smoke, the ground is blood- iest. There the greatest number and the most mangled of dead and half-dead men are lying, Uterally torn to pieces with shot; and the dead horses, and the half -dead which raise themselves on their feet — such feet as they have left — to sink again; then raise themselves up once more and fall down again, till they only raise their head to shriek out their pain-laden death-cry. There is a hollow way quite filled with corpses trodden into the mire. The poor creatures had taken refuge there no doubt to get cover, but a battery has driven over them, and they War 569 have been crushed by the horses' hoofs and the wheels. Many of them are still alive — a. pulpy, bleeding mass, but "still alive. And yet there is still something more hellish even than all this, and that is the appearance of the most vile scum of humanity, as it shows itself in war — the appearance and activity of "the hyenas of the battlefield." "Then slink on the monsters who grope after the spoils of the dead, and bend over the corpses and over the living, mercilessly tearing off their clothes from their bodies. The boots are dragged off the bleeding limbs, the rings off the wounded hands, or to get the ring the finger is simply chopped off, and if a man tries to defend himself from such a sacrifice, he is murdered by these hyenas; or, in order to make him unrecognizable, they dig his eyes out." I shrieked out loud at the doctor's last words. I again saw the whole scene before me, and the eyes into which the hyena was plimging his knife were Frederick's soft, blue, beloved eyes. "Pray, forgive me, dear lady, but it was by your own wish " "Oh, yes; I desire to hear it all. What you are now describing was the night that follows the battle; and these scenes are enacted by the starlight?" "And by torchlight. The patrols which the conquerors send out to survey the field of battle carry torches and lanterns, and red lanterns are hoisted on signal poles to point out the places, where flying hospitals are to be established." "And next morning, how does the field look?" "Almost more fearful still. The contrast between the bright smiling dayfight and the dreadful work of man on 570 The Cry for Justice which it shines has a doubly-painful effect. At night the entire picture of horror is something ghostly and fantastic. By daylight it is simply hopeless. Now you see for the first time the mass of corpses lying around on the lanes, between the fields, in the ditches, behind the ruins of walls. Ever3rwhere dead bodies — everywhere. Plundered, some of them naked; and just the same with the wounded. Those who, in spite of the nightly labor of the Sanitary Corps, are still always lying around in numbers, look pale and collapsed, green or yellow, with fixed and stupefied gaze, or writhing in agonies of pain, they beg any one who comes near to put them to death. Swarms of carrion crows settle on the tops of the trees, and with loud croaks aimounce the bill of fare of the tempting banquet. Hungry dogs, from the villages around, come running by and lick the blood from wounds. Further afield there are a few hyenas to be seen, who are still carrying on their work hastily. And now comes the great interment." "Who does that— the Sanitary Corps?" "How could they suffice for such a mass of work? They have fully enough to do with the wounded." "Then troops are detailed for the work?" "No. A crowd of men impressed, or even offering themselves voluntarily — loiterers, baggage people, who are supporting themselves by the market-stalls, baggage- wagons and so forth, and who now have been hunted away by the force of the military operations, together with the inhabitants of the cottages and huts — to dig trenches — good large ones, of course — wide trenches, for they are not made deep — there is no time for that. Into these the dead bodies are thrown, heads up or heads down just as they come to hand. Or it is done in this way: A heap is made of the corpses, and a foot or two of earth ^\'AR ARXOLD BOCKLIN {German 'painter, 1827-1901. Painting in the Dresden Gallery) War 571 is heaped up oyer them, and then it has the appearance of a tumulus. In a few days rain comes on and washes the covering off the festering dead bodies! but what does that matter? The nimble, jolly grave-diggers do not look so far forward. For jolly, merry workmen they are, that one must allow. Songs are piped out there, and all kinds of dubious jokes made — ^nay, sometimes a dance of hyenas is danced round the open trench. Whether life is still stirring in several of the bodies that are shovelled into it or are covered with the earth, they give themselves no trouble to think. The thing is inevitable, for the stiff cramp often comes on after wounds. Many who have been saved by accident have told of the danger of being buried ahve which they have escaped. But how many are there of those who are not able to tell anything! If a man has once got a foot or two of earth over his mouth he may well hold his tongue." 1£>ttott feflian By Austin Dobson (English poet and essajdst, born 1840) HERE in this leafy place Quiet he hes. Cold, with his sightless face Turned to the skies; 'Tis but another dead; All you can say is said. 572 The Cry for Justice Carry his body hence, — Kings must have slaves; Kings climb to eminence Over men's graves; So this man's eye is dim; — Throw the earth over him. SDoubt {From " The Present Hour") By Percy Mackaye (One of a group of six sonnets, entitled "Carnage," written in September, 1914) SO thin, so frail the opalescent ice Where yesterday, in lordly pageant, rose The momunental nations — the repose Of continents at peace ! Realities Solid as earth they seemed; yet in a trice Their bastions crumbled in the surging floes Of unconceivable, inhuman woes, Gulfed in a mad, unmeaning sacrifice. We, who survive that world-quake, cower and start. Searching our hidden souls with dark surmise: So thin, so frail — is reason? Patient art — Is it all a mockery, and love all lies? Who sees the lurking Hun in childhood's eyes? Is hell so near to every human heart? War 573 %flt mitt ot jFIantiEt0 By Gilbert K. Chesterton (See page 180) T OW and brown barns, thatched and repatched and ■' — ' tattered, Where I had seven sons until to-day — A Uttle hill of hay your spur has scattered. . . . This is not Paris. You have lost your way. You, staring at your sword to find it brittle, Surprised at the surprise that was your plan; Who, shaking and breaking barriers not a little, Find never more the death-door of Sedan. Must I for more than carnage call you claimant, Pay you a penny for each son you slay? Man, the whole globe in gold were no repayment For what you have lost. And how shall I repay? What is the price of that red spark that caught me From a kind farm that never had a name? What is the price of that dead man they brought me? For other dead men do not look the same. How should I pay for one poor graven steeple Whereon you shattered what you shall not know? How should I pay you, miserable people? How should I pay you everything you owe? 57It. The Cry for Justice Unhappy, can I give you back your honor? Tho' I forgave, would any man forget? While all our great green earth has, trampled on her, The treason and terror of the night we met. Not any more in vengeance or in pardon. One old wife bargains for a bean that's hers. You have no word to break; no heart to harden. Ride on and prosper. You have lost your spurs. Buttons By Carl Sandburg (Contemporary American poet) I HAVE been watching the war map slammed up for advertising in front of the newspaper office. Buttons — red and yellow buttons — blue and black but- tons — are, shoved back and forth across the map. A laughing young man, sunny with freckles, Climbs a ladder, yells a joke to somebody in the crowd. And then fixes a yellow button one inch west And follows the yellow button with a black button one inch west. (Ten thousand men and boys twist on their bodies in a red soak along a river edge, Gasping of wounds, calling for water, some rattling death in their throats.) Who by Christ would guess what it cost to move two buttons one inch on the war map here in front of the newspaper office where the freckle-faced young man is laughing to us? War 575 By Alfred Notes (English poet, bom 1880) A MURDERED man, ten miles away, ■^*- Will hardly shake your peace, Like one red stain upon yoiu: hand; And a tortured child in a distant land Will never check one smile to-day, Or bid one fiddle cease. The News It comes along a little wire, Simk in a deep sea; It thins in the clubs to a little smoke Between one joke and another joke. For a city in flames is less than the fire That comforts you and me. The Diplomats Each was honest after his way. Lukewarm in faith, and old; And blood, to them, was only a word. And the point of a phrase their only sword, And the cost of war, they reckoned it In little disks of gold. They were cleanly groomed. They were not to be bought. And their cigars were good. But they had pulled so many strings 576 The Cry for Justice In the tinselled puppet-show of kings That, when they talked of war, they thought Of sawdust, not of blood; Not of the crimson tempest Where the shattered city falls : They thought, behind their varnished doors, Of diplomats, ambassadors. Budgets, and loans and boundary-lines, Coercions and re-calls. The Charge Slaughter! Slaughter! Slaughter! The cold machines whirred on. And strange things crawled amongst the wheat With entrails dragging round their feet, And over the foul red shambles A fearful sunlight shone. . . . The maxims cracked like cattle-whips Above the struggling hordes. They rolled and plunged and writhed like snakes In the trampled wheat and the blackthorn brakes, And the lightnings leapt among them Like clashing crimson swords. The rifles flogged their wallowing herds. Flogged them down to die. Down on their slain the slayers lay, And the shrapnel thrashed them into the clay, And tossed their limbs like tattered birds Thro' a red volcanic sky. War 577 JSIlat {From "Songs of Joy") By William H. Davies (An English poet whose "Autobiography of a Super-tramp" was given to the world with an introduction by Bernard Shaw) "V/'E Liberals and Conservatives, •*■ Have pity on our human lives, Waste not more blood on human strife; Until we know some way to use This human blood we take or lose, 'Tis sin to sacrifice our life. When pigs are stuck we save their blood And make puddings for our food. The sweetest and the cheapest meat; And many a woman, man and boy Have ate those puddings with great joy, And oft-times in the open street. Let's not have war till we can make, Of this sweet life we lose or take. Some kind of pudding of man's gore; So that the clergy in each parish May save the lives of those that famish Because meat's dear and times are poor. 37 578 The Cry for Justice 3n Prai'0c of tje aaattior {From "Don Quixote") By Miguel de Cervantes (Best known of Spanish novelists, 1547-1616; himself a soldier, captured and made a gaUey-slave in Algiers) T AM not a barbarian, and I love letters, but let us ■*■ beware of according them pre-eminence over arms, or even an equality with arms. The man of letters, it is very true, instructs and illuminates his fellows, softens manners, elevates minds, and teaches us justice, a beautiful and sublime science. But the warrior makes us observe justice. His object is to procure us the first and sweetest of blessings, peace, gentlest peace, so necessary to human happiness. This peace, adorable blessing, gift divine, source of happiness, this peace is the object of war. The warrior labors to procure it for us, and the warrior there- fore performs the most useful labor in the world. &ons ot tjr (K5Epo0ftion By Walt Whitman (See pages 184, 268) AWAY with themes of war! away with War itself! ■ Hence from my shuddering sight, to never more return, that show of blacken'd, mutilated corpses! That hell unpent, and raid of blood — fit for wild tigers, or for lop-tongued wolves — not reasoning men! And in its stead speed Industry's campaigns! With thy undaunted armies. Engineering! Thy ptennants. Labor, loosen'd to the breeze! Thy bugles soimding loud and clear! War 579 ^omatt anti Mat {From "Woman and Labor") By Olive Schreinbr (See pages 240, 246, 504) TN supplying the men for the carnage of a battlefield, '- women have not merely lost actually more blood, and gone through a more acute anguish and weariness, in the months of bearing and in the final agony of child-birth, than has been experienced by the men who cover it; but, in the months of rearing that follow, the women of the race go through a long, patiently endured strain which no knapsacked soldier on his longest march has ever more than equalled; while, even in the matter of death, in all civilized societies, the probability that the average woman will die in child-birth is immeasurably greater than the probability that the average male will die in battle. There is, perhaps, no woman, whether she have borne children, or be merely potentially a child-bearer, who could look down upon a battlefield covered with slain, but the thought would rise in her, "So many mothers' sons! So many young bodies brought into the world to lie there! So many months of weariness and pain while bones and muscles were shaped within! So many hours of anguish and struggle that breath might be! So many baby mouths drawing life at women's breasts; — all this, that men might he with glazed eyeballs, and swollen faces, and fixed, blue, unclosed mouths, and great limbs tossed — this, that an acre of ground might be manured with human flesh, that next year's grass or poppies or karoo bushes may spring up greener and redder, where they have lain, or that the sand of a plain may have the glint of white bones!" 680 The Cry for Justice And we cry, "Without an inexorable cause, this must not be!" No woman who is a woman says of a human body, "It is nothing!" %lt arsienal at &pt(na:£tel6 By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Probably the most popular of American poets, 1807-1882) ■" I "HIS is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling, -*■ Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms; But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing Startles the villages with strange alarms. Ah! what a sound will rise — how wild and dreary — When the death-angel touches those swift keys! What loud lament and dismal Miserere Will mingle with their awful symphonies! I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus — The cries of agony, the endless groan. Which, through the ages that have gone before us. In long reverberations reach our own. . . . Is it, man, with such discordant noises. With such accursed instruments as these. Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices, And j arrest the celestial harmonies? Were half the power that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error. There were no need of arsenals or forts. War 581 aaiat anti Peace By Benjamin Franklin (American statesman, 1706-1790) T JOIN with you most cordially in rejoicing at the ■*■ return of peace. I hope it will be lasting, and that mankind will at length, as they call themselves reasonable creatures, have reason enough to settle their differences without cutting throats; for, in my opinion, there never was a good war or a bad peace. What vast additions to the conveniences and comforts of life might mankind have acquired, if the money spent in wars had been employed in works of utility! What an extension of agriculture, even to the tops of the mountains; what rivers rendered navigable, or joined by canals; what bridges, aqueducts, new roads, and other public works, edifices and improvements, rendering England a com- plete paradise, might not have been obtained by spending those millions in doing good, which in the last war have been spent in doing mischief — in bringing misery into thousands of families, and destroying the lives of so many working people, who might have performed the useful labors. 582 The Cry for Justice Si ^tam ot tiie PcoplfS (From " The Present Hour") By Percy Mackayb (See pages 561, 572) GOD of us who kill our kind ! Master of this blood-tracked Mind Which from wolf and Caliban Staggers toward the star of Man — Now, on Thy cathedral stair, God. we cry to Thee in prayer! Where our stifled anguish bleeds Strangling through Thine organ reeds, Where our voiceless songs suspire From the corpses in Thy choir — ■ Through Thy charred and shattered nave, God, we cry on Thee to save! Save us from our tribal gods! From the racial powers, whose rods — Wreathed with stinging serpents — stir Odin and old Jupiter From their ancient hells of hate To invade Thy dawning state. . . . Lord, our God! to whom, from clay, Blood and mire. Thy peoples pray — Not from Thy cathedral's stair Thou hearest : — Thou criest through our prayer For our prayer is but the gate : We, who pray, ourselves are fate. War 583 By the Great Indian, Chief Joseph T Tear me, my warriors; my heart is sick and sad; ■'■ -I- Our chiefs are killed, The old men are all dead, It is cold and we have no blankets; The little children are freezing to death. Hear me, my warriors; my heart is sick and sad; From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever ! a }^to\tti for a pecp^tual Pfa« By Jean Jacques Rousseau (A document published 1756 in which the French philosopher out- lined in detail a plan for a European federation, which seems in 1915 to have become the next step in civilization) As a more noble, useful, and delightful Project never ■^*- engaged the human mind, than that of establishing a perpetual peace among the contending nations of Europe, never did a writer lay a better claim to the atten- tion of the public that he who points out the means to carry such a design into execution. It is indeed very difficult for a nlan of probity and sensibility, not to be fired with a kind of enthusiasm on such a subject; nay, I am not clear that the very illusions of a heart truly humane, whose warmth makes everything easily sur- mountable, are not in this case more eligible than that rigid and forbidding prudence, which finds in its own indifference and want of public spirit, the chief obstacle to everything that tends to promote the public good. 584 The Cry for Justice I doubt not that many of my readers will be forearmed with incredulity, to withstand the pleasing temptation of being persuaded; and indeed I sincerely lament their dullness in mistaking obstinacy for wisdom. But I flatter myself, that many an honest mind will sympathize with me in that delightful emotion, with which I take up the pen to treat of a subject so greatly interesting to the world. I am going to take a view, at least in imagination, of man- kind united by love and friendship: I am going to take a contemplative prospect of an agreeable and peaceful society of brethren, living in constant harmony, directed by the same maxims, and joint sharers of one common felicity; while, realizing to myself so affecting a picture, the representation of such imaginary happiness will give me the momentary enjoyment of a pleasure actually present. %ti tfie people l?ote on ?lMar By Allen L. Benson (American Socialist writer, born 1871) EACH voter should sign his or her name to the ballot that is voted. In counting, the ballots for war should be kept apart from the ballots against war. In the event of more than half of the population voting for war, those who voted for war should be sent to the front in the order in which they appeared at their respective polling places. Nobody who voted against war should be called to serve until everybody who voted for war had been sent to the front. War 685 )anti=Sl?iUtatig(m {From " The Red Wave ") V By Joseph-Henry Rosny, the Elder (French novelist, member of the Acad^mie des Goncourts; born 1856. A novel of revolutionary Syndicalism. The present scene describes a debate organized between champions of the revolution- ary and the conservative labor unions, the "Reds" and the "Yel- lows"; a grand Homeric combat of ideas, in which the audience is wrought to a furious pitch of excitement, and does as much talking as the orators. In the following extract, from about forty pages of mingled eloquence and humor, the champion of the" Reds" announces "the grave and dreadful problem of anti-militarism") A LONG shudder agitated the hostile crowds. All -'*■ the wild beasts quivered in their cages. Rouge- mont, immobile, scarcely raised his hand; never before had his voice sounded more grave and more pathetic. "Ah, yes! Question profound and dreadful. No one has been troubled by it more than I, for I am not among those bold internationalists who deny their country. I love my land of France. To make our happiness perfect, we must have the land of France. But who would dare to say that we, the poor, are any other thing upon that land than food for suffering and food for barracks? The worst Prussian, provided that he owns a coin of a hundred sous — is he not superior to the unhappy wretch who" rummages in empty pockets? All the pleasures, all the beauty, all the luxury, our most beautiful daughters, belong to the rich cosmopolitan: he possesses the en- chanter's ring. If you have nothing, you will live more a stranger in your country than the dog of a swindling millionaire. If you have nothing, you will be insulted, scorned, hunted, locked in prison for vagabondage. La 586 The Cry for Justice patrie! La patrie of the poor! It is a fable, a symbol, an inscription upon a military-list or a school-book — the most bitter derision! Your right, unhappy ones — it is to suffer and defend the soil, which belongs to yom- master, to him who possesses. For him, for him alone, our France devotes each year a billion francs for army and navy. . . . "It is necessary purely and simply to suppress the budget of the army and navy," thundered Rougemont, with such force that he broke the tumult. "France must give all at once, without hesitation, the example of disarmament. And that would be a thing so grand and so beautiful that the entire imiverse would applaud, that all humanity would turn toward her. From that day alone we should be at the head of the nations, and our country would become the country of free men!" "Under the heel of Wilhelm!" "A Poland!" "Guts for the cats!" "Sold! Rubbish! Meat for sheenies!" "... living in boiling water like lobsters!" All at once, the tiunult sank. The voice of the orator forced itself upon the ear, high as a bell, precise as a clarion. "Free, superb, and triumphant! Queen of the peoples, goddess of the unfortunate! If we should dis- arm, before ten years, France would become a land of pilgrimage, the Mecca of men. Before twenty years, the other nations would have followed her example. As for making of us a Poland, let them try it! Have you then forgotten the teachings of history? Do you not know that our grand armies, our innumerable victories — we have won as many victories as all the rest of Europe together — have only ended in the crushing of Waterloo and the collapse of Sedan? On the contrary, Italy, dis- War 587 membered for centuries, Italy, which cannot count its defeats, is become a free nation. That is because it is inhabited by a race, clean and well-defined, upon which the foreigner has been unable to impress his mark. France enslaved, she, the most intelligent of nations, she who has had the most influence upon minds and hearts! Come now, that is not possible, that will never happen! But the people who would howl indignation at the dis- membering of a disarmed France, would let a war-like France go down to ruin: she would be only one country hke the others. So, I repeat it without scruple: it is necessary that we should give the magnificent example of disarmament. Only then shall we be a nation loved and admired among nations. Only then will all hearts turn toward us. Only then will the idea that anyone could touch France seem a sacrilege such as no tyrant would risk!" %lt SDaton By Emile Verhaeren (In this play the Belgian poet has voiced his hopes for the regen- eration of human society. The city of Oppidomagne is beseiged by a hostile army, and the revolutionists in both armies conspire and revolt. The gates of the city are thrown open, and the end of war declared. A captain in the hostile army is speaking over the body of H&6nian, leader of the revolutionists in the city) I WAS his disciple, and his unknown friend. His books were my Bible. It is men like this who give birth to men like me, faithful, long obscure, but whom fortune permits, in one overwhelming hour, to realize the supreme dream of their master. If fatherlands are fair, sweet to 588 The Cry for Justice the heart, dear to the memory, armed nations on the frontiers are tragic and deadly; and the whole world is yet bristling wth nations. It is in their teeth that we throw them this example of our concord. (Cheers.) They wdll understand some day the immortal thing ac- complished here, in this illustrious Oppidomagne, whence the loftiest ideas of humanity have taken flight, one after another, through all the ages. For the first time since the beginning of power, since brains have reckoned time, two races, one renouncing its victory, the other its humbled pride, are made one in an embrace. The whole earth must needs have quivered, all the blood, all the sap of the earth must have flowed to the heart of things. Concord and good will have conquered hate. (Cheers.) Human strife, in its form of bloodshed, has been gainsaid. A new beacon shines on the horizon of future storms. Its steady rays shall dazzle all eyes, haunt all brains, magnetize all desires. Needs must we, after all these trials and sorrows, come at last into port, to whose entrance it points the way, and where it gilds the tranquil masts and vessels. (Enthusiasm of all; the people shout and embrace. The former enemies rise and surround the speaker. Those of Oppidomagne stretch their arms towards him.) War 689 %^t Siptinfftime of ^tutt {From "Studies in Socialism") By Jean Leon Jauees (Editor of I'Humaniti, and leader of the French SociaUst move- ment, 1859-1914; probably the most eminent of Socialist parKa- mentarians, assassinated by a fanatic at the outbreak of the war with Germany. The following is the peroration of a speech delivered at an Anglo-French parliamentary dinner, 1903) ' I 'HE majesty of suffering labor is no longer dumb: •^ it speaks now with a million tongues, and it asks the nations not to increase the ills which crush down the workers by an added burden of mistrust and hate, by wars and the expectation of wars. Gentlemen, you may ask how and when and in what form this longing for international concord will express itself to some purpose. ... I can only answer you by a parable which I gleaned by fragments from the legends of Merlin, the magician, from the Arabian Nights, and from a book that is still unread. Once upon a time there was an enchanted forest. It had been stripped of all verdure, it was wild and forbidding. The trees, tossed by the bitter winter wind that never ceased, struck one another with a sound as of breaking swords. When at last, after a long series of freezing nights and sunless days that seemed like nights, all living things trembled with the first call of spring, the trees became afraid of the sap that began to move within them. And the sohtary and bitter spirit that had its dwelling within the hard bark of each of them said very low, with a shudder that came up from the deepest roots: "Have a care ! If thou art the first to risk yielding to the wooing 590 The Cry for Justice of the new season, if thou art the first to turn thy lance- like buds into blossoms and leaves, their delicate raiment will be torn by the rough blows of the trees that have been slower to put forth leaves and flowers." And the proud and melancholy spirit that was shut up within the great Druidical oak spoke to its tree with peculiar insistence: "And wilt thou, too, seek to join the universal love-feast, thou whose noble branches have been broken by the storm?" Thus, in the enchanted forest, mutual distrust drove back the sap, and prolonged the death-like winter even after the call of spring. What happened at last? By what mysterious influence was the grim charm broken? Did some tree find the courage to act alone, like those April poplars that break into a shower of verdure, and give from afar the signal for a renewal of all life? Or did a warmer and more life-giving beam start the sap moving in all the trees at once? For lo! in a single day the whole forest burst forth into a magnificent flowering of joy and peace. By Micah (Hebrew prophet, B. C. 700) HE shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not hft up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree ; and none shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it. BOOK XII Country The higher patriodsm; the duty of man to his country as seen from the point of view of Uiose who would make the country the parent and friend of all who dwell in it. SDat Counttp (Read July 4, 188S) By John Gbeenleaf Whittier (New England Quaker poet, 1807-1892; a prominent anti- slavery advocate) ^"\ /"E give thy natal day to hope, ^^ country of our love and prayer! Thy way is down no fatal slope, But up to freer sun and air. Tried as by furnace fires, and yet By God's grace only stronger made, In future task before thee set Thou shalt not lack the old-time aid. Great, without seeking to be great By fraud of conquest; rich in gold. But richer in the large estate Of virtue which thy children hold. With peace that comes of purity. And strength to simple justice due — So runs our loyal dream of thee; God of our fathers ! make it true. land of lands ! to thee we give Our love, our trust, our service free; For thee thy sons shall nobly live. And at thy need shall die for thee. 38 (593) 594 The Cry for Justice ^It U^to JFt«liom By Woodrow Wilson (President of the United States, born 1856. The following is from his campaign speeches, 1912) A RE we preserving freedom in this land of ours, the hope ■^*- of all the earth? Have we, inheritors of this conti- nent and of the ideals to which the fathers consecrated it, — have we maintained them, realizing them, as each generation must, anew? Are we, in the consciousness that the life of man is pledged to higher levels here than elsewhere, striving still to bear aloft the standards of liberty and hope; or, disillusioned and defeated, are we feeUng the disgrace of having had a free field in which to do new things and of not having done them? The answer must be, I am sm^e, that we have been in a fair way of failure, — ^tragic failure. And we stand in danger of utter failure yet, except we fulfil speedily the determination we have reached, to deal with the new and subtle tyrannies according to their deserts. Don't de- ceive yourselves for a moment as to the power of the great interests which now dominate our development. They are so great that it is almost an open question whether the government of the United States can domi- nate them or not. Go one step further, make their or- ganized power permanent, and it may be too late to turn back. The roads diverge at the point where we stand. Country 595 Sin "©lit (n "^irime o£ ^^tsfitation By William Vaughn Moody (In these noble words the poet voices his pain at the Philippine war, and the wave of "imperialism" which then swept over America) "\A /"AS it for this our fathers kept the law? '^ ' This crown shall crown their struggle and their ruth? Are we the eagle nation Milton saw Mewing its mighty youth, Soon to possess the mountain winds of truth, And be a swift familiar of the sun Where aye before God's face his trumpets run? Or have we but the talons and the maw, And for the abject likeness of our heart Shall some less lordly bird be set apart?— Some gross-billed wader where the swamps are fat? Some gorger in the sun? Some prowler with the bat? Ah, no! We have not fallen so. We are oxir fathers' sons: let those who lead us know! . . . We charge you, ye who lead us. Breathe on their chivalry no hint of stain! Turn not their new-world victories to gain! One least leaf plucked for chaffer from the bays . Of their dear praise. One jot of their pure conquest put to hire, The implacable republic will require; With clamor, in the glare and gaze of noon, Or subtly, coming as a thief at night. 596 The Cry for Justice But surely, very surely, slow or soon That insult deep we deeply will requite. Tempt not our weakness, our cupidity! For save we let the island men go free, Those baffled and dislaureled ghosts Will curse us from the lamentable coasts Where walk the frustrate dead, The cup of trembling shall be drained quite, Eaten the sour bread of astonishment, With ashes of the heart shall be made white Our hair, and wailing shall be in the tent; Then on your guiltier head Shall our intolerable self-disdain Wreak suddenly its anger and its pain; For manifest in that disastrous light We shall discern the right And do it, tardily. — ye who lead. Take heed! Blindness we may forgive, but baseness we will smite> •Efif Pr(« of Eifttrtp By Thomas Jefferson (See pages 228, 332) /''^HERISH the spirit of our people and keep alive ^•~^ their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assembhes, judges and governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and Country 597 experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor. %v i^t > (^ 5! > 1-' 5 s *?: w M o r/> H Children 645 But the young, young children, my brothers, They are weeping bitterly! They are weeping in the playtime of the others. In the country of the free. Do you question the young children in the sorrow Why their tears are falling so? The old man may weep for his to-morrow Which is lost in Long Ago ; The old tree is leafless in the forest. The old year is ending in the frost. The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest. The old hope is hardest to be lost: But the young, young children, O my brothers. Do you ask them why they stand Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers, In our happy Fatherland? They look up with their pale and sunken faces. And their looks are sad to see, For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses Down the cheeks of infancy; "Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary. Our young feet," they say, "are very weak; Few paces have we taken, yet are weary — Our grave-rest is very far to seek. Ask the old why they weep, and not the children, For the outside earth is cold. And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering, And the graves are for the old." . . . "For oh," say the children, "we are weary, And we cannot run or leap; If we cared for any meadows, it were merely To drop down in them and sleep. 646 The Cry for Justice Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping, We fall ijpon our faces, trying to go; And, underneath our heavy eyeUds drooping. The reddest flower would look as pale as snow. For, all day, we drag our burden tiring Through the coal-dark, underground, Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron In the factories, round and round. "For, all day, the wheels are droning, turning; Their wind comes in oiu- faces. Till our hearts turn, om- head, with pulses burning, And the walls turn in their places : Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling, Turns the long light that drops adoAvn the wall. Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling. All are turning, all the day, and we with all. And all day, the iron wheels are droning, And sometimes we could pray, '0 j'e wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moaning) 'Stop! be silent for to-day!' "... They look up, with their pale and sunken faces. And their look is dread to see. For they mind you of the angels in their places. With eyes turned on Deity. "How long," they say, "how long, cruel nation. Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart, — Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation, And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upward, gold-heaper. And your purple shows your path! But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper Than the strong man in his wrath." Children 64? CSild %abov in CnglantJ {From "An Industrial History of England") By Heney de B. Gibbins SOMETIMES regular traffickers would take the place of the manufacturer, and transfer a number of chil- dren to a factory district, and there keep them, generally in some dark cellar, till they could hand them over to a mill owner in want of hands, who would come and examine their height, strength, and bodily capacities, exactly as did the slave owners in the American markets. After that the children were simply at the mercy of their owners, nominally as apprentices, but in reality as mere slaves, who got no wages, and whom it was not worth while even to feed and clothe properly, because they were so cheap and their places could be so easily supplied. It was often arranged by the parish authorities, in order to get rid of imbeciles, that one idiot should be taken by the mill owner with every twenty sane children. The fate of these unhappy idiots was even worse than that of the others. The secret of their final end has never been dis- closed, but we can form some idea of their awful sufferings from the hardships of the other victims to capitalist greed and cruelty. The hours of their labor were only limited by exhaustion, after many modes of torture had been unavaihngly applied to force continued work. Chil- dren were often worked sixteen hoius a day, by day and by night. 6J^8 The Cry for Justice 9?iU Cgtldt^n {From "Processionals") By John Curtis Undeewood (American poet, born 1874) WE have forgotten how to sing: our laughter is a godless thing: listless and loud and shrill and sly. We have forgotten how to smile. Our lips, our voices too are vile. We are all dead before we die. Our mothers' mothers made us so: the father that we never know in bUndness and in wantonness Caused us to come to question you. What is it that you others do, that profit so by our distress? You and your children softly sleep. We and oiir mothers vigil keep. You cheated us of all delight, Ere our sick spirits came to birth : you made our fair and fruitful earth a nest of pestilence and blight. Your black machines are never still, and hard, relentless as your will, they card us like the cotton waste. And flesh and blood more cheap than they, they seize and eat and shred away, to feed the fever of your haste. For we are waste and shoddy here, who know no God, no faith but fear, no happiness, no hope but sleep. Half imbecile and half obscene we sit and tend each tense machine, too sick to sigh, too tired to weep. Until the tortured end of day, when fevered faces turn away, to see the stars from blackness leap. Children 649 3n tfte &Ium0 ot Eontion {From "The People of the Abyss") By Jack London (See pages 62, 125, 1S9, 519, 609) I "HERE is one beautiful sight in the East End, and only ■^ one, and it is the children dancing in the street when the organ-grinder goes his round. It is fascinating to watch them, the new-bom, the next generation, swaying and stepping, with pretty little mimicries and graceful inventions all their own, with muscles that move swiftly and easily, and bodies that leap airily, weaving rhythms never taught in dancing school. I have talked with these children, here, there, and every- where, and they struck me as being bright as other chil- dren, and in many ways even brighter. They have most active little imaginations. Their capacity for projecting themselves into the realm of romance and fantasy is remarkable. A joyous hfe is romping in their blood. They delight in music, and motion, and color, and very often they betray a startling beauty of face and form under their filth and rags. But there is a Pied Piper of London Town who steals them all away. They disappear. One never sees them again, or anything that suggests them. You may look for them in vain among the generation of grown-ups. Here you will find stimted forms, ugly faces, and blunt and stolid minds. Grace, beauty, imagination, all the resiliency of mind and muscle, are gone. Sometimes, however, you may see a woman, not necessarily old, but twisted and deformed out of all womanhood, bloated and druiiken, lift her draggled skirts and execute a few gro- 650 The Cry for Justice tesque and lumbering steps upon the pavement. It is a hint that she was once one of those children who danced to the organ-grinder. Those grotesque and Iiunbering steps are all that is left of the promise of childhood. In the befogged recesses of her brain has arisen a fleeting memory that she was once a girl. The crowd closes in. Little girls are dancing beside her, about her, with all the pretty graces she dimly recollects, but can no more than parody with her body. Then she pants for breath, exhausted, and stmnbles out through the circle. But the little girls dance on. The children of the Ghetto possess all the qualities which make for noble manhood and womanhood; but the Ghetto itself, like an infuriated tigress turning on its young, turns upon and destroys all these qualities, blots out the light and laughter, and moulds those it does not kill into sodden and forlorn creatmres, imcouth, degraded, and wretched below the beasts of the field. &Ium Cliiltiten {From "Songs of Joy") By William H. Davies (See page 677) "V/'OUR songs at night a drunkard sings, ■*■ Stones, sticks and rags your daily flowers; Like fishes' lips, a bluey white. Such lips, poor mites, are yours. Poor little things, so sad and solemn. Whose lives are passed in human crowds — When in the water I can see Heaven with a flock of clouds. Children 651 Poor little mites that breathe foul air, Where garbage chokes the sink and drain — Now when the hawthorn smells so sweet, Wet with the summer rain. But few of ye will live for long; Ye are but small new islands seen, To disappear before your lives Can grow and be made green. il5o. 5 ioSn &tt«t By Richard Whiteing (See page 137) SOME are locked in all day, "to keep 'em quiet," while their owners go forth to work or to booze. The infant faces, lined with their own dirt, and distorted by the smeared impurities of the window-panes, seem like the faces of actors made up for effects of old age. The poor little hands finger the panes without ceasing, as they might finger prison bars. The captives crawl over one another hke caged insects, and all their gestures show the irritation of contact. But the clearest transmission through that foul mfedium is to the ear rather than to the eye, in the querulous whimper, at times rising to a wail, which betokens the agitation of their shattered nerves. The children playing below look up at them, and beckon them into the yard, or make faces at them, with the charitable intent of provoking them to a smile. 652 The Cry for Justice EocK0lcg ^all iiftp gcar0 mttt By Alfred Tennyson (See pages 77, 486) T S it well that while we range with Science, glorying in ■'■ the time, City children soak and blacken scul and sense in city slime? There among the gloomy alleys Progress halts on palsied feet; Crime and hunger cast out maidens by the thousand on the street; There the master scrimps his haggard seamstress of her daily bread; There the single sordid attic holds the living and the dead; There the smouldering fire of fever creeps across the rotted floor. And the crowded couch of incest, in the warrens of the poor. By Thomas Carlyle (See pages 31, 74, 133, 488, 553) "T^ESCEND where you will into the lower class, in *~^ Town or Country, by what avenue you will, by Factory Inquiries, Agricultural Inquiries, by Revenue Returns, by Mining-Laborer Committees, by opening your own eyes and looking, the same sorrowful result discloses itself : you have to admit that the working body Children 653 of this rich Enghsh Nation has sunk or is fast sinking into a state, to which, all sides of it considered, there was literally never any parallel. At Stockport Assizes, a Mother and a Father are arraigned and found guilty of poisoning three of their children, to defraud a "burial- society" of some £3 8s. due on the death of each child: they are arraigned, found guilty; and the official authori- ties, it is whispered, hint that perhaps the case is not solitary, that perhaps you had better not probe farther into that department of things. ... In the British land, a human Mother and Father, of white skin and professing the Christian religion, had done this thing; they, with their Irishism and necessity and savagery, had been driven to do it. Such instances are like the highest moun- tain apex emerged into view; under which lies a whole mountain region and land, not yet emerged. A human Mother and Father had said to themselves, what shall we do to escape starvation? We are deep sunk here, in our dark cellar; and help is far. — Yes, in the Ugolino Hunger- tower stern things happen; best-loved little Gaddo fallen dead on his father's knees! — The Stockport Mother and Father think and hint: Our poor little starveling Tom, who cries all day for victuals, who will see only evil and not good in this world: if he were out of misery at once; he well dead, and the rest of us perhaps kept alive? It is thought, and hinted; at last it is done. And now Tom being killed, and all spent and eaten, Is it poor little starveling Jack that must go, or poor little starveling Will? — What a committee of ways and means! 654 The Cry for Justice W.ut& anti &tras0 By Arthur Rimbaud (French poet, 1854-1891) TD LACK in the fog and in the snow, ■I— ' Where the great air-hole windows glow, With rounded rumps, Upon their knees five urchins squat. Looking down where the baker, hot. The thick dough thumps. They watch his white arm turn the bread, Ere through an opening flaming red The loaf he flings. They smell the good bread baking, while The chubby baker with a smile An old tune sings. Breathing the warmth into their soul. They squat around the red air-hole, As a breast warm; And when, for feasters' midnight bout, The ready bread is taken out, In a cake's form — Sigh with low voices like a prayer. Bending toward the light, down there Where heaven gleams — So eager that they burst their breeches, And in the winter wind that screeches Their linen streams! Children 665 Bt Charles Dickens (See page 88) I "HE room in which the boys were fed, was a large stone ■•- hall, with a copper at one end; out of which the master, dressed in an apron for the purpose, and assisted by one or two women, ladled the gruel at meal times. Of this festive composition each boy had one porringer, and no more — except on occasions of great public rejoic- ing, when he had two ounces and a quarter of bread besides. The bowls never wanted washing. The boys polished them with their spoons till they shone again; and when they had performed this operation (which never took very long, the spoons being nearly as long as the bowls) they would sit staring at the copper, with such eager eyes, as if they could have devoured the very bricks of which it was composed; emplojang themselves, meanwhile, in sucking their fingers most assiduously, with the view of catching up any stray splashes of gruel that might have been cast thereon. Boys have generally excellent appe- tites. Oliver Twist and his companions suffered the tor- tures of slow starvation for three months; at last they got so voracious and wild with hunger, that one boy, who was tall for his age, and hadn't been used to that sort of thing (for his father had kept a small cook-shop), hinted darkly to his companions, that unless he had another basin of gruel -per diem, he was afraid he might some night happen to eat the boy who slept next to him, who happened to be a weakly youth of tender age. He had a wild, hungry eye; and they implicitly believed him. A coun- cil was held; lots were cast who should walk up to the 656 The Cry for Justice master after supper that evening, and ask for more; and it fell to Oliver Twist. This evening arrived; the boys took their places. The master, in his cook's uniform, stationed himself at the copper; his pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served out; and a long grace was said over the short commons. The gruel disappeared; the boys whispered to each other, and winked at Oliver; while his next neighbors nudged him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said, somewhat alarmed at his own temerity: "Please, sir, I want some more." The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralyzed with wonder; the boys with fear. "What!" said the master at length, in a faint voice. "Please, sir," replied Oliver, "I want some more." The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arms; and shrieked aloud for the beadle. The board were sitting in solemn conclave, when Mr. Bumble rushed into the room in great excitement, and addressing the gentleman in the high chair, said: "Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist has asked for more!" There was a general start. Horror was depicted on every countenance. "For more!" said Mr. Limbkins. "Compose yourself, Bmnble, and answer me distinctly. Do I understand that OLIVER TWIST ASKS POR MORE GEOEOB CRXJIKSHANK (English caricaturial, 1792-1878. One of the illiitslriilions of the orig- inal alilion of 'Olii'cr Twist") Children 657 he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?" "He did, sir," replied.Bumble. "That boy will be hung," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. "I know that boy will be hung." Nobody controverted the prophetic gentleman's opin- ion. An animated discussion took place. Oliver was ordered into instant confinement; and a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of the gate, offering a reward of five pounds to anybody who would take Oliver Twist off the hands of the parish. In other words, five pounds and Oliver Twist were offered to any man or woman who wanted an apprentice to any trade, business, or calling. "I never was more convinced of anything in my life," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, as he knocked at the gate and read the bill the next morning: "I never was more convinced of anything in my life, than I am that that boy will come to be hung." M 1 w H tri > H H O W :z; The Poet 779 Z. l^tttut to ^oUticiS By Waltek Lippmann (American writer upon public questions, bom 1889) A'X 7"E have almost no spiritual weapons against classi- * ' calism: iiniversities, churches, newspapers are by- products of a commercial success; we have no tradition of intellectual revolt. The American college student has the gravity and mental habits of a Supreme Court judge; his "wild oats" are rarely spiritual; the critical, analytical habit of mind is distrusted. We say that "knocking" is a sign of the "sorehead" and we sublimate criticism by saying that "every knock is a boost." America does not play with ideas; generous speculation is regarded as insincere, and shunned as if it might endanger the optimism which underhes success. All this becomes such an insula- tion against new ideas that when the Yankee goes abroad he takes his environment with him. {From "Thus Spake Zarathv^tra") By Feiedeich Nietzsche (Glerman philosopher, 1844-1900, whose lofty utterance has suffered from materialistic interpreters) AS I lay in sleep a sheep ate up the ivy crown of my head ■^*- — ate and then said: "Zarathustra is no more a scholar." Said it and went strutting away, and proud. A child told it to me. . . . 780 The Cry for Justice This is the truth. I am gone out of the house of the scholars, and have slammed to the door behind me. . . . I am too hot, and biu'mng with my own thoughts; oft will it take away my breath. I must into the open and out of all dusty rooms. But they sit cool in cool shadows; they wish in all things to be but spectators, and guard themselves lest they sit where the sun burn the steps. Like those who stand upon the street and stare at the people who go by; so they wait also and stare at the thoughts that others have thought. If one touches them with the hands, they make dust around them like meal-sacks, and involuntarily; but who could guess that their dust comes from corn and the golden rapture of the summer fields? BOOK XVI Socialism The most eloquent passages from the pens of those who foresee the definite solution of the problems of economic inequality. Every aspect of the Socialist movement is represented. 30 It BotUm to gott? {From "Merrie England") 'By Robert Blatchford (See pages 66, 121, 170, 383) GO out into the streets of any big English town, and use your eyes, John. What do you find? You find some rich and idle, wasting unearned wealth to their own shame and injury, and the shame and injury of others. You find hard-working people packed away in vile, unhealthy streets. You find little children, fam- ished, dirty, and half naked outside the luxurious clubs, shops, hotels, and theatres. You find men and women overworked and vmderpaid. You find vice and want and disease cheek by jowl with religion and culture and wealth. You find the usurer, the gambler, the fop, the finnikin fine lady, and you find the starveUng, the slave, the vagrant, the drunkard, and the harlot. Is it nothing to you, John Smith? Are you a citizen? Are you a man? And will not strike a blow for the right nor lift a hand to save the fallen, nor make the smallest sacrifice for the sake of your brothers and your sisters! John, I am not trying to work upon your feelings. This is not rhetoric, it is hard fact. Throughout these letters I have tried to be plain and practical, and moderate. I have never so much as offered you a ghmpse of the higher regions of thought. I have suffered no hint of ideahsm to escape me. I have kept as close to the earth as I could. I am only now talking street talk about the common sights of the common town. I say that wrong (783) 78J^ The Cry for Justice and sorrow are here crushing the life out of otir brothers and sisters. I say that you, in common with all men, are responsible for the things that are. I say that it is your duty to seek the remedy; and I say that if you seek it you will find it. ^ These common sights of the common streets, John, are very terrible to me. To a man of a nervous tempera- ment, at once thoughtful and imaginative, those sights must be terrible. The prostitute under the lamps, the baby beggar in the gutter, the broken pauper in his liv- ery of shame, the weary worker stifling in his filthy slums, the wage slave toiling at his task, the sweater's victim "sewiag at once, with a double thread, a shroud as well as a shirt," these are dreadful, ghastly, shameful facts which long since seared themselves upon my heart. All this sin, all this wretchedness, all this pain, in spite of the smiling fields and the laughing waters, luider the awful and imsullied sky. And no remedy! These things I saw, and I knew that I was responsible as a man. Then I tried to find out the causes of the wrong and the remedy therefor. It has taken me some years, John. But I think I understand it now, and I want you to understand it, and to help in your tm-n to teach the truth to others. Sometimes while I have been writing these letters I have felt bitter and angry. More than once I have thought that when I got through the work I would ease my heart with a few lines of irony or invective. But I have thought better of it. Looking back now I remem- ber my own weakness, folly, cowardice. I have no heart to scorn or censure other men. Charity, John, mercy, John, humility, John. We are poor creatures, all of us. Socialism 786 ^^t Mm of t^t &on ot 9^an By Vida D. Sctjddbr (See page 289) THY Kingdom, Lord, we long for, Where love shall find its own; And brotherhood triumphant Our years of pride disown. Thy captive people languish In mill and mart and mine; We lift to Thee their anguish, We wait Thy promised Sign! Thy Kuigdom, Lord, Thy Kingdom! All secretly it grows; In faithful hearts forever His seed the Sower sows; Yet ere its consiunmation Must dawn a mighty doom; For judgment and salvation The Son of Man shall come. If now perchance in tumult His destined Sign appear, — The rising of the people, — Dispel our coward fear! Let comforts that we cherish, Let old traditions die, Our wealth, our wisdom perish, " So that He draw but nigh! so 78S The Cry for Justice By John Ruskin (See pages 106, 491, 752, 756) "POR my own part, I will put up with this state of ■'■ things, passively, not an hour longer. I am not an imselfish person, nor an evangelical one; I have no particular pleasure in doing good; neither do I dishke doing it so much as to expect to be rewarded for it in another world. But I simply cannot paint, nor read, nor look at minerals, nor do anything else I like, and the very light cf the morning sky has become hateful to me, because of the misery that I know of, and see signs of where I know it not, which no imagination can inter- pret too bitterly. %^t iDnt SDtttg (From "The Measure of the Hours") By Maurice Maeterlinck (Belgian poet, dramatist and philosopher, born 1862) T ET us start fairly with the great truth: for those •*— ' who possess there is only one certain duty, which is to strip themselves of what they have so as to bring themselves into the condition of the mass that possesses nothing. It is understood, in every clear-thinking con- science, that no more imperative duty exists; but, at the same time, it is admitted that this duty, for lack of courage, is impossible of accomplishment. For the rest, in the heroic history of duties, even at Socialism 787 the most ardent period, even at the beginning of Chris- tianity and in the majority of the reUgious orders that made a special cult of poverty, this is perhaps the only duty that has never been completely fulfilled. It behooves us, therefore, when considering our subsidiary duties, to remember that the essential one has been knowingly evaded. Let this truth govern us. Let us not forget that we are speaking in shadow, and that our boldest, our utmost steps will never lead us to the point at which we ought to have been from the first. By Heebeet Spencee (See page 460) TT can never be pretended that the existing titles to -'■ landed property are legitimate. The original deeds were written with the sword, soldiers were the convey- ancers, blows were the current coin given in exchange, and for seals, blood. Those who say that "time is a great legaliser" must find satisfactory answers to such questions as — How long does it take for what was originally wrong to become right? At what rate per annum do invalid claims become valid? 788 The Cry for Justice By Abraham Lincoln I (See pages 234, 623) TT is assumed that labor is available only ia connec- ■*■ tion with capital; that nobody labors unless some- body else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it, induces him to labor. This assiuned, it is next con- sidered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive them to do it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. Now, there is no such relation between capital ana labor as here assmned. . . . Labor is prior to and inde- pendent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. 9i St^accjgtns &ons By Algeenon Charles Swinburne (See pages 376, 637) W ''E mix from many lands. We march for very far; In hearts and lips and hands Our staffs and weapons are; The light we walk in darkens sun and moon and star. Socialism 789 It doth not flame and wane With years and spheres that roll, Storm cannot shake nor stain The strength that makes it whole, ■The fire that moulds and moves it of the sovereign soul. . . . From the edge of harsh derision, From discord and defeat. From doubt and lame division. We pluck the fruit and eat; And the mouth finds it bitter, and the spirit sweet. . . . nations undivided, single people and free. We dreamers, we derided. We mad blind men that see. We bear you witness ere ye come that ye shall be. Ye sitting among tombs. Ye standing round the gate. Whom fire-mouthed war consumes, Or cold-lipped peace bids wait. All tombs and bars shall open, every grave and grate. . . . sorrowing hearts of slaves, We heard you beat from far! We bring the light that saves. We bring the morning star; Freedom's good things we bring you, whence all good things are. . . . 790 The Cry for Justice Rise, ere the dawn be risen; Come, and be all souls fed; From field and street and prison Come, for the feast is spread; Live, for the truth is living; wake, for night is dead. lEfie 2Dutie0 ot 9? an By Giuseppe Mazzini (Italian patriot and statesman, 1805-1872; the deliverer of his country here urges the deliverance of mankind) AT yE improve with the improvement of Humanity; ' ' nor without the improvement of the whole can you hope that your ovm moral and material conditions will improve. Generally speaking, you cannot, even if you would, separate your Ufe from that of Humanity; you hve in it, by it, for it. Your souls, with the excep- tion of the very few men of exceptional power, cannot free themselves from the influence of the elements amid which they exist, just as the body, however robust its constitution, cannot escape from the effects of corrupt air around it. How many of you have the strength of mind to bring up your sons to be wholly truthful, know- ing that you are sending them forth to persecution in a country where tyrants and spies bid them conceal or deny two-thirds of their real opinions? How many of you resolve to educate them to despise wealth in a society where gold is the only power which obtains honors, in- fluence, and respect, where indeed it is the only protec- tion from the tyranny and insults of the powerful and their agents? Who is there among you who in pure love Socialism 791 and with the best intentions in the world has not murmured to his dear ones in Italy, Do not trust men; the honest man should retire into himself and fly from public life; charity begins at home, — and such-like maxims, plainly- immoral, but prompted by the general state of society? What mother is there among you who, although she belongs to a faith which adores the cross of Christ, the voluntary martyr for humanity, has not flung her arms around her son's neck and striven to dissuade him from perilous attempts to benefit his brothers? And even if you had strength to teach the contrary, would not the whole of society, with its thousand voices, its thousand evil examples, destroy the effect of your words? Can you purify, elevate your own souls in an atmosphere of contamination and degradation? And, to descend to your material conditions, do you think they can be lastingly ameliorated by anything but the amelioration of all? Millions of pounds are spent annually here in England, where I write, by private charity, for the relief of individuals who have fallen into want; yet want increases here every year, and charity to individuals has proved powerless to heal the evil — the necessity of collective organic remedies is more and more universally felt. . . . There is no hope for you exftept in universal reform and in the brotherhood of all the peoples of Europe, and through Europe of all humanity. I charge you then, my brothers, by your duty and by your own interest, not to forget that your first duties — duties with- out fulfilling which you cannot hope to fulfil those owed to family and covmtry — are to Humanity. Let your words and your actions be for all, since God is for all, in His Love and in His Law, Li whatever land you may 792 The Cry for Justice be, wherever a man is fighting for right, for justice, for truth, there is your brother; wherever a man suffers through the oppression of error, of injustice, of tyranny, there is your brother. Free men and slaves, YOU ARE ALL BROTHERS. JFrom B,etioIution to Kcbolutton By George D. Hereon (See page 730) WE have talked much of the brotherhood to come; but brotherhood has always been the fact of our life, long before it became a modern and insipid senti- ment. Only we have been brothers in slavery and tor- ment, brothers in ignorance and its perdition, brothers in disease and war and want, brothers in prostitution and hyjxjcrisy. What happens to one of us sooner or later happens to all; we have always been imescapably in- volved in a common destiny. We are brothers in the soil from which we spring; brothers in earthquakes, floods and famines; brothers in la grippe, cholera, small- pox and priestcraft. It is to the interests of the whole of mankind to stamp out the disease that may be start- ing tonight in some wretched Siberian hamlet; to rescue the children of Egypt and India from the British cotton mills; to escape the craze and blight of some new super- stition springing up in Africa or India or Boston. The tuberculosis of the' East Side sweatshops is infecting the whole of the city of New York, and spreading therefrom to the Pacific and back across the Atlantic. The world constantly tends to the level of the downmost man in it; Socialism 793 and that downmost man is the world's real ruler, hugging it close to his bosom, dragging it down to his death. You do not think so, but it is true, and it ought to be true. For if there were some way by which some of us could get free apart from others, if there were some way by which some of us could have heaven while others had hell, if there were some way by which part of the world could escape some form of the blight and peril and misery of disinherited labor, then would our world indeed be lost and damned; but since men have never been able to separate themselves from one another's woes and wrongs, since history is fairly stricken with the lesson that we cannot escape brotherhood of some kind, since the whole of life is teaching us that we are hourly choosing between brotherhood in suffering and brotherhood in good, it remains for us to choose the brotherhood of a co-operative world, with all its fruits thereof — the fruits of love and liberty. %^z a^atcli of tge QQlot&et£t By William Mobbis (English poet and artist, 1834-1896; founder of the "Arts and Crafts" movement, and a lifelong Socialist) WHAT is this — the soimd and rumor? What is this that all men hear. Like the wind in hollow valleys when the storm is draw- ing near, Like the rolling-on of ocean in the eventide of fear? . 'Tis the people marching on. 794 The Cry for Justice Chorus Hark the rolling of the thunder! Lo ! the sun ! and lo ! thereunder Riseth wrath, and hope, and wonder, And the host conies marching on. Forth they come from grief and torment- on they go towards health and mirth. All the wide world is their dwelling, every corner of the earth. Buy them, sell them for thy service! Try the bargain what 'tis worth, For the days are marching on. (Chorus) Many a hundred years passed over have they labored deaf and blind; Never tidings reached their sorrow, never hope their toil might find. Now at last they've heard and hear it, and the cry comes down the wind And their feet are marching on. (Chorus) "Is it war then? Will ye perish as the dry wood in the fire? Is it peace? Then be ye of us, let your hope be our desire. Come and live! for life awaketh, and the world shall never tire; And hope is marching on. (Chorus) Socialism 795 {From "Capital") By Kabl Marx (A German Jew,fatherof modern revolutionary Socialism, 1818-1883. Of his epoch-making work the scope of this collection permits but a brief passage, by way of illustration) A^ /"HAT is a working day? What is the length of time ' ' during which capital may consume the labor- power whose daily value it buys? How far may the working-day be extended beyond the working time nec- essary for the reproduction of labor-power itself? It has been seen that to these questions capital replies: the working day contains the full twenty-four hours, with the deduction of the few hours of repose without which labor-power absolutely refuses its services again. Hence it is self-evident that the laborer is nothing else, his whole hfe through, than labor-power; that therefore all his disposable time is by nature and law labor-time, to be devoted to the self-expansion of capital. Time for education, for intellectual development, for the ful- filling of social functions and for social intercourse, for the free-play of his bodily and mental activity, even the rest time of Sunday (and that in a country of Sabbatari- ans!) — ^moonshine! But in its blind, unrestrainable pas- sion, its were-wolf hxmger for surplus-labor, capital oversteps not only the moral, but even the merely phys- ical maximum bounds of the working-day. It usurps the time for growth, development, and healthy main- tenance of the body. It steals the time required for the consimiption of fresh air and sunlight. It higgles over a meal-time, incorporating it where possible with the 796 The Cry for Justice process of production itself, so that food is given to the laborer as to a mere means of production, as coal is supplied to the boiler, grease and oil to the machinery. It reduces the sound sleep needed for the restoration, reparation, refreshment of the bodily powers, to just so many hours of torpor as the revival of an organism, absolutely exhausted, renders essential. It is not the normal maintenance of the labor-power which is to determine the limits of the working-day; it is the great- est possible daily expenditure of labor-power, no matter how diseased, compulsory and painful it may be, which is to determine the limits of the laborers' period of repose. Capital cares nothing for the length of life of labor-power. All that concerns it is simply and solely the maximmn of labor-power, that can be rendered fluent in a working-day. It attains this end by shortening the extent of the laborer's life, as a greedy farmer snatches increased produce from the soil by robbing it of its fertility. %^t S)tz&nmtion at Ea&ot By Louis Blanc (Early French Utopian Socialist, 1811-1882) "\1^ /"HAT is competition, from the point of view of the ' '' workman? It is work put up to auction. A contractor wants a workman; three present themselves. "How much for your work?" "Half a crown; I have a wife and children." "Well; and how much for yours?" "Two shillings; I have no children, but I have a wife," Socialism 797 "Very well; and now how much for yours?" "One and eightpence are enough for me; I am single." "Then you shall have the work." It is done; the bargain is struck. And what are the other two workmen to do? It is to be hoped they will die quietly of hunger. But what if they take to thieving? Never fear; we have the police. To murder? We have the hangman. As for the lucky one, his trixmiph is only temporary. Let a fourth workman make his appearance, strong enough to fast every other day, and his price will run down still lower ; there will be a new outcast, perhaps a new recruit for the prison. %lt WiSi&it0 ot CapttaH0m {From " The Laws of Social Evolution ") By Theodoe Heetzka (An Austrian economist, one of the few in the world who have dealt with the real problem of economic science, the elimination of waste and the rationalizing of the system of production. In the following passage he investigates the question what proportion of human labor is lost through our competitive methods of industry. The passage has been frequently quoted, in a mistrans- lation which obscures its real significance. The following is not so much a translation as a summary of the essential statements) AA 7"E are to investigate what labor-power is required, * * under circumstances now existing in Austria (1886), to produce the most essential food-stuffs, and suitable housing and clothing. For every family has been allowed a separate, five-roomed house, about forty feet square, and calculated to last fifty years. I have reckoned all men 798 The Cry for Justice between the ages of sixteen and fifty as capable of working: there being of such in Austria about five milhon. I find that it requires the labor of 615,000 workers to supply the population of 22,000,000 with food, clothing and shelter: that is to say, it requires only 12.3 per cent of available labor-power, and each worker needs to labor only six weeks in the year, in order to provide for himself and his family the necessary means of life. In order that no one should conclude that the production of the luxuries of the better situated part of the population consumes the balance of the available labor-power, let us add the labor-cost of all the luxury-industries in the widest sense. Including the labor-cost of transportation, these require 315,000 workers, or 6.3 per cent of the available labor-power. As a precaution, I increase the total of 18.6 per cent to 20 per cent, and so find that by working sixty days in the year, the actual existing consump- tion should be fully satisfied. There remains now this double question: What becomes of the additional two hundred and forty days, which are actually spent in labor? What abyss swallows up the other 80 per cent of the nation's labor-power? And second, how can it be that in spite of hard work, the majority are the prey of misery, when at the utmost 20 per cent of the available labor-power should suffice for the maintenance of all? By G. Beenakd Shaw A NY person under the age of thirty, who, having any ■^*- knowledge of the existing social order, is not a revolutionist, is an inferior. Socialism 799 jfrom IBUtJoIution to Urtolutfon By George D. Hereon (See pages 730, 792) T TNDER the Socialist movement there is coming a ^^ time, and the time may be even now at hand, when improved conditions or adjusted wages will no longer be thought to be an answer to the cry of labor; yes, when these will be but an insult to the common intelligence. It is not for better wages, improved capital- ist conditions, or a share of capitalist profits that the Socialist movement is in the world; it is here for the aboUtion of wages and profits, and for the end of capital- ism and the private capitalist. Reformed political insti- tutions, boards of arbitration between capital and labor, philanthropies and privileges that are but the capitalist's gifts— none of these can much longer answer the ques- tion that is making the temples, thrones and parhaments of the nations tremble. There can be no peace between the man who is down and the man who builds on his back. There can be no reconciliation between classes; there can only be an end of classes. It is idle to talk of good will until there is first justice, and idle to talk of justice imtil the man who makes the world possesses the work of his own hands. The cry of the world's workers can be answered with nothing save the whole product of their work. 800 The Cry for Justice %^t Jnttrnationale By Eugene Pottier i (Hymn of the revolutionary working-class of aU natioi A RISE, ye pris'ners of starvation! -^*- Arise, ye wretched of the earth, For Justice thimders condemnation, A better world's in birth. No more tradition's chains shall bind us. Arise, ye slaves! No more in thrall! The earth shall rise on new foundations, We have been naught, we shall be all. Refrain 'Tis the final conflict, Let each stand in his place, The International Party Shall be the hirnian race. Behold them seated in their glory. The kings of mine and rail and soil ! What would you read in all their story But how they plundered toil? Fruits of the people's work are buried In the strong coffers of a few; In voting for their restitution The men will only ask their due. (Refrain) Toilers from shops and fields united. The party we of all who work; The earth belongs to us, the people. No room here for the shirk. Socialism 801 How many on our flesh have fattened ! But if the noisome birds of prey Shall vanish from our sky some morning, The blessed smilight still will stay. (Refrain) ^Iz &pnlr{cali0t {From "The Red Wave") By Joseph-Heney Rosny, the Elder (See pages 585, 669) T IKE a thousand others, Rougemont wanted the daily ■'— ' revolution, which should ferment in the brain, not like a dream, but like an energy, should manifest itself by a discipline and a method, by daily exercises to keep it in condition. It was no longer a question of brand- ishing the torch. It was necessary to understand and to will, to organize social experience, to wage petty war- fare — sallies, raids, ambuscades ; to entertain cold hatreds, logical and continuous, to haggle over wages as the Norman peasant haggles over chickens, and above all to create a sort of happy excitement, a fraternal exaltation which would bring to the gatherings ideas of security, of trust, of mutual aid. The strikes will be beautiful schools of social struggle. They will open the path for magnanimous instincts, heroic and adventurous, which air the human soul. Always better organized, they will no longer reduce the artisan to famine, they wiU demand of him only to undergo some privations which the beauty of revolt will render almost joyous. They will develop generosity, SI 802 The Cry for Justice abnegation, the richest spirit of sacrifice. Their recol- lection will awaken magnificent and powerful images; they will lend to the social life that passionate unfore- seen, which is evoked in us by the virgin forest, the open plain, the palpitant sea. . . . Everywhere, finally, the proletariat will build its visions upon the basis of reality. %^t CommnnlsJt Qpanift^to (1848) By Ka.el Marx and Frederick Engels (See pages 234, 514, 795) ' I 'HE Communists disdain to conceal their views and ■^ aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite! ^^^t flMotftmB:man'0 laroffram By Ferdinand Lassalle (One of the founders of the German Socialist movement, 1825-1864. Lassalle was arrested and sentenced to prison for delivering the address from which the following paragraph is taken) A^ /"HOEVER invokes the idea of the working-class as ^^ the ruling principle of society, does not put forth a cry that divides and separates the classes of society. On the contrary, he utters a cry of reconciliation, a cry which embraces the whole of the community, a cry for Socialism 803 the abolishing of all the contradictions in every circle of society; a cry of union, in which all should join who do not wish for privileges, for the oppression of the people by privileged classes; a cry of love, which having once gone up from the heart of the people, will forever remain the true cry of the people, and whose meaning will still make it a cry of love, even when it sounds as the people's war cry. {From "The Jungle") Bt Upton Sinclair (See pages 43, 143, 194, 274, 403, 776) TT was hke coming suddenly upon some wild sight of ■*- nature — a mountain forest lashed by a tempest, a ship tossed about upon a stormy sea. Jurgis had an unpleasant sensation, a sense of confusion, of disorder, of wild and meaningless uproar. The man was tall and gaunt, as haggard as his auditor himself; a thin black beard covered half of his face, and one could see only two black hollows where the eyes were. He was speak- ing rapidly, in great excitement; he used many gestures — as he spoke he moved here and there upon the stage, reaching with his long arms as if to seize each person in his audience. His voice was deep, like an organ; it was some time, however, before Jurgis thought of the voice — he was too much occupied with his eyes to think of what the man was saying. But suddenly it seemed as if the speaker had been pointing straight at him, as if he had been singled out particularly for his remarks ; and so SOJf. The Cry for Justice Jurgis became suddenly aware of the voice, trembling, vibrant with emotion, with pain and longing, with a burden of things imutterable, not to be compassed by words. To hear it was to be suddenly arrested, to be gripped, transfixed. "You listen to these things," the man was saying, "and you say, 'Yes, they are true, but they have been that way always.' Or you say, ' Maybe it will come, but not in my time — it will not help me.' And so you return to your daily round of toil, you go back to be ground up for profits in the world-wide mill of economic might! To toil long hours for another's advantage; to Uve in mean and squalid homes, to work in dangerous and imhealthful places; to wrestle with the spectres of hun- ger and privation, to take your chances of accident, dis- ease and death. And each day the struggle becomes fiercer, the pace more cruel; each day you have to toil a little harder, and feel the iron hand of circmnstance close upon you a Uttle tighter. Months pass, years maybe — and then you come again; and again I am here to plead with you, to know if want and misery have yet done their work with you, if injustice and oppression have yet opened your eyes! I shall still be waiting — there is nothing else that I can do. There is no wilder- ness where I can hide from these things, there is no haven where I can escape them; though I travel to the ends of the earth, I find the same accursed system, — I find that all the fair and noble impulses of humanity, the dreams of poets and the agonies of martyrs, are shackled and bound in the service of organized and predatory Greed! And therefore I cannot rest, I cannot be silent; therefore I cast aside comfort and happiness, health and good repute — and go out into the world and Socialism 805 cry out the pain of my spirit! Therefore I am not to be silenced by poverty and sickness, not by hatred and obloquy, by threats and ridicule — ^not by prison and per- secution, if they should come — ^not by any power that is upon the earth or above the earth, that was, or is, or ever can be created. If I fail tonight, I can only try tomorrow; knowing that the fault must be mine — that if once the vision of my soul were spoken upon earth, if once the anguish of its defeat were uttered in human speech, it would break the stoutest barriers of prejudice, it would shake the most sluggish soul to action! It would abash the most cynical, it would terrify the most selfish; and the voice of mockery would be silenced, and fraud and falsehood would slink back into their dens, and the truth would stand forth alone! For I speak with the voice of the milUons who are voiceless! Of them that are oppressed and have no comforter! Of the dis- inherited of Ufe, for whom there is no respite and no deUverance, to whom the world is a prison, a dungeon of torture, a tomb! With the voice of the little child who toils tonight in a Southern cotton-mill, staggering with exhaustion, mmab with agony, and knowing no hope but the grave! Of the mother who sews by candle-light in her tenement garret, weary and weeping, smitten with the mortal hunger of her babes! Of the man who Hes upon a bed of rags, wrestling in his last sickness and leaving his loved ones to perish! Of the young girl who, somewhere at this moment, is walking the streets of this horrible city, beaten and starving, and making her choice between the brothel and the lake! With the voice of those, whoever and wherever they may be, who are caught beneath the wheels of the juggernaut of Greed! With the voice of humanity, calling for deliverance! Of 806 The Cry for Justice the everlasting soul of Man, arising from the dust; break- ing its way out of its prison — rending the bands of oppres- sion and ignorance — groping its way to the hght!" By Clatjde Joseph Rouget db Lisle (French captain of engineers, 1760-1836. He composed this most famous of aU revolutionary songs in 1792, when the French repubUcans were resisting the armies of all the kings and emperors of Europe. The volunteers from Marseilles marched into Paris singing it — "seven hundred Marseillais who know how to die") YE sons of toil, awake to glory! Hark, hark, what myriads bid you rise; Your children, wives and grandsires hoary — Behold their tears and hear their cries ! Shall hateful tyrants, mischief breeding, With hireling hosts, a ruffian band, — Affright and desolate the land. While peace and liberty lie bleeding? Chorus To arms! to arms! ye brave! Th' avenging sword unsheathe! March on, march on, all hearts resolved On Victory or Death. With luxury and pride surrounded. The vile, insatiate despots dare, Their thirst for gold and power unbounded, To mete and vend the light and air; ONCE YE HA^'E SEEN AIY EACE YE DARE NOT Mf)CK CARTOON FROJI THE "neW AGE," LONDON Socialism 807 Like beasts of burden would they load us, Like gods would bid their slaves adore, But Man is Man, and who is more? Then shall they longer lash and goad us? (Chorus) Liberty! can man resign thee. Once having felt thy generous flame? Can dungeons' bolts and bars confine thee, Or whips thy noble spirit tame? Too long the world has wept bewaihng. That Falsehood's dagger tyrants wield ; But Freedom is our sword and shield, And all their arts are unavailing! (Chorus) (From " My Ldfe") By August Bebel (A German woodworker, 1840-1912, who founded the Social- democratic party, and guided it for fifty years. In the following passage from his memoirs he teUs of his first imprisonment, as a part of Bismarclt's long campaign to destroy the Socialist movement in Germany) nPHE jury comprised six tradesmen, one aristocratic ■^ landowner, one head forester, and a few small land- owners. The court was crowded every day. The Min- ister of Justice and the Attorney-General were present on several occasions. As the leading papers of Germany gave extensive reports of the trial, their readers became for the first time aware of what SociaUsm meant and at what it aimed. The trial thus became eminently service- 808 The Cry for Justice able from the propagandist point of view; and we, espe- cially Liebknecht, who was the chief propagandist, were not loath to avail ourselves of this opportunity. But our opponents, day after day, were hard at work seeking to prejudice the jury against us, meeting them in the restaurant, when the events of the day were discussed, and exploiting these to our disadvantage. On the thirteenth day the "pleadings" for and against us commenced. The Public Prosecutor closed his speech with the words: "If you do not find against the accused, you will sanction high treason for all time to come." Our counsel repUed, and tore the indictment to tatters; but after two and a half hours of deliberation the jury came in with a verdict of guilty. The Public Prosecutor demanded two years' imprisonment in a fortress, and the court passed judgment accordingly. Our party friends were exceedingly angry on hearing the verdict and sentence; but I, feeUng reckless, proposed that we should go together to Auerbach's cellar — ^rendered famous by the scene in Goethe's Faust — and have a bottle of wine. Our wives, who received us with tears, were not pleased with our levity; but finally, plucky women that they were, they came with us. My doctor consoled my wife in a curious way. "Frau Bebel," he said, "if your husband gets a year in prison you may rejoice, for he needs a rest!" Socialism 809 Dimmit ^^igffin^ By Ben Hanfobd (A New York printer who literally gave his life for the Socialist movement, dying of consumption caused by overwork. He was the party's candidate for Vice-president in 1904) A COMRADE who shall be called Jimmie Higgins •'*■ because that is not his name, and who shall be styled a painter for the very good reason that he is not a painter, has perhaps had a greater influence in keeping me keyed up to my work in the labor movement than any other person. Jimmie Higgins is neither broad-shouldered nor thick- chested. He is neither pretty nor strong. A little, thia, weak, pale-faced chap.. But he is strong enough to sup- port a mother with equal physical disabilities. Strong enough to put in ten years of unrecognized and unex- celled service to the cauce cf Socialism. What did he do? Everything. He has made more Socialist speeches than any man ia America. Net that he did the talking; but he ccrried the platform en his bent shoulders when the plc/" committee failed to be on hand. Then he hustled around to another branch and got their platform out. Then he get a glass of water for "the speaker." That same evening or the day before he had distributed hand-bills advertising the meeting. Previously he had informed his branch as to "the best corner" in the district for drawing a crowd. Then he distributed leaflets at the meeting, and helped to take the platform down and carry it back to headquarters, and got subscribers for Socialist papers. 810 The Cry for Justice The next day the same, and so on all through the cam- paign, and one campaign after another. When he had a job, which was none too often, for Jimmie was not an extra good workman and was always one of the first to be laid off,- he would distribute Sociahst papers among his fellows during the noon hour, or take a run down to the gate of some factory and give out Socialist leaflets to the employees who came out to lunch. What did he do? Jimmie Higgins did everjrthiug, any- thing. Whatever was to be done, THAT was Jimmie's job. First to do his own work; then the work of those who had become wearied or negligent. Jimmie Higgins couldn't sing, nor dance, nor tell a story — ^but he could DO the thing to be done. Be you, reader, ever so great, you nor any other shall ever do more than that. Jimmie Higgins had no riches, but out of his poverty he always gave something, his all; be you, reader, ever so wealthy and- likewise generous, you shall never give more than that. Jimmie Higgins never had a front seat on the plat- form; he never knew the tonic of applause nor the inspiration of opposition; he never was seen in the fore- ground of the picture. But he had erected the platform and painted the pic- ture; through his hard, disagreeable and thankless toil it had come to pass that liberty was brewing and things were doing. Jimmie Higgins. How shall we pay, how reward this man? What gold, what laiu'els shall be his? There's just one way, reader, that you and I can "make good" with Jimmie Higgins and the likes of him. That way is to be like him. Socialism 811 Take a fresh start and never let go. Think how great his work, and he has so little to do with. How little ours in proportion to our strength! I know some grand men and women in the Socialist movement. But in high self-sacrifice, in matchless fidelity to truth, I shall never meet a greater man than Jimmie Higgias. And many a branch has one of him. And may they have more of him. From The Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians "POR ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many ■I- wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are. By Vachel Lindsay (See pages 335, 599, 672, 699) I AM unjust, but I can strive for justice. My life's unkind, but I can vote for kindness. I, the imloving, say life should be lovely. I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness. Man is a curious brute — he pets his fancies — Fighting mankind to win sweet luxury ; So he will be, tho' law be clear as crystal, Tho' all men plan to five in harmony. 812 The Cry for Justice Come, let us vote against our human nature, Crying to God in all the polling places To heal our everlasting sinfulness And make us sages with transfigured faces. ?9roB:te00ibi0m anli MXzt By William English Walling (American Socialist writer, born 1877) A CERTAIN measure of progress is to be expected ■^*- through the self-interest of the governing classes-. This is the national, or industrial, efficiency movement. Far greater progress is to be expected from the suc- cessive rise into power and prosperity of new elements of the middle-class — and of the upper layers of the wage- earners. This is the progressive and the Laborite movement. By far the greatest progress is to be expected as a direct or indirect result of the revolt of the lower classes. For this is the only force that can be relied upon to put an end to class government and class exploitation of industry, and to establish that social democracy which is the real or professed aim of every progressive movement. •By Otto von Bismabck (Speech in the German Reichstag, 1884) T ACKNOWLEDGE unconditionally the right to work, -'■ and I will stand up for it as long as I am in this place. Socialism 813 W^t Eefaolution in tfie 9?mtr anti ^Stactice o£ t^z ^uman Eacc {From the Preface) By Robert Owen (Early English "Utopian Socialist, 1771-1858) THE Past has been inevitable, and necessary to pro- duce the Present; as the Present will necessarily produce the Future state of hiunan existence. The past has produced a repulsive, unorganized, ignorant, and to a great extent, miserable state of society, over the world, as now existing. The present, however, has been made to develop all the materials requisite to produce an attractive, organized, enlightened and happy future, for the human race, in all parts of the globe. Those informed know that all the materials are amply prepared, ready to create a happy future; but that to effect this result, the materials must be wisely applied, to form a scientific arrangement of society, based on an accurate knowledge of human nature. Means are, therefore, now required to induce the pub- lic to investigate this important subject, which is in direct opposition to the false and fatal association of ideas which, from birth, have been forced into the minds and upon the habits of people. 814 The Cry for Justice Eunninfl; a &ocfali0t ?@apit {From "Comrade Yetta") , By Albert Edwards (See pages 205, 244) FOR half an hour they bent their heads over balance- sheets. It was an appalling situation. The debt was out of all proportion to the property. To be sure much of it was held by syrapathizers, who were not likely to foreclose. But there was no immediate hope of decreasing the burden. Any new income would have to go into improvements. The future of the paper depended not only on its ability to carry this dead weight, but on the continuance of the Pledge Fund and on Isa- dore's success in begging about a hundred dollars a week. "It's hopeless," Yetta said. "You might run a good weekly on these resources, but you need ten times as much to keep up a good daily." "Well, if you feel that way about it, Yetta, I hope you'll resign at to-night's meeting." His eyes turned away from her face about the busy room, and his dis- couraged look gave place to one of conviction. A note of dogged determination rang in his voice. — "Because it isn't hopeless! Our only real danger is that the executive committee may kill us with cold water. If we can get a comanittee that beheves in us, we'll be all right. A paper like this isn't a matter of finance. That's what you — and the other discouragers — don't see. You look at it from a bourgeois doUar-and-cents point of view. It's hopeless, is it? Well, we've been doing this impos- sible thing for more than a year. It's hopeless to carry such indebtedness? Good God! We started with noth- Socialism 816 ing but debts — nothing at all to show. Every number that comes out makes it more hopeful. The advertising increases. The Pledge Fund grows. Why, we've got twelve thousand people in the habit of reading it now. That habit is an asset which doesn't show in the books. Six months ago we had nothing! — ^not even experience. Why, our office force wasn't even organized! And now you say it's hopeless — ^want us to quit — just when it's getting relatively easy. We " Levine's querulous voice rose above the din of the machines — ^finding fault with something. A stenographer in a far corner began to count, "One! two! three!" Every one in the office, even the hnotypers and printer's devil beyond the partition took up the slogan. "0-o-oh! Cut it out and work for SociaUsm." The tense expression on Isadore's face relaxed into a confident grin. "That's it. You think we need money to run this paper? We're doing it on enthusiasm. And nothing is going to stop us." KmohatinB: tfie &tate By Ralph Waldo Emerson (See pages 235, 522, 631) WHAT is strange, there never was in any man suf- ficient faith in the power of rectitude, to inspire him with the broad design of renovating the State on the principle of right and love. All those who have pretended this design have been partial reformers, and have admitted in some manner the supremacy of the bad State. I do not call to mind a single human being who has steadily 816 The Cry for Justice denied the authority of the laws, on the simple ground cf his own moral nature. Such designs, full of genius and full of fate as they are, are not entertained except avowedly as air-pictures. If the individual who exhibits them dare to think them practicable, he disgusts schol- ars and churchmen; and men of talent, and women of superior sentiments, caimot hide their contempt. Not the less does nature continue to fill the heart of youth with suggestions of this enthusiasm. {From the "Panama-Pacific Ode") By Geoege Sterling (See pages 504, 552, 597) ODARK and cruel State, Whose towers are altars imto self alone, — Whose streets with tears are wet. And half thy councils given unto hate! Shall Time not hurl thy temples stone from stone. And o'er the ruin set A fairer city than the years have known? Out of thy darkness do we find us dreams, And en the future gleams The vision of thy ramparts built anew. Mammon and War sit now a double throne. Yet what we dream, a wiser Age shall do. Ee ye lift up, everlasting gates Of that far City men shall build for man! O fairer Day that waits. Socialism 817 The splendor of whose dawn we shall not see, When selfish bonds of family and clan Melt in the higher love that yet shall be! State without a master or a slave, Whose law of light we crave Ere morning widen on a world set free! %^t Coming: SDatnn (From "Woman")\ By August Bebel\ (See page 807) IZTVERY day furnishes fresh proof of the rapid growth ■'— ' and spread of the ideas that we represent. In all fields there is tumult and push. The dawn of a fair day is approaching with mighty strides. Let us then ever battle and strive forward, unconcerned as to "where" and "when" the boundary-posts of the new and better day for mankind will be raised. And if, in the course of this great battle for the emancipation of the human race, we should fall, those now in the rear will step for- ward; and we shall fall with the consciousness of having done our duty as human beings, and with the conviction that the goal will be reached, however the powers hostile to humanity may struggle or strain in resistance. Ours is the world, despite all; that is, for the workers and the woman. 62 818 The Cry for Justice Eabot Ittt&i^tMt {From " Violence and the Labor Movement") By Robert Hunter (American Socialist writer, born 1874) T TERE it is, "the self-conscious, independent move- ■'■ ■'■ ment of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority," aheady with its eleven million voters and its fifty million souls. It has slowly, patiently, painfully toiled up to a height where it is beginning to see visions of victory. It has faith in itself and in its cause. It believes it has the power of deliverance for all society and for all humanity. It does not expect the powerful to have faith iti it; but, as Jesus came out of despised Nazareth, so the new world is coming out of the multitude, amid the toil and sweat and anguish of the mills, mines, and factories of the world. It has endured much; suffered long ages of slavery and serf- dom. From being mere animals of production, the workers have become the "hands" of production; and they are now reaching out to become the masters of production. And, while in other periods of the world their intolerable misery led them again and again to strike out in a kind of torrential anarchy that pulled down society itself, they have in our time, for the first time in the history of the world, patiently and persistently organized themselves into a world power. Where shall we find in all history another instance of the organiza- tion in less than half a century of eleven miUion people into a compact force for the avowed purpose of peace- fully and legally taking possession of the world? They have refused to hurry. They have declined all short cuts. Socialism 819 They have spurned violence. The " bourgeois democrats," the terrorists, and the syndicalists, each in their time, have tried to point out a shorter, quicker path. The workers have refused to listen to them. On the other hand, they have declined the way of compromise, of fusions, and of alliances, that have also promised a quicker and shorter road to power. With most maddening patience they have declined to take any other path than their own — thus infuriating not only the terrorists in their own ranks but those Greeks from the other side who came to them bearing gifts. Nothing seems to disturb them or to block their path. They are offered reforms and concessions, which they take blandly, but without thanks. They move on and on, with the terrible, incessant, irresistible power of some eternal, natural force. They have been fought; yet they have never lost a single great battle. They have been flattered and cajoled, without ever once anywhere being appeased. They have been provoked, insulted, imprisoned, calumniated, and repressed. They are indifferent to it all. They move on and on — ^with the patience and the meekness of a people with the vision that they are soon to inherit the earth. jfrom tfit a^agnificat By Mary, Mother of Jesus HE hath showed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away. 820 The Cry for Justice 'Co Eabot {From "In This Our World") By Charlotte Perkins Oilman (See pages 200, 209, 421, 662) OHALL you complain who feed the world? ^ Who clothe the world? Who house the world? Shall you complain who are the world, Of what the world may do? As from this hour You use your power, The world must follow you! The world's life hangs on your right hand! Your strong right hand, Your skilled right hand, You hold the whole world in your hand, See to it what you do ! Or dark or light. Or wrong or right. The world is made by you! Then rise as you never rose before! Nor hoped before! Nor dared before ! And show as was never shown before, The power that lies in you! Stand all as one! See justice done! Beheve, and Dare, and Do! Socialism 821 Bt Robert Tressall (See page 663. In the character of "Owen," the author here tells of his own efforts to awaken his fellow-workers in England) ' I 'OWARD the end of March the outlook began to -*■ improve. By the middle of April Rushton and Com- pany were working eleven and a half hours a day. In May, as the jobs increased and the days grew longer, they were allowed to put in overtime; and, as the simi- mer months came round, once more the crowd of ragged- trousered philanthropists began to toil and sweat at their noble and unselfish task of making money for Mr. Rushton. Papering, painting, white-washing, distempering, digging up drains, repairing roofs, their zeal and enthusiasm were unbounded. Their operations extended all over the town. At all hours of the day they were to be seen going to or returning from jobs, carrying planks and ladders, paint and whitewash, chimney pots and drain pipes, a crowd of tattered Imperialists, in broken boots, paint-splashed caps, their clothing saturated with sweat and plastered with mortar. The daily spectacle of the workmen, tramping wearily home along the pavement of the Grand Parade, caused some annoyance to the better classes, and a letter appeared in The Obscurer suggesting that it would be better if they walked on the road. When they heard of this letter most of the men adopted the suggestion and left the pavement for their betters. On the jobs themselves, meanwhile, the same old condi- tions prevailed, the same frenzied hurry, the same scamp- ing of the work, slobbering it over, cheating the customers; the same curses behind the foreman's back, the same 833 The Cry for Justice groveling in his presence, the same strident bellowing from Misery: "Get it Done! For Gord's sake, get it Done! 'Aven't you finished yet? We're losing money over this! If you chaps can't tear into it we'll have an Alteration!" and the result was that the philanthropists often tore into it to such an extent that they worked themselves out of a job, for business fluctuated, and occasionally everybody was "stood off" for a few days. . . . They were putting new floors where the old ones were decayed, and making two rooms into one by demolishing the parting wall and substituting an iron girder. They were replacing window frames and sashes, replastering cracked ceilings and walls, cutting openings and fitting doors where no doors had ever been before. They were taking down broken chimney pots and fixing new ones in their places. They were washing the old whitewash off the ceilings, and scraping the old paper off the walls. The air was full of the sounds of hammering and sawing, the ringing of trowels, the rattle of pails, the splashing of water brushes and the scraping of the stripping knives. It was also heavily laden with dust and disease germs, powdered mortar, lime, plaster, and the dirt that had been accumulating within the old house for years. In brief, those employed there might be said to be living in a Tariff Reform Paradise — they had Plenty of Work. At twe've o'clock Bob Crass, the painter's foreman, blew a prolonged blast upon a whistle and all hands assembled in the kitchen, where Bert the apprentice had already prepared the tea in the large galvanized iron pail placed in the middle of the floor. By the side of the pail were a number of old jam jars, mugs, dilapidated teacups, and one or two empty condensed milk tins. Socialism 823 Each man on the "job" paid Bert threepence a week for the tea and sugar — ^they did not have milk — and although they had tea at breakfast time as well as at dinner the lad was generally considered to be making a fortune. . . . As each man came in he filled his cup, jam jar, or con- densed milk tin with tea from the steaming pail, before sitting down. Most of them brought their food in Uttle wicker baskets, which they held on their laps, or placed on the floor beside them. At first there was no attempt at conversation and nothing was heard but the sounds of eating and drinking and the frizzling of the bloater which Easton, one of the painters, was toasting on the end of a pointed stick at the fire. "I don't think much of this bloody tea," suddenly remarked Sawkins, one of the laborers. "Well, it oughter be all right," retorted Bert; "it's bin bilin' ever since 'arf past eleven. . . ." "Has anyone seen old Jack Linden since 'e got the push?" inquired Harlow. "I seen 'im Saturday," said Slyme. "Is 'e doin' anything?" "I don't know: I didn't 'ave time to speak to 'im." "No, 'e ain't got nothing," remarked Philpot. "I seem 'im Saturday night, an' 'e told me 'e's been walkin' about ever since." Philpot did not add that he had "lent" Linden a shill- ing, which he never expected to see again. " 'E won't be able to get a job again in a 'urry," re- marked Easton; " 'e's too old." "You know, after all, you can't blame Misery for sackin' 'im," said Crass after a pause. " 'E was too slow for a fimeral." 8^4 The Cry for Justice " I wonder how much you'll be able to do when you're as old as he is? ' ' said Owen. "Praps I won't want to do nothing," replied Crass, with a feeble laugh. "I'm goin' to live on me means." "I should say the best thiag old Jack could do would be to go in the workhouse," said Harlow. "Yes: I reckon that's what'U be the end of it," said Easton, in a matter-of-fact tone. "It's a grand finish, isn't it?" observed Owen. "After working hard all one's life to be treated like a criminal at the end." "I don't know what you call bein' treated like crim- inals," exclaimed Crass. "I reckon they 'as a bloody fine time of it, an' we've got to fimd the money." "Oh, for Gord's sake, don't start no more arguments," cried Harlow, addressing Owen. "We 'ad enough of that last week. You can't expect a boss to employ a man when 'e's too old to work." "Of coiu-se not," said Crass. Old Joe Philpot said — nothing. "I don't see no sense in always grumblin'," Crass pro- ceeded; "these things can't be altered. You can't expect there can be plenty of work for everyone with all this 'ere labor-savin' machinery what's been invented." "Of course," said Harlow, "the people what used to be employed on the work what's now done by machin- ery has to find something else to do. Some of 'em goes to our trade, for instance. The result is there's too many at it, and there ain't enough work to keep 'em all goin'." "Yes," said Crass, eagerly, "that's just what I say. Machinery is the real cause of all the poverty. That's what I said the other day." "Machinery is undoubtedly the cause of unemploy- Socialism 825 ment," replied Owen, "but it's not the cause of poverty; that's another matter altogether." The others laughed derisively. "Well, it seems to me to amount to the same thing," said Harlow, and nearly everyone agreed. "It doesn't seem to me to amount to the same thing," Owen replied. "In my opinion we are all in a state of poverty even when we have employment. The condi- tion we are reduced to when we're out of work is more properly described as destitution. "Poverty," continued Owen after a short silence, "consists in a shortage of the necessaries of life. When those things are so scarce or so dear that people are imable to obtain sufficient of them to satisfy all their needs, they are in a condition of poverty. If you think that the machinery which makes it possible to produce all the necessaries of life in abundance is the cause of the shortage, it seems to me there must be something the matter with your minds." "Oh, of course we're all bloody fools, except you," snarled Crass. "When they was servin' out the sense they give you such a 'ell of a lot there wasn't none left for nobody else." "If there wasn't something wrong with your minds," continued Owen, "you would be able to see that we might have 'Plenty of Work' and yet be in a state of destitution. The miserable wretches who toil sixteen or eighteen hours a day — father, mother, and even the little children — ^making matchboxes, or shirts or blouses, have 'Plenty of Work,' but I for one don't envy them. Per- haps you think that if there was no machinery, and we all had to work thirteen or fourteen hours a day ia order to obtain a bare hving, we should not be in a condition 826 The Cry for Justice of poverty? Talk about there being something the matter with your minds — ^if there were not you wouldn't talk one day about Tariff Reform as a remedy for imem- ployment, and then the next daj' admit that machinery is the cause of it! Tariff Reform woii't do away with machinery, will it?" . . . No one answered, because none of them knew of any remedy; and Crass began to feel sorry that he had rein- troduced the subject at all. "In the near future," continued Owen, "it is probable that horses will be almost entirely superseded by motor cars and electric trams. As the services of horses will no longer be required, all but a few will die out; they will no longer be bred to the same extent as formerly. We can't blame the horses for allowing themselves to be exterminated. They have not sufficient intelligence to understand what's being done. Therefore, they will submit tamely to the extinction of the greater nmnber of their kind. "As we have seen, a great deal of the work which was formerly done by human beings is now being done by machinery. This machinery belongs to a few people; it is being worked for the benefit of those few, just the same as were the human beings it displaced. "These few have no longer any need of the services of so many human workers, so they propose to exterminate them ! The unnecessary human beings are to be allowed to starve to death! And they are also to be taught that it is wrong to marry and breed children, because the Sacred Few do not require so many people to work for them as before!" "Yes, and you'll never be able to prevent it, mate!" shouted Crass. Socialism 827 "Why can't we?" "Because it can't be done!" cried Crass, fiercely. "It's impossible!" . . . There was a general murmur of satisfaction. Nearly everyone seemed very pleased to think that the existing state of things could not possibly be altered. dfllealtj^ ^gatniEft Commontotaltg By Henby Demarest Lloyd (American social reformer, pioneer in what later came to be known as "muck-raking"; 1847-1903) ONE of the largest stones in the arch of "consolida- tion," perhaps the keystone, is that men have become so intelligent, so responsive and responsible, so co-operative, that they can be trusted in great masses with the care of vast properties owned entirely by others; and with the operation of complicated processes, although but a slender cost of subsistence is awarded them out of fabulous profits. The spectacle of the miUion and more employees of the railroads of this country despatching trains, maintaining tracks, collecting fares and freights, and turning over hundreds of millions of net profits to the owners, not one in a thousand of whom would know how to do the simplest of these things himself, is possible only where civilization has reached a high average of morals and cultm-e. More and more the mills and mines and stores, and even the farms and forests, are being administered by other than the owners. The virtue of the people is taking the place Poor Richard thought only the eye of the owner could fill. If mankind driven by 828 The Cry for Justice their fears and the greed of others can do so well, what will be their productivity and cheer when the "interest of all" sings them to their work? aputual aia && a jFactor in (Etiolution By Petee Keopotkin (This work of the great Russian scientist is a most important contribution to modern thought, overthrowing as it does the old- fashioned view of "Nature red in tooth and claw with ravin," which was the basis of early biologic teaching and is still the basis of all bourgeois economic ideas) As soon as we study animals — not in laboratories and •^*- museums only, but in the forest and prairie, in the steppe and in the mountains — we at once perceive that though there is an immense amount of warfare and extermination going on amidst various species, and espe- cially amidst various classes of animals, there is, at the same time, as much, or perhaps even more, of mutual support, mutual aid, and mutual defence amidst animals belonging to the same species or, at least, to the same society. Sociability is as much a law of natm-e as mutual struggle. Of course it would be extremely difficult to estimate, however roughly, the relative numerical im- portance of both these series of facts. But if we resort to an indirect test, and ask Nature: "Who are the fittest: those who are continually at war with each other, or those who support one another?" we at once see that those animals which acquire habits of mutual aid are undoubt- edly the fittest. They have more chances to survive, and they attain, in their respective classes, the highest development and bodily organization. If the number- Socialism 829 less facts which can be brought forward to support this view are taken into account, we may safely say that mutual aid is as much a law of animal life as mutual struggle; but that as a factor of evolution, it most probably has a far greater importance, inasmuch as it favors the development of such habits and characters as insure the maintenance and further development of the species, together with the greatest amount of welfare and enjoyment of life for the individual, with the least waste of energy. Co=opftation ann ilSationalitp By " A.E." (George W. Russell) (See pages 252, 513) WHEREVER there is mutual aid, wherever there is constant give and take, wherever the prosperity of the individual depends directly and obviously on the prosperity of the community about him, there the social order tends to produce fine types of character, with a devotion to pubUc ideas; and this is the real object of all government. The worst thing which can happen to a social community is to have no social order at all, where every man is for himself and the devil may take the hind- most. Generally in such a community he takes the front rank as well as the stragglers. 8S0 The Cry for Justice ilJtbj aaiDtltis for iDHi By H. G. Wells (See pages 619, 675, 712) OOCIALISM is to me a very great thing indeed, the ^ form and substance of my ideal life and all the religion I possess. I am, by a sort of predestination, a Sociahst. I perceive I cannot help talking and writing about Social- ism, and shaping and forwarding Socialism. I am one of a succession — one of a growing multitude of witnesses, who will continue. It does not — in the larger sense — matter how many generations of us must toil and testify. It does not matter, except as our individual concern, how individually we succeed or fail, what blunders we make, what thwartings we encounter, what follies and inade- quacies darken oiu" private hopes and level our personal imaginations to the dust. We have the light. We know what we are for, and that the light that now glimmers so dimly through us must in the end prevail. g)octalt0m anH iSl^otgetibooti By John Spargo (American Socialist writer and lecturer, born in England, 1876) ' I 'HE message of Socialism is a message of Life and ■^ Liberty and Love. It promises to destroy the political, social, and economic disabilities imposed upon womanhood; to give the mothers of the race equal freedom with the fathers of the race. It pledges itself to destroy those conditions of life and labor which weaken the Socialism 831 mothers and deny to their babies the right to be well born. It claims for every child all the advantages of healthful and beautiful environment. It would destroy the dread fear of want which drives the mother from the service of her child into the service of a great factory. It would bestow upon every child, as its rightful heritage, opportun- ity to develop all its powers. It would apply the princi- ples of the family to the state. It would abolish the body and soul debasing labor of children, and give to the little ones their Kingdom of Laughter and Dreams. It would end the waste of human lives by poverty, and make true wealth possible for all. It would put an end to war — the war of classes as well as the war of nations — and organize and direct the genius and power of the race, now so largely given to destruction, to the enrichment of life for all and the realization of Human Brotherhood. Socialism comes to the mother as an Angel of Light and Life, bearing the torch of a great hope. "I am Life Abundant," cries the angel, "and I bring you as gifts the Freedom and Opportunity and Joy and Peace for which you have prayed. See, my Sistier, Mother of Men, all these are yours if you will put forth your hand and receive them." ^toB:tf00 in ^tbitint By James P. Wabbasse (Contemporary American physician) SERVETUS and Harvey were not spurred on to the discovery of the circulation of the blood by the expectation of profits. One was burned to the stake and the other was mobbed for his pains. The whole 83£ The Cry for Justice history of medicine, with its splendid list of martjTs, is a glorious refutation of the sophistry that competition for profits is important to human progress. The com- petitive system, which surroimds and harrasses medical advancement, hindered it from the beginning, and retards it still. 'STSe ^ocialm ifaftfi By George D. Hereon (See pages 730, 792, 799) DESPITE the paradoxical and deathful nature of our capitalist civilization, despite the industrial insanity and spiritual chaos, a new world is surely forming; dimly may we discern the white pinnacles and the green gardens of the gathering city of man. There is approaching — and it is not so far off as it seems — a world arranged by the wisdom hid in the human heart; a world that is the organization of a strong and universal kindness; a world redeemed from the fear of institutions and of poverty. Even now, derided and discouraged as it is, socially untrained and inexperienced as it is, if the instinctual and repressed kindness of mankind were suddenly let loose upon the earth, sooner than we think would we be members one of another, sitting around one family hearthstone, and singing the song of the new hiunanity. . . . BOOK XVII The New T>ay The deliverance of humanity and the triumph of labor enfran- chised; passages from Utopias new and old, and the raptures of poets and prophets contemplating "the good time coming." 53 S10 a fettonu Sittr on ^inimfi Met By Walt Whitman (See pages 174, 268, 578, 726) "D EAUTIFUL World of new, superber Birth, that rises ^—^ to my eyes. Like a limitless golden cloud, filling the western sky. . . . Thou Wonder World, yet undefined, unformed — neither do I define thee; How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future? I feel thy ominous greatness, evil as well as good; I watch thee, advancing, absorbing the present, trans- cending the past; I see thy light lighting and thy shadow shadowing, as if the entire globe; But I do not undertake to define thee — hardly to compre- hend thee; I but thee name — thee prophesy — as now! Il^t Itmstiom ot 9pan By E. Ray Lankester (English scientist, professor in the University of London, born 1847) ' I "HE new knowledge of Cature, the newly-ascertained •^ capacity of man for a control of Nature so thorough as to be almost unhmited, has not as yet had an oppor- tunity of showing what it can do. No power has called on man to arise and enter upon the possession of this kingdom — the "Kingdom of Man" foreseen by Francis (835) 836 The Cry for Justice Bacon and pictured by him to an admiring but incred- ulous age with all the fervor and picturesque detail of which he was capable. And yet at this moment the mechanical difficulties, the want of assurance and of exact knowledge, which necessarily prevented Bacon's schemes from taking practical shape, have been removed. The will to possess this vast territory is alone wanting. The weariness which is so largely expressed today in regard to human effort is greatly due to the fact that we have exhausted old sources of inspiration, and have not yet learned to believe in the new. It is time for man to take up whole-heartedly the Kingdom of Nature which it is his destiny to rule. New hope, new life will, when he does this, be infused into every fine of hiunan activity. To a commimity which believes in the destiny of man as the controller of Nature and has consciously entered upon its fulfilment, there can be none of the weariness and even despair which comes from an exclusive worship of the past. There can be only encouragement in every victory gained, hope and the reahzation of hope. SDn a &team0|^tp By Upton Sinclair (See pages 43, 143, 194, 274, 403, 776, 803) ALL night, without the gates of slumber lying, ■ I listen to the joy of falling water, And to the throbbing of an iron heart. In ages past, men went upon the sea. Waiting the pleasure of the chainless winds; The New Day 837 But now the course is laid, the billows part; Mankind has spoken: "Let the ship go there!" I am grown haggard and forlorn, from dreams That haunt me, of the time that is to be. When man shall cease from wantonness and strife, And lay his law upon the course of things. Then shall he live no more on sufferance. An accident, the prey of powers blind; The untamed giants of nature shall bow down — The tides, the tempest and the lightning cease From mockery and destruction, and be turned Unto the making of the soul of man. By Thomas Cahlyle (See pages 31, 74, 133, 488, 553, 652) "\^ /"E must some day, at last and forever, cross the line ' ' between Nonsense and Conunon Sense. And on that day we shall pass from Class Paternalism, originally derived from fetish fiction in times of universal ignorance, to Human Brotherhood in accordance with the nature of things and our growing knowledge of it; from Political Government to Industrial Administration; from Competi- tion in Individualism to Individuality in Co-operation; from War and Despotism, in any form, to Peace and Liberty. 838 The Cry for Justice '^tt lElcbolution By Richard Wagnek (See pages 236, 747) A YE, we behold it, the old world cnunbling; a new will ■^*- rise therefrom; for the lofty goddess Reason comes rustling on the wings of storm.,, her stately head ringed round with lightnings, a sword in her right hand, a torch in her left. Her eye is stern, is punitive, is cold; and yet what warmth of purest love, what wealth of happiness streams forth toward him who dares to look with steadfast gazing into that eye! Rustling she comes, the ever-rejuve- nating mother of mankind; destroying and fulfilling, she fares across the earth; before her soughs the storm, and shakes so fiercely at man's handiwork that vast clouds of dust eclipse the sky, and where her mighty foot is set, there falls in ruins what an idle whim had built for aeons; the hem of her robe sweeps its last remains away. But in her wake there opens out a never-dreamt paradise of happiness, illumined by kindly sunbeams; and where her foot had trodden down, spring fragrant flowers from the soul, and jubilant songs of freed mankind fill the air, scarce silent from the din of battle. In 9$tmotiam By Alfred Tennyson (See pages 77, 486, 652) RING out, wild bells, to the wild sky. The flying clouds, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. JrSTICE WALTER CHANE {English artist and Socialist, 1845-1915) The New Day 8S9 Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go ; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. . . . Ring out false pride ui place and blood, The civic slander and the spite ; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be. By Isaiah THEY shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowl- edge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. 840 The Cry for Justice apaltar'0 2D«am By Vladamir G. Korolenko (Contemporary Russian novelist. In this short story a drunken old peasant is taken in a dream before the Taion, or god of the forest, to be judged for his many sins. The sins are piled upon a wooden scale- pan and the virtues upon a golden one — but alas, the virtues rise high into the air. Thereupon old Makar, driven to despair, breaks out into protest so eloquent that the judge is puzzled) '' I ^HE scales trembled again . . . the old Taion was lost ■^ in thought. "How is this?" said he. "There are good people still living on the earth. Their eyes are bright, and their faces shine, and their robes are spotless. . . . Their hearts are as tender as good soil; they receive the good seed, and bring forth beautiful fruit and the perfume is sweet in my nostrils. Look at yourself!" All eyes were turned towards Makar, who felt ashamed of his appearance. He knew that his eyes were not bright, and his face begrimed, his hair and beard matted and tangled, and his clothes torn. True, he had been thinking of buying a pair of boots before his death, in order to appear at the judgment seat as behooves an honest peasant. But he had always spent the money on drink, and now he stood before the Taion in ragged shoes, like the last of the Yakouts. ... He would gladly have sunk under the ground. "Thy face is dark," went on the Taion. "Thy eyes are not bright, and thy clothes are torn. And thy heart is overgrown, with weeds and thorns. That is the reason why I lovfc mine own that are pure and good and holy, and turn my face away from such as you are." Makar's heart was ready to break. He felt ashamed of The New Day 84I his existence. He hung his head, but suddenly lifted it and began to speak again. Who were those just and good men the Taion was speaking about? If he meant those who were living in fine palaces on the earth at the same time as Makar did, he knew them well enough. Their eyes were bright because they had not shed as many tears as he had, and their faces shone because they were bathed in perfmne, and their clean garments had been wrought by other people 's hands. Did he not see that he too had been born like the others, with bright, open eyes, in which heaven and earth were reflected as in a mirror, and with a pure heart which was ready to take in all that was beautiful in the world. And if he longed now to hide his wretched self under the ground, it was no fault of his . . . he did not know whose fault it was ... all he knew was that all the patience had died in his heart. If Makar had seen the effect which his speech had produced on the old Taion, and that every word he said fell on the golden scale like a weight of lead, his rebellious heart would have been soothed. But he saw nothing, because he was full of bhnd despair. He thought of his past life, which had been so hard. How had he been able to bear it so long? He had borne it because the star of hope had shone through the darkness. And now the star had vanished, and the hope was dead. . . . Darkness fell on his soul, and a storm rose in it hke the storm-wind which flies across the steppe in the dead of night. He forgot where he was, before whom he stood — forgot everything except his anger. But the old Taion said to him: "Wait, poor man! You are no longer on earth. There is justice for you here." And Makar trembled. He realized that they pitied 842 The Cry for Justice him; his heart was softened; and, as he thought of his wretched hfe, he burst into tears, weeping over himself. The old Taion wept too, and so did the old father Ivan. Tears flowed from the eyes of the young serving-men, and they wiped them with their wide sleeves. And the scales trembled, and the wooden scale rose higher and higher! %^t 2Dt0irf of ilJatfonsi By Edwin Markham (See pages 27, 199) Lj^ARTH will go back to her lost youth, ■*— ' And life grow deep and wonderful as truth. When the wise King out of the nearing Heaven comes To break the spell of long millenniums — To build with song again The broken hope of men — To hush and heroize the world. Beneath the flag of brotherhood unfurled. And He will come some day; Already is His star upon the way! He comes, world. He comes! But not with bugle-cry nor roll of doubling drums. . And when He comes into the world gone wrong, He will rebuild her beauty with a song. To every heart He will its own dream be: One moon has many phantoms in the sea. Out of the North the norns will cry to men: "Baldur the Beautiful has come again!" The flutes of Greece will whisper from the dead: The New Bay 843 "Apollo has unveiled his sunbright head!" The stones of Thebes and Memphis will find voice: "Osiris comes: tribes of Time, rejoice!" And social architects who build the State, Serving the Dream at citadel and gate. Will hail Him coming through the labor-hum. And glad quick cries will go from man to man: "Lo, he has come, our Christ the Artisan, The King who loved the lilies. He has come!" die (Bteat CSange By George D. Herbon (See pages 730, 792, 799, 832) "\ A Whatever definitions we use, or if we use none at ^ ' all, we cannot escape the sense of the passion and the peril, the joy and the travail of the tremendous and trans- cendent change we are inwardly and outwardly imdergo- ing. We are already appreciably transfigured by it, and soon shall the news of it be upon pentecostal tongues, and in music such as man has never heard, and in common deeds diviner than divinest dreams. In a little while, in a few decades, ia one or two or four hundred years, the change will have been precipitated, the promise will have been fulfilled, and all things will have passed into the keeping of the expanded soul. Another, and different race of men, splendid alike in strength and gentleness, will walk the earth and climb its sky, bearing down the soul's constrictions and frontiers, even unto the ramparts around the throne of life. Man shall sit upon the throne; he shall hold the keys of his kingdom; he shall make 844- The Cry for Justice his universe his home, the house of his heart's desire, shaping it according to the will that love has begotten within him, and founding it upon the truth wherewith love has made him free. ^t Utopian ^t\t {From "A Modern Utopia") By H. G. Wells (A vision of the future world which combines the insight of the poet with the precision of the scientist. In this brief but poignant passage the spiritual side of the problem is touched upon) T T falls to few of us to interview our better selves. My ■*• Utopian self is, of course, my better self — according to my best endeavors — and I must confess myself fully alive to the difficulties of the situation. When I came to this Utopia I had no thought of any such intimate self- examination. The whole fabric of that other universe sways for a moment as I come into his room, into his clear and ordered work-room. I am trembling. A figure rather taller than myself stands against the light. He comes toward me, and I, as I advance to meet him, stimable against a chair. Then, still without a word, we are clasping hands. I stand now so that the light falls upon him, and I can see his face better. He is a little taller than I, younger looking and sounder looking; he has missed an illness or so, and there is no scar over his eye. His training has been subtly finer then mine; he has made himself a better face than mine. . . . These things I might have counted upon. The New Day 845 I can fancy he winces with a twinge of sympathetic under- standing at my manifest inferiority. Indeed, I come, trail- ing clouds of earthly confusion and weakness; I bear upon me all the defects of my world. He wears, I see, that white timic with the purple band that I have already begun to consider the proper Utopian clothing for grave men, and his face is clean shaven. We forgot to speak at first in the intensity of our mutual inspection. . . . I think of the confessions I have just made to him, the strange admissions both to him and myself. I have stirred up the stagnation of my own emotional life, the pride that has slumbered, the hopes and disappointments that have not troubled me for years. There are things that happened to me in my adolescence that no discipline of reason will ever brtag to a just proportion for me, the first humiliations I was made to suffer, the waste of all the fine irrevocable loyalties and passions of my youth. The dull base caste of my little personal tragi-comedy — I have ostensibly forgiven, I have for the most part for- gotten — and yet when I recall them I hate each actor still. Whenever it comes into my mind — I do my best to pre- vent it— there it is, and these detestable people blot out the stars for me. I have told all that story to my double, and he has listened with understanding eyes. But for a little while those squalid memories will not sink back into the deeps. By Isaiah THE ransomed of the Lord shall return: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. 846 The Cry for Justice By Charles Fotjbier (See page 202) T TP to the present time politicians and philosophers have ^—' not dreamed of rendering industry attractive; to enchain the mass to labor, they have discovered no other means, after slavery, than the fear of want and starvation; if, however, industry is the destiny which is assigned to us by the creator, how can we think that he would wish to force us to it by violence, and that he has no notion how to put in play some more noble lever, some incentive capable of transforming its occupations into pleasures? JFor Egric Ealiot By Elizabeth Waddell (Apropos of a remark, attributed to an Italian girl of the Gar- ment Workers' Union, "It wouldn't be so bad if they would only let us sing at our work") CHILD of the Renaissance, and little sister Of Axiosto and of Raphael, If any hush the song within your bosom, By all your lyric land, he does not well! One day -a traveller from our songless country, Passing at morning through Saint Mark's great Square, Marvelled, from workmen on the campanile, To hear a song arising on the air. The New Day 847 Marvelled to see those stones of Venice rising To Labor's matin chant intoned so clear, As the great towers builded by Amphion Rose to the lyre's strong throbbing, tier on tier. Give us, Child, the gifts we lack full sorely — Give us your heritage of art and song. The soul that in your fathers grew, sun-nourished, Soaring above its poverty and wrong. Of singing vintagers and laughing reapers Teach us your happy, sunland way, nor we In blind greed longer lay a stern proscription Upon your song, Heart of Italy! Free and serene, in his reward unstinted, The workman's hand shall mould his rhythmic thought; How candid to the keen-eyed gods' appraisal Shall be the work of Song's great ardor wrought — When our young land, reborn in Beauty's image, Unto the Morn of Prophecy shall come. And every tower be raised with mirth and music. And every harvest brought with rjinging home. By Isaiah THE Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives. They shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities. 848 The Cry for Justice %^t ^tttttt Citp (From " The Republic") By Plato (Greek philosopher, B. C. 429-347. His "Republic" is the first, and perhaps the most famous, of all efforts to portray an ideal Society. The argument is in the form of a discussion between Socrates and some of his friends and pupils) Lj^IRST, then (said Socrates), let us consider in what ■^ manner those who dwell in the city shall be supported. Is there any other way than by making bread and wine, and clothes and shoes, and building houses? They will be nourished, partly with barley, making meal of it, and partly with wheat, making loaves, boiling part, and toast- ing part, putting fine loaves and cakes over a fire of stubble, or over dried leaves, and resting themselves on couches strewed with smilax and myrtle leaves. They and their children will feast, drinking wine, and crowned, and singing to the Gods; and they will pleasantly live together, beget- ting children not beyond their substance, guarding against poverty or war. Glauco, replying, said : You make the men to feast, as it appears, without meats. You say true, said I: for I forget that they need have meats likewise. They shall have salt and olives and cheese, and they shall boil bulbous roots and herbs of the field; and we set before them desserts of figs and vetches and beans; and they toast at the fire myrtle berries and the berries of the beech-tree, drinking in moderation. Thus passing their life in peace and health, and dying, as is likely, in old age, they will leave to their children another such life. The Neip Day 849 If you had been making, Socrates, said he, a city of hogs, what else would have fed them but these things? But how should we do, Glauco, said I? What is usually done, said he. They must, as I imagine, have their beds and tables, and meats and desesrts, as we now have, if they are not to be miserable. Be it so, said I: I understand you. We consider, it seems, not only how a city may exist, but a luxurious city; and perhaps it is not amiss; for in considering such a one, we may probably see how justice and injustice have their origin in cities. The true city seems to me to be such as we have described, like one who is healthy; but if you prefer that we likewise consider a city that is corpulent, nothing hinders it. For these things will not, it seems, please some, nor this sort of life satisfy them; but there shall be beds and tables and all other furniture, seasonings, ointments, and perfumes, mistresses, and confections: and various kinds of these. And we must no longer con- sider as alone necessary what we mentioned at the first, houses and clothes and shoes, but painting, too, and all the curious arts must be set agoing, and carving, and gold, and ivory; and all these things must be got, must they not? Yes, said he. Must not the city, then, be larger? For that healthy one is no longer sufficient, but is already full of luxury, and of a crowd of such as are in no way necessary to cities; such as all kinds of sportsmen, and the imitative artists, many of them imitating in figures, and colors; and others in music; and poets too, and their ministers, rhapsodists, actors, dancers, undertakers, workmen of all sorts of instruments, and what hath reference to female ornament, as well as other things. We shall need likewise many more servants. Do you not think they will need pedagogues, 54 860 The Cry for Justice and nurses, and tutors, hair-dressers, barbers, victuallers too, and cooks? And further still, we shall want swine- herds likewise; of these there were none in the other city (for there needed not) ; but in this we shall want these, and many other sorts of herds hkewise, if any eat the several animals, shall we not? Why not? Shall we not, then, in this manner of life be much more in need of physicians than formerly? Much more. And the country, which was then sufficient to support the inhabitants, will, instead of being sufficient, become too little; or how shall we say? Just so, said he. Must we not then encroach upon the neighboring coun- try, if we want to have sufficient for plough and pasture, and they in like manner upon us, if they likewise suffer themselves to accumulate wealth to infinity, going beyond the boundaries of necessaries? There is great necessity for it, Socrates. Shall we afterwards fight, Glauco, or how shall we do? We shall certainly, said he. We say nothing, said I, whether war does any evil or any good, but this much only: that we have found the origin of war, from which most especially arise the greatest mischiefs to states, both private and public. The New Day 851 Utopia By Sir Thomas More (The word "Utopia" means "No Place." It was first used in this book, and has come to be a general name for pictures of a future society. The book was written in Latin, and first published in Belgium in 1516. The translation here quoted was published in England in 1551) TIJ^VERY Cytie is devided into foure equall partes or ■'— ' quarters. In the myddes of every quarter there is a market place of all maner of things. Thether the workes of every familie be brought into certeyne houses. And everye kynde of thing is layde up severall in bernes or store houses. From hence the father of everye familye, or every householder f etchethe whatsoever he and his have neade of, and carieth it away with him without money, without exchaunge, without any gage, pawne, or pledge. For whye shoulde any thing be denyed unto him? Seynge there is abundance of all things, and that it is not to bee feared, leste anye man wyll aske more then he neadeth. For whie should it be thoughte that that man woulde aske more then anough, which is sewer never to lacke? Cer- teynely in all kyndes of lyving creatures either feare of lacke dothe cause covetousnes and ravyne, or in man only pryde, which coimteth it a glorious thinge to pass and excel other in the superfluous and vayne ostentation of thinges. The whyche kynde of vice amonge the Utopians can have no place. Nowe I have declared and described unto you, as truelye as I coulde the fourme and ordre of that common wealth, which verely in my judgment is not only the beste, but also that which alone of good right maye claime and take upon it the name of a common wealth or publique 862 The Cry for Justice weale. For in other places they speake stil of the common wealth. But every man procureth his owne private gaine. Here where nothinge is private, the commen affaires bee eamestlye loked upon. . . . For there nothinge is distrib- uted after a nyggyshe sorte, neither there is anye poore man or beggar. And thoughe no man have anye thinge, yet everye man is ryche. For what can be more ryche, than to lyve joyfully and merely, without al grief e and pensifenes: not caring for his owne lyving, nor vexed or troubled with his wifes importunate complayntes, nor dreadynge povertie to his sonne, nor sorrowyng for his doughters dowrey? %^t &ouI Of S@an llntret Socialism By Oscar Wilde (See page 155) THE fact is, that civilization requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, iusecm-e, and demoralizing. On mechani- cal slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends. From the Book or Leviticus (See page 477) PROCLAIM . liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. The New Day 863 C(tif0, flDln ana i!5eto {From "In the Days of the Comet") By H. G. Wells (See pages 519, 675, 712, 830, 844) \^7^HERE is that old world now? Where is London, ' "^ that somber city of smoke and drifting darkness, full of the deep roar and hamiting music of disorder, with its oily, shining, mud-rimmed, barge-crowded river, its black pinnacles, and blackened dome, its sad wildernesses of smut-grayed houses, its myriads of draggled prosti- tutes, its milUons of hurrying clerks? The very leaves upon its trees were foul with greasy black defilements. Where is the lime-white Paris, with its green and dis- ciphned foliage, its hard unflinching tastefulness, its smartly organized viciousness, and the myriads of workers, noisily shod, streaming over the bridges in the gray cold light of dawn? Where is New York, the high city of clangor and infuriated energy, wind swept and competition swept, its huge buildings jostling one another and straining ever upward for a place in the sky, the fallen pitilessly over- shadowed? Where are its lurking corners of heavy and costly luxury, the shameful bludgeoning bribing vice of its ill ruled imderways, and all the gaunt extravagant ugliness of its strenuous life? . . . All these vast cities have given way and gone, even as my native Potteries and the Black Country have gone, and the lives that were caught, crippled, starved, and maimed amidst their labyrinths, their forgotten and neglected maladjustments, and their vast, inhuman, ill- conceived industrial machinery have escaped — to life. Those cities of growth and accident are altogether gone, 854 The Cry for Justice never a chimney smokes about our world today, and the sound of the weeping of children who toiled and hungered, the dull despair of overburdened women, the noise of brute quarrels in alleys, all shameful pleasures and all the ugly grossness of wealthy pride have gone with them, with the utter change of our lives. As I look back into the past I see a vast exultant dust of house-breaking and removal rise up into the clear air; I live again the Year of Tents, the Years of Scaffolding, and like the triumph of a new theme in a piece of music — ^the great cities of our new days arise. CariEtar anti Ckopatta By G. Bernard Shaw (See pages 193, 212, 263, 402, 760, 798) {The Romans have set fire to the Library of Alexandria) THEODOTUS:— What is burning there is the memory of mankind. Caesar: — A shameful memory. Let it burn. Theodotus (wildly) : — ^Will you destroy the past? Caesar: — Ay, and build the future with its ruins. By Alfred Tennyson (See pages 77, 486, 652, 838) ' I 'HE old order changeth, yieldiag place to new -*■ And God fulfils Himself ia many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world,/ The New Day 865 Si Jpedtibal in Utopia {From "News from Nowhere") By William Morris (See page 793) ' ' (^NCE a year, on May-day, we hold a solemn feast in ^^ those easterly communes of London to commemo- rate the Clearing of Misery, as it is called. On that day we have music and dancing, and merry games and happy feasting on the site of some of the worst of the old slums, the traditional memory of which we have kept. On that occasion the custom is for the prettiest girls to sing some of the old revolutionary songs, and those which were the groans of discontent, once so hopeless, on the very spots where those terrible crimes of class-murder were committed day by day for so many years. To a man Uke me, who has studied the past so diligently, it is a curious and touching sight to see some beautiful girl, daintily clad, and crowned with flowers from the neighboring meadows, standing among the happy people, on some mound where of old time stood the wretched apology for a house, — a den in which men and women lived packed among the filth like pilchards in a cask; lived in such a way that they could only have endured it, as I said just now, by being degraded out of humanity. To hear the terrible words of threaten- ing and lamentation coming from her sweet and beautiful lips, and she \mconscious of their real meaning; to hear her singing Hood's 'Song of the Shirt,' and think all the time she does not understand what it is all about — a tragedy grown inconceivable to her and her listeners. Think of that if you can, and of how glorious life is grown!" "Indeed," said I, "it is difficult for me to think of it." 856 The Cry for Justice %^t BUtopfan Citp {From "A Modern Utopia") By H. G. Wells (See pages 519, 675, 712, 830, 844, 853) T TERE will be one of the great meeting places of man- ■'■ -'• kind. Here — I speak of Utopian London — ^will be the traditional centre of one of the great races in the commonality of the World State — and here will be its social and intellectual exchange. There will be a mighty University here, with thousands of professors and tens of thousands of advanced students, and here great journals of thought and speculation, mature and splendid books of philosophy and science, and a glorious fabric of litera- ture will be woven and shaped, and with a teeming leisure- liness, put forth. Here will be stupendous libraries, and a mighty organization of museums. About these centres will cluster a great swarm of people, and close at hand will be another centre, — ^for I who am an Englishman must needs stipulate that Westminster shall still be a seat of world Empire, one of several seats, if you will — ^where the ruling council of the world assembles. Then the arts will cluster round this city, as gold gathers about wisdom, and here Englishmen will weave into wonderful prose and beautiful rhythms and subtly atmospheric forms, the intricate, austere and courageous imagination of our race. One will come into this place as one comes into a noble mansion. They will have flung great arches and domes of glass above the wider spaces of the town, the slender beauty of the perfect metal-work far overhead will be softened to a fairy-like imsubstantiality by the mild London air. It will be the London air we know, clear of filth and all The New Day 867 impurity, the same air that gives our October days their unspeakable clarity and makes every London twilight mysteriously beautiful. We shall go along avenues of architecture that will be emancipated from the last memo- ries of the squat temple boxes of the Greek, the buxom curvatures of Rome; the Goth in us will have taken to steel and coimtless new materials as kindly as once he took to stone. The gay and swiftly moving platforms of the public ways will go past on either hand, carrying sporadic groups of people, and very speedily we shall find ourselves in a sort of central space, rich with palms and flowering bushes and statuary. We shall look along an avenue of trees, down a wide gorge between the cliffs of crowded hotels that are still glowing with internal lights, to where the shining morning river streams dawnlit out to sea. Il^t tlXtopia of &pntiicaU0m {From "Syndicalism and the Co-operative Commonwealth") By Smile Pataud and Emile Pouget (Two of the most prominent leaders of the revolutionary trade unions of France have in this story, pubhshed in 1912, portraye^ the overthrow of the capitahst state by the method of the general strike, and the form of society which they anticipate from the "direct action" of the workers). The Trade Union Congress DELEGATES came from all parts of France. They came from all trades, from all professions. In the enormous hall in which the Congress was held, peasants, teachers, fishermen, doctors, postmen, masons, sat beside 858 The Cry for Justice market-gardeners, miners and metal-workers. An epit- ome of the whole of society was there. It was a stirring scene, this assembly, where were gathered together the most energetic and most enthusiastic of the combatants for the Revolution, who, inaugurating a new era, were about to disentangle and simi up the aspirations of the people; to point out the road along which they were resolved to march. The old militants, who had seen so many Congresses; who had fought rough fights, and known the bitterness of struggles against the employers and the State; who in their hours of anxiety and doubt had despaired of ever seeing their hopes materialize, were radiant with joy. Their bold thoughts of past years were taking shape, they lived their dream! A happy moment it was, when old comrades greeted each other. They met, their hands held out; and trembling, and deeply moved, they em- braced each other — transfigured, radiant. The new delegates, out of their element at first, in the midst of this fever of life, were soon caught by the atmos- phere of enthusiasm. Many of them were the product of events. Before the Revolution, they were ignorant of their own capacities; and if it had not come to shake them out of their torpor, they would have continued to vegetate ; passive, indifferent, hesitating. Thanks to it, their inner powers were revealed to themselves; and now, overflow- ing with passion, energy, and enthusiasm, they vibrated with an immense force. The Distribution of Wealth In the first place, a resolution was taken which there was no need to discuss, or even to explain — ^it was so logical and inevitable: the charging the community with .the The New Day 869 care of the children, the sick, and the aged. This was a question of principle which had the advantage of demon- strating, to those who still retained prejudices with regard to the new regime, how httle the future was going to be like the past. . . . Two tendencies were shown; one, that of pure Com- munism, which advocated complete liberty in consiunption, without any restriction; the other, inspired with Com- munist ideas, but finding their strict application prema- ture, and advocating a compromise. The latter view predominated. It was therefore agreed as follows: — That every human being, whatever his social function might be, had a right to an equal remuneration, which would be divided into two parts: the one for the satisfac- tion of ordinary needs; the other for the needs of luxury. The remuneration would be obtained, with regard to the first, by a permanent Trade Union card; and with regard to the second, by a book of consumers' "notes." The first class included all kinds of commodities, all food products, clothing, all that would be in such abun- dance that the consumption of it need not be restricted; each one would have the right to draw from the common stock, according to his needs, without any other formality than having to present his card in the shops and depots, to those in charge of distribution. In the second class would be placed products of various kinds, which, being in too small a quantity to allow of their being put at the free disposition of all, retained a pm-chase value, liable to vary according to their greater or less rarity, and greater or less demand. The price of these products was calculated according to the former mone- tary method, and the quantity of work necessary to 860 The Cry for Justice produce them would be one of the elements in fixing their value; they would be delivered on the payment of "con- sumers' notes," the mechanism of whose use recalled that of the cheque. It was, however, agreed that in proportion as the pro- ducts of this second class became abundant enough to attain to the level necessary for free consumption, they should enter into the first class; and ceasing to be con- sidered as objects of luxury, they should be, without ration- ing, placed at the disposal of all. By this arrangement society approached, automatically, more and more towards pure Communism. %lt Bt'm il5ationaUs(m By Theodore E,oosevelt (Ex-president of the United States, born 1858) PRACTICAL equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every man will have a fair chance to make himself all that in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his capaci- ties, unassisted by special privilege of his own and imham- pered by the special privilege of others, can carry him, and to get for himself and for his family substantially what he has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is capable. No man who carries the burden of the special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that service to which it is fairly entitled. The New Day 861 Hoobing 15acfttoattr By Edward Bellamy (A story of the experience of a man who goes to sleep and wakes up a hundred years later. See page 85) k ^T TOW do you regulate wages?" I asked. ■•■ ■»■ Dr. Leete did not reply till after several mo- ments of meditative silence. "I know, of course," he finally said, "enough of the old order of things to under- stand just what you mean by that question; and yet the present order is so utterly different at this point that I am a Uttle at a loss how to answer you best. You ask me how we regulate wages: I can only reply that there is no idea in the modern social economy which at all corresponds with what was meant by wages in your day." "I suppose you mean that you have no money to pay wages in," said I. "But the credit given the worker at the Government storehouse answers to his wages with us. How is the amount of credit given respectively to the workers in different lines determined? By what title does the individual claim his particular share? What is the basis of allotment?" "His title," replied Dr. Leete, "is his humanity. The basis of his claim is the fact that he is a man." "The fact that he is a man!" I repeated, incredulously. "Do you possibly mean that all have the same share?" "Most assuredly." . . . "But what inducement," I asked, "can a man have to put forth his best endeavors when, however much or little he accomplishes, his income remains the same? High characters may be moved by devotion to the common wel- fare under such a system, but does not the average man 862 The Cry for Justice tend to rest back on his oar, reasoning that it is of no use to make a special effort, since the effort will not increase his income, nor its withholding diminish it?" "Does it then really seem to you," answered my com- panion, "that human natiu-e is insensible to any motives save fear of want and love of luxury, that you should expect security and equality of livelihood to leave them without possible incentives to effort? Your contempora- ries did not really think so, though they might fancy they did. When it was a question of the grandest class of efforts, the most absolute self-devotion, they depended on quite other incentives. Not higher wages, but honor and hope of men's gratitude, patriotism and the inspiration of duty, were the motives which they set before their soldiers when it was a question of dying for the nation; and never was there an age of the world when these motives did not call out what is best and noblest in men. And not only this, but when you come to analyze the love of money which was the general impulse to effort in yom: day, you find that the dread of want and desire of luxury were two of several motives which the pursuit of money repre- sented; the others, and with many the more influential, being desire of power, of social position and reputation for ability and success. So you see that though we have abolished poverty and the fear of it, and inordinate luxury with the hope of it, we have not touched the greater part of the motives which underlay the love of money in former times, or any of those which prompted the supremer sorts of effort. The coarser motives, which no longer move us, have been replaced by high motives wholly unknown to the mere wage earners of your age. Now that industry of any sort is no longer self-service, but service of the nation, patriotism, passion for humanity, impel the workers The New Day 863 as in yoiir day they did the soldier. The army of iadustry is an army, not alone by virtue of its perfect organization, but by reason also of the ardor of self-devotion -which animates its members. "But as you used to supplement the motives of patriot- ism with the love of glory, in order to stimulate the value of your soldiers, so do we. Based as our industrial system is on the principle of requiring the same unit of effort from every man, that is the best he can do, you will see that the means by which we spur the workers to do their best must be a very essential part of our scheme. With us, dihgence in the national service is, the sole and certain way to public repute, social distinction, and official power. The value of a man's services in society fixes his rank in it. Compared with the effect of our social arrangements in impelling men to be zealous in business, we deem the object-lessons of biting poverty and wanton luxury on which you depended a device as weak and uncertain as it was bar- baric." Eilimp in ^Utopia {From "A Modern Utopia") By H. G. Wells (See pages 519, 675, 712, 830, 844, 853, 856) THE idea of individual liberty is one that has grown in importance and grows with every development of modern thought. To the classical Utopists freedom was relatively trivial. Clearly they considered virtue and happiness as entirely separable from Hberty, and as being altogether more important things. But the modern view, 864- The Cry for Justice with its deepening insistence upon individuality and upon the significance of its uniqueness, steadily intensifies the value of freedom, until at last we begin to see liberty as the very substance of life, that indeed it is life, and that only the dead things, the choiceless things, live in absolute obedience to law. To have free play for one's individual- ity is, in the modern view, the subjective triumph of existence, as survival in creative work and offspring is its objective triumph. . . . A Utopia such as this present one, written on the open- ing of the Twentieth Century, and after the most exhaust- ive discussion — nearly a century long — between Commun- istic and Socialistic ideas on the one hand, and Individual- ism on the other, emerges upon a sort of effectual con- clusion to these controversies. ... In the very days when our political and economic order is becoming steadily more Socialistic, our ideals of intercom-se turn more and more to a fuller recognition of the claims of individuality. The State is to be progressive, it is no longer to be static, and this alters the general condition of the Utopian problem profoundly; we have to provide not only for food and clothing, for order and health, but for initiative. The factor that leads the World State on from one phase of development to the next is the interplay of individuali- ties; to speak teleologically, the world exists for the sake of and through initiative, and individuality is the method of initiative. . . . The State is for Individuals, the law is for freedoms, the world is for experiment, experience and change: these are the fimdamental beliefs upon which a modern Utopia must go. The New Day 865 From the Epistle op James WHOSO looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he not being a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. lilt Social Eetiolutton anti 9ititt By Karl Kautsky (German Socialist editor, generally recognized as the intellectual leader of the modern Social-democratic movement in his country) TipREEDOM of education and of scientific investigation '- from the fetters of capitalist dominion; freedom of the individual from the oppression of exclusive, exhaustive physical labor; displacement of capitalist industry in the intellectual production of society by the free unions — along this road proceeds the tendency of the proletarian regime. . . . Regulation of social chaos and liberation of the indi- vidual — these are the two historical tasks that capitaUsm has placed before society. They appear to be contradic- tory, but they are simultaneously soluble because each of them belongs to a different sphere of social Ufe. Undoubt- edly whoever should seek to rule both spheres in the same manner woiild find himself involved in insoluble contradic- tions. . . . Communism in material production, anarchism in intel- lectvnl. This is the type of the Sociahst productive system which will arise from the dominion of the proletariat. 55 866 The Cry for Justice ^Iz tUnliftjJtamimir o£ ilJatua {From "Studies in Socialism") By Jean Leon JAuniis / (See page 589) ( WHEN Socialism has triumphed, when conditions of peace have succeeded to conditions of combat, when all men have their share of property in the immense human capital, and their share of initiative and of the exercise of free-will in the immense human activity, then all men will know the fulness of pride and joy; and they will feel that they are co-operators in the universal civiliza- tion, even if their immediate contribution is only the humblest manual labor; and this labor, more noble and more fraternal in character, will be so regulated that the laborers shall always reserve for themselves some leisure hours for reflection and for a cultivation of the sense of hfe. They will have a better understanding of the hidden meaning of life, whose mysterious aim is the harmony of all consciences, of all forces, and of all Uberties. They will understand history better and will love it, because it will be their history, since they are the heirs of the whole human race. Finally, they will understand the universe better; because, when they see conscience and spirit triumphing in humanity, they will be quick to feel that this universe which has given birth to himianity cannot be fundamentally brutal and bUnd; that there is spirit every- where, soul everywhere, and that the universe itself is simply an immense confused aspiration toward order, beauty, freedom, and goodness. Their point of view will o eg 00 :^ o O The New Day 867 be changed; they will look with new eyes not only at their brother men, but at the earth and the sky, rocks and trees, animals, flowers, and stars. W^t JFutaw Of att {From "Collectivism and Industrial Evolution") By Emile Vandervelde (Belgian Socialist leader, since the war a member of the Cabinet) MANY a time it has been said that art under all its forms is only the mirror, more or less distorted, yet always faithful, of society. Today it reflects the dis- couragements of a dying bourgeoisie, the torments, the anguish, and also the hopes of a proletariat which Hves and grows in the midst of suffering. Tomorrow, it will reflect the calm and peace of happy generations which, escaped from the mire of poverty, will have founded through their own efforts the sovereignty of labor and the reign of brotherhood. art attet tfie Ecboltttfon {From '^Syndicalism and the Co-operative Commonwealth") I By Smile Pataltd and Smile Pouget / (See page 857) LIFE was now to take its revenge. The human being -^ was no longer riveted to the chain of wages; his aim in life passed beyond the mere struggle for a living. Indus- try was no longer his master, but his servant. Freed from 868 The Cry for Justice all hindrances, he would be able to develop without con- straint. And there was no need to fear that the level of art would be lowered as it became universalized. Far from this, it would gain in extent and depth. Its domain would be unlimited. It would enter into all production. It would not restrict itself to painting large canvasses, to sculptiuing marble, to moulding bronze. There would be art in everything. And we should no longer see great artists stifled by misery, lost in the quicksands of indifference, as was too often the case formerly. Pnni0gmrnt In WLtopia (From '-A Modern Utopia") By H. G. Wells (See pages 519, 676, 712, 830, 844, 853, 856, 863) "V/'OU see the big convict steamship standing in to the ^ Island of Incurable Cheats. The crew are respect- fully at their quarters, ready to lend a hand overboard, but wide awake, and the captain is hospitably on the bridge to bid his guests good-bye and keep an eye on the movables. The new citizens for this particular Alsatia, each no doubt with his personal belongings securely packed and at hand, crowd the deck and study the nearing coast. Bright, keen faces would be there, and we, were we by any chance to find ourselves beside the captain, might recog- nize the double of this great earthly magnate or that. Petti- coat Lane and Park Lane cheek by jowl. The landing part of the jetty is clear of people, only a government man or The New Day 869 so stands there to receive the boat and prevent a rush; but beyond the gates a number of engagingly smart-look- ing individuals loiter speculatively. One figures a remark- able building labeled Custom House, an interesting fiscal revival this population has made, and beyond, crowding up the hill, the painted walls of a number of comfortable inns clamor loudly. One or two inhabitants in reduced circumstances would act as hotel touts, there are several hotel omnibuses and a Bureau de Change, certainly a Bureau de Change. And a small house with a large board, aimed point-blank seaward, declares itself a Gratis Infor- mation Office, and next to it rises the graceful dome of a small Casino. Beyond, great hoardings proclaim the advantages of many island specialities, a hustUng com- merce, and the opening of a Pubhc Lottery. There is a large cheap-looking barrack, the school of Commercial Science for gentlemen of inadequate training. . . . Altogether a very go-ahead looking little port it would be, and though this disembarkation would have none of the flow of hilarious good fellowship that would throw a halo of genial noise about the Islands of Drink, it is doubt- ful if the new arrivals would feel anything very tragic in the moment. • i.Here at last was scope for adventure after their hearts. This sounds more fantastic than it is. But what else is there to do, imless you kill? You must seclude, but why should you torment? All modern prisons are places of torture by restraint, and the habitual criminal plays the part of a damaged mouse at the mercy of the cat of our law. He has his little painful run, and back he comes again to a state more horrible even than destitution. There are no Alsatias left in the world. For my own part I can think of no crime, unless it is reckless begetting or the 870 The Cry for Justice wilful transmission of contagious disease, for which the bleak terrors, the soHtudes and ignominies of the modern prison do not seem outrageously cruel. If you want to go as far as that, then kill. Why, once you are rid of them, should you pester criminals to respect an uncongenial standard of conduct? Into such islands of exile as this a modern Utopia will have to purge itself. There is no alternative that I can contrive. ^ ^tzUtt to 19oHtic0 By Walter Lippmann (See page 779) YOU don't have to preach honesty to men with a crea- tive purpose. Let a human being throw the energies of his soul into the making of something, and the instinct of workmanship will take care of his honesty. The writers who have nothing to say are the ones you can buy; the others have too high a price. A genuine craftsman will not adulterate his product; the reason isn't because duty says he shouldn't, but because passion says he couldn't. The New Day 871 %^t 'STriumpfi of Eobe {From "Labor") By Smile Zola (In this novel the French writer gives his solution of the labor problem, in the story of a young engineer who is led by the study of Fourier to found a co-operative steel mill, which in the course of time replaces all the old competitive establishments, and brings about a reign of human brotherhood) I "HE triumphant spectacle that Luc had now always ^ before his eyes, that city of happiness, the gayly colored roofs of which were spread out before his window, was admirable. The march of progress which a former generation, sunk in ancient error, and contaminated by an iniquitous environment, had so mournfully begun in the midst of many obstacles and former hatreds, was to be pursued by their children, instructed and disciplined by the schools and workshops, advancing with a cheerful step, even to the attainment of aims formerly declared chimer- ical. The long effort of struggling humanity resulted in the free expansion of the individual, in a society completely satisfied ; in man being fully man, and hving his life in its entirety. The happy city was thus realized in the religion of Ufe; the religion of humanity, freed at length from dogmas, became in itself all glory and all joy. . . . Authority was at an end ; the new social system had no other foundation than the tie of labor accepted as necessary by all, their law and the object of their worship. A number of groups adopted the new system, breaking off from the old groups of builders, dealers in clothing, metal- workers, artisans, and farm laborers, each group increasing in number, each different, each making itself essential to 873 The Cry for Justice the rest, and satisfying individual wants as well as the needs of a community. Nothing impeded any man's expansion; a citizen working as a laborer might unite him- self with as many groups as he thought proper. . . . And in the city all was love. A pervading sense of love, increasing, wholesome, piurifying, became the perfume and the sacred flame of daily life. Love, general and imiversal, had its birth in youth; then it passed on and became mother love, father love, filial love; it spread to relations, to neighbors, to fellow-citizens, to all men upon earth, and as its waves swept on and became stronger, it seemed to become a great sea of love, bathing the shores of the whole earth. Charity — that is, love of one's neighbors — was like the fresh air which fills the lungs of all who breathe it; everywhere there was this feeling of brotherly love; love alone had proved able to realize the unity men had so long dreamed of, bringing all into divine harmony. The human race, at last as well balanced as the planets in their orbits by the law of attraction, the laws of justice, solidar- ity, and love, would go joyfully on its round through the ages of eternity. Such was the harvest ever renewed and renewing, the great harvest of tenderness and loving kind- ness, that Luc every morning saw growing up around him in spots where he had sown his seed so bountifully in his early days. In his whole city, in his school-rooms, in his work-shops, in each house, and almost in each heart, for many years he had been sowing the good seed with lavish hands. The New Day 873 Wit Cit? of t^t &un By Campanella (A picture of an ideal community written about A.D. 1600 by an Italian student who was imprisoned for twenty-seven years, and nine times tortured by the Spanish Inquisition. See page 438) T OVE is foremost in attending to the charge of the race. ■' — ' He sees that men and women are joined together, that they bring forth the best offspring. Indeed, they laugh at us who exhibit a studious care for our breed of horses and dogs, but neglect the breeding of human beings. Thus the education of children is under his rule. So also is the medicine that is sold, the sowing and collecting of fruits of the earth and of trees, agriculture, pasturage, the prep- arations for the months, the cooking arrangements, and whatever has any reference to food, clothing, and the inter- course of the sexes. Love himself is ruler, but there are many male and female magistrates dedicated to these arts. Eoiie in Miopia (From "News from Nowhere") By William Morris (See pages 793, 855) (A famous English Socialist romance; the dream of a poet made heartsick by the sights and sounds of a machine civilization, and yearning for beauty, simplicity, and peace) 1 1 A H," said I, "no doubt you wanted to keep them out ■^* of the Divorce Court; but I suppose it often has to settle such matters?" "Then you suppose nonsense," said he. "I know that 574 The Cry for Justice there used to be such lunatic affairs as divorce courts; but just consider, all the cases that came into them were matters of property quarrels; and I think, dear guest, that though you do come from another planet, you can see from the mere outside look of our world that quarrel about private property could not go on among us in our days." Indeed, my drive from Hammersmith to Bloomsbury, and all the quiet, happy life I had seen so many hints of, even apart from my shopping, would have been enough to tell me that "the sacred rights of property," as we used to think of them, were now no more. So I sat silent while the old man took up the thread of the discourse again. . . . " You must understand once for all that we have changed these matters; or rather, that our way of looking at them has changed within the last two hundred years. We do not deceive ourselves, indeed, or believe that we can get rid of all the trouble that besets the dealings between the sexes. We know that we must face the unhappiness that comes of man and woman confusing the relations between natural passion and sentiment, and the friendship which, when things go well, softens the awakening from passing illusions; but we are not so mad as to pile up degradation on that unhappiness by engaging in sordid squabbles about livelihood and position, and the power of tyranniz- ing over the children who have been the results of love or lust." . . . He was silent for some time, and I would not interrupt him. At last he began again: " But you must know that we of these generations are strong and healthy of body, and live easily; we pass our lives in reasonable strife with nature, exercising not one side of ourselves only, The New Day 875 but all sides, taking the keenest pleasure in all the life of the world. So it is a point of honor with us not to be self-centered, — not to suppose that the world must cease because one man is sorry ; therefore we should think it foolish, or if you will, criminal, to exaggerate these matters of sentiment and sensibility; we are no more inclined to eke out our sentimental sorrows than to cherish our bodily pains; and we recognize that there are other pleasures besides love-making. You must remember, also, that we are long-lived, and that therefore beauty both in man and woman is not so fleeting as it was in the days when we were burdened so heavily with self-inflicted diseases. So we shake off these griefs in a way which perhaps the sentimentalist of other times would think contemptible and unheroic, but which we think necessary and manlike. As on the one hand, therefore, we have ceased to be commercial in our love-matters, so also we have ceased to be artificially foolish. The folly which comes by nature, the unwisdom of the immature man, or the older man caught in a trap, we must put up with that, nor are we much ashamed of it; but to be con- ventionally sensitive or sentimental — ^my friend, I am old and perhaps disappointed, but at least I think that we have cast off some of the follies of the older world." Patentafft anti tjge gitaU By H. G. Wells (See pages 519, 675, 712, 830, 844, 853, 856, 863, 868) PARENTAGE rightly undertaken is a service as well as a duty to the world, carrying with it not only obli- gations but a claim, the strongest of claims, upon the whole community. It must be paid for hke any other 876 The Cry for Justice public service; in any completely civilized state it must be sustained, rewarded, and controlled. And this is to be done not to supersede the love, pride, and conscience of the parent, but to supplement, encourage, and main- tain it. %^t SDeUbttanct ot dZlioman (From "Woman and Labor") By Olive Schbeiner (See pages 240, 247, 502, 579) ALWAYS in our dreams we hear the turn of the key that • shall close the door of the last brothel; the clink of the last coin that pays for the body and soul of a woman; the falling of the last wall that encloses artificially the activity of woman and divides her from man; always we picture the love of the sexes as once a dull, slow, creeping worm; then a torpid, earthy chrysalis; at last the full- winged insect, glorious in the sunshine of the future. Today, as we row hard against the stream of life, is it only blindness in our eyes, which have been too long strained, which makes us see, far up the river where it fades into the distance, through all the mists that rise from the river-banks, a clear, golden Ught? Is it only a delusion of the eyes which makes us grasp our oars more hghtly and bend our backs lower; though we know well that, long before the boat reaches those stretches, other hands than ours will man the oars and guide its helm? Is it all a dream? The New Day 877 &^t m^o M to Conu (From "In This Our World") By Chablottb Perkins Oilman (See pages 200, 209, 421, 662, 820) A WOMAN — in so far as she beholdeth ■^*- Her one Beloved's face; A mother — ^with a great heart that enfoldeth The children of the Race; A body, free and strong, with -that high beauty That comes of perfect use, is built thereof; A mind where Reason ruleth over Duty, And Justice reigns with Love; A self -poised, royal soul, brave, wise, and tender, No longer blind and dumb; A Human Being, of an unknown splendor, Is she who is to come ! dzaoman tn Jfteenom (From "Love's Coining of Age") By Edwabd Carpenter (See pages 186, 541, 608) THERE is no solution except the freedom of woman — which means of course also the freedom of the masses of the people, men and women, and the ceasing altogether of economic slavery. There is no solution which will not include the redemption of the terms "free woman" and "free love" to their true and rightful significance. Let 878 The Cry for Justice every woman whose heart bleeds for the sufferings of her sex, hasten to declare herself and to constitute herself, as far as she possibly can, a free woman. Let her accept the term with all the odiiun that belongs to it; let her insist on her right to speak, dress, thinlc, act, and above all to use her sex, as she deems best; let her face the scorn and ridicule; let her "lose her own life" if she likes; assured that only so can come deliverance, and that only when the free woman is honored will the prostitute cease to exist. And let every man who really would respect his counterpart, entreat her also to act so; let him never by word or deed tempt her to grant as a bargain what can only be precious as a gift; let him see her with pleasure stand a little aloof; let him help her to gain her feet; so at last, by what slight sacrifices on his part such a course may involve, will it dawn upon him that he has gained a real companion and helpmate on life's journey. T^t Sittt aaioman By Walt Whitman (See pages 184, 268, 578, 726, 835) OHE is less guarded than ever, yet more guarded than ^ ever. The gross and soil'd she moves among do not make her gross and soiled. She knows the thoughts as she passes, nothing is concealed from her. She is none the less considerate or friendly therefor, She is the best belov'd, it is without exception; she has no reason to fear, and she does not fear, The New Day 879 %'^z Commg &inBtc By George Steeling (See pages 504, 552, 597, 816) '' I "HE Veil before the mystery of things -'- Shall stir for him with iris and with light; Chaos shall have no terror in his sight Nor earth a bond to chafe his urgent wings; With sandals beaten from the crown of kings He shall tread down the altars of their night, And stand with Silence on her breathless height, To hear what song the star of morning sings. With perished beauty in his hands as clay, Shall he restore futurity its dream. Behold ! his feet shall take a heavenly way Of choric silver and of chanting fire. Till in his hands unshapen planets gleam, 'Mid murmurs from the Lion and the Lyre. 'SEfiuei fepafet ZaratfiuiStta By Fhiedbich Nietzsche (See page 779) WHEN Zarathustra came into the next city, which lay beside the forest, he found in that place much people gathered together in the market; for they had been called that they should see a rope-dancer. And Zarathus- tra spoke thus unto the people: "7 teach ye the Over-man. The man is something who shall be overcome. What have ye done to overcome him? 880 The Cry for Justice "All being before this made something beyond itself: and you will be the ebb of this great flood, and rather go back to the beast than overcome the man? "What is the ape to the man? A mockery or a painful shame. And even so shall man be to the Over-man: a mockery or a painful shame. "Man is a cord, tied between Beast and Over-man — a cord above an abyss. "A perilous arriving, a perilous traveling, a perilous looking backward, a perilous trembling and standing still. "What is great in man is that he is a bridge, and no goal; what can be loved in man is that he is a going-over and a going-under. "I love them that know not how to live, be it even as those going under, for such are those going across. "I love them that are great in scorn, because these are they that are great in reverence, and arrows of longing toward the other shore!" Index 56 3nli« of Sitttlot& Abercrombie, Lascelles, 537 Adams, Abigail, 241 Adams, Francis W. L., 219, 266, 348 Adams. Franklin P.. 695, 711 ••A.fl." 252. 613, 829 Alcaeus, 440 Aldrioh, Thomas Bailey, 314 Alfonso the Wise, 251 Allen, Grant, 210. 613 Ambrose. St.. 397 Amid. John. 720 Amos, 524 Andreyev. Leonid, 92, 214, 327 Anonymous, 264, 278, 355, 684 Antiparos. 198 Arabian, 475 Archer, William, 764 Aristophanes, 442, 449 Aristotle, 480, 523 Arnold, Matthew, 203, 744 Augustine, St., 398 Aurelius, Marcus, 455, 474, 480 Bacon, Francis, 480, 603 Barbour, John, 470 Barker, Elsa, 315, 359, 731 Barrie, James Matthew, 31 Basil, St., 396 Bates, Katharine Lee, 633 Beals, May, 183, 533 Bebel, August, 807, 817 Bellamy. Edward. 85, 861 Belloc, Hilaire, 755 Benson, Allan L., 584 Beranger, Pierre Jean de, 748 Bergstrom, Hjalmar, 107 Berkman, Alexander, 320 Bismarck, Otto von, 622, 812 Bjorkman, Edwin, 505 Bjornson, Bjornstjerne, 221, 339 Blake, WilUam, 98, 213, 743 Blanc, Louis, 796 Blatchford, Robert, 66, 121, 170, 383, 783 Boethius, 200 Bondareff, T. M., 414 Braley, Berton, 132 Bxandes, George, 763 Breshkovsky, Katharine, 317 Brieux, Eugene, 152 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 208, 644 Browning, Robert, 753 Bryant, William CuUen, 231 Buchanan, Robert, 367, 412, 687, 714 Buddha, 461 Bunyan, John, 497 Burke, Edmund, 229 Burnet, Dana, 531, 537 Burns, Robert, 227 Byron, Lord, 232, 340, 491 Caine, HaU, 373 Campanella, Tommaao, 438, 873 Carlyle, Thomas, 31, 74, 133, 488, 553, 652, 837 Carman, Bhss, 625 Carpenter, Edward, 186, 541, 608, 877 Carter, George, 150 Catherine of Russia, 561 Cato, 452 Cervantes, Miguel de, 578, 692 Chatterton, Thomas, 777 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 423, 691 Chesterton, Gilbert K,, 180, 573 Chinese, 236 ChrysostomSt.,398 Churchill, Winston, 386 Cicero, 472 Clemens, Samuel L., 265, 566 Clement of Alexandria, 396 de Cleyre, Voltairine, 337 Clough, Arthur Hugh, 488, 697 Comfort, Will Levington, 165 Cone, Helen Gray. 727 Confucius, 471, 478 Cowper, Wilham, 557 Crabbe, George, 29. 134 Crane, Stephen, 217, 689 Crosby, Ernest Howard, 394 Cyprian, St., 396 Dante, 467, 469 Davidson, John, 216, 761, 778 Davies, William H., 677, 650 Debs, Eugene V., 144, 245 Defoe, Daniel, 204 Dehmel, Richard, 546 Deming, Seymour, 535 Dickens, Charles, 88, 665 Dickinson, G. Lowes, 610, 615 Dobson, Austin, 571 Dostoievsky, F6odor, 412 Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt, 512 Dunne, Finley Peter, 683, 692, 698, 706, 709, 711, 718 Eastman, Max, 408, 762 Ecclesiastes, 278 Edwards, Albert, 205, 244, 814 Egyptian, 446, 457 Elliott, Ebenezer, 179 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 235, 52^ 631, 815 Engels, Frederick, 514, 802 Enoch, 471 Euripides, 440, 466 Evans, Florence Wilkinson, 638 Ezekiel, 472 Ferrer, Francisco, 336, 676 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 629 (883) 884 Index of Authors Fiaher, Jacob, 192 Fogazzaro, Antonio, 410 Fourier, Charies, 202, 846 France, Anatole, 681, 703, 720 Frank, Florence Kiper, 243 Franklin, Benjamin, 681 Frederick the Great, 662 Freiligrath, Ferdinand, 270 Froude, James Anthony, 214 Galsworthy, John, 57 Garrison, William Lloyd, 233 George, Henry, 116 George, W. L., 217, 538 Ghent, W. J., 750 Gibbins, Hemy deB., 647 Gibson, Wilfrid Wilson, 739 Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 200, 209, 421, 662, 820, 877 Giovannitti, Arturo, 296, 300 Gissing, George, 104, 767 Gladstone, William Ewart, 626 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 298, 394 Goldman, Emma, 147 Goldsmith, Oliver, 604 Gorky, Maidm, 141, 203, 544, 617 Gray, Thomas, 190 Greek, 471 Greeley, Horace, 128 Gregory, St., 398 Guiterman, Arthur, 311, 693 Habakkuk, 451 Hagedorn, Hermann, 500 Haggai, 442 Hall, Bolton, 680, 710 Hammurabi, 460 Hanford, Ben, 809 Hanna, Paul, 166 Hapgood, Hutchins, 320 Harris, Frank, 281 Harrison, Frederic, 68, 327 Hauptmann, Gerhart, 268 Hearn, Lafcadio, 232 Heine, Heinrich, 97, 222, 744, 763 Henderson, C. Hanford, 673 Herrick, Robert (American), 99 Herrick, Robert (English) , 202 Herron, George D., 730, 792, 799, 832, 843 Hertzka, Theodor, 797 Herwegh, Georg, 67 Hesiod, 465 Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 220 Hill, J., 707 Hindoo, 474 Hitopadesa, 468 Hodgson, Ralph, 511 Homer, 459 Hood, Thomas, 69, 171, 485 Horace, 452 Hoshi, KenkS 135, 161, 154 Howells, William Dean, 685 Hugo, Victor, 182, 267, 637 Hubbard, Elbert, 638 Hunter, Robert, 818 Hutchison, Percy Adams, 371 Ibsen, Henrik, 241, 273 Icelandic, 465 Im Bang, 453 Ingersoll, Robert G., 264, 602 Irvine, Alexander, 385, 671 Isaiah, 420, 447, 464, 473, 839, 845, 847 Isaiah 11, 482 James, 300, 454, 865 Japanese, 441 Jaurds, Jean Leon, 589, 866 Jefiferies, Richard, 29 Jefferson, Thomas,. 228, 332, 596, 600 Jeremiah, 449 Jerome, St., 397 Job, 452 John, 386 Johnson, Samuel, 510, 773 Jones, Ernest, 686 Jones, Henry Arthur, 425 Jones, Sir William, 440 Joseph, Chief. 583 Kauffman, Reginald Wright, 53, 167, 601 Kautsky, Karl, 865 Keats, John, 102 KeUer, Helen. 219 KeUy, Edmond, 424 Kemp, Harry, 37, 351, 551 Khayyam, Omar, 469 King, Edward, 331 Kingsley, Charles, 78, 84, 223, 263, 740 Kipling, Rudyard, 103 Korolenko, Vladimir G., 840 Kropotkin, Peter, 308, 312, 745, 828 Lafargue, Paul, 197 Lamennais, Robert de, 427 Lamszus, Wilhelm, 562 Landor, Walter Savage, 614 Langland, William, 447 Lankester, E. Ray, 835 Lassalle, Ferdinand, 624, 802 Lavelaye, Emile de, 395 Lawson, John R., 524 Lecky, William E. H., 168 Lee, Gerald Stanley, 525 LeGallienne, Richard, 567 Li Hung Chang, 196, 689, 702 Lincoln, Abraham, 234, 623. 788 Lindsay, Vachel, 335, 599, 672, 699, 811 Lindsey, Ben B., 640 Linn, Charles Weber, 56 Lippmann, Walter, 779, 870 Lisle, Claude Joseph Rouget de. 806 Lloyd, Henry Demarest, 827 London, Jack, 62, 125, 139, 519, 609, 649. 732 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 580 Lowell, James Russell, 189, 356, 558 Lowrie, Donald, 145 Lucretius, 468 Index of Authors 885 Luke, 350, 385 Luther, 451, 453 McCarthy, P. F., 560 Macdonald, George, 495 MacGUl, Patrick, 32, 47, 122, 406, 725 Mackay, Charles, 657, 747 Mackaye, James, 631 Mackaye, Percy, 561, 672, 682 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 406 Maeterlinck, Maurice, 786 Manning, Cardinal, 102 Manu, 464 Markham, Edwin, 27, 199, 842 Martial, 451 Marx, Karl, 234, 514, 795, 802 Masefield, John, 23, 35 Matthew, 358 Mazzini, Giuseppe, 790 Mencius, 455 Micah, 410, 590 Mill, John Stuart, 199, 299, 306 Milton, John, 452, 485 Mirbeau, Octave, 627 Monro, Harold, 516 Moody, William Vaughn, 188, 595 More, Sir Thomas, 160, 490, 616, 851 Morgan, J. Pierpont, 515 Morris. William, 793, 855, 873 Negro, 470 Neihardt, John G., 239 Nesbit, Wilbur D., 679 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 779, 879 Nintoku, 475 Nizami, 448 Noel, T., 690 Nordau, Max, 68 Norris, Frank, 111 Noyes, Alfred, 575 O'Higgins, Harvey J., 640 Oppenheim, James, 45, 129, 247, 426 O'ReiUy, John Boyle, 497 O-Shi-0. 756 Owen, Robert, 813 Paine, Thomas, 622 "Paint Creek Miner," 277 Pankhurst, E. Sylvia, 305 Pataud, Emile, 857, 867 Paul, St., 811 PhiUppe, Charles-Louis, 290 Phillips, David Graham, 684 PhiUips, Wendell, 271 Plato, 468, 479, 848 Plutarch, 432, 439, 476 Poole, Ernest, 39, 317 Pettier, Eugene, 800 Pouget, Emile, 857, 867 Psalms, 150 Ptah-Hotep, 465 Rabelais, Franeois, 700 Raleigh, Walter, 535 Ravischenbusch, Walter, 346, 393 Renan, Ernest, 349 Rimbaud, Arthur, 654 Rockefeller, John D., 487, 696 Rolland, Romain, 757 Roosevelt, Theodore, 860 Rosenfeld, Morris, 56, 766 Rosny, Joseph-Henry, 585, 669, 801 Roes, Edward Alsworth, 617 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 478, 583 Runyon, Damon, 701 Ruskin, John, 106, 491, 752, 756, 786 Russell, Charles Edward, 333 RusseU, George W., 252, 513, 829 Sadi, 456, 475 Samuel, 462 Sandburg, Karl, 574 Savonarola, 423 Schoonmaker, Edwin Davies, 392 Schreiner, OUve, 240, 247, 502, 579, 876 Scudder, Vida D., 289, 785 Service, Robert W., 51 Shakespeare, William, 181, 492, 507, 533 Shaw, G. Bernard, 193, 212, 263. 402, 760, 798, 854 Shelley. Percy Bysshe, 272, 608 Sinclair, Mary Craig, 169 Sinclair, Upton, 43, 143, 194, 274, 403. 776, 803, 836 Skipaey, Joseph, 662 Solon, 477 Sophocles, 466 Southey, Robert, 73 Spargo, John, 830 Spencer, Herbert, 460, 787 Spenser, Edmund, 493, 775 Spingarn, Joel Elias, 719 Steffens, Lincoln, 422, 526 Stephen, Sir Leslie, 271 Sterling, George, 504, 552, 597, 816, 879 Stokes, Rose Pastor, 766 Strindberg, August, 729 Suttner, Bertha von, 562 Swift, Jonathan, 659 Swinbiu-ne, Algernon Charles, 376, 637. 788 Swinton, John, 754 Symonds, John Addington, 438, 440 Symons, Arthxn-, 171 Taft, William Howard, 134 Tagore, Rabindranath, 426 Talleyrand, Charles Maurice de, 77 Tennyson, Alfred, 77, 486, 652, 838, 854 Tertullian, 396 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 496 Thompson, Francis. 778 Thoreau. Henry David, 295, 600, 630 Tichenor, Henry M., 708 Tolstoy, Leo, 88, 110. 148, 276, 374, 416, 555, 674, 728 Towne, Charles Hanson, 52 Traubel, Horace, 185, 746 886 Index of Authors Tressall, Robert, 663, 821 "Tribvine," New York, 623 Turgfinev, Ivan, 311 Twain, Mart, 266, 566 Underwood, John Curtis, 648 Untermeyer, Louis, 42, 418, 515, 699, 709, 763 Upson, Arthur, 603, 720 Vaillant, Auguste, 338 Vandervelde, fimile, 867 van Eeden, Frederik, 248, 360, 368 Vaughan, Bernard, 498 Veblen, Thorstein, 507 Verhaeren, flmile, 541, 587 Villon, Frangois, 683 Virgil, 466 Voltaire, 674, 694 Waddell, Elizabeth, 245, 846 Wagner, Richard, 236, 747, 838 Walling, WilUam English, 812 WaUis, Louis, 276 Wang-An-Shih, 481 Warbasse, James P., 831 Ward, C. Osborne, 431 Washington, George, 305, 632 Watson, William, 614 Webster, Daniel, 604 Wells, H. G., 619, 675, 712, 830, 844,, 853, 856, 863, 868, 875 Wharton, Edith, 500 White, Bouck, 353, 399 Whiteing, Richard, 137, 651 Whitlock, Brand, 161 Whitman, Walt, 184, 268, 578, 726, 835, 878 Whittier, John Greenleaf, 593 Widdemer, Margaret, 256, 307, 670 Wilde, Lady, 211 Wilde, Oscar, 155, 852 Wilhelm, Kaiser, 555 Wilson, Woodrow, 594 Wood, Clement, 409, 523 Wordsworth, WiUiam, 181 Wupperman, Carlos, 218 Wyckoff, Walter, 131 Xenophon, 469 Zangwill, Israel, 136, 717 Zola, ^mile, 91, 631, 871 UnUti of ^itlt& Address to President Lincoln, Marx 234 Address to the Jury, Giovannitti . . 296 Ad Valorem, Ruskin 7r.2 Agis, Plutarch 432 Alton Locke, Kingsley 84, 223, 740 Alton Locke's Song, Kingsley 263 A Man's a Man for a' That, BuTna 227 America the Beautiful, Bates 633 Anatole France, Brandes 763 Ancient Lowly, Ward 431 Antigone, Sophocles 466 Antiquity of Freedom, Bryant .... 231 Appeal to the Young, Kropotkin . . 745 Arsenal at Springfield, Longfellow 5S0 As a Strong Bird, Whitman 835 Aurora Leigh, Browning ^08 Babble Machines, Wells 712 Bad Shepherds, Mirbeau 627 Ballade of Misery and Iron, Carter 150 Ballad in Blank Verse, Davidson. . 778 Ballad of Dead Girls, Burnet 531 Ballad of Kiplingson, Buchanan. . . 714 Ballad of Reading Gaol, Wilde .155 Battle Hymn of the Chinese Revo- lution, Chinese 236 Batuschka, Aldrich 314 Beast, Lindsey and 0' Higgins .... 640 Bed of Roses, Ge(yrge 217, 538 Before a Crucifix, Swinburne 376 Before Sedan, Dohson 571 Beggar's Complaint, Japanese 441 Beyond Human Might, Bjdm- son 221,339 Biglow Papers, Lowell 558 Bomb, Harris 281 Book of Enoch 471 Book of Good Counsels, Sanscrit . 466 Book of Job , 452 Book of Proverbs 746 Book of Samuel 462 Book of Snobs, Thackeray 496 Book of The People, Lamennais . . 427 Boston Hymn, Emerson 235 Bound, Seals 183 Bread and Roses, Oppenheim 247 Bread Line, Braley 132 Breshkovskaya, Barker 315 Bridge of Sighs, Hood 171 Bryanism, " Tribune" 623 Butcher's Stall, Verhaeren 541 Buttons, Sandburg 574 By-the-Way, MacGill 725 Caesar and Cleopatra, Shaw 854 Caliban in the Coal Mines, Unter- meyer 42 Call of the Carpenter^ White. . .353, 399 PAGE Canterbury Tales, Chaucer 423 Capital, Marx 795 Catechism for "Workers, Strindberg 729 Chants Communal, Traubel. . .185, 746 Charity, Lawson 524 Child Labor, Oilman 662 Children of the Dead End, MacGill, 47, 122, 406 Children of the Ghetto, Zangwill. . 136 Children of the Poor, Hngo 637 Children's Auction, Mackay 657 Chillon, Byron 340 Christian Church, Early 396 Christianity and the Social Crisis, Rauschenbusch 346 Church and the Workers, Rau- schenbusch 393 City of the Sun, Campanella 873 Code of Hammurabi, 460 Collection, Crosby 394 Collectivism and Industrial Evolu- tion, Vandervelde 867 Coming of War, Tolstoy 555 Coming Singer, Sterling 879 Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels 514,802 Complaint to My Empty Purse, Chaucer 691 Comrade Yetta, Edwards 244, 814 Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Twain 265 Consecration, Masefield 23 Conventional Lies of Our Civiliza- tion, Nordau 68 Convivio, Dant^ 467 Co-operation and Nationality, Russell 513,829 Crowds, Lee 525 Crown of Wild Olive, Ruskin 491 Crusaders, Waddell 245 Cry from the Ghetto, Rosenfeld ... 56 Cry of the Children, Browning. . . . 644 Cry of the People, Neihardt 239 Dauber, Masefield 35 Dawn, Verhaeren 587 Dead to the Living, Freiligrath. . . . 270 Death and the Child, Crane 217 December 31st, Abercrombie 537 Democratic Vistas, Whitman 726 Deserted Village, Goldsmith 604 Desire of Nations, Markham 842 Despair, Lady Wilde 211 Deuteronomy 477 Dinner k la Tango, Bjdrkman 505 Diomedes the Pirate, Villon 683 Dipsychus, Clough 488 Discourse on liie Origin of In- - equality, Bovsaeau 478 (887) 888 Index of Titles PAGE Doll's House, Ibsen 241 Dooley, Mr., 683, 692, 698, 706, 709, 711, 718 Don Juan, Byron 491 Don Quixote, Cervantes 578, 692 Doubt, Mackaye 572 Duties of Man, Mazzini 790 Duty of Civil Disobedience, Thoreau 295, 600, 630 Dying Boss, Steffens 526 Eagle ThatI s Forgotten, XiTuJsaif. 335 Early Church 396 Easter Children, Barker 359 Ecclesiastes 278, 438, 488 Ecclesiasticus 690 Edda 463 Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Orau 190 Eloquent Peasant, Egyptian 457 England in 1819, Shelley 608 Essay on Liberty, Mill 299 Europe, Whitman 268 Exit Salvatore, Wood 409 Exodus 437 Factories, Widdemer 670 Faerie Queene, Spenser 493 Farewell Address, Washington 632 Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Defoe 204 FiftJ Avenue, WIS, Hagedorn 500 Firei., Gibson 739 First Machine, Antiparos 198 Fleet Street Eclogues, Davidson. . 761 Flower Factory, Evans 638 Foma Gordyeeff, Gorky 203, 544 For Hire, Rosenthal 766 For Lyric Labor, Waddell 846 For the other 364 Days, Adarm . . 695 Fredome, Barbour 470 Freebooter's Prayer, Guiterman. . . 693 Freedom, Lowell 189 Frogs, Aristophanes 449 From Revolution to Revolution, Herron 792, 799 From the Bottom Up, Irvine 385 Furred Law-Cats, Rabelais 700 Gentleman Inside, Runyon 701 Girl Strike-Leader, Frank 243 Gitanjali, Tagore 426 Gloucester Moors, Moody 188 God and My Neighbor, Blatchford. 383 God and the Strong Ones, Wid- demer 256 Gospel of Buddha ' 461 Happiness of Nations, Mackaye... 631 Happy Humanity, Van Eeden 248 Harbor, Poole 39 Heirs of Time, Higginson 220 Heloise sans Abelard, Spingarn . . 719 History of European Morals, Lecky 168 PAGE Hitopadesa, Hindu 468 Hong's Experiences in Hades, Im Bang 453 House of Bondage, Kaufman, 53, 167, 601 House of Mirth, Wharton 500 Human Slaughter-House, Lamszus 562 Hymn, Chesterton 180 Ibsen 764 Illusion of War, Le Qallienne 567 Image in the Forum, Buchanan. . 367 Impressions, Monro 616 In Bohemia, O'Reilly 497 Incentives, Fourier 846 Industrial History of England, Gibbins 647 In Memoriam, Tennyson 838 Inside of the Cup, Churchill 386 Insouciance in Storm, Kemp 37 Instructions of Ptah-Hotep 465 Internationale, Pottier 800 In the Days of the Comet, Wells . . 853 In the Market-Place, Sterling 504 In the Shadows, Upson 720 In the Strand, Symons 171 In Trafalgar Square, Adams 266 Isabella, Keats 102 I Sing the Battle, Kemp 551 Tean-Christophe, RoUand 757 Jesus, Debs 245 Jesus, Renan 349 Jimmie Higgins, Hanford 809 Journalism, Svnnton 754 Journal of Arthur Stirling, Sinclair 776 Jungle, Sinclair 43, 194, 274, 803 Kingdom of Man, Lankester 835 King Hunger, Aridreyev 92 Koran 475, 479 Kruppism, Mackaye 561 Labor, Anonymous 264 Labor, Zola 871 Labor and Capital Are One, Hall . 710 Lady Poverty, Fisher 192 Land Titles, Spencer 787 Last Verses, Chatterton 777 Last Word, Arnold 744 Latest Decalogue, Clough 697 Laws of Social Evolution, Hertzka 797 Lawyer and the Farmer, Egyptian 446 Lay Down Your Arms, von Suttner 568 Lay Sermon to Preachers, Jones . . 425 Lazarus, Anonymous 355 Leaden-Eyed, Lindsay 672 Leisure Classes, Anonymous 684 Letters from a Chinese Official, Dickinson 510, 615 Letter to Chesterfield, Johnson. . . 773 Let the People Vote on War, Benson 584 Leviticus 477, 852 Liberator, Garriaon 233 Index of Titles 889 PAGE Life for a Life, Herrick 99 Light Upon Waldheim, de Cleyre. . . 337 Lincoln-Douglas Debates, lAncoln 234 Lines, Crane 689 Lines to a Pomeranian Puppy, Untermeyer 709 Locksley Hall Fifty Years After, Tennyson 652 London, Blake 98 London, Heine 97 Looking Backward, Bellamy 85, 861 Lost Leader, Browning • 763 Lotus Eaters, Tennyson 77 Love's Coming of Age, Car- penter 541, 877 Lynggaard & Co., Bergstrdm 107 Major Barbara, Shaw 193, 402 Makar's Dream, Korolenko 840 Mammon Marriage, M 728 What Is It To Be Educated? Henderson 673 What Life Means to Me, London. 732 What Meaneth a Tyrant, Alfonso the Wise 2ri 1 What the Moon Saw, Lindsay. . . . 699 What To Do, Tolstoy 674 When the Leaves Come Out, Paitit Creek Miner 277 When the Sleeper Wakes, Wells.. 712 Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket, Lindsay 811 Why the Socialist Party Is Grow- ing, Adams 711 PAGE Wife of Flanders, Chesterton 573 Will of Francisco Ferrer 336 Wine Press, Noyes 575 Wolf at the Door, Oilman 200 Woman, Bebel 817 Woman and Labor, Schreiner, 240, 602, 579, 876 Woman's Execution, King 331 Women and Economics, Oilman. . 209 Work According to the Bible, Bondarejf 414 Work and Pray, Herwegh 67 Workers, Wyckoff 131 Work for All but Father, Tichenar . 708 Workingman's Program, Lassalle. 802 World's Way, Shakespeare 181 Written in London, September, 1802, Wordsworth 181 Wrongfulness of Riches, Allen ... 613 Yeast, Kingsley 78 Zadig, YoUaire 674, 694