BOOK V

_Revolt_

The struggle to do away with injustice; the battle-cries of the new army which is gathering for the deliverance of humanity.

A Man's a Man for a' That

BY ROBERT BURNS

(Scotland's most popular poet, 1759-1796)

Is 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.

A king can make a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that; But an honest man's aboon his might, Gude faith, he maunna 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 born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.

A Vindication of Natural Society

BY EDMUND BURKE

(British statesman and orator, 1729-1797; defended the American colonies in Parliament during the Revolutionary War)

Ask of politicians the ends for which laws were originally 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 number 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 the least surprised. 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 light of the sun; they are buried in the bowels of the earth; there they work at a severe and dismal 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 hundred thousand more at least are tortured without remission by the suffocating smoke, intense fires, and constant 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 wretchedness 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 rendered 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 down by the most cruel oppression; and the rich by their artificial method of life bringing worse evils on themselves than their tyranny could possibly inflict on those below them.

The Antiquity of Freedom

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 bolts, 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.

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?

Concerning Moderation

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 political, or social, has been obtained only with the assistance of extremes. But remember that I say, "With the assistance,"--I do not mean that extremes alone accomplish 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 young 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 undertaking.... 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 conviction 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.

[Illustration: OUTBREAK

KÄTHE KOLLWITZ

(_Contemporary German etching; from the "Peasant-cycle"_)]

[Illustration: THE LIBERATRESS

THÉOPHILE ALEXANDRE STEINLEN

(_French illustrator, born 1859_)]

The First Issue of "The Liberator"

(_January 1, 1831_)

BY WILLIAM LLOYD 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 from the fire into which 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.

Working and Taking

(_From the Lincoln-Douglas debates, 1858_)

BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN

That is the real issue that will continue in this country 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."

Address to President Lincoln

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 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 understood 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 Hymn

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON

(American essayist, philosopher and poet. The two stanzas following, which may be said to sum 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 unbound; 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.

Battle Hymn of the Chinese Revolution (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!

The Revolution

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 _Volksblätter_)

I 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 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 foundations 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 human 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. Let 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 humanity into hostile peoples, into strong and weak, into privileged and outlawed, into rich and poor; for that makes unfortunate 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-abundance. I will destroy the order of things which consumes 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 usury, and the maintenance of such like despicable conditions, 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 transient glory of riches, arise! Come and follow in my track with the joyful crowd, for I know not how to make distinction 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.

Cry of the People

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 with 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, O 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 away!_

Woman's Right

(_From "Woman and Labor"_)

BY OLIVE SCHREINER

(South African novelist, born 1859. In the preface to this