OR let him go to Edinburgh, the "modern Athens," of which Scotsmen
speak with pride, and in buildings from whose roofs a bowman might strike
the spires of twenty churches he will find human beings living as he would
not keep his meanest dog. Let him toil up the stairs of one of those monstrous
buildings, let him enter one of those "dark houses," let him close
the door, and in the blackness think what life must be in such a place. Then
let him try the reduction to iniquity. And if he go to that good charity
(but, alas! how futile is Charity without Justice!) where little children
are kept while their mothers are at work, and children are fed who would
otherwise go hungry, he may see infants whose limbs are shrunken from want
of nourishment. Perhaps they may tell him, as they told me, of that little
girl, barefooted, ragged, and hungry, who, when they gave her bread, raised
her eyes and clasped her hands, and thanked our Father in Heaven for His
bounty to her. They who told me that never dreamed, I think, of its terrible
meaning. But I ask the Duke of Argyll, did that little child, thankful
for that poor dole, get what our Father provided for her? Is He so niggard?
If
not, what is it, who is it, that stands, between such children and our Father's
bounty? If it be an institution, is it not our duty to God and to our neighbor
to rest not till we destroy it? If it be a man, were it not better for him
that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the depths
of the sea? — The Reduction to Iniquity (a reply to the Duke of Argyll),
The Nineteenth Century, July, 1884
WE are so accustomed to poverty that even in the most advanced countries
we regard it as the natural lot of the great masses of the people; that we
take it as a matter of course that even in our highest civilization large
classes should want the necessaries of healthful life, and the vast majority
should only get a poor and pinched living by the hardest toil. There are
professors of political economy who teach that this condition of things is
the result of social laws of which it is idle to complain! There are ministers
of religion who preach that this is the condition which an all-wise, all-powerful
Creator intended for His children! If an architect were to build a theater
so that not more than one-tenth of the audience could see and hear, we should
call him a bungler and a botcher. If a man were to give a feast and provide
so little food that nine-tenths of his guests must go away hungry, we should
call him a fool, or worse. Yet so accustomed are we to poverty, that even
the preachers of what passes for Christianity tell us that the great Architect
of the Universe, to whose infinite skill all nature testifies, has made such
a botch job of this world that the vast majority of the human creatures whom
He has called into it are condemned by the conditions he has imposed to want,
suffering, and brutalizing toil that gives no opportunity for the development
of mental powers — must pass their lives in a hard struggle to merely
live! — Social Problems
But, in reality, the cause is that which always has, and always must result
in slavery — the monopolization by some of what nature has designed
for all. . . . Private ownership of land is the nether millstone.
Material progress is the upper millstone. Between them; with an increasing pressure,
the working classes are being ground. — Progress & Poverty — Book
VII, Chapter 2, Justice of the Remedy: Enslavement of laborers the ultimate
result of private property in land
ONLY a little while ago nations were bought and sold, traded off by treaty
and bequeathed by will. Where now is the right divine of kings? Only a little
while ago, and human flesh and blood were legal property. Where are now the
vested rights of chattel slavery? And shall this wrong, that involves monarchy,
and involves slavery — this injustice from which both spring — long
continue? Shall the ploughers for ever plough the backs of a class condemned
to toil? Shall the millstones of greed for ever grind the faces of the poor?
Ladies and gentlemen, it is not in the order of the universe! As one who
for years has watched and waited, I tell you the glow of dawn is in the sky.
Whether it come with the carol of larks or the roll of the war-drums, it
is coming — it will come. The standard that I have tried to raise tonight
may be tom by prejudice and blackened by calumny; it may now move forward,
and again be forced back. But once loosed, it can never again be furled!
To beat down and cover up the truth that I have tried tonight to make clear
to you, selfishness will call on ignorance. But it has in it the germinative
force of truth, and the times are ripe for it. If the flint oppose it, the
flint must split or crumble! Paul planteth, and Apollos watereth, but God
giveth the increase. The ground is ploughed; the seed is set; the good tree
will grow.
So little now, only the eye of faith can see it. So little now; so tender
and so weak. But sometime, the birds of heaven shall sing in its branches;
sometime, the weary shall find rest beneath its shade! — Speech: Why
Work is Scarce, Wages Low and Labour Restless (1877, San Francisco) ...
THE poverty to which in advancing civilization great masses of men are condemned,
is not the freedom from distraction and temptation which sages have sought
and philosophers have praised: it is a degrading and embruting slavery, that
cramps the higher nature, dulls the finer feelings, and drives men by its
pain to acts which the brutes would refuse. It is into this helpless, hopeless
poverty, that crushes manhood and destroys womanhood, that robs even childhood
of its innocence and joy, that the working classes are being driven by a
force which acts upon them like a resistless and unpitying machine. The Boston
collar manufacturer who pays his girls two cents an hour may commiserate
their condition, but he, as they, is governed by the law of competition,
and cannot pay more and carry on his business, for exchange is not governed
by sentiment. And so, through all intermediate gradations, up to those who
receive the earnings of labor without return, in the rent of land, it is
the inexorable laws of supply and demand, a power with which the individual
can no more quarrel or dispute than with the winds and the tides, that seem
to press down the lower classes into the slavery of want.
But, in reality, the cause is that which always has, and always must result in
slavery — the monopolization by some of what nature has designed for all.
. . . Private ownership of land is the nether millstone. Material progress
is the upper millstone. Between them; with an increasing pressure, the working
classes
are being ground. — Progress & Poverty — Book
VII, Chapter 2, Justice of the Remedy: Enslavement of laborers the ultimate result
of private property in land
ONLY a little while ago nations were bought and sold, traded off by
treaty and bequeathed by will. Where now is the right divine of kings?
Only a little while ago, and human flesh and blood were legal property.
Where are now the vested rights of chattel slavery? And shall this
wrong, that involves monarchy, and involves slavery — this injustice
from which both spring — long continue? Shall the ploughers for ever
plough the backs of a class condemned to toil? Shall the millstones
of greed for ever grind the faces of the poor? Ladies and gentlemen, it is not in
the order of the universe! As one who for years has watched and waited,
I tell you the glow of dawn is in the sky. Whether it come with the carol
of larks or the roll of the war-drums, it is coming — it will come.
The standard that I have tried to raise tonight may be tom by prejudice and
blackened by calumny; it may now move forward, and again be forced back.
But once loosed, it can never again be furled! To beat down and cover up
the truth that I have tried tonight to make clear to you, selfishness will
call on ignorance. But it has in it the germinative force of truth, and the
times are ripe for it. If the flint oppose it, the flint must split or crumble!
Paul planteth, and Apollos watereth, but God giveth the increase. The ground
is ploughed; the seed is set; the good tree will grow.
So little now, only the eye of faith can see it. So little now; so tender and
so weak. But sometime, the birds of heaven shall sing in its branches; sometime,
the weary shall find rest beneath its shade! — Speech: Why Work is
Scarce, Wages Low and Labour Restless (1877, San Francisco)
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