The truth is to-day what it always has been--what it always will be--those who feel are the only ones who think. A cry comes from the oppressed, from the hungry, from the down-trodden, from the unfortunate, from men who despair and from women who weep. There are times when mendicants become revolutionists--when a rag becomes a banner, under which the noblest and bravest battle for the right.
How are we to settle the unequal contest between men and machines? Will the machine finally go into partnership with the laborer? Can these forces of nature be controlled for the benefit of her suffering children? Will extravagance keep pace with ingenuity? Will the workers become intelligent enough and strong enough to be the owners of the machines? Will these giants, these Titans, shorten or lengthen the hours of labor? Will they give leisure to the industrious, or will they make the rich richer, and the poor poorer?
Is man involved in the "general scheme of things"? Is there no pity, no mercy? Can man become intelligent enough to be generous, to be just; or does the same law or fact control him that controls the animal and vegetable world? The great oak steals the sunlight from the smaller trees. The strong animals devour the weak--everything eating something else--everything at the mercy of beak and claw and hoof and tooth--of hand and club, of brain and greed--inequality, injustice, everywhere.
The poor horse standing in the street with his dray, overworked, over-whipped, and under-fed, when he sees other horses groomed to mirrors, glittering with gold and silver, scorning with proud feet the very earth, probably indulges in the usual socialistic reflections, and this same horse, worn out and old, deserted by his master, turned into the dusty road, leans his head on the topmost rail, looks at donkeys in a field of clover, and feels like a Nihilist.
In the days of savagery the strong devoured the weak--actually ate their flesh. In spite of all the laws that man has made, in spite of all advance in science, literature and art, the strong, the cunning, the heartless still live on the weak, the unfortunate, and foolish. True, they do not eat their flesh, they do not drink their blood, but they live on their labor, on their self-denial, their weariness and want. The poor man who deforms himself by toil, who labors for wife and child through all his anxious, barren, wasted life--who goes to the grave without even having had one luxury--has been the food of others. He has been devoured by his fellow-men. The poor woman living in the bare and lonely room, cheerless and fireless, sewing night and day to keep starvation from a child, is slowly being eaten by her fellow-men. When I take into consideration the agony of civilized life--the number of failures, the poverty, the anxiety, the tears, the withered hopes, the bitter realities, the hunger, the crime, the humiliation, the shame--I am almost forced to say that cannibalism, after all, is the most merciful form in which man has ever lived upon his fellow-man.