Bars and Shadows: The Prison Poems of Ralph Chaplin — John Shaqi
Bars and Shadows: The Prison Poems of Ralph ChaplinChaplin, Ralph
General
Bars and Shadows: The Prison Poems of Ralph Chaplin
Chaplin, Ralph
Imprisonment -- Poetry; Prisoners' writings, American; Prisons -- United States -- Poetry
The old culture relies on tradition, custom, and the normal
conservatism of the masses of mankind, The new culture relies on
concepts of justice, truth, liberty, love, brotherhood. Eighteenth
century, Feudal France was filled with the prophecies of a form of
society that would supplant Feudalism. Nineteenth century Russia, in
the grip of a capitalist bureaucracy, proved to be the centre for the
revolutions of the early twentieth century. The new culture, growing
at first under the shadow of the old, gradually assumes larger and
larger proportions until it takes all of the sunlight for itself,
throwing the old culture into the shadow of oblivion.
Each ruling class knows these facts,--knows that the old must give
place to the new; knows that the living, ruling culture of to-day will
be the history of the day after tomorrow, yet because of the vested
interests which they rely upon for their power, and because they are
satisfied to have the deluge come after them, they oppose each
manifestation of the new culture and strain every nerve to make the
temporary organization of the world permanent. The more vigorously the
new culture thrives, the more eagerly do the representatives of the
old order strive to destroy it.
IV.
During three eventful centuries, the part of North America that is now
the United States has witnessed two fierce culture-survival struggles.
In the first of these struggles--that between the American Indians and
the whites, the culture of Western Europe supplanted the culture of
primitive America. In the second struggle--that between the slave
holders of the South and the rising business interests of the North,
the slave oligarchy was swept from power, and in its place there was
established the new financial imperialism that dominates the public
life of the nation at the present time. Despite the extreme youth of
the capitalist system in the United States, there are already many
signs that those who profit by it must be prepared to defend it at no
distant date. The Russian Revolution of 1917 sounded the loudest note
of warning, but even before that occurred, the industrial capitalists
had entered upon a struggle which they believed to be of the greatest
importance to their future.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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