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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

General

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

Social justice; Social problems

White-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 rôle up there,
      Ruling beside the lowly Nazarene!


FROM THE POLITICS OF ARISTOTLE

(See page 480)

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to
religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment
from a ruler whom they consider godfearing and pious. On the
other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing
that he has the gods on his side.


BY AMOS

(Hebrew prophet, B. C. 760)

I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in
your solemn assemblies. Yea, though you offer me your burnt
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.


Concerning Charity

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)

There 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.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

General

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

Social justice; Social problems

White-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 rôle up there,
      Ruling beside the lowly Nazarene!


FROM THE POLITICS OF ARISTOTLE

(See page 480)

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to
religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment
from a ruler whom they consider godfearing and pious. On the
other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing
that he has the gods on his side.


BY AMOS

(Hebrew prophet, B. C. 760)

I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in
your solemn assemblies. Yea, though you offer me your burnt
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.


Concerning Charity

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)

There 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.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

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

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

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