Christianity -- Great Britain; Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 20th century
It is, however, only when the crowd is organised that the crowd becomes
a real menace. The horrors of war are unspeakable just because they
are the horrors committed by the crowd perfectly organised. A crowd
that has met for no purpose, and is a mere fortuitous concourse of
atoms, can do neither good nor harm. In proportion to its organisation
is the peril of the crowd. The power of the crowd that committed the
greatest crime in the history of the world lay in the fact that it was
perfectly organised. It was there in that chilly morning with only one
purpose, to cry, 'Crucify, Crucify.' Across all the mists of the
centuries we can see the organisers at work moving among the crowd.
They whisper to one group: 'He struck you in your property, overturning
the tables of your barter; if he lives you are ruined'; and to the
other: 'Remember his blasphemies: what he called himself.' ... And in
the trail of the organisers arose with intenser volume the cry,
'Crucify, Crucify.' It was the organised crowd that nailed the Son of
Man to the cross.
The fact that confronts us to-day is that the crowd is at last
perfectly organised; so perfectly organised that all the industry and
transport of three kingdoms can be stopped by the flash of an electric
wire. The crowd knows what it wants, and it has organised itself to
get it. But the crowd to-day is not an isolated handful such as that
of old in Athens or Jerusalem. The crowd is now world-wide and
international. What is shouted on the banks of the Volga in the
morning, at noon is shouted on the Clyde, and at the setting of the sun
in New York. For the cable and the telephone and the wireless have
woven humanity into one web. From the rising to the setting of the
sun, slowly but steadily on the forge the international crowd is being
hammered into the unity of steel.
In the old days the crowd had to storm their way into the presence of
their Pilates before they could cry 'Crucify.' But to-day the
organised, super-national crowd has changed all that. Now the crowd
can make itself heard across half the world. It assembles on the banks
of the Ganges and formulates its demands. The Turk must stay at
Constantinople! If not, well, there will be trouble. There in London
or Paris or Washington the modern Pilate receives his message. The cry
of the crowd hums in his ears across five thousand miles. 'What shall
I do with the bleeding and persecuted?' asks he. 'What is that to us?'
answers the crowd on the Ganges. And expediency gains the day as it
did in Jerusalem.... And fifteen thousand crosses arise with their
bleeding, agonising victims in Anatolia.... The governors of this
world have had but one rule in all the ages. Instead of fixing their
eyes on the stars they have gazed at the streets and have listened to
the crowd.... And the organised crowd can to-day make itself heard
round all the world as it cries, 'Crucify, Crucify.'
III
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account