will certainly exhaust my breath without avail. Now an occasion presents itself to me, or I look for it, to kill you. Here lies a man killed. Here is the man who killed him. Who is wrong? Evidently the dead was the cause of his own death. When I committed the deed I acted in self-defense, and my act was justified by what, in our society, is called a law of nature. Now take the nihilist as an arm of the whole oppressed Russian people, who are weak, and see in the other the Czar, who is strong, and tell me if he has not caused his own death. Take the other instance now. A man killed another because of personal hatred in a common quarrel, and without first trying to come to an understanding and settle the disagreement according to law. Of course the dead man in this case is not the cause of his own death, and the one who killed him is the criminal. In both cases the act is the same, but as the cause is not the same, the ethical character of the act differs. Hence the principle of Macchiavelli, though generally thought infamous, is right when rightly interpreted, and commends itself both to the practical statesman and to the rigid moralist as well." "Yes, I see. But let me ask you another question. Can you deny that this strike of the carmen, for instance, does much wrong, not to the rich, but to hundreds of poor girls and other people who have no means to get to their places of work? Don't you think that the newspapers are right when they point out to the strikers this human consideration ?" "Oh! Will! Happy the man who knows the cause of things, said Virgil. Let us see if we can be so successful as to find the cause of such pity for poor people. Let us see if we can find the snake lying 'hidden in the grass.' "To begin with, not all the newspapers point it out. It is a bad sign when they do not agree on the argument. Will, could we not suppose that the expressions of sympathy for workers coming through the newspapers are crocodile tears? They have pity for poor girls, for people who cannot gain their daily bread. Do they really pity them? Why, then, do they not prevail upon the operators of the street railway to better the position of their employees? For in many cases the daughters of these employees are the very girls who are obliged to work, because the father does not earn money enough to support his family? These men are fighting to put an end to the slavery of their wives and children, as well as of themselves. They know what fighting means, because there is no struggle of this kind without hardship, and they are prepared for it. The end is worthy of the sacrifice. Great deeds must be worked for, suffered for, died for, if necessary. Pity! What these people want is not pity, but justice. Those who speak of pity belong to the poisonous microbes category. Ask if they have pity, when, after having sowed the seeds of hatred among nations, they stir up the blind people and make men rush upon their fellow-men like wild beasts. And for what? Inquire of the gentlemen of La Bourse and Wall street. Ask them, I say, if they have pity for the dead, for the mutilated, for the widows, for the orphans? Pity! How dare the defenders of capitalism speak of pity for humanity? Will, the history of mankind is a sad history of crime and injustice on the part of the strong against the weak. It has as an object the establishment of tyranny over the poor. The person who told you that 'nothing is right but Socialism' told you one of the most sacred truths, which a truly moral man must accept. The age in which 'religious' and 'moral' men can oppress their fellows six days of the week, and on the seventh kneel down for a few minutes in a church and pray for them is near its end. The day of judgment is coming. "The night has been long and dark, but the dawn is at hand.' "Though heaven falls, let justice be done.” |