Page:Emma Goldman - Anarchism and Other Essays (2nd Rev. ed.) - 1911.djvu/272

Rh abyss. . . . Poverty and slavery have stood up for centuries to your sermons and leading articles; they will not stand up to my machine guns. Don't preach at them; don't reason with them. Kill them. . . . It is the final test of conviction, the only lever strong enough to overturn a social system. . . . Vote! Bah! When you vote, you only change the name of the cabinet. When you shoot, you pull down governments, inaugurate new epochs, abolish old orders, and set up new."

No wonder people cared little to read Mr. Shaw's Socialistic tracts. In no other way but in the drama could he deliver such forcible, historic truths. And therefore it is only through the drama that Mr. Shaw is a revolutionary factor in the dissemination of radical ideas.

After Hauptmann's Die Weber, Strife, by Galsworthy, is the most important labor drama.

The theme of Strife is a strike with two dominant factors: Anthony, the president of the company, rigid, uncompromising, unwilling to make the slightest concession, although the men held out for months and are in a condition of semi-starvation; and David Roberts, an uncompromising revolutionist, whose devotion to the workingman and the cause of freedom is at white heat. Between them the strikers are worn and weary with the terrible struggle, and are harassed and driven by the awful sight of poverty and want in their families.

The most marvellous and brilliant piece of work in Strife is Galsworthy's portrayal of the mob, its fickleness, and lack of backbone. One moment they