Page:Emma Goldman - The Social Significance of the Modern Drama - 1914.djvu/309

 But Time has no faith in King-Hunger. He knows that Hunger had deceived the people on many occasions: " You will deceive again, KingHunger. You have many a time deluded your children and me." Yet Time is weary with waiting. He consents to strike the bell.

King-Hunger calls upon the workingmen to re. bel. The scene is in a machine shop; the place is filled with deafening noises as of men's groans. Every machine, every tool, every screw, holds its human forms fettered to it and all keep pace with the maddening speed of their tormentors. And through the thunder and clatter of iron there rises 'the terrible plaint of the toilers.

We are starving.

We are crushed by machines.

Their weight smothers us.

The iron crushes.

The steel oppresses.

Oh, what a furious weight! As a mountain upon me!

The whole earth is upon me.

The iron hammer flattens me. It crushes the blood out of my veins, it fractures my bones, it makes me flat as sheet iron.

Through the rollers my body is pressed and drawn thin as wire. Where is my body? Where is my blood? Where is my soul?

The wheel is twirling me.

Day and night screaks the saw cutting steel.