Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/229

 the power over people? How dare you meddle with what to them is right? How dare you interfere with their life?

Who gave me the power? You gave it to me—you with your malice, your ignorance, your stupidity! You with your wretched impotence! Right! Power! They have turned the earth into a sewer, an outrage, an abode of slaves. They worry each other, they torture each other, and they ask: "Who dares to take us by the throat?" I! Do you understand? I!
 * —Who gave me the right? You gave it to me.


 * —But to destroy all! Think of it!

you do? Try to persuade the oxen to turn away from their bovine path? Catch each one by his horn and pull him away? Would you put on a frock-coat and read a lecture? Haven't they had plenty to teach them? As if words and thought had any significance to them! Thought—pure, unhappy thought! They have perverted it. They have taught it to cheat and defraud. They have made it a salable commodity, to be bought at auction in the market. No, sister, life is short, and I am not going to waste it in arguments with oxen. The way to deal with them is by fire. That's what they require—fire!
 * —What could you do with them? What would


 * —But what do you want? What do you want?

mankind. Man—the man of today—is wise. He has come to his senses. He is ripe for liberty. But the past eats away his soul like a canker. It imprisons him within the iron circle of things already accomplished. I want to do away with everything behind man, so that there is nothing to see when he looks back. I want to take him by the scruff of his neck and turn his face toward the future!
 * —What do I want? To free the earth, to free