Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/357

 rifle-volleys. Make no mistake; the explosion of my bomb is not only the cry of the rebel Vaillant, but the cry of an entire class which vindicates its rights, and which will soon add acts to words. For, be sure of it, in vain will they pass laws. The ideas of the thinkers will not halt!

Beyond Human Might

(A drama of modern industry. See page 221. The masters meet in a great castle, the home of one of them, to plan the destruction of the labor unions; whereupon a group of conspirators blow up the castle with dynamite. In the scene following the author gives his reflections upon this event, in the words of the grief-stricken sister of the chief conspirator)

arouse the conscience of the people?
 * —Suppose what has happened should

words, I think—Arouse the conscience of the people! After all these thousands of years that we have been subject to the influence of the family and of religion, can it be possible that we are unable to arouse the people's conscience except by—O ye silent and exalted witnesses, who hear without answering and see without reflecting what you see, why don't you show me how to reach the upward road? For in the midst of all this misery there is no road that leads upward—nothing but an endless circling around the same spot, by which I perish!
 * —Why, that's what he was saying—his very


 * —Upward means forward.

been thrown back into sheer barbarism! Once more all faith in a happy future has been wiped out. Just ask
 * —But there is no forward in this! We have