Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/454

 of slavery, its cause would not only be considered just, but the combatants would have the sympathy and support of the civilized world.

The great system of labor organization explained in these pages must likewise be regarded as a chapter of news. The portentous fact has lain in abeyance century after century, with the human family in profound ignorance of an organization of trades and other labor unions so powerful that for hundreds of years they undertook and successfully conducted the business of manufacture, of distribution, of purveying provisions to armies, of feeding the inhabitants of the largest cities in the world, of inventing, supplying and working the huge engines of war, and of collecting customs and taxes—tasks confided to their care by the state.

Our civilization has a blushingly poor excuse for its profound ignorance of these facts; for the evidences have existed from much before the beginning of our era They are growing fewer and dimmer as their value rises higher in the estimation of a thinking, appreciative, gradually awakening world.

Agis

(Greek historian, A. D. 50-120; author of numerous biographical sketches. It has been said: He stands before us as the legate, the ambassador, and the orator on behalf of those institutions whereby the old-time men were rendered wise and virtuous)

When the love of gold and silver had once gained admittance into the Lacedæmonian commonwealth, it was quickly followed by avarice and baseness of spirit