Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/654

 He takes our life for wages, He holds our land for rent, He sweats our little children To swell his cent per cent; With secret grip and levy On every crumb we eat, He drives our sons to thieving, Our daughters to the street

Against the grim defenses Where might and murrain hide, Unswerving to the issue Loose-reined and rough we ride Full tardily, to rescue Our heritage from wrong, And stablish it on manhood, A thousand times more strong.

(English liberal statesman, 1809-1898)

In almost every one, if not in every one, of the greatest political controversies of the last fifty years, whether they affected the franchise, whether they affected commerce, whether they affected religion, whether they affected the bad and abominable institution of slavery, or what subject they touched, these leisured classes, these educated classes, these titled classes, have been in the wrong.