Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/848

 Come, let us vote against our human nature, Crying to God in all the polling places To heal our everlasting sinfulness And make us sages with transfigured faces.

Progressivism and After

(American Socialist writer, born 1877)

A certain measure of progress is to be expected through the self-interest of the governing classes. This is the national, or industrial, efficiency movement.

Far greater progress is to be expected from the successive rise into power and prosperity of new elements of the middle-class—and of the upper layers of the wage-earners. This is the progressive and the Laborite movement.

By far the greatest progress is to be expected as a direct or indirect result of the revolt of the lower classes. For this is the only force that can be relied upon to put an end to class government and class exploitation of industry, and to establish that social democracy which is the real or professed aim of every progressive movement.

(Speech in the German Reichstag, 1884)

I acknowledge unconditionally the right to work, and I will stand up for it as long as I am in this place.