The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest / The writings of philosophers, poets, novelists, social reformers, and others who have voiced the struggle against social injustice; selected from twenty-five languages; covering a period of five thousand years

by Unknown

Light Upon Waldheim

By Voltairine de Cleyre

(American anarchist writer, 1866-1912. Waldheim is a cemetery in Chicago, where the executed Anarchists were buried. Upon the monument is the figure of a woman holding a dying man upon her knees, with one hand pressing a crown upon his forehead, and with the other drawing a dagger)

Light upon Waldheim! And the earth is gray;

A bitter wind is driving from the north;

The stone is cold, and strange cold whispers say:

“What do ye here with Death? Go forth! Go forth!”

Is this thy word, O Mother, with stern eyes,

Crowning thy dead with stone-caressing touch?

May we not weep o’er him that martyred lies,

Slain in our name, for that he loved us much?

May we not linger till the day is broad?

Nay, none are stirring in this stinging dawn—

None but poor wretches that make no moan to God:

What use are these, O thou with dagger drawn?

“Go forth, go forth! Stand not to weep for these,

Till, weakened with your weeping, like the snow

Ye melt, dissolving in a coward peace!”

Light upon Waldheim! Brother, let us go!

Assassination

By Auguste Vaillant

(From the speech before the French Chamber of Deputies, 1894, prior to receiving sentence of death for a political crime)

Ah, gentlemen, if the governing classes could go down among the unfortunates! But no, they prefer to remain deaf to their appeals. It seems that a fatality impels them, like the royalty of the eighteenth century, toward the precipice which will engulf them; for woe be to those who remain deaf to the cries of the starving, woe to those who, believing themselves of superior essence, assume the right to exploit those beneath them! There comes a time when the people no longer reason; they rise like a hurricane, and rush onward like a torrent. Then we see bleeding heads impaled on pikes.

Among the exploited, gentlemen, there are two classes of individuals. Those of one class, not realizing what they are and what they might be, take life as it comes, believe that they are born to be slaves, and content themselves with the little that is given them in exchange for their labor. But there are others, on the contrary, who think, who study and, looking about them, discover social iniquities. Is it their fault if they see clearly and suffer at seeing others suffer? Then they throw themselves into the struggle, and make themselves the bearers of the popular claims.

I know very well that I shall be told that I ought to have confined myself to speech for the vindication of the people’s claims. But what can you expect! It takes a loud voice to make the deaf hear. Too long have they answered our voices by imprisonment, the rope, and 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!