Self-centred, astounded, indignant, demented,
The ostrich, not yet half acquainted, resented
The silent upheaval, he'd felt, of the masses,
He'd, heretofore, held to be as the mere grasses;
They having objected, he'd make no contention,
Though he wondered how he'd interpose intervention
Enough to protect him from any more kicking
Like that, which was, now, in his mem'ry still sticking.
Overwhelmed with emotion he could not command,
The hurt ostrich buried his head in the sand,—
Away from his sight shut his two mangled feet out,
Lest they his own ostrich fool brains should quite beat out,—
Thus hiding himself, as he thought, in his shame,
From the world, though he still stood revealed just the same.
'Twas then a near neighbor, who'd watched with close scrutiny,
The clumsy feet operate during the mutiny,
Interfered to propose they adopt arbitration,
And settle their difference with more moderation.
II.
Many unthinking as well as vicious men, in both ancient and modern times, who have by accident of birth and condition been set in authority over their fellows, or, who have by their own efforts been raised to positions of power and responsibility in the state and among the great captains of industry, have thought to ignore their dependence upon the lower orders of society for the very altitude they have enjoyed—the head refusing, as it were, to consider the feet as a part of the body corporate and entitled to no more than the pleasure of mere existence. Such heads apply no healing balms to weak and wounded extremities, but proffer, instead, the scourge, i.e., starvation, long days of poorly remunerated toil, squalid surroundings,—in ancient times the guillotine, the gallows and the rack; in modern days, ostracism, the prison and the electric chair. The blood of Christ's divinity flowed that love and mercy might be exemplified, but it cannot sprinkle the world with saving grace, so long as its own herald, the church, continues to say, "Amen!" to the master, and "Peace, be still!" to the slave.
When there crept into the world the first dull, unreasoning sense of injury,—when the underlings of humanity first began to assimilate from the common vein of intelligence that made them one with the body, a sensible desire for recognition on the ground of equality, they were promptly denied any part whatsoever in the material and spiritual accretions of generations of labor; and then was inaugurated the revolt that has been prolific through all past time, of war and misery, of violence, pillage and murder.
III.
In the light of experience the heads of humanity have seldom profited by the tutelage of whips and blood and torture. Without respect for rights and demands when opposed to their selfish material interests, they have held not their Bibles in their hands, where the light might illumine its pages, but have placed the sacred book under their feet while making prayers to stocks and bonds.
But the knights-errant are in the saddle, and with the true spirit of knighthood they may be found in the thick of the politic battle, where they are making clear the path for greater powers that shall follow with purging force to cleanse the great body and through a long and cruel strife establish the contentious parts in truth and unity.