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

Hitherto, it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being.

The Man Under the Stone

(From “The Man with the Hoe and other Poems”)

By Edwin Markham

(See page [27])

When I see a workingman with mouths to feed,

Up, day after day, in the dark before the dawn,

And coming home, night after night, thro’ the dusk,

Swinging forward like some fierce silent animal,

I see a man doomed to roll a huge stone up an endless steep.