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

(American writer and social reformer, 1856-1907)

I passed the plate in church.

There was little silver, but the crisp bank-notes heaped themselves up high before me;

And ever as the pile grew, the plate became warmer and warmer until it burned my fingers, and a smell of scorching flesh rose from it, and I perceived that some of the notes were beginning to smoulder and curl, half-browned, at the edges.

And then I saw thru the smoke into the very substance of the money, and I beheld what it really was;

I saw the stolen earnings of the poor, the wide margins of wages pared down to starvation;

I saw the underpaid factory girl eking out her living on the street, and the overworked child, and the suicide of the discharged miner;

I saw poisonous gases from great manufactories spreading disease and death; ...

I saw hideousness extending itself from coal mine and foundry over forest and river and field;