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

Confused and stupefied by bugbears vain.

Most wonderful! With its own hand it ties

And gags itself—gives itself death and war

For pence doled out by kings from its own store.

Its own are all things between earth and heaven;

But this it knows not; and if one arise

To tell this truth, it kills him unforgiven.

From Ecclesiastes

(Hebrew, B.C. 200)

Then I returned and saw all oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold, the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power, but they had no comforter. Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive; yea, better than them both did I esteem him which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.