Ethics of Democracy
Part 3. Business Life Chap.
Strange is the game the world doth play - Rouge et Noir, with the counters gold! Red with blood and black with sin; Few and fewer are they that win As the ages pass untold.
- Charlotte Perkins Stetson
When John on Patmos looked into the New Jerusalem, he saw a wondrous thing; The streets of that fair city were all paved With that which earth most dear and precious holds - With purest gold, o'er which the happy feet Of all the habiters of Heaven went up And down. So might not this declare for us The proper place of gold in that Society Whose frame to-day we strive with so much toil To shape according to our Vision's plan? A place of use, in truth, on which to build And act; only for use, to walk upon, To smooth the way to worship and to work?
But we, in earth's old manner, straight Reverse this use and fight God's good intent. Instead of making pavements of our gold, We beat it out and hammer it into A dome, and raise it up into a sky Above our heads. And then, because we can No more behold the stars, nor can the sun Shine through; because earth's furious furnace-heat, Reflected, burns to dust our heart's sweet flowers; Because our lives begin to pale and faint Within the twilight we ourselves have made, We bitterly complain to heaven, and cry That no kind Providence has planned the world.
- Orville E. Watson
Peace between Capital and Labor, is that all that you ask? Is peace, then, the only thing needful? There was peace enough in Southern slavery. There is a peace of life and another peace of death. It is well to rise above violence. It is well to rise superior to anger.
But
if peace means final acquiescence in wrong - if your aim is less than
justice and peace, forever one - then your peace is a crime.
- Ernest Crosby, in The Whim
What shall I do to be just? What shall I do for the gain Of the world for its sadness? Teach me, O Seers that I trust ! Chart me the difficult main Leading out of my sorrow and madness; Preach me the purging of pain. Shall I wrench from my finger the ring To cast to the tramp at my door?
Shall I tear off each luminous thing To drop in the palm of the poor? What shall I do to be just? Teach me, O Ye in the light, Whom the poor and the rich alike trust ; My heart is aflame to be right.
- Hamlin Garland
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