Ethics of Democracy
Part 3, Business Life
Chap. 2, Justice or Sacrifice
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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