CHAPTER XII

Civilization Degrades the Masses

There are men in all parts of the world, whose names have become synonyms of learning and genius, who proclaim it from the housetops that civilization is in a constant state of evolution to a higher, purer, nobler, happier condition of the people, the great mass of mankind, who properly make up society, and who have been styled, in derision, the “mudsills of society.”  So they are, society rests upon them; society must build upon them; without them society cannot be, because they are, in the broadest sense, society itself,—­not only the “mudsills” but the superstructure as well.  They not only constitute the great producing class but the great consuming class as well.  They are the bone and sinew of society.

It is therefore of the utmost importance to know the condition of the people; it is not only important to know exactly what that condition is, but it is of the very first importance to the well-being of society that there should be absolutely nothing in that condition to arouse the apprehension of the sharks who live upon the carcass of the people, or of the people who permit the sharks to so live.  There is nothing more absolutely certain than that the people—­who submit to be robbed through the intricate and multifarious processes devised by the cupidity of individuals and of governments—­when aroused to a full sense of the wrongs inflicted upon them, will strike down their oppressors in a rage of desperation born of despair.

Modern tyrannies are far more insidious than the military despotisms of the past.  These modern engines which crush society destroy the energy and vitality of the people by the slow process of starvation, sanctioned by the law, and in a majority of instances, are patiently borne by the victims.  It is only when human nature can endure no more that protests are first heard; then armed resistance; then anarchy.  Thus it was with the French of the eighteenth century.  Thus it is with the Russian, the German, the English, the Irish peoples of to-day.  The heel of the tyrant is studded with too many steel nails to be borne without excruciating pain and without earnest protest.

If in their desperate conflict with the serpent that has coiled its slimy length about the body of the people the latter resort to dynamite, and seek by savage warfare to right their wrongs, they are to be condemned and controlled, for they confound the innocent with the guilty and work ruin rather than reform.  Yet there is another side to be considered, for when injustice wraps itself in the robes of virtue and of law, and calls in the assistance of armies and all the destructive machinery of modern warfare to enforce its right to enslave and starve mankind, what counter warfare can be too savage, too destructive in its operations, to compel attention to the wrong?  The difficulty is that vengeance should discriminate, but that is a refinement which blind rage can hardly compass.