merican civilization are not striking
here. They are here; they are more than incipient, very much more; but
they are not striking. Let such an one pause. "We speak of that which
we do know," and, for the rest, not only do we bid "him that has ears, to
hear," but "him that has eyes, to see."

Brothers all over the earth, brothers and sisters, you of that silent
company whose speech is only in the unknown deeds of love, the unknown
devotions, the unknown heroisms, it is to you we speak! Our heart is
against your heart; you can feel it beat. Soul speaks to soul through
lips whose utterance is a need. In your room alone, in your lonely
walks, in the still hours of day and night, we will be with you. We will
speak with you, we will plead with you, for these piteous ones. In the
evening trees you shall hear the sound of our weeping. Our sobs shall
shake in the wind of wintry nights. We are the spirit of those piteous
ones, the wronged, the oppressed, the robbed, the murdered, and we bid
you open your warm heart, your light-lit soul to us! We will thrill you
with the clarion of hate and defiance and despair in the tempest of land
and sea. You shall listen to us there also. We will touch your eyes and
lips with fire. No, we will never let you go, till you are ours and
theirs! And you too, O sufferers, you too shall stay with us, and shall
have comfort. Look, we have suffered, we have agonized, we have longed
to hasten the hour of rest. But beyond the darkness there is light,
beyond the turbulence peace. "Courage, and be true to one another."
"_We bid you hope_!"

THIS BOOK.

_I give this Book_
TO YOU,--

_Man or woman_, _girl or boy_, _labourer_, _mechanic_, _clerk_,
_house-servant_, _whoever you may be_, _whose wages are not the worth of
your work_,--_no_, _nor a fraction of it--whose wages are the minimum
which you and those like you_, _pressed by the desire for life in the
dreadful struggle of_ "_Competition_," _will consent to take from your
Employers who_, _thanks to it_, _are able thus to rob you_:--

_I give it to_ YOU,

_in the hope that you may see how you are being robbed_,_--how Capital
that is won by paying you your competition wages is plunder_,_--how Rent
that is won by the increased value of land that is owing to the industry
of us all_, _is plunder_,_--how the Capitalist and Landowner who
over