Page:An Appeal to the Young by Kropotkin.djvu/16

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16
An Appeal to the Young.

Count and see how many there are who suffer this Injustice.

We peasants who work for others, and who mumble the straw while our master eats the wheat, we by ourselves are millions of men.

We workers who weave silks and velvet in order that we may be clothed in rags, we, too, are a great multitude: and when the clang of the factories permits us a moment's repose, we overflow the streets and squares like the sea in a spring tide.

We soldiers who are driven along to the word of command, or by blows, we who receive the bullets for which our officers get crosses and pensions, we, too, poor fools who have hitherto known no better than to shoot our brothers, why we have only to make a right about face towards these plumed and decorated personages who are so good as to command us, to see a ghastly pallor overspread their faces.

Ay, all of us together, we who suffer and are insulted daily, we are a multidude whom no man can number, we are the ocean that can embrace and swallow up all else.

When we have but the will to do it, that very moment will Justice be done: that very instant the tyrants of the earth shall bite the dust.


THE END