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Title: Our Civilization:
Author: Lucy E. Parsons
Date: August 8, 1885
Language: en
Topics: class struggle, working class, civilization
Source: The Alarm
Notes: Chicago

Lucy E. Parsons

Our Civilization:

Is our civilization of today worth saving? might well be asked by the

disinherited of the earth. In one respect ’tis a great civilization.

History fails to record any other age like ours. When we wish to travel

we fly, as it were, on the wings of space, and with a wantonness that

would have sunk the wildest imagination of the gods of the ancients into

insignificance. We annihilate time. We stand upon the verge of one

continent, and converse with ease and composure with friends in the

midst of the next. The awe-inspiring phenomena of nature concern us in

this age but little. We have stolen the lightning from the gods and made

it an obedient servant to the will of man; have pierced the clouds and

read the starry page of time.

We build magnificent piles of architecture, whose dizzy heights dazzle

us as we attempt to follow with our eye along up the towering walls of

solid brick, granite and iron, where tier after tier is broken only by

wondrous panes of plate glass. And as we gradually bring the eye down

story after story until it reaches the ground, we discover within the

very shadow of these magnificent abodes the houseless man, the homeless

child, the young girl offering her virtue for a few paltry dollars to

hire a little room away up in the garret of one of them. And in the dark

recesses of these beautiful buildings the “tramp,” demoralized by

poverty and abashed by want, attempts to slink from the sight of his

fellow beings.

Yet it was their labor that erected these evidences of civilization.

Then why are they compelled to be barbarians? For it is labor, and labor

only, which makes civilization possible. ’Tis labor that toils, and

spins, and weaves, and builds, that another, not it, may enjoy. ’Tis the

laborers who dive into the unknown caverns of the sea and compel her to

yield up her hidden treasures, which they know not even the value

thereof. ’Tis labor which goes into the trackless wilderness, and wields

the magic wand which science has placed in its hand. Its hideous,

hissing monsters soon succumb, and she blossoms like the rose.

Labor only can level the mountain to the plain, or raise the valley to

the mountain height, and dive into the bowels of the earth and bring

forth the hidden treasures there contained, which have been latent

through the changing cycles of time, and with cunning hand fashion them

into articles of use and luxury for the delight and benefit of mankind.

Now, why does this important factor in the arts of progress and

refinement continue to hold a secondary position in all the higher and

nobler walks of life? Is it not that a few idlers may riot in luxury and

ease—said few having dignified themselves “upper classes”?

It is this “upper class” which determines what kind of houses (if any at

all) the producing class shall live in, the quantity and quality of food

they shall place upon their table, the kind of raiment they shall wear,

and whether the child of the proletariat shall in tender years enter the

schoolhouse or the factory.

And when the proletariat, failing to see the justice of this bourgeois

economy, begins to murmur, the policeman’s club is called into active

service for six days in the week, while on the seventh the minister

assures him that to complain of the powers that be is quite sinful,

besides being a losing game, inasmuch as by this action he is lessening

his chance for obtaining a very comfortable apartment in “the mansions

eternal in the skies.” And the possessing class meanwhile are perfectly

willing to pay the minister handsomely, and furnish the proletariat all

the credit necessary for this if he will furnish them the cash for the

erection of their mansions here.

Oh, working man! Oh, starved, outraged, and robbed laborer, how long

will you lend attentive ear to the authors of your misery? When will you

become tired of your slavery and show the same by stepping boldly into

the arena with those who declare that “Not to be a slave is to dare and

DO?” When will you tire of such a civilization and declare in words, the

bitterness of which shall not be mistaken, “Away with a civilization

that thus degrades me; it is not worth the saving?”