THE HEAVY SLEDGE
MAHONRI YOUNG
(American sculptor, born 1877)
The Cry for Justice
An Anthology of the Literature
of Social Protest
THE WRITINGS OF PHILOSOPHERS, POETS, NOVELISTS,
SOCIAL REFORMERS, AND OTHERS WHO HAVE
VOICED THE STRUGGLE AGAINST
SOCIAL INJUSTICE
SELECTED FROM TWENTY-FIVE LANGUAGES
Covering a Period of Five Thousand Years
Edited by
UPTON SINCLAIR
Author of “Sylvia,” “The Jungle,” Etc.
With an Introduction by
JACK LONDON
Author of “The Sea Wolf,” “The Call of the Wild,”
“The Valley of the Moon,” Etc., Etc.
ILLUSTRATED WITH REPRODUCTIONS
OF SOCIAL PROTEST IN ART
Published by
UPTON SINCLAIR
NEW YORK CITY AND PASADENA, CALIFORNIA
Dr. John R. Haynes, of Los Angeles, very generouslypurchased from the publishers the plates and copyrightof this book, in order to make possible the issuing ofthis edition. I asked Dr. Haynes if he would let memake acknowledgment to him in the book, and heanswered: “Dedicate the book to those unknown ones,who by their dimes and quarters keep the Socialistmovement going; to the poor and obscure people whosacrifice themselves in order to bring about a betterworld, which they may never live to see. Write this aseloquently as you can, and it will be the best possiblededication to ‘The Cry for Justice’.”
I decided, after thinking it over, to combine my ownidea with the idea of Dr. Haynes.
Copyright, 1915, by
The John C. Winston Co.
Introduction by Jack London
This anthology, I take it, is the first edition, the firstgathering together of the body of the literature andart of the humanist thinkers of the world. As well doneas it has been done, it will be better done in the future.There will be much adding, there will be a little subtracting,in the succeeding editions that are bound to come. Theresult will be a monument of the ages, and there will benone fairer.
Since reading of the Bible, the Koran, and the Talmudhas enabled countless devout and earnest right-seekingsouls to be stirred and uplifted to higher and finer planesof thought and action, then the reading of this humanistHoly Book cannot fail similarly to serve the needs ofgroping, yearning humans who seek to discern truth andjustice amid the dazzle and murk of the thought-chaosof the present-day world.
No person, no matter how soft and secluded his own lifehas been, can read this Holy Book and not be aware thatthe world is filled with a vast mass of unfairness, cruelty,and suffering. He will find that it has been observed,during all the ages, by the thinkers, the seers, the poets, andthe philosophers.
And such person will learn, possibly, that this fairworld so brutally unfair, is not decreed by the will of Godnor by any iron law of N