For I am aware that in speaking
anything but ill of a great corporation I have scandalously outraged
precedent. Nor does it argue well for my powers of observation, or those
of my companion. I feel confident that where our limited visions
perceived only prosperity and contentment, certain of my brother
writers, and his brother illustrators would, in our places, have rent
the thin, vaporish veil of apparent corporate kindliness, and found such
foul shame, such hideous malignity, such grasping, grubby greed, such
despicable soul-destroying despotism, as to shock the simple nature of a
chief of the old-time Russian Secret Police.
It shames me to think what my friend Lincoln Steffens could have done
had he but enjoyed my opportunities. It shames me to think what John
Reed or other gifted writers for "The Masses" could have done. And I
should think that Wallace Morgan would writhe with shame. For, where Art
Young would have seen heavy-jowled, pig-eyed Capital, in a silk hat and
a checked suit, whirling a cruel knout over the broad and noble (but
bent and shuddering) back of Labor--where Boardman Robinson would have
found a mother, her white, drawn face half hidden by the shoddy shawl
of black, to which cling the hands of her emaciated brood--what has
Wallace Morgan seen?
A steel-plant in operation.
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