The Labor enquirer., 1884-01-26
10 YOUNG PEOPLE. /:
Words Of the Great Scientist
and Humanitarian,
Krapotkine.
Pure Science win Yield Fruit
for the Future Gener-
atiOns.
The Day Not Far OFF When This
Will be Understood With
Socialism.

Socialism.
Translated from the French by Miss Z.
Compte, "Proletaire,n especially for the SMar M
Francisco Truth; republished IN The EN-
QUIRER by special permission
H..
You who are studying law, to prepare
for the bar, it is possible that you also
have illusions respecting your future ac'
tivity. l will assume that you are Of the
noblest Of humanity; that you are O
those who understand altruism. You
think, perhaps, each Of you, ! will DE-
vote my mind without cessation or mercy
against all injustice. Twill work continu-
ally for the triumph of the law-expres-
sion of supreme justice what career can
be SO fnep Thus, full of confidence IN
yourself and your chosen vocation, you
enter on lifel
Well, lei us open hap-hazard the judi
ciary chronicle, and see the facts i
Behold rich landlord demanding the
expulsion of peasant farmer who has
not paid the rent due. From the legal
point of view there is no hesitation pos
sible. The peasant has not paid; there
fore he must 60. But if we examine the
facts, this is what we will learn: The
proprietor has always dissipated his in
come in pleasure; the peasant has al
ways labored. The proprietor has done
nothing to improve the lands, neverthe-
less their value has increased threefold
in fifty years, thanks to the greater value
given to their situation by the course of
a railroad, by the making of new roads
in the vicinity, by the draining of ada
cent marshes, by nsighboring forests be-
ing cleared, and their sites being brought
into cultivation and the peasant, who
has greatly contributed to give this in
creased value to the land, is ruined; fall
len into the hands of brokers, heis over
whelmed with debt, and can no longer
pay the landlord. The law-always on
the side of the proprietor-is explicit.
1t says: The landlord has the right to
eject the tenant. But you-in whom the
fiction of the law has not yet killed the
sense of justice what will you do2 Will
you demand that the farmer be thrown
upon the highway, as the law DEGREES, or
will you demand that the landlord re-
store to the farmer all the increase of
value which is due to his labor? This
equity demands. Which side will you
take? OF the law, but against justice !;
or of justice, but against law?
And when working people 60 on strike
against their employer without having
given the prescribed "noticein advance"
on which side will you go? On theside
of the law-that is to say, on the side of
the employer, who makes scandalous
profits by these crises Tread the last trials
at Reims) or against the law, but for the
workingmen who were receiving bat fifty
cents day, and we're seeing their wives
and children perish from want? Will
you defend the fiction which af6rms
freedom of agreement" which MAIN
tains that bargains are binding !" or will
you sustain equity, which declares that
a contract between one who is well-fed
and one who sells his labor for a bit to
eat-in short a contract between the
strong and the weak-is not contract
Behold, another case! One day in
Paris man passing a butchers shop,
seized beefsteak, and ran. On being
caught and questioned it was found that
he was poor laborer without work,
that he and his family had eaten nothing
for four days. People begged the butcher
to let the man go, but the butcher wanted
the triumph of justice! He prosecuted,
and the poor man was condemned to six
months in prison. Thus wills the blind
Themisl And your conscience does not
it 1evolt against the law and against So
ciety, seeing that analogous condemns
tions are pronounced every day2 Or
will you demand the application of the
law against this man, ill-used, scoffed at
from his childhood, who grew up without
ever having heard word of sympathy
and ended by killing his neighbor to rob
him of dollar2 Will you demand that
he be hanged-or, what is worse, shut ur
for twenty years in prison-when you
know he is more ill than criminal, and
in any case, that it is Society that Ii
guilty of his crimes,2
Will you demand that they throw II
dungeons those weavers who in a mo
ment of evaporation had set fire to the
factory; that they send to the galley'
this man who had fired on crowned as
sassin that they shoot those insurgents
who have planted on barricades the fial
of the future?