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Hellraisers Journal: Sunday July 10, 1898
Victor Hugo: “Not to be a slave is to Dare and Do.”
From the Appeal to Reason of July 9, 1898:
VICTOR HUGO’S LETTER TO THE POOR
Shall I now speak to the poor, after in vain having implored the rich? Yes, it is fitting. This, then, have I to say to the disinherited: Keep a watch upon your formidable jaw. There is one rule for the rich—to do nothing, and one for the poor—to say nothing. The poor have but one friend, silence. They should use but one monosyllable: Yes. To confess and to concede-this is all the “rights” they have. “Yes” to the judge. “Yes” to the king. The great, if it so please them, give us blows with a stick; I have had them, it is their prerogative, and they lose nothing of their greatness in cracking our bones. Let us worship the sceptre, which is the first among sticks.
If a poor man is happy he is the pickpocket of happiness. Only the rich and noble are happy by right. The rich man is he who being young has the rights of old age; being old, the lucky chances of youth; vicious, the respect of good people; a coward, the command of the stout-hearted; doing nothing, the fruits of labor.
The people fight. Whose is the glory? The king’s. They pay. Whose is the magnificence? The king’s. And the people like to be rich in this fashion. Our ruler, king or croesus, receives from the poor a crown apiece and renders back to the poor a farthing. How generous he is! The colossal pedestal looks up to the pigmy superstructure. How tall the manikin is! He is upon my back. A dwarf has an excellent method of being higher than a giant; it is to perch himself upon the other’s shoulders. But that the giant should let him do it, there’s the odd part of it; and that he should honor the baseness of the dwarf, there’s the stupidity. Human ingenuousness.
The equestrian salute, reserved for kings alone is an excellent type of royalty. Let us be frank with words. The capitalist who steals the reward of labor is a king as well as the man of blood. The king mounts himself on the horse. The horse is the people. Sometimes this horse transforms himself by degrees. At the beginning he is an ass; at the end he is a lion. Then he throws his rider to the ground, and we have 1643 in England and 1789 in France; and sometimes devours him, in which case we have in England 1649 and in France 1793.
That the lion can again become a jackass, this is surprising but a fact.
What happiness to be again ridden and beaten and starved. What happiness to work forever for bread and water! What happiness to be free from the delusions that cake is good, and life other than misery! Was there anything more crazy than these ideas? Where should we be if every vagabond had his rights? Imagine everybody governing! Can you imagine a city governed by the men who built it? They are the team, not the coachman. What a godsend is a rich man who takes charge of everything? Surely he is generous to take the trouble for us. And then he was brought up to it; he knows what it is; it is his business. A guide is necessary for us. Being poor we are ignorant; being ignorant we are blind; we need a guide. But why are we ignorant? Because it must be so. Ignorance is the guardian of Virtue! He who is ignorant is innocent! It is not our duty to think, complain or reason.
Be reasonable, poor man. You were made to be a slave.
Not to be a slave is to dare and do.
———-
[Photograph added.]
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SOURCE
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-July 9, 1898
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66970694/
IMAGES
Quote Victor Hugo, Letter to Rich, Debs Firemens Mag, Jan 1883
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Yh4qAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA4
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Yh4qAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA5
Victor Hugo, St L Dsp p2, May 22, 1885
https://www.newspapers.com/image/137821147/
See also:
Note: Despite much searching, I could not find the original source for Hugo’s Letters to the Rich and to the Poor. More research needed. Debs’ Firemen’s Magazine of Jan 1883 was the earliest source that I could find:
Firemen’s Magazine
(Terre Haute, Indiana)
-ed by Eugene V. Debs
“Official Organ of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen of the United States and Canada”
Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, 1883
https://books.google.com/books?id=Yh4qAQAAIAAJ
Vol. VII, No. 1 – Jan 1883
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Yh4qAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA1
“The Labor Question” by Victor Hugo
To the Rich: “The poor cry out to the wealthy…”
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Yh4qAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA4
To the Poor: “Shall I now speak to the poor…”
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Yh4qAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA5
Note: The earliest source that I could find at Newspapers.com was:
Ottawa Journal and Triumph
(Ottawa, Franklin County, Kansas)
-May 21, 1885
https://www.newspapers.com/image/384019244
VICTOR HUGO.
—–
The Great Author’s Famous Address to
Old and Young, Rich and Poor.
—–I am asked what has been the lesson of my life, what have I learned in my years of living to bequeath as my most precious legacy to humanity? I reply that my soul has two messages of counsel, of promise and of threat, to deliver-one to the rich, the other to the poor. The two contain the sum of human wisdom.
TO THE RICH.
The poor cry out to the wealthy. The slaves implore their rulers. And as much now as in the days of Spartan Helots. I am one of them and I add my voice to that of the multitude that it may reach the ears of the rich. Who am I? one of the people. From whence come I? From the bottomless pit. How am I named? I am Wretchedness. My lords, I have something to say to you…
TO THE POOR.
Shall I now speak to the poor…
Not to be a slave is to DARE and DO.
VICTOR HUGO
———-
Victor Hugo (1802-1885)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Hugo
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