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----- {{tjbusp360.jpg}} || The Jungle ||


hood would slink back into their dens, and the truth would
stand forth alone! For I speak with the voice of the
millions who are voiceless! Of them that are oppressed
and have no comforter! Of the disinherited of life, for
whom there is no respite and no deliverance, to whom the
world is a prison, a dungeon of torture, a tomb! With
the voice of the little child who toils tonight in a South~
ern cotton-mill, staggering with exhaustion, numb with
agony, and knowing no hope but the grave! Of the
mother who sews by candle-light in her tenement-garret,
weary and weeping, smitten with the mortal hunger of her
babes! Of the man who lies upon a bed of rags, wrestling
in his last sickness and leaving his loved ones to perish!
Of the young girl who, somewhere at this moment, is walk~
ing the streets of this horrible city, beaten and starving,
and making her choice between the brothel and the lake!
With the voice of those, whoever and wherever they may
be, who are caught beneath the wheels of the juggernaut
of Greed! With the voice of humanity, calling for deliv~
erance! Of the everlasting soul of Man, arising from the
dust; breaking its way out of its prison -- rending the
bands of oppression and ignorance -- groping its way to
the light!"

The speaker paused. There was an instant of silence,
while men caught their breaths, and then like a single
sound there came a cry from a thousand people. -- Through
it all Jurgis sat still, motionless and rigid, his eyes fixed
upon the speaker; he was trembling, smitten with wonder.

Suddenly the man raised his hands, and silence fell, and
he began again.

"I plead with you," he said, "whoever you may be, pro~
vided that you care about the truth; but most of all I plead
with working-men, with those to whom the evils I portray
are not mere matters of sentiment, to be dallied and toyed
with, and then perhaps put aside and forgotten -- to whom
they are the grim and relentless realities of the daily grind,
the chains upon their limbs, the lash upon their backs, the
iron in their souls. To you, working-men! To you, the
toilers, who have made this land, and have no voice in its


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