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Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968). rn The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915.

To Labor
(From “In This Our World”)

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

(America’s most brilliant woman poet and critic; born 1860)

SHALL you complain who feed the world?

Who clothe the world?

Who house the world?

Shall you complain who are the world,

Of what the world may do?

As from this hour

You use your power,

The world must follow you!

The world’s life hangs on your right hand!

Your strong right hand,

Your skilled right hand,

You hold the whole world in your hand,

See to it what you do!

Or dark or light,

Or wrong or right,

The world is made by you!

Then rise as you never rose before!

Nor hoped before!

Nor dared before!

And show as was never shown before,

The power that lies in you!

Stand all as one!

See justice done!

Believe, and Dare, and Do!