Do you know, my friends, it is so easy to agree with the ignorant
majority. It is so easy to make the people applaud an empty platitude.
It takes some courage to face that beast called the Majority, and tell
him the truth to his teeth! Some men do so and accept the consequences
of their acts as becomes men, and they live in history—every one of
them. I have said so often, and I wish to repeat it on this occasion,
that mankind have always crowned their oppressors, and they have as
uniformly crucified their saviors, and this has been true all along the
highway of the centuries. It is true today. It will not always be so.
When the great mass know the truth, they will treat an honest man
decently while he lives and not crucify him, and then a thousand years
afterward rear a monument above the dust of the hero they put to death.
I am in revolt against capitalism (and that doesn’t mean to say, my
friends, that I am hating you—not the slightest). I am opposed to
capitalism because I love my fellow men, and if I am opposing you I am
opposing you for what I believe to be your good, and though you spat
upon me with contempt I should still oppose you to the extent of my
power.