The masses are poor, ignorant, disorganised, not knowing the right of mankind upon earth, and never knowing that the world belongs to its population ; because a small class in every country has taken possession of property and government and makes laws for its own safety and the security of its plunder, educating the masses, generation after generation, into the belief that this condition is the natural order and the "law of God." By long training and submission, the people everywhere have come to regard the assumption of their rulers and owners as the law of right and common sense, and their own blind instincts, which tell them all men ought to have a plenteous living on this rich planet, as the prompting of evils and disorder.
The qualities we naturally dislike and fear in a man are those which insure success under our present social order, viz., shrewdness, hardness, adroitness, selfishness, the mind to take advantage of necessity, the will to trample on the weak in the canting name of progress and civilisation. The qualities we love in a man send him to the poor house — generosity, truth, trustfulness, friendliness, unselfishness, the desire to help, the heart to pity, the mind to refuse profit from a neighbour's loss or weakness, the defence of the weak. Our present civilisation is organised injustice and intellectual barbarism. Our progress is a march to a precipice. The Sermon on the Mount and natural justice can rule the world, or they cannot. If they can, our present ruling is the invention of the devil ; if they cannot, the devil has a right to rule, if the people let him— but he ought not to call this rule Christian civilisation. — John Boyle O'Reilly.
Tocsin 9 Jan 1902 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article197526842
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