Songs of the Army of the Night/This Book

by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

THIS BOOK.

I give this Book

TO YOU,—

Man or woman, girl or boy, labourer, mechanic, clerk, house-servant, whoever you may be, whose wages are not the worth of your work,—no, nor a fraction of it—whose wages are the minimum which you and those like you, pressed by the desire for life in the dreadful struggle of "Competition," will consent to take from your Employers who, thanks to it, are able thus to rob you:—

I give it to YOU,

in the hope that you may see how you are being robbed,—how Capital that is won by paying you your competition wages is plunder,—how Rent that is won by the increased value of land that is owing to the industry of us all, is plunder,—how the Capitalist and Landowner who over-ride you, how the Master or Mistress who work you from morning till night, who domineer over you as servants and despise you (or what is worse, pity you) as beggars, are the men and women whose sole title to this is, that they have the audacity and skill to plunder you, and you the simplicity and folly not to see it and to submit to it:—

I give this Book to YOU

in the hope that you may at last realize this, and in your own fashion never cease the effort to make your fellow-sufferers realize it:

I give it to YOU,

in the hope that you may formally enrol yourself in the ranks of the Army of the Night, and that you will offer up the best that has been granted you of heart and soul and mind towards the working out of that better time when, in victorious peace, we silence our drums and trumpets, furl our banners, drag our canons to their place of rest, and solemnly disarming ourselves, become citizens once more or, if soldiers, then soldiers of the Army of the Day!