Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

The Triumph of Love
(From “Labor”)

Zola, Émile

Émile Zola

(French novelist, 1840–1902, founder of the school of “Naturalism.” In this novel the French writer gives his solution of the labor problem, in the story of a young engineer who is led by the study of Fourier to found a co-operative steel mill, which in the course of time replaces all the old competitive establishments, and brings about a reign of human brotherhood)

THE TRIUMPHANT spectacle that Luc had now always before his eyes, that city of happiness, the gayly colored roofs of which were spread out before his window, was admirable. The march of progress which a former generation, sunk in ancient error, and contaminated by an iniquitous environment, had so mournfully begun in the midst of many obstacles and former hatreds, was to be pursued by their children, instructed and disciplined by the schools and workshops, advancing with a cheerful step, even to the attainment of aims formerly declared chimerical. The long effort of struggling humanity resulted in the free expansion of the individual, in a society completely satisfied; in man being fully man, and living his life in its entirety. The happy city was thus realized in the religion of life; the religion of humanity, freed at length from dogmas, became in itself all glory and all joy.…

Authority was at an end; the new social system had no other foundation than the tie of labor accepted as necessary by all, their law and the object of their worship. A number of groups adopted the new system, breaking off from the old groups of builders, dealers in clothing, metal-workers, artisans, and farm laborers, each group increasing in number, each different, each making itself essential to the rest, and satisfying individual wants as well as the needs of a community. Nothing impeded any man’s expansion; a citizen working as a laborer might unite himself with as many groups as he thought proper.…

And in the city all was love. A pervading sense of love, increasing, wholesome, purifying, became the perfume and the sacred flame of daily life. Love, general and universal, had its birth in youth; then it passed on and became mother love, father love, filial love; it spread to relations, to neighbors, to fellow-citizens, to all men upon earth, and as its waves swept on and became stronger, it seemed to become a great sea of love, bathing the shores of the whole earth. Charity—that is, love of one’s neighbors—was like the fresh air which fills the lungs of all who breathe it; everywhere there was this feeling of brotherly love; love alone had proved able to realize the unity men had so long dreamed of, bringing all into divine harmony. The human race, at last as well balanced as the planets in their orbits by the law of attraction, the laws of justice, solidarity, and love, would go joyfully on its round through the ages of eternity. Such was the harvest ever renewed and renewing, the great harvest of tenderness and loving kindness, that Luc every morning saw growing up around him in spots where he had sown his seed so bountifully in his early days. In his whole city, in his school-rooms, in his work-shops, in each house, and almost in each heart, for many years he had been sowing the good seed with lavish hands.