What other claim, so rational
and noble in itself, can they put forth in the face of what they find
established in the world they are born into? The results of past
civilization are still monopolized by small minorities of mankind, who
receive by inheritance, under natural and civil law, the greater
individual share of material comfort, of large intelligence, of
fortunate careers. It does not matter that the things which belong to
life as such, the greater blessings essential to human existence, cannot
be monopolized; all that man can take and appropriate they find
preoccupied so far as human discovery and energy have been able to
reach, understand, and utilize it; and what proposition can they assert
as against this sequestering of social results and material and
intellectual opportunity, except to say, "we, too, are men," and with
the word to claim a share in such parts of social good as are not
irretrievably pledged to men better born, better educated, better
supplied with the means of subsistence and the accumulated hoard of the
past, which has come into their hands by an award of fortune? It is not
a fanciful idea.
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