"And the great owners,

[Jackpine Radical]

who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed."
- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

[asdjrocky]

1. Tom Joad said-

I'll be all around in the dark. I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look, wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build, I'll be there, too.

[Ken Burch]

2. I wonder if Steinbeck was aware that that speech paraphrased a famous Gene Debs quote

"Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Yes, of course.

I think at that time, among the literate class, the Debs quote would have been quite well-known & Steinbeck could assume that most of his readers would recognize it.


Just shows how badly we have devolved since then.