Dorothy Day (1897 – 1980)
American journalist turned social activist.
When Dr. Stern wanted to know whether I was an alcoholic, when Dwight Macdonald asked me seriously whether I drank longshoremen under the table — I can only confess that yes, I did "fling roses with the throng."
But I am sure that God did not intend that there be so many poor. The class structure is of our making and our consent, not His. It is the way we have arranged it, and it is up to us to change it. So we are urging revolutionary change.
The great work which is to be done is to change public opinion, to indoctrinate, to set small groups to work here and there in different cities who will live a life of sacrifice, typifying the Catholic idea of personal responsibility. Numbers and organizations are not important. We are just beginning after all. But one person can do a tremendous amount of boring from within, in his office, factory, neighborhood, parish, and among his daily acquaintances and associates.
When I feed the hungry, they call me a saint. When I ask why people are hungry, they call me a Communist.
What I want to bring out is how a pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. And each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. Going to jail for distributing leaflets advocating war tax refusal causes a ripple of thought, of conscience among us all. And of remembrance too. …. There may be ever improving standards of living in the U.S., with every worker eventually owning his own home and driving his own car; but our modern economy is based on preparation for war. … The absolutist begins a work, others take it up and try to spread it. Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.
We stand at the present time with the Communists, who are also opposing war.... The Sermon on the Mount is our Christian manifesto.
I was always much impressed, in reading prison memoirs of revolutionists, such as Lenin and Trotsky ... by the amount of reading they did, the languages they studied, the range of their plans for a better social order. (Or rather, for a new social order.) In the Acts of the Apostles there are constant references to the Way and the New Man.
"Thou art neither cold nor hot ... because thou art lukewarm ... I am about to vomit thee out of my mouth," our Lord says. Far better to revolt violently than to do nothing about the poor destitute.
Marx... Lenin... Mao Tse-Tung... These men were animated by the love of brother and this we must believe though their ends meant the seizure of power, and the building of mighty armies, the compulsion of concentration camps, the forced labor and torture and killing of tens of thousands, even millions.
It is only through religion that communism can be achieved, and has been achieved over and over.
Our rule is the works of mercy… It is the way of sacrifice, worship, a sense of reverence.
No force could sway her. No fear could stop her.
The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.
When people are standing up for our present rotten system, they are being worse than Communists, it seems to me.
We also know that religion, as the Marxists have always insisted, has, too often, like an opiate, tended to put people to sleep to the reality and the need for the present struggle for peace and justice.
How many thousands, tens of thousands [of prisoners], are in for petty theft, while the 'robber barons' of our day get away with murder. Literally murder, accessories to murder. "Property is Theft." Proudhon wrote--The coat that hangs in your closet belongs to the poor. The early Fathers wrote--The house you don't live in, your empty buildings (novitiates, seminaries) belong to the poor. Property is Theft.
I too complain ceaselessly in my heart and in my words too. My very life is a protest. Against government, for instance.
"What do you mean by anarchist-pacifist?" First, I would say that the two words should go together, especially ... when more and more people, even priests, are turning to violence, and are finding their heroes in Camillo Torres among the priests, and Che Guevara among laymen. The attraction is strong, because both men literally laid down their lives for their brothers. "Greater love hath no man than this." "Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love." Che Guevara wrote this, and he is quoted by Chicano youth in El Grito Del Norte.
Of all the charges made against the Communists these days of congressional investigations, the charge of loose morals is seldom heard, so very loose have become those of "Christian" people.
If we had had the privilege of giving hospitality to a Ho Chi Minh, with what respect and interest we would have served him, as a man of vision, as a patriot, a rebel against foreign invaders.