OutcastsBy Eleanor Wentworth(In “The International Socialist Review.”)
By Eleanor Wentworth
(In “The International Socialist Review.”)
Outside the Rotunda of the Fine Arts Building of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition is hunched a gripping, sorrowful figure—a figure that crouches back amidst the foliage as if humbly seeking to escape the eye of the passer. Meekly it bears the name ofOutcast. About it, fountains ripple; beyond, the sun joyfully sets agleam the somber greens of olive; chuckling, sprightly Pans, with uptilted pipes, laugh to scorn the chill atmosphere of the sorrowful one, set so far into the shadows that the sun never reaches it, leaving its marble surface ghastly.
The figure, with arms clenched and head bowed,in its shadow seclusion indomitably symbolizes the disowned of the ages—the iron-collared slave, the branded thief, the wandering disbeliever, the woman scorned, the helpless debtor. It symbolizes those passive sufferers, who, after tilling and sowing the fields of life, so that they grow green and cool, wander begrimed and thirsty in the waste desert stretches. Pitifully it speaks of those who confidently threw their heart’s sweetest flowers in the world they loved, receiving no return, living forevermore with barren hopes. It whispers of those who flung their cries of joy to the winds, and heard them wafted back as taunts. It speaks of builders, of whose dream houses no cornerstone or cornice has been realized. Voicelessly it proclaims theSlave of the Past.
And as I looked at it, so hopelessly resigned, I hated it, for all its powerful symbolism.
Did the world know no other Outcast than this shrinking, unreproachful figure? Was this symbolism the whole truth? Were there no Outcasts who dared accuse?—who dared fight for their inheritance? None to cry dauntlessly, “We will not be cast aside, we who have builded and tilled and dreamed!” Were there no outcasts with hope—with fighting blood?
In the far recesses of the Japanese Section, where only a few errant footfalls echo solemnly through the spacious silence, I found that for which I searched. There I found the symbol of the Outcast I dared hope to see. A truly courageous figure it is, with Hope and the Spirit to be Free stamped largeupon it. It is the very antithesis of that bowed figure out among the green vines and laughing Pans, which seem to beg forgiveness for its very existence. This other figure is called “Strike”, and proudly it bears its insignia of rebellion. The gaunt outlines and the eyes overshadowed with a terrible fatigue brand this figure of a man, as the other, with the marks of the Outcast. A woman leans upon him, and in turn, a brood of young cling to her skirts. But this Outcast is no craven. He neither cringes nor sorrows. He stands erect, and through the shadows of fatigue, his eyes flash defiance out upon the world of the Self-Satisfied. He seems to cry aloud:
“I suffer, my mate suffers, and our young; but you shall pay—pay in full! You who stand between us and our inheritance, your time is drawing near—prepare! For we declare that we, too, shall live, we, the sufferers!”
This Outcast, springing from the depths, flings a challenge where others have only wept; dares where others have cowered in self-debasement. This man of courage, standing erect under the scourges of suffering and deprivation, gazing so steadfastly into the Beyond through overshadowed eyes—he dares aspire to walk in the green fields of his making; already he treads them in his imagination. He has sent a barely whispered hope of joy out upon the winds and it is rushing back to him a mighty symphony of realization. He dreams of a beautiful world, and builds it as he dreams.
He heralds the day when there will be no Outcasts, but all will be Well-Beloved.
He is theMaster of the Future.