Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968). rn The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915.
From the Bottom UpAlexander Irvine
(The life-story of an Irish peasant lad, born 1863, who became in turn stableman, man-of-wars-man, slum-missionary, clergyman, and Socialist agitator)A
Coming in contact with these ugly social facts continuously, led me to this belief. It came very slowly; as did also the opinion that the missionary himself or the pastor, be he as wise as Solomon, as eloquent as Demosthenes, as virtuous as St. Francis, has no social standing whatever among the people whose alms support the institutions, religious and philanthropic, of which he is the executive head. The fellowship of the saints is a pure fiction, has absolutely no foundation in fact in a city like New York except as the poor saints have it by themselves.