It is the fashion with certain people to decry Jack London's socialism, but I happen to know that he has personally sacrificed thousands of dollars to his principles in this matter, has lost the friendship of many wealthy people who would have showered their gifts upon him had he been complacent towards what he calls "predatory wealth," hence I hail his acts of contemporaneous rebellion and his taking upon himself of the battle for these, his weaker brothers and sisters, as heroic, and fully worthy of the highest esteem of all good men, whatever they may think of the methods by which he would bring about the desired changes.
All through his life there has been a strong current of contemporaneous rebellion and belligerent sincerity in the work of the poet of the Sierras, Joaquin Miller. He was brought up as a Quaker and taught to believe in non-resistance, hence he preached peace at the beginning of the Civil War until his printing office was wrecked and his life threatened. When the world at large was condemning the Indian, he went and stood by his side, and when he believed him to be in the right, fought battles on his behalf. All through his life he has boldly stood for man's larger freedom, and against entrenched tyranny. When England made war upon the Boers, he denounced the warlike and jingo politicians with a power and strength seldom surpassed in poetry, in spite of the fact that the English had always been his best friends and the largest purchasers of his poems.
While he lived in California, not far from San Francisco, and California was a hotbed of the sentiment that demands the exclusion of the Chinese and Japanese, he ever fearlessly and in unmistakable terms denounced this action as opposed to the fundamental principles of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and demanded of his fellow citizens that they adhere strictly to these never-failing and abiding truths.
These men are but few of the many I might mention, but they will serve as types. They have been and are willing to suffer for the general good of mankind. Therefore, in the presence of their moral heroism and courage, let us cry with George Linnæus Banks:
I live to learn their story Who've suffered for my sake, To emulate their glory, And to follow in their wake; Bards, patriots, martyrs, sages, The noble of all ages, Whose deeds crowd history's pages And Time's great volume make.