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Major Barbara 193
people. They poison us morally and physically: they kill
the happiness of society: they force us to do away with
our own liberties and to organize unnatural cruelties for
fear they should rise against us and drag us down into
their abyss. Only fools fear crime: we all fear poverty.
I had rather be a thief than a pauper. I had rather be
a murderer than a slave. I don t want to be either; but
if you force the alternative on me, then, by Heaven, I ll
choose the braver and more moral one. I hate poverty
and slavery worse than any other crimes whatsoever."
Cusins, the scientist, realizes the force of Un-
dershaft s argument. Long enough have the
people been preached at, and intellectual power
used to enslave them.
Cusins. As a teacher of Greek I gave the intellectual
man weapons against the common man. I now want to
give the common man weapons against the intellectual
man. I love the common people. I want to arm them
against the lawyer, the doctor, the priest, the literary
man, the professor, the artist, and the politician, who,
once in authority, are the most dangerous, disastrous, and
tyrannical of all the fools, rascals, and impostors.
This thought is perhaps the most revolutionary
sentiment in the whole play, in view of the fact
that the people everywhere are enslaved by the
awe of the lawyer, the professor, and the poli
tician, even more than by the club and gun. It is
the lawyer and the politician who poison the
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