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194 George Bernard Shaw
people with
"
the germ of briefs and politics,"
thereby unfitting them for the only effective course
in the great social struggle action, resultant
from the realization that poverty and inequality
never have been, never can be, preached or voted
out of existence.
Undershaft. Poverty and slavery have stood up for
centuries to your sermons and leading articles :
they will
not stand up to my machine guns. Don t preach at them ;
don t reason with them. Kill them.
Barbara. Killing. Is that your remedy for every
thing?
Undershaft. It is the final test of conviction, the only
lever strong enough to overturn a social system, the only
way of saying Must. Let six hundred and seventy fools
loose in the street; and three policemen can scatter them.
But huddle them together in a certain house in West
minster; and let them go through certain ceremonies and
call themselves certain names until at last they get the
courage to kill; and your six hundred and seventy fools
become a government. Your pious mob fills up ballot
papers and imagines it is governing its masters; but the
ballot paper that really governs is the paper that has a
bullet wrapped up in it. ... Vote! Bah! When you
vote you only change the names of the cabinet. When
you shoot, you pull down governments, inaugurate new
epochs, abolish old orders and set up new. Is that his
torically true, Mr. Learned Man, or is it not?
Cusins. It is historically true. I loathe having to
admit it. I repudiate your sentiments. I abhor your
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