Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow – Filantropo, 6/30/1906 (English)
Translated & republished from the anarchist publication by Luigi Galleani Cronaca sovversiva,
Yesterday provides us with material for teaching. It teaches us that in primitive life there were no lecterns, there
were no sovereigns, there were no priests. The fruits of the earth were the property of all, because the fields did
not constitute private property. The fishermen wandered everywhere; the shepherds led their flocks where the
meadows were. Man united with the woman of his heart without anyone acting as intermediary or consecrating
the union as eternal. Today, however, is at the mercy of a few powerful people who revel among riches and ride
horses, with loose reins, over the fallen bodies of the proletariat, sowing blood and tears everywhere. Proletarian,
look around you and things will rust. Don’t you see? Sunt lacrimae rerum. Even the things around you cry your
sufferings. Three jobs, incessantly in the fields, under the lash of the sun, and the earth brings you its fruits; but
power rushes in and tells you that they are its own. You build sumptuous palaces, but you let your executioners
inhabit them, while you inhabit hovels and prisons. You build churches and do not know that the asps that will later
hypocritically poison you nest there. Do you not know that the fruits of the earth are yours, the palaces are yours,
the cities are yours— that everything is yours? Proletarian, educate yourself, and when you have learned your
rights, learn also that with a little work you can live better; that the army, of which you form an element, is prepared
to play the executioner against you; that the law is a breeding ground for criminals; that the indissolubility of
marriage generates adultery and corruption; that private property breeds theft.
Educate yourself, and when you have learned all this, then you will send out your cry, which will break the spell
that keeps you miserable and ignorant. You will roar, and at your roar the darkness of today will fall. Religious
superstition will fall, and tomorrow will be truly beautiful and seductive. Today, even things cry, but tomorrow
everything will smile. United by mutual love, we will all be brothers through work; but today’s work, combined
with hunger and poor rest, will not last much longer. Learn, O proletarian, learn to gnaw the reins, learn to love
and to hate; and do not delude yourself—it will not be long before that roar, horrifying to your enemies, comes
out of your throat! But in the meantime there is today, in its crude reality, and unfortunately I must repeat: Sunt
lacrimae rerum.
