Political Quotes

W.E.B. Du Bois: Hands that made food made powder, and iron for railways was iron for guns.

On the record
Hands that made food made powder, and iron for railways was iron for guns.
Said by
W.E.B. Du Bois

Editor's note · Context

This statement illustrates the duality of labor, where the same hands that create also contribute to destruction.

Share

More from W.E.B. Du Bois

Jan 1, 1903

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1903

Away with the black man’s ballot, by force or fraud,—and behold the suicide of a race!

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1903

Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil.

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1903

To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.

gutenberg.org