This is the stage for the tragedy: the armored might of the modern world urged by the bloody needs of the world wants, fevered today by a fabulous vision of gain and needing only hands, hands, hands!
Du Bois critiques the exploitation inherent in industrial capitalism, emphasizing the human cost of progress.
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Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood.
Let the ears of a guilty people tingle with truth, and seventy millions sigh for the righteousness which exalteth nations, in this drear day when human brotherhood is mockery and a snare.
Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men.
So long as the world stands meekly dumb before such questions, shall this nation proclaim its ignorance and unhallowed prejudices by denying freedom of opportunity to those who brought the Sorrow Songs to the Seats of the Mighty?