89
" In the problem of women was the germ of a solution, not only for their oppression, but for everybody's. The control of women in society was ingeniously effective. It was not done directly by the state. Instead the family was used- men to control women, women to control children, all to be preoccupied with one another , to turn to one another for help, to blame one another for trouble, to do violence to one another when things weren't going right. Why could this not be turned around? Could women liberating themselves, children freeing themselves, men and women beginning to understand one another, find the source of their common oppression outside rather than in one another? Perhaps then they could create nuggets of strength in their own relationships, millions of pockets of insurrection. They could revolutionize thought and behavior in exactly that seclusion of family privacy which the system had counted on to do its work of control and indoctrination. And together, instead of at odds- male, female, parents, children- they could undertake the changing of society itself. "
― Howard Zinn , A People's History of the United States
92
" Concealing himself from his father's wrath, behind the barn with wick turned low and his face two inches from the rough sawtooth page, Young Crawford had read of these atrocities in Beadle's Dime Library and fantasized about " calling out" the brutal old man who had sired him, " throwing down" on him with the " hogleg" he wore high on his hip, and blasting him into hell; after which he would go " on the scout," separating high-interest banks and arrogant railroad barons from their soiled coin and distributing it among their victims, or failing that into his own pockets and saddle pouches and living the " high Life" in saloons and " dance halls" where beautiful women in brief costumes admired his straight legs and square jaw and told him of the men who had " ruined" them (he knew not just how, only that the act was disgraceful and its effects permanent), whereupon he sought the blackguards out and deprived them of their lives. There was usually profit involved; invariably the men were thieves who lived in close proximity to their " ill-gotten booty," and didn't it say somewhere in Scripture that robbing a thief was no sin? If it didn't, it should have. "
93
" Mr. Edwards admired the well-built, pleasant house and heartily enjoyed the good dinner. But he said he was going on West with the train when it pulled out. Pa could not persuade him to stay longer." I'm aiming to go far West in the spring," he said. " This here, country, it's too settled up for me. The politicians are a-swarming in already, and ma'am if'n there's any worse pest than grasshoppers it surely is politicians. Why, they'll tax the lining out'n a man's pockets to keep up these here county-seat towns..." " Feller come along and taxed me last summer. Told me I got to put in every last thing I had. So I put in Tom and Jerry, my horses, at fifty dollars apiece, and my oxen yoke, Buck and Bright, I put in at fifty, and my cow at thirty five.'Is that all you got?' he says. Well I told him I'd put in five children I reckoned was worth a dollar apiece.'Is that all?' he says. 'How about your wife?' he says.'By Mighty!' I says to him. 'She says I don't own her and I don't aim to pay no taxes on her,' I says. And I didn't. "