"As Owen thought of his child's future, there sprang up within him a feeling of hatred and fury against his fellow workmen.
They were the enemy - those ragged-trousered philanthropists, who not only quietly submitted like so many cattle to their miserable slavery for the benefit of others, but defended it and opposed and ridiculed any suggestion of reform.
They were the real oppressors - the men who spoke of themselves as 'the likes of us' who, having lived in poverty all their lives, considered that what had been good enough for them was good enough for their children"
Robert Tressell, "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists"
http://www.1066.net/tressell/
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