Ben Hecht Quotes
I know that a man who shows me his wealth is like the beggar who shows me his poverty; they are both looking for alms from me, the rich man for the alms of my envy, the poor man for the alms of my guilt.
Hecht, Ben. A Child of the Century. Simon and Schuster, 1954.
This quotation is one of the great metaphorical statements of social and political oratory. Then, and even today, most people who discuss the wealthy and their callousness towards the poor are accused of class warfare. Here Debs profoundly attacked the rich and their inaction in society without ever mentioning the wealthy in any way. There was no way of labeling this as an attack on anyone or class warfare.
The hymn was officially removed from the Anglican Hymnal in 1963. The hymn is a good example if how Christianity was used to reinforce the status quo of a riged English class system. God ordained the position of all men and onky he could change that. Hard work, education, personal qualities were all for naught. And no one should question the fairness of the status quo, as it was God’s will.
This was written in 1933 one of the worst years of the Great Depression. Actualy many upper middle calss and rich people were ruined themselves by the Great Depression, but at the same time the ultra rich were living in a "gildd age" and reveled ostentatiously.
Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist, and novelist. A journalist in his youth, he went on to write 35 books and some of the most entertaining screenplays and plays in America. He received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some seventy films.
