The Iron Heel .......................................................................................................................................................1

It cannot be said that the Everhard Manuscript is an important historical document. To the historian it bristles

with errorsnot errors of fact, but errors of interpretation. Looking back across the seven centuries that have

lapsed since Avis Everhard completed her manuscript, events, and the bearings of events, that were confused

and veiled to her, are clear to us. She lacked perspective. She was too close to the events she writes about.

Nevertheless, as a personal document, the Everhard Manuscript is of inestimable value. But here again enter

error of perspective, and vitiation due to the bias of love. Yet we smile, indeed, and forgive Avis Everhard for

the heroic lines upon which she modelled her husband. We know today that he was not so colossal, and that

he loomed among the events of his times less largely than the Manuscript would lead us to believe.

We know that Ernest Everhard was an exceptionally strong man, but not so exceptional as his wife thought

him to be. He was, after all, but one of a large number of heroes who, throughout the world, devoted their

lives to the Revolution; though it must be conceded that he did unusual work, especially in his elaboration

and interpretation of workingclass philosophy. "Proletarian science" and "proletarian philosophy" were his

phrases for it, and therein he shows the provincialism of his minda defect, however, that was due to the

But to return to the Manuscript. Especially valuable is it in communicating to us the FEEL of those terrible

times. Nowhere do we find more vividly portrayed the psychology of the persons that lived in that turbulent

period embraced between the years 1912 and 1932their mistakes and ignorance, their doubts and fears and

misapprehensions, their ethical delusions, their violent passions, their inconceivable sordidness and

selfishness. These are the things that are so hard for us of this enlightened age to understand. History tells us

that these things were, and biology and psychology tell us why they were; but history and biology and

psychology do not make these things alive. We accept them as facts, but we are left without sympathetic

This sympathy comes to us, however, as we peruse the Everhard Manuscript. We enter into the minds of the

actors in that longago worlddrama, and for the time being their mental processes are our mental processes.

Not alone do we understand Avis Everhard's love for her herohusband, but we feel, as he felt, in those first

days, the vague and terrible loom of the Oligarchy. The Iron Heel (well named) we feel descending upon and

And in passing we note that that historic phrase, the Iron Heel, originated in Ernest Everhard's mind. This, we

may say, is the one moot question that this newfound document clears up. Previous to this, the

earliestknown use of the phrase occurred in the pamphlet, "Ye Slaves," written by George Milford and

published in December, 1912. This George Milford was an obscure agitator about whom nothing is known,

save the one additional bit of information gained from the Manuscript, which mentions that he was shot in the

Chicago Commune. Evidently he had heard Ernest Everhard make use of the phrase in some public speech,

most probably when he was running for Congress in the fall of 1912. From the Manuscript we learn that

Everhard used the phrase at a private dinner in the spring of 1912. This is, without discussion, the

The rise of the Oligarchy will always remain a cause of secret wonder to the historian and the philosopher.

Other great historical events have their place in social evolution. They were inevitable. Their coming could

have been predicted with the same certitude that astronomers today predict the outcome of the movements

of stars. Without these other great historical events, social evolution could not have proceeded. Primitive

communism, chattel slavery, serf slavery, and wage slavery were necessary steppingstones in the evolution

of society. But it were ridiculous to assert that the Iron Heel was a necessary stepping stone. Rather, today,

is it adjudged a step aside, or a step backward, to the social tyrannies that made the early world a hell, but that

Black as Feudalism was, yet the coming of it was inevitable. What else than Feudalism could have followed

upon the breakdown of that great centralized governmental machine known as the Roman Empire? Not so,

however, with the Iron Heel. In the orderly procedure of social evolution there was no place for it. It was not

necessary, and it was not inevitable. It must always remain the great curiosity of historya whim, a fantasy,

an apparition, a thing unexpected and undreamed; and it should serve as a warning to those rash political

Capitalism was adjudged by the sociologists of the time to be the culmination of bourgeois rule, the ripened

fruit of the bourgeois revolution. And we of today can but applaud that judgment. Following upon

Capitalism, it was held, even by such intellectual and antagonistic giants as Herbert Spencer, that Socialism

would come. Out of the decay of selfseeking capitalism, it was held, would arise that flower of the ages, the

Brotherhood of Man. Instead of which, appalling alike to us who look back and to those that lived at the time,

Too late did the socialist movement of the early twentieth century divine the coming of the Oligarchy. Even

as it was divined, the Oligarchy was therea fact established in blood, a stupendous and awful reality. Nor

even then, as the Everhard Manuscript well shows, was any permanence attributed to the Iron Heel. Its

overthrow was a matter of a few short years, was the judgment of the revolutionists. It is true, they realized

that the Peasant Revolt was unplanned, and that the First Revolt was premature; but they little realized that

the Second Revolt, planned and mature, was doomed to equal futility and more terrible punishment.

It is apparent that Avis Everhard completed the Manuscript during the last days of preparation for the Second

Revolt; hence the fact that there is no mention of the disastrous outcome of the Second Revolt. It is quite

clear that she intended the Manuscript for immediate publication, as soon as the Iron Heel was overthrown, so

that her husband, so recently dead, should receive full credit for all that he had ventured and accomplished.

Then came the frightful crushing of the Second Revolt, and it is probable that in the moment of danger, ere

she fled or was captured by the Mercenaries, she hid the Manuscript in the hollow oak at Wake Robin Lodge.

Of Avis Everhard there is no further record. Undoubtedly she was executed by the Mercenaries; and, as is

well known, no record of such executions was kept by the Iron Heel. But little did she realize, even then, as

she hid the Manuscript and prepared to flee, how terrible had been the breakdown of the Second Revolt.

Little did she realize that the tortuous and distorted evolution of the next three centuries would compel a

Third Revolt and a Fourth Revolt, and many Revolts, all drowned in seas of blood, ere the worldmovement

of labor should come into its own. And little did she dream that for seven long centuries the tribute of her

love to Ernest Everhard would repose undisturbed in the heart of the ancient oak of Wake Robin Lodge.

The soft summer wind stirs the redwoods, and WildWater ripples sweet cadences over its mossy stones.

There are butterflies in the sunshine, and from everywhere arises the drowsy hum of bees. It is so quiet and

peaceful, and I sit here, and ponder, and am restless. It is the quiet that makes me restless. It seems unreal. All

the world is quiet, but it is the quiet before the storm. I strain my ears, and all my senses, for some betrayal of

that impending storm. Oh, that it may not be premature! That it may not be premature!*

* The Second Revolt was largely the work of Ernest Everhard, though he cooperated, of course, with the

European leaders. The capture and secret execution of Everhard was the great event of the spring of 1932

A.D. Yet so thoroughly had he prepared for the revolt, that his fellowconspirators were able, with little

confusion or delay, to carry out his plans. It was after Everhard's execution that his wife went to Wake Robin

Small wonder that I am restless. I think, and think, and I cannot cease from thinking. I have been in the thick

of life so long that I am oppressed by the peace and quiet, and I cannot forbear from dwelling upon that mad

maelstrom of death and destruction so soon to burst forth. In my ears are the cries of the stricken; and I can

see, as I have seen in the past,* all the marring and mangling of the sweet, beautiful flesh, and the souls torn

with violence from proud bodies and hurled to God. Thus do we poor humans attain our ends, striving

through carnage and destruction to bring lasting peace and happiness upon the earth.

And then I am lonely. When I do not think of what is to come, I think of what has been and is no moremy

Eagle, beating with tireless wings the void, soaring toward what was ever his sun, the flaming ideal of human

freedom. I cannot sit idly by and wait the great event that is his making, though he is not here to see. He

devoted all the years of his manhood to it, and for it he gave his life. It is his handiwork. He made it.*

* With all respect to Avis Everhard, it must be pointed out that Everhard was but one of many able leaders

who planned the Second Revolt. And we today, looking back across the centuries, can safely say that even

had he lived, the Second Revolt would not have been less calamitous in its outcome than it was.

And so it is, in this anxious time of waiting, that I shall write of my husband. There is much light that I alone

of all persons living can throw upon his character, and so noble a character cannot be blazoned forth too

brightly. His was a great soul, and, when my love grows unselfish, my chiefest regret is that he is not here to

witness tomorrow's dawn. We cannot fail. He has built too stoutly and too surely for that. Woe to the Iron

Heel! Soon shall it be thrust back from off prostrate humanity. When the word goes forth, the labor hosts of

all the world shall rise. There has been nothing like it in the history of the world. The solidarity of labor is

assured, and for the first time will there be an international revolution wide as the world is wide.*

* The Second Revolt was truly international. It was a colossal plantoo colossal to be wrought by the genius

of one man alone. Labor, in all the oligarchies of the world, was prepared to rise at the signal. Germany, Italy,

France, and all Australasia were labor countriessocialist states. They were ready to lend aid to the

revolution. Gallantly they did; and it was for this reason, when the Second Revolt was crushed, that they, too,

were crushed by the united oligarchies of the world, their socialist governments being replaced by

You see, I am full of what is impending. I have lived it day and night utterly and for so long that it is ever

present in my mind. For that matter, I cannot think of my husband without thinking of it. He was the soul of

As I have said, there is much light that I alone can throw upon his character. It is well known that he toiled

hard for liberty and suffered sore. How hard he toiled and how greatly he suffered, I well know; for I have

been with him during these twenty anxious years and I know his patience, his untiring effort, his infinite

I shall try to write simply and to tell here how Ernest Everhard entered my lifehow I first met him, how he

grew until I became a part of him, and the tremendous changes he wrought in my life. In this way may you

look at him through my eyes and learn him as I learned himin all save the things too secret and sweet for

It was in February, 1912, that I first met him, when, as a guest of my father's* at dinner, he came to our house

in Berkeley. I cannot say that my very first impression of him was favorable. He was one of many at dinner,

and in the drawingroom where we gathered and waited for all to arrive, he made a rather incongruous

appearance. It was "preacher's night," as my father privately called it, and Ernest was certainly out of place in

* John Cunningham, Avis Everhard's father, was a professor at the State University at Berkeley, California.

His chosen field was physics, and in addition he did much original research and was greatly distinguished as

a scientist. His chief contribution to science was his studies of the electron and his monumental work on the

"Identification of Matter and Energy," wherein he established, beyond cavil and for all time, that the ultimate

unit of matter and the ultimate unit of force were identical. This idea had been earlier advanced, but not

demonstrated, by Sir Oliver Lodge and other students in the new field of radioactivity.

In the first place, his clothes did not fit him. He wore a ready made suit of dark cloth that was ill adjusted to

his body. In fact, no readymade suit of clothes ever could fit his body. And on this night, as always, the

cloth bulged with his muscles, while the coat between the shoulders, what of the heavy shoulder

development, was a maze of wrinkles. His neck was the neck of a prizefighter,* thick and strong. So this

was the social philosopher and exhorseshoer my father had discovered, was my thought. And he certainly

looked it with those bulging muscles and that bullthroat. Immediately I classified hima sort of prodigy, I

* In that day it was the custom of men to compete for purses of money. They fought with their hands. When

** This obscure reference applies to a blind negro musician who took the world by storm in the latter half of

And then, when he shook hands with me! His handshake was firm and strong, but he looked at me boldly

with his black eyestoo boldly, I thought. You see, I was a creature of environment, and at that time had

strong class instincts. Such boldness on the part of a man of my own class would have been almost

unforgivable. I know that I could not avoid dropping my eyes, and I was quite relieved when I passed him on

and turned to greet Bishop Morehousea favorite of mine, a sweet and serious man of middle age, Christ

But this boldness that I took to be presumption was a vital clew to the nature of Ernest Everhard. He was

simple, direct, afraid of nothing, and he refused to waste time on conventional mannerisms. "You pleased

me," he explained long afterward; "and why should I not fill my eyes with that which pleases me?" I have

said that he was afraid of nothing. He was a natural aristocratand this in spite of the fact that he was in the

camp of the nonaristocrats. He was a superman, a blond beast such as Nietzsche* has described, and in

* Friederich Nietzsche, the mad philosopher of the nineteenth century of the Christian Era, who caught wild

glimpses of truth, but who, before he was done, reasoned himself around the great circle of human thought

In the interest of meeting the other guests, and what of my unfavorable impression, I forgot all about the

workingclass philosopher, though once or twice at table I noticed him especially the twinkle in his eye as

he listened to the talk first of one minister and then of another. He has humor, I thought, and I almost forgave

him his clothes. But the time went by, and the dinner went by, and he never opened his mouth to speak, while

the ministers talked interminably about the working class and its relation to the church, and what the church

had done and was doing for it. I noticed that my father was annoyed because Ernest did not talk. Once father

took advantage of a lull and asked him to say something; but Ernest shrugged his shoulders and with an "I

"We have with us a member of the working class. I am sure that he can present things from a new point of

The others betrayed a wellmannered interest, and urged Ernest for a statement of his views. Their attitude

toward him was so broadly tolerant and kindly that it was really patronizing. And I saw that Ernest noted it

and was amused. He looked slowly about him, and I saw the glint of laughter in his eyes.

"I am not versed in the courtesies of ecclesiastical controversy," he began, and then hesitated with modesty

"Go on," they urged, and Dr. Hammerfield said: "We do not mind the truth that is in any man. If it is sincere,"

Dr. Hammerfield gasped, and managed to answer, "The best of us may be mistaken, young man, the best of

"All right, then," he answered; "and let me begin by saying that you are all mistaken. You know nothing, and

worse than nothing, about the working class. Your sociology is as vicious and worthless as is your method of

It was not so much what he said as how he said it. I roused at the first sound of his voice. It was as bold as his

eyes. It was a clarioncall that thrilled me. And the whole table was aroused, shaken alive from monotony

"What is so dreadfully vicious and worthless in our method of thinking, young man?" Dr. Hammerfield

demanded, and already there was something unpleasant in his voice and manner of utterance.

"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician

can prove every other metaphysician wrongto his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of

thought. And you are mad cosmosmakers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out

of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no

place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration.

"Do you know what I was reminded of as I sat at table and listened to you talk and talk? You reminded me

for all the world of the scholastics of the Middle Ages who gravely and learnedly debated the absorbing

question of how many angels could dance on the point of a needle. Why, my dear sirs, you are as remote

from the intellectual life of the twentieth century as an Indian medicine man making incantation in the

As Ernest talked he seemed in a fine passion; his face glowed, his eyes snapped and flashed, and his chin and

jaw were eloquent with aggressiveness. But it was only a way he had. It always aroused people. His

smashing, sledgehammer manner of attack invariably made them forget themselves. And they were

forgetting themselves now. Bishop Morehouse was leaning forward and listening intently. Exasperation and

anger were flushing the face of Dr. Hammerfield. And others were exasperated, too, and some were smiling

in an amused and superior way. As for myself, I found it most enjoyable. I glanced at father, and I was afraid

he was going to giggle at the effect of this human bombshell he had been guilty of launching amongst us.

"Your terms are rather vague," Dr. Hammerfield interrupted. "Just precisely what do you mean when you call

"I call you metaphysicians because you reason metaphysically," Ernest went on. "Your method of reasoning

is the opposite to that of science. There is no validity to your conclusions. You can prove everything and

nothing, and no two of you can agree upon anything. Each of you goes into his own consciousness to explain

himself and the universe. As well may you lift yourselves by your own bootstraps as to explain consciousness

"I do not understand," Bishop Morehouse said. "It seems to me that all things of the mind are metaphysical.

That most exact and convincing of all sciences, mathematics, is sheerly metaphysical. Each and every

thoughtprocess of the scientific reasoner is metaphysical. Surely you will agree with me?"

"As you say, you do not understand," Ernest replied. "The metaphysician reasons deductively out of his own

subjectivity. The scientist reasons inductively from the facts of experience. The metaphysician reasons from

theory to facts, the scientist reasons from facts to theory. The metaphysician explains the universe by himself,

"There you go," Ernest laughed. "You have left the real and solid earth and are up in the air with a word for a

flying machine. Pray come down to earth and tell me precisely what you do mean by philosophy."

"Philosophy is" (Dr. Hammerfield paused and cleared his throat) "something that cannot be defined

comprehensively except to such minds and temperaments as are philosophical. The narrow scientist with his

Ernest ignored the thrust. It was always his way to turn the point back upon an opponent, and he did it now,

"Then you will undoubtedly understand the definition I shall now make of philosophy. But before I make it, I

shall challenge you to point out error in it or to remain a silent metaphysician. Philosophy is merely the

widest science of all. Its reasoning method is the same as that of any particular science and of all particular

sciences. And by that same method of reasoning, the inductive method, philosophy fuses all particular

sciences into one great science. As Spencer says, the data of any particular science are partially unified

knowledge. Philosophy unifies the knowledge that is contributed by all the sciences. Philosophy is the

science of science, the master science, if you please. How do you like my definition?"

"Remember," he warned, "my definition is fatal to metaphysics. If you do not now point out a flaw in my

definition, you are disqualified later on from advancing metaphysical arguments. You must go through life

Ernest waited. The silence was painful. Dr. Hammerfield was pained. He was also puzzled. Ernest's

sledgehammer attack disconcerted him. He was not used to the simple and direct method of controversy. He

looked appealingly around the table, but no one answered for him. I caught father grinning into his napkin.

"There is another way of disqualifying the metaphysicians," Ernest said, when he had rendered Dr.

Hammerfield's discomfiture complete. "Judge them by their works. What have they done for mankind beyond

the spinning of airy fancies and the mistaking of their own shadows for gods? They have added to the gayety

of mankind, I grant; but what tangible good have they wrought for mankind? They philosophized, if you will

pardon my misuse of the word, about the heart as the seat of the emotions, while the scientists were

formulating the circulation of the blood. They declaimed about famine and pestilence as being scourges of

God, while the scientists were building granaries and draining cities. They builded gods in their own shapes

and out of their own desires, while the scientists were building roads and bridges. They were describing the

earth as the centre of the universe, while the scientists were discovering America and probing space for the

stars and the laws of the stars. In short, the metaphysicians have done nothing, absolutely nothing, for

mankind. Step by step, before the advance of science, they have been driven back. As fast as the ascertained

facts of science have overthrown their subjective explanations of things, they have made new subjective

explanations of things, including explanations of the latest ascertained facts. And this, I doubt not, they will

go on doing to the end of time. Gentlemen, a metaphysician is a medicine man. The difference between you

and the Eskimo who makes a furclad blubbereating god is merely a difference of several thousand years of

"Yet the thought of Aristotle ruled Europe for twelve centuries," Dr. Ballingford announced pompously.

Dr. Ballingford glanced around the table and was rewarded by nods and smiles of approval.

"Your illustration is most unfortunate," Ernest replied. "You refer to a very dark period in human history. In

fact, we call that period the Dark Ages. A period wherein science was raped by the metaphysicians, wherein

physics became a search for the Philosopher's Stone, wherein chemistry became alchemy, and astronomy

"Granted this horrible picture you have drawn, yet you must confess that metaphysics was inherently potent

in so far as it drew humanity out of this dark period and on into the illumination of the succeeding centuries."

"What?" Dr. Hammerfield cried. "It was not the thinking and the speculation that led to the voyages of

"Ah, my dear sir," Ernest smiled, "I thought you were disqualified. You have not yet picked out the flaw in

my definition of philosophy. You are now on an unsubstantial basis. But it is the way of the metaphysicians,

and I forgive you. No, I repeat, metaphysics had nothing to do with it. Bread and butter, silks and jewels,

dollars and cents, and, incidentally, the closing up of the overland traderoutes to India, were the things that

caused the voyages of discovery. With the fall of Constantinople, in 1453, the Turks blocked the way of the

caravans to India. The traders of Europe had to find another route. Here was the original cause for the

voyages of discovery. Columbus sailed to find a new route to the Indies. It is so stated in all the history

books. Incidentally, new facts were learned about the nature, size, and form of the earth, and the Ptolemaic

"I can only reaffirm my position," Dr. Hammerfield retorted tartly. "It is too long a story to enter into now."

"No story is too long for the scientist," Ernest said sweetly. "That is why the scientist gets to places. That is

I shall not describe the whole evening, though it is a joy to me to recall every moment, every detail, of those

Battle royal raged, and the ministers grew redfaced and excited, especially at the moments when Ernest

called them romantic philosophers, shadowprojectors, and similar things. And always he checked them back

to facts. "The fact, man, the irrefragable fact!" he would proclaim triumphantly, when he had brought one of

them a cropper. He bristled with facts. He tripped them up with facts, ambuscaded them with facts,

"There is no God but Fact, and Mr. Everhard is its prophet," Dr. Ballingford paraphrased.

"I'm like the man from Texas," he said. And, on being solicited, he explained. "You see, the man from

Missouri always says, "You've got to show me." But the man from Texas says, "You've got to put it in my

Another time, when Ernest had just said that the metaphysical philosophers could never stand the test of

"What is the test of truth, young man? Will you kindly explain what has so long puzzled wiser heads than

"Certainly," Ernest answered. His cocksureness irritated them. "The wise heads have puzzled so sorely over

truth because they went up into the air after it. Had they remained on the solid earth, they would have found it

easily enoughay, they would have found that they themselves were precisely testing truth with every

"The test, the test," Dr. Hammerfield repeated impatiently. "Never mind the preamble. Give us that which we

There was an impolite and sneering scepticism in his words and manner that secretly pleased most of them at

"Dr. Jordan* has stated it very clearly," Ernest said. "His test of truth is: 'Will it work? Will you trust your life

* A noted educator of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries of the Christian Era. He was president

"Pish!" Dr. Hammerfield sneered. "You have not taken Bishop Berkeley* into account. He has never been

* An idealistic monist who long puzzled the philosophers of that time with his denial of the existence of

matter, but whose clever argument was finally demolished when the new empiric facts of science were

"The noblest metaphysician of them all," Ernest laughed. "But your example is unfortunate. As Berkeley

Dr. Hammerfield was angry, righteously angry. It was as though he had caught Ernest in a theft or a lie.

"Young man," he trumpeted, "that statement is on a par with all you have uttered tonight. It is a base and

"I am quite crushed," Ernest murmured meekly. "Only I don't know what hit me. You'll have to put it in my

"I will, I will," Dr. Hammerfield spluttered. "How do you know? You do not know that Bishop Berkeley

attested that his metaphysics did not work. You have no proof. Young man, they have always worked."

"I take it as proof that Berkeley's metaphysics did not work, because" Ernest paused calmly for a moment.

"Because Berkeley made an invariable practice of going through doors instead of walls. Because he trusted

his life to solid bread and butter and roast beef. Because he shaved himself with a razor that worked when it

"But those are actual things!" Dr. Hammerfield cried. "Metaphysics is of the mind."

"And even a multitude of angels can dance on the point of a needle in the mind," Ernest went on

reflectively. "And a blubbereating, furclad god can exist and workin the mind; and there are no proofs

"That's another way of saying that you live up in the air. But you come back to earth at mealtime, I am sure,

or when an earthquake happens along. Or, tell me, Doctor, do you have no apprehension in an earthquake that

Instantly, and quite unconsciously, Dr. Hammerfield's hand shot up to his head, where a scar disappeared

under the hair. It happened that Ernest had blundered on an apposite illustration. Dr. Hammerfield had been

nearly killed in the Great Earthquake* by a falling chimney. Everybody broke out into roars of laughter.

"Well?" Ernest asked, when the merriment had subsided. "Proofs to the contrary?"

And in the silence he asked again, "Well?" Then he added, "Still well, but not so well, that argument of

But Dr. Hammerfield was temporarily crushed, and the battle raged on in new directions. On point after

point, Ernest challenged the ministers. When they affirmed that they knew the working class, he told them

fundamental truths about the working class that they did not know, and challenged them for disproofs. He

gave them facts, always facts, checked their excursions into the air, and brought them back to the solid earth

How the scene comes back to me! I can hear him now, with that war note in his voice, flaying them with his

facts, each fact a lash that stung and stung again. And he was merciless. He took no quarter,* and gave none.

* This figure arises from the customs of the times. When, among men fighting to the death in their

wildanimal way, a beaten man threw down his weapons, it was at the option of the victor to slay him or

"You have repeatedly confessed tonight, by direct avowal or ignorant statement, that you do not know the

working class. But you are not to be blamed for this. How can you know anything about the working class?

You do not live in the same locality with the working class. You herd with the capitalist class in another

locality. And why not? It is the capitalist class that pays you, that feeds you, that puts the very clothes on your

backs that you are wearing tonight. And in return you preach to your employers the brands of metaphysics

that are especially acceptable to them; and the especially acceptable brands are acceptable because they do

"Oh, I am not challenging your sincerity," Ernest continued. "You are sincere. You preach what you believe.

There lies your strength and your valueto the capitalist class. But should you change your belief to

something that menaces the established order, your preaching would be unacceptable to your employers, and

you would be discharged. Every little while some one or another of you is so discharged.* Am I not right?"

* During this period there were many ministers cast out of the church for preaching unacceptable doctrine.

Especially were they cast out when their preaching became tainted with socialism.

This time there was no dissent. They sat dumbly acquiescent, with the exception of Dr. Hammerfield, who

"Which is another way of saying when their thinking is unacceptable," Ernest answered, and then went on.

"So I say to you, go ahead and preach and earn your pay, but for goodness' sake leave the working class

alone. You belong in the enemy's camp. You have nothing in common with the working class. Your hands

are soft with the work others have performed for you. Your stomachs are round with the plenitude of eating."

(Here Dr. Ballingford winced, and every eye glanced at his prodigious girth. It was said he had not seen his

own feet in years.) "And your minds are filled with doctrines that are buttresses of the established order. You

are as much mercenaries (sincere mercenaries, I grant) as were the men of the Swiss Guard.* Be true to your

salt and your hire; guard, with your preaching, the interests of your employers; but do not come down to the

working class and serve as false leaders. You cannot honestly be in the two camps at once. The working class

has done without you. Believe me, the working class will continue to do without you. And, furthermore, the

* The hired foreign palace guards of Louis XVI, a king of France that was beheaded by his people.

After the guests had gone, father threw himself into a chair and gave vent to roars of Gargantuan laughter.

I'll wager Dr. Hammerfield was never up against anything like it in his life," he laughed. "'The courtesies of

ecclesiastical controversy!' Did you notice how he began like a lambEverhard, I mean, and how quickly he

became a roaring lion? He has a splendidly disciplined mind. He would have made a good scientist if his

I need scarcely say that I was deeply interested in Ernest Everhard. It was not alone what he had said and how

he had said it, but it was the man himself. I had never met a man like him. I suppose that was why, in spite of

my twentyfour years, I had not married. I liked him; I had to confess it to myself. And my like for him was

founded on things beyond intellect and argument. Regardless of his bulging muscles and prizefighter's

throat, he impressed me as an ingenuous boy. I felt that under the guise of an intellectual swashbuckler was a

delicate and sensitive spirit. I sensed this, in ways I knew not, save that they were my woman's intuitions.

There was something in that clarioncall of his that went to my heart. It still rang in my ears, and I felt that I

should like to hear it againand to see again that glint of laughter in his eyes that belied the impassioned

seriousness of his face. And there were further reaches of vague and indeterminate feelings that stirred in me.

I almost loved him then, though I am confident, had I never seen him again, that the vague feelings would

But I was not destined never to see him again. My father's new born interest in sociology and the dinner

parties he gave would not permit. Father was not a sociologist. His marriage with my mother had been very

happy, and in the researches of his own science, physics, he had been very happy. But when mother died, his

own work could not fill the emptiness. At first, in a mild way, he had dabbled in philosophy; then, becoming

interested, he had drifted on into economics and sociology. He had a strong sense of justice, and he soon

became fired with a passion to redress wrong. It was with gratitude that I hailed these signs of a new interest

in life, though I little dreamed what the outcome would be. With the enthusiasm of a boy he plunged

He had been used always to the laboratory, and so it was that he turned the dining room into a sociological

laboratory. Here came to dinner all sorts and conditions of men,scientists, politicians, bankers, merchants,

professors, labor leaders, socialists, and anarchists. He stirred them to discussion, and analyzed their thoughts

He had met Ernest shortly prior to the "preacher's night." And after the guests were gone, I learned how he

had met him, passing down a street at night and stopping to listen to a man on a soap box who was

addressing a crowd of workingmen. The man on the box was Ernest. Not that he was a mere soapbox orator.

He stood high in the councils of the socialist party, was one of the leaders, and was the acknowledged leader

in the philosophy of socialism. But he had a certain clear way of stating the abstruse in simple language, was

a born expositor and teacher, and was not above the soapbox as a means of interpreting economics to the

My father stopped to listen, became interested, effected a meeting, and, after quite an acquaintance, invited

him to the ministers' dinner. It was after the dinner that father told me what little he knew about him. He had

been born in the working class, though he was a descendant of the old line of Everhards that for over two

hundred years had lived in America.* At ten years of age he had gone to work in the mills, and later he

served his apprenticeship and became a horseshoer. He was selfeducated, had taught himself German and

French, and at that time was earning a meagre living by translating scientific and philosophical works for a

struggling socialist publishing house in Chicago. Also, his earnings were added to by the royalties from the

* The distinction between being native born and foreign born was sharp and invidious in those days.

This much I learned of him before I went to bed, and I lay long awake, listening in memory to the sound of

his voice. I grew frightened at my thoughts. He was so unlike the men of my own class, so alien and so

strong. His masterfulness delighted me and terrified me, for my fancies wantonly roved until I found myself

considering him as a lover, as a husband. I had always heard that the strength of men was an irresistible

attraction to women; but he was too strong. "No! no!" I cried out. "It is impossible, absurd!" And on the

morrow I awoke to find in myself a longing to see him again. I wanted to see him mastering men in

discussion, the warnote in his voice; to see him, in all his certitude and strength, shattering their

complacency, shaking them out of their ruts of thinking. What if he did swashbuckle? To use his own phrase,

"it worked," it produced effects. And, besides, his swashbuckling was a fine thing to see. It stirred one like

Several days passed during which I read Ernest's books, borrowed from my father. His written word was as

his spoken word, clear and convincing. It was its absolute simplicity that convinced even while one continued

to doubt. He had the gift of lucidity. He was the perfect expositor. Yet, in spite of his style, there was much

that I did not like. He laid too great stress on what he called the class struggle, the antagonism between labor

Father reported with glee Dr. Hammerfield's judgment of Ernest, which was to the effect that he was "an

insolent young puppy, made bumptious by a little and very inadequate learning." Also, Dr. Hammerfield

But Bishop Morehouse turned out to have become interested in Ernest, and was anxious for another meeting.

"A strong young man," he said; "and very much alive, very much alive. But he is too sure, too sure."

Ernest came one afternoon with father. The Bishop had already arrived, and we were having tea on the

veranda. Ernest's continued presence in Berkeley, by the way, was accounted for by the fact that he was

taking special courses in biology at the university, and also that he was hard at work on a new book entitled

* This book continued to be secretly printed throughout the three centuries of the Iron Heel. There are several

The veranda seemed suddenly to have become small when Ernest arrived. Not that he was so very largehe

stood only five feet nine inches; but that he seemed to radiate an atmosphere of largeness. As he stopped to

meet me, he betrayed a certain slight awkwardness that was strangely at variance with his boldlooking eyes

and his firm, sure hand that clasped for a moment in greeting. And in that moment his eyes were just as

steady and sure. There seemed a question in them this time, and as before he looked at me over long.

"I have been reading your 'Workingclass Philosophy,'" I said, and his eyes lighted in a pleased way.

"Of course," he answered, "you took into consideration the audience to which it was addressed."

"You foment class hatred," I said. "I consider it wrong and criminal to appeal to all that is narrow and brutal

in the working class. Class hatred is antisocial, and, it seems to me, anti socialistic."

"Not guilty," he answered. "Class hatred is neither in the text nor in the spirit of anything I have every

"Page one hundred and thirtytwo," I read aloud: "'The class struggle, therefore, presents itself in the present

"A different thing from class hatred," he replied. "And, believe me, we foment no hatred. We say that the

class struggle is a law of social development. We are not responsible for it. We do not make the class

struggle. We merely explain it, as Newton explained gravitation. We explain the nature of the conflict of

"I agree with you heartily," he answered. "That is what we socialists are trying to bring about,the abolition

of the conflict of interest. Pardon me. Let me read an extract." He took his book and turned back several

pages. "Page one hundred and twentysix: 'The cycle of class struggles which began with the dissolution of

rude, tribal communism and the rise of private property will end with the passing of private property in the

"But I disagree with you," the Bishop interposed, his pale, ascetic face betraying by a faint glow the intensity

of his feelings. "Your premise is wrong. There is no such thing as a conflict of interest between labor and

"Thank you," Ernest said gravely. "By that last statement you have given me back my premise."

"Are you discussing the ideal man?" Ernest asked, "unselfish and godlike, and so few in numbers as to be

practically nonexistent, or are you discussing the common and ordinary average man?"

"Then I've got you." Ernest's jaw snapped like a trap. "Let me show you. Here is a man who works on the

"True, and you will grant that capital would perish if there were no labor to earn the dividends."

"Then our statements cancel each other," Ernest said in a matter offact tone, "and we are where we were.

Now to begin again. The workingmen on the street railway furnish the labor. The stockholders furnish the

capital. By the joint effort of the workingmen and the capital, money is earned.* They divide between them

this money that is earned. Capital's share is called 'dividends.' Labor's share is called 'wages.'"

* In those days, groups of predatory individuals controlled all the means of transportation, and for the use of

"Very good," the Bishop interposed. "And there is no reason that the division should not be amicable."

"You have already forgotten what we had agreed upon," Ernest replied. "We agreed that the average man is

selfish. He is the man that is. You have gone up in the air and are arranging a division between the kind of

men that ought to be but are not. But to return to the earth, the workingman, being selfish, wants all he can

get in the division. The capitalist, being selfish, wants all he can get in the division. When there is only so

much of the same thing, and when two men want all they can get of the same thing, there is a conflict of

interest between labor and capital. And it is an irreconcilable conflict. As long as workingmen and capitalists

exist, they will continue to quarrel over the division. If you were in San Francisco this afternoon, you'd have

* These quarrels were very common in those irrational and anarchic times. Sometimes the laborers refused to

work. Sometimes the capitalists refused to let the laborers work. In the violence and turbulence of such

disagreements much property was destroyed and many lives lost. All this is inconceivable to usas

inconceivable as another custom of that time, namely, the habit the men of the lower classes had of breaking

"Yes, they're quarrelling over the division of the earnings of the street railways."

"It is wrong!" he cried. "It is so shortsighted on the part of the workingmen. How can they hope to keep our

"Their outlook is too narrow. Men should be men, not brutes. There will be violence and murder now, and

sorrowing widows and orphans. Capital and labor should be friends. They should work hand in hand and to

"Ah, now you are up in the air again," Ernest remarked dryly. "Come back to earth. Remember, we agreed

"And there I agree with you," was Ernest's rejoinder. "He ought not to be selfish, but he will continue to be

"Yes, pigethics," Ernest went on remorselessly. "That is the meaning of the capitalist system. And that is

what your church is standing for, what you are preaching for every time you get up in the pulpit. Pigethics!

Bishop Morehouse turned appealingly to my father, but he laughed and nodded his head.

"I'm afraid Mr. Everhard is right," he said. "LAISSEZFAIRE, the letalone policy of each for himself and

devil take the hindmost. As Mr. Everhard said the other night, the function you churchmen perform is to

maintain the established order of society, and society is established on that foundation."

"The Church is not teaching Christ these days," Ernest put in quickly. "That is why the workingmen will have

nothing to do with the Church. The Church condones the frightful brutality and savagery with which the

"The Church does not protest against it," Ernest replied. "And in so far as the Church does not protest, it

"I had not looked at it in that light," the Bishop said naively. "You must be wrong. I know that there is much

that is sad and wicked in this world. I know that the Church has lost thewhat you call the proletariat."*

* Proletariat: Derived originally from the Latin PROLETARII, the name given in the census of Servius

Tullius to those who were of value to the state only as the rearers of offspring (PROLES); in other words,

they were of no importance either for wealth, or position, or exceptional ability.

"You never had the proletariat," Ernest cried. "The proletariat has grown up outside the Church and without

"Then let me explain. With the introduction of machinery and the factory system in the latter part of the

eighteenth century, the great mass of the working people was separated from the land. The old system of

labor was broken down. The working people were driven from their villages and herded in factory towns. The

mothers and children were put to work at the new machines. Family life ceased. The conditions were

"I know, I know," Bishop Morehouse interrupted with an agonized expression on his face. "It was terrible.

"And there, a century and a half ago, originated the modern proletariat," Ernest continued. "And the Church

ignored it. While a slaughterhouse was made of the nation by the capitalist, the Church was dumb. It did not

protest, as today it does not protest. As Austin Lewis* says, speaking of that time, those to whom the

command 'Feed my lambs' had been given, saw those lambs sold into slavery and worked to death without a

protest.** The Church was dumb, then, and before I go on I want you either flatly to agree with me or flatly

* Candidate for Governor of California on the Socialist ticket in the fall election of 1906 Christian Era. An

Englishman by birth, a writer of many books on political economy and philosophy, and one of the Socialist

** There is no more horrible page in history than the treatment of the child and women slaves in the English

factories in the latter half of the eighteenth century of the Christian Era. In such industrial hells arose some of

Bishop Morehouse hesitated. Like Dr. Hammerfield, he was unused to this fierce "infighting," as Ernest

"The history of the eighteenth century is written," Ernest prompted. "If the Church was not dumb, it will be

"All right," he said. "Let us see. In Chicago there are women who toil all the week for ninety cents. Has the

"Yet the command to the Church was, 'Feed my lambs,'" Ernest sneered. And then, the next moment, "Pardon

my sneer, Bishop. But can you wonder that we lose patience with you? When have you protested to your

capitalistic congregations at the working of children in the Southern cotton mills?* Children, six and seven

years of age, working every night at twelvehour shifts? They never see the blessed sunshine. They die like

flies. The dividends are paid out of their blood. And out of the dividends magnificent churches are builded in

New England, wherein your kind preaches pleasant platitudes to the sleek, fullbellied recipients of those

* Everhard might have drawn a better illustration from the Southern Church's outspoken defence of chattel

slavery prior to what is known as the "War of the Rebellion." Several such illustrations, culled from the

documents of the times, are here appended. In 1835 A.D., the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church

resolved that: "slavery is recognized in both the Old and the New Testaments, and is not condemned by the

authority of God." The Charleston Baptist Association issued the following, in an address, in 1835 A.D.:

"The right of masters to dispose of the time of their slaves has been distinctly recognized by the Creator of all

things, who is surely at liberty to vest the right of property over any object whomsoever He pleases." The

Rev. E. D. Simon, Doctor of Divinity and professor in the RandolphMacon Methodist College of Virginia,

wrote: "Extracts from Holy Writ unequivocally assert the right of property in slaves, together with the usual

incidents to that right. The right to buy and sell is clearly stated. Upon the whole, then, whether we consult

the Jewish policy instituted by God himself, or the uniform opinion and practice of mankind in all ages, or

the injunctions of the New Testament and the moral law, we are brought to the conclusion that slavery is not

immoral. Having established the point that the first African slaves were legally brought into bondage, the

right to detain their children in bondage follows as an indispensable consequence. Thus we see that the

It is not at all remarkable that this same note should have been struck by the Church a generation or so later in

relation to the defence of capitalistic property. In the great museum at Asgard there is a book entitled "Essays

in Application," written by Henry van Dyke. The book was published in 1905 of the Christian Era. From

what we can make out, Van Dyke must have been a churchman. The book is a good example of what

Everhard would have called bourgeois thinking. Note the similarity between the utterance of the Charleston

Baptist Association quoted above, and the following utterance of Van Dyke seventy years later: "The Bible

teaches that God owns the world. He distributes to every man according to His own good pleasure,

"I did not know," the Bishop murmured faintly. His face was pale, and he seemed suffering from nausea.

"I'll show you," Ernest said quietly. "I am at your disposal. I will take you on a journey through hell."

"And I shall protest." The Bishop straightened himself in his chair, and over his gentle face spread the

"I shall prove the contrary," was the retort. "I shall prove, if what you say is so, that the Church has erred

through ignorance. And, furthermore, I hold that whatever is horrible in industrial society is due to the

ignorance of the capitalist class. It will mend all that is wrong as soon as it receives the message. And this

"Remember," I said, "you see but one side of the shield. There is much good in us, though you give us credit

for no good at all. Bishop Morehouse is right. The industrial wrong, terrible as you say it is, is due to

"The wild Indian is not so brutal and savage as the capitalist class," he answered; and in that moment I hated

He shook his head. "I do not ask you to prove it to me. I ask you to prove it to yourself."

"I understand you have money, or your father has, which is the same thingmoney invested in the Sierra

"Nothing much," he began slowly, "except that the gown you wear is stained with blood. The food you eat is

a bloody stew. The blood of little children and of strong men is dripping from your very roofbeams. I can

And suiting the action to the words, he closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. I burst into tears of

mortification and hurt vanity. I had never been so brutally treated in my life. Both the Bishop and my father

were embarrassed and perturbed. They tried to lead the conversation away into easier channels; but Ernest

opened his eyes, looked at me, and waved them aside. His mouth was stern, and his eyes too; and in the latter

there was no glint of laughter. What he was about to say, what terrible castigation he was going to give me, I

never knew; for at that moment a man, passing along the sidewalk, stopped and glanced in at us. He was a

large man, poorly dressed, and on his back was a great load of rattan and bamboo stands, chairs, and screens.

He looked at the house as if debating whether or not he should come in and try to sell some of his wares.

"With that strong body of his he should be at work, and not peddling,"* I answered curtly.

* In that day there were many thousands of these poor merchants called PEDLERS. They carried their whole

stock in trade from door to door. It was a most wasteful expenditure of energy. Distribution was as confused

"It was some of the blood from that arm that I heard dripping from your roofbeams," Ernest said with

continued gentleness. "He lost his arm in the Sierra Mills, and like a brokendown horse you turned him out

on the highway to die. When I say 'you,' I mean the superintendent and the officials that you and the other

stockholders pay to manage the mills for you. It was an accident. It was caused by his trying to save the

company a few dollars. The toothed drum of the picker caught his arm. He might have let the small flint that

he saw in the teeth go through. It would have smashed out a double row of spikes. But he reached for the

flint, and his arm was picked and clawed to shreds from the finger tips to the shoulder. It was at night. The

mills were working overtime. They paid a fat dividend that quarter. Jackson had been working many hours,

and his muscles had lost their resiliency and snap. They made his movements a bit slow. That was why the

"Nothing. Oh, yes, they did do something. They successfully fought the damage suit he brought when he

"You have not told the whole story," I said with conviction. "Or else you do not know the whole story.

"Insolent! Ha! ha!" His laughter was Mephistophelian. "Great God! Insolent! And with his arm chewed off!

Nevertheless he was a meek and lowly servant, and there is no record of his having been insolent."

"But the courts," I urged. "The case would not have been decided against him had there been no more to the

"Colonel Ingram is leading counsel for the company. He is a shrewd lawyer." Ernest looked at me intently for

a moment, then went on. "I'll tell you what you do, Miss Cunningham. You investigate Jackson's case."

"All right," he beamed goodnaturedly, "and I'll tell you where to find him. But I tremble for you when I

And so it came about that both the Bishop and I accepted Ernest's challenges. They went away together,

leaving me smarting with a sense of injustice that had been done me and my class. The man was a beast. I

hated him, then, and consoled myself with the thought that his behavior was what was to be expected from a

Little did I dream the fateful part Jackson's arm was to play in my life. Jackson himself did not impress me

when I hunted him out. I found him in a crazy, ramshackle* house down near the bay on the edge of the

marsh. Pools of stagnant water stood around the house, their surfaces covered with a green and

* An adjective descriptive of ruined and dilapidated houses in which great numbers of the working people

found shelter in those days. They invariably paid rent, and, considering the value of such houses, enormous

I found Jackson the meek and lowly man he had been described. He was making some sort of rattanwork,

and he toiled on stolidly while I talked with him. But in spite of his meekness and lowliness, I fancied I

* In those days thievery was incredibly prevalent. Everybody stole property from everybody else. The lords

of society stole legally or else legalized their stealing, while the poorer classes stole illegally. Nothing was

safe unless guarded. Enormous numbers of men were employed as watchmen to protect property. The houses

of the welltodo were a combination of safe deposit vault and fortress. The appropriation of the personal

belongings of others by our own children of today is looked upon as a rudimentary survival of the

I got little out of him. He struck me as stupid, and yet the deftness with which he worked with his one hand

He looked at me in a slow and pondering way, and shook his head. "I don't know. It just happened."

"No," he answered, "I ain't for callin' it that. I was workin' overtime, an' I guess I was tired out some. I

worked seventeen years in them mills, an' I've took notice that most of the accidents happens just before

whistleblow.* I'm willin' to bet that more accidents happens in the hour before whistleblow than in all the

rest of the day. A man ain't so quick after workin' steady for hours. I've seen too many of 'em cut up an'

* The laborers were called to work and dismissed by savage, screaming, nerveracking steamwhistles.

With the exception of the terrible details, Jackson's story of his accident was the same as that I had already

heard. When I asked him if he had broken some rule of working the machinery, he shook his head.

"I chucked off the belt with my right hand," he said, "an' made a reach for the flint with my left. I didn't stop

to see if the belt was off. I thought my right hand had done itonly it didn't. I reached quick, and the belt

His mind was rather hazy concerning the damage suit. Only one thing was clear to him, and that was that he

had not got any damages. He had a feeling that the testimony of the foremen and the superintendent had

brought about the adverse decision of the court. Their testimony, as he put it, "wasn't what it ought to have

One thing was plain, Jackson's situation was wretched. His wife was in ill health, and he was unable to earn,

by his rattanwork and peddling, sufficient food for the family. He was back in his rent, and the oldest boy, a

By the time I had seen the lawyer who had handled Jackson's case, and the two foremen and the

superintendent at the mills who had testified, I began to feel that there was something after all in Ernest's

He was a weak and inefficientlooking man, the lawyer, and at sight of him I did not wonder that Jackson's

case had been lost. My first thought was that it had served Jackson right for getting such a lawyer. But the

next moment two of Ernest's statements came flashing into my consciousness: "The company employs very

efficient lawyers" and "Colonel Ingram is a shrewd lawyer." I did some rapid thinking. It dawned upon me

that of course the company could afford finer legal talent than could a workingman like Jackson. But this was

merely a minor detail. There was some very good reason, I was sure, why Jackson's case had gone against

The lawyer was perplexed and worried for a moment, and I found it in my heart to pity the wretched little

creature. Then he began to whine. I do believe his whine was congenital. He was a man beaten at birth. He

whined about the testimony. The witnesses had given only the evidence that helped the other side. Not one

word could he get out of them that would have helped Jackson. They knew which side their bread was

buttered on. Jackson was a fool. He had been browbeaten and confused by Colonel Ingram. Colonel Ingram

was brilliant at crossexamination. He had made Jackson answer damaging questions.

"How could his answers be damaging if he had the right on his side?" I demanded.

"What's right got to do with it?" he demanded back. "You see all those books." He moved his hand over the

array of volumes on the walls of his tiny office. "All my reading and studying of them has taught me that law

is one thing and right is another thing. Ask any lawyer. You go to Sundayschool to learn what is right. But

"Do you mean to tell me that Jackson had the right on his side and yet was beaten?" I queried tentatively. "Do

The little lawyer glared at me a moment, and then the belligerence faded out of his face.

"I hadn't a fair chance," he began whining again. "They made a fool out of Jackson and out of me, too. What

chance had I? Colonel Ingram is a great lawyer. If he wasn't great, would he have charge of the law business

of the Sierra Mills, of the Erston Land Syndicate, of the Berkeley Consolidated, of the Oakland, San Leandro,

and Pleasanton Electric? He's a corporation lawyer, and corporation lawyers are not paid for being fools.*

What do you think the Sierra Mills alone give him twenty thousand dollars a year for? Because he's worth

twenty thousand dollars a year to them, that's what for. I'm not worth that much. If I was, I wouldn't be on the

outside, starving and taking cases like Jackson's. What do you think I'd have got if I'd won Jackson's case?"

* The function of the corporation lawyer was to serve, by corrupt methods, the moneygrabbing propensities

of the corporations. It is on record that Theodore Roosevelt, at that time President of the United States, said in

1905 A.D., in his address at Harvard Commencement: "We all know that, as things actually are, many of the

most influential and most highly remunerated members of the Bar in every centre of wealth, make it their

special task to work out bold and ingenious schemes by which their wealthy clients, individual or corporate,

can evade the laws which were made to regulate, in the interests of the public, the uses of great wealth."

* A typical illustration of the internecine strife that permeated all society. Men preyed upon one another like

ravening wolves. The big wolves ate the little wolves, and in the social pack Jackson was one of the least of

"So have I a wife and children," he retorted. "And there's not a soul in this world except myself that cares

His face suddenly softened, and he opened his watch and showed me a small photograph of a woman and two

"There they are. Look at them. We've had a hard time, a hard time. I had hoped to send them away to the

country if I'd won Jackson's case. They're not healthy here, but I can't afford to send them away."

"I hadn't the ghost of a chance. Colonel Ingram and Judge Caldwell are pretty friendly. I'm not saying that if

I'd got the right kind of testimony out of their witnesses on crossexamination, that friendship would have

decided the case. And yet I must say that Judge Caldwell did a whole lot to prevent my getting that very

testimony. Why, Judge Caldwell and Colonel Ingram belong to the same lodge and the same club. They live

in the same neighborhood one I can't afford. And their wives are always in and out of each other's houses.

"And yet you think Jackson had the right of it?" I asked, pausing for the moment on the threshold.

"I don't think; I know it," was his answer. "And at first I thought he had some show, too. But I didn't tell my

wife. I didn't want to disappoint her. She had her heart set on a trip to the country hard enough as it was."

"Why did you not call attention to the fact that Jackson was trying to save the machinery from being

injured?" I asked Peter Donnelly, one of the foremen who had testified at the trial.

He pondered a long time before replying. Then he cast an anxious look about him and said:

"Because I've a good wife an' three of the sweetest children ye ever laid eyes on, that's why."

"I mean what I said. It's long years I've worked in the mills. I began as a little lad on the spindles. I worked up

ever since. It's by hard work I got to my present exalted position. I'm a foreman, if you please. An' I doubt me

if there's a man in the mills that'd put out a hand to drag me from drownin'. I used to belong to the union. But

I've stayed by the company through two strikes. They called me 'scab.' There's not a man among 'em to day

to take a drink with me if I asked him. D'ye see the scars on me head where I was struck with flying bricks?

There ain't a child at the spindles but what would curse me name. Me only friend is the company. It's not me

duty, but me bread an' butter an' the life of me children to stand by the mills. That's why."

"I'd let me soul an' body burn in everlastin' hell for them children of mine," was his answer.

Henry Dallas, the superintendent, was a vulpinefaced creature who regarded me insolently and refused to

talk. Not a word could I get from him concerning the trial and his testimony. But with the other foreman I had

better luck. James Smith was a hardfaced man, and my heart sank as I encountered him. He, too, gave me

the impression that he was not a free agent, as we talked I began to see that he was mentally superior to the

average of his kind. He agreed with Peter Donnelly that Jackson should have got damages, and he went

farther and called the action heartless and cold blooded that had turned the worker adrift after he had been

made helpless by the accident. Also, he explained that there were many accidents in the mills, and that the

"It means hundreds of thousands a year to the stockholders," he said; and as he spoke I remembered the last

dividend that had been paid my father, and the pretty gown for me and the books for him that had been

bought out of that dividend. I remembered Ernest's charge that my gown was stained with blood, and my

"When you testified at the trial, you didn't point out that Jackson received his accident through trying to save

"No, I did not," was the answer, and his mouth set bitterly. "I testified to the effect that Jackson injured

himself by neglect and carelessness, and that the company was not in any way to blame or liable."

"Call it that, or anything you want to call it. The fact is, a man gets tired after he's been working for hours."

"I went through high school," he replied. "I worked my way through doing janitorwork. I wanted to go

"I wanted to become a naturalist," he explained shyly, as though confessing a weakness. "I love animals. But

I came to work in the mills. When I was promoted to foreman I got married, then the family came, and . . .

"I was explaining why I testified at the trial the way I didwhy I followed instructions."

"Tell me," I went on, "was it easy to make yourself over from what you were, say in high school, to the man

The suddenness of his outburst startled and frightened me. He ripped* out a savage oath, and clenched his fist

* It is interesting to note the virilities of language that were common speech in that day, as indicative of the

life, 'red of claw and fang,' that was then lived. Reference is here made, of course, not to the oath of Smith,

"I beg your pardon," he said the next moment. "No, it was not easy. And now I guess you can go away.

You've got all you wanted out of me. But let me tell you this before you go. It won't do you any good to

repeat anything I've said. I'll deny it, and there are no witnesses. I'll deny every word of it; and if I have to, I'll

After my interview with Smith I went to my father's office in the Chemistry Building and there encountered

Ernest. It was quite unexpected, but he met me with his bold eyes and firm handclasp, and with that curious

blend of his awkwardness and ease. It was as though our last stormy meeting was forgotten; but I was not in

He was all interested attention, and waited for me to go on, though I could see in his eyes the certitude that

"He seems to have been badly treated," I confessed. "IIthink some of his blood is dripping from our

"Of course," he answered. "If Jackson and all his fellows were treated mercifully, the dividends would not be

I felt humble and contrite, and was aware of a sweet feeling that Ernest was a sort of father confessor. Then,

as ever after, his strength appealed to me. It seemed to radiate a promise of peace and protection.

"Nor will you be able to take pleasure in sackcloth," he said gravely. "There are the jute mills, you know, and

the same thing goes on there. It goes on everywhere. Our boasted civilization is based upon blood, soaked in

blood, and neither you nor I nor any of us can escape the scarlet stain. The men you talked withwho were

"And not one of them was a free agent," he said. "They were all tied to the merciless industrial machine. And

the pathos of it and the tragedy is that they are tied by their heartstrings. Their childrenalways the young

life that it is their instinct to protect. This instinct is stronger than any ethic they possess. My father! He lied,

he stole, he did all sorts of dishonorable things to put bread into my mouth and into the mouths of my

brothers and sisters. He was a slave to the industrial machine, and it stamped his life out, worked him to

"Not wholly," he replied. "I am not tied by my heartstrings. I am often thankful that I have no children, and I

"I know it is," he said sadly. "But it is expedient doctrine. I am a revolutionist, and it is a perilous vocation."

"If I tried to enter your father's house at night to steal his dividends from the Sierra Mills, what would he do?"

"He sleeps with a revolver on the stand by the bed," I answered. "He would most probably shoot you."

"And if I and a few others should lead a million and a half of men* into the houses of all the welltodo,

* This reference is to the socialist vote cast in the United States in 1910. The rise of this vote clearly indicates

the swift growth of the party of revolution. Its voting strength in the United States in 1888 was 2068; in 1902,

"It is precisely what I am doing. And we intend to take, not the mere wealth in the houses, but all the sources

of that wealth, all the mines, and railroads, and factories, and banks, and stores. That is the revolution. It is

truly perilous. There will be more shooting, I am afraid, than even I dream of. But as I was saying, no one

today is a free agent. We are all caught up in the wheels and cogs of the industrial machine. You found that

you were, and that the men you talked with were. Talk with more of them. Go and see Colonel Ingram. Look

up the reporters that kept Jackson's case out of the papers, and the editors that run the papers. You will find

A little later in our conversation I asked him a simple little question about the liability of workingmen to

"It is all in the books," he said. "The figures have been gathered, and it has been proved conclusively that

accidents rarely occur in the first hours of the morning work, but that they increase rapidly in the succeeding

hours as the workers grow tired and slower in both their muscular and mental processes.

"Why, do you know that your father has three times as many chances for safety of life and limb than has a

workingman? He has. The insurance* companies know. They will charge him four dollars and twenty cents

a year on a thousanddollar accident policy, and for the same policy they will charge a laborer fifteen

* In the terrible wolfstruggle of those centuries, no man was permanently safe, no matter how much wealth

he amassed. Out of fear for the welfare of their families, men devised the scheme of insurance. To us, in this

intelligent age, such a device is laughably absurd and primitive. But in that age insurance was a very serious

matter. The amusing part of it is that the funds of the insurance companies were frequently plundered and

"And you?" I asked; and in the moment of asking I was aware of a solicitude that was something more than

"Oh, as a revolutionist, I have about eight chances to the workingman's one of being injured or killed," he

answered carelessly. "The insurance companies charge the highly trained chemists that handle explosives

eight times what they charge the workingmen. I don't think they'd insure me at all. Why did you ask?"

My eyes fluttered, and I could feel the blood warm in my face. It was not that he had caught me in my

Just then my father came in and began making preparations to depart with me. Ernest returned some books he

had borrowed, and went away first. But just as he was going, he turned and said:

"Oh, by the way, while you are ruining your own peace of mind and I am ruining the Bishop's, you'd better

look up Mrs. Wickson and Mrs. Pertonwaithe. Their husbands, you know, are the two principal stockholders

in the Mills. Like all the rest of humanity, those two women are tied to the machine, but they are so tied that

The more I thought of Jackson's arm, the more shaken I was. I was confronted by the concrete. For the first

time I was seeing life. My university life, and study and culture, had not been real. I had learned nothing but

theories of life and society that looked all very well on the printed page, but now I had seen life itself.

Jackson's arm was a fact of life. "The fact, man, the irrefragable fact!" of Ernest's was ringing in my

It seemed monstrous, impossible, that our whole society was based upon blood. And yet there was Jackson. I

could not get away from him. Constantly my thought swung back to him as the compass to the Pole. He had

been monstrously treated. His blood had not been paid for in order that a larger dividend might be paid. And I

knew a score of happy complacent families that had received those dividends and by that much had profited

by Jackson's blood. If one man could be so monstrously treated and society move on its way unheeding,

might not many men be so monstrously treated? I remembered Ernest's women of Chicago who toiled for

ninety cents a week, and the child slaves of the Southern cotton mills he had described. And I could see their

wan white hands, from which the blood had been pressed, at work upon the cloth out of which had been made

my gown. And then I thought of the Sierra Mills and the dividends that had been paid, and I saw the blood of

Jackson upon my gown as well. Jackson I could not escape. Always my meditations led me back to him.

Down in the depths of me I had a feeling that I stood on the edge of a precipice. It was as though I were about

to see a new and awful revelation of life. And not I alone. My whole world was turning over. There was my

father. I could see the effect Ernest was beginning to have on him. And then there was the Bishop. When I

had last seen him he had looked a sick man. He was at high nervous tension, and in his eyes there was

unspeakable horror. From the little I learned I knew that Ernest had been keeping his promise of taking him

through hell. But what scenes of hell the Bishop's eyes had seen, I knew not, for he seemed too stunned to

Once, the feeling strong upon me that my little world and all the world was turning over, I thought of Ernest

as the cause of it; and also I thought, "We were so happy and peaceful before he came!" And the next

moment I was aware that the thought was a treason against truth, and Ernest rose before me transfigured, the

apostle of truth, with shining brows and the fearlessness of one of Gods own angels, battling for the truth and

the right, and battling for the succor of the poor and lonely and oppressed. And then there arose before me

another figure, the Christ! He, too, had taken the part of the lowly and oppressed, and against all the

established power of priest and pharisee. And I remembered his end upon the cross, and my heart contracted

with a pang as I thought of Ernest. Was he, too, destined for a cross?he, with his clarion call and

And in that moment I knew that I loved him, and that I was melting with desire to comfort him. I thought of

his life. A sordid, harsh, and meagre life it must have been. And I thought of his father, who had lied and

stolen for him and been worked to death. And he himself had gone into the mills when he was ten! All my

heart seemed bursting with desire to fold my arms around him, and to rest his head on my breasthis head

that must be weary with so many thoughts; and to give him restjust restand easement and forgetfulness

I met Colonel Ingram at a church reception. Him I knew well and had known well for many years. I trapped

him behind large palms and rubber plants, though he did not know he was trapped. He met me with the

conventional gayety and gallantry. He was ever a graceful man, diplomatic, tactful, and considerate. And as

for appearance, he was the most distinguishedlooking man in our society. Beside him even the venerable

And yet I found Colonel Ingram situated the same as the unlettered mechanics. He was not a free agent. He,

too, was bound upon the wheel. I shall never forget the change in him when I mentioned Jackson's case. His

smiling good nature vanished like a ghost. A sudden, frightful expression distorted his wellbred face. I felt

the same alarm that I had felt when James Smith broke out. But Colonel Ingram did not curse. That was the

slight difference that was left between the workingman and him. He was famed as a wit, but he had no wit

now. And, unconsciously, this way and that he glanced for avenues of escape. But he was trapped amid the

Oh, he was sick of the sound of Jackson's name. Why had I brought the matter up? He did not relish my joke.

It was poor taste on my part, and very inconsiderate. Did I not know that in his profession personal feelings

did not count? He left his personal feelings at home when he went down to the office. At the office he had

"Certainly," he answered. "That is, personally, I have a feeling that he should. But that has nothing to do with

"Might?" I queried; and he nodded his head. "And yet we are supposed to get justice by means of the law?"

Colonel Ingram blushed, actually blushed, and again he looked anxiously about him for a way of escape. But

"Tell me," I said, "when one surrenders his personal feelings to his professional feelings, may not the action

I did not get an answer. Colonel Ingram had ingloriously bolted, overturning a palm in his flight.

Next I tried the newspapers. I wrote a quiet, restrained, dispassionate account of Jackson's case. I made no

charges against the men with whom I had talked, nor, for that matter, did I even mention them. I gave the

actual facts of the case, the long years Jackson had worked in the mills, his effort to save the machinery from

damage and the consequent accident, and his own present wretched and starving condition. The three local

I got hold of Percy Layton. He was a graduate of the university, had gone in for journalism, and was then

serving his apprenticeship as reporter on the most influential of the three newspapers. He smiled when I

asked him the reason the newspapers suppressed all mention of Jackson or his case.

"Editorial policy," he said. "We have nothing to do with that. It's up to the editors."

"We're all solid with the corporations," he answered. "If you paid advertising rates, you couldn't get any such

matter into the papers. A man who tried to smuggle it in would lose his job. You couldn't get it in if you paid

"How about your own policy?" I questioned. "It would seem your function is to twist truth at the command of

"I haven't anything to do with that." He looked uncomfortable for the moment, then brightened as he saw his

way out. "I, myself, do not write untruthful things. I keep square all right with my own conscience. Of course,

there's lots that's repugnant in the course of the day's work. But then, you see, that's all part of the day's

"Since you are not yet casehardened, tell me what you think right now about the general editorial policy."

"I don't think," he answered quickly. "One can't kick over the ropes if he's going to succeed in journalism.

"You don't understand the game. Of course it's all right, because it comes out all right, don't you see?"

"Delightfully vague," I murmured; but my heart was aching for the youth of him, and I felt that I must either

I was beginning to see through the appearances of the society in which I had always lived, and to find the

frightful realities that were beneath. There seemed a tacit conspiracy against Jackson, and I was aware of a

thrill of sympathy for the whining lawyer who had ingloriously fought his case. But this tacit conspiracy grew

large. Not alone was it aimed against Jackson. It was aimed against every workingman who was maimed in

the mills. And if against every man in the mills, why not against every man in all the other mills and

And if this was so, then society was a lie. I shrank back from my own conclusions. It was too terrible and

awful to be true. But there was Jackson, and Jackson's arm, and the blood that stained my gown and dripped

from my own roofbeams. And there were many Jacksonshundreds of them in the mills alone, as Jackson

I saw Mr. Wickson and Mr. Pertonwaithe, the two men who held most of the stock in the Sierra Mills. But I

could not shake them as I had shaken the mechanics in their employ. I discovered that they had an ethic

superior to that of the rest of society. It was what I may call the aristocratic ethic or the master ethic.* They

talked in large ways of policy, and they identified policy and right. And to me they talked in fatherly ways,

patronizing my youth and inexperience. They were the most hopeless of all I had encountered in my quest.

They believed absolutely that their conduct was right. There was no question about it, no discussion. They

were convinced that they were the saviours of society, and that it was they who made happiness for the many.

And they drew pathetic pictures of what would be the sufferings of the working class were it not for the

* Before Avis Everhard was born, John Stuart Mill, in his essay, ON LIBERTY, wrote: "Wherever there is an

ascendant class, a large portion of the morality emanates from its class interests and its class feelings of

Fresh from these two masters, I met Ernest and related my experience. He looked at me with a pleased

"Really, this is fine. You are beginning to dig truth for yourself. It is your own empirical generalization, and

it is correct. No man in the industrial machine is a freewill agent, except the large capitalist, and he isn't, if

you'll pardon the Irishism.* You see, the masters are quite sure that they are right in what they are doing.

That is the crowning absurdity of the whole situation. They are so tied by their human nature that they can't

do a thing unless they think it is right. They must have a sanction for their acts.

* Verbal contradictions, called BULLS, were long an amiable weakness of the ancient Irish.

"When they want to do a thing, in business of course, they must wait till there arises in their brains, somehow,

a religious, or ethical, or scientific, or philosophic, concept that the thing is right. And then they go ahead and

do it, unwitting that one of the weaknesses of the human mind is that the wish is parent to the thought. No

matter what they want to do, the sanction always comes. They are superficial casuists. They are Jesuitical.

They even see their way to doing wrong that right may come of it. One of the pleasant and axiomatic fictions

they have created is that they are superior to the rest of mankind in wisdom and efficiency. Therefrom comes

their sanction to manage the bread and butter of the rest of mankind. They have even resurrected the theory of

* The newspapers, in 1902 of that era, credited the president of the Anthracite Coal Trust, George F. Baer,

with the enunciation of the following principle: "The rights and interests of the laboring man will be

protected by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the property interests of the

"The weakness in their position lies in that they are merely business men. They are not philosophers. They

are not biologists nor sociologists. If they were, of course all would be well. A business man who was also a

biologist and a sociologist would know, approximately, the right thing to do for humanity. But, outside the

realm of business, these men are stupid. They know only business. They do not know mankind nor society,

and yet they set themselves up as arbiters of the fates of the hungry millions and all the other millions thrown

I was not surprised when I had my talk out with Mrs. Wickson and Mrs. Pertonwaithe. They were society

women.* Their homes were palaces. They had many homes scattered over the country, in the mountains, on

lakes, and by the sea. They were tended by armies of servants, and their social activities were bewildering.

They patronized the university and the churches, and the pastors especially bowed at their knees in meek

subservience.** They were powers, these two women, what of the money that was theirs. The power of

subsidization of thought was theirs to a remarkable degree, as I was soon to learn under Ernest's tuition.

* SOCIETY is here used in a restricted sense, a common usage of the times to denote the gilded drones that

did no labor, but only glutted themselves at the honeyvats of the workers. Neither the business men nor the

laborers had time or opportunity for SOCIETY. SOCIETY was the creation of the idle rich who toiled not

** "Bring on your tainted money," was the expressed sentiment of the Church during this period.

They aped their husbands, and talked in the same large ways about policy, and the duties and responsibilities

of the rich. They were swayed by the same ethic that dominated their husbandsthe ethic of their class; and

Also, they grew irritated when I told them of the deplorable condition of Jackson's family, and when I

wondered that they had made no voluntary provision for the man. I was told that they thanked no one for

instructing them in their social duties. When I asked them flatly to assist Jackson, they as flatly refused. The

astounding thing about it was that they refused in almost identically the same language, and this in face of the

fact that I interviewed them separately and that one did not know that I had seen or was going to see the

other. Their common reply was that they were glad of the opportunity to make it perfectly plain that no

premium would ever be put on carelessness by them; nor would they, by paying for accident, tempt the poor

* In the files of the OUTLOOK, a critical weekly of the period, in the number dated August 18, 1906, is

related the circumstance of a workingman losing his arm, the details of which are quite similar to those of

And they were sincere, these two women. They were drunk with conviction of the superiority of their class

and of themselves. They had a sanction, in their own classethic, for every act they performed. As I drove

away from Mrs. Pertonwaithe's great house, I looked back at it, and I remembered Ernest's expression that

they were bound to the machine, but that they were so bound that they sat on top of it.

Ernest was often at the house. Nor was it my father, merely, nor the controversial dinners, that drew him

there. Even at that time I flattered myself that I played some part in causing his visits, and it was not long

before I learned the correctness of my surmise. For never was there such a lover as Ernest Everhard. His gaze

and his handclasp grew firmer and steadier, if that were possible; and the question that had grown from the

My impression of him, the first time I saw him, had been unfavorable. Then I had found myself attracted

toward him. Next came my repulsion, when he so savagely attacked my class and me. After that, as I saw that

he had not maligned my class, and that the harsh and bitter things he said about it were justified, I had drawn

closer to him again. He became my oracle. For me he tore the sham from the face of society and gave me

As I have said, there was never such a lover as he. No girl could live in a university town till she was

twentyfour and not have love experiences. I had been made love to by beardless sophomores and gray

professors, and by the athletes and the football giants. But not one of them made love to me as Ernest did. His

arms were around me before I knew. His lips were on mine before I could protest or resist. Before his

earnestness conventional maiden dignity was ridiculous. He swept me off my feet by the splendid invincible

rush of him. He did not propose. He put his arms around me and kissed me and took it for granted that we

should be married. There was no discussion about it. The only discussion and that arose afterwardwas

It was unprecedented. It was unreal. Yet, in accordance with Ernest's test of truth, it worked. I trusted my life

to it. And fortunate was the trust. Yet during those first days of our love, fear of the future came often to me

when I thought of the violence and impetuosity of his lovemaking. Yet such fears were groundless. No

woman was ever blessed with a gentler, tenderer husband. This gentleness and violence on his part was a

curious blend similar to the one in his carriage of awkwardness and ease. That slight awkwardness! He never

got over it, and it was delicious. His behavior in our drawingroom reminded me of a careful bull in a china

* In those days it was still the custom to fill the living rooms with bricabrac. They had not discovered

simplicity of living. Such rooms were museums, entailing endless labor to keep clean. The dustdemon was

the lord of the household. There were a myriad devices for catching dust, and only a few devices for getting

It was at this time that vanished my last doubt of the completeness of my love for him (a subconscious doubt,

at most). It was at the Philomath Cluba wonderful night of battle, wherein Ernest bearded the masters in

their lair. Now the Philomath Club was the most select on the Pacific Coast. It was the creation of Miss

Brentwood, an enormously wealthy old maid; and it was her husband, and family, and toy. Its members were

the wealthiest in the community, and the strongestminded of the wealthy, with, of course, a sprinkling of

The Philomath had no club house. It was not that kind of a club. Once a month its members gathered at some

one of their private houses to listen to a lecture. The lecturers were usually, though not always, hired. If a

chemist in New York made a new discovery in say radium, all his expenses across the continent were paid,

and as well he received a princely fee for his time. The same with a returning explorer from the polar regions,

or the latest literary or artistic success. No visitors were allowed, while it was the Philomath's policy to permit

none of its discussions to get into the papers. Thus great statesmenand there had been such

I spread before me a wrinkled letter, written to me by Ernest twenty years ago, and from it I copy the

"Your father is a member of the Philomath, so you are able to come. Therefore come next Tuesday night. I

promise you that you will have the time of your life. In your recent encounters, you failed to shake the

masters. If you come, I'll shake them for you. I'll make them snarl like wolves. You merely questioned their

morality. When their morality is questioned, they grow only the more complacent and superior. But I shall

menace their moneybags. That will shake them to the roots of their primitive natures. If you can come, you

will see the caveman, in evening dress, snarling and snapping over a bone. I promise you a great

"They've invited me in order to tear me to pieces. This is the idea of Miss Brentwood. She clumsily hinted as

much when she invited me. She's given them that kind of fun before. They delight in getting trustfulsouled

gentle reformers before them. Miss Brentwood thinks I am as mild as a kitten and as goodnatured and stolid

as the family cow. I'll not deny that I helped to give her that impression. She was very tentative at first, until

she divined my harmlessness. I am to receive a handsome feetwo hundred and fifty dollarsas befits the

man who, though a radical, once ran for governor. Also, I am to wear evening dress. This is compulsory. I

never was so apparelled in my life. I suppose I'll have to hire one somewhere. But I'd do more than that to get

Of all places, the Club gathered that night at the Pertonwaithe house. Extra chairs had been brought into the

great drawingroom, and in all there must have been two hundred Philomaths that sat down to hear Ernest.

They were truly lords of society. I amused myself with running over in my mind the sum of the fortunes

represented, and it ran well into the hundreds of millions. And the possessors were not of the idle rich. They

were men of affairs who took most active parts in industrial and political life.

We were all seated when Miss Brentwood brought Ernest in. They moved at once to the head of the room,

from where he was to speak. He was in evening dress, and, what of his broad shoulders and kingly head, he

looked magnificent. And then there was that faint and unmistakable touch of awkwardness in his movements.

I almost think I could have loved him for that alone. And as I looked at him I was aware of a great joy. I felt

again the pulse of his palm on mine, the touch of his lips; and such pride was mine that I felt I must rise up

and cry out to the assembled company: "He is mine! He has held me in his arms, and I, mere I, have filled

that mind of his to the exclusion of all his multitudinous and kingly thoughts!"

At the head of the room, Miss Brentwood introduced him to Colonel Van Gilbert, and I knew that the latter

was to preside. Colonel Van Gilbert was a great corporation lawyer. In addition, he was immensely wealthy.

The smallest fee he would deign to notice was a hundred thousand dollars. He was a master of law. The law

was a puppet with which he played. He moulded it like clay, twisted and distorted it like a Chinese puzzle

into any design he chose. In appearance and rhetoric he was oldfashioned, but in imagination and

knowledge and resource he was as young as the latest statute. His first prominence had come when he broke

the Shardwell will.* His fee for this one act was five hundred thousand dollars. From then on he had risen

like a rocket. He was often called the greatest lawyer in the countrycorporation lawyer, of course; and no

classification of the three greatest lawyers in the United States could have excluded him.

* This breaking of wills was a peculiar feature of the period. With the accumulation of vast fortunes, the

problem of disposing of these fortunes after death was a vexing one to the accumulators. Willmaking and

willbreaking became complementary trades, like armormaking and gunmaking. The shrewdest

willmaking lawyers were called in to make wills that could not be broken. But these wills were always

broken, and very often by the very lawyers that had drawn them up. Nevertheless the delusion persisted in the

wealthy class that an absolutely unbreakable will could be cast; and so, through the generations, clients and

lawyers pursued the illusion. It was a pursuit like unto that of the Universal Solvent of the mediaeval

He arose and began, in a few wellchosen phrases that carried an undertone of faint irony, to introduce

Ernest. Colonel Van Gilbert was subtly facetious in his introduction of the social reformer and member of the

working class, and the audience smiled. It made me angry, and I glanced at Ernest. The sight of him made me

doubly angry. He did not seem to resent the delicate slurs. Worse than that, he did not seem to be aware of

them. There he sat, gentle, and stolid, and somnolent. He really looked stupid. And for a moment the thought

rose in my mind, What if he were overawed by this imposing array of power and brains? Then I smiled. He

couldn't fool me. But he fooled the others, just as he had fooled Miss Brentwood. She occupied a chair right

up to the front, and several times she turned her head toward one or another of her CONFRERES and smiled

Colonel Van Gilbert done, Ernest arose and began to speak. He began in a low voice, haltingly and modestly,

and with an air of evident embarrassment. He spoke of his birth in the working class, and of the sordidness

and wretchedness of his environment, where flesh and spirit were alike starved and tormented. He described

his ambitions and ideals, and his conception of the paradise wherein lived the people of the upper classes. As

"Up above me, I knew, were unselfishnesses of the spirit, clean and noble thinking, keen intellectual living. I

knew all this because I read 'Seaside Library'* novels, in which, with the exception of the villains and

adventuresses, all men and women thought beautiful thoughts, spoke a beautiful tongue, and performed

glorious deeds. In short, as I accepted the rising of the sun, I accepted that up above me was all that was fine

and noble and gracious, all that gave decency and dignity to life, all that made life worth living and that

* A curious and amazing literature that served to make the working class utterly misapprehend the nature of

He went on and traced his life in the mills, the learning of the horseshoeing trade, and his meeting with the

socialists. Among them, he said, he had found keen intellects and brilliant wits, ministers of the Gospel who

had been broken because their Christianity was too wide for any congregation of mammon worshippers, and

professors who had been broken on the wheel of university subservience to the ruling class. The socialists

were revolutionists, he said, struggling to overthrow the irrational society of the present and out of the

material to build the rational society of the future. Much more he said that would take too long to write, but I

shall never forget how he described the life among the revolutionists. All halting utterance vanished. His

voice grew strong and confident, and it glowed as he glowed, and as the thoughts glowed that poured out

"Amongst the revolutionists I found, also, warm faith in the human, ardent idealism, sweetnesses of

unselfishness, renunciation, and martyrdomall the splendid, stinging things of the spirit. Here life was

clean, noble, and alive. I was in touch with great souls who exalted flesh and spirit over dollars and cents, and

to whom the thin wail of the starved slum child meant more than all the pomp and circumstance of

commercial expansion and world empire. All about me were nobleness of purpose and heroism of effort, and

my days and nights were sunshine and starshine, all fire and dew, with before my eyes, ever burning and

blazing, the Holy Grail, Christ's own Grail, the warm human, longsuffering and maltreated but to be rescued

As before I had seen him transfigured, so now he stood transfigured before me. His brows were bright with

the divine that was in him, and brighter yet shone his eyes from the midst of the radiance that seemed to

envelop him as a mantle. But the others did not see this radiance, and I assumed that it was due to the tears of

joy and love that dimmed my vision. At any rate, Mr. Wickson, who sat behind me, was unaffected, for I

* The people of that age were phrase slaves. The abjectness of their servitude is incomprehensible to us.

There was a magic in words greater than the conjurer's art. So befuddled and chaotic were their minds that the

utterance of a single word could negative the generalizations of a lifetime of serious research and thought.

Such a word was the adjective UTOPIAN. The mere utterance of it could damn any scheme, no matter how

sanely conceived, of economic amelioration or regeneration. Vast populations grew frenzied over such

phrases as "an honest dollar" and "a full dinner pail." The coinage of such phrases was considered strokes of

Ernest went on to his rise in society, till at last he came in touch with members of the upper classes, and

rubbed shoulders with the men who sat in the high places. Then came his disillusionment, and this

disillusionment he described in terms that did not flatter his audience. He was surprised at the commonness of

the clay. Life proved not to be fine and gracious. He was appalled by the selfishness he encountered, and

what had surprised him even more than that was the absence of intellectual life. Fresh from his revolutionists,

he was shocked by the intellectual stupidity of the master class. And then, in spite of their magnificent

churches and wellpaid preachers, he had found the masters, men and women, grossly material. It was true

that they prattled sweet little ideals and dear little moralities, but in spite of their prattle the dominant key of

the life they lived was materialistic. And they were without real moralityfor instance, that which Christ had

"I met men," he said, "who invoked the name of the Prince of Peace in their diatribes against war, and who

put rifles in the hands of Pinkertons* with which to shoot down strikers in their own factories. I met men

incoherent with indignation at the brutality of prizefighting, and who, at the same time, were parties to the

adulteration of food that killed each year more babes than even redhanded Herod had killed.

* Originally, they were private detectives; but they quickly became hired fighting men of the capitalists, and

"This delicate, aristocraticfeatured gentleman was a dummy director and a tool of corporations that secretly

robbed widows and orphans. This gentleman, who collected fine editions and was a patron of literature, paid

blackmail to a heavyjowled, black browed boss of a municipal machine. This editor, who published patent

medicine advertisements, called me a scoundrelly demagogue because I dared him to print in his paper the

truth about patent medicines.* This man, talking soberly and earnestly about the beauties of idealism and the

goodness of God, had just betrayed his comrades in a business deal. This man, a pillar of the church and

heavy contributor to foreign missions, worked his shop girls ten hours a day on a starvation wage and thereby

directly encouraged prostitution. This man, who endowed chairs in universities and erected magnificent

chapels, perjured himself in courts of law over dollars and cents. This railroad magnate broke his word as a

citizen, as a gentleman, and as a Christian, when he granted a secret rebate, and he granted many secret

rebates. This senator was the tool and the slave, the little puppet, of a brutal uneducated machine boss;** so

was this governor and this supreme court judge; and all three rode on railroad passes; and, also, this sleek

capitalist owned the machine, the machine boss, and the railroads that issued the passes.

* PATENT MEDICINES were patent lies, but, like the charms and indulgences of the Middle Ages, they

deceived the people. The only difference lay in that the patent medicines were more harmful and more costly.

** Even as late as 1912, A.D., the great mass of the people still persisted in the belief that they ruled the

country by virtue of their ballots. In reality, the country was ruled by what were called POLITICAL

MACHINES. At first the machine bosses charged the master capitalists extortionate tolls for legislation; but

in a short time the master capitalists found it cheaper to own the political machines themselves and to hire the

"And so it was, instead of in paradise, that I found myself in the arid desert of commercialism. I found

nothing but stupidity, except for business. I found none clean, noble, and alive, though I found many who

were alivewith rottenness. What I did find was monstrous selfishness and heartlessness, and a gross,

Much more Ernest told them of themselves and of his disillusionment. Intellectually they had bored him;

morally and spiritually they had sickened him; so that he was glad to go back to his revolutionists, who were

But first I must say that his terrible diatribe had not touched them. I looked about me at their faces and saw

that they remained complacently superior to what he had charged. And I remembered what he had told me:

that no indictment of their morality could shake them. However, I could see that the boldness of his language

Ernest began by describing the army of revolution, and as he gave the figures of its strength (the votes cast in

the various countries), the assemblage began to grow restless. Concern showed in their faces, and I noticed a

tightening of lips. At last the gage of battle had been thrown down. He described the international

organization of the socialists that united the million and a half in the United States with the twentythree

"Such an army of revolution," he said, "twentyfive millions strong, is a thing to make rulers and ruling

classes pause and consider. The cry of this army is: 'No quarter! We want all that you possess. We will be

content with nothing less than all that you possess. We want in our hands the reins of power and the destiny

of mankind. Here are our hands. They are strong hands. We are going to take your governments, your

palaces, and all your purpled ease away from you, and in that day you shall work for your bread even as the

peasant in the field or the starved and runty clerk in your metropolises. Here are our hands. They are strong

And as he spoke he extended from his splendid shoulders his two great arms, and the horseshoer's hands were

clutching the air like eagle's talons. He was the spirit of regnant labor as he stood there, his hands outreaching

to rend and crush his audience. I was aware of a faintly perceptible shrinking on the part of the listeners

before this figure of revolution, concrete, potential, and menacing. That is, the women shrank, and fear was in

their faces. Not so with the men. They were of the active rich, and not the idle, and they were fighters. A low,

throaty rumble arose, lingered on the air a moment, and ceased. It was the forerunner of the snarl, and I was

to hear it many times that nightthe token of the brute in man, the earnest of his primitive passions. And

they were unconscious that they had made this sound. It was the growl of the pack, mouthed by the pack, and

mouthed in all unconsciousness. And in that moment, as I saw the harshness form in their faces and saw the

fightlight flashing in their eyes, I realized that not easily would they let their lordship of the world be

Ernest proceeded with his attack. He accounted for the existence of the million and a half of revolutionists in

the United States by charging the capitalist class with having mismanaged society. He sketched the economic

condition of the caveman and of the savage peoples of today, pointing out that they possessed neither tools

nor machines, and possessed only a natural efficiency of one in producing power. Then he traced the

development of machinery and social organization so that today the producing power of civilized man was a

"Five men," he said, "can produce bread for a thousand. One man can produce cotton cloth for two hundred

and fifty people, woollens for three hundred, and boots and shoes for a thousand. One would conclude from

this that under a capable management of society modern civilized man would be a great deal better off than

the caveman. But is he? Let us see. In the United States today there are fifteen million* people living in

poverty; and by poverty is meant that condition in life in which, through lack of food and adequate shelter,

the mere standard of working efficiency cannot be maintained. In the United States today, in spite of all

your so called labor legislation, there are three millions of child laborers.** In twelve years their numbers

have been doubled. And in passing I will ask you managers of society why you did not make public the

census figures of 1910? And I will answer for you, that you were afraid. The figures of misery would have

* Robert Hunter, in 1906, in a book entitled "Poverty," pointed out that at that time there were ten millions in

** In the United States Census of 1900 (the last census the figures of which were made public), the number

"But to return to my indictment. If modern man's producing power is a thousand times greater than that of the

caveman, why then, in the United States today, are there fifteen million people who are not properly

sheltered and properly fed? Why then, in the United States today, are there three million child laborers? It is

a true indictment. The capitalist class has mismanaged. In face of the facts that modern man lives more

wretchedly than the caveman, and that his producing power is a thousand times greater than that of the

caveman, no other conclusion is possible than that the capitalist class has mismanaged, that you have

mismanaged, my masters, that you have criminally and selfishly mismanaged. And on this count you cannot

answer me here tonight, face to face, any more than can your whole class answer the million and a half of

revolutionists in the United States. You cannot answer. I challenge you to answer. And furthermore, I dare to

say to you now that when I have finished you will not answer. On that point you will be tonguetied, though

"You have failed in your management. You have made a shambles of civilization. You have been blind and

greedy. You have risen up (as you today rise up), shamelessly, in our legislative halls, and declared that

profits were impossible without the toil of children and babes. Don't take my word for it. It is all in the

records against you. You have lulled your conscience to sleep with prattle of sweet ideals and dear moralities.

You are fat with power and possession, drunken with success; and you have no more hope against us than

have the drones, clustered about the honeyvats, when the workerbees spring upon them to end their rotund

existence. You have failed in your management of society, and your management is to be taken away from

you. A million and a half of the men of the working class say that they are going to get the rest of the working

class to join with them and take the management away from you. This is the revolution, my masters. Stop it if

For an appreciable lapse of time Ernest's voice continued to ring through the great room. Then arose the

throaty rumble I had heard before, and a dozen men were on their feet clamoring for recognition from

Colonel Van Gilbert. I noticed Miss Brentwood's shoulders moving convulsively, and for the moment I was

angry, for I thought that she was laughing at Ernest. And then I discovered that it was not laughter, but

hysteria. She was appalled by what she had done in bringing this firebrand before her blessed Philomath

Colonel Van Gilbert did not notice the dozen men, with passion wrought faces, who strove to get

permission from him to speak. His own face was passionwrought. He sprang to his feet, waving his arms,

and for a moment could utter only incoherent sounds. Then speech poured from him. But it was not the

speech of a one hundredthousanddollar lawyer, nor was the rhetoric oldfashioned.

"Fallacy upon fallacy!" he cried. "Never in all my life have I heard so many fallacies uttered in one short

hour. And besides, young man, I must tell you that you have said nothing new. I learned all that at college

before you were born. Jean Jacques Rousseau enunciated your socialistic theory nearly two centuries ago. A

return to the soil, forsooth! Reversion! Our biology teaches the absurdity of it. It has been truly said that a

little learning is a dangerous thing, and you have exemplified it tonight with your madcap theories. Fallacy

upon fallacy! I was never so nauseated in my life with overplus of fallacy. That for your immature

He snapped his fingers contemptuously and proceeded to sit down. There were lipexclamations of approval

on the part of the women, and hoarser notes of confirmation came from the men. As for the dozen men who

were clamoring for the floor, half of them began speaking at once. The confusion and babel was

indescribable. Never had Mrs. Pertonwaithe's spacious walls beheld such a spectacle. These, then, were the

cool captains of industry and lords of society, these snarling, growling savages in evening clothes. Truly

Ernest had shaken them when he stretched out his hands for their moneybags, his hands that had appeared in

But Ernest never lost his head in a situation. Before Colonel Van Gilbert had succeeded in sitting down,

The sound arose from his great lungs and dominated the human tempest. By sheer compulsion of personality

"One at a time," he repeated softly. "Let me answer Colonel Van Gilbert. After that the rest of you can come

at mebut one at a time, remember. No massplays here. This is not a football field.

"As for you," he went on, turning toward Colonel Van Gilbert, "you have replied to nothing I have said. You

have merely made a few excited and dogmatic assertions about my mental caliber. That may serve you in

your business, but you can't talk to me like that. I am not a workingman, cap in hand, asking you to increase

my wages or to protect me from the machine at which I work. You cannot be dogmatic with truth when you

deal with me. Save that for dealing with your wageslaves. They will not dare reply to you because you hold

"As for this return to nature that you say you learned at college before I was born, permit me to point out that

on the face of it you cannot have learned anything since. Socialism has no more to do with the state of nature

than has differential calculus with a Bible class. I have called your class stupid when outside the realm of

This terrible castigation of her hundredthousanddollar lawyer was too much for Miss Brentwood's nerves.

Her hysteria became violent, and she was helped, weeping and laughing, out of the room. It was just as well,

"Don't take my word for it," Ernest continued, when the interruption had been led away. "Your own

authorities with one unanimous voice will prove you stupid. Your own hired purveyors of knowledge will tell

you that you are wrong. Go to your meekest little assistant instructor of sociology and ask him what is the

difference between Rousseau's theory of the return to nature and the theory of socialism; ask your greatest

orthodox bourgeois political economists and sociologists; question through the pages of every textbook

written on the subject and stored on the shelves of your subsidized libraries; and from one and all the answer

will be that there is nothing congruous between the return to nature and socialism. On the other hand, the

unanimous affirmative answer will be that the return to nature and socialism are diametrically opposed to

each other. As I say, don't take my word for it. The record of your stupidity is there in the books, your own

books that you never read. And so far as your stupidity is concerned, you are but the exemplar of your class.

"You know law and business, Colonel Van Gilbert. You know how to serve corporations and increase

dividends by twisting the law. Very good. Stick to it. You are quite a figure. You are a very good lawyer, but

you are a poor historian, you know nothing of sociology, and your biology is contemporaneous with Pliny."

Here Colonel Van Gilbert writhed in his chair. There was perfect quiet in the room. Everybody sat

fascinatedparalyzed, I may say. Such fearful treatment of the great Colonel Van Gilbert was unheard of,

undreamed of, impossible to believethe great Colonel Van Gilbert before whom judges trembled when he

"This is, of course, no reflection on you," Ernest said. "Every man to his trade. Only you stick to your trade,

and I'll stick to mine. You have specialized. When it comes to a knowledge of the law, of how best to evade

the law or make new law for the benefit of thieving corporations, I am down in the dirt at your feet. But when

it comes to sociologymy tradeyou are down in the dirt at my feet. Remember that. Remember, also, that

your law is the stuff of a day, and that you are not versatile in the stuff of more than a day. Therefore your

dogmatic assertions and rash generalizations on things historical and sociological are not worth the breath

Ernest paused for a moment and regarded him thoughtfully, noting his face dark and twisted with anger, his

panting chest, his writhing body, and his slim white hands nervously clenching and unclenching.

"But it seems you have breath to use, and I'll give you a chance to use it. I indicted your class. Show me that

my indictment is wrong. I pointed out to you the wretchedness of modern manthree million child slaves in

the United States, without whose labor profits would not be possible, and fifteen million underfed, ill

clothed, and worsehoused people. I pointed out that modern man's producing power through social

organization and the use of machinery was a thousand times greater than that of the caveman. And I stated

that from these two facts no other conclusion was possible than that the capitalist class had mismanaged. This

was my indictment, and I specifically and at length challenged you to answer it. Nay, I did more. I prophesied

that you would not answer. It remains for your breath to smash my prophecy. You called my speech fallacy.

Show the fallacy, Colonel Van Gilbert. Answer the indictment that I and my fifteen hundred thousand

Colonel Van Gilbert quite forgot that he was presiding, and that in courtesy he should permit the other

clamorers to speak. He was on his feet, flinging his arms, his rhetoric, and his control to the winds, alternately

abusing Ernest for his youth and demagoguery, and savagely attacking the working class, elaborating its

"For a lawyer, you are the hardest man to keep to a point I ever saw," Ernest began his answer to the tirade.

"My youth has nothing to do with what I have enunciated. Nor has the worthlessness of the working class. I

charged the capitalist class with having mismanaged society. You have not answered. You have made no

attempt to answer. Why? Is it because you have no answer? You are the champion of this whole audience.

Every one here, except me, is hanging on your lips for that answer. They are hanging on your lips for that

answer because they have no answer themselves. As for me, as I said before, I know that you not only cannot

"That you should not answer is intolerable," Ernest replied gravely. "No man can be intellectually insulted.

Insult, in its very nature, is emotional. Recover yourself. Give me an intellectual answer to my intellectual

Colonel Van Gilbert remained silent, a sullen, superior expression on his face, such as will appear on the face

"Do not be downcast," Ernest said. "Take consolation in the fact that no member of your class has ever yet

answered that charge." He turned to the other men who were anxious to speak. "And now it's your chance.

Fire away, and do not forget that I here challenge you to give the answer that Colonel Van Gilbert has failed

It would be impossible for me to write all that was said in the discussion. I never realized before how many

words could be spoken in three short hours. At any rate, it was glorious. The more his opponents grew

excited, the more Ernest deliberately excited them. He had an encyclopaedic command of the field of

knowledge, and by a word or a phrase, by delicate rapier thrusts, he punctured them. He named the points of

their illogic. This was a false syllogism, that conclusion had no connection with the premise, while that next

premise was an impostor because it had cunningly hidden in it the conclusion that was being attempted to be

proved. This was an error, that was an assumption, and the next was an assertion contrary to ascertained truth

And so it went. Sometimes he exchanged the rapier for the club and went smashing amongst their thoughts

right and left. And always he demanded facts and refused to discuss theories. And his facts made for them a

Waterloo. When they attacked the working class, he always retorted, "The pot calling the kettle black; that is

no answer to the charge that your own face is dirty." And to one and all he said: "Why have you not answered

the charge that your class has mismanaged? You have talked about other things and things concerning other

It was at the end of the discussion that Mr. Wickson spoke. He was the only one that was cool, and Ernest

"No answer is necessary," Mr. Wickson said with slow deliberation. "I have followed the whole discussion

with amazement and disgust. I am disgusted with you gentlemen, members of my class. You have behaved

like foolish little schoolboys, what with intruding ethics and the thunder of the common politician into such a

discussion. You have been outgeneralled and outclassed. You have been very wordy, and all you have done is

buzz. You have buzzed like gnats about a bear. Gentlemen, there stands the bear" (he pointed at Ernest), "and

"Believe me, the situation is serious. That bear reached out his paws tonight to crush us. He has said there are

a million and a half of revolutionists in the United States. That is a fact. He has said that it is their intention to

take away from us our governments, our palaces, and all our purpled ease. That, also, is a fact. A change, a

great change, is coming in society; but, haply, it may not be the change the bear anticipates. The bear has said

The throatrumble arose in the great room, and man nodded to man with indorsement and certitude. Their

"But not by buzzing will we crush the bear," Mr. Wickson went on coldly and dispassionately. "We will hunt

the bear. We will not reply to the bear in words. Our reply shall be couched in terms of lead. We are in

"This, then, is our answer. We have no words to waste on you. When you reach out your vaunted strong

hands for our palaces and purpled ease, we will show you what strength is. In roar of shell and shrapnel and

in whine of machineguns will our answer be couched.* We will grind you revolutionists down under our

heel, and we shall walk upon your faces. The world is ours, we are its lords, and ours it shall remain. As for

the host of labor, it has been in the dirt since history began, and I read history aright. And in the dirt it shall

remain so long as I and mine and those that come after us have the power. There is the word. It is the king of

wordsPower. Not God, not Mammon, but Power. Pour it over your tongue till it tingles with it. Power."

* To show the tenor of thought, the following definition is quoted from "The Cynic's Word Book" (1906

A.D.), written by one Ambrose Bierce, an avowed and confirmed misanthrope of the period: "Grapeshot, n.

An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism."

"I am answered," Ernest said quietly. "It is the only answer that could be given. Power. It is what we of the

working class preach. We know, and well we know by bitter experience, that no appeal for the right, for

justice, for humanity, can ever touch you. Your hearts are hard as your heels with which you tread upon the

faces of the poor. So we have preached power. By the power of our ballots on election day will we take your

"What if you do get a majority, a sweeping majority, on election day?" Mr. Wickson broke in to demand.

"Suppose we refuse to turn the government over to you after you have captured it at the ballotbox?"

"That, also, have we considered," Ernest replied. "And we shall give you an answer in terms of lead. Power

you have proclaimed the king of words. Very good. Power it shall be. And in the day that we sweep to

victory at the ballotbox, and you refuse to turn over to us the government we have constitutionally and

peacefully captured, and you demand what we are going to do about itin that day, I say, we shall answer

you; and in roar of shell and shrapnel and in whine of machineguns shall our answer be couched.

"You cannot escape us. It is true that you have read history aright. It is true that labor has from the beginning

of history been in the dirt. And it is equally true that so long as you and yours and those that come after you

have power, that labor shall remain in the dirt. I agree with you. I agree with all that you have said. Power

will be the arbiter, as it always has been the arbiter. It is a struggle of classes. Just as your class dragged down

the old feudal nobility, so shall it be dragged down by my class, the working class. If you will read your

biology and your sociology as clearly as you do your history, you will see that this end I have described is

inevitable. It does not matter whether it is in one year, ten, or a thousandyour class shall be dragged down.

And it shall be done by power. We of the labor hosts have conned that word over till our minds are all

It was about this time that the warnings of coming events began to fall about us thick and fast. Ernest had

already questioned father's policy of having socialists and labor leaders at his house, and of openly attending

socialist meetings; and father had only laughed at him for his pains. As for myself, I was learning much from

this contact with the workingclass leaders and thinkers. I was seeing the other side of the shield. I was

delighted with the unselfishness and high idealism I encountered, though I was appalled by the vast

philosophic and scientific literature of socialism that was opened up to me. I was learning fast, but I learned

There were warnings, but I did not heed them. For instance, Mrs. Pertonwaithe and Mrs. Wickson exercised

tremendous social power in the university town, and from them emanated the sentiment that I was a

tooforward and selfassertive young woman with a mischievous penchant for officiousness and interference

in other persons' affairs. This I thought no more than natural, considering the part I had played in

investigating the case of Jackson's arm. But the effect of such a sentiment, enunciated by two such powerful

True, I noticed a certain aloofness on the part of my general friends, but this I ascribed to the disapproval that

was prevalent in my circles of my intended marriage with Ernest. It was not till some time afterward that

Ernest pointed out to me clearly that this general attitude of my class was something more than spontaneous,

that behind it were the hidden springs of an organized conduct. "You have given shelter to an enemy of your

class," he said. "And not alone shelter, for you have given your love, yourself. This is treason to your class.

But it was before this that father returned one afternoon. Ernest was with me, and we could see that father

was angry philosophically angry. He was rarely really angry; but a certain measure of controlled anger he

allowed himself. He called it a tonic. And we could see that he was tonicangry when he entered the room.

Wilcox was the superannuated president of the university, whose withered mind was stored with

generalizations that were young in 1870, and which he had since failed to revise.

"Oh, it was done very nicely, I'll allow; but I was reprimanded. I! And by that old fossil!"

"One guess will do," Ernest retorted. "And it won't be a guess. It will be a deduction. You were reprimanded

"Yes, you did," father meditated. "But I couldn't believe it. At any rate, it is only so much more clinching

"It is nothing to what will come," Ernest went on, "if you persist in your policy of having these socialists and

"Just what old Wilcox said. And of all unwarranted things! He said it was in poor taste, utterly profitless,

anyway, and not in harmony with university traditions and policy. He said much more of the same vague sort,

and I couldn't pin him down to anything specific. I made it pretty awkward for him, and he could only go on

repeating himself and telling me how much he honored me, and all the world honored me, as a scientist. It

"He was not a free agent," Ernest said. "The legbar* is not always worn graciously."

* LEGBARthe African slaves were so manacled; also criminals. It was not until the coming of the

"Yes. I got that much out of him. He said the university needed ever so much more money this year than the

state was willing to furnish; and that it must come from wealthy personages who could not but be offended

by the swerving of the university from its high ideal of the passionless pursuit of passionless intelligence.

When I tried to pin him down to what my home life had to do with swerving the university from its high

ideal, he offered me a two years' vacation, on full pay, in Europe, for recreation and research. Of course I

"Also, the beggar said that there was talk, teatable gossip and so forth, about my daughter being seen in

public with so notorious a character as you, and that it was not in keeping with university tone and dignity.

Not that he personally objectedoh, no; but that there was talk and that I would understand."

Ernest considered this announcement for a moment, and then said, and his face was very grave, withal there

"There is more behind this than a mere university ideal. Somebody has put pressure on President Wilcox."

"Do you think so?" father asked, and his face showed that he was interested rather than frightened.

"I wish I could convey to you the conception that is dimly forming in my own mind," Ernest said. "Never in

the history of the world was society in so terrific flux as it is right now. The swift changes in our industrial

system are causing equally swift changes in our religious, political, and social structures. An unseen and

fearful revolution is taking place in the fibre and structure of society. One can only dimly feel these things.

But they are in the air, now, today. One can feel the loom of themthings vast, vague, and terrible. My

mind recoils from contemplation of what they may crystallize into. You heard Wickson talk the other night.

Behind what he said were the same nameless, formless things that I feel. He spoke out of a superconscious

"I mean that there is a shadow of something colossal and menacing that even now is beginning to fall across

the land. Call it the shadow of an oligarchy, if you will; it is the nearest I dare approximate it. What its nature

may be I refuse to imagine.* But what I wanted to say was this: You are in a perilous positiona peril that

my own fear enhances because I am not able even to measure it. Take my advice and accept the vacation."

* Though, like Everhard, they did not dream of the nature of it, there were men, even before his time, who

caught glimpses of the shadow. John C. Calhoun said: "A power has risen up in the government greater than

the people themselves, consisting of many and various and powerful interests, combined into one mass, and

held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in the banks." And that great humanist, Abraham

Lincoln, said, just before his assassination: "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and

causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption

in high places will follow, and the moneypower of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working

upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is

"Not at all. You are an old man. You have done your work in the world, and a great work. Leave the present

battle to youth and strength. We young fellows have our work yet to do. Avis will stand by my side in what is

"But they can't hurt me," father objected. "Thank God I am independent. Oh, I assure you, I know the

frightful persecution they can wage on a professor who is economically dependent on his university. But I am

independent. I have not been a professor for the sake of my salary. I can get along very comfortably on my

"But you do not realize," Ernest answered. "If all that I fear be so, your private income, your principal itself,

Father was silent for a few minutes. He was thinking deeply, and I could see the lines of decision forming in

"I shall not take the vacation." He paused again. "I shall go on with my book.* You may be wrong, but

* This book, "Economics and Education," was published in that year. Three copies of it are extant; two at

Ardis, and one at Asgard. It dealt, in elaborate detail, with one factor in the persistence of the established,

namely, the capitalistic bias of the universities and common schools. It was a logical and crushing indictment

of the whole system of education that developed in the minds of the students only such ideas as were

favorable to the capitalistic regime, to the exclusion of all ideas that were inimical and subversive. The book

"All right," Ernest said. "You are travelling the same path that Bishop Morehouse is, and toward a similar

The conversation turned upon the Bishop, and we got Ernest to explain what he had been doing with him.

"He is soulsick from the journey through hell I have given him. I took him through the homes of a few of

our factory workers. I showed him the human wrecks cast aside by the industrial machine, and he listened to

their life stories. I took him through the slums of San Francisco, and in drunkenness, prostitution, and

criminality he learned a deeper cause than innate depravity. He is very sick, and, worse than that, he has got

out of hand. He is too ethical. He has been too severely touched. And, as usual, he is unpractical. He is up in

the air with all kinds of ethical delusions and plans for mission work among the cultured. He feels it is his

bounden duty to resurrect the ancient spirit of the Church and to deliver its message to the masters. He is

overwrought. Sooner or later he is going to break out, and then there's going to be a smashup. What form it

will take I can't even guess. He is a pure, exalted soul, but he is so unpractical. He's beyond me. I can't keep

his feet on the earth. And through the air he is rushing on to his Gethsemane. And after this his crucifixion.

"And you?" I asked; and beneath my smile was the seriousness of the anxiety of love.

"Not I," he laughed back. "I may be executed, or assassinated, but I shall never be crucified. I am planted too

"But why should you bring about the crucifixion of the Bishop?" I asked. "You will not deny that you are the

"Why should I leave one comfortable soul in comfort when there are millions in travail and misery?" he

"Because I am not a pure, exalted soul," was the answer. "Because I am solid and stolid and selfish. Because I

love you and, like Ruth of old, thy people are my people. As for the Bishop, he has no daughter. Besides, no

matter how small the good, nevertheless his little inadequate wail will be productive of some good in the

I could not agree with Ernest. I knew well the noble nature of Bishop Morehouse, and I could not conceive

that his voice raised for righteousness would be no more than a little inadequate wail. But I did not yet have

the harsh facts of life at my fingers' ends as Ernest had. He saw clearly the futility of the Bishop's great soul,

It was shortly after this day that Ernest told me, as a good story, the offer he had received from the

government, namely, an appointment as United States Commissioner of Labor. I was overjoyed. The salary

was comparatively large, and would make safe our marriage. And then it surely was congenial work for

Ernest, and, furthermore, my jealous pride in him made me hail the proffered appointment as a recognition of

"It is a bribe," he said. "Behind it is the fine hand of Wickson, and behind him the hands of greater men than

he. It is an old trick, old as the class struggle is oldstealing the captains from the army of labor. Poor

betrayed labor! If you but knew how many of its leaders have been bought out in similar ways in the past. It

is cheaper, so much cheaper, to buy a general than to fight him and his whole army. There wasbut I'll not

call any names. I'm bitter enough over it as it is. Dear heart, I am a captain of labor. I could not sell out. If for

no other reason, the memory of my poor old father and the way he was worked to death would prevent."

The tears were in his eyes, this great, strong hero of mine. He never could forgive the way his father had been

malformedthe sordid lies and the petty thefts he had been compelled to, in order to put food in his

"My father was a good man," Ernest once said to me. "The soul of him was good, and yet it was twisted, and

maimed, and blunted by the savagery of his life. He was made into a brokendown beast by his masters, the

archbeasts. He should be alive today, like your father. He had a strong constitution. But he was caught in

the machine and worked to deathfor profit. Think of it. For profit his life blood transmuted into a

winesupper, or a jewelled gewgaw, or some similar senseorgy of the parasitic and idle rich, his masters,

"The Bishop is out of hand," Ernest wrote me. "He is clear up in the air. Tonight he is going to begin putting

to rights this very miserable world of ours. He is going to deliver his message. He has told me so, and I

cannot dissuade him. Tonight he is chairman of the I.P.H.,* and he will embody his message in his

* There is no clew to the name of the organization for which these initials stand.

"May I bring you to hear him? Of course, he is foredoomed to futility. It will break your heartit will break

his; but for you it will be an excellent object lesson. You know, dear heart, how proud I am because you love

me. And because of that I want you to know my fullest value, I want to redeem, in your eyes, some small

measure of my unworthiness. And so it is that my pride desires that you shall know my thinking is correct

and right. My views are harsh; the futility of so noble a soul as the Bishop will show you the compulsion for

such harshness. So come tonight. Sad though this night's happening will be, I feel that it will but draw you

The I.P.H. held its convention that night in San Francisco.* This convention had been called to consider

public immorality and the remedy for it. Bishop Morehouse presided. He was very nervous as he sat on the

platform, and I could see the high tension he was under. By his side were Bishop Dickinson; H. H. Jones, the

head of the ethical department in the University of California; Mrs. W. W. Hurd, the great charity organizer;

Philip Ward, the equally great philanthropist; and several lesser luminaries in the field of morality and

* It took but a few minutes to cross by ferry from Berkeley to San Francisco. These, and the other bay cities,

"I was in my brougham, driving through the streets. It was night time. Now and then I looked through the

carriage windows, and suddenly my eyes seemed to be opened, and I saw things as they really are. At first I

covered my eyes with my hands to shut out the awful sight, and then, in the darkness, the question came to

me: What is to be done? What is to be done? A little later the question came to me in another way: What

would the Master do? And with the question a great light seemed to fill the place, and I saw my duty

"I stopped the carriage, got out, and, after a few minutes' conversation, persuaded two of the public women to

get into the brougham with me. If Jesus was right, then these two unfortunates were my sisters, and the only

"I live in one of the loveliest localities of San Francisco. The house in which I live cost a hundred thousand

dollars, and its furnishings, books, and works of art cost as much more. The house is a mansion. No, it is a

palace, wherein there are many servants. I never knew what palaces were good for. I had thought they were to

live in. But now I know. I took the two women of the street to my palace, and they are going to stay with me.

The audience had been growing more and more restless and unsettled, and the faces of those that sat on the

platform had been betraying greater and greater dismay and consternation. And at this point Bishop

Dickinson arose, and with an expression of disgust on his face, fled from the platform and the hall. But

"Oh, sisters and brothers, in this act of mine I find the solution of all my difficulties. I didn't know what

broughams were made for, but now I know. They are made to carry the weak, the sick, and the aged; they are

"I did not know what palaces were made for, but now I have found a use for them. The palaces of the Church

should be hospitals and nurseries for those who have fallen by the wayside and are perishing."

He made a long pause, plainly overcome by the thought that was in him, and nervous how best to express it.

"I am not fit, dear brethren, to tell you anything about morality. I have lived in shame and hypocrisies too

long to be able to help others; but my action with those women, sisters of mine, shows me that the better way

is easy to find. To those who believe in Jesus and his gospel there can be no other relation between man and

man than the relation of affection. Love alone is stronger than sin stronger than death. I therefore say to the

rich among you that it is their duty to do what I have done and am doing. Let each one of you who is

prosperous take into his house some thief and treat him as his brother, some unfortunate and treat her as his

sister, and San Francisco will need no police force and no magistrates; the prisons will be turned into

"We must give ourselves and not our money alone. We must do as Christ did; that is the message of the

Church today. We have wandered far from the Master's teaching. We are consumed in our own fleshpots.

We have put mammon in the place of Christ. I have here a poem that tells the whole story. I should like to

read it to you. It was written by an erring soul who yet saw clearly.* It must not be mistaken for an attack

upon the Catholic Church. It is an attack upon all churches, upon the pomp and splendor of all churches that

have wandered from the Master's path and hedged themselves in from his lambs. Here it is:

"The silver trumpets rang across the Dome; The people knelt upon the ground with awe; And borne upon the

"Priestlike, he wore a robe more white than foam, And, kinglike, swathed himself in royal red, Three

crowns of gold rose high upon his head; In splendor and in light the Pope passed home.

"My heart stole back across wide wastes of years To One who wandered by a lonely sea; And sought in vain

for any place of rest: 'Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest, I, only I, must wander wearily, And bruise my

* Oscar Wilde, one of the lords of language of the nineteenth century of the Christian Era.

The audience was agitated, but unresponsive. Yet Bishop Morehouse was not aware of it. He held steadily on

"And so I say to the rich among you, and to all the rich, that bitterly you oppress the Master s lambs. You

have hardened your hearts. You have closed your ears to the voices that are crying in the landthe voices of

pain and sorrow that you will not hear but that some day will be heard. And so I say"

But at this point H. H. Jones and Philip Ward, who had already risen from their chairs, led the Bishop off the

Ernest laughed harshly and savagely when he had gained the street. His laughter jarred upon me. My heart

"He has delivered his message," Ernest cried. "The manhood and the deephidden, tender nature of their

Bishop burst out, and his Christian audience, that loved him, concluded that he was crazy! Did you see them

leading him so solicitously from the platform? There must have been laughter in hell at the spectacle."

"Nevertheless, it will make a great impression, what the Bishop did and said tonight," I said.

"It will make a sensation," I asserted. "Didn't you see the reporters scribbling like mad while he was

"Just wait and see," was the answer. "Not a line, not a thought that he uttered. The daily press? The daily

"Not a word that he uttered will see print. You have forgotten the editors. They draw their salaries for the

policy they maintain. Their policy is to print nothing that is a vital menace to the established. The Bishop's

utterance was a violent assault upon the established morality. It was heresy. They led him from the platform

to prevent him from uttering more heresy. The newspapers will purge his heresy in the oblivion of silence.

The press of the United States? It is a parasitic growth that battens on the capitalist class. Its function is to

"Let me prophesy. Tomorrow's papers will merely mention that the Bishop is in poor health, that he has

been working too hard, and that he broke down last night. The next mention, some days hence, will be to the

effect that he is suffering from nervous prostration and has been given a vacation by his grateful flock. After

that, one of two things will happen: either the Bishop will see the error of his way and return from his

vacation a well man in whose eyes there are no more visions, or else he will persist in his madness, and then

you may expect to see in the papers, couched pathetically and tenderly, the announcement of his insanity.

"In the eyes of society it will truly be insanity," he replied. "What honest man, who is not insane, would take

lost women and thieves into his house to dwell with him sisterly and brotherly? True, Christ died between

two thieves, but that is another story. Insanity? The mental processes of the man with whom one disagrees,

are always wrong. Therefore the mind of the man is wrong. Where is the line between wrong mind and insane

mind? It is inconceivable that any sane man can radically disagree with one's most sane conclusions.

"There is a good example of it in this evening's paper. Mary McKenna lives south of Market Street. She is a

poor but honest woman. She is also patriotic. But she has erroneous ideas concerning the American flag and

the protection it is supposed to symbolize. And here's what happened to her. Her husband had an accident and

was laid up in hospital three months. In spite of taking in washing, she got behind in her rent. Yesterday they

evicted her. But first, she hoisted an American flag, and from under its folds she announced that by virtue of

its protection they could not turn her out on to the cold street. What was done? She was arrested and

arraigned for insanity. Today she was examined by the regular insanity experts. She was found insane. She

"But that is farfetched," I objected. "Suppose I should disagree with everybody about the literary style of a

"Very true," he replied. "But such divergence of opinion would constitute no menace to society. Therein lies

the difference. The divergence of opinion on the parts of Mary McKenna and the Bishop do menace society.

What if all the poor people should refuse to pay rent and shelter themselves under the American flag?

Landlordism would go crumbling. The Bishop's views are just as perilous to society. Ergo, to the asylum with

Next morning I sent out for all the papers. So far Ernest was right. Not a word that Bishop Morehouse had

uttered was in print. Mention was made in one or two of the papers that he had been overcome by his

feelings. Yet the platitudes of the speakers that followed him were reported at length.

Several days later the brief announcement was made that he had gone away on a vacation to recover from the

effects of overwork. So far so good, but there had been no hint of insanity, nor even of nervous collapse.

Little did I dream the terrible road the Bishop was destined to travelthe Gethsemane and crucifixion that

It was just before Ernest ran for Congress, on the socialist ticket, that father gave what he privately called his

"Profit and Loss" dinner. Ernest called it the dinner of the Machine Breakers. In point of fact, it was merely a

dinner for business mensmall business men, of course. I doubt if one of them was interested in any

business the total capitalization of which exceeded a couple of hundred thousand dollars. They were truly

There was Owen, of Silverberg, Owen Companya large grocery firm with several branch stores. We

bought our groceries from them. There were both partners of the big drug firm of Kowalt Washburn, and Mr.

Asmunsen, the owner of a large granite quarry in Contra Costa County. And there were many similar men,

owners or part owners in small factories, small businesses and small industries small capitalists, in short.

They were shrewdfaced, interesting men, and they talked with simplicity and clearness. Their unanimous

complaint was against the corporations and trusts. Their creed was, "Bust the Trusts." All oppression

originated in the trusts, and one and all told the same tale of woe. They advocated government ownership of

such trusts as the railroads and telegraphs, and excessive income taxes, graduated with ferocity, to destroy

large accumulations. Likewise they advocated, as a cure for local ills, municipal ownership of such public

Especially interesting was Mr. Asmunsen's narrative of his tribulations as a quarry owner. He confessed that

he never made any profits out of his quarry, and this, in spite of the enormous volume of business that had

been caused by the destruction of San Francisco by the big earthquake. For six years the rebuilding of San

Francisco had been going on, and his business had quadrupled and octupled, and yet he was no better off.

"The railroad knows my business just a little bit better than I do," he said. "It knows my operating expenses to

a cent, and it knows the terms of my contracts. How it knows these things I can only guess. It must have spies

in my employ, and it must have access to the parties to all my contracts. For look you, when I place a big

contract, the terms of which favor me a goodly profit, the freight rate from my quarry to market is promptly

raised. No explanation is made. The railroad gets my profit. Under such circumstances I have never

succeeded in getting the railroad to reconsider its raise. On the other hand, when there have been accidents,

increased expenses of operating, or contracts with less profitable terms, I have always succeeded in getting

the railroad to lower its rate. What is the result? Large or small, the railroad always gets my profits."

"What remains to you over and above," Ernest interrupted to ask, "would roughly be the equivalent of your

"The very thing," Mr. Asmunsen replied. "Only a short time ago I had my books gone through for the past ten

years. I discovered that for those ten years my gain was just equivalent to a manager's salary. The railroad

"But with this difference," Ernest laughed; "the railroad would have had to assume all the risk which you so

Having let them have they say, Ernest began asking questions right and left. He began with Mr. Owen.

"And since then I've noticed that three little corner groceries have gone out of business. Was your branch

"We had greater capital. With a large business there is always less waste and greater efficiency."

"And your branch store absorbed the profits of the three small ones. I see. But tell me, what became of the

"One is driving a delivery wagon for us. I don't know what happened to the other two."

"You sell a great deal at cutrates.* What have become of the owners of the small drug stores that you forced

* A lowering of selling price to cost, and even to less than cost. Thus, a large company could sell at a loss for

a longer period than a small company, and so drive the small company out of business. A common device of

"One of them, Mr. Haasfurther, has charge now of our prescription department," was the answer.

"And you?" Ernest said suddenly to Mr. Asmunsen. "You are disgusted because the railroad has absorbed

"Then the business game is to make profits out of others, and to prevent others from making profits out of

Ernest had to repeat his question before Mr. Asmunsen gave an answer, and then he said:

"Yes, that's it, except that we do not object to the others making profits so long as they are not extortionate."

"By extortionate you mean large; yet you do not object to making large profits yourself? . . . Surely not?"

And Mr. Asmunsen amiably confessed to the weakness. There was one other man who was quizzed by Ernest

"Some time ago you were fighting the Milk Trust," Ernest said to him; "and now you are in Grange politics.*

* Many efforts were made during this period to organize the perishing farmer class into a political party, the

aim of which was destroy the trusts and corporations by drastic legislation. All such attempts ended in failure.

"Oh, I haven't quit the fight," Mr. Calvin answered, and he looked belligerent enough. "I'm fighting the Trust

on the only field where it is possible to fightthe political field. Let me show you. A few years ago we

"Yes, that was what kept the profits down. We did try to organize, but independent dairymen always broke

"Yes," Mr. Calvin acknowledged. "But we did not know it at the time. Its agents approached us with a club.

"Come in and be fat," was their proposition, "or stay out and starve." Most of us came in. Those that didn't,

starved. Oh, it paid us . . . at first. Milk was raised a cent a quart. Onequarter of this cent came to us.

Threequarters of it went to the Trust. Then milk was raised another cent, only we didn't get any of that cent.

Our complaints were useless. The Trust was in control. We discovered that we were pawns. Finally, the

additional quarter of a cent was denied us. Then the Trust began to squeeze us out. What could we do? We

"But with milk two cents higher, I should think you could have competed," Ernest suggested slyly.

"So we thought. We tried it." Mr. Calvin paused a moment. "It broke us. The Trust could put milk upon the

market more cheaply than we. It could sell still at a slight profit when we were selling at actual loss. I

dropped fifty thousand dollars in that venture. Most of us went bankrupt.* The dairymen were wiped out of

* Bankruptcya peculiar institution that enabled an individual, who had failed in competitive industry, to

forego paying his debts. The effect was to ameliorate the too savage conditions of the fang andclaw social

"So the Trust took your profits away from you," Ernest said, "and you ve gone into politics in order to

Mr. Calvin s face lighted up. "That is precisely what I say in my speeches to the farmers. That's our whole

"And yet the Trust produces milk more cheaply than could the independent dairymen?" Ernest queried.

"Why shouldn't it, with the splendid organization and new machinery its large capital makes possible?"

"There is no discussion," Ernest answered. "It certainly should, and, furthermore, it does."

Mr. Calvin here launched out into a political speech in exposition of his views. He was warmly followed by a

"Poor simple folk," Ernest said to me in an undertone. "They see clearly as far as they see, but they see only

A little later he got the floor again, and in his characteristic way controlled it for the rest of the evening.

"I have listened carefully to all of you," he began, "and I see plainly that you play the business game in the

orthodox fashion. Life sums itself up to you in profits. You have a firm and abiding belief that you were

created for the sole purpose of making profits. Only there is a hitch. In the midst of your own profit making

along comes the trust and takes your profits away from you. This is a dilemma that interferes somehow with

the aim of creation, and the only way out, as it seems to you, is to destroy that which takes from you your

"I have listened carefully, and there is only one name that will epitomize you. I shall call you that name. You

are machine breakers. Do you know what a machinebreaker is? Let me tell you. In the eighteenth century,

in England, men and women wove cloth on handlooms in their own cottages. It was a slow, clumsy, and

costly way of weaving cloth, this cottage system of manufacture. Along came the steamengine and

laborsaving machinery. A thousand looms assembled in a large factory, and driven by a central engine wove

cloth vastly more cheaply than could the cottage weavers on their handlooms. Here in the factory was

combination, and before it competition faded away. The men and women who had worked the handlooms

for themselves now went into the factories and worked the machinelooms, not for themselves, but for the

capitalist owners. Furthermore, little children went to work on the machine looms, at lower wages, and

displaced the men. This made hard times for the men. Their standard of living fell. They starved. And they

said it was all the fault of the machines. Therefore, they proceeded to break the machines. They did not

"Yet you have not learned their lesson. Here are you, a century and a half later, trying to break machines. By

your own confession the trust machines do the work more efficiently and more cheaply than you can. That is

why you cannot compete with them. And yet you would break those machines. You are even more stupid

than the stupid workmen of England. And while you maunder about restoring competition, the trusts go on

"One and all you tell the same story,the passing away of competition and the coming on of combination.

You, Mr. Owen, destroyed competition here in Berkeley when your branch store drove the three small

groceries out of business. Your combination was more effective. Yet you feel the pressure of other

combinations on you, the trust combinations, and you cry out. It is because you are not a trust. If you were a

grocery trust for the whole United States, you would be singing another song. And the song would be,

"Blessed are the trusts." And yet again, not only is your small combination not a trust, but you are aware

yourself of its lack of strength. You are beginning to divine your own end. You feel yourself and your branch

stores a pawn in the game. You see the powerful interests rising and growing more powerful day by day; you

feel their mailed hands descending upon your profits and taking a pinch here and a pinch therethe railroad

trust, the oil trust, the steel trust, the coal trust; and you know that in the end they will destroy you, take away

"You, sir, are a poor gamester. When you squeezed out the three small groceries here in Berkeley by virtue of

your superior combination, you swelled out your chest, talked about efficiency and enterprise, and sent your

wife to Europe on the profits you had gained by eating up the three small groceries. It is dog eat dog, and you

ate them up. But, on the other hand, you are being eaten up in turn by the bigger dogs, wherefore you squeal.

And what I say to you is true of all of you at this table. You are all squealing. You are all playing the losing

"But when you squeal you don't state the situation flatly, as I have stated it. You don't say that you like to

squeeze profits out of others, and that you are making all the row because others are squeezing your profits

out of you. No, you are too cunning for that. You say something else. You make smallcapitalist political

speeches such as Mr. Calvin made. What did he say? Here are a few of his phrases I caught: "Our original

principles are all right," "What this country requires is a return to fundamental American methodsfree

opportunity for all," "The spirit of liberty in which this nation was born," "Let us return to the principles of

"When he says "free opportunity for all," he means free opportunity to squeeze profits, which freedom of

opportunity is now denied him by the great trusts. And the absurd thing about it is that you have repeated

these phrases so often that you believe them. You want opportunity to plunder your fellowmen in your own

small way, but you hypnotize yourselves into thinking you want freedom. You are piggish and acquisitive,

but the magic of your phrases leads you to believe that you are patriotic. Your desire for profits, which is

sheer selfishness, you metamorphose into altruistic solicitude for suffering humanity. Come on now, right

here amongst ourselves, and be honest for once. Look the matter in the face and state it in direct terms."

There were flushed and angry faces at the table, and withal a measure of awe. They were a little frightened at

this smoothfaced young fellow, and the swing and smash of his words, and his dreadful trait of calling a

"And why not?" he demanded. "Why can we not return to ways of our fathers when this republic was

founded? You have spoken much truth, Mr. Everhard, unpalatable though it has been. But here amongst

ourselves let us speak out. Let us throw off all disguise and accept the truth as Mr. Everhard has flatly stated

it. It is true that we smaller capitalists are after profits, and that the trusts are taking our profits away from us.

It is true that we want to destroy the trusts in order that our profits may remain to us. And why can we not do

"Ah, now we come to the gist of the matter," Ernest said with a pleased expression. "I'll try to tell you why

not, though the telling will be rather hard. You see, you fellows have studied business, in a small way, but

you have not studied social evolution at all. You are in the midst of a transition stage now in economic

evolution, but you do not understand it, and that's what causes all the confusion. Why cannot you return?

Because you can't. You can no more make water run up hill than can you cause the tide of economic

evolution to flow back in its channel along the way it came. Joshua made the sun stand still upon Gibeon, but

you would outdo Joshua. You would make the sun go backward in the sky. You would have time retrace its

"In the face of laborsaving machinery, of organized production, of the increased efficiency of combination,

you would set the economic sun back a whole generation or so to the time when there were no great

capitalists, no great machinery, no railroadsa time when a host of little capitalists warred with each other in

economic anarchy, and when production was primitive, wasteful, unorganized, and costly. Believe me,

Joshua's task was easier, and he had Jehovah to help him. But God has forsaken you small capitalists. The sun

of the small capitalists is setting. It will never rise again. Nor is it in your power even to make it stand still.

You are perishing, and you are doomed to perish utterly from the face of society.

"This is the fiat of evolution. It is the word of God. Combination is stronger than competition. Primitive man

was a puny creature hiding in the crevices of the rocks. He combined and made war upon his carnivorous

enemies. They were competitive beasts. Primitive man was a combinative beast, and because of it he rose to

primacy over all the animals. And man has been achieving greater and greater combinations ever since. It is

combination versus competition, a thousand centuries long struggle, in which competition has always been

Very true," Ernest answered. "And the trusts themselves destroyed competition. That, by your own word, is

The first laughter of the evening went around the table, and even Mr. Calvin joined in the laugh against

"And now, while we are on the trusts," Ernest went on, "let us settle a few things. I shall make certain

statements, and if you disagree with them, speak up. Silence will mean agreement. Is it not true that a

machineloom will weave more cloth and weave more cheaply than a handloom?" He paused, but nobody

spoke up. "Is it not then highly irrational to break the machineloom and go back to the clumsy and more

costly handloom method of weaving?" Heads nodded in acquiescence. "Is it not true that that known as a

trust produces more efficiently and cheaply than can a thousand competing small concerns?" Still no one

objected. "Then is it not irrational to destroy that cheap and efficient combination?"

"What are we to do, then?" he demanded. "To destroy the trusts is the only way we can see to escape their

"I'll show you another way!" he cried. "Let us not destroy those wonderful machines that produce efficiently

and cheaply. Let us control them. Let us profit by their efficiency and cheapness. Let us run them for

ourselves. Let us oust the present owners of the wonderful machines, and let us own the wonderful machines

ourselves. That, gentlemen, is socialism, a greater combination than the trusts, a greater economic and social

combination than any that has as yet appeared on the planet. It is in line with evolution. We meet

combination with greater combination. It is the winning side. Come on over with us socialists and play on the

"All right, then, you prefer to be anachronisms," Ernest laughed. "You prefer to play atavistic roles. You are

doomed to perish as all atavisms perish. Have you ever asked what will happen to you when greater

combinations than even the present trusts arise? Have you ever considered where you will stand when the

great trusts themselves combine into the combination of combinationsinto the social, economic, and

"Tell me," Ernest said, "if this is not true. You are compelled to form a new political party because the old

parties are in the hands of the trusts. The chief obstacle to your Grange propaganda is the trusts. Behind every

obstacle you encounter, every blow that smites you, every defeat that you receive, is the hand of the trusts. Is

"It is true," Mr. Calvin confessed. "We captured the state legislature of Oregon and put through splendid

protective legislation, and it was vetoed by the governor, who was a creature of the trusts. We elected a

governor of Colorado, and the legislature refused to permit him to take office. Twice we have passed a

national income tax, and each time the supreme court smashed it as unconstitutional. The courts are in the

hands of the trusts. We, the people, do not pay our judges sufficiently. But there will come a time"

"When the combination of the trusts will control all legislation, when the combination of the trusts will itself

"Never! never!" were the cries that arose. Everybody was excited and belligerent.

"We will rise in our strength!" Mr. Asmunsen cried, and many voices backed his decision.

"So be it, civil war," was Mr. Asmunsen's answer, with the cries of all the men at the table behind him. "We

have not forgotten the deeds of our forefathers. For our liberties we are ready to fight and die."

"Do not forget," he said, "that we had tacitly agreed that liberty in your case, gentlemen, means liberty to

The table was angry, now, fighting angry; but Ernest controlled the tumult and made himself heard.

"One more question. When you rise in your strength, remember, the reason for your rising will be that the

government is in the hands of the trusts. Therefore, against your strength the government will turn the regular

army, the navy, the militia, the policein short, the whole organized war machinery of the United States.

"Do you remember, not so long ago, when our regular army was only fifty thousand? Year by year it has been

"Nor is that all. While you diligently pursued that favorite phantom of yours, called profits, and moralized

about that favorite fetich of yours, called competition, even greater and more direful things have been

"It is our strength!" cried Mr. Kowalt. "With it we would repel the invasion of the regular army."

"You would go into the militia yourself," was Ernest's retort, "and be sent to Maine, or Florida, or the

Philippines, or anywhere else, to drown in blood your own comrades civilwarring for their liberties. While

from Kansas, or Wisconsin, or any other state, your own comrades would go into the militia and come here to

"We would not go into the militia. That would settle it. We would not be so foolish."

"You do not understand the combination that has been effected. You could not help yourself. You would be

"Not when the government suspends civil law. In that day when you speak of rising in your strength, your

strength would be turned against yourself. Into the militia you would go, willynilly. Habeas corpus, I heard

some one mutter just now. Instead of habeas corpus you would get post mortems. If you refused to go into the

militia, or to obey after you were in, you would be tried by drumhead court martial and shot down like dogs.

"It is not the law!" Mr. Calvin asserted positively. "There is no such law. Young man, you have dreamed all

this. Why, you spoke of sending the militia to the Philippines. That is unconstitutional. The Constitution

"What's the Constitution got to do with it?" Ernest demanded. "The courts interpret the Constitution, and the

courts, as Mr. Asmunsen agreed, are the creatures of the trusts. Besides, it is as I have said, the law. It has

"That we can be drafted into the militia?" Mr. Calvin asked incredulously. "That they can shoot us by

"How is it that we have never heard of this law?" my father asked, and I could see that it was likewise new to

"For two reasons," Ernest said. "First, there has been no need to enforce it. If there had, you'd have heard of it

soon enough. And secondly, the law was rushed through Congress and the Senate secretly, with practically no

discussion. Of course, the newspapers made no mention of it. But we socialists knew about it. We published

"I still insist you are dreaming," Mr. Calvin said stubbornly. "The country would never have permitted it."

"But the country did permit it," Ernest replied. "And as for my dreaming" he put his hand in his pocket and

"'Section One, be it enacted, and so forth and so forth, that the militia shall consist of every ablebodied male

citizen of the respective states, territories, and District of Columbia, who is more than eighteen and less than

"'Section Seven, that any officer or enlisted man'remember Section One, gentlemen, you are all enlisted

men"that any enlisted man of the militia who shall refuse or neglect to present himself to such mustering

officer upon being called forth as herein prescribed, shall be subject to trial by court martial, and shall be

"'Section Eight, that courts martial, for the trial of officers or men of the militia, shall be composed of militia

"'Section Nine, that the militia, when called into the actual service of the United States, shall be subject to the

"There you are gentlemen, American citizens, and fellowmilitiamen. Nine years ago we socialists thought

that law was aimed against labor. But it would seem that it was aimed against you, too. Congressman Wiley,

in the brief discussion that was permitted, said that the bill 'provided for a reserve force to take the mob by

the throat'you're the mob, gentlemen'and protect at all hazards life, liberty, and property.' And in the

time to come, when you rise in your strength, remember that you will be rising against the property of the

trusts, and the liberty of the trusts, according to the law, to squeeze you. Your teeth are pulled, gentlemen.

Your claws are trimmed. In the day you rise in your strength, toothless and clawless, you will be as harmless

"I don't believe it!" Kowalt cried. "There is no such law. It is a canard got up by you socialists."

"This bill was introduced in the House of Representatives on July 30, 1902," was the reply. "It was

introduced by Representative Dick of Ohio. It was rushed through. It was passed unanimously by the Senate

on January 14, 1903. And just seven days afterward was approved by the President of the United States."*

* Everhard was right in the essential particulars, though his date of the introduction of the bill is in error. The

bill was introduced on June 30, and not on July 30. The Congressional Record is here in Ardis, and a

reference to it shows mention of the bill on the following dates: June 30, December 9, 15, 16, and 17, 1902,

and January 7 and 14, 1903. The ignorance evidenced by the business men at the dinner was nothing unusual.

Very few people knew of the existence of this law. E. Untermann, a revolutionist, in July, 1903, published a

pamphlet at Girard, Kansas, on the "Militia Bill." This pamphlet had a small circulation among workingmen;

but already had the segregation of classes proceeded so far, that the members of the middle class never heard

In the midst of the consternation his revelation had produced, Ernest began again to speak.

"You have said, a dozen of you tonight, that socialism is impossible. You have asserted the impossible, now

let me demonstrate the inevitable. Not only is it inevitable that you small capitalists shall pass away, but it is

inevitable that the large capitalists, and the trusts also, shall pass away. Remember, the tide of evolution never

flows backward. It flows on and on, and it flows from competition to combination, and from little

combination to large combination, and from large combination to colossal combination, and it flows on to

"You tell me that I dream. Very good. I'll give you the mathematics of my dream; and here, in advance, I

challenge you to show that my mathematics are wrong. I shall develop the inevitability of the breakdown of

the capitalist system, and I shall demonstrate mathematically why it must break down. Here goes, and bear

"Let us, first of all, investigate a particular industrial process, and whenever I state something with which you

disagree, please interrupt me. Here is a shoe factory. This factory takes leather and makes it into shoes. Here

is one hundred dollars' worth of leather. It goes through the factory and comes out in the form of shoes,

worth, let us say, two hundred dollars. What has happened? One hundred dollars has been added to the value

"Capital and labor added this value of one hundred dollars. Capital furnished the factory, the machines, and

paid all the expenses. Labor furnished labor. By the joint effort of capital and labor one hundred dollars of

"Labor and capital having produced this one hundred dollars, now proceed to divide it. The statistics of this

division are fractional; so let us, for the sake of convenience, make them roughly approximate. Capital takes

fifty dollars as its share, and labor gets in wages fifty dollars as its share. We will not enter into the

squabbling over the division.* No matter how much squabbling takes place, in one percentage or another the

division is arranged. And take notice here, that what is true of this particular industrial process is true of all

* Everhard here clearly develops the cause of all the labor troubles of that time. In the division of the

jointproduct, capital wanted all it could get, and labor wanted all it could get. This quarrel over the division

was irreconcilable. So long as the system of capitalistic production existed, labor and capital continued to

quarrel over the division of the jointproduct. It is a ludicrous spectacle to us, but we must not forget that we

"Now, suppose labor, having received its fifty dollars, wanted to buy back shoes. It could only buy back fifty

"And now we shift from this particular process to the sum total of all industrial processes in the United States,

which includes the leather itself, raw material, transportation, selling, everything. We will say, for the sake of

round figures, that the total production of wealth in the United States is one year is four billion dollars. Then

labor has received in wages, during the same period, two billion dollars. Four billion dollars has been

produced. How much of this can labor buy back? Two billions. There is no discussion of this, I am sure. For

that matter, my percentages are mild. Because of a thousand capitalistic devices, labor cannot buy back even

"But to return. We will say labor buys back two billions. Then it stands to reason that labor can consume only

two billions. There are still two billions to be accounted for, which labor cannot buy back and consume."

"Labor does not consume its two billions, even," Mr. Kowalt spoke up. "If it did, it would not have any

"Labor's deposits in the savings banks are only a sort of reserve fund that is consumed as fast as it

accumulates. These deposits are saved for old age, for sickness and accident, and for funeral expenses. The

savings bank deposit is simply a piece of the loaf put back on the shelf to be eaten next day. No, labor

"Two billions are left to capital. After it has paid its expenses, does it consume the remainder? Does capital

Ernest stopped and put the question point blank to a number of the men. They shook their heads.

"Of course you do," Ernest went on. "Stop and think a moment. If capital consumed its share, the sum total of

capital could not increase. It would remain constant. If you will look at the economic history of the United

States, you will see that the sum total of capital has continually increased. Therefore capital does not consume

its share. Do you remember when England owned so much of our railroad bonds? As the years went by, we

bought back those bonds. What does that mean? That part of capital's unconsumed share bought back the

bonds. What is the meaning of the fact that today the capitalists of the United States own hundreds and

hundreds of millions of dollars of Mexican bonds, Russian bonds, Italian bonds, Grecian bonds? The

meaning is that those hundreds and hundreds of millions were part of capital's share which capital did not

consume. Furthermore, from the very beginning of the capitalist system, capital has never consumed all of its

"And now we come to the point. Four billion dollars of wealth is produced in one year in the United States.

Labor buys back and consumes two billions. Capital does not consume the remaining two billions. There is a

large balance left over unconsumed. What is done with this balance? What can be done with it? Labor cannot

consume any of it, for labor has already spent all its wages. Capital will not consume this balance, because,

already, according to its nature, it has consumed all it can. And still remains the balance. What can be done

"The very thing," Ernest agreed. "Because of this balance arises our need for a foreign market. This is sold

abroad. It has to be sold abroad. There is no other way of getting rid of it. And that unconsumed surplus, sold

abroad, becomes what we call our favorable balance of trade. Are we all agreed so far?"

"Surely it is a waste of time to elaborate these A B C's of commerce," Mr. Calvin said tartly. "We all

"And it is by these A B C's I have so carefully elaborated that I shall confound you," Ernest retorted. "There's

"The United States is a capitalist country that has developed its resources. According to its capitalist system

of industry, it has an unconsumed surplus that must be got rid of, and that must be got rid of abroad.* What is

true of the United States is true of every other capitalist country with developed resources. Every one of such

countries has an unconsumed surplus. Don't forget that they have already traded with one another, and that

these surpluses yet remain. Labor in all these countries has spent it wages, and cannot buy any of the

surpluses. Capital in all these countries has already consumed all it is able according to its nature. And still

remain the surpluses. They cannot dispose of these surpluses to one another. How are they going to get rid of

* Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States a few years prior to this time, made the following public

declaration: "A more liberal and extensive reciprocity in the purchase and sale of commodities is necessary,

so that the overproduction of the United States can be satisfactorily disposed of to foreign countries." Of

course, this overproduction he mentions was the profits of the capitalist system over and beyond the

consuming power of the capitalists. It was at this time that Senator Mark Hanna said: "The production of

wealth in the United States is onethird larger annually than its consumption." Also a fellowSenator,

Chauncey Depew, said: "The American people produce annually two billions more wealth than they

"The very thing. You see, my argument is so clear and simple that in your own minds you carry it on for me.

And now for the next step. Suppose the United States disposes of its surplus to a country with undeveloped

resources like, say, Brazil. Remember this surplus is over and above trade, which articles of trade have been

"But there is only so much gold, and not much of it, in the world," Ernest objected.

"Now you've struck it," Ernest said. "From Brazil the United States, in return for her surplus, gets bonds and

securities. And what does that mean? It means that the United States is coming to own railroads in Brazil,

factories, mines, and lands in Brazil. And what is the meaning of that in turn?"

"I'll tell you," Ernest continued. "It means that the resources of Brazil are being developed. And now, the next

point. When Brazil, under the capitalist system, has developed her resources, she will herself have an

unconsumed surplus. Can she get rid of this surplus to the United States? No, because the United States has

herself a surplus. Can the United States do what she previously didget rid of her surplus to Brazil? No, for

"What happens? The United States and Brazil must both seek out other countries with undeveloped resources,

in order to unload the surpluses on them. But by the very process of unloading the surpluses, the resources of

those countries are in turn developed. Soon they have surpluses, and are seeking other countries on which to

unload. Now, gentlemen, follow me. The planet is only so large. There are only so many countries in the

world. What will happen when every country in the world, down to the smallest and last, with a surplus in its

He paused and regarded his listeners. The bepuzzlement in their faces was delicious. Also, there was awe in

their faces. Out of abstractions Ernest had conjured a vision and made them see it. They were seeing it then,

"We started with A B C, Mr. Calvin," Ernest said slyly. "I have now given you the rest of the alphabet. It is

very simple. That is the beauty of it. You surely have the answer forthcoming. What, then, when every

country in the world has an unconsumed surplus? Where will your capitalist system be then?"

But Mr. Calvin shook a troubled head. He was obviously questing back through Ernest's reasoning in search

"Let me briefly go over the ground with you again," Ernest said. "We began with a particular industrial

process, the shoe factory. We found that the division of the joint product that took place there was similar to

the division that took place in the sum total of all industrial processes. We found that labor could buy back

with its wages only so much of the product, and that capital did not consume all of the remainder of the

product. We found that when labor had consumed to the full extent of its wages, and when capital had

consumed all it wanted, there was still left an unconsumed surplus. We agreed that this surplus could only be

disposed of abroad. We agreed, also, that the effect of unloading this surplus on another country would be to

develop the resources of that country, and that in a short time that country would have an unconsumed

surplus. We extended this process to all the countries on the planet, till every country was producing every

year, and every day, an unconsumed surplus, which it could dispose of to no other country. And now I ask

"I never dreamed of such a thing," Mr. Asmunsen said. "And yet it does seem clear as print."

It was the first time I had ever heard Karl Marx's* doctrine of surplus value elaborated, and Ernest had done

* Karl Marxthe great intellectual hero of Socialism. A German Jew of the nineteenth century. A

contemporary of John Stuart Mill. It seems incredible to us that whole generations should have elapsed after

the enunciation of Marx's economic discoveries, in which time he was sneered at by the world's accepted

thinkers and scholars. Because of his discoveries he was banished from his native country, and he died an

"I'll tell you a way to get rid of the surplus," Ernest said. "Throw it into the sea. Throw every year hundreds

of millions of dollars' worth of shoes and wheat and clothing and all the commodities of commerce into the

"It will certainly fix it," Mr. Calvin answered. "But it is absurd for you to talk that way."

"Is it a bit more absurd than what you advocate, you machine breaker, returning to the antediluvian ways of

your forefathers? What do you propose in order to get rid of the surplus? You would escape the problem of

the surplus by not producing any surplus. And how do you propose to avoid producing a surplus? By

returning to a primitive method of production, so confused and disorderly and irrational, so wasteful and

Mr. Calvin swallowed. The point had been driven home. He swallowed again and cleared his throat.

"You are right," he said. "I stand convicted. It is absurd. But we've got to do something. It is a case of life and

death for us of the middle class. We refuse to perish. We elect to be absurd and to return to the truly crude

and wasteful methods of our forefathers. We will put back industry to its pretrust stage. We will break the

"But you can't break the machines," Ernest replied. "You cannot make the tide of evolution flow backward.

Opposed to you are two great forces, each of which is more powerful than you of the middle class. The large

capitalists, the trusts, in short, will not let you turn back. They don't want the machines destroyed. And

greater than the trusts, and more powerful, is labor. It will not let you destroy the machines. The ownership of

the world, along with the machines, lies between the trusts and labor. That is the battle alignment. Neither

side wants the destruction of the machines. But each side wants to possess the machines. In this battle the

middle class has no place. The middle class is a pygmy between two giants. Don't you see, you poor

perishing middle class, you are caught between the upper and nether millstones, and even now has the

"I have demonstrated to you mathematically the inevitable breakdown of the capitalist system. When every

country stands with an unconsumed and unsalable surplus on its hands, the capitalist system will break down

under the terrific structure of profits that it itself has reared. And in that day there won't be any destruction of

the machines. The struggle then will be for the ownership of the machines. If labor wins, your way will be

easy. The United States, and the whole world for that matter, will enter upon a new and tremendous era.

Instead of being crushed by the machines, life will be made fairer, and happier, and nobler by them. You of

the destroyed middle class, along with laborthere will be nothing but labor then; so you, and all the rest of

labor, will participate in the equitable distribution of the products of the wonderful machines. And we, all of

us, will make new and more wonderful machines. And there won't be any unconsumed surplus, because there

"But suppose the trusts win in this battle over the ownership of the machines and the world?" Mr. Kowalt

"Then," Ernest answered, "you, and labor, and all of us, will be crushed under the iron heel of a despotism as

relentless and terrible as any despotism that has blackened the pages of the history of man. That will be a

There was a long pause, and every man at the table meditated in ways unwonted and profound.

"But this socialism of yours is a dream," Mr. Calvin said; and repeated, "a dream."

"I'll show you something that isn't a dream, then," Ernest answered. "And that something I shall call the

Oligarchy. You call it the Plutocracy. We both mean the same thing, the large capitalists or the trusts. Let us

see where the power lies today. And in order to do so, let us apportion society into its class divisions.

"There are three big classes in society. First comes the Plutocracy, which is composed of wealthy bankers,

railway magnates, corporation directors, and trust magnates. Second, is the middle class, your class,

gentlemen, which is composed of farmers, merchants, small manufacturers, and professional men. And third

and last comes my class, the proletariat, which is composed of the wageworkers.*

* This division of society made by Everhard is in accordance with that made by Lucien Sanial, one of the

statistical authorities of that time. His calculation of the membership of these divisions by occupation, from

the United States Census of 1900, is as follows: Plutocratic class, 250,251; Middle class, 8,429,845; and

"You cannot but grant that the ownership of wealth constitutes essential power in the United States today.

How is this wealth owned by these three classes? Here are the figures. The Plutocracy owns sixtyseven

billions of wealth. Of the total number of persons engaged in occupations in the United States, only

ninetenths of one per cent are from the Plutocracy, yet the Plutocracy owns seventy per cent of the total

wealth. The middle class owns twentyfour billions. Twentynine per cent of those in occupations are from

the middle class, and they own twentyfive per cent of the total wealth. Remains the proletariat. It owns four

billions. Of all persons in occupations, seventy per cent come from the proletariat; and the proletariat owns

"From your own figures, we of the middle class are more powerful than labor," Mr. Asmunsen remarked.

"Calling us weak does not make you stronger in the face of the strength of the Plutocracy," Ernest retorted.

"And furthermore, I'm not done with you. There is a greater strength than wealth, and it is greater because it

cannot be taken away. Our strength, the strength of the proletariat, is in our muscles, in our hands to cast

ballots, in our fingers to pull triggers. This strength we cannot be stripped of. It is the primitive strength, it is

the strength that is to life germane, it is the strength that is stronger than wealth, and that wealth cannot take

"But your strength is detachable. It can be taken away from you. Even now the Plutocracy is taking it away

from you. In the end it will take it all away from you. And then you will cease to be the middle class. You

will descend to us. You will become proletarians. And the beauty of it is that you will then add to our

strength. We will hail you brothers, and we will fight shoulder to shoulder in the cause of humanity.

"You see, labor has nothing concrete of which to be despoiled. Its share of the wealth of the country consists

of clothes and household furniture, with here and there, in very rare cases, an unencumbered home. But you

have the concrete wealth, twentyfour billions of it, and the Plutocracy will take it away from you. Of course,

there is the large likelihood that the proletariat will take it away first. Don't you see your position, gentlemen?

The middle class is a wobbly little lamb between a lion and a tiger. If one doesn't get you, the other will. And

if the Plutocracy gets you first, why it's only a matter of time when the Proletariat gets the Plutocracy.

"Even your present wealth is not a true measure of your power. The strength of your wealth at this moment is

only an empty shell. That is why you are crying out your feeble little battlecry, "Return to the ways of our

fathers." You are aware of your impotency. You know that your strength is an empty shell. And I'll show you

"What power have the farmers? Over fifty per cent are thralls by virtue of the fact that they are merely tenants

or are mortgaged. And all of them are thralls by virtue of the fact that the trusts already own or control (which

is the same thing only better)own and control all the means of marketing the crops, such as cold storage,

railroads, elevators, and steamship lines. And, furthermore, the trusts control the markets. In all this the

farmers are without power. As regards their political and governmental power, I'll take that up later, along

"Day by day the trusts squeeze out the farmers as they squeezed out Mr. Calvin and the rest of the dairymen.

And day by day are the merchants squeezed out in the same way. Do you remember how, in six months, the

Tobacco Trust squeezed out over four hundred cigar stores in New York City alone? Where are the oldtime

owners of the coal fields? You know today, without my telling you, that the Railroad Trust owns or controls

the entire anthracite and bituminous coal fields. Doesn't the Standard Oil Trust* own a score of the ocean

lines? And does it not also control copper, to say nothing of running a smelter trust as a little side enterprise?

There are ten thousand cities in the United States tonight lighted by the companies owned or controlled by

Standard Oil, and in as many cities all the electric transportation,urban, suburban, and interurban,is in

the hands of Standard Oil. The small capitalists who were in these thousands of enterprises are gone. You

* Standard Oil and Rockefellersee upcoming footnote: "Rockefeller began as a member . . ."

"The small manufacturer is like the farmer; and small manufacturers and farmers today are reduced, to all

intents and purposes, to feudal tenure. For that matter, the professional men and the artists are at this present

moment villeins in everything but name, while the politicians are henchmen. Why do you, Mr. Calvin, work

all your nights and days to organize the farmers, along with the rest of the middle class, into a new political

party? Because the politicians of the old parties will have nothing to do with your atavistic ideas; and with

your atavistic ideas, they will have nothing to do because they are what I said they are, henchmen, retainers

"I spoke of the professional men and the artists as villeins. What else are they? One and all, the professors,

the preachers, and the editors, hold their jobs by serving the Plutocracy, and their service consists of

propagating only such ideas as are either harmless to or commendatory of the Plutocracy. Whenever they

propagate ideas that menace the Plutocracy, they lose their jobs, in which case, if they have not provided for

the rainy day, they descend into the proletariat and either perish or become working class agitators. And

don't forget that it is the press, the pulpit, and the university that mould public opinion, set the thoughtpace

of the nation. As for the artists, they merely pander to the little less than ignoble tastes of the Plutocracy.

"But after all, wealth in itself is not the real power; it is the means to power, and power is governmental. Who

controls the government today? The proletariat with its twenty millions engaged in occupations? Even you

laugh at the idea. Does the middle class, with its eight million occupied members? No more than the

proletariat. Who, then, controls the government? The Plutocracy, with its paltry quarter of a million of

occupied members. But this quarter of a million does not control the government, though it renders yeoman

service. It is the brain of the Plutocracy that controls the government, and this brain consists of seven* small

and powerful groups of men. And do not forget that these groups are working today practically in unison.

* Even as late as 1907, it was considered that eleven groups dominated the country, but this number was

reduced by the amalgamation of the five railroad groups into a supreme combination of all the railroads.

These five groups so amalgamated, along with their financial and political allies, were (1) James J. Hill with

his control of the Northwest; (2) the Pennsylvania railway group, Schiff financial manager, with big banking

firms of Philadelphia and New York; (3) Harriman, with Frick for counsel and Odell as political lieutenant,

controlling the central continental, Southwestern and Southern Pacific Coast lines of transportation; (4) the

Gould family railway interests; and (5) Moore, Reid, and Leeds, known as the "Rock Island crowd." These

strong oligarchs arose out of the conflict of competition and travelled the inevitable road toward combination.

"Let me point out the power of but one of them, the railroad group. It employs forty thousand lawyers to

defeat the people in the courts. It issues countless thousands of free passes to judges, bankers, editors,

ministers, university men, members of state legislatures, and of Congress. It maintains luxurious lobbies* at

every state capital, and at the national capital; and in all the cities and towns of the land it employs an

immense army of pettifoggers and small politicians whose business is to attend primaries, pack conventions,

* Lobbya peculiar institution for bribing, bulldozing, and corrupting the legislators who were supposed to

** A decade before this speech of Everhard's, the New York Board of Trade issued a report from which the

following is quoted: "The railroads control absolutely the legislatures of a majority of the states of the Union;

they make and unmake United States Senators, congressmen, and governors, and are practically dictators of

"Gentlemen, I have merely sketched the power of one of the seven groups that constitute the brain of the

Plutocracy.* Your twenty four billions of wealth does not give you twentyfive cents' worth of

governmental power. It is an empty shell, and soon even the empty shell will be taken away from you. The

Plutocracy has all power in its hands today. It today makes the laws, for it owns the Senate, Congress, the

courts, and the state legislatures. And not only that. Behind law must be force to execute the law. To day the

Plutocracy makes the law, and to enforce the law it has at its beck and call the, police, the army, the navy,

* Rockefeller began as a member of the proletariat, and through thrift and cunning succeeded in developing

the first perfect trust, namely that known as Standard Oil. We cannot forbear giving the following remarkable

page from the history of the times, to show how the need for reinvestment of the Standard Oil surplus crushed

out small capitalists and hastened the breakdown of the capitalist system. David Graham Phillips was a

radical writer of the period, and the quotation, by him, is taken from a copy of the Saturday Evening Post,

dated October 4, 1902 A.D. This is the only copy of this publication that has come down to us, and yet, from

its appearance and content, we cannot but conclude that it was one of the popular periodicals with a large

"About ten years ago Rockefeller's income was given as thirty millions by an excellent authority. He had

reached the limit of profitable investment of profits in the oil industry. Here, then, were these enormous sums

in cash pouring inmore than $2,000,000 a month for John Davison Rockefeller alone. The problem of

reinvestment became more serious. It became a nightmare. The oil income was swelling, swelling, and the

number of sound investments limited, even more limited than it is now. It was through no special eagerness

for more gains that the Rockefellers began to branch out from oil into other things. They were forced, swept

on by this inrolling tide of wealth which their monopoly magnet irresistibly attracted. They developed a staff

of investment seekers and investigators. It is said that the chief of this staff has a salary of $125,000 a year.

"The first conspicuous excursion and incursion of the Rockefellers was into the railway field. By 1895 they

controlled onefifth of the railway mileage of the country. What do they own or, through dominant

ownership, control today? They are powerful in all the great railways of New York, north, east, and west,

except one, where their share is only a few millions. They are in most of the great railways radiating from

Chicago. They dominate in several of the systems that extend to the Pacific. It is their votes that make Mr.

Morgan so potent, though, it may be added, they need his brains more than he needs their votesat present,

and the combination of the two constitutes in large measure the 'community of interest.'

"But railways could not alone absorb rapidly enough those mighty floods of gold. Presently John D.

Rockefeller's $2,500,000 a month had increased to four, to five, to six millions a month, to $75,000,000 a

year. Illuminating oil was becoming all profit. The reinvestments of income were adding their mite of many

"The Rockefellers went into gas and electricity when those industries had developed to the safe investment

stage. And now a large part of the American people must begin to enrich the Rockefellers as soon as the sun

goes down, no matter what form of illuminant they use. They went into farm mortgages. It is said that when

prosperity a few years ago enabled the farmers to rid themselves of their mortgages, John D. Rockefeller was

moved almost to tears; eight millions which he had thought taken care of for years to come at a good interest

were suddenly dumped upon his doorstep and there set up asquawking for a new home. This unexpected

addition to his worriments in finding places for the progeny of his petroleum and their progeny and their

progeny's progeny was too much for the equanimity of a man without a digestion. . . .

"The Rockefellers went into minesiron and coal and copper and lead; into other industrial companies; into

street railways, into national, state, and municipal bonds; into steamships and steamboats and telegraphy; into

real estate, into skyscrapers and residences and hotels and business blocks; into life insurance, into banking.

There was soon literally no field of industry where their millions were not at work. . . .

"The Rockefeller bankthe National City Bankis by itself far and away the biggest bank in the United

States. It is exceeded in the world only by the Bank of England and the Bank of France. The deposits average

more than one hundred millions a day; and it dominates the call loan market on Wall Street and the stock

market. But it is not alone; it is the head of the Rockefeller chain of banks, which includes fourteen banks and

trust companies in New York City, and banks of great strength and influence in every large money center in

"John D. Rockefeller owns Standard Oil stock worth between four and five hundred millions at the market

quotations. He has a hundred millions in the steel trust, almost as much in a single western railway system,

half as much in a second, and so on and on and on until the mind wearies of the cataloguing. His income last

year was about $100,000,000it is doubtful if the incomes of all the Rothschilds together make a greater

Little discussion took place after this, and the dinner soon broke up. All were quiet and subdued, and

leavetaking was done with low voices. It seemed almost that they were scared by the vision of the times

"The situation is, indeed, serious," Mr. Calvin said to Ernest. "I have little quarrel with the way you have

depicted it. Only I disagree with you about the doom of the middle class. We shall survive, and we shall

"Even so," Mr. Calvin answered gravely. "I know it's a sort of machinebreaking, and that it is absurd. But

then life seems absurd today, what of the machinations of the Plutocracy. And at any rate, our sort of

machinebreaking is at least practical and possible, which your dream is not. Your socialistic dream is . . .

"I only wish you fellows knew a little something about evolution and sociology," Ernest said wistfully, as

Following like thunder claps upon the Business Men's dinner, occurred event after event of terrifying

moment; and I, little I, who had lived so placidly all my days in the quiet university town, found myself and

my personal affairs drawn into the vortex of the great worldaffairs. Whether it was my love for Ernest, or

the clear sight he had given me of the society in which I lived, that made me a revolutionist, I know not; but a

revolutionist I became, and I was plunged into a whirl of happenings that would have been inconceivable

The crisis in my own fortunes came simultaneously with great crises in society. First of all, father was

discharged from the university. Oh, he was not technically discharged. His resignation was demanded, that

was all. This, in itself, did not amount to much. Father, in fact, was delighted. He was especially delighted

because his discharge had been precipitated by the publication of his book, "Economics and Education." It

clinched his argument, he contended. What better evidence could be advanced to prove that education was

But this proof never got anywhere. Nobody knew he had been forced to resign from the university. He was so

eminent a scientist that such an announcement, coupled with the reason for his enforced resignation, would

have created somewhat of a furor all over the world. The newspapers showered him with praise and honor,

and commended him for having given up the drudgery of the lecture room in order to devote his whole time

At first father laughed. Then he became angrytonic angry. Then came the suppression of his book. This

suppression was performed secretly, so secretly that at first we could not comprehend. The publication of the

book had immediately caused a bit of excitement in the country. Father had been politely abused in the

capitalist press, the tone of the abuse being to the effect that it was a pity so great a scientist should leave his

field and invade the realm of sociology, about which he knew nothing and wherein he had promptly become

lost. This lasted for a week, while father chuckled and said the book had touched a sore spot on capitalism.

And then, abruptly, the newspapers and the critical magazines ceased saying anything about the book at all.

Also, and with equal suddenness, the book disappeared from the market. Not a copy was obtainable from any

bookseller. Father wrote to the publishers and was informed that the plates had been accidentally injured. An

unsatisfactory correspondence followed. Driven finally to an unequivocal stand, the publishers stated that

they could not see their way to putting the book into type again, but that they were willing to relinquish their

"And you won't find another publishing house in the country to touch it," Ernest said. "And if I were you, I'd

But father was nothing if not a scientist. He never believed in jumping to conclusions. A laboratory

experiment was no experiment if it were not carried through in all its details. So he patiently went the round

of the publishing houses. They gave a multitude of excuses, but not one house would consider the book.

When father became convinced that the book had actually been suppressed, he tried to get the fact into the

newspapers; but his communications were ignored. At a political meeting of the socialists, where many

reporters were present, father saw his chance. He arose and related the history of the suppression of the book.

He laughed next day when he read the newspapers, and then he grew angry to a degree that eliminated all

tonic qualities. The papers made no mention of the book, but they misreported him beautifully. They twisted

his words and phrases away from the context, and turned his subdued and controlled remarks into a howling

anarchistic speech. It was done artfully. One instance, in particular, I remember. He had used the phrase

"social revolution." The reporter merely dropped out "social." This was sent out all over the country in an

Associated Press despatch, and from all over the country arose a cry of alarm. Father was branded as a nihilist

and an anarchist, and in one cartoon that was copied widely he was portrayed waving a red flag at the head of

a mob of longhaired, wildeyed men who bore in their hands torches, knives, and dynamite bombs.

He was assailed terribly in the press, in long and abusive editorials, for his anarchy, and hints were made of

mental breakdown on his part. This behavior, on the part of the capitalist press, was nothing new, Ernest told

us. It was the custom, he said, to send reporters to all the socialist meetings for the express purpose of

misreporting and distorting what was said, in order to frighten the middle class away from any possible

affiliation with the proletariat. And repeatedly Ernest warned father to cease fighting and to take to cover.

The socialist press of the country took up the fight, however, and throughout the reading portion of the

working class it was known that the book had been suppressed. But this knowledge stopped with the working

class. Next, the "Appeal to Reason," a big socialist publishing house, arranged with father to bring out the

"I tell you we are on the verge of the unknown," he insisted. "Big things are happening secretly all around us.

We can feel them. We do not know what they are, but they are there. The whole fabric of society is atremble

with them. Don't ask me. I don't know myself. But out of this flux of society something is about to crystallize.

It is crystallizing now. The suppression of the book is a precipitation. How many books have been

suppressed? We haven't the least idea. We are in the dark. We have no way of learning. Watch out next for

the suppression of the socialist press and socialist publishing houses. I'm afraid it's coming. We are going to

Ernest had his hand on the pulse of events even more closely than the rest of the socialists, and within two

days the first blow was struck. The Appeal to Reason was a weekly, and its regular circulation amongst the

proletariat was seven hundred and fifty thousand. Also, it very frequently got out special editions of from two

to five millions. These great editions were paid for and distributed by the small army of voluntary workers

who had marshalled around the Appeal. The first blow was aimed at these special editions, and it was a

crushing one. By an arbitrary ruling of the Post Office, these editions were decided to be not the regular

circulation of the paper, and for that reason were denied admission to the mails.

A week later the Post Office Department ruled that the paper was seditious, and barred it entirely from the

mails. This was a fearful blow to the socialist propaganda. The Appeal was desperate. It devised a plan of

reaching its subscribers through the express companies, but they declined to handle it. This was the end of the

Appeal. But not quite. It prepared to go on with its book publishing. Twenty thousand copies of father's book

were in the bindery, and the presses were turning off more. And then, without warning, a mob arose one

night, and, under a waving American flag, singing patriotic songs, set fire to the great plant of the Appeal and

Now Girard, Kansas, was a quiet, peaceable town. There had never been any labor troubles there. The Appeal

paid union wages; and, in fact, was the backbone of the town, giving employment to hundreds of men and

women. It was not the citizens of Girard that composed the mob. This mob had risen up out of the earth

apparently, and to all intents and purposes, its work done, it had gone back into the earth. Ernest saw in the

"The Black Hundreds* are being organized in the United States," he said. "This is the beginning. There will

* The Black Hundreds were reactionary mobs organized by the perishing Autocracy in the Russian

Revolution. These reactionary groups attacked the revolutionary groups, and also, at needed moments, rioted

and destroyed property so as to afford the Autocracy the pretext of calling out the Cossacks.

And so perished father's book. We were to see much of the Black Hundreds as the days went by. Week by

week more of the socialist papers were barred from the mails, and in a number of instances the Black

Hundreds destroyed the socialist presses. Of course, the newspapers of the land lived up to the reactionary

policy of the ruling class, and the destroyed socialist press was misrepresented and vilified, while the Black

Hundreds were represented as true patriots and saviours of society. So convincing was all this

misrepresentation that even sincere ministers in the pulpit praised the Black Hundreds while regretting the

History was making fast. The fall elections were soon to occur, and Ernest was nominated by the socialist

party to run for Congress. His chance for election was most favorable. The street car strike in San Francisco

had been broken. And following upon it the teamsters' strike had been broken. These two defeats had been

very disastrous to organized labor. The whole Water Front Federation, along with its allies in the structural

trades, had backed up the teamsters, and all had smashed down ingloriously. It had been a bloody strike. The

police had broken countless heads with their riot clubs; and the death list had been augmented by the turning

loose of a machinegun on the strikers from the barns of the Marsden Special Delivery Company.

In consequence, the men were sullen and vindictive. They wanted blood, and revenge. Beaten on their chosen

field, they were ripe to seek revenge by means of political action. They still maintained their labor

organization, and this gave them strength in the political struggle that was on. Ernest's chance for election

grew stronger and stronger. Day by day unions and more unions voted their support to the socialists, until

even Ernest laughed when the Undertakers' Assistants and the Chicken Pickers fell into line. Labor became

mulish. While it packed the socialist meetings with mad enthusiasm, it was impervious to the wiles of the

old party politicians. The oldparty orators were usually greeted with empty halls, though occasionally they

encountered full halls where they were so roughly handled that more than once it was necessary to call out

History was making fast. The air was vibrant with things happening and impending. The country was on the

verge of hard times,* caused by a series of prosperous years wherein the difficulty of disposing abroad of the

unconsumed surplus had become increasingly difficult. Industries were working short time; many great

factories were standing idle against the time when the surplus should be gone; and wages were being cut right

* Under the capitalist regime these periods of hard times were as inevitable as they were absurd. Prosperity

always brought calamity. This, of course, was due to the excess of unconsumed profits that was piled up.

Also, the great machinist strike had been broken. Two hundred thousand machinists, along with their five

hundred thousand allies in the metalworking trades, had been defeated in as bloody a strike as had ever

marred the United States. Pitched battles had been fought with the small armies of armed strikebreakers*

put in the field by the employers' associations; the Black Hundreds, appearing in scores of widescattered

places, had destroyed property; and, in consequence, a hundred thousand regular soldiers of the United States

has been called out to put a frightful end to the whole affair. A number of the labor leaders had been

executed; many others had been sentenced to prison, while thousands of the rank and file of the strikers had

* Strikebreakersthese were, in purpose and practice and everything except name, the private soldiers of

the capitalists. They were thoroughly organized and well armed, and they were held in readiness to be hurled

in special trains to any part of the country where labor went on strike or was locked out by the employers.

Only those curious times could have given rise to the amazing spectacle of one, Farley, a notorious

commander of strike breakers, who, in 1906, swept across the United States in special trains from New

York to San Francisco with an army of twentyfive hundred men, fully armed and equipped, to break a strike

of the San Francisco streetcar men. Such an act was in direct violation of the laws of the land. The fact that

this act, and thousands of similar acts, went unpunished, goes to show how completely the judiciary was the

** Bullpenin a miners' strike in Idaho, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, it happened that many

of the strikers were confined in a bullpen by the troops. The practice and the name continued in the

The years of prosperity were now to be paid for. All markets were glutted; all markets were falling; and

amidst the general crumble of prices the price of labor crumbled fastest of all. The land was convulsed with

industrial dissensions. Labor was striking here, there, and everywhere; and where it was not striking, it was

being turned out by the capitalists. The papers were filled with tales of violence and blood. And through it all

the Black Hundreds played their part. Riot, arson, and wanton destruction of property was their function, and

well they performed it. The whole regular army was in the field, called there by the actions of the Black

Hundreds.* All cities and towns were like armed camps, and laborers were shot down like dogs. Out of the

vast army of the unemployed the strikebreakers were recruited; and when the strike breakers were worsted

by the labor unions, the troops always appeared and crushed the unions. Then there was the militia. As yet, it

was not necessary to have recourse to the secret militia law. Only the regularly organized militia was out, and

it was out everywhere. And in this time of terror, the regular army was increased an additional hundred

* The name only, and not the idea, was imported from Russia. The Black Hundreds were a development out

of the secret agents of the capitalists, and their use arose in the labor struggles of the nineteenth century.

There is no discussion of this. No less an authority of the times than Carroll D. Wright, United States

Commissioner of Labor, is responsible for the statement. From his book, entitled "The Battles of Labor," is

quoted the declaration that "in some of the great historic strikes the employers themselves have instigated acts

of violence;" that manufacturers have deliberately provoked strikes in order to get rid of surplus stock; and

that freight cars have been burned by employers' agents during railroad strikes in order to increase disorder. It

was out of these secret agents of the employers that the Black Hundreds arose; and it was they, in turn, that

Never had labor received such an allaround beating. The great captains of industry, the oligarchs, had for

the first time thrown their full weight into the breach the struggling employers' associations had made. These

associations were practically middle class affairs, and now, compelled by hard times and crashing markets,

and aided by the great captains of industry, they gave organized labor an awful and decisive defeat. It was an

all powerful alliance, but it was an alliance of the lion and the lamb, as the middle class was soon to learn.

Labor was bloody and sullen, but crushed. Yet its defeat did not put an end to the hard times. The banks,

themselves constituting one of the most important forces of the Oligarchy, continued to call in credits. The

Wall Street* group turned the stock market into a maelstrom where the values of all the land crumbled away

almost to nothingness. And out of all the rack and ruin rose the form of the nascent Oligarchy, imperturbable,

indifferent, and sure. Its serenity and certitude was terrifying. Not only did it use its own vast power, but it

* Wall Streetso named from a street in ancient New York, where was situated the stock exchange, and

where the irrational organization of society permitted underhanded manipulation of all the industries of the

The captains of industry had turned upon the middle class. The employers' associations, that had helped the

captains of industry to tear and rend labor, were now torn and rent by their quondam allies. Amidst the

crashing of the middle men, the small business men and manufacturers, the trusts stood firm. Nay, the trusts

did more than stand firm. They were active. They sowed wind, and wind, and ever more wind; for they alone

knew how to reap the whirlwind and make a profit out of it. And such profits! Colossal profits! Strong

enough themselves to weather the storm that was largely their own brewing, they turned loose and plundered

the wrecks that floated about them. Values were pitifully and inconceivably shrunken, and the trusts added

hugely to their holdings, even extending their enterprises into many new fields and always at the expense

Thus the summer of 1912 witnessed the virtual deaththrust to the middle class. Even Ernest was astounded

at the quickness with which it had been done. He shook his head ominously and looked forward without hope

"It's no use," he said. "We are beaten. The Iron Heel is here. I had hoped for a peaceable victory at the

ballotbox. I was wrong. Wickson was right. We shall be robbed of our few remaining liberties; the Iron

Heel will walk upon our faces; nothing remains but a bloody revolution of the working class. Of course we

And from then on Ernest pinned his faith in revolution. In this he was in advance of his party. His

fellowsocialists could not agree with him. They still insisted that victory could be gained through the

elections. It was not that they were stunned. They were too coolheaded and courageous for that. They were

merely incredulous, that was all. Ernest could not get them seriously to fear the coming of the Oligarchy.

They were stirred by him, but they were too sure of their own strength. There was no room in their theoretical

"We'll send you to Congress and it will be all right," they told him at one of our secret meetings.

"And when they take me out of Congress," Ernest replied coldly, "and put me against a wall, and blow my

"Then you'll welter in your gore," was his retort. "I've heard that song sung by the middle class, and where is

Mr. Wickson did not send for father. They met by chance on the ferryboat to San Francisco, so that the

warning he gave father was not premeditated. Had they not met accidentally, there would not have been any

warning. Not that the outcome would have been different, however. Father came of stout old Mayflower*

* One of the first ships that carried colonies to America, after the discovery of the New World. Descendants

of these original colonists were for a while inordinately proud of their genealogy; but in time the blood

became so widely diffused that it ran in the veins practically of all Americans.

"Ernest was right," he told me, as soon as he had returned home. "Ernest is a very remarkable young man,

and I'd rather see you his wife than the wife of Rockefeller himself or the King of England."

"The Oligarchy is about to tread upon our facesyours and mine. Wickson as much as told me so. He was

very kindfor an oligarch. He offered to reinstate me in the university. What do you think of that? He,

Wickson, a sordid moneygrabber, has the power to determine whether I shall or shall not teach in the

university of the state. But he offered me even better than thatoffered to make me president of some great

college of physical sciences that is being plannedthe Oligarchy must get rid of its surplus somehow, you

"'Do you remember what I told that socialist lover of your daughter's?' he said. 'I told him that we would walk

upon the faces of the working class. And so we shall. As for you, I have for you a deep respect as a scientist;

but if you throw your fortunes in with the working classwell, watch out for your face, that is all.' And then

"It means we'll have to marry earlier than you planned," was Ernest's comment when we told him.

I could not follow his reasoning, but I was soon to learn it. It was at this time that the quarterly dividend of

the Sierra Mills was paidor, rather, should have been paid, for father did not receive his. After waiting

several days, father wrote to the secretary. Promptly came the reply that there was no record on the books of

"I'll make it explicit enough, confound him," father declared, and departed for the bank to get the stock in

"Ernest is a very remarkable man," he said when he got back and while I was helping him off with his

overcoat. "I repeat, my daughter, that young man of yours is a very remarkable young man."

"They have already walked upon my face," father explained. "There was no stock. The box was empty. You

Father insisted on laboratory methods. He brought the Sierra Mills into court, but he could not bring the

books of the Sierra Mills into court. He did not control the courts, and the Sierra Mills did. That explained it

It is almost laughable now, when I look back on it, the way father was beaten. He met Wickson accidentally

on the street in San Francisco, and he told Wickson that he was a damned scoundrel. And then father was

arrested for attempted assault, fined in the police court, and bound over to keep the peace. It was all so

ridiculous that when he got home he had to laugh himself. But what a furor was raised in the local papers!

There was grave talk about the bacillus of violence that infected all men who embraced socialism; and father,

with his long and peaceful life, was instanced as a shining example of how the bacillus of violence worked.

Also, it was asserted by more than one paper that father's mind had weakened under the strain of scientific

study, and confinement in a state asylum for the insane was suggested. Nor was this merely talk. It was an

imminent peril. But father was wise enough to see it. He had the Bishop's experience to lesson from, and he

lessoned well. He kept quiet no matter what injustice was perpetrated on him, and really, I think, surprised his

There was the matter of the houseour home. A mortgage was foreclosed on it, and we had to give up

possession. Of course there wasn't any mortgage, and never had been any mortgage. The ground had been

bought outright, and the house had been paid for when it was built. And house and lot had always been free

and unencumbered. Nevertheless there was the mortgage, properly and legally drawn up and signed, with a

record of the payments of interest through a number of years. Father made no outcry. As he had been robbed

of his money, so was he now robbed of his home. And he had no recourse. The machinery of society was in

the hands of those who were bent on breaking him. He was a philosopher at heart, and he was no longer even

"I am doomed to be broken," he said to me; "but that is no reason that I should not try to be shattered as little

as possible. These old bones of mine are fragile, and I've learned my lesson. God knows I don't want to spend

Which reminds me of Bishop Morehouse, whom I have neglected for many pages. But first let me tell of my

marriage. In the play of events, my marriage sinks into insignificance, I know, so I shall barely mention it.

"Now we shall become real proletarians," father said, when we were driven from our home. "I have often

envied that young man of yours for his actual knowledge of the proletariat. Now I shall see and learn for

Father must have had strong in him the blood of adventure. He looked upon our catastrophe in the light of an

adventure. No anger nor bitterness possessed him. He was too philosophic and simple to be vindictive, and he

lived too much in the world of mind to miss the creature comforts we were giving up. So it was, when we

moved to San Francisco into four wretched rooms in the slum south of Market Street, that he embarked upon

the adventure with the joy and enthusiasm of a childcombined with the clear sight and mental grasp of an

extraordinary intellect. He really never crystallized mentally. He had no false sense of values. Conventional

or habitual values meant nothing to him. The only values he recognized were mathematical and scientific

facts. My father was a great man. He had the mind and the soul that only great men have. In ways he was

Even I found some relief in our change of living. If nothing else, I was escaping from the organized ostracism

that had been our increasing portion in the university town ever since the enmity of the nascent Oligarchy had

been incurred. And the change was to me likewise adventure, and the greatest of all, for it was love

adventure. The change in our fortunes had hastened my marriage, and it was as a wife that I came to live in

And this out of all remains: I made Ernest happy. I came into his stormy life, not as a new perturbing force,

but as one that made toward peace and repose. I gave him rest. It was the guerdon of my love for him. It was

the one infallible token that I had not failed. To bring forgetfulness, or the light of gladness, into those poor

Those dear tired eyes. He toiled as few men ever toiled, and all his lifetime he toiled for others. That was the

measure of his manhood. He was a humanist and a lover. And he, with his incarnate spirit of battle, his

gladiator body and his eagle spirithe was as gentle and tender to me as a poet. He was a poet. A singer in

deeds. And all his life he sang the song of man. And he did it out of sheer love of man, and for man he gave

And all this he did with no hope of future reward. In his conception of things there was no future life. He,

who fairly burnt with immortality, denied himself immortalitysuch was the paradox of him. He, so warm

in spirit, was dominated by that cold and forbidding philosophy, materialistic monism. I used to refute him by

telling him that I measured his immortality by the wings of his soul, and that I should have to live endless

aeons in order to achieve the full measurement. Whereat he would laugh, and his arms would leap out to me,

and he would call me his sweet metaphysician; and the tiredness would pass out of his eyes, and into them

would flood the happy lovelight that was in itself a new and sufficient advertisement of his immortality.

Also, he used to call me his dualist, and he would explain how Kant, by means of pure reason, had abolished

reason, in order to worship God. And he drew the parallel and included me guilty of a similar act. And when I

pleaded guilty, but defended the act as highly rational, he but pressed me closer and laughed as only one of

God's own lovers could laugh. I was wont to deny that heredity and environment could explain his own

originality and genius, any more than could the cold groping finger of science catch and analyze and classify

I held that space was an apparition of God, and that soul was a projection of the character of God; and when

he called me his sweet metaphysician, I called him my immortal materialist. And so we loved and were

happy; and I forgave him his materialism because of his tremendous work in the world, performed without

thought of soulgain thereby, and because of his so exceeding modesty of spirit that prevented him from

But he had pride. How could he have been an eagle and not have pride? His contention was that it was finer

for a finite mortal speck of life to feel Godlike, than for a god to feel godlike; and so it was that he exalted

what he deemed his mortality. He was fond of quoting a fragment from a certain poem. He had never seen the

whole poem, and he had tried vainly to learn its authorship. I here give the fragment, not alone because he

loved it, but because it epitomized the paradox that he was in the spirit of him, and his conception of his

spirit. For how can a man, with thrilling, and burning, and exaltation, recite the following and still be mere

"Joy upon joy and gain upon gain Are the destined rights of my birth, And I shout the praise of my endless

days To the echoing edge of the earth. Though I suffer all deaths that a man can die To the uttermost end of

"The froth of Pride, the tang of Power, The sweet of Womanhood! I drain the lees upon my knees, For oh, the

draught is good; I drink to Life, I drink to Death, And smack my lips with song, For when I die, another 'I'

"The man you drove from Eden's grove Was I, my Lord, was I, And I shall be there when the earth and the air

Are rent from sea to sky; For it is my world, my gorgeous world, The world of my dearest woes, From the

"Packed with the pulse of an unborn race, Torn with a world's desire, The surging flood of my wild young

blood Would quench the judgment fire. I am Man, Man, Man, from the tingling flesh To the dust of my

earthly goal, From the nestling gloom of the pregnant womb To the sheen of my naked soul. Bone of my

bone and flesh of my flesh The whole world leaps to my will, And the unslaked thirst of an Eden cursed Shall

harrow the earth for its fill. Almighty God, when I drain life's glass Of all its rainbow gleams, The hapless

"The man you drove from Eden's grove Was I, my Lord, was I, And I shall be there when the earth and the air

Are rent from sea to sky; For it is my world, my gorgeous world, The world of my dear delight, From the

Ernest always overworked. His wonderful constitution kept him up; but even that constitution could not keep

the tired look out of his eyes. His dear, tired eyes! He never slept more than four and onehalf hours a night;

yet he never found time to do all the work he wanted to do. He never ceased from his activities as a

propagandist, and was always scheduled long in advance for lectures to workingmen's organizations. Then

there was the campaign. He did a man's full work in that alone. With the suppression of the socialist

publishing houses, his meagre royalties ceased, and he was hardput to make a living; for he had to make a

living in addition to all his other labor. He did a great deal of translating for the magazines on scientific and

philosophic subjects; and, coming home late at night, worn out from the strain of the campaign, he would

plunge into his translating and toil on well into the morning hours. And in addition to everything, there was

his studying. To the day of his death he kept up his studies, and he studied prodigiously.

And yet he found time in which to love me and make me happy. But this was accomplished only through my

merging my life completely into his. I learned shorthand and typewriting, and became his secretary. He

insisted that I succeeded in cutting his work in half; and so it was that I schooled myself to understand his

And then there were our sweet stolen moments in the midst of our workjust a word, or caress, or flash of

lovelight; and our moments were sweeter for being stolen. For we lived on the heights, where the air was

keen and sparkling, where the toil was for humanity, and where sordidness and selfishness never entered. We

loved love, and our love was never smirched by anything less than the best. And this out of all remains: I did

not fail. I gave him resthe who worked so hard for others, my dear, tired eyed mortalist.

It was after my marriage that I chanced upon Bishop Morehouse. But I must give the events in their proper

sequence. After his outbreak at the I. P. H. Convention, the Bishop, being a gentle soul, had yielded to the

friendly pressure brought to bear upon him, and had gone away on a vacation. But he returned more fixed

than ever in his determination to preach the message of the Church. To the consternation of his congregation,

his first sermon was quite similar to the address he had given before the Convention. Again he said, and at

length and with distressing detail, that the Church had wandered away from the Master's teaching, and that

And the result was, willynilly, that he was led away to a private sanitarium for mental disease, while in the

newspapers appeared pathetic accounts of his mental breakdown and of the saintliness of his character. He

was held a prisoner in the sanitarium. I called repeatedly, but was denied access to him; and I was terribly

impressed by the tragedy of a sane, normal, saintly man being crushed by the brutal will of society. For the

Bishop was sane, and pure, and noble. As Ernest said, all that was the matter with him was that he had

incorrect notions of biology and sociology, and because of his incorrect notions he had not gone about it in

What terrified me was the Bishop's helplessness. If he persisted in the truth as he saw it, he was doomed to an

insane ward. And he could do nothing. His money, his position, his culture, could not save him. His views

were perilous to society, and society could not conceive that such perilous views could be the product of a

But the Bishop, in spite of the gentleness and purity of his spirit, was possessed of guile. He apprehended

clearly his danger. He saw himself caught in the web, and he tried to escape from it. Denied help from his

friends, such as father and Ernest and I could have given, he was left to battle for himself alone. And in the

enforced solitude of the sanitarium he recovered. He became again sane. His eyes ceased to see visions; his

brain was purged of the fancy that it was the duty of society to feed the Master's lambs.

As I say, he became well, quite well, and the newspapers and the church people hailed his return with joy. I

went once to his church. The sermon was of the same order as the ones he had preached long before his eyes

had seen visions. I was disappointed, shocked. Had society then beaten him into submission? Was he a

coward? Had he been bulldozed into recanting? Or had the strain been too great for him, and had he meekly

I called upon him in his beautiful home. He was woefully changed. He was thinner, and there were lines on

his face which I had never seen before. He was manifestly distressed by my coming. He plucked nervously at

his sleeve as we talked; and his eyes were restless, fluttering here, there, and everywhere, and refusing to

meet mine. His mind seemed preoccupied, and there were strange pauses in his conversation, abrupt changes

of topic, and an inconsecutiveness that was bewildering. Could this, then, be the firmpoised, Christlike

man I had known, with pure, limpid eyes and a gaze steady and unfaltering as his soul? He had been man

handled; he had been cowed into subjection. His spirit was too gentle. It had not been mighty enough to face

I felt sad, unutterably sad. He talked ambiguously, and was so apprehensive of what I might say that I had not

the heart to catechise him. He spoke in a faraway manner of his illness, and we talked disjointedly about the

church, the alterations in the organ, and about petty charities; and he saw me depart with such evident relief

The poor little hero! If I had only known! He was battling like a giant, and I did not guess it. Alone, all alone,

in the midst of millions of his fellowmen, he was fighting his fight. Torn by his horror of the asylum and his

fidelity to truth and the right, he clung steadfastly to truth and the right; but so alone was he that he did not

But I was soon to know. One day the Bishop disappeared. He had told nobody that he was going away; and as

the days went by and he did not reappear, there was much gossip to the effect that he had committed suicide

while temporarily deranged. But this idea was dispelled when it was learned that he had sold all his

possessions,his city mansion, his country house at Menlo Park, his paintings, and collections, and even his

cherished library. It was patent that he had made a clean and secret sweep of everything before he

This happened during the time when calamity had overtaken us in our own affairs; and it was not till we were

well settled in our new home that we had opportunity really to wonder and speculate about the Bishop's

doings. And then, everything was suddenly made clear. Early one evening, while it was yet twilight, I had run

across the street and into the butchershop to get some chops for Ernest's supper. We called the last meal of

Just at the moment I came out of the butchershop, a man emerged from the corner grocery that stood

alongside. A queer sense familiarity made me look again. But the man had turned and was walking rapidly

away. There was something about the slope of the shoulders and the fringe of silver hair between coat collar

and slouch hat that aroused vague memories. Instead of crossing the street, I hurried after the man. I

quickened my pace, trying not to think the thoughts that formed unbidden in my brain. No, it was impossible.

It could not benot in those faded overalls, too long in the legs and frayed at the bottoms.

I paused, laughed at myself, and almost abandoned the chase. But the haunting familiarity of those shoulders

and that silver hair! Again I hurried on. As I passed him, I shot a keen look at his face; then I whirled around

He halted with equal abruptness, and gasped. A large paper bag in his right hand fell to the sidewalk. It burst,

and about his feet and mine bounced and rolled a flood of potatoes. He looked at me with surprise and alarm,

then he seemed to wilt away; the shoulders drooped with dejection, and he uttered a deep sigh.

I held out my hand. He shook it, but his hand felt clammy. He cleared his throat in embarrassment, and I

could see the sweat starting out on his forehead. It was evident that he was badly frightened.

Between us we picked them up and replaced them in the broken bag, which he now held carefully in the

hollow of his arm. I tried to tell him my gladness at meeting him and that he must come right home with me.

"Father will be rejoiced to see you," I said. "We live only a stone's throw away.

He looked apprehensively about him, as though dreading discovery, and made an attempt to walk on.

"Tell me where you live, and I shall call later," he said, when he saw that I walked beside him and that it was

He looked at the potatoes spilling on his arm, and at the small parcels on his other arm.

"Really, it is impossible," he said. "Forgive me for my rudeness. If you only knew."

He looked as if he were going to break down, but the next moment he had himself in control.

"Besides, this food," he went on. "It is a sad case. It is terrible. She is an old woman. I must take it to her at

once. She is suffering from want of it. I must go at once. You understand. Then I will return. I promise you."

Under the Bishop's guidance I learned something of my own neighborhood. I had not dreamed such

wretchedness and misery existed in it. Of course, this was because I did not concern myself with charity. I

had become convinced that Ernest was right when he sneered at charity as a poulticing of an ulcer. Remove

the ulcer, was his remedy; give to the worker his product; pension as soldiers those who grow honorably old

in their toil, and there will be no need for charity. Convinced of this, I toiled with him at the revolution, and

did not exhaust my energy in alleviating the social ills that continuously arose from the injustice of the

I followed the Bishop into a small room, ten by twelve, in a rear tenement. And there we found a little old

German womansixtyfour years old, the Bishop said. She was surprised at seeing me, but she nodded a

pleasant greeting and went on sewing on the pair of men's trousers in her lap. Beside her, on the floor, was a

pile of trousers. The Bishop discovered there was neither coal nor kindling, and went out to buy some.

"Six cents, lady," she said, nodding her head gently while she went on stitching. She stitched slowly, but

never did she cease from stitching. She seemed mastered by the verb "to stitch."

"For all that work?" I asked. "Is that what they pay? How long does it take you?"

"Yes," she answered, "that is what they pay. Six cents for finishing. Two hours' sewing on each pair."

But the boss doesn't know that," she added quickly, betraying a fear of getting him into trouble. "I'm slow.

I've got the rheumatism in my hands. Girls work much faster. They finish in half that time. The boss is kind.

He lets me take the work home, now that I am old and the noise of the machine bothers my head. If it wasn't

"Yes, those who work in the shop get eight cents. But what can you do? There is not enough work for the

young. The old have no chance. Often one pair is all I can get. Sometimes, like today, I am given eight pair

"In the summer, when there is a rush order, I work from five in the morning to nine at night. But in the winter

it is too cold. The hands do not early get over the stiffness. Then you must work latertill after midnight

"Yes, it has been a bad summer. The hard times. God must be angry. This is the first work the boss has given

me in a week. It is true, one cannot eat much when there is no work. I am used to it. I have sewed all my life,

"If you are sure of the rent, it is all right. The houseman is very kind, but he must have his rent. It is fair. He

only charges three dollars for this room. That is cheap. But it is not easy for you to find all of three dollars

"After the rent it's not so bad. Of course you can't buy meat. And there is no milk for the coffee. But always

She said this last proudly. There was a smack of success in her words. But as she stitched on in silence, I

noticed the sadness in her pleasant eyes and the droop of her mouth. The look in her eyes became far away.

No, it is not the hunger that makes the heart ache," she explained. "You get used to being hungry. It is for my

child that I cry. It was the machine that killed her. It is true she worked hard, but I cannot understand. She

was strong. And she was youngonly forty; and she worked only thirty years. She began young, it is true;

but my man died. The boiler exploded down at the works. And what were we to do? She was ten, but she was

very strong. But the machine killed her. Yes, it did. It killed her, and she was the fastest worker in the shop. I

have thought about it often, and I know. That is why I cannot work in the shop. The machine bothers my

head. Always I hear it saying, "I did it, I did it." And it says that all day long. And then I think of my

The moistness was in her old eyes again, and she had to wipe it away before she could go on stitching.

I heard the Bishop stumbling up the stairs, and I opened the door. What a spectacle he was. On his back he

carried half a sack of coal, with kindling on top. Some of the coal dust had coated his face, and the sweat

from his exertions was running in streaks. He dropped his burden in the corner by the stove and wiped his

face on a coarse bandana handkerchief. I could scarcely accept the verdict of my senses. The Bishop, black as

a coalheaver, in a workingman's cheap cotton shirt (one button was missing from the throat), and in

overalls! That was the most incongruous of all the overalls, frayed at the bottoms, dragged down at the

heels, and held up by a narrow leather belt around the hips such as laborers wear.

Though the Bishop was warm, the poor swollen hands of the old woman were already cramping with the

cold; and before we left her, the Bishop had built the fire, while I had peeled the potatoes and put them on to

boil. I was to learn, as time went by, that there were many cases similar to hers, and many worse, hidden

We got back to find Ernest alarmed by my absence. After the first surprise of greeting was over, the Bishop

leaned back in his chair, stretched out his overallcovered legs, and actually sighed a comfortable sigh. We

were the first of his old friends he had met since his disappearance, he told us; and during the intervening

weeks he must have suffered greatly from loneliness. He told us much, though he told us more of the joy he

"For truly now," he said, "I am feeding his lambs. And I have learned a great lesson. The soul cannot be

ministered to till the stomach is appeased. His lambs must be fed bread and butter and potatoes and meat;

after that, and only after that, are their spirits ready for more refined nourishment."

He ate heartily of the supper I cooked. Never had he had such an appetite at our table in the old days. We

"I walk always now," he said, and a blush was on his cheek at the thought of the time when he rode in his

"My health is better for it," he added hastily. "And I am very happyindeed, most happy. At last I am a

And yet there was in his face a permanent pain, the pain of the world that he was now taking to himself. He

was seeing life in the raw, and it was a different life from what he had known within the printed books of his

"No, you misunderstand," the Bishop answered. "I speak not in reproach, but in gratitude. I have you to thank

for showing me my path. You led me from theories about life to life itself. You pulled aside the veils from

the social shams. You were light in my darkness, but now I, too, see the light. And I am very happy, only . . ."

he hesitated painfully, and in his eyes fear leaped large. "Only the persecution. I harm no one. Why will they

not let me alone? But it is not that. It is the nature of the persecution. I shouldn't mind if they cut my flesh

with stripes, or burned me at the stake, or crucified me headdownward. But it is the asylum that frightens

me. Think of it! Of mein an asylum for the insane! It is revolting. I saw some of the cases at the

sanitarium. They were violent. My blood chills when I think of it. And to be imprisoned for the rest of my life

It was pitiful. His hands shook, his whole body quivered and shrank away from the picture he had conjured.

"Forgive me," he said simply. "It is my wretched nerves. And if the Master's work leads there, so be it. Who

I felt like crying aloud as I looked at him: "Great Bishop! O hero! God's hero!"

"I sold my housemy houses, rather," he said, all my other possessions. I knew I must do it secretly, else

they would have taken everything away from me. That would have been terrible. I often marvel these days at

the immense quantity of potatoes two or three hundred thousand dollars will buy, or bread, or meat, or coal

and kindling." He turned to Ernest. "You are right, young man. Labor is dreadfully underpaid. I never did a

bit of work in my life, except to appeal aesthetically to PhariseesI thought I was preaching the

messageand yet I was worth half a million dollars. I never knew what half a million dollars meant until I

realized how much potatoes and bread and butter and meat it could buy. And then I realized something more.

I realized that all those potatoes and that bread and butter and meat were mine, and that I had not worked to

make them. Then it was clear to me, some one else had worked and made them and been robbed of them.

And when I came down amongst the poor I found those who had been robbed and who were hungry and

"The money? I have it deposited in many different banks under different names. It can never be taken away

from me, because it can never be found. And it is so good, that money. It buys so much food. I never knew

"I wish we could get some of it for the propaganda," Ernest said wistfully. "It would do immense good."

"Do you think so?" the Bishop said. "I do not have much faith in politics. In fact, I am afraid I do not

Ernest was delicate in such matters. He did not repeat his suggestion, though he knew only too well the sore

"I sleep in cheap lodging houses," the Bishop went on. "But I am afraid, and never stay long in one place.

Also, I rent two rooms in workingmen's houses in different quarters of the city. It is a great extravagance, I

know, but it is necessary. I make up for it in part by doing my own cooking, though sometimes I get

something to eat in cheap coffeehouses. And I have made a discovery. Tamales* are very good when the air

grows chilly late at night. Only they are so expensive. But I have discovered a place where I can get three for

* A Mexican dish, referred to occasionally in the literature of the times. It is supposed that it was warmly

"And so I have at last found my work in the world, thanks to you, young man. It is the Master's work." He

looked at me, and his eyes twinkled. "You caught me feeding his lambs, you know. And of course you will

He spoke carelessly enough, but there was real fear behind the speech. He promised to call upon us again.

But a week later we read in the newspaper of the sad case of Bishop Morehouse, who had been committed to

the Napa Asylum and for whom there were still hopes held out. In vain we tried to see him, to have his case

reconsidered or investigated. Nor could we learn anything about him except the reiterated statements that

"Christ told the rich young man to sell all he had," Ernest said bitterly. "The Bishop obeyed Christ's

injunction and got locked up in a madhouse. Times have changed since Christ's day. A rich man today who

gives all he has to the poor is crazy. There is no discussion. Society has spoken."

Of course Ernest was elected to Congress in the great socialist landslide that took place in the fall of 1912.

One great factor that helped to swell the socialist vote was the destruction of Hearst.* This the Plutocracy

found an easy task. It cost Hearst eighteen million dollars a year to run his various papers, and this sum, and

more, he got back from the middle class in payment for advertising. The source of his financial strength lay

wholly in the middle class. The trusts did not advertise.** To destroy Hearst, all that was necessary was to

* William Randolph Hearsta young California millionaire who became the most powerful newspaper

owner in the country. His newspapers were published in all the large cities, and they appealed to the perishing

middle class and to the proletariat. So large was his following that he managed to take possession of the

empty shell of the old Democratic Party. He occupied an anomalous position, preaching an emasculated

socialism combined with a nondescript sort of petty bourgeois capitalism. It was oil and water, and there was

no hope for him, though for a short period he was a source of serious apprehension to the Plutocrats.

** The cost of advertising was amazing in those helterskelter times. Only the small capitalists competed,

and therefore they did the advertising. There being no competition where there was a trust, there was no need

The whole middle class had not yet been exterminated. The sturdy skeleton of it remained; but it was without

power. The small manufacturers and small business men who still survived were at the complete mercy of the

Plutocracy. They had no economic nor political souls of their own. When the fiat of the Plutocracy went

Hearst made a gallant fight. He brought his papers out at a loss of a million and a half each month. He

continued to publish the advertisements for which he no longer received pay. Again the fiat of the Plutocracy

went forth, and the small business men and manufacturers swamped him with a flood of notices that he must

discontinue running their old advertisements. Hearst persisted. Injunctions were served on him. Still he

persisted. He received six months' imprisonment for contempt of court in disobeying the injunctions, while he

was bankrupted by countless damage suits. He had no chance. The Plutocracy had passed sentence on him.

The courts were in the hands of the Plutocracy to carry the sentence out. And with Hearst crashed also to

With the destruction of Hearst and the Democratic Party, there were only two paths for his following to take.

One was into the Socialist Party; the other was into the Republican Party. Then it was that we socialists

reaped the fruit of Hearst's pseudo socialistic preaching; for the great Majority of his followers came over to

The expropriation of the farmers that took place at this time would also have swelled our vote had it not been

for the brief and futile rise of the Grange Party. Ernest and the socialist leaders fought fiercely to capture the

farmers; but the destruction of the socialist press and publishing houses constituted too great a handicap,

while the mouthtomouth propaganda had not yet been perfected. So it was that politicians like Mr. Calvin,

who were themselves farmers long since expropriated, captured the farmers and threw their political strength

"The poor farmers," Ernest once laughed savagely; "the trusts have them both coming and going."

And that was really the situation. The seven great trusts, working together, had pooled their enormous

surpluses and made a farm trust. The railroads, controlling rates, and the bankers and stock exchange

gamesters, controlling prices, had long since bled the farmers into indebtedness. The bankers, and all the

trusts for that matter, had likewise long since loaned colossal amounts of money to the farmers. The farmers

were in the net. All that remained to be done was the drawing in of the net. This the farm trust proceeded to

The hard times of 1912 had already caused a frightful slump in the farm markets. Prices were now

deliberately pressed down to bankruptcy, while the railroads, with extortionate rates, broke the back of the

farmercamel. Thus the farmers were compelled to borrow more and more, while they were prevented from

paying back old loans. Then ensued the great foreclosing of mortgages and enforced collection of notes. The

farmers simply surrendered the land to the farm trust. There was nothing else for them to do. And having

surrendered the land, the farmers next went to work for the farm trust, becoming managers, superintendents,

foremen, and common laborers. They worked for wages. They became villeins, in shortserfs bound to the

soil by a living wage. They could not leave their masters, for their masters composed the Plutocracy. They

could not go to the cities, for there, also, the Plutocracy was in control. They had but one alternative,to

leave the soil and become vagrants, in brief, to starve. And even there they were frustrated, for stringent

Of course, here and there, farmers, and even whole communities of farmers, escaped expropriation by virtue

of exceptional conditions. But they were merely strays and did not count, and they were gathered in anyway

* The destruction of the Roman yeomanry proceeded far less rapidly than the destruction of the American

farmers and small capitalists. There was momentum in the twentieth century, while there was practically none

Numbers of the farmers, impelled by an insane lust for the soil, and willing to show what beasts they could

become, tried to escape expropriation by withdrawing from any and all marketdealing. They sold nothing.

They bought nothing. Among themselves a primitive barter began to spring up. Their privation and hardships

were terrible, but they persisted. It became quite a movement, in fact. The manner in which they were beaten

was unique and logical and simple. The Plutocracy, by virtue of its possession of the government, raised their

taxes. It was the weak joint in their armor. Neither buying nor selling, they had no money, and in the end their

Thus it was that in the fall of 1912 the socialist leaders, with the exception of Ernest, decided that the end of

capitalism had come. What of the hard times and the consequent vast army of the unemployed; what of the

destruction of the farmers and the middle class; and what of the decisive defeat administered all along the line

to the labor unions; the socialists were really justified in believing that the end of capitalism had come and in

Alas, how we underestimated the strength of the enemy! Everywhere the socialists proclaimed their coming

victory at the ballotbox, while, in unmistakable terms, they stated the situation. The Plutocracy accepted the

challenge. It was the Plutocracy, weighing and balancing, that defeated us by dividing our strength. It was the

Plutocracy, through its secret agents, that raised the cry that socialism was sacrilegious and atheistic; it was

the Plutocracy that whipped the churches, and especially the Catholic Church, into line, and robbed us of a

portion of the labor vote. And it was the Plutocracy, through its secret agents of course, that encouraged the

Grange Party and even spread it to the cities into the ranks of the dying middle class.

Nevertheless the socialist landslide occurred. But, instead of a sweeping victory with chief executive officers

and majorities in all legislative bodies, we found ourselves in the minority. It is true, we elected fifty

Congressmen; but when they took their seats in the spring of 1913, they found themselves without power of

any sort. Yet they were more fortunate than the Grangers, who captured a dozen state governments, and who,

in the spring, were not permitted to take possession of the captured offices. The incumbents refused to retire,

and the courts were in the hands of the Oligarchy. But this is too far in advance of events. I have yet to tell of

The hard times at home had caused an immense decrease in consumption. Labor, out of work, had no wages

with which to buy. The result was that the Plutocracy found a greater surplus than ever on its hands. This

surplus it was compelled to dispose of abroad, and, what of its colossal plans, it needed money. Because of its

strenuous efforts to dispose of the surplus in the world market, the Plutocracy clashed with Germany.

Economic clashes were usually succeeded by wars, and this particular clash was no exception. The great

The warcloud hovered dark and ominous. The stage was set for a worldcatastrophe, for in all the world

were hard times, labor troubles, perishing middle classes, armies of unemployed, clashes of economic

interests in the worldmarket, and mutterings and rumblings of the socialist revolution.*

* For a long time these mutterings and rumblings had been heard. As far back as 1906 A.D., Lord Avebury,

an Englishman, uttered the following in the House of Lords: "The unrest in Europe, the spread of socialism,

and the ominous rise of Anarchism, are warnings to the governments and the ruling classes that the condition

of the working classes in Europe is becoming intolerable, and that if a revolution is to be avoided some steps

must be taken to increase wages, reduce the hours of labor, and lower the prices of the necessaries of life."

The Wall Street Journal, a stock gamesters' publication, in commenting upon Lord Avebury's speech, said:

"These words were spoken by an aristocrat and a member of the most conservative body in all Europe. That

gives them all the more significance. They contain more valuable political economy than is to be found in

most of the books. They sound a note of warning. Take heed, gentlemen of the war and navy departments!"

At the same time, Sydney Brooks, writing in America, in Harper's Weekly, said: "You will not hear the

socialists mentioned in Washington. Why should you? The politicians are always the last people in this

country to see what is going on under their noses. They will jeer at me when I prophesy, and prophesy with

the utmost confidence, that at the next presidential election the socialists will poll over a million votes."

The Oligarchy wanted the war with Germany. And it wanted the war for a dozen reasons. In the juggling of

events such a war would cause, in the reshuffling of the international cards and the making of new treaties

and alliances, the Oligarchy had much to gain. And, furthermore, the war would consume many national

surpluses, reduce the armies of unemployed that menaced all countries, and give the Oligarchy a breathing

space in which to perfect its plans and carry them out. Such a war would virtually put the Oligarchy in

possession of the worldmarket. Also, such a war would create a large standing army that need never be

disbanded, while in the minds of the people would be substituted the issue, "America versus Germany," in

And truly the war would have done all these things had it not been for the socialists. A secret meeting of the

Western leaders was held in our four tiny rooms in Pell Street. Here was first considered the stand the

socialists were to take. It was not the first time we had put our foot down upon war,* but it was the first time

we had done so in the United States. After our secret meeting we got in touch with the national organization,

and soon our code cables were passing back and forth across the Atlantic between us and the International

* It was at the very beginning of the twentieth century A.D., that the international organization of the

socialists finally formulated their longmaturing policy on war. Epitomized their doctrine was: "Why should

the workingmen of one country fight with the workingmen of another country for the benefit of their

On May 21, 1905 A.D., when war threatened between Austria and Italy, the socialists of Italy, Austria, and

Hungary held a conference at Trieste, and threatened a general strike of the workingmen of both countries in

case war was declared. This was repeated the following year, when the "Morocco Affair" threatened to

The German socialists were ready to act with us. There were over five million of them, many of them in the

standing army, and, in addition, they were on friendly terms with the labor unions. In both countries the

socialists came out in bold declaration against the war and threatened the general strike. And in the meantime

they made preparation for the general strike. Furthermore, the revolutionary parties in all countries gave

public utterance to the socialist principle of international peace that must be preserved at all hazards, even to

The general strike was the one great victory we American socialists won. On the 4th of December the

American minister was withdrawn from the German capital. That night a German fleet made a dash on

Honolulu, sinking three American cruisers and a revenue cutter, and bombarding the city. Next day both

Germany and the United States declared war, and within an hour the socialists called the general strike in

For the first time the German warlord faced the men of his empire who made his empire go. Without them

he could not run his empire. The novelty of the situation lay in that their revolt was passive. They did not

fight. They did nothing. And by doing nothing they tied their warlord's hands. He would have asked for

nothing better than an opportunity to loose his wardogs on his rebellious proletariat. But this was denied

him. He could not loose his war dogs. Neither could he mobilize his army to go forth to war, nor could he

punish his recalcitrant subjects. Not a wheel moved in his empire. Not a train ran, not a telegraphic message

went over the wires, for the telegraphers and railroad men had ceased work along with the rest of the

And as it was in Germany, so it was in the United States. At last organized labor had learned its lesson.

Beaten decisively on its own chosen field, it had abandoned that field and come over to the political field of

the socialists; for the general strike was a political strike. Besides, organized labor had been so badly beaten

that it did not care. It joined in the general strike out of sheer desperation. The workers threw down their tools

and left their tasks by the millions. Especially notable were the machinists. Their heads were bloody, their

organization had apparently been destroyed, yet out they came, along with their allies in the metalworking

Even the common laborers and all unorganized labor ceased work. The strike had tied everything up so that

nobody could work. Besides, the women proved to be the strongest promoters of the strike. They set their

faces against the war. They did not want their men to go forth to die. Then, also, the idea of the general strike

caught the mood of the people. It struck their sense of humor. The idea was infectious. The children struck in

all the schools, and such teachers as came, went home again from deserted class rooms. The general strike

took the form of a great national picnic. And the idea of the solidarity of labor, so evidenced, appealed to the

imagination of all. And, finally, there was no danger to be incurred by the colossal frolic. When everybody

The United States was paralyzed. No one knew what was happening. There were no newspapers, no letters,

no despatches. Every community was as completely isolated as though ten thousand miles of primeval

wilderness stretched between it and the rest of the world. For that matter, the world had ceased to exist. And

In San Francisco we did not know what was happening even across the bay in Oakland or Berkeley. The

effect on one's sensibilities was weird, depressing. It seemed as though some great cosmic thing lay dead. The

pulse of the land had ceased to beat. Of a truth the nation had died. There were no wagons rumbling on the

streets, no factory whistles, no hum of electricity in the air, no passing of street cars, no cries of

newsboysnothing but persons who at rare intervals went by like furtive ghosts, themselves oppressed and

And during that week of silence the Oligarchy was taught its lesson. And well it learned the lesson. The

general strike was a warning. It should never occur again. The Oligarchy would see to that.

At the end of the week, as had been prearranged, the telegraphers of Germany and the United States returned

to their posts. Through them the socialist leaders of both countries presented their ultimatum to the rulers.

The war should be called off, or the general strike would continue. It did not take long to come to an

understanding. The war was declared off, and the populations of both countries returned to their tasks.

It was this renewal of peace that brought about the alliance between Germany and the United States. In

reality, this was an alliance between the Emperor and the Oligarchy, for the purpose of meeting their common

foe, the revolutionary proletariat of both countries. And it was this alliance that the Oligarchy afterward so

treacherously broke when the German socialists rose and drove the warlord from his throne. It was the very

thing the Oligarchy had played forthe destruction of its great rival in the world market. With the German

Emperor out of the way, Germany would have no surplus to sell abroad. By the very nature of the socialist

state, the German population would consume all that it produced. Of course, it would trade abroad certain

things it produced for things it did not produce; but this would be quite different from an unconsumable

"I'll wager the Oligarchy finds justification," Ernest said, when its treachery to the German Emperor became

And sure enough. The Oligarchy's public defence for the act was that it had done it for the sake of the

American people whose interests it was looking out for. It had flung its hated rival out of the worldmarket

"And the howling folly of it is that we are so helpless that such idiots really are managing our interests," was

Ernest's comment. "They have enabled us to sell more abroad, which means that we'll be compelled to

As early as January, 1913, Ernest saw the true trend of affairs, but he could not get his brother leaders to see

the vision of the Iron Heel that had arisen in his brain. They were too confident. Events were rushing too

rapidly to culmination. A crisis had come in world affairs. The American Oligarchy was practically in

possession of the worldmarket, and scores of countries were flung out of that market with unconsumable

and unsalable surpluses on their hands. For such countries nothing remained but reorganization. They could

not continue their method of producing surpluses. The capitalistic system, so far as they were concerned, had

The reorganization of these countries took the form of revolution. It was a time of confusion and violence.

Everywhere institutions and governments were crashing. Everywhere, with the exception of two or three

countries, the erstwhile capitalist masters fought bitterly for their possessions. But the governments were

taken away from them by the militant proletariat. At last was being realized Karl Marx's classic: "The knell of

private capitalist property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated." And as fast as capitalistic

"Why does the United States lag behind?"; "Get busy, you American revolutionists!"; "What's the matter with

America?"were the messages sent to us by our successful comrades in other lands. But we could not keep

up. The Oligarchy stood in the way. Its bulk, like that of some huge monster, blocked our path.

Behind this lay our secret. We had won over the Grangers, and in the spring a dozen states would pass into

their hands by virtue of the elections of the preceding fall. At once would be instituted a dozen cooperative

"But what if the Grangers fail to get possession?" Ernest demanded. And his comrades called him a calamity

But this failure to get possession was not the chief danger that Ernest had in mind. What he foresaw was the

"Ghent has taught the oligarchs how to do it," Ernest said. "I'll wager they've made a textbook out of his

* "Our Benevolent Feudalism," a book published in 1902 A.D., by W. J. Ghent. It has always been insisted

that Ghent put the idea of the Oligarchy into the minds of the great capitalists. This belief persists throughout

the literature of the three centuries of the Iron Heel, and even in the literature of the first century of the

Brotherhood of Man. Today we know better, but our knowledge does not overcome the fact that Ghent

Never shall I forget the night when, after a hot discussion with half a dozen labor leaders, Ernest turned to me

and said quietly: "That settles it. The Iron Heel has won. The end is in sight."

This little conference in our home was unofficial; but Ernest, like the rest of his comrades, was working for

assurances from the labor leaders that they would call out their men in the next general strike. O'Connor, the

president of the Association of Machinists, had been foremost of the six leaders present in refusing to give

"You have seen that you were beaten soundly at your old tactics of strike and boycott," Ernest urged.

"And you saw what a general strike would do," Ernest went on. "We stopped the war with Germany. Never

was there so fine a display of the solidarity and the power of labor. Labor can and will rule the world. If you

continue to stand with us, we'll put an end to the reign of capitalism. It is your only hope. And what is more,

you know it. There is no other way out. No matter what you do under your old tactics, you are doomed to

* As a sample of the decisions of the courts adverse to labor, the following instances are given. In the

coalmining regions the employment of children was notorious. In 1905 A.D., labor succeeded in getting a

law passed in Pennsylvania providing that proof of the age of the child and of certain educational

qualifications must accompany the oath of the parent. This was promptly declared unconstitutional by the

Luzerne County Court, on the ground that it violated the Fourteenth Amendment in that it discriminated

between individuals of the same classnamely, children above fourteen years of age and children below.

The state court sustained the decision. The New York Court of Special Sessions, in 1905 A.D., declared

unconstitutional the law prohibiting minors and women from working in factories after nine o'clock at night,

the ground taken being that such a law was "class legislation." Again, the bakers of that time were terribly

overworked. The New York Legislature passed a law restricting work in bakeries to ten hours a day. In 1906

A.D., the Supreme Court of the United States declared this law to be unconstitutional. In part the decision

read: "There is no reasonable ground for interfering with the liberty of persons or the right of free contract by

"You run ahead too fast," O'Connor answered. "You don't know all the ways out. There is another way out.

We know what we're about. We're sick of strikes. They've got us beaten that way to a frazzle. But I don't

O'Connor laughed and shook his head. "I can tell you this much: We've not been asleep. And we're not

"It's a dark business, from the way you hide it," Ernest said with growing anger.

"We've paid for our experience in sweat and blood, and we've earned all that's coming to us," was the reply.

"If you're afraid to tell me your way out, I'll tell it to you." Ernest's blood was up. "You're going in for

grabsharing. You've made terms with the enemy, that's what you've done. You've sold out the cause of

"I'm not saying anything," O'Connor answered sullenly. "Only I guess we know what's best for us a little bit

"And you don't care a cent for what is best for the rest of labor. You kick it into the ditch."

"I'm not saying anything," O'Connor replied, "except that I'm president of the Machinists' Association, and

And then, when the labor leaders had left, Ernest, with the calmness of defeat, outlined to me the course of

"The socialists used to foretell with joy," he said, "the coming of the day when organized labor, defeated on

the industrial field, would come over on to the political field. Well, the Iron Heel has defeated the labor

unions on the industrial field and driven them over to the political field; and instead of this being joyful for

us, it will be a source of grief. The Iron Heel learned its lesson. We showed it our power in the general strike.

"Simply by subsidizing the great unions. They won't join in the next general strike. Therefore it won't be a

"Oh, it hasn't subsidized all of the unions. That's not necessary. Here is what is going to happen. Wages are

going to be advanced and hours shortened in the railroad unions, the iron and steel workers unions, and the

engineer and machinist unions. In these unions more favorable conditions will continue to prevail.

"Still I don't see," I objected. "What is to become of the other unions? There are far more unions outside of

"The other unions will be ground out of existenceall of them. For, don't you see, the railway men,

machinists and engineers, iron and steel workers, do all of the vitally essential work in our machine

civilization. Assured of their faithfulness, the Iron Heel can snap its fingers at all the rest of labor. Iron, steel,

coal, machinery, and transportation constitute the backbone of the whole industrial fabric."

They are practically unskilled labor. They will not count. Their wages will go down and their hours will

increase. They will be slaves like all the rest of us, and they will become about the most bestial of all of us.

They will be compelled to work, just as the farmers are compelled to work now for the masters who robbed

them of their land. And the same with all the other unions outside the combination. Watch them wobble and

go to pieces, and their members become slaves driven to toil by empty stomachs and the law of the land.

"Do you know what will happen to Farley* and his strikebreakers? I'll tell you. Strikebreaking as an

occupation will cease. There won't be any more strikes. In place of strikes will be slave revolts. Farley and his

gang will be promoted to slavedriving. Oh, it won't be called that; it will be called enforcing the law of the

land that compels the laborers to work. It simply prolongs the fight, this treachery of the big unions. Heaven

* James Farleya notorious strikebreaker of the period. A man more courageous than ethical, and of

undeniable ability. He rose high under the rule of the Iron Heel and finally was translated into the oligarch

class. He was assassinated in 1932 by Sarah Jenkins, whose husband, thirty years before, had been killed by

"But with such a powerful combination as the Oligarchy and the big unions, is there any reason to believe

that the Revolution will ever triumph?" I queried. "May not the combination endure forever?"

He shook his head. "One of our generalizations is that every system founded upon class and caste contains

within itself the germs of its own decay. When a system is founded upon class, how can caste be prevented?

The Iron Heel will not be able to prevent it, and in the end caste will destroy the Iron Heel. The oligarchs

have already developed caste among themselves; but wait until the favored unions develop caste. The Iron

"In the favored unions are the flower of the American workingmen. They are strong, efficient men. They

have become members of those unions through competition for place. Every fit workman in the United States

will be possessed by the ambition to become a member of the favored unions. The Oligarchy will encourage

such ambition and the consequent competition. Thus will the strong men, who might else be revolutionists,

"On the other hand, the labor castes, the members of the favored unions, will strive to make their

organizations into close corporations. And they will succeed. Membership in the labor castes will become

hereditary. Sons will succeed fathers, and there will be no inflow of new strength from that eternal reservoir

of strength, the common people. This will mean deterioration of the labor castes, and in the end they will

become weaker and weaker. At the same time, as an institution, they will become temporarily allpowerful.

They will be like the guards of the palace in old Rome, and there will be palace revolutions whereby the labor

castes will seize the reins of power. And there will be counterpalace revolutions of the oligarchs, and

sometimes the one, and sometimes the other, will be in power. And through it all the inevitable

casteweakening will go on, so that in the end the common people will come into their own."

This foreshadowing of a slow social evolution was made when Ernest was first depressed by the defection of

the great unions. I never agreed with him in it, and I disagree now, as I write these lines, more heartily than

ever; for even now, though Ernest is gone, we are on the verge of the revolt that will sweep all oligarchies

away. Yet I have here given Ernest's prophecy because it was his prophecy. In spite of his belief in it, he

worked like a giant against it, and he, more than any man, has made possible the revolt that even now waits

* Everhard's social foresight was remarkable. As clearly as in the light of past events, he saw the defection of

the favored unions, the rise and the slow decay of the labor castes, and the struggle between the decaying

"But if the Oligarchy persists," I asked him that evening, "what will become of the great surpluses that will

"The surpluses will have to be expended somehow," he answered; "and trust the oligarchs to find a way.

Magnificent roads will be built. There will be great achievements in science, and especially in art. When the

oligarchs have completely mastered the people, they will have time to spare for other things. They will

become worshippers of beauty. They will become artlovers. And under their direction and generously

rewarded, will toil the artists. The result will be great art; for no longer, as up to yesterday, will the artists

pander to the bourgeois taste of the middle class. It will be great art, I tell you, and wonder cities will arise

that will make tawdry and cheap the cities of old time. And in these cities will the oligarchs dwell and

* We cannot but marvel at Everhard's foresight. Before ever the thought of wonder cities like Ardis and

Asgard entered the minds of the oligarchs, Everhard saw those cities and the inevitable necessity for their

"Thus will the surplus be constantly expended while labor does the work. The building of these great works

and cities will give a starvation ration to millions of common laborers, for the enormous bulk of the surplus

will compel an equally enormous expenditure, and the oligarchs will build for a thousand yearsay, for ten

thousand years. They will build as the Egyptians and the Babylonians never dreamed of building; and when

the oligarchs have passed away, their great roads and their wonder cities will remain for the brotherhood of

* And since that day of prophecy, have passed away the three centuries of the Iron Heel and the four

centuries of the Brotherhood of Man, and today we tread the roads and dwell in the cities that the oligarchs

built. It is true, we are even now building still more wonderful wonder cities, but the wonder cities of the

oligarchs endure, and I write these lines in Ardis, one of the most wonderful of them all.

"These things the oligarchs will do because they cannot help doing them. These great works will be the form

their expenditure of the surplus will take, and in the same way that the ruling classes of Egypt of long ago

expended the surplus they robbed from the people by the building of temples and pyramids. Under the

oligarchs will flourish, not a priest class, but an artist class. And in place of the merchant class of bourgeoisie

will be the labor castes. And beneath will be the abyss, wherein will fester and starve and rot, and ever renew

itself, the common people, the great bulk of the population. And in the end, who knows in what day, the

common people will rise up out of the abyss; the labor castes and the Oligarchy will crumble away; and then,

at last, after the travail of the centuries, will it be the day of the common man. I had thought to see that day;

"Sing me to sleep," he murmured whimsically. "I have had a visioning, and I wish to forget."

It was near the end of January, 1913, that the changed attitude of the Oligarchy toward the favored unions

was made public. The newspapers published information of an unprecedented rise in wages and shortening of

hours for the railroad employees, the iron and steel workers, and the engineers and machinists. But the whole

truth was not told. The oligarchs did not dare permit the telling of the whole truth. In reality, the wages had

been raised much higher, and the privileges were correspondingly greater. All this was secret, but secrets will

out. Members of the favored unions told their wives, and the wives gossiped, and soon all the labor world

It was merely the logical development of what in the nineteenth century had been known as grabsharing. In

the industrial warfare of that time, profitsharing had been tried. That is, the capitalists had striven to placate

the workers by interesting them financially in their work. But profitsharing, as a system, was ridiculous and

impossible. Profitsharing could be successful only in isolated cases in the midst of a system of industrial

strife; for if all labor and all capital shared profits, the same conditions would obtain as did obtain when there

So, out of the unpractical idea of profitsharing, arose the practical idea of grabsharing. "Give us more pay

and charge it to the public," was the slogan of the strong unions.* And here and there this selfish policy

worked successfully. In charging it to the public, it was charged to the great mass of unorganized labor and of

weakly organized labor. These workers actually paid the increased wages of their stronger brothers who were

members of unions that were labor monopolies. This idea, as I say, was merely carried to its logical

conclusion, on a large scale, by the combination of the oligarchs and the favored unions.

* All the railroad unions entered into this combination with the oligarchs, and it is of interest to note that the

first definite application of the policy of profitgrabbing was made by a railroad union in the nineteenth

century A.D., namely, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. P. M. Arthur was for twenty years Grand

Chief of the Brotherhood. After the strike on the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1877, he broached a scheme to

have the Locomotive Engineers make terms with the railroads and to "go it alone" so far as the rest of the

labor unions were concerned. This scheme was eminently successful. It was as successful as it was selfish,

and out of it was coined the word "arthurization," to denote grab sharing on the part of labor unions. This

word "arthurization" has long puzzled the etymologists, but its derivation, I hope, is now made clear.

As soon as the secret of the defection of the favored unions leaked out, there were rumblings and mutterings

in the labor world. Next, the favored unions withdrew from the international organizations and broke off all

affiliations. Then came trouble and violence. The members of the favored unions were branded as traitors,

and in saloons and brothels, on the streets and at work, and, in fact, everywhere, they were assaulted by the

Countless heads were broken, and there were many killed. No member of the favored unions was safe. They

gathered together in bands in order to go to work or to return from work. They walked always in the middle

of the street. On the sidewalk they were liable to have their skulls crushed by bricks and cobblestones thrown

from windows and housetops. They were permitted to carry weapons, and the authorities aided them in

every way. Their persecutors were sentenced to long terms in prison, where they were harshly treated; while

no man, not a member of the favored unions, was permitted to carry weapons. Violation of this law was made

Outraged labor continued to wreak vengeance on the traitors. Caste lines formed automatically. The children

of the traitors were persecuted by the children of the workers who had been betrayed, until it was impossible

for the former to play on the streets or to attend the public schools. Also, the wives and families of the traitors

were ostracized, while the corner groceryman who sold provisions to them was boycotted.

As a result, driven back upon themselves from every side, the traitors and their families became clannish.

Finding it impossible to dwell in safety in the midst of the betrayed proletariat, they moved into new

localities inhabited by themselves alone. In this they were favored by the oligarchs. Good dwellings, modern

and sanitary, were built for them, surrounded by spacious yards, and separated here and there by parks and

playgrounds. Their children attended schools especially built for them, and in these schools manual training

and applied science were specialized upon. Thus, and unavoidably, at the very beginning, out of this

segregation arose caste. The members of the favored unions became the aristocracy of labor. They were set

apart from the rest of labor. They were better housed, better clothed, better fed, better treated. They were

In the meantime, the rest of the working class was more harshly treated. Many little privileges were taken

away from it, while its wages and its standard of living steadily sank down. Incidentally, its public schools

deteriorated, and education slowly ceased to be compulsory. The increase in the younger generation of

The capture of the worldmarket by the United States had disrupted the rest of the world. Institutions and

governments were everywhere crashing or transforming. Germany, Italy, France, Australia, and New Zealand

were busy forming cooperative commonwealths. The British Empire was falling apart. England's hands were

full. In India revolt was in full swing. The cry in all Asia was, "Asia for the Asiatics!" And behind this cry

was Japan, ever urging and aiding the yellow and brown races against the white. And while Japan dreamed of

continental empire and strove to realize the dream, she suppressed her own proletarian revolution. It was a

simple war of the castes, Coolie versus Samurai, and the coolie socialists were executed by tens of thousands.

Forty thousand were killed in the streetfighting of Tokio and in the futile assault on the Mikado's palace.

Kobe was a shambles; the slaughter of the cotton operatives by machineguns became classic as the most

terrific execution ever achieved by modern war machines. Most savage of all was the Japanese Oligarchy that

arose. Japan dominated the East, and took to herself the whole Asiatic portion of the worldmarket, with the

England managed to crush her own proletarian revolution and to hold on to India, though she was brought to

the verge of exhaustion. Also, she was compelled to let her great colonies slip away from her. So it was that

the socialists succeeded in making Australia and New Zealand into cooperative commonwealths. And it was

for the same reason that Canada was lost to the mother country. But Canada crushed her own socialist

revolution, being aided in this by the Iron Heel. At the same time, the Iron Heel helped Mexico and Cuba to

put down revolt. The result was that the Iron Heel was firmly established in the New World. It had welded

into one compact political mass the whole of North America from the Panama Canal to the Arctic Ocean.

And England, at the sacrifice of her great colonies, had succeeded only in retaining India. But this was no

more than temporary. The struggle with Japan and the rest of Asia for India was merely delayed. England

was destined shortly to lose India, while behind that event loomed the struggle between a united Asia and the

And while all the world was torn with conflict, we of the United States were not placid and peaceful. The

defection of the great unions had prevented our proletarian revolt, but violence was everywhere. In addition

to the labor troubles, and the discontent of the farmers and of the remnant of the middle class, a religious

revival had blazed up. An offshoot of the Seventh Day Adventists sprang into sudden prominence,

"Confusion thrice confounded!" Ernest cried. "How can we hope for solidarity with all these cross purposes

And truly the religious revival assumed formidable proportions. The people, what of their wretchedness, and

of their disappointment in all things earthly, were ripe and eager for a heaven where industrial tyrants entered

no more than camels passed through needleeyes. Wildeyed itinerant preachers swarmed over the land; and

despite the prohibition of the civil authorities, and the persecution for disobedience, the flames of religious

It was the last days, they claimed, the beginning of the end of the world. The four winds had been loosed.

God had stirred the nations to strife. It was a time of visions and miracles, while seers and prophetesses were

legion. The people ceased work by hundreds of thousands and fled to the mountains, there to await the

imminent coming of God and the rising of the hundred and forty and four thousand to heaven. But in the

meantime God did not come, and they starved to death in great numbers. In their desperation they ravaged the

farms for food, and the consequent tumult and anarchy in the country districts but increased the woes of the

Also, the farms and warehouses were the property of the Iron Heel. Armies of troops were put into the field,

and the fanatics were herded back at the bayonet point to their tasks in the cities. There they broke out in ever

recurring mobs and riots. Their leaders were executed for sedition or confined in madhouses. Those who

were executed went to their deaths with all the gladness of martyrs. It was a time of madness. The unrest

spread. In the swamps and deserts and waste places, from Florida to Alaska, the small groups of Indians that

survived were dancing ghost dances and waiting the coming of a Messiah of their own.

And through it all, with a serenity and certitude that was terrifying, continued to rise the form of that monster

of the ages, the Oligarchy. With iron hand and iron heel it mastered the surging millions, out of confusion

"Just wait till we get in," the Grangers saidCalvin said it to us in our Pell Street quarters. "Look at the

states we've captured. With you socialists to back us, we'll make them sing another song when we take

"The millions of the discontented and the impoverished are ours," the socialists said. "The Grangers have

come over to us, the farmers, the middle class, and the laborers. The capitalist system will fall to pieces. In

another month we send fifty men to Congress. Two years hence every office will be ours, from the President

"How many rifles have you got? Do you know where you can get plenty of lead? When it comes to powder,

When it came time for Ernest and me to go to Washington, father did not accompany us. He had become

enamoured of proletarian life. He looked upon our slum neighborhood as a great sociological laboratory, and

he had embarked upon an apparently endless orgy of investigation. He chummed with the laborers, and was

an intimate in scores of homes. Also, he worked at odd jobs, and the work was play as well as learned

investigation, for he delighted in it and was always returning home with copious notes and bubbling over

There was no need for his working at all, because Ernest managed to earn enough from his translating to take

care of the three of us. But father insisted on pursuing his favorite phantom, and a protean phantom it was,

judging from the jobs he worked at. I shall never forget the evening he brought home his street pedler's outfit

of shoelaces and suspenders, nor the time I went into the little corner grocery to make some purchase and

had him wait on me. After that I was not surprised when he tended bar for a week in the saloon across the

street. He worked as a night watchman, hawked potatoes on the street, pasted labels in a cannery warehouse,

was utility man in a paperbox factory, and watercarrier for a street railway construction gang, and even

I think the Bishop's example, so far as wearing apparel was concerned, must have fascinated father, for he

wore the cheap cotton shirt of the laborer and the overalls with the narrow strap about the hips. Yet one habit

remained to him from the old life; he always dressed for dinner, or supper, rather.

I could be happy anywhere with Ernest; and father's happiness in our changed circumstances rounded out my

"When I was a boy," father said, "I was very curious. I wanted to know why things were and how they came

to pass. That was why I became a physicist. The life in me today is just as curious as it was in my boyhood,

Sometimes he ventured north of Market Street into the shopping and theatre district, where he sold papers,

ran errands, and opened cabs. There, one day, closing a cab, he encountered Mr. Wickson. In high glee father

"Wickson looked at me sharply when I closed the door on him, and muttered, "Well, I'll be damned." Just like

that he said it, "Well, I'll be damned." His face turned red and he was so confused that he forgot to tip me. But

he must have recovered himself quickly, for the cab hadn't gone fifty feet before it turned around and came

"'I closed the cab door for you,' I answered. 'According to common custom you might give me a dime.'

"He was certainly seriousa twinge of ossified conscience or something; and so I considered with grave

"His face was quite expectant when I began my answer, but you should have seen it when I finished.

"What could he say? He said nothing. But I said. 'I hope you are happy.' He looked at me curiously. 'Tell me,

"He ordered the cabman to drive on, and went away swearing horribly. And he didn't give me the dime, much

less the home and stock; so you see, my dear, your father's streetarab career is beset with disappointments."

And so it was that father kept on at our Pell Street quarters, while Ernest and I went to Washington. Except

for the final consummation, the old order had passed away, and the final consummation was nearer than I

dreamed. Contrary to our expectation, no obstacles were raised to prevent the socialist Congressmen from

taking their seats. Everything went smoothly, and I laughed at Ernest when he looked upon the very

We found our socialist comrades confident, optimistic of their strength and of the things they would

accomplish. A few Grangers who had been elected to Congress increased our strength, and an elaborate

programme of what was to be done was prepared by the united forces. In all of which Ernest joined loyally

and energetically, though he could not forbear, now and again, from saying, apropos of nothing in particular,

"When it comes to powder, chemical mixtures are better than mechanical mixtures, you take my word."

The trouble arose first with the Grangers in the various states they had captured at the last election. There

were a dozen of these states, but the Grangers who had been elected were not permitted to take office. The

incumbents refused to get out. It was very simple. They merely charged illegality in the elections and

wrapped up the whole situation in the interminable red tape of the law. The Grangers were powerless. The

This was the moment of danger. If the cheated Grangers became violent, all was lost. How we socialists

worked to hold them back! There were days and nights when Ernest never closed his eyes in sleep. The big

leaders of the Grangers saw the peril and were with us to a man. But it was all of no avail. The Oligarchy

wanted violence, and it set its agentsprovocateurs to work. Without discussion, it was the

In a dozen states the revolt flared up. The expropriated farmers took forcible possession of the state

governments. Of course this was unconstitutional, and of course the United States put its soldiers into the

field. Everywhere the agentsprovocateurs urged the people on. These emissaries of the Iron Heel disguised

themselves as artisans, farmers, and farm laborers. In Sacramento, the capital of California, the Grangers had

succeeded in maintaining order. Thousands of secret agents were rushed to the devoted city. In mobs

composed wholly of themselves, they fired and looted buildings and factories. They worked the people up

until they joined them in the pillage. Liquor in large quantities was distributed among the slum classes further

to inflame their minds. And then, when all was ready, appeared upon the scene the soldiers of the United

States, who were, in reality, the soldiers of the Iron Heel. Eleven thousand men, women, and children were

shot down on the streets of Sacramento or murdered in their houses. The national government took

And as with California, so elsewhere. Every Granger state was ravaged with violence and washed in blood.

First, disorder was precipitated by the secret agents and the Black Hundreds, then the troops were called out.

Rioting and mobrule reigned throughout the rural districts. Day and night the smoke of burning farms,

warehouses, villages, and cities filled the sky. Dynamite appeared. Railroad bridges and tunnels were blown

up and trains were wrecked. The poor farmers were shot and hanged in great numbers. Reprisals were bitter,

and many plutocrats and army officers were murdered. Blood and vengeance were in men's hearts. The

regular troops fought the farmers as savagely as had they been Indians. And the regular troops had cause.

Twentyeight hundred of them had been annihilated in a tremendous series of dynamite explosions in

Oregon, and in a similar manner, a number of train loads, at different times and places, had been destroyed.

So it was that the regular troops fought for their lives as well as did the farmers.

As for the militia, the militia law of 1903 was put into effect, and the workers of one state were compelled,

under pain of death, to shoot down their comradeworkers in other states. Of course, the militia law did not

work smoothly at first. Many militia officers were murdered, and many militiamen were executed by

drumhead court martial. Ernest's prophecy was strikingly fulfilled in the cases of Mr. Kowalt and Mr.

Asmunsen. Both were eligible for the militia, and both were drafted to serve in the punitive expedition that

was despatched from California against the farmers of Missouri. Mr. Kowalt and Mr. Asmunsen refused to

serve. They were given short shrift. Drumhead court martial was their portion, and military execution their

Many young men fled into the mountains to escape serving in the militia. There they became outlaws, and it

was not until more peaceful times that they received their punishment. It was drastic. The government issued

a proclamation for all lawabiding citizens to come in from the mountains for a period of three months.

When the proclaimed date arrived, half a million soldiers were sent into the mountainous districts

everywhere. There was no investigation, no trial. Wherever a man was encountered, he was shot down on the

spot. The troops operated on the basis that no man not an outlaw remained in the mountains. Some bands, in

strong positions, fought gallantly, but in the end every deserter from the militia met death.

A more immediate lesson, however, was impressed on the minds of the people by the punishment meted out

to the Kansas militia. The great Kansas Mutiny occurred at the very beginning of military operations against

the Grangers. Six thousand of the militia mutinied. They had been for several weeks very turbulent and

sullen, and for that reason had been kept in camp. Their open mutiny, however, was without doubt

On the night of the 22d of April they arose and murdered their officers, only a small remnant of the latter

escaping. This was beyond the scheme of the Iron Heel, for the agentsprovocateurs had done their work too

well. But everything was grist to the Iron Heel. It had prepared for the outbreak, and the killing of so many

officers gave it justification for what followed. As by magic, forty thousand soldiers of the regular army

surrounded the malcontents. It was a trap. The wretched militiamen found that their machineguns had been

tampered with, and that the cartridges from the captured magazines did not fit their rifles. They hoisted the

white flag of surrender, but it was ignored. There were no survivors. The entire six thousand were

annihilated. Common shell and shrapnel were thrown in upon them from a distance, and, when, in their

desperation, they charged the encircling lines, they were mowed down by the machineguns. I talked with an

eyewitness, and he said that the nearest any militiaman approached the machineguns was a hundred and

fifty yards. The earth was carpeted with the slain, and a final charge of cavalry, with trampling of horses'

Simultaneously with the destruction of the Grangers came the revolt of the coal miners. It was the expiring

effort of organized labor. Threequarters of a million of miners went out on strike. But they were too widely

scattered over the country to advantage from their own strength. They were segregated in their own districts

and beaten into submission. This was the first great slavedrive. Pocock* won his spurs as a slavedriver and

earned the undying hatred of the proletariat. Countless attempts were made upon his life, but he seemed to

bear a charmed existence. It was he who was responsible for the introduction of the Russian passport system

among the miners, and the denial of their right of removal from one part of the country to another.

* Albert Pocock, another of the notorious strikebreakers of earlier years, who, to the day of his death,

successfully held all the coalminers of the country to their task. He was succeeded by his son, Lewis

Pocock, and for five generations this remarkable line of slavedrivers handled the coal mines. The elder

Pocock, known as Pocock I., has been described as follows: "A long, lean head, semicircled by a fringe of

brown and gray hair, with big cheekbones and a heavy chin, . . . a pale face, lustreless gray eyes, a metallic

voice, and a languid manner." He was born of humble parents, and began his career as a bartender. He next

became a private detective for a street railway corporation, and by successive steps developed into a

professional strikebreaker. Pocock V., the last of the line, was blown up in a pumphouse by a bomb during a

In the meantime, the socialists held firm. While the Grangers expired in flame and blood, and organized labor

was disrupted, the socialists held their peace and perfected their secret organization. In vain the Grangers

pleaded with us. We rightly contended that any revolt on our part was virtually suicide for the whole

Revolution. The Iron Heel, at first dubious about dealing with the entire proletariat at one time, had found the

work easier than it had expected, and would have asked nothing better than an uprising on our part. But we

avoided the issue, in spite of the fact that agentsprovocateurs swarmed in our midst. In those early days, the

agents of the Iron Heel were clumsy in their methods. They had much to learn and in the meantime our

Fighting Groups weeded them out. It was bitter, bloody work, but we were fighting for life and for the

Revolution, and we had to fight the enemy with its own weapons. Yet we were fair. No agent of the Iron Heel

was executed without a trial. We may have made mistakes, but if so, very rarely. The bravest, and the most

combative and self sacrificing of our comrades went into the Fighting Groups. Once, after ten years had

passed, Ernest made a calculation from figures furnished by the chiefs of the Fighting Groups, and his

conclusion was that the average life of a man or woman after becoming a member was five years. The

comrades of the Fighting Groups were heroes all, and the peculiar thing about it was that they were opposed

to the taking of life. They violated their own natures, yet they loved liberty and knew of no sacrifice too great

* These Fighting groups were modelled somewhat after the Fighting Organization of the Russian Revolution,

and, despite the unceasing efforts of the Iron Heel, these groups persisted throughout the three centuries of its

existence. Composed of men and women actuated by lofty purpose and unafraid to die, the Fighting Groups

exercised tremendous influence and tempered the savage brutality of the rulers. Not alone was their work

confined to unseen warfare with the secret agents of the Oligarchy. The oligarchs themselves were compelled

to listen to the decrees of the Groups, and often, when they disobeyed, were punished by deathand likewise

with the subordinates of the oligarchs, with the officers of the army and the leaders of the labor castes.

Stern justice was meted out by these organized avengers, but most remarkable was their passionless and

judicial procedure. There were no snap judgments. When a man was captured he was given fair trial and

opportunity for defence. Of necessity, many men were tried and condemned by proxy, as in the case of

General Lampton. This occurred in 2138 A.D. Possibly the most bloodthirsty and malignant of all the

mercenaries that ever served the Iron Heel, he was informed by the Fighting Groups that they had tried him,

found him guilty, and condemned him to deathand this, after three warnings for him to cease from his

ferocious treatment of the proletariat. After his condemnation he surrounded himself with a myriad protective

devices. Years passed, and in vain the Fighting Groups strove to execute their decree. Comrade after

comrade, men and women, failed in their attempts, and were cruelly executed by the Oligarchy. It was the

case of General Lampton that revived crucifixion as a legal method of execution. But in the end the

condemned man found his executioner in the form of a slender girl of seventeen, Madeline Provence, who, to

accomplish her purpose, served two years in his palace as a seamstress to the household. She died in solitary

confinement after horrible and prolonged torture; but today she stands in imperishable bronze in the

We, who by personal experience know nothing of bloodshed, must not judge harshly the heroes of the

Fighting Groups. They gave up their lives for humanity, no sacrifice was too great for them to accomplish,

while inexorable necessity compelled them to bloody expression in an age of blood. The Fighting Groups

constituted the one thorn in the side of the Iron Heel that the Iron Heel could never remove. Everhard was the

father of this curious army, and its accomplishments and successful persistence for three hundred years bear

witness to the wisdom with which he organized and the solid foundation he laid for the succeeding

generations to build upon. In some respects, despite his great economic and sociological contributions, and

his work as a general leader in the Revolution, his organization of the Fighting Groups must be regarded as

The task we set ourselves was threefold. First, the weeding out from our circles of the secret agents of the

Oligarchy. Second, the organizing of the Fighting Groups, and outside of them, of the general secret

organization of the Revolution. And third, the introduction of our own secret agents into every branch of the

Oligarchyinto the labor castes and especially among the telegraphers and secretaries and clerks, into the

army, the agents provocateurs, and the slavedrivers. It was slow work, and perilous, and often were our

The Iron Heel had triumphed in open warfare, but we held our own in the new warfare, strange and awful and

subterranean, that we instituted. All was unseen, much was unguessed; the blind fought the blind; and yet

through it all was order, purpose, control. We permeated the entire organization of the Iron Heel with our

agents, while our own organization was permeated with the agents of the Iron Heel. It was warfare dark and

devious, replete with intrigue and conspiracy, plot and counterplot. And behind all, ever menacing, was

death, violent and terrible. Men and women disappeared, our nearest and dearest comrades. We saw them

today. Tomorrow they were gone; we never saw them again, and we knew that they had died.

There was no trust, no confidence anywhere. The man who plotted beside us, for all we knew, might be an

agent of the Iron Heel. We mined the organization of the Iron Heel with our secret agents, and the Iron Heel

countermined with its secret agents inside its own organization. And it was the same with our organization.

And despite the absence of confidence and trust we were compelled to base our every effort on confidence

and trust. Often were we betrayed. Men were weak. The Iron Heel could offer money, leisure, the joys and

pleasures that waited in the repose of the wonder cities. We could offer nothing but the satisfaction of being

faithful to a noble ideal. As for the rest, the wages of those who were loyal were unceasing peril, torture, and

Men were weak, I say, and because of their weakness we were compelled to make the only other reward that

was within our power. It was the reward of death. Out of necessity we had to punish our traitors. For every

man who betrayed us, from one to a dozen faithful avengers were loosed upon his heels. We might fail to

carry out our decrees against our enemies, such as the Pococks, for instance; but the one thing we could not

afford to fail in was the punishment of our own traitors. Comrades turned traitor by permission, in order to

win to the wonder cities and there execute our sentences on the real traitors. In fact, so terrible did we make

ourselves, that it became a greater peril to betray us than to remain loyal to us.

The Revolution took on largely the character of religion. We worshipped at the shrine of the Revolution,

which was the shrine of liberty. It was the divine flashing through us. Men and women devoted their lives to

the Cause, and newborn babes were sealed to it as of old they had been sealed to the service of God. We

With the destruction of the Granger states, the Grangers in Congress disappeared. They were being tried for

high treason, and their places were taken by the creatures of the Iron Heel. The socialists were in a pitiful

minority, and they knew that their end was near. Congress and the Senate were empty pretences, farces.

Public questions were gravely debated and passed upon according to the old forms, while in reality all that

was done was to give the stamp of constitutional procedure to the mandates of the Oligarchy.

Ernest was in the thick of the fight when the end came. It was in the debate on the bill to assist the

unemployed. The hard times of the preceding year had thrust great masses of the proletariat beneath the

starvation line, and the continued and widereaching disorder had but sunk them deeper. Millions of people

were starving, while the oligarchs and their supporters were surfeiting on the surplus.* We called these

wretched people the people of the abyss,** and it was to alleviate their awful suffering that the socialists had

introduced the unemployed bill. But this was not to the fancy of the Iron Heel. In its own way it was

preparing to set these millions to work, but the way was not our way, wherefore it had issued its orders that

our bill should be voted down. Ernest and his fellows knew that their effort was futile, but they were tired of

the suspense. They wanted something to happen. They were accomplishing nothing, and the best they hoped

for was the putting of an end to the legislative farce in which they were unwilling players. They knew not

what end would come, but they never anticipated a more disastrous end than the one that did come.

* The same conditions obtained in the nineteenth century A.D. under British rule in India. The natives died of

starvation by the million, while their rulers robbed them of the fruits of their toil and expended it on

magnificent pageants and mumbojumbo fooleries. Perforce, in this enlightened age, we have much to blush

for in the acts of our ancestors. Our only consolation is philosophic. We must accept the capitalistic stage in

social evolution as about on a par with the earlier monkey stage. The human had to pass through those stages

in its rise from the mire and slime of low organic life. It was inevitable that much of the mire and slime

** The people of the abyssthis phrase was struck out by the genius of H. G. Wells in the late nineteenth

century A.D. Wells was a sociological seer, sane and normal as well as warm human. Many fragments of his

work have come down to us, while two of his greatest achievements, "Anticipations" and "Mankind in the

Making," have come down intact. Before the oligarchs, and before Everhard, Wells speculated upon the

building of the wonder cities, though in his writings they are referred to as "pleasure cities."

I sat in the gallery that day. We all knew that something terrible was imminent. It was in the air, and its

presence was made visible by the armed soldiers drawn up in lines in the corridors, and by the officers

grouped in the entrances to the House itself. The Oligarchy was about to strike. Ernest was speaking. He was

describing the sufferings of the unemployed, as if with the wild idea of in some way touching their hearts and

consciences; but the Republican and Democratic members sneered and jeered at him, and there was uproar

"I know nothing that I may say can influence you," he said. "You have no souls to be influenced. You are

spineless, flaccid things. You pompously call yourselves Republicans and Democrats. There is no Republican

Party. There is no Democratic Party. There are no Republicans nor Democrats in this House. You are

lickspittlers and panderers, the creatures of the Plutocracy. You talk verbosely in antiquated terminology of

your love of liberty, and all the while you wear the scarlet livery of the Iron Heel."

Here the shouting and the cries of "Order! order!" drowned his voice, and he stood disdainfully till the din

had somewhat subsided. He waved his hand to include all of them, turned to his own comrades, and said:

Pandemonium broke out again. The Speaker rapped for order and glanced expectantly at the officers in the

doorways. There were cries of "Sedition!" and a great, rotund New York member began shouting

"Anarchist!" at Ernest. And Ernest was not pleasant to look at. Every fighting fibre of him was quivering, and

"Remember," he said, in a voice that made itself heard above the din, "that as you show mercy now to the

"I know that you will not vote for this bill," Ernest went on. "You have received the command from your

masters to vote against it. And yet you call me anarchist. You, who have destroyed the government of the

people, and who shamelessly flaunt your scarlet shame in public places, call me anarchist. I do not believe in

hellfire and brimstone; but in moments like this I regret my unbelief. Nay, in moments like this I almost do

believe. Surely there must be a hell, for in no less place could it be possible for you to receive punishment

adequate to your crimes. So long as you exist, there is a vital need for hellfire in the Cosmos."

There was movement in the doorways. Ernest, the Speaker, all the members turned to see.

"Why do you not call your soldiers in, Mr. Speaker, and bid them do their work?" Ernest demanded. "They

"There are other plans afoot," was the retort. "That is why the soldiers are present."

But at the word "assassination" the uproar broke out again. Ernest could not make himself heard, but he

remained on his feet waiting for a lull. And then it happened. From my place in the gallery I saw nothing

except the flash of the explosion. The roar of it filled my ears and I saw Ernest reeling and falling in a swirl

of smoke, and the soldiers rushing up all the aisles. His comrades were on their feet, wild with anger, capable

of any violence. But Ernest steadied himself for a moment, and waved his arms for silence.

"It is a plot!" his voice rang out in warning to his comrades. "Do nothing, or you will be destroyed."

Then he slowly sank down, and the soldiers reached him. The next moment soldiers were clearing the

Though he was my husband, I was not permitted to get to him. When I announced who I was, I was promptly

placed under arrest. And at the same time were arrested all socialist Congressmen in Washington, including

The trial was prompt and brief. The men were foredoomed. The wonder was that Ernest was not executed.

This was a blunder on the part of the Oligarchy, and a costly one. But the Oligarchy was too confident in

those days. It was drunk with success, and little did it dream that that small handful of heroes had within them

the power to rock it to its foundations. Tomorrow, when the Great Revolt breaks out and all the world

resounds with the tramp, tramp of the millions, the Oligarchy, will realize, and too late, how mightily that

* Avis Everhard took for granted that her narrative would be read in her own day, and so omits to mention

the outcome of the trial for high treason. Many other similar disconcerting omissions will be noticed in the

Manuscript. Fiftytwo socialist Congressmen were tried, and all were found guilty. Strange to relate, not one

received the death sentence. Everhard and eleven others, among whom were Theodore Donnelson and

Matthew Kent, received life imprisonment. The remaining forty received sentences varying from thirty to

fortyfive years; while Arthur Simpson, referred to in the Manuscript as being ill of typhoid fever at the time

of the explosion, received only fifteen years. It is the tradition that he died of starvation in solitary

confinement, and this harsh treatment is explained as having been caused by his uncompromising

stubbornness and his fiery and tactless hatred for all men that served the despotism. He died in Cabanas in

Cuba, where three of his comrades were also confined. The fiftytwo socialist Congressmen were confined in

military fortresses scattered all over the United States. Thus, Du Bois and Woods were held in Porto Rico,

while Everhard and Merryweather were placed in Alcatraz, an island in San Francisco Bay that had already

As a revolutionist myself, as one on the inside who knew the hopes and fears and secret plans of the

revolutionists, I am fitted to answer, as very few are, the charge that they were guilty of exploding the bomb

in Congress. And I can say flatly, without qualification or doubt of any sort, that the socialists, in Congress

and out, had no hand in the affair. Who threw the bomb we do not know, but the one thing we are absolutely

On the other hand, there is evidence to show that the Iron Heel was responsible for the act. Of course, we

cannot prove this. Our conclusion is merely presumptive. But here are such facts as we do know. It had been

reported to the Speaker of the House, by secret service agents of the government, that the Socialist

Congressmen were about to resort to terroristic tactics, and that they had decided upon the day when their

tactics would go into effect. This day was the very day of the explosion. Wherefore the Capitol had been

packed with troops in anticipation. Since we knew nothing about the bomb, and since a bomb actually was

exploded, and since the authorities had prepared in advance for the explosion, it is only fair to conclude that

the Iron Heel did know. Furthermore, we charge that the Iron Heel was guilty of the outrage, and that the Iron

Heel planned and perpetrated the outrage for the purpose of foisting the guilt on our shoulders and so

From the Speaker the warning leaked out to all the creatures in the House that wore the scarlet livery. They

knew, while Ernest was speaking, that some violent act was to be committed. And to do them justice, they

honestly believed that the act was to be committed by the socialists. At the trial, and still with honest belief,

several testified to having seen Ernest prepare to throw the bomb, and that it exploded prematurely. Of course

they saw nothing of the sort. In the fevered imagination of fear they thought they saw, that was all.

As Ernest said at the trial: "Does it stand to reason, if I were going to throw a bomb, that I should elect to

throw a feeble little squib like the one that was thrown? There wasn't enough powder in it. It made a lot of

smoke, but hurt no one except me. It exploded right at my feet, and yet it did not kill me. Believe me, when I

get to throwing bombs, I'll do damage. There'll be more than smoke in my petards."

In return it was argued by the prosecution that the weakness of the bomb was a blunder on the part of the

socialists, just as its premature explosion, caused by Ernest's losing his nerve and dropping it, was a blunder.

And to clinch the argument, there were the several Congressmen who testified to having seen Ernest fumble

As for ourselves, not one of us knew how the bomb was thrown. Ernest told me that the fraction of an instant

before it exploded he both heard and saw it strike at his feet. He testified to this at the trial, but no one

believed him. Besides, the whole thing, in popular slang, was "cooked up." The Iron Heel had made up its

There is a saying that truth will out. I have come to doubt that saying. Nineteen years have elapsed, and

despite our untiring efforts, we have failed to find the man who really did throw the bomb. Undoubtedly he

was some emissary of the Iron Heel, but he has escaped detection. We have never got the slightest clew to his

identity. And now, at this late date, nothing remains but for the affair to take its place among the mysteries of

* Avis Everhard would have had to live for many generations ere she could have seen the clearing up of this

particular mystery. A little less than a hundred years ago, and a little more than six hundred years after the

death, the confession of Pervaise was discovered in the secret archives of the Vatican. It is perhaps well to tell

a little something about this obscure document, which, in the main, is of interest to the historian only.

Pervaise was an American, of French descent, who in 1913 A.D., was lying in the Tombs Prison, New York

City, awaiting trial for murder. From his confession we learn that he was not a criminal. He was

warmblooded, passionate, emotional. In an insane fit of jealousy he killed his wifea very common act in

those times. Pervaise was mastered by the fear of death, all of which is recounted at length in his confession.

To escape death he would have done anything, and the police agents prepared him by assuring him that he

could not possibly escape conviction of murder in the first degree when his trial came off. In those days,

murder in the first degree was a capital offense. The guilty man or woman was placed in a specially

constructed deathchair, and, under the supervision of competent physicians, was destroyed by a current of

electricity. This was called electrocution, and it was very popular during that period. Anaesthesia, as a mode

This man, good at heart but with a ferocious animalism close at the surface of his being, lying in jail and

expectant of nothing less than death, was prevailed upon by the agents of the Iron Heel to throw the bomb in

the House of Representatives. In his confession he states explicitly that he was informed that the bomb was to

be a feeble thing and that no lives would be lost. This is directly in line with the fact that the bomb was

Pervaise was smuggled into one of the galleries ostensibly closed for repairs. He was to select the moment for

the throwing of the bomb, and he naively confesses that in his interest in Everhard's tirade and the general

Not only was he released from prison in reward for his deed, but he was granted an income for life. This he

did not long enjoy. In 1914 A.D., in September, he was stricken with rheumatism of the heart and lived for

three days. It was then that he sent for the Catholic priest, Father Peter Durban, and to him made confession.

So important did it seem to the priest, that he had the confession taken down in writing and sworn to. What

happened after this we can only surmise. The document was certainly important enough to find its way to

Rome. Powerful influences must have been brought to bear, hence its suppression. For centuries no hint of its

existence reached the world. It was not until in the last century that Lorbia, the brilliant Italian scholar,

There is today no doubt whatever that the Iron Heel was responsible for the bomb that exploded in the

House of Representatives in 1913 A.D. Even though the Pervaise confession had never come to light, no

reasonable doubt could obtain; for the act in question, that sent fiftytwo Congressmen to prison, was on a

par with countless other acts committed by the oligarchs, and, before them, by the capitalists.

There is the classic instance of the ferocious and wanton judicial murder of the innocent and socalled

Haymarket Anarchists in Chicago in the penultimate decade of the nineteenth century A.D. In a category by

itself is the deliberate burning and destruction of capitalist property by the capitalists themselves. For such

destruction of property innocent men were frequently punished "railroaded" in the parlance of the times.

In the labor troubles of the first decade of the twentieth century A.D., between the capitalists and the Western

Federation of Miners, similar but more bloody tactics were employed. The railroad station at Independence

was blown up by the agents of the capitalists. Thirteen men were killed, and many more were wounded. And

then the capitalists, controlling the legislative and judicial machinery of the state of Colorado, charged the

miners with the crime and came very near to convicting them. Romaines, one of the tools in this affair, like

Pervaise, was lying in jail in another state, Kansas, awaiting trial, when he was approached by the agents of

the capitalists. But, unlike Pervaise the confession of Romaines was made public in his own time.

Then, during this same period, there was the case of Moyer and Haywood, two strong, fearless leaders of

labor. One was president and the other was secretary of the Western Federation of Miners. The exgovernor

of Idaho had been mysteriously murdered. The crime, at the time, was openly charged to the mine owners by

the socialists and miners. Nevertheless, in violation of the national and state constitutions, and by means of

conspiracy on the parts of the governors of Idaho and Colorado, Moyer and Haywood were kidnapped,

thrown into jail, and charged with the murder. It was this instance that provoked from Eugene V. Debs,

national leader of the American socialists at the time, the following words: "The labor leaders that cannot be

bribed nor bullied, must be ambushed and murdered. The only crime of Moyer and Haywood is that they

have been unswervingly true to the working class. The capitalists have stolen our country, debauched our

politics, defiled our judiciary, and ridden over us roughshod, and now they propose to murder those who

will not abjectly surrender to their brutal dominion. The governors of Colorado and Idaho are but executing

the mandates of their masters, the Plutocracy. The issue is the Workers versus the Plutocracy. If they strike

Of myself, during this period, there is not much to say. For six months I was kept in prison, though charged

with no crime. I was a suspecta word of fear that all revolutionists were soon to come to know. But our

own nascent secret service was beginning to work. By the end of my second month in prison, one of the

jailers made himself known as a revolutionist in touch with the organization. Several weeks later, Joseph

Parkhurst, the prison doctor who had just been appointed, proved himself to be a member of one of the

Thus, throughout the organization of the Oligarchy, our own organization, weblike and spidery, was

insinuating itself. And so I was kept in touch with all that was happening in the world without. And

furthermore, every one of our imprisoned leaders was in contact with brave comrades who masqueraded in

the livery of the Iron Heel. Though Ernest lay in prison three thousand miles away, on the Pacific Coast, I

was in unbroken communication with him, and our letters passed regularly back and forth.

The leaders, in prison and out, were able to discuss and direct the campaign. It would have been possible,

within a few months, to have effected the escape of some of them; but since imprisonment proved no bar to

our activities, it was decided to avoid anything premature. Fiftytwo Congressmen were in prison, and fully

three hundred more of our leaders. It was planned that they should be delivered simultaneously. If part of

them escaped, the vigilance of the oligarchs might be aroused so as to prevent the escape of the remainder.

On the other hand, it was held that a simultaneous jaildelivery all over the land would have immense

psychological influence on the proletariat. It would show our strength and give confidence.

So it was arranged, when I was released at the end of six months, that I was to disappear and prepare a secure

hidingplace for Ernest. To disappear was in itself no easy thing. No sooner did I get my freedom than my

footsteps began to be dogged by the spies of the Iron Heel. It was necessary that they should be thrown off

the track, and that I should win to California. It is laughable, the way this was accomplished.

Already the passport system, modelled on the Russian, was developing. I dared not cross the continent in my

own character. It was necessary that I should be completely lost if ever I was to see Ernest again, for by

trailing me after he escaped, he would be caught once more. Again, I could not disguise myself as a

proletarian and travel. There remained the disguise of a member of the Oligarchy. While the archoligarchs

were no more than a handful, there were myriads of lesser ones of the type, say, of Mr. Wicksonmen,

worth a few millions, who were adherents of the arch oligarchs. The wives and daughters of these lesser

oligarchs were legion, and it was decided that I should assume the disguise of such a one. A few years later

this would have been impossible, because the passport system was to become so perfect that no man, woman,

nor child in all the land was unregistered and unaccounted for in his or her movements.

When the time was ripe, the spies were thrown off my track. An hour later Avis Everhard was no more. At

that time one Felice Van Verdighan, accompanied by two maids and a lapdog, with another maid for the

lapdog,* entered a drawingroom on a Pullman,** and a few minutes later was speeding west.

* This ridiculous picture well illustrates the heartless conduct of the masters. While people starved, lapdogs

were waited upon by maids. This was a serious masquerade on the part of Avis Everhard. Life and death and

the Cause were in the issue; therefore the picture must be accepted as a true picture. It affords a striking

** Pullmanthe designation of the more luxurious railway cars of the period and so named from the

The three maids who accompanied me were revolutionists. Two were members of the Fighting Groups, and

the third, Grace Holbrook, entered a group the following year, and six months later was executed by the Iron

Heel. She it was who waited upon the dog. Of the other two, Bertha Stole disappeared twelve years later,

while Anna Roylston still lives and plays an increasingly important part in the Revolution.*

* Despite continual and almost inconceivable hazards, Anna Roylston lived to the royal age of ninetyone.

As the Pococks defied the executioners of the Fighting Groups, so she defied the executioners of the Iron

Heel. She bore a charmed life and prospered amid dangers and alarms. She herself was an executioner for the

Fighting Groups, and, known as the Red Virgin, she became one of the inspired figures of the Revolution.

When she was an old woman of sixtynine she shot "Bloody" Halcliffe down in the midst of his armed escort

and got away unscathed. In the end she died peaceably of old age in a secret refuge of the revolutionists in the

Without adventure we crossed the United States to California. When the train stopped at Sixteenth Street

Station, in Oakland, we alighted, and there Felice Van Verdighan, with her two maids, her lapdog, and her

lapdog's maid, disappeared forever. The maids, guided by trusty comrades, were led away. Other comrades

took charge of me. Within half an hour after leaving the train I was on board a small fishing boat and out on

the waters of San Francisco Bay. The winds baffled, and we drifted aimlessly the greater part of the night.

But I saw the lights of Alcatraz where Ernest lay, and found comfort in the thought of nearness to him. By

dawn, what with the rowing of the fishermen, we made the Marin Islands. Here we lay in hiding all day, and

on the following night, swept on by a flood tide and a fresh wind, we crossed San Pablo Bay in two hours and

Here horses were ready and another comrade, and without delay we were away through the starlight. To the

north I could see the loom of Sonoma Mountain, toward which we rode. We left the old town of Sonoma to

the right and rode up a canyon that lay between outlying buttresses of the mountain. The wagonroad became

a woodroad, the woodroad became a cowpath, and the cowpath dwindled away and ceased among the

upland pastures. Straight over Sonoma Mountain we rode. It was the safest route. There was no one to mark

Dawn caught us on the northern brow, and in the gray light we dropped down through chaparral into redwood

canyons deep and warm with the breath of passing summer. It was old country to me that I knew and loved,

and soon I became the guide. The hidingplace was mine. I had selected it. We let down the bars and crossed

an upland meadow. Next, we went over a low, oakcovered ridge and descended into a smaller meadow.

Again we climbed a ridge, this time riding under redlimbed madronos and manzanitas of deeper red. The

first rays of the sun streamed upon our backs as we climbed. A flight of quail thrummed off through the

thickets. A big jackrabbit crossed our path, leaping swiftly and silently like a deer. And then a deer, a

manypronged buck, the sun flashing red gold from neck and shoulders, cleared the crest of the ridge before

We followed in his wake a space, then dropped down a zigzag trail that he disdained into a group of noble

redwoods that stood about a pool of water murky with minerals from the mountain side. I knew every inch of

the way. Once a writer friend of mine had owned the ranch; but he, too, had become a revolutionist, though

more disastrously than I, for he was already dead and gone, and none knew where nor how. He alone, in the

days he had lived, knew the secret of the hidingplace for which I was bound. He had bought the ranch for

beauty, and paid a round price for it, much to the disgust of the local farmers. He used to tell with great glee

how they were wont to shake their heads mournfully at the price, to accomplish ponderously a bit of mental

But he was dead now, nor did the ranch descend to his children. Of all men, it was now the property of Mr.

Wickson, who owned the whole eastern and northern slopes of Sonoma Mountain, running from the

Spreckels estate to the divide of Bennett Valley. Out of it he had made a magnificent deerpark, where, over

thousands of acres of sweet slopes and glades and canyons, the deer ran almost in primitive wildness. The

people who had owned the soil had been driven away. A state home for the feebleminded had also been

To cap it all, Wickson's hunting lodge was a quarter of a mile from my hidingplace. This, instead of being a

danger, was an added security. We were sheltered under the very aegis of one of the minor oligarchs.

Suspicion, by the nature of the situation, was turned aside. The last place in the world the spies of the Iron

Heel would dream of looking for me, and for Ernest when he joined me, was Wickson's deerpark.

We tied our horses among the redwoods at the pool. From a cache behind a hollow rotting log my companion

brought out a variety of things,a fiftypound sack of flour, tinned foods of all sorts, cooking utensils,

blankets, a canvas tarpaulin, books and writing material, a great bundle of letters, a fivegallon can of

kerosene, an oil stove, and, last and most important, a large coil of stout rope. So large was the supply of

But the refuge was very near. Taking the rope and leading the way, I passed through a glade of tangled vines

and bushes that ran between two wooded knolls. The glade ended abruptly at the steep bank of a stream. It

was a little stream, rising from springs, and the hottest summer never dried it up. On every hand were tall

wooded knolls, a group of them, with all the seeming of having been flung there from some careless Titan's

hand. There was no bedrock in them. They rose from their bases hundreds of feet, and they were composed

of red volcanic earth, the famous winesoil of Sonoma. Through these the tiny stream had cut its deep and

It was quite a scramble down to the stream bed, and, once on the bed, we went down stream perhaps for a

hundred feet. And then we came to the great hole. There was no warning of the existence of the hole, nor was

it a hole in the common sense of the word. One crawled through tightlocked briers and branches, and found

oneself on the very edge, peering out and down through a green screen. A couple of hundred feet in length

and width, it was half of that in depth. Possibly because of some fault that had occurred when the knolls were

flung together, and certainly helped by freakish erosion, the hole had been scooped out in the course of

centuries by the wash of water. Nowhere did the raw earth appear. All was garmented by vegetation, from

tiny maidenhair and goldback ferns to mighty redwood and Douglas spruces. These great trees even sprang

out from the walls of the hole. Some leaned over at angles as great as fortyfive degrees, though the majority

It was a perfect hidingplace. No one ever came there, not even the village boys of Glen Ellen. Had this hole

existed in the bed of a canyon a mile long, or several miles long, it would have been well known. But this

was no canyon. From beginning to end the length of the stream was no more than five hundred yards. Three

hundred yards above the hole the stream took its rise in a spring at the foot of a flat meadow. A hundred yards

below the hole the stream ran out into open country, joining the main stream and flowing across rolling and

My companion took a turn of the rope around a tree, and with me fast on the other end lowered away. In no

time I was on the bottom. And in but a short while he had carried all the articles from the cache and lowered

them down to me. He hauled the rope up and hid it, and before he went away called down to me a cheerful

Before I go on I want to say a word for this comrade, John Carlson, a humble figure of the Revolution, one of

the countless faithful ones in the ranks. He worked for Wickson, in the stables near the hunting lodge. In fact,

it was on Wickson's horses that we had ridden over Sonoma Mountain. For nearly twenty years now John

Carlson has been custodian of the refuge. No thought of disloyalty, I am sure, has ever entered his mind

during all that time. To betray his trust would have been in his mind a thing undreamed. He was phlegmatic,

stolid to such a degree that one could not but wonder how the Revolution had any meaning to him at all. And

yet love of freedom glowed sombrely and steadily in his dim soul. In ways it was indeed good that he was not

flighty and imaginative. He never lost his head. He could obey orders, and he was neither curious nor

"When I was a young man I was a soldier," was his answer. "It was in Germany. There all young men must

be in the army. So I was in the army. There was another soldier there, a young man, too. His father was what

you call an agitator, and his father was in jail for lese majestywhat you call speaking the truth about the

Emperor. And the young man, the son, talked with me much about people, and work, and the robbery of the

people by the capitalists. He made me see things in new ways, and I became a socialist. His talk was very true

and good, and I have never forgotten. When I came to the United States I hunted up the socialists. I became a

member of a sectionthat was in the day of the S. L. P. Then later, when the split came, I joined the local of

the S. P. I was working in a livery stable in San Francisco then. That was before the Earthquake. I have paid

my dues for twentytwo years. I am yet a member, and I yet pay my dues, though it is very secret now. I will

always pay my dues, and when the cooperative commonwealth comes, I will be glad."

Left to myself, I proceeded to cook breakfast on the oil stove and to prepare my home. Often, in the early

morning, or in the evening after dark, Carlson would steal down to the refuge and work for a couple of hours.

At first my home was the tarpaulin. Later, a small tent was put up. And still later, when we became assured of

the perfect security of the place, a small house was erected. This house was completely hidden from any

chance eye that might peer down from the edge of the hole. The lush vegetation of that sheltered spot make a

natural shield. Also, the house was built against the perpendicular wall; and in the wall itself, shored by

strong timbers, well drained and ventilated, we excavated two small rooms. Oh, believe me, we had many

comforts. When Biedenbach, the German terrorist, hid with us some time later, he installed a

smokeconsuming device that enabled us to sit by crackling wood fires on winter nights.

And here I must say a word for that gentlesouled terrorist, than whom there is no comrade in the Revolution

more fearfully misunderstood. Comrade Biedenbach did not betray the Cause. Nor was he executed by the

comrades as is commonly supposed. This canard was circulated by the creatures of the Oligarchy. Comrade

Biedenbach was absentminded, forgetful. He was shot by one of our lookouts at the caverefuge at Carmel,

through failure on his part to remember the secret signals. It was all a sad mistake. And that he betrayed his

Fighting Group is an absolute lie. No truer, more loyal man ever labored for the Cause.*

* Search as we may through all the material of those times that has come down to us, we can find no clew to

the Biedenbach here referred to. No mention is made of him anywhere save in the Everhard Manuscript.

For nineteen years now the refuge that I selected had been almost continuously occupied, and in all that time,

with one exception, it has never been discovered by an outsider. And yet it was only a quarter of a mile from

Wickson's huntinglodge, and a short mile from the village of Glen Ellen. I was able, always, to hear the

morning and evening trains arrive and depart, and I used to set my watch by the whistle at the brickyards.*

* If the curious traveller will turn south from Glen Ellen, he will find himself on a boulevard that is identical

with the old country road seven centuries ago. A quarter of a mile from Glen Ellen, after the second bridge is

passed, to the right will be noticed a barranca that runs like a scar across the rolling land toward a group of

wooded knolls. The barranca is the site of the ancient right of way that in the time of private property in land

ran across the holding of one Chauvet, a French pioneer of California who came from his native country in

the fabled days of gold. The wooded knolls are the same knolls referred to by Avis Everhard.

The Great Earthquake of 2368 A.D. broke off the side of one of these knolls and toppled it into the hole

where the Everhards made their refuge. Since the finding of the Manuscript excavations have been made, and

the house, the two cave rooms, and all the accumulated rubbish of long occupancy have been brought to light.

Many valuable relics have been found, among which, curious to relate, is the smokeconsuming device of

Biedenbach's mentioned in the narrative. Students interested in such matters should read the brochure of

A mile northwest from the wooded knolls brings one to the site of Wake Robin Lodge at the junction of

WildWater and Sonoma Creeks. It may be noticed, in passing, that WildWater was originally called

Graham Creek and was so named on the early local maps. But the later name sticks. It was at Wake Robin

Lodge that Avis Everhard later lived for short periods, when, disguised as an agentprovocateur of the Iron

Heel, she was enabled to play with impunity her part among men and events. The official permission to

occupy Wake Robin Lodge is still on the records, signed by no less a man than Wickson, the minor oligarch

"You must make yourself over again," Ernest wrote to me. "You must cease to be. You must become another

womanand not merely in the clothes you wear, but inside your skin under the clothes. You must make

yourself over again so that even I would not know youyour voice, your gestures, your mannerisms, your

This command I obeyed. Every day I practised for hours in burying forever the old Avis Everhard beneath the

skin of another woman whom I may call my other self. It was only by long practice that such results could be

obtained. In the mere detail of voice intonation I practised almost perpetually till the voice of my new self

became fixed, automatic. It was this automatic assumption of a role that was considered imperative. One must

become so adept as to deceive oneself. It was like learning a new language, say the French. At first speech in

French is selfconscious, a matter of the will. The student thinks in English and then transmutes into French,

or reads in French but transmutes into English before he can understand. Then later, becoming firmly

grounded, automatic, the student reads, writes, and THINKS in French, without any recourse to English at all.

And so with our disguises. It was necessary for us to practise until our assumed roles became real; until to be

our original selves would require a watchful and strong exercise of will. Of course, at first, much was mere

blundering experiment. We were creating a new art, and we had much to discover. But the work was going

on everywhere; masters in the art were developing, and a fund of tricks and expedients was being

accumulated. This fund became a sort of textbook that was passed on, a part of the curriculum, as it were, of

* Disguise did become a veritable art during that period. The revolutionists maintained schools of acting in

all their refuges. They scorned accessories, such as wigs and beards, false eyebrows, and such aids of the

theatrical actors. The game of revolution was a game of life and death, and mere accessories were traps.

Disguise had to be fundamental, intrinsic, part and parcel of one's being, second nature. The Red Virgin is

reported to have been one of the most adept in the art, to which must be ascribed her long and successful

It was at this time that my father disappeared. His letters, which had come to me regularly, ceased. He no

longer appeared at our Pell Street quarters. Our comrades sought him everywhere. Through our secret service

we ransacked every prison in the land. But he was lost as completely as if the earth had swallowed him up,

* Disappearance was one of the horrors of the time. As a motif, in song and story, it constantly crops up. It

was an inevitable concomitant of the subterranean warfare that raged through those three centuries. This

phenomenon was almost as common in the oligarch class and the labor castes, as it was in the ranks of the

revolutionists. Without warning, without trace, men and women, and even children, disappeared and were

Six lonely months I spent in the refuge, but they were not idle months. Our organization went on apace, and

there were mountains of work always waiting to be done. Ernest and his fellowleaders, from their prisons,

decided what should be done; and it remained for us on the outside to do it. There was the organization of the

mouthtomouth propaganda; the organization, with all its ramifications, of our spy system; the

establishment of our secret printingpresses; and the establishment of our underground railways, which

meant the knitting together of all our myriads of places of refuge, and the formation of new refuges where

So I say, the work was never done. At the end of six months my loneliness was broken by the arrival of two

comrades. They were young girls, brave souls and passionate lovers of liberty: Lora Peterson, who

disappeared in 1922, and Kate Bierce, who later married Du Bois,* and who is still with us with eyes lifted to

* Du Bois, the present librarian of Ardis, is a lineal descendant of this revolutionary pair.

The two girls arrived in a flurry of excitement, danger, and sudden death. In the crew of the fishing boat that

conveyed them across San Pablo Bay was a spy. A creature of the Iron Heel, he had successfully

masqueraded as a revolutionist and penetrated deep into the secrets of our organization. Without doubt he

was on my trail, for we had long since learned that my disappearance had been cause of deep concern to the

secret service of the Oligarchy. Luckily, as the outcome proved, he had not divulged his discoveries to any

one. He had evidently delayed reporting, preferring to wait until he had brought things to a successful

conclusion by discovering my hidingplace and capturing me. His information died with him. Under some

pretext, after the girls had landed at Petaluma Creek and taken to the horses, he managed to get away from

Part way up Sonoma Mountain, John Carlson let the girls go on, leading his horse, while he went back on

foot. His suspicions had been aroused. He captured the spy, and as to what then happened, Carlson gave us a

"I fixed him," was Carlson's unimaginative way of describing the affair. "I fixed him," he repeated, while a

sombre light burnt in his eyes, and his huge, toildistorted hands opened and closed eloquently. "He made no

During that period I used to marvel at my own metamorphosis. At times it seemed impossible, either that I

had ever lived a placid, peaceful life in a college town, or else that I had become a revolutionist inured to

scenes of violence and death. One or the other could not be. One was real, the other was a dream, but which

was which? Was this present life of a revolutionist, hiding in a hole, a nightmare? or was I a revolutionist

who had somewhere, somehow, dreamed that in some former existence I have lived in Berkeley and never

known of life more violent than teas and dances, debating societies, and lectures rooms? But then I suppose

this was a common experience of all of us who had rallied under the red banner of the brotherhood of man.

I often remembered figures from that other life, and, curiously enough, they appeared and disappeared, now

and again, in my new life. There was Bishop Morehouse. In vain we searched for him after our organization

had developed. He had been transferred from asylum to asylum. We traced him from the state hospital for the

insane at Napa to the one in Stockton, and from there to the one in the Santa Clara Valley called Agnews, and

there the trail ceased. There was no record of his death. In some way he must have escaped. Little did I dream

of the awful manner in which I was to see him once againthe fleeting glimpse of him in the whirlwind

Jackson, who had lost his arm in the Sierra Mills and who had been the cause of my own conversion into a

revolutionist, I never saw again; but we all knew what he did before he died. He never joined the

revolutionists. Embittered by his fate, brooding over his wrongs, he became an anarchistnot a philosophic

anarchist, but a mere animal, mad with hate and lust for revenge. And well he revenged himself. Evading the

guards, in the nighttime while all were asleep, he blew the Pertonwaithe palace into atoms. Not a soul

escaped, not even the guards. And in prison, while awaiting trial, he suffocated himself under his blankets.

Dr. Hammerfield and Dr. Ballingford achieved quite different fates from that of Jackson. They have been

faithful to their salt, and they have been correspondingly rewarded with ecclesiastical palaces wherein they

dwell at peace with the world. Both are apologists for the Oligarchy. Both have grown very fat. "Dr.

Hammerfield," as Ernest once said, "has succeeded in modifying his metaphysics so as to give God's sanction

to the Iron Heel, and also to include much worship of beauty and to reduce to an invisible wraith the gaseous

vertebrate described by Haeckelthe difference between Dr. Hammerfield and Dr. Ballingford being that

the latter has made the God of the oligarchs a little more gaseous and a little less vertebrate."

Peter Donnelly, the scab foreman at the Sierra Mills whom I encountered while investigating the case of

Jackson, was a surprise to all of us. In 1918 I was present at a meeting of the 'Frisco Reds. Of all our Fighting

Groups this one was the most formidable, ferocious, and merciless. It was really not a part of our

organization. Its members were fanatics, madmen. We dared not encourage such a spirit. On the other hand,

though they did not belong to us, we remained on friendly terms with them. It was a matter of vital

importance that brought me there that night. I, alone in the midst of a score of men, was the only person

unmasked. After the business that brought me there was transacted, I was led away by one of them. In a dark

passage this guide struck a match, and, holding it close to his face, slipped back his mask. For a moment I

gazed upon the passionwrought features of Peter Donnelly. Then the match went out.

"I just wanted you to know it was me," he said in the darkness. "D'you remember Dallas, the superintendent?"

"Well, I got him first," Donnelly said with pride. "'Twas after that I joined the Reds."

"Dead," he answered. "That's why. No," he went on hastily, "'tis not revenge for them. They died easily in

their bedssickness, you see, one time and another. They tied my arms while they lived. And now that

they're gone, "'tis revenge for my blasted manhood I'm after. I was once Peter Donnelly, the scab foreman.

But tonight I'm Number 27 of the 'Frisco Reds. Come on now, and I'll get you out of this."

More I heard of him afterward. In his own way he had told the truth when he said all were dead. But one

lived, Timothy, and him his father considered dead because he had taken service with the Iron Heel in the

Mercenaries.* A member of the 'Frisco Reds pledged himself to twelve annual executions. The penalty for

failure was death. A member who failed to complete his number committed suicide. These executions were

not haphazard. This group of madmen met frequently and passed wholesale judgments upon offending

members and servitors of the Oligarchy. The executions were afterward apportioned by lot.

* In addition to the labor castes, there arose another caste, the military. A standing army of professional

soldiers was created, officered by members of the Oligarchy and known as the Mercenaries. This institution

took the place of the militia, which had proved impracticable under the new regime. Outside the regular

secret service of the Iron Heel, there was further established a secret service of the Mercenaries, this latter

In fact, the business that brought me there the night of my visit was such a trial. One of our own comrades,

who for years had successfully maintained himself in a clerical position in the local bureau of the secret

service of the Iron Heel, had fallen under the ban of the 'Frisco Reds and was being tried. Of course he was

not present, and of course his judges did not know that he was one of our men. My mission had been to

testify to his identity and loyalty. It may be wondered how we came to know of the affair at all. The

explanation is simple. One of our secret agents was a member of the 'Frisco Reds. It was necessary for us to

keep an eye on friend as well as foe, and this group of madmen was not too unimportant to escape our

But to return to Peter Donnelly and his son. All went well with Donnelly until, in the following year, he

found among the sheaf of executions that fell to him the name of Timothy Donnelly. Then it was that that

clannishness, which was his to so extraordinary a degree, asserted itself. To save his son, he betrayed his

comrades. In this he was partially blocked, but a dozen of the 'Frisco Reds were executed, and the group was

wellnigh destroyed. In retaliation, the survivors meted out to Donnelly the death he had earned by his

Nor did Timothy Donnelly long survive. The 'Frisco Reds pledged themselves to his execution. Every effort

was made by the Oligarchy to save him. He was transferred from one part of the country to another. Three of

the Reds lost their lives in vain efforts to get him. The Group was composed only of men. In the end they fell

back on a woman, one of our comrades, and none other than Anna Roylston. Our Inner Circle forbade her,

but she had ever a will of her own and disdained discipline. Furthermore, she was a genius and lovable, and

we could never discipline her anyway. She is in a class by herself and not amenable to the ordinary standards

Despite our refusal to grant permission to do the deed, she went on with it. Now Anna Roylston was a

fascinating woman. All she had to do was to beckon a man to her. She broke the hearts of scores of our young

comrades, and scores of others she captured, and by their heartstrings led into our organization. Yet she

steadfastly refused to marry. She dearly loved children, but she held that a child of her own would claim her

It was an easy task for Anna Roylston to win Timothy Donnelly. Her conscience did not trouble her, for at

that very time occurred the Nashville Massacre, when the Mercenaries, Donnelly in command, literally

murdered eight hundred weavers of that city. But she did not kill Donnelly. She turned him over, a prisoner,

to the 'Frisco Reds. This happened only last year, and now she had been renamed. The revolutionists

* It was not until the Second Revolt was crushed, that the 'Frisco Reds flourished again. And for two

generations the Group flourished. Then an agent of the Iron Heel managed to become a member, penetrated

all its secrets, and brought about its total annihilation. This occurred in 2002 A.D. The members were

executed one at a time, at intervals of three weeks, and their bodies exposed in the laborghetto of San

Colonel Ingram and Colonel Van Gilbert are two more familiar figures that I was later to encounter. Colonel

Ingram rose high in the Oligarchy and became Minister to Germany. He was cordially detested by the

proletariat of both countries. It was in Berlin that I met him, where, as an accredited international spy of the

Iron Heel, I was received by him and afforded much assistance. Incidentally, I may state that in my dual role I

Colonel Van Gilbert became known as "Snarling" Van Gilbert. His important part was played in drafting the

new code after the Chicago Commune. But before that, as trial judge, he had earned sentence of death by his

fiendish malignancy. I was one of those that tried him and passed sentence upon him. Anna Roylston carried

Still another figure arises out of the old lifeJackson's lawyer. Least of all would I have expected again to

meet this man, Joseph Hurd. It was a strange meeting. Late at night, two years after the Chicago Commune,

Ernest and I arrived together at the Benton Harbor refuge. This was in Michigan, across the lake from

Chicago. We arrived just at the conclusion of the trial of a spy. Sentence of death had been passed, and he

was being led away. Such was the scene as we came upon it. The next moment the wretched man had

wrenched free from his captors and flung himself at my feet, his arms clutching me about the knees in a

vicelike grip as he prayed in a frenzy for mercy. As he turned his agonized face up to me, I recognized him as

Joseph Hurd. Of all the terrible things I have witnessed, never have I been so unnerved as by this frantic

creature's pleading for life. He was mad for life. It was pitiable. He refused to let go of me, despite the hands

of a dozen comrades. And when at last he was dragged shrieking away, I sank down fainting upon the floor.

* The Benton Harbor refuge was a catacomb, the entrance of which was cunningly contrived by way of a

well. It has been maintained in a fair state of preservation, and the curious visitor may today tread its

labyrinths to the assembly hall, where, without doubt, occurred the scene described by Avis Everhard. Farther

on are the cells where the prisoners were confined, and the death chamber where the executions took place.

Beyond is the cemeterylong, winding galleries hewn out of the solid rock, with recesses on either hand,

wherein, tier above tier, lie the revolutionists just as they were laid away by their comrades long years agone.

But in remembering the old life I have run ahead of my story into the new life. The wholesale jail delivery

did not occur until well along into 1915. Complicated as it was, it was carried through without a hitch, and as

a very creditable achievement it cheered us on in our work. From Cuba to California, out of scores of jails,

military prisons, and fortresses, in a single night, we delivered fiftyone of our fiftytwo Congressmen, and

in addition over three hundred other leaders. There was not a single instance of miscarriage. Not only did

they escape, but every one of them won to the refuges as planned. The one comrade Congressman we did not

get was Arthur Simpson, and he had already died in Cabanas after cruel tortures.

The eighteen months that followed was perhaps the happiest of my life with Ernest. During that time we were

never apart. Later, when we went back into the world, we were separated much. Not more impatiently do I

await the flame of tomorrow's revolt than did I that night await the coming of Ernest. I had not seen him for

so long, and the thought of a possible hitch or error in our plans that would keep him still in his island prison

almost drove me mad. The hours passed like ages. I was all alone. Biedenbach, and three young men who had

been living in the refuge, were out and over the mountain, heavily armed and prepared for anything. The

Just as the sky paled with the first warning of dawn, I heard the signal from above and gave the answer. In the

darkness I almost embraced Biedenbach, who came down first; but the next moment I was in Ernest's arms.

And in that moment, so complete had been my transformation, I discovered it was only by an effort of will

that I could be the old Avis Everhard, with the old mannerisms and smiles, phrases and intonations of voice.

It was by strong effort only that I was able to maintain my old identity; I could not allow myself to forget for

an instant, so automatically imperative had become the new personality I had created.

Once inside the little cabin, I saw Ernest's face in the light. With the exception of the prison pallor, there was

no change in himat least, not much. He was my same loverhusband and hero. And yet there was a certain

ascetic lengthening of the lines of his face. But he could well stand it, for it seemed to add a certain nobility

of refinement to the riotous excess of life that had always marked his features. He might have been a trifle

graver than of yore, but the glint of laughter still was in his eyes. He was twenty pounds lighter, but in

splendid physical condition. He had kept up exercise during the whole period of confinement, and his

muscles were like iron. In truth, he was in better condition than when he had entered prison. Hours passed

before his head touched pillow and I had soothed him off to sleep. But there was no sleep for me. I was too

While Ernest slept, I changed my dress, arranged my hair differently, and came back to my new automatic

self. Then, when Biedenbach and the other comrades awoke, with their aid I concocted a little conspiracy. All

was ready, and we were in the caveroom that served for kitchen and dining room when Ernest opened the

door and entered. At that moment Biedenbach addressed me as Mary, and I turned and answered him. Then I

glanced at Ernest with curious interest, such as any young comrade might betray on seeing for the first time

so noted a hero of the Revolution. But Ernest's glance took me in and questioned impatiently past and around

To complete the deception, an extra plate was laid, and when we sat down to table one chair was not

occupied. I could have cried with joy as I noted Ernest's increasing uneasiness and impatience. Finally he

It was the crucial moment. But my voice was a strange voice, and in it he recognized nothing familiar. The

meal went on. I talked a great deal, and enthusiastically, as a heroworshipper might talk, and it was obvious

that he was my hero. I rose to a climax of enthusiasm and worship, and, before he could guess my intention,

threw my arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips. He held me from him at arm's length and stared

about in annoyance and perplexity. The four men greeted him with roars of laughter, and explanations were

made. At first he was sceptical. He scrutinized me keenly and was half convinced, then shook his head and

would not believe. It was not until I became the old Avis Everhard and whispered secrets in his ear that none

It was later in the day that he took me in his arms, manifesting great embarrassment and claiming

"You are my Avis," he said, and you are also some one else. You are two women, and therefore you are my

harem. At any rate, we are safe now. If the United States becomes too hot for us, why I have qualified for

Life became for me very happy in the refuge. It is true, we worked hard and for long hours; but we worked

together. We had each other for eighteen precious months, and we were not lonely, for there was always a

coming and going of leaders and comradesstrange voices from the underworld of intrigue and revolution,

bringing stranger tales of strife and war from all our battleline. And there was much fun and delight. We

were not mere gloomy conspirators. We toiled hard and suffered greatly, filled the gaps in our ranks and went

on, and through all the labour and the play and interplay of life and death we found time to laugh and love.

There were artists, scientists, scholars, musicians, and poets among us; and in that hole in the ground culture

was higher and finer than in the palaces of wondercities of the oligarchs. In truth, many of our comrades

* This is not braggadocio on the part of Avis Everhard. The flower of the artistic and intellectual world were

revolutionists. With the exception of a few of the musicians and singers, and of a few of the oligarchs, all the

great creators of the period whose names have come down to us, were revolutionists.

Nor were we confined to the refuge itself. Often at night we rode over the mountains for exercise, and we

rode on Wickson's horses. If only he knew how many revolutionists his horses have carried! We even went

on picnics to isolated spots we knew, where we remained all day, going before daylight and returning after

dark. Also, we used Wickson's cream and butter,* and Ernest was not above shooting Wickson's quail and

* Even as late as that period, cream and butter were still crudely extracted from cow's milk. The laboratory

Indeed, it was a safe refuge. I have said that it was discovered only once, and this brings me to the clearing up

of the mystery of the disappearance of young Wickson. Now that he is dead, I am free to speak. There was a

nook on the bottom of the great hole where the sun shone for several hours and which was hidden from

above. Here we had carried many loads of gravel from the creekbed, so that it was dry and warm, a pleasant

basking place; and here, one afternoon, I was drowsing, half asleep, over a volume of Mendenhall.* I was so

* In all the extant literature and documents of that period, continual reference is made to the poems of

Rudolph Mendenhall. By his comrades he was called "The Flame." He was undoubtedly a great genius; yet,

beyond weird and haunting fragments of his verse, quoted in the writings of others, nothing of his has come

I was aroused by a clod of earth striking at my feet. Then from above, I heard a sound of scrambling. The

next moment a young man, with a final slide down the crumbling wall, alighted at my feet. It was Philip

Wickson, though I did not know him at the time. He looked at me coolly and uttered a low whistle of

"Well," he said; and the next moment, cap in hand, he was saying, "I beg your pardon. I did not expect to find

I was not so cool. I was still a tyro so far as concerned knowing how to behave in desperate circumstances.

Later on, when I was an international spy, I should have been less clumsy, I am sure. As it was, I scrambled

It was evident that he had no suspicion of our presence when making the descent. I recognized this with

"For what purpose do you think I did it?" I countered. I was indeed clumsy in those days.

"I don't know," he answered, shaking his head. "Unless you've got friends about. Anyway, you've got some

explanations to make. I don't like the look of it. You are trespassing. This is my father's land, and"

But at that moment, Biedenbach, every polite and gentle, said from behind him in a low voice, "Hands up, my

Young Wickson put his hands up first, then turned to confront Biedenbach, who held a thirtythirty

"Oh, ho," he said, "a nest of revolutionistsand quite a hornet's nest it would seem. Well, you won't abide

"Maybe you'll abide here long enough to reconsider that statement," Biedenbach said quietly. "And in the

"Inside?" The young man was genuinely astonished. "Have you a catacomb here? I have heard of such

"Yes, by your law," the terrorist replied significantly. "But by our law, believe me, it is quite lawful. You

must accustom yourself to the fact that you are in another world than the one of oppression and brutality in

The young fellow laughed and followed his captor into the house. He was led into the inner caveroom, and

one of the young comrades left to guard him, while we discussed the situation in the kitchen.

Biedenbach, with tears in his eyes, held that Wickson must die, and was quite relieved when we outvoted him

and his horrible proposition. On the other hand, we could not dream of allowing the young oligarch to depart.

"I'll tell you what to do," Ernest said. "We'll keep him and give him an education."

"I bespeak the privilege, then, of enlightening him in jurisprudence, Biedenbach cried.

And so a decision was laughingly reached. We would keep Philip Wickson a prisoner and educate him in our

ethics and sociology. But in the meantime there was work to be done. All trace of the young oligarch must be

obliterated. There were the marks he had left when descending the crumbling wall of the hole. This task fell

to Biedenbach, and, slung on a rope from above, he toiled cunningly for the rest of the day till no sign

remained. Back up the canyon from the lip of the hole all marks were likewise removed. Then, at twilight,

The young man did not want to give up his shoes, and even offered to fight for them, till he felt the

horseshoer's strength in Ernest's hands. Carlson afterward reported several blisters and much grievous loss of

skin due to the smallness of the shoes, but he succeeded in doing gallant work with them. Back from the lip

of the hole, where ended the young man's obliterated trial, Carlson put on the shoes and walked away to the

left. He walked for miles, around knolls, over ridges and through canyons, and finally covered the trail in the

running water of a creekbed. Here he removed the shoes, and, still hiding trail for a distance, at last put on

That night the hounds were out, and there was little sleep in the refuge. Next day, time and again, the baying

hounds came down the canyon, plunged off to the left on the trail Carlson had made for them, and were lost

to ear in the farther canyons high up the mountain. And all the time our men waited in the refuge, weapons in

handautomatic revolvers and rifles, to say nothing of half a dozen infernal machines of Biedenbach's

manufacture. A more surprised party of rescuers could not be imagined, had they ventured down into our

I have now given the true disappearance of Philip Wickson, onetime oligarch, and, later, comrade in the

Revolution. For we converted him in the end. His mind was fresh and plastic, and by nature he was very

ethical. Several months later we rode him, on one of his father's horses, over Sonoma Mountains to Petaluma

Creek and embarked him in a small fishinglaunch. By easy stages we smuggled him along our underground

There he remained eight months, at the end of which time, for two reasons, he was loath to leave us. One

reason was that he had fallen in love with Anna Roylston, and the other was that he had become one of us. It

was not until he became convinced of the hopelessness of his love affair that he acceded to our wishes and

went back to his father. Ostensibly an oligarch until his death, he was in reality one of the most valuable of

our agents. Often and often has the Iron Heel been dumbfounded by the miscarriage of its plans and

operations against us. If it but knew the number of its own members who are our agents, it would understand.

Young Wickson never wavered in his loyalty to the Cause. In truth, his very death was incurred by his

devotion to duty. In the great storm of 1927, while attending a meeting of our leaders, he contracted the

* The case of this young man was not unusual. Many young men of the Oligarchy, impelled by sense of right

conduct, or their imaginations captured by the glory of the Revolution, ethically or romantically devoted their

lives to it. In similar way, many sons of the Russian nobility played their parts in the earlier and protracted

During the long period of our stay in the refuge, we were kept closely in touch with what was happening in

the world without, and we were learning thoroughly the strength of the Oligarchy with which we were at war.

Out of the flux of transition the new institutions were forming more definitely and taking on the appearance

and attributes of permanence. The oligarchs had succeeded in devising a governmental machine, as intricate

This was a surprise to many of the revolutionists. They had not conceived it possible. Nevertheless the work

of the country went on. The men toiled in the mines and fieldsperforce they were no more than slaves. As

for the vital industries, everything prospered. The members of the great labor castes were contented and

worked on merrily. For the first time in their lives they knew industrial peace. No more were they worried by

slack times, strike and lockout, and the union label. They lived in more comfortable homes and in delightful

cities of their owndelightful compared with the slums and ghettos in which they had formerly dwelt. They

had better food to eat, less hours of labor, more holidays, and a greater amount and variety of interests and

pleasures. And for their less fortunate brothers and sisters, the unfavored laborers, the driven people of the

abyss, they cared nothing. An age of selfishness was dawning upon mankind. And yet this is not altogether

true. The labor castes were honeycombed by our agents men whose eyes saw, beyond the bellyneed, the

Another great institution that had taken form and was working smoothly was the Mercenaries. This body of

soldiers had been evolved out of the old regular army and was now a million strong, to say nothing of the

colonial forces. The Mercenaries constituted a race apart. They dwelt in cities of their own which were

practically selfgoverned, and they were granted many privileges. By them a large portion of the perplexing

surplus was consumed. They were losing all touch and sympathy with the rest of the people, and, in fact,

were developing their own class morality and consciousness. And yet we had thousands of our agents among

* The Mercenaries, in the last days of the Iron Heel, played an important role. They constituted the balance of

power in the struggles between the labor castes and the oligarchs, and now to one side and now to the other,

The oligarchs themselves were going through a remarkable and, it must be confessed, unexpected

development. As a class, they disciplined themselves. Every member had his work to do in the world, and

this work he was compelled to do. There were no more idlerich young men. Their strength was used to give

united strength to the Oligarchy. They served as leaders of troops and as lieutenants and captains of industry.

They found careers in applied science, and many of them became great engineers. They went into the

multitudinous divisions of the government, took service in the colonial possessions, and by tens of thousands

went into the various secret services. They were, I may say, apprenticed to education, to art, to the church, to

science, to literature; and in those fields they served the important function of moulding the

thoughtprocesses of the nation in the direction of the perpetuity of the Oligarchy.

They were taught, and later they in turn taught, that what they were doing was right. They assimilated the

aristocratic idea from the moment they began, as children, to receive impressions of the world. The

aristocratic idea was woven into the making of them until it became bone of them and flesh of them. They

looked upon themselves as wildanimal trainers, rulers of beasts. From beneath their feet rose always the

subterranean rumbles of revolt. Violent death ever stalked in their midst; bomb and knife and bullet were

looked upon as so many fangs of the roaring abysmal beast they must dominate if humanity were to persist.

They were the saviours of humanity, and they regarded themselves as heroic and sacrificing laborers for the

They, as a class, believed that they alone maintained civilization. It was their belief that if ever they

weakened, the great beast would ingulf them and everything of beauty and wonder and joy and good in its

cavernous and slimedripping maw. Without them, anarchy would reign and humanity would drop backward

into the primitive night out of which it had so painfully emerged. The horrid picture of anarchy was held

always before their child's eyes until they, in turn, obsessed by this cultivated fear, held the picture of anarchy

before the eyes of the children that followed them. This was the beast to be stamped upon, and the highest

duty of the aristocrat was to stamp upon it. In short, they alone, by their unremitting toil and sacrifice, stood

between weak humanity and the alldevouring beast; and they believed it, firmly believed it.

I cannot lay too great stress upon this high ethical righteousness of the whole oligarch class. This has been the

strength of the Iron Heel, and too many of the comrades have been slow or loath to realize it. Many of them

have ascribed the strength of the Iron Heel to its system of reward and punishment. This is a mistake. Heaven

and hell may be the prime factors of zeal in the religion of a fanatic; but for the great majority of the

religious, heaven and hell are incidental to right and wrong. Love of the right, desire for the right,

unhappiness with anything less than the rightin short, right conduct, is the prime factor of religion. And so

with the Oligarchy. Prisons, banishment and degradation, honors and palaces and wondercities, are all

incidental. The great driving force of the oligarchs is the belief that they are doing right. Never mind the

exceptions, and never mind the oppression and injustice in which the Iron Heel was conceived. All is granted.

The point is that the strength of the Oligarchy today lies in its satisfied conception of its own righteousness.*

* Out of the ethical incoherency and inconsistency of capitalism, the oligarchs emerged with a new ethics,

coherent and definite, sharp and severe as steel, the most absurd and unscientific and at the same time the

most potent ever possessed by any tyrant class. The oligarchs believed their ethics, in spite of the fact that

biology and evolution gave them the lie; and, because of their faith, for three centuries they were able to hold

back the mighty tide of human progressa spectacle, profound, tremendous, puzzling to the metaphysical

moralist, and one that to the materialist is the cause of many doubts and reconsiderations.

For that matter, the strength of the Revolution, during these frightful twenty years, has resided in nothing else

than the sense of righteousness. In no other way can be explained our sacrifices and martyrdoms. For no other

reason did Rudolph Mendenhall flame out his soul for the Cause and sing his wild swansong that last night

of life. For no other reason did Hurlbert die under torture, refusing to the last to betray his comrades. For no

other reason has Anna Roylston refused blessed motherhood. For no other reason has John Carlson been the

faithful and unrewarded custodian of the Glen Ellen Refuge. It does not matter, young or old, man or woman,

high or low, genius or clod, go where one will among the comrades of the Revolution, the motorforce will

But I have run away from my narrative. Ernest and I well understood, before we left the refuge, how the

strength of the Iron Heel was developing. The labor castes, the Mercenaries, and the great hordes of secret

agents and police of various sorts were all pledged to the Oligarchy. In the main, and ignoring the loss of

liberty, they were better off than they had been. On the other hand, the great helpless mass of the population,

the people of the abyss, was sinking into a brutish apathy of content with misery. Whenever strong

proletarians asserted their strength in the midst of the mass, they were drawn away from the mass by the

oligarchs and given better conditions by being made members of the labor castes or of the Mercenaries. Thus

The condition of the people of the abyss was pitiable. Common school education, so far as they were

concerned, had ceased. They lived like beasts in great squalid laborghettos, festering in misery and

degradation. All their old liberties were gone. They were laborslaves. Choice of work was denied them.

Likewise was denied them the right to move from place to place, or the right to bear or possess arms. They

were not land serfs like the farmers. They were machineserfs and laborserfs. When unusual needs arose for

them, such as the building of the great highways and airlines, of canals, tunnels, subways, and fortifications,

levies were made on the laborghettos, and tens of thousands of serfs, willynilly, were transported to the

scene of operations. Great armies of them are toiling now at the building of Ardis, housed in wretched

barracks where family life cannot exist, and where decency is displaced by dull bestiality. In all truth, there in

the labor ghettos is the roaring abysmal beast the oligarchs fear so dreadfullybut it is the beast of their

And just now the word has gone forth that new levies are being imposed for the building of Asgard, the

projected wondercity that will far exceed Ardis when the latter is completed.* We of the Revolution will go

on with that great work, but it will not be done by the miserable serfs. The walls and towers and shafts of that

fair city will arise to the sound of singing, and into its beauty and wonder will be woven, not sighs and

* Ardis was completed in 1942 A.D., Asgard was not completed until 1984 A.D. It was fiftytwo years in the

building, during which time a permanent army of half a million serfs was employed. At times these numbers

swelled to over a millionwithout any account being taken of the hundreds of thousands of the labor castes

Ernest was madly impatient to be out in the world and doing, for our illfated First Revolt, that had

miscarried in the Chicago Commune, was ripening fast. Yet he possessed his soul with patience, and during

this time of his torment, when Hadly, who had been brought for the purpose from Illinois, made him over into

another man* he revolved great plans in his head for the organization of the learned proletariat, and for the

maintenance of at least the rudiments of education amongst the people of the abyssall this of course in the

* Among the Revolutionists were many surgeons, and in vivisection they attained marvellous proficiency. In

Avis Everhard's words, they could literally make a man over. To them the elimination of scars and

disfigurements was a trivial detail. They changed the features with such microscopic care that no traces were

left of their handiwork. The nose was a favorite organ to work upon. Skingrafting and hairtransplanting

were among their commonest devices. The changes in expression they accomplished were wizard like. Eyes

and eyebrows, lips, mouths, and ears, were radically altered. By cunning operations on tongue, throat, larynx,

and nasal cavities a man's whole enunciation and manner of speech could be changed. Desperate times give

need for desperate remedies, and the surgeons of the Revolution rose to the need. Among other things, they

could increase an adult's stature by as much as four or five inches and decrease it by one or two inches. What

It was not until January, 1917, that we left the refuge. All had been arranged. We took our place at once as

agentsprovocateurs in the scheme of the Iron Heel. I was supposed to be Ernest's sister. By oligarchs and

comrades on the inside who were high in authority, place had been made for us, we were in possession of all

necessary documents, and our pasts were accounted for. With help on the inside, this was not difficult, for in

that shadowworld of secret service identity was nebulous. Like ghosts the agents came and went, obeying

commands, fulfilling duties, following clews, making their reports often to officers they never saw or

cooperating with other agents they had never seen before and would never see again.

As agentsprovocateurs, not alone were we able to travel a great deal, but our very work threw us in contact

with the proletariat and with our comrades, the revolutionists. Thus we were in both camps at the same time,

ostensibly serving the Iron Heel and secretly working with all our might for the Cause. There were many of

us in the various secret services of the Oligarchy, and despite the shakingsup and reorganizations the secret

Ernest had largely planned the First Revolt, and the date set had been somewhere early in the spring of 1918.

In the fall of 1917 we were not ready; much remained to be done, and when the Revolt was precipitated, of

course it was doomed to failure. The plot of necessity was frightfully intricate, and anything premature was

sure to destroy it. This the Iron Heel foresaw and laid its schemes accordingly.

We had planned to strike our first blow at the nervous system of the Oligarchy. The latter had remembered

the general strike, and had guarded against the defection of the telegraphers by installing wireless stations, in

the control of the Mercenaries. We, in turn, had countered this move. When the signal was given, from every

refuge, all over the land, and from the cities, and towns, and barracks, devoted comrades were to go forth and

blow up the wireless stations. Thus at the first shock would the Iron Heel be brought to earth and lie

At the same moment, other comrades were to blow up the bridges and tunnels and disrupt the whole network

of railroads. Still further, other groups of comrades, at the signal, were to seize the officers of the Mercenaries

and the police, as well as all Oligarchs of unusual ability or who held executive positions. Thus would the

leaders of the enemy be removed from the field of the local battles that would inevitably be fought all over

Many things were to occur simultaneously when the signal went forth. The Canadian and Mexican patriots,

who were far stronger than the Iron Heel dreamed, were to duplicate our tactics. Then there were comrades

(these were the women, for the men would be busy elsewhere) who were to post the proclamations from our

secret presses. Those of us in the higher employ of the Iron Heel were to proceed immediately to make

confusion and anarchy in all our departments. Inside the Mercenaries were thousands of our comrades. Their

work was to blow up the magazines and to destroy the delicate mechanism of all the war machinery. In the

cities of the Mercenaries and of the labor castes similar programmes of disruption were to be carried out.

In short, a sudden, colossal, stunning blow was to be struck. Before the paralyzed Oligarchy could recover

itself, its end would have come. It would have meant terrible times and great loss of life, but no revolutionist

hesitates at such things. Why, we even depended much, in our plan, on the unorganized people of the abyss.

They were to be loosed on the palaces and cities of the masters. Never mind the destruction of life and

property. Let the abysmal brute roar and the police and Mercenaries slay. The abysmal brute would roar

anyway, and the police and Mercenaries would slay anyway. It would merely mean that various dangers to us

were harmlessly destroying one another. In the meantime we would be doing our own work, largely

Such was our plan, every detail of which had to be worked out in secret, and, as the day drew near,

communicated to more and more comrades. This was the danger point, the stretching of the conspiracy. But

that dangerpoint was never reached. Through its spysystem the Iron Heel got wind of the Revolt and

prepared to teach us another of its bloody lessons. Chicago was the devoted city selected for the instruction,

Chicago* was the ripest of allChicago which of old time was the city of blood and which was to earn anew

its name. There the revolutionary spirit was strong. Too many bitter strikes had been curbed there in the days

of capitalism for the workers to forget and forgive. Even the labor castes of the city were alive with revolt.

Too many heads had been broken in the early strikes. Despite their changed and favorable conditions, their

hatred for the master class had not died. This spirit had infected the Mercenaries, of which three regiments in

* Chicago was the industrial inferno of the nineteenth century A.D. A curious anecdote has come down to us

of John Burns, a great English labor leader and one time member of the British Cabinet. In Chicago, while on

a visit to the United States, he was asked by a newspaper reporter for his opinion of that city. "Chicago," he

answered, "is a pocket edition of hell." Some time later, as he was going aboard his steamer to sail to

England, he was approached by another reporter, who wanted to know if he had changed his opinion of

Chicago. "Yes, I have," was his reply. "My present opinion is that hell is a pocket edition of Chicago."

Chicago had always been the stormcentre of the conflict between labor and capital, a city of streetbattles

and violent death, with a classconscious capitalist organization and a classconscious workman

organization, where, in the old days, the very school teachers were formed into labor unions and affiliated

with the hod carriers and bricklayers in the American Federation of Labor. And Chicago became the

The trouble was precipitated by the Iron Heel. It was cleverly done. The whole population, including the

favored labor castes, was given a course of outrageous treatment. Promises and agreements were broken, and

most drastic punishments visited upon even petty offenders. The people of the abyss were tormented out of

their apathy. In fact, the Iron Heel was preparing to make the abysmal beast roar. And hand in hand with this,

in all precautionary measures in Chicago, the Iron Heel was inconceivably careless. Discipline was relaxed

among the Mercenaries that remained, while many regiments had been withdrawn and sent to various parts of

It did not take long to carry out this programmeonly several weeks. We of the Revolution caught vague

rumors of the state of affairs, but had nothing definite enough for an understanding. In fact, we thought it was

a spontaneous spirit of revolt that would require careful curbing on our part, and never dreamed that it was

deliberately manufacturedand it had been manufactured so secretly, from the very innermost circle of the

Iron Heel, that we had got no inkling. The counterplot was an able achievement, and ably carried out.

I was in New York when I received the order to proceed immediately to Chicago. The man who gave me the

order was one of the oligarchs, I could tell that by his speech, though I did not know his name nor see his

face. His instructions were too clear for me to make a mistake. Plainly I read between the lines that our plot

had been discovered, that we had been countermined. The explosion was ready for the flash of powder, and

countless agents of the Iron Heel, including me, either on the ground or being sent there, were to supply that

flash. I flatter myself that I maintained my composure under the keen eye of the oligarch, but my heart was

beating madly. I could almost have shrieked and flown at his throat with my naked hands before his final,

Once out of his presence, I calculated the time. I had just the moments to spare, if I were lucky, to get in

touch with some local leader before catching my train. Guarding against being trailed, I made a rush of it for

the Emergency Hospital. Luck was with me, and I gained access at once to comrade Galvin, the surgeonin

"I already know," he said quietly, though his Irish eyes were flashing. "I knew what you had come for. I got

the word fifteen minutes ago, and I have already passed it along. Everything shall be done here to keep the

He shook his head. "No telegraphic communication. Chicago is shut off. It's going to be hell there."

"There is yet a chance to stop it," I said, "if nothing happens to the train and I can get there in time. Or if

some of the other secretservice comrades who have learned the truth can get there in time."

"It was very secret," I answered. "Only the inner chiefs could have known up to today. We haven't yet

penetrated that far, so we couldn't escape being kept in the dark. If only Ernest were here. Maybe he is in

Dr. Galvin shook his head. "The last news I heard of him was that he had been sent to Boston or New Haven.

This secret service for the enemy must hamper him a lot, but it's better than lying in a refuge."

"Keep a stout heart," were his parting words. "What if the First Revolt is lost? There will be a second, and we

will be wiser then. Goodby and good luck. I don't know whether I'll ever see you again. It's going to be hell

The Twentieth Century* left New York at six in the evening, and was supposed to arrive at Chicago at seven

next morning. But it lost time that night. We were running behind another train. Among the travellers in my

Pullman was comrade Hartman, like myself in the secret service of the Iron Heel. He it was who told me of

the train that immediately preceded us. It was an exact duplicate of our train, though it contained no

passengers. The idea was that the empty train should receive the disaster were an attempt made to blow up

the Twentieth Century. For that matter there were very few people on the trainonly a baker's dozen in our

* This was reputed to be the fastest train in the world then. It was quite a famous train.

"There must be some big men on board," Hartman concluded. "I noticed a private car on the rear."

Night had fallen when we made our first change of engine, and I walked down the platform for a breath of

fresh air and to see what I could see. Through the windows of the private car I caught a glimpse of three men

whom I recognized. Hartman was right. One of the men was General Altendorff; and the other two were

Mason and Vanderbold, the brains of the inner circle of the Oligarchy's secret service.

It was a quiet moonlight night, but I tossed restlessly and could not sleep. At five in the morning I dressed

I asked the maid in the dressingroom how late the train was, and she told me two hours. She was a mulatto

woman, and I noticed that her face was haggard, with great circles under the eyes, while the eyes themselves

I looked at her closely, and tried her with one of our signals. She responded, and I made sure of her.

"Something terrible is going to happen in Chicago," she said. "There's that fake* train in front of us. That and

She nodded her head. "The line is thick with them. We've been passing them all night. And they're all

"I've a lover in Chicago," she added apologetically. "He's one of us, and he's in the Mercenaries, and I'm

Hartman and I had breakfast together in the dining car, and I forced myself to eat. The sky had clouded, and

the train rushed on like a sullen thunderbolt through the gray pall of advancing day. The very negroes that

waited on us knew that something terrible was impending. Oppression sat heavily upon them; the lightness of

their natures had ebbed out of them; they were slack and absent minded in their service, and they whispered

gloomily to one another in the far end of the car next to the kitchen. Hartman was hopeless over the situation.

"What can we do?" he demanded for the twentieth time, with a helpless shrug of the shoulders.

He pointed out of the window. "See, all is ready. You can depend upon it that they're holding them like this,

He had reference to trooptrains on the sidetrack. The soldiers were cooking their breakfasts over fires built

on the ground beside the track, and they looked up curiously at us as we thundered past without slackening

All was quiet as we entered Chicago. It was evident nothing had happened yet. In the suburbs the morning

papers came on board the train. There was nothing in them, and yet there was much in them for those skilled

in reading between the lines that it was intended the ordinary reader should read into the text. The fine hand

of the Iron Heel was apparent in every column. Glimmerings of weakness in the armor of the Oligarchy were

given. Of course, there was nothing definite. It was intended that the reader should feel his way to these

glimmerings. It was cleverly done. As fiction, those morning papers of October 27th were masterpieces.

The local news was missing. This in itself was a masterstroke. It shrouded Chicago in mystery, and it

suggested to the average Chicago reader that the Oligarchy did not dare give the local news. Hints that were

untrue, of course, were given of insubordination all over the land, crudely disguised with complacent

references to punitive measures to be taken. There were reports of numerous wireless stations that had been

blown up, with heavy rewards offered for the detection of the perpetrators. Of course no wireless stations had

been blown up. Many similar outrages, that dovetailed with the plot of the revolutionists, were given. The

impression to be made on the minds of the Chicago comrades was that the general Revolt was beginning,

albeit with a confusing miscarriage in many details. It was impossible for one uninformed to escape the vague

yet certain feeling that all the land was ripe for the revolt that had already begun to break out.

It was reported that the defection of the Mercenaries in California had become so serious that half a dozen

regiments had been disbanded and broken, and that their members with their families had been driven from

their own city and on into the laborghettos. And the California Mercenaries were in reality the most faithful

of all to their salt! But how was Chicago, shut off from the rest of the world, to know? Then there was a

ragged telegram describing an outbreak of the populace in New York City, in which the labor castes were

joining, concluding with the statement (intended to be accepted as a bluff*) that the troops had the situation

And as the oligarchs had done with the morning papers, so had they done in a thousand other ways. These we

learned afterward, as, for example, the secret messages of the oligarchs, sent with the express purpose of

leaking to the ears of the revolutionists, that had come over the wires, now and again, during the first part of

"I guess the Iron Heel won't need our services," Hartman remarked, putting down the paper he had been

reading, when the train pulled into the central depot. "They wasted their time sending us here. Their plans

have evidently prospered better than they expected. Hell will break loose any second now."

"I thought so," he muttered. "They dropped that private car when the papers came aboard."

Hartman was hopelessly depressed. I tried to cheer him up, but he ignored my effort and suddenly began

talking very hurriedly, in a low voice, as we passed through the station. At first I could not understand.

"I have not been sure," he was saying, "and I have told no one. I have been working on it for weeks, and I

cannot make sure. Watch out for Knowlton. I suspect him. He knows the secrets of a score of our refuges. He

carries the lives of hundreds of us in his hands, and I think he is a traitor. It's more a feeling on my part than

anything else. But I thought I marked a change in him a short while back. There is the danger that he has sold

us out, or is going to sell us out. I am almost sure of it. I wouldn't whisper my suspicions to a soul, but,

somehow, I don't think I'll leave Chicago alive. Keep your eye on Knowlton. Trap him. Find out. I don't

know anything more. It is only an intuition, and so far I have failed to find the slightest clew." We were just

stepping out upon the sidewalk. "Remember," Hartman concluded earnestly. "Keep your eyes upon

And Hartman was right. Before a month went by Knowlton paid for his treason with his life. He was formally

All was quiet on the streetstoo quiet. Chicago lay dead. There was no roar and rumble of traffic. There

were not even cabs on the streets. The surface cars and the elevated were not running. Only occasionally, on

the sidewalks, were there stray pedestrians, and these pedestrians did not loiter. They went their ways with

great haste and definiteness, withal there was a curious indecision in their movements, as though they

expected the buildings to topple over on them or the sidewalks to sink under their feet or fly up in the air. A

few gamins, however, were around, in their eyes a suppressed eagerness in anticipation of wonderful and

From somewhere, far to the south, the dull sound of an explosion came to our ears. That was all. Then quiet

again, though the gamins had startled and listened, like young deer, at the sound. The doorways to all the

buildings were closed; the shutters to the shops were up. But there were many police and watchmen in

evidence, and now and again automobile patrols of the Mercenaries slipped swiftly past.

Hartman and I agreed that it was useless to report ourselves to the local chiefs of the secret service. Our

failure so to report would be excused, we knew, in the light of subsequent events. So we headed for the great

laborghetto on the South Side in the hope of getting in contact with some of the comrades. Too late! We

knew it. But we could not stand still and do nothing in those ghastly, silent streets. Where was Ernest? I was

wondering. What was happening in the cities of the labor castes and Mercenaries? In the fortresses?

As if in answer, a great screaming roar went up, dim with distance, punctuated with detonation after

At a crossing we noticed, in the direction of the stockyards, a gigantic pillar of smoke. At the next crossing

several similar smoke pillars were rising skyward in the direction of the West Side. Over the city of the

Mercenaries we saw a great captive war balloon that burst even as we looked at it, and fell in flaming

wreckage toward the earth. There was no clew to that tragedy of the air. We could not determine whether the

balloon had been manned by comrades or enemies. A vague sound came to our ears, like the bubbling of a

gigantic caldron a long way off, and Hartman said it was machineguns and automatic rifles.

And still we walked in immediate quietude. Nothing was happening where we were. The police and the

automobile patrols went by, and once half a dozen fireengines, returning evidently from some conflagration.

A question was called to the fireman by an officer in an automobile, and we heard one shout in reply: "No

"We've smashed the water supply," Hartman cried excitedly to me. "If we can do all this in a premature,

isolated, abortive attempt, what can't we do in a concerted, ripened effort all over the land?"

The automobile containing the officer who had asked the question darted on. Suddenly there was a deafening

roar. The machine, with its human freight, lifted in an upburst of smoke, and sank down a mass of wreckage

Hartman was jubilant. "Well done! well done!" he was repeating, over and over, in a whisper. "The

Police were running for the spot. Also, another patrol machine had halted. As for myself, I was in a daze. The

suddenness of it was stunning. How had it happened? I knew not how, and yet I had been looking directly at

it. So dazed was I for the moment that I was scarcely aware of the fact that we were being held up by the

police. I abruptly saw that a policeman was in the act of shooting Hartman. But Hartman was cool and was

giving the proper passwords. I saw the levelled revolver hesitate, then sink down, and heard the disgusted

grunt of the policeman. He was very angry, and was cursing the whole secret service. It was always in the

way, he was averring, while Hartman was talking back to him and with fitting secretservice pride explaining

The next moment I knew how it had happened. There was quite a group about the wreck, and two men were

just lifting up the wounded officer to carry him to the other machine. A panic seized all of them, and they

scattered in every direction, running in blind terror, the wounded officer, roughly dropped, being left behind.

The cursing policeman alongside of me also ran, and Hartman and I ran, too, we knew not why, obsessed

Nothing really happened then, but everything was explained. The flying men were sheepishly coming back,

but all the while their eyes were raised apprehensively to the manywindowed, lofty buildings that towered

like the sheer walls of a canyon on each side of the street. From one of those countless windows the bomb

had been thrown, but which window? There had been no second bomb, only a fear of one.

Thereafter we looked with speculative comprehension at the windows. Any of them contained possible death.

Each building was a possible ambuscade. This was warfare in that modern jungle, a great city. Every street

was a canyon, every building a mountain. We had not changed much from primitive man, despite the war

Turning a corner, we came upon a woman. She was lying on the pavement, in a pool of blood. Hartman bent

over and examined her. As for myself, I turned deathly sick. I was to see many dead that day, but the total

carnage was not to affect me as did this first forlorn body lying there at my feet abandoned on the pavement.

"Shot in the breast," was Hartman's report. Clasped in the hollow of her arm, as a child might be clasped, was

a bundle of printed matter. Even in death she seemed loath to part with that which had caused her death; for

when Hartman had succeeded in withdrawing the bundle, we found that it consisted of large printed sheets,

But Hartman only cursed the Iron Heel, and we passed on. Often we were halted by the police and patrols,

but our passwords enabled us to proceed. No more bombs fell from the windows, the last pedestrians seemed

to have vanished from the streets, and our immediate quietude grew more profound; though the gigantic

caldron continued to bubble in the distance, dull roars of explosions came to us from all directions, and the

Suddenly a change came over the face of things. A tingle of excitement ran along the air. Automobiles fled

past, two, three, a dozen, and from them warnings were shouted to us. One of the machines swerved wildly at

high speed half a block down, and the next moment, already left well behind it, the pavement was torn into a

great hole by a bursting bomb. We saw the police disappearing down the crossstreets on the run, and knew

We could see the front of their column filling the street from gutter to gutter, as the last warautomobile fled

past. The machine stopped for a moment just abreast of us. A soldier leaped from it, carrying something

carefully in his hands. This, with the same care, he deposited in the gutter. Then he leaped back to his seat

and the machine dashed on, took the turn at the corner, and was gone from sight. Hartman ran to the gutter

I could see he was working rapidly with his hands. When he returned to me the sweat was heavy on his

"I disconnected it," he said, "and just in the nick of time. The soldier was clumsy. He intended it for our

comrades, but he didn't give it enough time. It would have exploded prematurely. Now it won't explode at

Everything was happening rapidly now. Across the street and half a block down, high up in a building, I

could see heads peering out. I had just pointed them out to Hartman, when a sheet of flame and smoke ran

along that portion of the face of the building where the heads had appeared, and the air was shaken by the

explosion. In places the stone facing of the building was torn away, exposing the iron construction beneath.

The next moment similar sheets of flame and smoke smote the front of the building across the street opposite

it. Between the explosions we could hear the rattle of the automatic pistols and rifles. For several minutes this

midair battle continued, then died out. It was patent that our comrades were in one building, that

Mercenaries were in the other, and that they were fighting across the street. But we could not tell which was

By this time the column on the street was almost on us. As the front of it passed under the warring buildings,

both went into action againone building dropping bombs into the street, being attacked from across the

street, and in return replying to that attack. Thus we learned which building was held by our comrades, and

The inner doors to the entrance were locked and bolted. We could not escape. The next moment the front of

the column went by. It was not a column, but a mob, an awful river that filled the street, the people of the

abyss, mad with drink and wrong, up at last and roaring for the blood of their masters. I had seen the people

of the abyss before, gone through its ghettos, and thought I knew it; but I found that I was now looking on it

for the first time. Dumb apathy had vanished. It was now dynamica fascinating spectacle of dread. It

surged past my vision in concrete waves of wrath, snarling and growling, carnivorous, drunk with whiskey

from pillaged warehouses, drunk with hatred, drunk with lust for blood men, women, and children, in rags

and tatters, dim ferocious intelligences with all the godlike blotted from their features and all the fiendlike

stamped in, apes and tigers, anaemic consumptives and great hairy beasts of burden, wan faces from which

vampire society had sucked the juice of life, bloated forms swollen with physical grossness and corruption,

withered hags and death'sheads bearded like patriarchs, festering youth and festering age, faces of fiends,

crooked, twisted, misshapen monsters blasted with the ravages of disease and all the horrors of chronic

innutritionthe refuse and the scum of life, a raging, screaming, screeching, demoniacal horde.

And why not? The people of the abyss had nothing to lose but the misery and pain of living. And to

gain?nothing, save one final, awful glut of vengeance. And as I looked the thought came to me that in that

rushing stream of human lava were men, comrades and heroes, whose mission had been to rouse the abysmal

And now a strange thing happened to me. A transformation came over me. The fear of death, for myself and

for others, left me. I was strangely exalted, another being in another life. Nothing mattered. The Cause for

this one time was lost, but the Cause would be here tomorrow, the same Cause, ever fresh and ever burning.

And thereafter, in the orgy of horror that raged through the succeeding hours, I was able to take a calm

interest. Death meant nothing, life meant nothing. I was an interested spectator of events, and, sometimes

swept on by the rush, was myself a curious participant. For my mind had leaped to a starcool altitude and

grasped a passionless transvaluation of values. Had it not done this, I know that I should have died.

Half a mile of the mob had swept by when we were discovered. A woman in fantastic rags, with cheeks

cavernously hollow and with narrow black eyes like burning gimlets, caught a glimpse of Hartman and me.

She let out a shrill shriek and bore in upon us. A section of the mob tore itself loose and surged in after her. I

can see her now, as I write these lines, a leap in advance, her gray hair flying in thin tangled strings, the blood

dripping down her forehead from some wound in the scalp, in her right hand a hatchet, her left hand, lean and

wrinkled, a yellow talon, gripping the air convulsively. Hartman sprang in front of me. This was no time for

explanations. We were well dressed, and that was enough. His fist shot out, striking the woman between her

burning eyes. The impact of the blow drove her backward, but she struck the wall of her oncoming fellows

and bounced forward again, dazed and helpless, the brandished hatchet falling feebly on Hartman's shoulder.

The next moment I knew not what was happening. I was overborne by the crowd. The confined space was

filled with shrieks and yells and curses. Blows were falling on me. Hands were ripping and tearing at my

flesh and garments. I felt that I was being torn to pieces. I was being borne down, suffocated. Some strong

hand gripped my shoulder in the thick of the press and was dragging fiercely at me. Between pain and

pressure I fainted. Hartman never came out of that entrance. He had shielded me and received the first brunt

of the attack. This had saved me, for the jam had quickly become too dense for anything more than the mad

I came to in the midst of wild movement. All about me was the same movement. I had been caught up in a

monstrous flood that was sweeping me I knew not whither. Fresh air was on my cheek and biting sweetly in

my lungs. Faint and dizzy, I was vaguely aware of a strong arm around my body under the arms, and

halflifting me and dragging me along. Feebly my own limbs were helping me. In front of me I could see the

moving back of a man's coat. It had been slit from top to bottom along the centre seam, and it pulsed

rhythmically, the slit opening and closing regularly with every leap of the wearer. This phenomenon

fascinated me for a time, while my senses were coming back to me. Next I became aware of stinging cheeks

and nose, and could feel blood dripping on my face. My hat was gone. My hair was down and flying, and

from the stinging of the scalp I managed to recollect a hand in the press of the entrance that had torn at my

My brain grew clearer, and I turned as I ran and looked at the man who was holding me up. He it was who

I failed to recognize him, but before I could speak I trod upon something that was alive and that squirmed

under my foot. I was swept on by those behind and could not look down and see, and yet I knew that it was a

woman who had fallen and who was being trampled into the pavement by thousands of successive feet.

He was bearded and gaunt and dirty, but I succeeded in remembering him as the stalwart youth that had spent

several months in our Glen Ellen refuge three years before. He passed me the signals of the Iron Heel's secret

"I'll get you out of this as soon as I can get a chance," he assured me. "But watch your footing. On your life

All things happened abruptly on that day, and with an abruptness that was sickening the mob checked itself. I

came in violent collision with a large woman in front of me (the man with the split coat had vanished), while

those behind collided against me. A devilish pandemonium reigned,shrieks, curses, and cries of death,

while above all rose the churning rattle of machineguns and the putaput, putaput of rifles. At first I

could make out nothing. People were falling about me right and left. The woman in front doubled up and

went down, her hands on her abdomen in a frenzied clutch. A man was quivering against my legs in a

It came to me that we were at the head of the column. Half a mile of it had disappearedwhere or how I

never learned. To this day I do not know what became of that halfmile of humanitywhether it was blotted

out by some frightful bolt of war, whether it was scattered and destroyed piecemeal, or whether it escaped.

But there we were, at the head of the column instead of in its middle, and we were being swept out of life by

As soon as death had thinned the jam, Garthwaite, still grasping my arm, led a rush of survivors into the wide

entrance of an office building. Here, at the rear, against the doors, we were pressed by a panting, gasping

mass of creatures. For some time we remained in this position without a change in the situation.

"I did it beautifully," Garthwaite was lamenting to me. "Ran you right into a trap. We had a gambler's chance

in the street, but in here there is no chance at all. It's all over but the shouting. Vive la Revolution!"

Then, what he expected, began. The Mercenaries were killing without quarter. At first, the surge back upon

us was crushing, but as the killing continued the pressure was eased. The dead and dying went down and

made room. Garthwaite put his mouth to my ear and shouted, but in the frightful din I could not catch what

he said. He did not wait. He seized me and threw me down. Next he dragged a dying woman over on top of

me, and, with much squeezing and shoving, crawled in beside me and partly over me. A mound of dead and

dying began to pile up over us, and over this mound, pawing and moaning, crept those that still survived. But

these, too, soon ceased, and a semisilence settled down, broken by groans and sobs and sounds of

I should have been crushed had it not been for Garthwaite. As it was, it seemed inconceivable that I could

bear the weight I did and live. And yet, outside of pain, the only feeling I possessed was one of curiosity.

How was it going to end? What would death be like? Thus did I receive my red baptism in that Chicago

shambles. Prior to that, death to me had been a theory; but ever afterward death has been a simple fact that

But the Mercenaries were not content with what they had done. They invaded the entrance, killing the

wounded and searching out the unhurt that, like ourselves, were playing dead. I remember one man they

dragged out of a heap, who pleaded abjectly until a revolver shot cut him short. Then there was a woman who

charged from a heap, snarling and shooting. She fired six shots before they got her, though what damage she

did we could not know. We could follow these tragedies only by the sound. Every little while flurries like this

occurred, each flurry culminating in the revolver shot that put an end to it. In the intervals we could hear the

soldiers talking and swearing as they rummaged among the carcasses, urged on by their officers to hurry up.

At last they went to work on our heap, and we could feel the pressure diminish as they dragged away the dead

and wounded. Garthwaite began uttering aloud the signals. At first he was not heard. Then he raised his

"Listen to that," we heard a soldier say. And next the sharp voice of an officer. "Hold on there! Careful as you

Oh, that first breath of air as we were dragged out! Garthwaite did the talking at first, but I was compelled to

"Agentsprovocateurs all right," was the officer's conclusion. He was a beardless young fellow, a cadet,

"It's a hell of a job," Garthwaite grumbled. "I'm going to try and resign and get into the army. You fellows

"You've earned it," was the young officer's answer. "I've got some pull, and I'll see if it can be managed. I can

"Oh, I'm going to be married," I answered lightly, "and then I'll be out of it all."

And so we talked, while the killing of the wounded went on. It is all a dream, now, as I look back on it; but at

the time it was the most natural thing in the world. Garthwaite and the young officer fell into an animated

conversation over the difference between so called modern warfare and the present streetfighting and sky

scraper fighting that was taking place all over the city. I followed them intently, fixing up my hair at the same

time and pinning together my torn skirts. And all the time the killing of the wounded went on. Sometimes the

revolver shots drowned the voices of Garthwaite and the officer, and they were compelled to repeat what they

I lived through three days of the Chicago Commune, and the vastness of it and of the slaughter may be

imagined when I say that in all that time I saw practically nothing outside the killing of the people of the

abyss and the midair fighting between skyscrapers. I really saw nothing of the heroic work done by the

comrades. I could hear the explosions of their mines and bombs, and see the smoke of their conflagrations,

and that was all. The midair part of one great deed I saw, however, and that was the balloon attacks made by

our comrades on the fortresses. That was on the second day. The three disloyal regiments had been destroyed

in the fortresses to the last man. The fortresses were crowded with Mercenaries, the wind blew in the right

direction, and up went our balloons from one of the office buildings in the city.

Now Biedenbach, after he left Glen Ellen, had invented a most powerful explosive"expedite" he called it.

This was the weapon the balloons used. They were only hotair balloons, clumsily and hastily made, but they

did the work. I saw it all from the top of an office building. The first balloon missed the fortresses completely

and disappeared into the country; but we learned about it afterward. Burton and O'Sullivan were in it. As they

were descending they swept across a railroad directly over a trooptrain that was heading at full speed for

Chicago. They dropped their whole supply of expedite upon the locomotive. The resulting wreck tied the line

up for days. And the best of it was that, released from the weight of expedite, the balloon shot up into the air

The second balloon was a failure. Its flight was lame. It floated too low and was shot full of holes before it

could reach the fortresses. Herford and Guinness were in it, and they were blown to pieces along with the

field into which they fell. Biedenbach was in despairwe heard all about it afterwardand he went up

alone in the third balloon. He, too, made a low flight, but he was in luck, for they failed seriously to puncture

his balloon. I can see it now as I did then, from the lofty top of the buildingthat inflated bag drifting along

the air, and that tiny speck of a man clinging on beneath. I could not see the fortress, but those on the roof

with me said he was directly over it. I did not see the expedite fall when he cut it loose. But I did see the

balloon suddenly leap up into the sky. An appreciable time after that the great column of the explosion

towered in the air, and after that, in turn, I heard the roar of it. Biedenbach the gentle had destroyed a fortress.

Two other balloons followed at the same time. One was blown to pieces in the air, the expedite exploding,

and the shock of it disrupted the second balloon, which fell prettily into the remaining fortress. It couldn't

But to return to the people of the abyss. My experiences were confined to them. They raged and slaughtered

and destroyed all over the city proper, and were in turn destroyed; but never once did they succeed in

reaching the city of the oligarchs over on the west side. The oligarchs had protected themselves well. No

matter what destruction was wreaked in the heart of the city, they, and their womenkind and children, were to

escape hurt. I am told that their children played in the parks during those terrible days and that their favorite

But the Mercenaries found it no easy task to cope with the people of the abyss and at the same time fight with

the comrades. Chicago was true to her traditions, and though a generation of revolutionists was wiped out, it

took along with it pretty close to a generation of its enemies. Of course, the Iron Heel kept the figures secret,

but, at a very conservative estimate, at least one hundred and thirty thousand Mercenaries were slain. But the

comrades had no chance. Instead of the whole country being hand in hand in revolt, they were all alone, and

the total strength of the Oligarchy could have been directed against them if necessary. As it was, hour after

hour, day after day, in endless trainloads, by hundreds of thousands, the Mercenaries were hurled into

And there were so many of the people of the abyss! Tiring of the slaughter, a great herding movement was

begun by the soldiers, the intent of which was to drive the street mobs, like cattle, into Lake Michigan. It was

at the beginning of this movement that Garthwaite and I had encountered the young officer. This herding

movement was practically a failure, thanks to the splendid work of the comrades. Instead of the great host the

Mercenaries had hoped to gather together, they succeeded in driving no more than forty thousand of the

wretches into the lake. Time and again, when a mob of them was well in hand and being driven along the

streets to the water, the comrades would create a diversion, and the mob would escape through the

Garthwaite and I saw an example of this shortly after meeting with the young officer. The mob of which we

had been a part, and which had been put in retreat, was prevented from escaping to the south and east by

strong bodies of troops. The troops we had fallen in with had held it back on the west. The only outlet was

north, and north it went toward the lake, driven on from east and west and south by machinegun fire and

automatics. Whether it divined that it was being driven toward the lake, or whether it was merely a blind

squirm of the monster, I do not know; but at any rate the mob took a cross street to the west, turned down the

next street, and came back upon its track, heading south toward the great ghetto.

Garthwaite and I at that time were trying to make our way westward to get out of the territory of

streetfighting, and we were caught right in the thick of it again. As we came to the corner we saw the

howling mob bearing down upon us. Garthwaite seized my arm and we were just starting to run, when he

dragged me back from in front of the wheels of half a dozen war automobiles, equipped with machineguns,

that were rushing for the spot. Behind them came the soldiers with their automatic rifles. By the time they

took position, the mob was upon them, and it looked as though they would be overwhelmed before they could

Here and there a soldier was discharging his rifle, but this scattered fire had no effect in checking the mob.

On it came, bellowing with brute rage. It seemed the machineguns could not get started. The automobiles on

which they were mounted blocked the street, compelling the soldiers to find positions in, between, and on the

sidewalks. More and more soldiers were arriving, and in the jam we were unable to get away. Garthwaite

The mob was no more than twentyfive feet away when the machine guns opened up; but before that

flaming sheet of death nothing could live. The mob came on, but it could not advance. It piled up in a heap, a

mound, a huge and growing wave of dead and dying. Those behind urged on, and the column, from gutter to

gutter, telescoped upon itself. Wounded creatures, men and women, were vomited over the top of that awful

wave and fell squirming down the face of it till they threshed about under the automobiles and against the

legs of the soldiers. The latter bayoneted the struggling wretches, though one I saw who gained his feet and

flew at a soldier's throat with his teeth. Together they went down, soldier and slave, into the welter.

The firing ceased. The work was done. The mob had been stopped in its wild attempt to break through.

Orders were being given to clear the wheels of the warmachines. They could not advance over that wave of

dead, and the idea was to run them down the cross street. The soldiers were dragging the bodies away from

the wheels when it happened. We learned afterward how it happened. A block distant a hundred of our

comrades had been holding a building. Across roofs and through buildings they made their way, till they

found themselves looking down upon the closepacked soldiers. Then it was countermassacre.

Without warning, a shower of bombs fell from the top of the building. The automobiles were blown to

fragments, along with many soldiers. We, with the survivors, swept back in mad retreat. Half a block down

another building opened fire on us. As the soldiers had carpeted the street with dead slaves, so, in turn, did

they themselves become carpet. Garthwaite and I bore charmed lives. As we had done before, so again we

sought shelter in an entrance. But he was not to be caught napping this time. As the roar of the bombs died

We fled, hand in hand, down the bloody pavement, slipping and sliding, and making for the corner. Down the

cross street we could see a few soldiers still running. Nothing was happening to them. The way was clear. So

we paused a moment and looked back. The mob came on slowly. It was busy arming itself with the rifles of

the slain and killing the wounded. We saw the end of the young officer who had rescued us. He painfully

"There goes my chance of promotion," Garthwaite laughed, as a woman bore down on the wounded man,

brandishing a butcher's cleaver. "Come on. It's the wrong direction, but we'll get out somehow."

And we fled eastward through the quiet streets, prepared at every cross street for anything to happen. To the

south a monster conflagration was filling the sky, and we knew that the great ghetto was burning. At last I

sank down on the sidewalk. I was exhausted and could go no farther. I was bruised and sore and aching in

every limb; yet I could not escape smiling at Garthwaite, who was rolling a cigarette and saying:

"I know I'm making a mess of rescuing you, but I can't get head nor tail of the situation. It's all a mess. Every

time we try to break out, something happens and we're turned back. We're only a couple of blocks now from

where I got you out of that entrance. Friend and foe are all mixed up. It's chaos. You can't tell who is in those

darned buildings. Try to find out, and you get a bomb on your head. Try to go peaceably on your way, and

you run into a mob and are killed by machineguns, or you run into the Mercenaries and are killed by your

own comrades from a roof. And on the top of it all the mob comes along and kills you, too."

The next moment he was on his feet again and out in the street prying up a cobblestone. He came back with it

"It's ground floor and no good," he explained as he helped me through the hole he had made; "but it's the best

we can do. You get a nap and I'll reconnoitre. I'll finish this rescue all right, but I want time, time, lots of

It was a harness store we found ourselves in, and he fixed me up a couch of horse blankets in the private

office well to the rear. To add to my wretchedness a splitting headache was coming on, and I was only too

"I'll be back," were his parting words. "I don't hope to get an auto, but I'll surely bring some grub,* anyway."

And that was the last I saw of Garthwaite for three years. Instead of coming back, he was carried away to a

hospital with a bullet through his lungs and another through the fleshy part of his neck.

I had not closed my eyes the night before on the Twentieth Century, and what of that and of my exhaustion I

slept soundly. When I first awoke, it was night. Garthwaite had not returned. I had lost my watch and had no

idea of the time. As I lay with my eyes closed, I heard the same dull sound of distant explosions. The inferno

was still raging. I crept through the store to the front. The reflection from the sky of vast conflagrations made

the street almost as light as day. One could have read the finest print with ease. From several blocks away

came the crackle of small hand bombs and the churning of machineguns, and from a long way off came a

long series of heavy explosions. I crept back to my horse blankets and slept again.

When next I awoke, a sickly yellow light was filtering in on me. It was dawn of the second day. I crept to the

front of the store. A smoke pall, shot through with lurid gleams, filled the sky. Down the opposite side of the

street tottered a wretched slave. One hand he held tightly against his side, and behind him he left a bloody

trail. His eyes roved everywhere, and they were filled with apprehension and dread. Once he looked straight

across at me, and in his face was all the dumb pathos of the wounded and hunted animal. He saw me, but

there was no kinship between us, and with him, at least, no sympathy of understanding; for he cowered

perceptibly and dragged himself on. He could expect no aid in all God's world. He was a helot in the great

hunt of helots that the masters were making. All he could hope for, all he sought, was some hole to crawl

away in and hide like any animal. The sharp clang of a passing ambulance at the corner gave him a start.

Ambulances were not for such as he. With a groan of pain he threw himself into a doorway. A minute later he

I went back to my horse blankets and waited an hour for Garthwaite. My headache had not gone away. On

the contrary, it was increasing. It was by an effort of will only that I was able to open my eyes and look at

objects. And with the opening of my eyes and the looking came intolerable torment. Also, a great pulse was

beating in my brain. Weak and reeling, I went out through the broken window and down the street, seeking to

escape, instinctively and gropingly, from the awful shambles. And thereafter I lived nightmare. My memory

of what happened in the succeeding hours is the memory one would have of nightmare. Many events are

focussed sharply on my brain, but between these indelible pictures I retain are intervals of unconsciousness.

I remember stumbling at the corner over the legs of a man. It was the poor hunted wretch that had dragged

himself past my hiding place. How distinctly do I remember his poor, pitiful, gnarled hands as he lay there

on the pavementhands that were more hoof and claw than hands, all twisted and distorted by the toil of all

his days, with on the palms a horny growth of callous a half inch thick. And as I picked myself up and started

on, I looked into the face of the thing and saw that it still lived; for the eyes, dimly intelligent, were looking at

After that came a kindly blank. I knew nothing, saw nothing, merely tottered on in my quest for safety. My

next nightmare vision was a quiet street of the dead. I came upon it abruptly, as a wanderer in the country

would come upon a flowing stream. Only this stream I gazed upon did not flow. It was congealed in death.

From pavement to pavement, and covering the sidewalks, it lay there, spread out quite evenly, with only here

and there a lump or mound of bodies to break the surface. Poor driven people of the abyss, hunted

helotsthey lay there as the rabbits in California after a drive.* Up the street and down I looked. There was

no movement, no sound. The quiet buildings looked down upon the scene from their many windows. And

once, and once only, I saw an arm that moved in that dead stream. I swear I saw it move, with a strange

writhing gesture of agony, and with it lifted a head, gory with nameless horror, that gibbered at me and then

* In those days, so sparsely populated was the land that wild animals often became pests. In California the

custom of rabbit driving obtained. On a given day all the farmers in a locality would assemble and sweep

across the country in converging lines, driving the rabbits by scores of thousands into a prepared enclosure,

I remember another street, with quiet buildings on either side, and the panic that smote me into consciousness

as again I saw the people of the abyss, but this time in a stream that flowed and came on. And then I saw

there was nothing to fear. The stream moved slowly, while from it arose groans and lamentations, cursings,

babblings of senility, hysteria, and insanity; for these were the very young and the very old, the feeble and the

sick, the helpless and the hopeless, all the wreckage of the ghetto. The burning of the great ghetto on the

South Side had driven them forth into the inferno of the streetfighting, and whither they wended and

* It was long a question of debate, whether the burning of the South Side ghetto was accidental, or whether it

was done by the Mercenaries; but it is definitely settled now that the ghetto was fired by the Mercenaries

I have faint memories of breaking a window and hiding in some shop to escape a street mob that was pursued

by soldiers. Also, a bomb burst near me, once, in some still street, where, look as I would, up and down, I

could see no human being. But my next sharp recollection begins with the crack of a rifle and an abrupt

becoming aware that I am being fired at by a soldier in an automobile. The shot missed, and the next moment

I was screaming and motioning the signals. My memory of riding in the automobile is very hazy, though this

ride, in turn, is broken by one vivid picture. The crack of the rifle of the soldier sitting beside me made me

open my eyes, and I saw George Milford, whom I had known in the Pell Street days, sinking slowly down to

the sidewalk. Even as he sank the soldier fired again, and Milford doubled in, then flung his body out, and

The next I knew after that I was awakened out of a sound sleep by a man who walked up and down close

beside me. His face was drawn and strained, and the sweat rolled down his nose from his forehead. One hand

was clutched tightly against his chest by the other hand, and blood dripped down upon the floor as he walked.

He wore the uniform of the Mercenaries. From without, as through thick walls, came the muffled roar of

bursting bombs. I was in some building that was locked in combat with some other building.

A surgeon came in to dress the wounded soldier, and I learned that it was two in the afternoon. My headache

was no better, and the surgeon paused from his work long enough to give me a powerful drug that would

depress the heart and bring relief. I slept again, and the next I knew I was on top of the building. The

immediate fighting had ceased, and I was watching the balloon attack on the fortresses. Some one had an arm

around me and I was leaning close against him. It came to me quite as a matter of course that this was Ernest,

and I found myself wondering how he had got his hair and eyebrows so badly singed.

It was by the merest chance that we had found each other in that terrible city. He had had no idea that I had

left New York, and, coming through the room where I lay asleep, could not at first believe that it was I. Little

more I saw of the Chicago Commune. After watching the balloon attack, Ernest took me down into the heart

of the building, where I slept the afternoon out and the night. The third day we spent in the building, and on

the fourth, Ernest having got permission and an automobile from the authorities, we left Chicago.

My headache was gone, but, body and soul, I was very tired. I lay back against Ernest in the automobile, and

with apathetic eyes watched the soldiers trying to get the machine out of the city. Fighting was still going on,

but only in isolated localities. Here and there whole districts were still in possession of the comrades, but

such districts were surrounded and guarded by heavy bodies of troops. In a hundred segregated traps were the

comrades thus held while the work of subjugating them went on. Subjugation meant death, for no quarter was

* Numbers of the buildings held out over a week, while one held out eleven days. Each building had to be

stormed like a fort, and the Mercenaries fought their way upward floor by floor. It was deadly fighting.

Quarter was neither given nor taken, and in the fighting the revolutionists had the advantage of being above.

While the revolutionists were wiped out, the loss was not onesided. The proud Chicago proletariat lived up

to its ancient boast. For as many of itself as were killed, it killed that many of the enemy.

Whenever we approached such localities, the guards turned us back and sent us around. Once, the only way

past two strong positions of the comrades was through a burnt section that lay between. From either side we

could hear the rattle and roar of war, while the automobile picked its way through smoking ruins and tottering

walls. Often the streets were blocked by mountains of debris that compelled us to go around. We were in a

The stockyards (ghetto, plant, and everything) were smouldering ruins. Far off to the right a wide smoke haze

dimmed the sky,the town of Pullman, the soldier chauffeur told us, or what had been the town of Pullman,

for it was utterly destroyed. He had driven the machine out there, with despatches, on the afternoon of the

third day. Some of the heaviest fighting had occurred there, he said, many of the streets being rendered

Swinging around the shattered walls of a building, in the stockyards district, the automobile was stopped by a

wave of dead. It was for all the world like a wave tossed up by the sea. It was patent to us what had happened.

As the mob charged past the corner, it had been swept, at right angles and pointblank range, by the

machineguns drawn up on the cross street. But disaster had come to the soldiers. A chance bomb must have

exploded among them, for the mob, checked until its dead and dying formed the wave, had whitecapped and

flung forward its foam of living, fighting slaves. Soldiers and slaves lay together, torn and mangled, around

Ernest sprang out. A familiar pair of shoulders in a cotton shirt and a familiar fringe of white hair had caught

his eye. I did not watch him, and it was not until he was back beside me and we were speeding on that he

Soon we were in the green country, and I took one last glance back at the smokefilled sky. Faint and far

came the low thud of an explosion. Then I turned my face against Ernest's breast and wept softly for the

"For this time lost, dear heart," he said, "but not forever. We have learned. Tomorrow the Cause will rise

The automobile drew up at a railroad station. Here we would catch a train to New York. As we waited on the

platform, three trains thundered past, bound west to Chicago. They were crowded with ragged, unskilled

"Slavelevies for the rebuilding of Chicago," Ernest said. "You see, the Chicago slaves are all killed."

It was not until Ernest and I were back in New York, and after weeks had elapsed, that we were able to

comprehend thoroughly the full sweep of the disaster that had befallen the Cause. The situation was bitter and

bloody. In many places, scattered over the country, slave revolts and massacres had occurred. The roll of the

martyrs increased mightily. Countless executions took place everywhere. The mountains and waste regions

were filled with outlaws and refugees who were being hunted down mercilessly. Our own refuges were

packed with comrades who had prices on their heads. Through information furnished by its spies, scores of

Many of the comrades were disheartened, and they retaliated with terroristic tactics. The setback to their

hopes made them despairing and desperate. Many terrorist organizations unaffiliated with us sprang into

existence and caused us much trouble.* These misguided people sacrificed their own lives wantonly, very

* The annals of this shortlived era of despair make bloody reading. Revenge was the ruling motive, and the

members of the terroristic organizations were careless of their own lives and hopeless about the future. The

Danites, taking their name from the avenging angels of the Mormon mythology, sprang up in the mountains

of the Great West and spread over the Pacific Coast from Panama to Alaska. The Valkyries were women.

They were the most terrible of all. No woman was eligible for membership who had not lost near relatives at

the hands of the Oligarchy. They were guilty of torturing their prisoners to death. Another famous

organization of women was The Widows of War. A companion organization to the Valkyries was the

Berserkers. These men placed no value whatever upon their own lives, and it was they who totally destroyed

the great Mercenary city of Bellona along with its population of over a hundred thousand souls. The

Bedlamites and the Helldamites were twin slave organizations, while a new religious sect that did not flourish

long was called The Wrath of God. Among others, to show the whimsicality of their deadly seriousness, may

be mentioned the following: The Bleeding Hearts, Sons of the Morning, the Morning Stars, The Flamingoes,

The Triple Triangles, The Three Bars, The Rubonics, The Vindicators, The Comanches, and the Erebusites.

And through it all moved the Iron Heel, impassive and deliberate, shaking up the whole fabric of the social

structure in its search for the comrades, combing out the Mercenaries, the labor castes, and all its secret

services, punishing without mercy and without malice, suffering in silence all retaliations that were made

upon it, and filling the gaps in its fighting line as fast as they appeared. And hand in hand with this, Ernest

and the other leaders were hard at work reorganizing the forces of the Revolution. The magnitude of the task

* This is the end of the Everhard Manuscript. It breaks off abruptly in the middle of a sentence. She must

have received warning of the coming of the Mercenaries, for she had time safely to hide the Manuscript

before she fled or was captured. It is to be regretted that she did not live to complete her narrative, for then,

undoubtedly, would have been cleared away the mystery that has shrouded for seven centuries the execution