by Jack London
CHAPTER V
THE PHILOMATHS
Ernest was often at the house. Nor was it my father, merely, northe controversial dinners, that drew him there. Even at that time Iflattered myself that I played some part in causing his visits, and itwas not long before I learned the correctness of my surmise. For neverwas there such a lover as Ernest Everhard. His gaze and his hand-claspgrew firmer and steadier, if that were possible; and the question thathad grown from the first in his eyes, grew only the more imperative.
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 thathe had not maligned my class, and that the harsh and bitter things hesaid about it were justified, I had drawn closer to him again. He becamemy oracle. For me he tore the sham from the face of society and gaveme glimpses of reality that were as unpleasant as they were undeniablytrue.
As I have said, there was never such a lover as he. No girl couldlive in a university town till she was twenty-four and not have loveexperiences. I had been made love to by beardless sophomores and grayprofessors, and by the athletes and the football giants. But not oneof them made love to me as Ernest did. His arms were around me before Iknew. His lips were on mine before I could protest or resist. Before hisearnestness conventional maiden dignity was ridiculous. He swept me offmy feet by the splendid invincible rush of him. He did not propose. Heput his arms around me and kissed me and took it for granted thatwe should be married. There was no discussion about it. The onlydiscussion--and that arose afterward--was when we should be married.
It was unprecedented. It was unreal. Yet, in accordance with Ernest'stest of truth, it worked. I trusted my life to it. And fortunate was thetrust. Yet during those first days of our love, fear of the futurecame often to me when I thought of the violence and impetuosity of hislove-making. Yet such fears were groundless. No woman was ever blessedwith a gentler, tenderer husband. This gentleness and violence onhis part was a curious blend similar to the one in his carriage ofawkwardness and ease. That slight awkwardness! He never got over it,and it was delicious. His behavior in our drawing-room reminded me of acareful bull in a china shop.*
* In those days it was still the custom to fill the living rooms with bric-a-brac. They had not discovered simplicity of living. Such rooms were museums, entailing endless labor to keep clean. The dust-demon was the lord of the household. There were a myriad devices for catching dust, and only a few devices for getting rid of it.
It was at this time that vanished my last doubt of the completeness ofmy love for him (a subconscious doubt, at most). It was at the PhilomathClub--a wonderful night of battle, wherein Ernest bearded the mastersin their lair. Now the Philomath Club was the most select on the PacificCoast. It was the creation of Miss Brentwood, an enormously wealthy oldmaid; and it was her husband, and family, and toy. Its members were thewealthiest in the community, and the strongest-minded of the wealthy,with, of course, a sprinkling of scholars to give it intellectual tone.
The Philomath had no club house. It was not that kind of a club. Once amonth its members gathered at some one of their private houses to listento a lecture. The lecturers were usually, though not always, hired. If achemist in New York made a new discovery in say radium, all his expensesacross the continent were paid, and as well he received a princely feefor 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 discussionsto get into the papers. Thus great statesmen--and there had been suchoccasions--were able fully to speak their minds.
I spread before me a wrinkled letter, written to me by Ernest twentyyears ago, and from it I copy the following:
"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 thetime of your life. In your recent encounters, you failed to shake themasters. If you come, I'll shake them for you. I'll make them snarl likewolves. You merely questioned their morality. When their morality isquestioned, they grow only the more complacent and superior. But I shallmenace their money-bags. That will shake them to the roots of theirprimitive natures. If you can come, you will see the cave-man, inevening dress, snarling and snapping over a bone. I promise you a greatcaterwauling and an illuminating insight into the nature of the beast.
"They've invited me in order to tear me to pieces. This is the idea ofMiss Brentwood. She clumsily hinted as much when she invited me.She's given them that kind of fun before. They delight in gettingtrustful-souled gentle reformers before them. Miss Brentwood thinks Iam as mild as a kitten and as good-natured and stolid as the family cow.I'll not deny that I helped to give her that impression. She was verytentative at first, until she divined my harmlessness. I am to receivea handsome fee--two hundred and fifty dollars--as befits the man who,though a radical, once ran for governor. Also, I am to wear eveningdress. This is compulsory. I never was so apparelled in my life. Isuppose I'll have to hire one somewhere. But I'd do more than that toget a chance at the Philomaths."
Of all places, the Club gathered that night at the Pertonwaithe house.Extra chairs had been brought into the great drawing-room, and inall there must have been two hundred Philomaths that sat down to hearErnest. They were truly lords of society. I amused myself with runningover in my mind the sum of the fortunes represented, and it ran wellinto the hundreds of millions. And the possessors were not of the idlerich. They were men of affairs who took most active parts in industrialand political life.
We were all seated when Miss Brentwood brought Ernest in. They movedat once to the head of the room, from where he was to speak. He wasin evening dress, and, what of his broad shoulders and kingly head, helooked magnificent. And then there was that faint and unmistakable touchof awkwardness in his movements. I almost think I could have loved himfor that alone. And as I looked at him I was aware of a great joy. Ifelt again the pulse of his palm on mine, the touch of his lips; andsuch pride was mine that I felt I must rise up and cry out to theassembled 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 hismultitudinous and kingly thoughts!"
At the head of the room, Miss Brentwood introduced him to Colonel VanGilbert, and I knew that the latter was to preside. Colonel Van Gilbertwas a great corporation lawyer. In addition, he was immensely wealthy.The smallest fee he would deign to notice was a hundred thousanddollars. He was a master of law. The law was a puppet with which heplayed. He moulded it like clay, twisted and distorted it like a Chinesepuzzle into any design he chose. In appearance and rhetoric he wasold-fashioned, but in imagination and knowledge and resource he was asyoung as the latest statute. His first prominence had come when he brokethe Shardwell will.* His fee for this one act was five hundred thousanddollars. From then on he had risen like a rocket. He was often calledthe greatest lawyer in the country--corporation lawyer, of course; andno classification of the three greatest lawyers in the United Statescould 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. Will-making and will-breaking became complementary trades, like armor-making and gun-making. The shrewdest will-making 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 alchemists.
He arose and began, in a few well-chosen phrases that carried anundertone of faint irony, to introduce Ernest. Colonel Van Gilbert wassubtl
y facetious in his introduction of the social reformer and memberof the working class, and the audience smiled. It made me angry, andI glanced at Ernest. The sight of him made me doubly angry. He did notseem to resent the delicate slurs. Worse than that, he did not seem tobe aware of them. There he sat, gentle, and stolid, and somnolent. Hereally looked stupid. And for a moment the thought rose in my mind, Whatif he were overawed by this imposing array of power and brains? Then Ismiled. He couldn't fool me. But he fooled the others, just as he hadfooled Miss Brentwood. She occupied a chair right up to the front, andseveral times she turned her head toward one or another of her CONFRERESand smiled her appreciation of the remarks.
Colonel Van Gilbert done, Ernest arose and began to speak. He began ina low voice, haltingly and modestly, and with an air of evidentembarrassment. He spoke of his birth in the working class, and of thesordidness and wretchedness of his environment, where flesh and spiritwere alike starved and tormented. He described his ambitions and ideals,and his conception of the paradise wherein lived the people of the upperclasses. As he said:
"Up above me, I knew, were unselfishnesses of the spirit, clean andnoble thinking, keen intellectual living. I knew all this because I read'Seaside Library'* novels, in which, with the exception of the villainsand adventuresses, all men and women thought beautiful thoughts, spoke abeautiful tongue, and performed glorious deeds. In short, as I acceptedthe rising of the sun, I accepted that up above me was all that was fineand noble and gracious, all that gave decency and dignity to life, allthat made life worth living and that remunerated one for his travail andmisery."
* A curious and amazing literature that served to make the working class utterly misapprehend the nature of the leisure class.
He went on and traced his life in the mills, the learning of thehorseshoeing trade, and his meeting with the socialists. Among them, hesaid, he had found keen intellects and brilliant wits, ministers of theGospel who had been broken because their Christianity was too wide forany congregation of mammon-worshippers, and professors who had beenbroken on the wheel of university subservience to the ruling class. Thesocialists were revolutionists, he said, struggling to overthrow theirrational society of the present and out of the material to build therational society of the future. Much more he said that would take toolong to write, but I shall never forget how he described the life amongthe revolutionists. All halting utterance vanished. His voice grewstrong and confident, and it glowed as he glowed, and as the thoughtsglowed that poured out from him. He said:
"Amongst the revolutionists I found, also, warm faith in the human,ardent idealism, sweetnesses of unselfishness, renunciation, andmartyrdom--all the splendid, stinging things of the spirit. Here lifewas clean, noble, and alive. I was in touch with great souls who exaltedflesh and spirit over dollars and cents, and to whom the thin wail ofthe starved slum child meant more than all the pomp and circumstance ofcommercial expansion and world empire. All about me were nobleness ofpurpose and heroism of effort, and my days and nights were sunshineand starshine, all fire and dew, with before my eyes, ever burningand blazing, the Holy Grail, Christ's own Grail, the warm human,long-suffering and maltreated but to be rescued and saved at the last."
As before I had seen him transfigured, so now he stood transfiguredbefore me. His brows were bright with the divine that was in him, andbrighter yet shone his eyes from the midst of the radiance that seemedto 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 dimmedmy vision. At any rate, Mr. Wickson, who sat behind me, was unaffected,for I heard him sneer aloud, "Utopian."*
* 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 genius.
Ernest went on to his rise in society, till at last he came in touchwith members of the upper classes, and rubbed shoulders with the menwho sat in the high places. Then came his disillusionment, and thisdisillusionment he described in terms that did not flatter his audience.He was surprised at the commonness of the clay. Life proved not to befine and gracious. He was appalled by the selfishness he encountered,and what had surprised him even more than that was the absence ofintellectual life. Fresh from his revolutionists, he was shocked by theintellectual stupidity of the master class. And then, in spite of theirmagnificent churches and well-paid preachers, he had found the masters,men and women, grossly material. It was true that they prattled sweetlittle ideals and dear little moralities, but in spite of their prattlethe dominant key of the life they lived was materialistic. And they werewithout real morality--for instance, that which Christ had preached butwhich was no longer preached.
"I met men," he said, "who invoked the name of the Prince of Peacein their diatribes against war, and who put rifles in the hands ofPinkertons* with which to shoot down strikers in their own factories. Imet men incoherent with indignation at the brutality of prize-fighting,and who, at the same time, were parties to the adulteration of food thatkilled each year more babes than even red-handed Herod had killed.
* Originally, they were private detectives; but they quickly became hired fighting men of the capitalists, and ultimately developed into the Mercenaries of the Oligarchy.
"This delicate, aristocratic-featured gentleman was a dummy directorand a tool of corporations that secretly robbed widows and orphans. Thisgentleman, who collected fine editions and was a patron of literature,paid blackmail to a heavy-jowled, black-browed boss of a municipalmachine. This editor, who published patent medicine advertisements,called me a scoundrelly demagogue because I dared him to print in hispaper the truth about patent medicines.* This man, talking soberly andearnestly about the beauties of idealism and the goodness of God, hadjust betrayed his comrades in a business deal. This man, a pillar of thechurch and heavy contributor to foreign missions, worked his shop girlsten hours a day on a starvation wage and thereby directly encouragedprostitution. This man, who endowed chairs in universities and erectedmagnificent chapels, perjured himself in courts of law over dollarsand cents. This railroad magnate broke his word as a citizen, as agentleman, and as a Christian, when he granted a secret rebate, and hegranted many secret rebates. This senator was the tool and the slave,the little puppet, of a brutal uneducated machine boss;** so was thisgovernor and this supreme court judge; and all three rode on railroadpasses; and, also, this sleek capitalist owned the machine, the machineboss, 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 machine bosses.
"And so it was, instead of in paradise, that I found myself in thearid desert of commercialism. I found nothing but stupidity, except forbusiness. I found none clean, noble, and alive, though I found many whowere alive--with rottenness. What I did find was monstrous selfishnessand heartlessness, and a gross, gluttonous, practised, and practicalmaterialism."
Much more Ernes
t told them of themselves and of his disillusionment.Intellectually they had bored him; morally and spiritually they hadsickened him; so that he was glad to go back to his revolutionists, whowere clean, noble, and alive, and all that the capitalists were not.
"And now," he said, "let me tell you about that revolution."
But first I must say that his terrible diatribe had not touched them. Ilooked about me at their faces and saw that they remained complacentlysuperior to what he had charged. And I remembered what he had told me:that no indictment of their morality could shake them. However, I couldsee that the boldness of his language had affected Miss Brentwood. Shewas looking worried and apprehensive.
Ernest began by describing the army of revolution, and as he gave thefigures of its strength (the votes cast in the various countries), theassemblage began to grow restless. Concern showed in their faces, and Inoticed a tightening of lips. At last the gage of battle had been throwndown. He described the international organization of the socialists thatunited the million and a half in the United States with the twenty-threemillions and a half in the rest of the world.
"Such an army of revolution," he said, "twenty-five millions strong, isa thing to make rulers and ruling classes pause and consider. The cryof this army is: 'No quarter! We want all that you possess. We willbe content with nothing less than all that you possess. We want in ourhands the reins of power and the destiny of mankind. Here are our hands.They are strong hands. We are going to take your governments, yourpalaces, and all your purpled ease away from you, and in that dayyou shall work for your bread even as the peasant in the field or thestarved and runty clerk in your metropolises. Here are our hands. Theyare strong hands!'"
And as he spoke he extended from his splendid shoulders his two greatarms, and the horseshoer's hands were clutching the air like eagle'stalons. He was the spirit of regnant labor as he stood there, his handsoutreaching to rend and crush his audience. I was aware of a faintlyperceptible shrinking on the part of the listeners before this figureof revolution, concrete, potential, and menacing. That is, the womenshrank, and fear was in their faces. Not so with the men. They wereof the active rich, and not the idle, and they were fighters. A low,throaty rumble arose, lingered on the air a moment, and ceased. Itwas the forerunner of the snarl, and I was to hear it many times thatnight--the token of the brute in man, the earnest of his primitivepassions. And they were unconscious that they had made this sound.It was the growl of the pack, mouthed by the pack, and mouthed in allunconsciousness. And in that moment, as I saw the harshness form intheir faces and saw the fight-light flashing in their eyes, I realizedthat not easily would they let their lordship of the world be wrestedfrom them.
Ernest proceeded with his attack. He accounted for the existence of themillion and a half of revolutionists in the United States by chargingthe capitalist class with having mismanaged society. He sketched theeconomic condition of the cave-man and of the savage peoples of to-day,pointing out that they possessed neither tools nor machines, andpossessed only a natural efficiency of one in producing power. Thenhe traced the development of machinery and social organization so thatto-day the producing power of civilized man was a thousand times greaterthan that of the savage.
"Five men," he said, "can produce bread for a thousand. One man canproduce cotton cloth for two hundred and fifty people, woollens forthree hundred, and boots and shoes for a thousand. One would concludefrom this that under a capable management of society modern civilizedman would be a great deal better off than the cave-man. But is he? Letus see. In the United States to-day there are fifteen million* peopleliving in poverty; and by poverty is meant that condition in life inwhich, through lack of food and adequate shelter, the mere standard ofworking efficiency cannot be maintained. In the United States to-day, inspite of all your so-called labor legislation, there are three millionsof child laborers.** In twelve years their numbers have been doubled.And in passing I will ask you managers of society why you did not makepublic the census figures of 1910? And I will answer for you, thatyou were afraid. The figures of misery would have precipitated therevolution that even now is gathering.
* Robert Hunter, in 1906, in a book entitled "Poverty," pointed out that at that time there were ten millions in the United States living in poverty.
** In the United States Census of 1900 (the last census the figures of which were made public), the number of child laborers was placed at 1,752,187.
"But to return to my indictment. If modern man's producing power isa thousand times greater than that of the cave-man, why then, in theUnited States to-day, are there fifteen million people who are notproperly sheltered and properly fed? Why then, in the United Statesto-day, are there three million child laborers? It is a true indictment.The capitalist class has mismanaged. In face of the facts that modernman lives more wretchedly than the cave-man, and that his producingpower is a thousand times greater than that of the cave-man, no otherconclusion is possible than that the capitalist class has mismanaged,that you have mismanaged, my masters, that you have criminally andselfishly mismanaged. And on this count you cannot answer me hereto-night, face to face, any more than can your whole class answer themillion and a half of revolutionists in the United States. You cannotanswer. I challenge you to answer. And furthermore, I dare to say toyou now that when I have finished you will not answer. On that pointyou will be tongue-tied, though you will talk wordily enough about otherthings.
"You have failed in your management. You have made a shambles ofcivilization. You have been blind and greedy. You have risen up (as youto-day rise up), shamelessly, in our legislative halls, and declaredthat 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. Youhave lulled your conscience to sleep with prattle of sweet ideals anddear moralities. You are fat with power and possession, drunken withsuccess; and you have no more hope against us than have the drones,clustered about the honey-vats, when the worker-bees spring upon themto end their rotund existence. You have failed in your management ofsociety, and your management is to be taken away from you. A million anda half of the men of the working class say that they are going to getthe rest of the working class to join with them and take the managementaway from you. This is the revolution, my masters. Stop it if you can."
For an appreciable lapse of time Ernest's voice continued to ringthrough the great room. Then arose the throaty rumble I had heardbefore, and a dozen men were on their feet clamoring for recognitionfrom Colonel Van Gilbert. I noticed Miss Brentwood's shoulders movingconvulsively, and for the moment I was angry, for I thought that she waslaughing at Ernest. And then I discovered that it was not laughter,but hysteria. She was appalled by what she had done in bringing thisfirebrand before her blessed Philomath Club.
Colonel Van Gilbert did not notice the dozen men, with passion-wroughtfaces, who strove to get permission from him to speak. His own facewas passion-wrought. He sprang to his feet, waving his arms, and for amoment could utter only incoherent sounds. Then speech poured from him.But it was not the speech of a one-hundred-thousand-dollar lawyer, norwas the rhetoric old-fashioned.
"Fallacy upon fallacy!" he cried. "Never in all my life have I heard somany fallacies uttered in one short hour. And besides, young man, I musttell you that you have said nothing new. I learned all that at collegebefore you were born. Jean Jacques Rousseau enunciated your socialistictheory nearly two centuries ago. A return to the soil, forsooth!Reversion! Our biology teaches the absurdity of it. It has beentruly said that a little learning is a dangerous thing, and you haveexemplified it to-night with your madcap theories. Fallacy upon fallacy!I was never so nauseated in my life with overplus of fallacy. That foryour immature generalizations and childish reasonings!"
He snapped his fingers contemptuously and proceeded to sit down. Therewere lip-exclamations of approval on the part of the women, and hoarsernotes of confirmation came from the men. As for the dozen men whowere clamoring for the floor, half of them
began speaking at once. Theconfusion and babel was indescribable. Never had Mrs. Pertonwaithe'sspacious walls beheld such a spectacle. These, then, were the coolcaptains of industry and lords of society, these snarling, growlingsavages in evening clothes. Truly Ernest had shaken them when hestretched out his hands for their moneybags, his hands that hadappeared in their eyes as the hands of the fifteen hundred thousandrevolutionists.
But Ernest never lost his head in a situation. Before Colonel VanGilbert had succeeded in sitting down, Ernest was on his feet and hadsprung forward.
"One at a time!" he roared at them.
The sound arose from his great lungs and dominated the human tempest. Bysheer compulsion of personality he commanded silence.
"One at a time," he repeated softly. "Let me answer Colonel Van Gilbert.After that the rest of you can come at me--but one at a time, remember.No mass-plays here. This is not a football field.
"As for you," he went on, turning toward Colonel Van Gilbert, "you havereplied to nothing I have said. You have merely made a few excited anddogmatic assertions about my mental caliber. That may serve you in yourbusiness, 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 themachine at which I work. You cannot be dogmatic with truth when you dealwith me. Save that for dealing with your wage-slaves. They will not darereply to you because you hold their bread and butter, their lives, inyour hands.
"As for this return to nature that you say you learned at college beforeI was born, permit me to point out that on the face of it you cannothave learned anything since. Socialism has no more to do with the stateof nature than has differential calculus with a Bible class. I havecalled your class stupid when outside the realm of business. You, sir,have brilliantly exemplified my statement."
This terrible castigation of her hundred-thousand-dollar lawyer was toomuch for Miss Brentwood's nerves. Her hysteria became violent, and shewas helped, weeping and laughing, out of the room. It was just as well,for there was worse to follow.
"Don't take my word for it," Ernest continued, when the interruption hadbeen led away. "Your own authorities with one unanimous voice will proveyou stupid. Your own hired purveyors of knowledge will tell you that youare wrong. Go to your meekest little assistant instructor of sociologyand ask him what is the difference between Rousseau's theory of thereturn to nature and the theory of socialism; ask your greatest orthodoxbourgeois political economists and sociologists; question throughthe pages of every text-book written on the subject and stored on theshelves of your subsidized libraries; and from one and all the answerwill be that there is nothing congruous between the return to nature andsocialism. On the other hand, the unanimous affirmative answer will bethat the return to nature and socialism are diametrically opposed toeach other. As I say, don't take my word for it. The record of yourstupidity is there in the books, your own books that you never read. Andso far as your stupidity is concerned, you are but the exemplar of yourclass.
"You know law and business, Colonel Van Gilbert. You know how to servecorporations and increase dividends by twisting the law. Very good.Stick to it. You are quite a figure. You are a very good lawyer, but youare a poor historian, you know nothing of sociology, and your biology iscontemporaneous with Pliny."
Here Colonel Van Gilbert writhed in his chair. There was perfect quietin the room. Everybody sat fascinated--paralyzed, I may say. Suchfearful treatment of the great Colonel Van Gilbert was unheard of,undreamed of, impossible to believe--the great Colonel Van Gilbertbefore whom judges trembled when he arose in court. But Ernest nevergave quarter to an enemy.
"This is, of course, no reflection on you," Ernest said. "Every man tohis trade. Only you stick to your trade, and I'll stick to mine. Youhave specialized. When it comes to a knowledge of the law, of howbest to evade the law or make new law for the benefit of thievingcorporations, I am down in the dirt at your feet. But when it comes tosociology--my trade--you are down in the dirt at my feet. Remember that.Remember, also, that your law is the stuff of a day, and that you arenot versatile in the stuff of more than a day. Therefore yourdogmatic assertions and rash generalizations on things historical andsociological are not worth the breath you waste on them."
Ernest paused for a moment and regarded him thoughtfully, noting hisface 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 touse it. I indicted your class. Show me that my indictment is wrong. Ipointed out to you the wretchedness of modern man--three million childslaves in the United States, without whose labor profits would not bepossible, and fifteen million under-fed, ill-clothed, and worse-housedpeople. I pointed out that modern man's producing power through socialorganization and the use of machinery was a thousand times greater thanthat of the cave-man. And I stated that from these two facts no otherconclusion was possible than that the capitalist class had mismanaged.This was my indictment, and I specifically and at length challenged youto 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 speechfallacy. Show the fallacy, Colonel Van Gilbert. Answer the indictmentthat I and my fifteen hundred thousand comrades have brought againstyour class and you."
Colonel Van Gilbert quite forgot that he was presiding, and that incourtesy he should permit the other clamorers to speak. He was on hisfeet, flinging his arms, his rhetoric, and his control to the winds,alternately abusing Ernest for his youth and demagoguery, andsavagely attacking the working class, elaborating its inefficiency andworthlessness.
"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 withwhat I have enunciated. Nor has the worthlessness of the working class.I charged the capitalist class with having mismanaged society. You havenot answered. You have made no attempt to answer. Why? Is it because youhave no answer? You are the champion of this whole audience. Everyone here, except me, is hanging on your lips for that answer. Theyare hanging on your lips for that answer because they have no answerthemselves. As for me, as I said before, I know that you not only cannotanswer, but that you will not attempt an answer."
"This is intolerable!" Colonel Van Gilbert cried out. "This is insult!"
"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 myintellectual charge that the capitalist class has mismanaged society."
Colonel Van Gilbert remained silent, a sullen, superior expression onhis face, such as will appear on the face of a man who will not bandywords with a ruffian.
"Do not be downcast," Ernest said. "Take consolation in the fact thatno member of your class has ever yet answered that charge." He turned tothe other men who were anxious to speak. "And now it's your chance. Fireaway, and do not forget that I here challenge you to give the answerthat Colonel Van Gilbert has failed to give."
It would be impossible for me to write all that was said in thediscussion. I never realized before how many words could be spoken inthree short hours. At any rate, it was glorious. The more his opponentsgrew excited, the more Ernest deliberately excited them. He had anencyclopaedic command of the field of knowledge, and by a word or aphrase, by delicate rapier thrusts, he punctured them. He named thepoints of their illogic. This was a false syllogism, that conclusion hadno connection with the premise, while that next premise was an impostorbecause it had cunningly hidden in it the conclusion that was beingattempted to be proved. This was an error, that was an assumption, andthe next was an assertion contrary to ascertained truth as printed inall the text-books.
And so it went. Sometimes he exchanged the rapier for the club and wentsmashing amongst their thoughts right and left. And always he demandedfacts and refused to discuss theories. And his facts made for them aWaterloo. When they
attacked the working class, he always retorted, "Thepot calling the kettle black; that is no answer to the charge thatyour own face is dirty." And to one and all he said: "Why have you notanswered the charge that your class has mismanaged? You have talkedabout other things and things concerning other things, but you have notanswered. Is it because you have no answer?"
It was at the end of the discussion that Mr. Wickson spoke. He was theonly one that was cool, and Ernest treated him with a respect he had notaccorded the others.
"No answer is necessary," Mr. Wickson said with slow deliberation. "Ihave followed the whole discussion with amazement and disgust. I amdisgusted with you gentlemen, members of my class. You have behaved likefoolish little schoolboys, what with intruding ethics and the thunderof the common politician into such a discussion. You have beenoutgeneralled and outclassed. You have been very wordy, and all you havedone is buzz. You have buzzed like gnats about a bear. Gentlemen, therestands the bear" (he pointed at Ernest), "and your buzzing has onlytickled his ears.
"Believe me, the situation is serious. That bear reached out his pawstonight to crush us. He has said there are a million and a half ofrevolutionists in the United States. That is a fact. He has said thatit 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 greatchange, is coming in society; but, haply, it may not be the change thebear anticipates. The bear has said that he will crush us. What if wecrush the bear?"
The throat-rumble arose in the great room, and man nodded to manwith indorsement and certitude. Their faces were set hard. They werefighters, that was certain.
"But not by buzzing will we crush the bear," Mr. Wickson went on coldlyand dispassionately. "We will hunt the bear. We will not reply to thebear in words. Our reply shall be couched in terms of lead. We are inpower. Nobody will deny it. By virtue of that power we shall remain inpower."
He turned suddenly upon Ernest. The moment was dramatic.
"This, then, is our answer. We have no words to waste on you. When youreach out your vaunted strong hands for our palaces and purpled ease,we will show you what strength is. In roar of shell and shrapnel andin whine of machine-guns will our answer be couched.* We will grind yourevolutionists 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 forthe host of labor, it has been in the dirt since history began, and Iread history aright. And in the dirt it shall remain so long as I andmine and those that come after us have the power. There is the word.It is the king of words--Power. Not God, not Mammon, but Power. Pour itover 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 couldbe 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, forjustice, for humanity, can ever touch you. Your hearts are hard asyour heels with which you tread upon the faces of the poor. So we havepreached power. By the power of our ballots on election day will we takeyour government away from you--"
"What if you do get a majority, a sweeping majority, on electionday?" Mr. Wickson broke in to demand. "Suppose we refuse to turn thegovernment over to you after you have captured it at the ballot-box?"
"That, also, have we considered," Ernest replied. "And we shall give youan 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 atthe ballot-box, and you refuse to turn over to us the government we haveconstitutionally and peacefully captured, and you demand what we aregoing to do about it--in that day, I say, we shall answer you; and inroar of shell and shrapnel and in whine of machine-guns shall our answerbe couched.
"You cannot escape us. It is true that you have read history aright. Itis 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 comeafter you have power, that labor shall remain in the dirt. I agree withyou. 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 asyour class dragged down the old feudal nobility, so shall it be draggeddown by my class, the working class. If you will read your biology andyour sociology as clearly as you do your history, you will see that thisend I have described is inevitable. It does not matter whether it is inone year, ten, or a thousand--your class shall be dragged down. And itshall be done by power. We of the labor hosts have conned that word overtill our minds are all a-tingle with it. Power. It is a kingly word."
And so ended the night with the Philomaths.
