by Jack London
CHAPTER VIII
THE MACHINE BREAKERS
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 men--small business men, ofcourse. I doubt if one of them was interested in any business the totalcapitalization of which exceeded a couple of hundred thousand dollars.They were truly representative middle-class business men.
There was Owen, of Silverberg, Owen & Company--a large grocery firm withseveral branch stores. We bought our groceries from them. There wereboth 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 smallfactories, small businesses and small industries--small capitalists, inshort.
They were shrewd-faced, interesting men, and they talked with simplicityand clearness. Their unanimous complaint was against the corporationsand trusts. Their creed was, "Bust the Trusts." All oppressionoriginated in the trusts, and one and all told the same tale of woe.They advocated government ownership of such trusts as the railroadsand telegraphs, and excessive income taxes, graduated with ferocity,to destroy large accumulations. Likewise they advocated, as a cure forlocal ills, municipal ownership of such public utilities as water, gas,telephones, and street railways.
Especially interesting was Mr. Asmunsen's narrative of his tribulationsas a quarry owner. He confessed that he never made any profits out ofhis quarry, and this, in spite of the enormous volume of businessthat had been caused by the destruction of San Francisco by the bigearthquake. For six years the rebuilding of San Francisco had been goingon, and his business had quadrupled and octupled, and yet he was nobetter off.
"The railroad knows my business just a little bit better than I do," hesaid. "It knows my operating expenses to a cent, and it knows the termsof my contracts. How it knows these things I can only guess. It musthave spies in my employ, and it must have access to the parties to allmy contracts. For look you, when I place a big contract, the termsof which favor me a goodly profit, the freight rate from my quarry tomarket is promptly raised. No explanation is made. The railroad gets myprofit. Under such circumstances I have never succeeded in getting therailroad to reconsider its raise. On the other hand, when there havebeen accidents, increased expenses of operating, or contracts with lessprofitable terms, I have always succeeded in getting the railroad tolower its rate. What is the result? Large or small, the railroad alwaysgets my profits."
"What remains to you over and above," Ernest interrupted to ask, "wouldroughly be the equivalent of your salary as a manager did the railroadown the quarry."
"The very thing," Mr. Asmunsen replied. "Only a short time ago I had mybooks gone through for the past ten years. I discovered that forthose ten years my gain was just equivalent to a manager's salary. Therailroad might just as well have owned my quarry and hired me to runit."
"But with this difference," Ernest laughed; "the railroad would have hadto assume all the risk which you so obligingly assumed for it."
"Very true," Mr. Asmunsen answered sadly.
Having let them have their say, Ernest began asking questions right andleft. He began with Mr. Owen.
"You started a branch store here in Berkeley about six months ago?"
"Yes," Mr. Owen answered.
"And since then I've noticed that three little corner groceries havegone out of business. Was your branch store the cause of it?"
Mr. Owen affirmed with a complacent smile. "They had no chance againstus."
"Why not?"
"We had greater capital. With a large business there is always lesswaste and greater efficiency."
"And your branch store absorbed the profits of the three small ones. Isee. But tell me, what became of the owners of the three stores?"
"One is driving a delivery wagon for us. I don't know what happened tothe other two."
Ernest turned abruptly on Mr. Kowalt.
"You sell a great deal at cut-rates.* What have become of the owners ofthe small drug stores that you forced to the wall?"
* 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 competition.
"One of them, Mr. Haasfurther, has charge now of our prescriptiondepartment," was the answer.
"And you absorbed the profits they had been making?"
"Surely. That is what we are in business for."
"And you?" Ernest said suddenly to Mr. Asmunsen. "You are disgustedbecause the railroad has absorbed your profits?"
Mr. Asmunsen nodded.
"What you want is to make profits yourself?"
Again Mr. Asmunsen nodded.
"Out of others?"
There was no answer.
"Out of others?" Ernest insisted.
"That is the way profits are made," Mr. Asmunsen replied curtly.
"Then the business game is to make profits out of others, and to preventothers from making profits out of you. That's it, isn't it?"
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 makingprofits so long as they are not extortionate."
"By extortionate you mean large; yet you do not object to making largeprofits yourself? . . . Surely not?"
And Mr. Asmunsen amiably confessed to the weakness. There was one otherman who was quizzed by Ernest at this juncture, a Mr. Calvin, who hadonce been a great dairy-owner.
"Some time ago you were fighting the Milk Trust," Ernest said to him;"and now you are in Grange politics.* How did it happen?"
* 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 lookedbelligerent enough. "I'm fighting the Trust on the only field where itis possible to fight--the political field. Let me show you. A few yearsago we dairymen had everything our own way."
"But you competed among yourselves?" Ernest interrupted.
"Yes, that was what kept the profits down. We did try to organize, butindependent dairymen always broke through us. Then came the Milk Trust."
"Financed by surplus capital from Standard Oil,"* Ernest said.
* The first successful great trust--almost a generation in advance of the rest.
"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 theirproposition, "or stay out and starve." Most of us came in. Those thatdidn't, starved. Oh, it paid us . . . at first. Milk was raised a cent aquart. One-quarter of this cent came to us. Three-quarters of it went tothe Trust. Then milk was raised another cent, only we didn't get anyof that cent. Our complaints were useless. The Trust was in control. Wediscovered that we were pawns. Finally, the additional quarter of a centwas denied us. Then the Trust began to squeeze us out. What could we do?We were squeezed out. There were no dairymen, only a Milk Trust."
"But with milk two cents higher, I should think you could havecompeted," 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 couldsell still at a slight profit when we were selling at actual loss.I dropped fifty thousand dollars in that venture. Most of us wentbankrupt.* The dairymen were wiped out of existence."
* Bankruptcy--a 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-and-claw social struggle.
"So the Tr
ust took your profits away from you," Ernest said, "and you'vegone into politics in order to legislate the Trust out of existence andget the profits back?"
Mr. Calvin's face lighted up. "That is precisely what I say in myspeeches to the farmers. That's our whole idea in a nutshell."
"And yet the Trust produces milk more cheaply than could the independentdairymen?" Ernest queried.
"Why shouldn't it, with the splendid organization and new machinery itslarge 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 ofhis views. He was warmly followed by a number of the others, and the cryof all was to destroy the trusts.
"Poor simple folk," Ernest said to me in an undertone. "They see clearlyas far as they see, but they see only to the ends of their noses."
A little later he got the floor again, and in his characteristic waycontrolled it for the rest of the evening.
"I have listened carefully to all of you," he began, "and I see plainlythat you play the business game in the orthodox fashion. Life sumsitself up to you in profits. You have a firm and abiding belief thatyou were created for the sole purpose of making profits. Only there is ahitch. In the midst of your own profit-making along comes the trustand takes your profits away from you. This is a dilemma that interferessomehow with the aim of creation, and the only way out, as it seems toyou, is to destroy that which takes from you your profits.
"I have listened carefully, and there is only one name that willepitomize you. I shall call you that name. You are machine-breakers. Doyou know what a machine-breaker is? Let me tell you. In the eighteenthcentury, in England, men and women wove cloth on hand-looms in their owncottages. It was a slow, clumsy, and costly way of weaving cloth,this cottage system of manufacture. Along came the steam-engine andlabor-saving machinery. A thousand looms assembled in a large factory,and driven by a central engine wove cloth vastly more cheaply thancould the cottage weavers on their hand-looms. Here in the factory wascombination, and before it competition faded away. The men and women whohad worked the hand-looms for themselves now went into the factoriesand worked the machine-looms, not for themselves, but for the capitalistowners. 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 wasall the fault of the machines. Therefore, they proceeded to break themachines. They did not succeed, and they were very stupid.
"Yet you have not learned their lesson. Here are you, a century and ahalf later, trying to break machines. By your own confession the trustmachines do the work more efficiently and more cheaply than you can.That is why you cannot compete with them. And yet you would break thosemachines. You are even more stupid than the stupid workmen of England.And while you maunder about restoring competition, the trusts go ondestroying you.
"One and all you tell the same story,--the passing away of competitionand the coming on of combination. You, Mr. Owen, destroyed competitionhere in Berkeley when your branch store drove the three small groceriesout of business. Your combination was more effective. Yet you feel thepressure of other combinations on you, the trust combinations, and youcry out. It is because you are not a trust. If you were a grocery trustfor the whole United States, you would be singing another song. And thesong would be, 'Blessed are the trusts.' And yet again, not only is yoursmall combination not a trust, but you are aware yourself of its lackof strength. You are beginning to divine your own end. You feelyourself and your branch stores a pawn in the game. You see the powerfulinterests rising and growing more powerful day by day; you feel theirmailed hands descending upon your profits and taking a pinch here anda pinch there--the railroad trust, the oil trust, the steel trust, thecoal trust; and you know that in the end they will destroy you, takeaway from you the last per cent of your little profits.
"You, sir, are a poor gamester. When you squeezed out the three smallgroceries here in Berkeley by virtue of your superior combination, youswelled out your chest, talked about efficiency and enterprise, and sentyour wife to Europe on the profits you had gained by eating up the threesmall groceries. It is dog eat dog, and you ate them up. But, on theother hand, you are being eaten up in turn by the bigger dogs, whereforeyou 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 game, and you areall squealing about it.
"But when you squeal you don't state the situation flatly, as I havestated 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 yourprofits out of you. No, you are too cunning for that. You say somethingelse. You make small-capitalist political speeches such as Mr. Calvinmade. What did he say? Here are a few of his phrases I caught: 'Ouroriginal principles are all right,' 'What this country requires is areturn to fundamental American methods--free opportunity for all,' 'Thespirit of liberty in which this nation was born,' 'Let us return to theprinciples of our forefathers.'
"When he says 'free opportunity for all,' he means free opportunity tosqueeze profits, which freedom of opportunity is now denied him by thegreat trusts. And the absurd thing about it is that you have repeatedthese phrases so often that you believe them. You want opportunityto plunder your fellow-men in your own small way, but you hypnotizeyourselves into thinking you want freedom. You are piggish andacquisitive, but the magic of your phrases leads you to believe that youare patriotic. Your desire for profits, which is sheer selfishness, youmetamorphose into altruistic solicitude for suffering humanity. Comeon now, right here amongst ourselves, and be honest for once. Look thematter in the face and state it in direct terms."
There were flushed and angry faces at the table, and withal a measureof awe. They were a little frightened at this smooth-faced young fellow,and the swing and smash of his words, and his dreadful trait of callinga spade a spade. Mr. Calvin promptly replied.
"And why not?" he demanded. "Why can we not return to ways of ourfathers when this republic was founded? You have spoken much truth, Mr.Everhard, unpalatable though it has been. But here amongst ourselves letus 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 capitalistsare after profits, and that the trusts are taking our profits away fromus. It is true that we want to destroy the trusts in order that ourprofits may remain to us. And why can we not do it? Why not? I say, whynot?"
"Ah, now we come to the gist of the matter," Ernest said with a pleasedexpression. "I'll try to tell you why not, though the telling will berather hard. You see, you fellows have studied business, in a small way,but you have not studied social evolution at all. You are in themidst of a transition stage now in economic evolution, but you do notunderstand it, and that's what causes all the confusion. Why cannot youreturn? Because you can't. You can no more make water run up hill thancan you cause the tide of economic evolution to flow back in its channelalong the way it came. Joshua made the sun stand still upon Gibeon, butyou would outdo Joshua. You would make the sun go backward in the sky.You would have time retrace its steps from noon to morning.
"In the face of labor-saving machinery, of organized production, of theincreased efficiency of combination, you would set the economic sunback a whole generation or so to the time when there were no greatcapitalists, no great machinery, no railroads--a time when a host oflittle capitalists warred with each other in economic anarchy, and whenproduction was primitive, wasteful, unorganized, and costly. Believe me,Joshua's task was easier, and he had Jehovah to help him. But God hasforsaken you small capitalists. The sun of the small capitalists issetting. It will never rise again. Nor is it in your power even to makeit stand still. You are perishing, and you are doomed to perish utterlyfrom the face of society.
"This is the fiat of evolution. It is the word of God. Combination isstronger than competition. Primitive man was a pu
ny creature hiding inthe crevices of the rocks. He combined and made war upon his carnivorousenemies. They were competitive beasts. Primitive man was a combinativebeast, and because of it he rose to primacy over all the animals. Andman has been achieving greater and greater combinations ever since. Itis combination versus competition, a thousand centuries long struggle,in which competition has always been worsted. Whoso enlists on the sideof competition perishes."
"But the trusts themselves arose out of competition," Mr. Calvininterrupted.
"Very true," Ernest answered. "And the trusts themselves destroyedcompetition. That, by your own word, is why you are no longer in thedairy business."
The first laughter of the evening went around the table, and even Mr.Calvin joined in the laugh against himself.
"And now, while we are on the trusts," Ernest went on, "let us settlea few things. I shall make certain statements, and if you disagreewith them, speak up. Silence will mean agreement. Is it not true thata machine-loom will weave more cloth and weave more cheaply than ahand-loom?" He paused, but nobody spoke up. "Is it not then highlyirrational to break the machine-loom and go back to the clumsy and morecostly hand-loom method of weaving?" Heads nodded in acquiescence. "Isit not true that that known as a trust produces more efficiently andcheaply than can a thousand competing small concerns?" Still no oneobjected. "Then is it not irrational to destroy that cheap and efficientcombination?"
No one answered for a long time. Then Mr. Kowalt spoke.
"What are we to do, then?" he demanded. "To destroy the trusts is theonly way we can see to escape their domination."
Ernest was all fire and aliveness on the instant.
"I'll show you another way!" he cried. "Let us not destroy thosewonderful machines that produce efficiently and cheaply. Let us controlthem. Let us profit by their efficiency and cheapness. Let us run themfor ourselves. Let us oust the present owners of the wonderful machines,and let us own the wonderful machines ourselves. That, gentlemen, issocialism, a greater combination than the trusts, a greater economic andsocial combination than any that has as yet appeared on the planet. Itis in line with evolution. We meet combination with greater combination.It is the winning side. Come on over with us socialists and play on thewinning side."
Here arose dissent. There was a shaking of heads, and mutterings arose.
"All right, then, you prefer to be anachronisms," Ernest laughed. "Youprefer to play atavistic roles. You are doomed to perish as all atavismsperish. Have you ever asked what will happen to you when greatercombinations than even the present trusts arise? Have you everconsidered where you will stand when the great trusts themselves combineinto the combination of combinations--into the social, economic, andpolitical trust?"
He turned abruptly and irrelevantly upon Mr. Calvin.
"Tell me," Ernest said, "if this is not true. You are compelled to forma new political party because the old parties are in the hands of thetrusts. The chief obstacle to your Grange propaganda is the trusts.Behind every obstacle you encounter, every blow that smites you, everydefeat that you receive, is the hand of the trusts. Is this not so? Tellme."
Mr. Calvin sat in uncomfortable silence.
"Go ahead," Ernest encouraged.
"It is true," Mr. Calvin confessed. "We captured the state legislatureof Oregon and put through splendid protective legislation, and it wasvetoed by the governor, who was a creature of the trusts. We elected agovernor of Colorado, and the legislature refused to permit him to takeoffice. Twice we have passed a national income tax, and each time thesupreme court smashed it as unconstitutional. The courts are in thehands 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, whenthe combination of the trusts will itself be the government," Ernestinterrupted.
"Never! never!" were the cries that arose. Everybody was excited andbelligerent.
"Tell me," Ernest demanded, "what will you do when such a time comes?"
"We will rise in our strength!" Mr. Asmunsen cried, and many voicesbacked his decision.
"That will be civil war," Ernest warned them.
"So be it, civil war," was Mr. Asmunsen's answer, with the cries of allthe men at the table behind him. "We have not forgotten the deeds of ourforefathers. For our liberties we are ready to fight and die."
Ernest smiled.
"Do not forget," he said, "that we had tacitly agreed that liberty inyour case, gentlemen, means liberty to squeeze profits out of others."
The table was angry, now, fighting angry; but Ernest controlled thetumult and made himself heard.
"One more question. When you rise in your strength, remember, the reasonfor your rising will be that the government is in the hands of thetrusts. Therefore, against your strength the government will turn theregular army, the navy, the militia, the police--in short, the wholeorganized war machinery of the United States. Where will your strengthbe then?"
Dismay sat on their faces, and before they could recover, Ernest struckagain.
"Do you remember, not so long ago, when our regular army was only fiftythousand? Year by year it has been increased until to-day it is threehundred thousand."
Again he struck.
"Nor is that all. While you diligently pursued that favorite phantomof yours, called profits, and moralized about that favorite fetich ofyours, called competition, even greater and more direful things havebeen accomplished by combination. There is the militia."
"It is our strength!" cried Mr. Kowalt. "With it we would repel theinvasion of the regular army."
"You would go into the militia yourself," was Ernest's retort, "andbe sent to Maine, or Florida, or the Philippines, or anywhere else,to drown in blood your own comrades civil-warring for their liberties.While from Kansas, or Wisconsin, or any other state, your own comradeswould go into the militia and come here to California to drown in bloodyour own civil-warring."
Now they were really shocked, and they sat wordless, until Mr. Owenmurmured:
"We would not go into the militia. That would settle it. We would not beso foolish."
Ernest laughed outright.
"You do not understand the combination that has been effected. You couldnot help yourself. You would be drafted into the militia."
"There is such a thing as civil law," Mr. Owen insisted.
"Not when the government suspends civil law. In that day when youspeak of rising in your strength, your strength would be turned againstyourself. Into the militia you would go, willy-nilly. Habeas corpus, Iheard some one mutter just now. Instead of habeas corpus you would getpost mortems. If you refused to go into the militia, or to obey afteryou were in, you would be tried by drumhead court martial and shot downlike dogs. It is the law."
"It is not the law!" Mr. Calvin asserted positively. "There is no suchlaw. Young man, you have dreamed all this. Why, you spoke of sending themilitia to the Philippines. That is unconstitutional. The Constitutionespecially states that the militia cannot be sent out of the country."
"What's the Constitution got to do with it?" Ernest demanded. "Thecourts interpret the Constitution, and the courts, as Mr. Asmunsenagreed, are the creatures of the trusts. Besides, it is as I have said,the law. It has been the law for years, for nine years, gentlemen."
"That we can be drafted into the militia?" Mr. Calvin askedincredulously. "That they can shoot us by drumhead court martial if werefuse?"
"Yes," Ernest answered, "precisely that."
"How is it that we have never heard of this law?" my father asked, and Icould see that it was likewise new to him.
"For two reasons," Ernest said. "First, there has been no need toenforce it. If there had, you'd have heard of it soon enough. Andsecondly, the law was rushed through Congress and the Senate secretly,with practically no discussion. Of course, the newspapers made nomention of it. But we socialists knew about it. We published it in ourpapers. But you never read our papers."
"I still insist
you are dreaming," Mr. Calvin said stubbornly. "Thecountry would never have permitted it."
"But the country did permit it," Ernest replied. "And as for mydreaming--" he put his hand in his pocket and drew out a smallpamphlet--"tell me if this looks like dream-stuff."
He opened it and began to read:
"'Section One, be it enacted, and so forth and so forth, that themilitia shall consist of every able-bodied male citizen of therespective states, territories, and District of Columbia, who is morethan eighteen and less than forty-five years of age.'
"'Section Seven, that any officer or enlisted man'--remember SectionOne, gentlemen, you are all enlisted men--'that any enlisted man of themilitia who shall refuse or neglect to present himself to such musteringofficer upon being called forth as herein prescribed, shall be subjectto trial by court martial, and shall be punished as such court martialshall direct.'
"'Section Eight, that courts martial, for the trial of officers or menof the militia, shall be composed of militia officers only.'
"'Section Nine, that the militia, when called into the actual serviceof the United States, shall be subject to the same rules and articles ofwar as the regular troops of the United States.'
"There you are gentlemen, American citizens, and fellow-militiamen. Nineyears ago we socialists thought that law was aimed against labor. But itwould seem that it was aimed against you, too. Congressman Wiley, in thebrief discussion that was permitted, said that the bill 'provided fora reserve force to take the mob by the throat'--you're the mob,gentlemen--'and protect at all hazards life, liberty, and property.' Andin the time to come, when you rise in your strength, remember that youwill be rising against the property of the trusts, and the liberty ofthe 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 as any army of clams."
"I don't believe it!" Kowalt cried. "There is no such law. It is acanard 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 ofOhio. It was rushed through. It was passed unanimously by the Senateon January 14, 1903. And just seven days afterward was approved by thePresident 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 of the pamphlet at all, and so remained in ignorance of the law.
