The Iron Heel

by Jack London

  CHAPTER XV

  LAST DAYS

  It was near the end of January, 1913, that the changed attitude of theOligarchy toward the favored unions was made public. The newspaperspublished information of an unprecedented rise in wages and shorteningof hours for the railroad employees, the iron and steel workers, andthe engineers and machinists. But the whole truth was not told. Theoligarchs did not dare permit the telling of the whole truth. Inreality, the wages had been raised much higher, and the privileges werecorrespondingly 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 knew what had happened.

  It was merely the logical development of what in the nineteenth centuryhad been known as grab-sharing. In the industrial warfare of that time,profit-sharing had been tried. That is, the capitalists had striven toplacate the workers by interesting them financially in their work.But profit-sharing, as a system, was ridiculous and impossible.Profit-sharing could be successful only in isolated cases in the midstof a system of industrial strife; for if all labor and all capitalshared profits, the same conditions would obtain as did obtain whenthere was no profit-sharing.

  So, out of the unpractical idea of profit-sharing, arose the practicalidea of grab-sharing. "Give us more pay and charge it to the public,"was the slogan of the strong unions.* And here and there this selfishpolicy worked successfully. In charging it to the public, it was chargedto the great mass of unorganized labor and of weakly organized labor.These workers actually paid the increased wages of their strongerbrothers who were members of unions that were labor monopolies. Thisidea, as I say, was merely carried to its logical conclusion, on a largescale, 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 profit-grabbing 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 leakedout, there were rumblings and mutterings in the labor world. Next, thefavored unions withdrew from the international organizations and brokeoff all affiliations. Then came trouble and violence. The members of thefavored unions were branded as traitors, and in saloons and brothels, onthe streets and at work, and, in fact, everywhere, they were assaultedby the comrades they had so treacherously deserted.

  Countless heads were broken, and there were many killed. No member ofthe favored unions was safe. They gathered together in bands in order togo to work or to return from work. They walked always in the middleof the street. On the sidewalk they were liable to have their skullscrushed by bricks and cobblestones thrown from windows and house-tops.They were permitted to carry weapons, and the authorities aided themin every way. Their persecutors were sentenced to long terms in prison,where they were harshly treated; while no man, not a member of thefavored unions, was permitted to carry weapons. Violation of this lawwas made a high misdemeanor and punished accordingly.

  Outraged labor continued to wreak vengeance on the traitors. Caste linesformed automatically. The children of the traitors were persecutedby the children of the workers who had been betrayed, until it wasimpossible for the former to play on the streets or to attend the publicschools. 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 traitorsand their families became clannish. Finding it impossible to dwell insafety in the midst of the betrayed proletariat, they moved into newlocalities inhabited by themselves alone. In this they were favored bythe oligarchs. Good dwellings, modern and sanitary, were built for them,surrounded by spacious yards, and separated here and there by parks andplaygrounds. Their children attended schools especially built forthem, and in these schools manual training and applied science werespecialized upon. Thus, and unavoidably, at the very beginning, out ofthis segregation arose caste. The members of the favored unions becamethe aristocracy of labor. They were set apart from the rest of labor.They were better housed, better clothed, better fed, better treated.They were grab-sharing with a vengeance.

  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 itsstandard of living steadily sank down. Incidentally, its public schoolsdeteriorated, and education slowly ceased to be compulsory. The increasein the younger generation of children who could not read nor write wasperilous.

  The capture of the world-market by the United States had disrupted therest of the world. Institutions and governments were everywhere crashingor transforming. Germany, Italy, France, Australia, and New Zealand werebusy forming cooperative commonwealths. The British Empire was fallingapart. England's hands were full. In India revolt was in full swing. Thecry in all Asia was, "Asia for the Asiatics!" And behind this cry wasJapan, ever urging and aiding the yellow and brown races against thewhite. And while Japan dreamed of continental empire and strove torealize the dream, she suppressed her own proletarian revolution. Itwas a simple war of the castes, Coolie versus Samurai, and the cooliesocialists were executed by tens of thousands. Forty thousand werekilled in the street-fighting of Tokio and in the futile assault onthe Mikado's palace. Kobe was a shambles; the slaughter of the cottonoperatives by machine-guns became classic as the most terrific executionever achieved by modern war machines. Most savage of all was theJapanese Oligarchy that arose. Japan dominated the East, and tookto herself the whole Asiatic portion of the world-market, with theexception of India.

  England managed to crush her own proletarian revolution and to hold onto India, though she was brought to the verge of exhaustion. Also, shewas compelled to let her great colonies slip away from her. So it wasthat the socialists succeeded in making Australia and New Zealand intocooperative commonwealths. And it was for the same reason that Canadawas lost to the mother country. But Canada crushed her own socialistrevolution, being aided in this by the Iron Heel. At the same time, theIron Heel helped Mexico and Cuba to put down revolt. The result was thatthe Iron Heel was firmly established in the New World. It had weldedinto one compact political mass the whole of North America from thePanama Canal to the Arctic Ocean.

  And England, at the sacrifice of her great colonies, had succeeded onlyin retaining India. But this was no more than temporary. The strugglewith Japan and the rest of Asia for India was merely delayed. Englandwas destined shortly to lose India, while behind that event loomed thestruggle between a united Asia and the world.

  And while all the world was torn with conflict, we of the United Stateswere not placid and peaceful. The defection of the great unions hadprevented our proletarian revolt, but violence was everywhere. Inaddition to the labor troubles, and the discontent of the farmers and ofthe remnant of the middle class, a religious revival had blazed up. Anoffshoot of the Seventh Day Adventists sprang into sudden prominence,proclaiming the end of the world.

  "Confusion thrice confounded!" Ernest cried. "How can we hope forsolidarity with all these cross purposes and conflicts?"

  And truly the religious revival assumed formidable proportions. Thepeople, what of their wretchedness, and of their disappointment inall things earthly, were ripe and eager for a heaven where industrialtyrants entered no more than camels passed through needle-eyes.
Wild-eyed itinerant preachers swarmed over the land; and despitethe prohibition of the civil authorities, and the persecution fordisobedience, the flames of religious frenzy were fanned by countlesscamp-meetings.

  It was the last days, they claimed, the beginning of the end of theworld. The four winds had been loosed. God had stirred the nationsto strife. It was a time of visions and miracles, while seers andprophetesses were legion. The people ceased work by hundreds ofthousands and fled to the mountains, there to await the imminent comingof God and the rising of the hundred and forty and four thousand toheaven. But in the meantime God did not come, and they starved to deathin great numbers. In their desperation they ravaged the farms for food,and the consequent tumult and anarchy in the country districts butincreased the woes of the poor expropriated farmers.

  Also, the farms and warehouses were the property of the Iron Heel.Armies of troops were put into the field, and the fanatics were herdedback at the bayonet point to their tasks in the cities. There they brokeout in ever recurring mobs and riots. Their leaders were executed forsedition or confined in madhouses. Those who were executed went to theirdeaths with all the gladness of martyrs. It was a time of madness. Theunrest spread. In the swamps and deserts and waste places, from Floridato Alaska, the small groups of Indians that survived were dancing ghostdances 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, outof confusion brought order, out of the very chaos wrought its ownfoundation and structure.

  "Just wait till we get in," the Grangers said--Calvin said it to us inour Pell Street quarters. "Look at the states we've captured. With yousocialists to back us, we'll make them sing another song when we takeoffice."

  "The millions of the discontented and the impoverished are ours," thesocialists said. "The Grangers have come over to us, the farmers, themiddle class, and the laborers. The capitalist system will fall topieces. In another month we send fifty men to Congress. Two yearshence every office will be ours, from the President down to the localdog-catcher."

  To all of which Ernest would shake his head and say:

  "How many rifles have you got? Do you know where you can get plentyof lead? When it comes to powder, chemical mixtures are better thanmechanical mixtures, you take my word."