Last Days

: The Iron Heel

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, t e 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 knew what had happened.



It was merely the logical development of what in the nineteenth century

had been known as grab-sharing. In the industrial warfare of that time,

profit-sharing had been tried. That is, the capitalists had striven to

placate 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 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 was no profit-sharing.



So, out of the unpractical idea of profit-sharing, arose the practical

idea 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 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 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 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 comrades they had so treacherously deserted.



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 house-tops.

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 a high misdemeanor and punished accordingly.



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 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 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 children who could not read nor write was

perilous.



The capture of the world-market 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 street-fighting of Tokio and in the futile assault on

the Mikado's palace. Kobe was a shambles; the slaughter of the cotton

operatives by machine-guns 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 world-market, with the

exception of India.



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 world.



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,

proclaiming the end of the world.



"Confusion thrice confounded!" Ernest cried. "How can we hope for

solidarity with all these cross purposes and conflicts?"



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 needle-eyes.

Wild-eyed itinerant preachers swarmed over the land; and despite

the prohibition of the civil authorities, and the persecution for

disobedience, the flames of religious frenzy were fanned by countless

camp-meetings.



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 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 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 brought order, out of the very chaos wrought its own

foundation and structure.



"Just wait till we get in," the Grangers said--Calvin 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

office."



"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 down to the local

dog-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 plenty

of lead? When it comes to powder, chemical mixtures are better than

mechanical mixtures, you take my word."