The General Strike
:
The Iron Heel
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
fina
cial strength lay wholly in the middle class. The trusts did not
advertise.** To destroy Hearst, all that was necessary was to take away
from him his advertising.
* William Randolph Hearst--a 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 helter-
skelter 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 for
the trusts to advertise.
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 forth, they
withdrew their advertisements from the Hearst papers.
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 destruction the
Democratic Party that he had so recently captured.
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 us.
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
mouth-to-mouth 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
away in a vain campaign.
"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 do.
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
farmer-camel. 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 short--serfs 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 vagrancy laws were passed and rigidly enforced.
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 during the following year.*
* 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 in ancient Rome.
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 market-dealing. 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 land was sold to pay the taxes.
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 themselves throwing down the gauntlet to the Plutocracy.
Alas, how we underestimated the strength of the enemy! Everywhere the
socialists proclaimed their coming victory at the ballot-box, 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 stirring times of the
winter of 1912.
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 German war-lord prepared, and so did
the United States prepare.
The war-cloud hovered dark and ominous. The stage was set for a
world-catastrophe, for in all the world were hard times, labor troubles,
perishing middle classes, armies of unemployed, clashes of economic
interests in the world-market, 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 world-market. 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 place of "Socialism versus
Oligarchy."
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 Bureau.
* It was at the very beginning of the twentieth century
A.D., that the international organization of the socialists
finally formulated their long-maturing 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 capitalist masters?"
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 involve France, Germany, and
England.
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 extent of revolt and
revolution at home.
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 both
countries.
For the first time the German war-lord 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
war-lord's hands. He would have asked for nothing better than an
opportunity to loose his war-dogs 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 population.
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 metal-working trades.
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 was
guilty, how was anybody to be punished?
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 for a week this state of affairs was
maintained.
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 news-boys--nothing but persons who at rare intervals went by like
furtive ghosts, themselves oppressed and made unreal by the silence.
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 war-lord from his throne. It was
the very thing the Oligarchy had played for--the 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 surplus.
"I'll wager the Oligarchy finds justification," Ernest said, when its
treachery to the German Emperor became known. "As usual, the Oligarchy
will believe it has done right."
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 world-market
and enabled us to dispose of our surplus in that market.
"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
consume less at home."