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."



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