The Iron Heel (new classics)
The Iron HeelFOREWORDCHAPTER ICHAPTER IICHAPTER IIICHAPTER IVCHAPTER VCHAPTER VICHAPTER VIICHAPTER VIIICHAPTER IXCHAPTER XCHAPTER XICHAPTER XIICHAPTER XIIICHAPTER XIVCHAPTER XVCHAPTER XVICHAPTER XVIICHAPTER XVIIICHAPTER XIXCHAPTER XXCHAPTER XXICHAPTER XXIICHAPTER XXIIICHAPTER XXIVCHAPTER XXVNotesCopyright
The Iron Heel
Jack London
FOREWORD
It cannot be said that the Everhard Manuscript is an
important historical document. To the historian it bristles with
errors—not errors of fact, but errors of interpretation. Looking
back across the seven centuries that have lapsed since Avis
Everhard completed her manuscript, events, and the bearings of
events, that were confused and veiled to her, are clear to us. She
lacked perspective. She was too close to the events she writes
about. Nay, she was merged in the events she has
described.Nevertheless, as a personal document, the Everhard Manuscript
is of inestimable value. But here again enter error of perspective,
and vitiation due to the bias of love. Yet we smile, indeed, and
forgive Avis Everhard for the heroic lines upon which she modelled
her husband. We know to-day that he was not so colossal, and that
he loomed among the events of his times less largely than the
Manuscript would lead us to believe.We know that Ernest Everhard was an exceptionally strong man,
but not so exceptional as his wife thought him to be. He was, after
all, but one of a large number of heroes who, throughout the world,
devoted their lives to the Revolution; though it must be conceded
that he did unusual work, especially in his elaboration and
interpretation of working-class philosophy. "Proletarian science"
and "proletarian philosophy" were his phrases for it, and therein
he shows the provincialism of his mind—a defect, however, that was
due to the times and that none in that day could
escape.But to return to the Manuscript. Especially valuable is it in
communicating to us the FEEL of those terrible times. Nowhere do we
find more vividly portrayed the psychology of the persons that
lived in that turbulent period embraced between the years 1912 and
1932—their mistakes and ignorance, their doubts and fears and
misapprehensions, their ethical delusions, their violent passions,
their inconceivable sordidness and selfishness. These are the
things that are so hard for us of this enlightened age to
understand. History tells us that these things were, and biology
and psychology tell us why they were; but history and biology and
psychology do not make these things alive. We accept them as facts,
but we are left without sympathetic comprehension of
them.This sympathy comes to us, however, as we peruse the Everhard
Manuscript. We enter into the minds of the actors in that long-ago
world-drama, and for the time being their mental processes are our
mental processes. Not alone do we understand Avis Everhard's love
for her hero-husband, but we feel, as he felt, in those first days,
the vague and terrible loom of the Oligarchy. The Iron Heel (well
named) we feel descending upon and crushing mankind.And in passing we note that that historic phrase, the Iron
Heel, originated in Ernest Everhard's mind. This, we may say, is
the one moot question that this new-found document clears up.
Previous to this, the earliest-known use of the phrase occurred in
the pamphlet, "Ye Slaves," written by George Milford and published
in December, 1912. This George Milford was an obscure agitator
about whom nothing is known, save the one additional bit of
information gained from the Manuscript, which mentions that he was
shot in the Chicago Commune. Evidently he had heard Ernest Everhard
make use of the phrase in some public speech, most probably when he
was running for Congress in the fall of 1912. From the Manuscript
we learn that Everhard used the phrase at a private dinner in the
spring of 1912. This is, without discussion, the earliest-known
occasion on which the Oligarchy was so designated.The rise of the Oligarchy will always remain a cause of
secret wonder to the historian and the philosopher. Other great
historical events have their place in social evolution. They were
inevitable. Their coming could have been predicted with the same
certitude that astronomers to-day predict the outcome of the
movements of stars. Without these other great historical events,
social evolution could not have proceeded. Primitive communism,
chattel slavery, serf slavery, and wage slavery were necessary
stepping-stones in the evolution of society. But it were ridiculous
to assert that the Iron Heel was a necessary stepping-stone.
Rather, to-day, is it adjudged a step aside, or a step backward, to
the social tyrannies that made the early world a hell, but that
were as necessary as the Iron Heel was unnecessary.Black as Feudalism was, yet the coming of it was inevitable.
What else than Feudalism could have followed upon the breakdown of
that great centralized governmental machine known as the Roman
Empire? Not so, however, with the Iron Heel. In the orderly
procedure of social evolution there was no place for it. It was not
necessary, and it was not inevitable. It must always remain the
great curiosity of history—a whim, a fantasy, an apparition, a
thing unexpected and undreamed; and it should serve as a warning to
those rash political theorists of to-day who speak with certitude
of social processes.Capitalism was adjudged by the sociologists of the time to be
the culmination of bourgeois rule, the ripened fruit of the
bourgeois revolution. And we of to-day can but applaud that
judgment. Following upon Capitalism, it was held, even by such
intellectual and antagonistic giants as Herbert Spencer, that
Socialism would come. Out of the decay of self-seeking capitalism,
it was held, would arise that flower of the ages, the Brotherhood
of Man. Instead of which, appalling alike to us who look back and
to those that lived at the time, capitalism, rotten-ripe, sent
forth that monstrous offshoot, the Oligarchy.Too late did the socialist movement of the early twentieth
century divine the coming of the Oligarchy. Even as it was divined,
the Oligarchy was there—a fact established in blood, a stupendous
and awful reality. Nor even then, as the Everhard Manuscript well
shows, was any permanence attributed to the Iron Heel. Its
overthrow was a matter of a few short years, was the judgment of
the revolutionists. It is true, they realized that the Peasant
Revolt was unplanned, and that the First Revolt was premature; but
they little realized that the Second Revolt, planned and mature,
was doomed to equal futility and more terrible
punishment.It is apparent that Avis Everhard completed the Manuscript
during the last days of preparation for the Second Revolt; hence
the fact that there is no mention of the disastrous outcome of the
Second Revolt. It is quite clear that she intended the Manuscript
for immediate publication, as soon as the Iron Heel was overthrown,
so that her husband, so recently dead, should receive full credit
for all that he had ventured and accomplished. Then came the
frightful crushing of the Second Revolt, and it is probable that in
the moment of danger, ere she fled or was captured by the
Mercenaries, she hid the Manuscript in the hollow oak at Wake Robin
Lodge.Of Avis Everhard there is no further record. Undoubtedly she
was executed by the Mercenaries; and, as is well known, no record
of such executions was kept by the Iron Heel. But little did she
realize, even then, as she hid the Manuscript and prepared to flee,
how terrible had been the breakdown of the Second Revolt. Little
did she realize that the tortuous and distorted evolution of the
next three centuries would compel a Third Revolt and a Fourth
Revolt, and many Revolts, all drowned in seas of blood, ere the
world-movement of labor should come into its own. And little did
she dream that for seven long centuries the tribute of her love to
Ernest Everhard would repose undisturbed in the heart of the
ancient oak of Wake Robin Lodge.ANTHONY MEREDITHArdis,November 27, 419 B.O.M.
CHAPTER I
MY EAGLEThe soft summer wind stirs the redwoods, and Wild-Water
ripples sweet cadences over its mossy stones. There are butterflies
in the sunshine, and from everywhere arises the drowsy hum of bees.
It is so quiet and peaceful, and I sit here, and ponder, and am
restless. It is the quiet that makes me restless. It seems unreal.
All the world is quiet, but it is the quiet before the storm. I
strain my ears, and all my senses, for some betrayal of that
impending storm. Oh, that it may not be premature! That it may not
be premature!** The Second Revolt was largely the
work of Ernest Everhard, though he cooperated, of course,
with the European leaders. The capture and secret execution of
Everhard was the great event of the spring of 1932
A.D. Yet so thoroughly had he prepared for the revolt, that his
fellow-conspirators were able, with little confusion or
delay, to carry out his plans. It was after Everhard's
execution that his wife went to Wake Robin Lodge, a small
bungalow in the Sonoma Hills of California.Small wonder that I am restless. I think, and think, and I
cannot cease from thinking. I have been in the thick of life so
long that I am oppressed by the peace and quiet, and I cannot
forbear from dwelling upon that mad maelstrom of death and
destruction so soon to burst forth. In my ears are the cries of the
stricken; and I can see, as I have seen in the past,* all the
marring and mangling of the sweet, beautiful flesh, and the souls
torn with violence from proud bodies and hurled to God. Thus do we
poor humans attain our ends, striving through carnage and
destruction to bring lasting peace and happiness upon the
earth.* Without doubt she here refers to
the Chicago Commune.And then I am lonely. When I do not think of what is to come,
I think of what has been and is no more—my Eagle, beating with
tireless wings the void, soaring toward what was ever his sun, the
flaming ideal of human freedom. I cannot sit idly by and wait the
great event that is his making, though he is not here to see. He
devoted all the years of his manhood to it, and for it he gave his
life. It is his handiwork. He made it.** With all respect to Avis Everhard,
it must be pointed out that Everhard was but one of many
able leaders who planned the Second Revolt. And we
to-day, looking back across the centuries, can safely say that even
had he lived, the Second Revolt would not have been less
calamitous in its outcome than it was.And so it is, in this anxious time of waiting, that I shall
write of my husband. There is much light that I alone of all
persons living can throw upon his character, and so noble a
character cannot be blazoned forth too brightly. His was a great
soul, and, when my love grows unselfish, my chiefest regret is that
he is not here to witness to-morrow's dawn. We cannot fail. He has
built too stoutly and too surely for that. Woe to the Iron Heel!
Soon shall it be thrust back from off prostrate humanity. When the
word goes forth, the labor hosts of all the world shall rise. There
has been nothing like it in the history of the world. The
solidarity of labor is assured, and for the first time will there
be an international revolution wide as the world is
wide.** The Second Revolt was truly
international. It was a colossal plan—too colossal to be
wrought by the genius of one man alone. Labor, in all the
oligarchies of the world, was prepared to rise at the
signal. Germany, Italy, France, and all Australasia were labor
countries—socialist states. They were ready to lend aid to the
revolution. Gallantly they did; and it was for this
reason, when the Second Revolt was crushed, that they, too, were
crushed by the united oligarchies of the world, their
socialist governments being replaced by oligarchical
governments.You see, I am full of what is impending. I have lived it day
and night utterly and for so long that it is ever present in my
mind. For that matter, I cannot think of my husband without
thinking of it. He was the soul of it, and how can I possibly
separate the two in thought?As I have said, there is much light that I alone can throw
upon his character. It is well known that he toiled hard for
liberty and suffered sore. How hard he toiled and how greatly he
suffered, I well know; for I have been with him during these twenty
anxious years and I know his patience, his untiring effort, his
infinite devotion to the Cause for which, only two months gone, he
laid down his life.I shall try to write simply and to tell here how Ernest
Everhard entered my life—how I first met him, how he grew until I
became a part of him, and the tremendous changes he wrought in my
life. In this way may you look at him through my eyes and learn him
as I learned him—in all save the things too secret and sweet for me
to tell.It was in February, 1912, that I first met him, when, as a
guest of my father's* at dinner, he came to our house in Berkeley.
I cannot say that my very first impression of him was favorable. He
was one of many at dinner, and in the drawing-room where we
gathered and waited for all to arrive, he made a rather incongruous
appearance. It was "preacher's night," as my father privately
called it, and Ernest was certainly out of place in the midst of
the churchmen.* John Cunningham, Avis Everhard's
father, was a professor at the State University at Berkeley,
California. His chosen field was physics, and in addition
he did much original research and was greatly
distinguished as a scientist. His chief contribution to science was
his studies of the electron and his monumental work on
the "Identification of Matter and Energy," wherein he
established, beyond cavil and for all time, that the ultimate unit
of matter and the ultimate unit of force were
identical. This idea had been earlier advanced, but not
demonstrated, by Sir Oliver Lodge and other students in the new field
of radio-activity.In the first place, his clothes did not fit him. He wore a
ready-made suit of dark cloth that was ill adjusted to his body. In
fact, no ready-made suit of clothes ever could fit his body. And on
this night, as always, the cloth bulged with his muscles, while the
coat between the shoulders, what of the heavy shoulder-development,
was a maze of wrinkles. His neck was the neck of a prize-fighter,*
thick and strong. So this was the social philosopher and
ex-horseshoer my father had discovered, was my thought. And he
certainly looked it with those bulging muscles and that
bull-throat. Immediately I classified him—a sort of prodigy, I
thought, a Blind Tom** of the working class.* In that day it was the custom of
men to compete for purses of money. They fought with
their hands. When one was beaten into insensibility or killed,
the survivor took the money. ** This obscure reference applies to
a blind negro musician who took the world by storm in the
latter half of the nineteenth century of the Christian
Era.And then, when he shook hands with me! His handshake was firm
and strong, but he looked at me boldly with his black eyes—too
boldly, I thought. You see, I was a creature of environment, and at
that time had strong class instincts. Such boldness on the part of
a man of my own class would have been almost unforgivable. I know
that I could not avoid dropping my eyes, and I was quite relieved
when I passed him on and turned to greet Bishop Morehouse—a
favorite of mine, a sweet and serious man of middle age,
Christ-like in appearance and goodness, and a scholar as
well.But this boldness that I took to be presumption was a vital
clew to the nature of Ernest Everhard. He was simple, direct,
afraid of nothing, and he refused to waste time on conventional
mannerisms. "You pleased me," he explained long afterward; "and why
should I not fill my eyes with that which pleases me?" I have said
that he was afraid of nothing. He was a natural aristocrat—and this
in spite of the fact that he was in the camp of the
non-aristocrats. He was a superman, a blond beast such as
Nietzsche* has described, and in addition he was aflame with
democracy.* Friederich Nietzsche, the mad
philosopher of the nineteenth century of the Christian
Era, who caught wild glimpses of truth, but who, before
he was done, reasoned himself around the great circle of
human thought and off into madness.In the interest of meeting the other guests, and what of my
unfavorable impression, I forgot all about the working-class
philosopher, though once or twice at table I noticed him—especially
the twinkle in his eye as he listened to the talk first of one
minister and then of another. He has humor, I thought, and I almost
forgave him his clothes. But the time went by, and the dinner went
by, and he never opened his mouth to speak, while the ministers
talked interminably about the working class and its relation to the
church, and what the church had done and was doing for it. I
noticed that my father was annoyed because Ernest did not talk.
Once father took advantage of a lull and asked him to say
something; but Ernest shrugged his shoulders and with an "I have
nothing to say" went on eating salted almonds.But father was not to be denied. After a while he
said:"We have with us a member of the working class. I am sure
that he can present things from a new point of view that will be
interesting and refreshing. I refer to Mr. Everhard."The others betrayed a well-mannered interest, and urged
Ernest for a statement of his views. Their attitude toward him was
so broadly tolerant and kindly that it was really patronizing. And
I saw that Ernest noted it and was amused. He looked slowly about
him, and I saw the glint of laughter in his eyes."I am not versed in the courtesies of ecclesiastical
controversy," he began, and then hesitated with modesty and
indecision."Go on," they urged, and Dr. Hammerfield said: "We do not
mind the truth that is in any man. If it is sincere," he
amended."Then you separate sincerity from truth?" Ernest laughed
quickly.Dr. Hammerfield gasped, and managed to answer, "The best of
us may be mistaken, young man, the best of us."Ernest's manner changed on the instant. He became another
man."All right, then," he answered; "and let me begin by saying
that you are all mistaken. You know nothing, and worse than
nothing, about the working class. Your sociology is as vicious and
worthless as is your method of thinking."It was not so much what he said as how he said it. I roused
at the first sound of his voice. It was as bold as his eyes. It was
a clarion-call that thrilled me. And the whole table was aroused,
shaken alive from monotony and drowsiness."What is so dreadfully vicious and worthless in our method of
thinking, young man?" Dr. Hammerfield demanded, and already there
was something unpleasant in his voice and manner of
utterance."You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by
metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove
every other metaphysician wrong—to his own satisfaction. You are
anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers.
Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of
his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in
which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world
except in so far as it is phenomena of mental
aberration."Do you know what I was reminded of as I sat at table and
listened to you talk and talk? You reminded me for all the world of
the scholastics of the Middle Ages who gravely and learnedly
debated the absorbing question of how many angels could dance on
the point of a needle. Why, my dear sirs, you are as remote from
the intellectual life of the twentieth century as an Indian
medicine-man making incantation in the primeval forest ten thousand
years ago."As Ernest talked he seemed in a fine passion; his face
glowed, his eyes snapped and flashed, and his chin and jaw were
eloquent with aggressiveness. But it was only a way he had. It
always aroused people. His smashing, sledge-hammer manner of attack
invariably made them forget themselves. And they were forgetting
themselves now. Bishop Morehouse was leaning forward and listening
intently. Exasperation and anger were flushing the face of Dr.
Hammerfield. And others were exasperated, too, and some were
smiling in an amused and superior way. As for myself, I found it
most enjoyable. I glanced at father, and I was afraid he was going
to giggle at the effect of this human bombshell he had been guilty
of launching amongst us."Your terms are rather vague," Dr. Hammerfield interrupted.
"Just precisely what do you mean when you call us
metaphysicians?""I call you metaphysicians because you reason
metaphysically," Ernest went on. "Your method of reasoning is the
opposite to that of science. There is no validity to your
conclusions. You can prove everything and nothing, and no two of
you can agree upon anything. Each of you goes into his own
consciousness to explain himself and the universe. As well may you
lift yourselves by your own bootstraps as to explain consciousness
by consciousness.""I do not understand," Bishop Morehouse said. "It seems to me
that all things of the mind are metaphysical. That most exact and
convincing of all sciences, mathematics, is sheerly metaphysical.
Each and every thought-process of the scientific reasoner is
metaphysical. Surely you will agree with me?""As you say, you do not understand," Ernest replied. "The
metaphysician reasons deductively out of his own subjectivity. The
scientist reasons inductively from the facts of experience. The
metaphysician reasons from theory to facts, the scientist reasons
from facts to theory. The metaphysician explains the universe by
himself, the scientist explains himself by the
universe.""Thank God we are not scientists," Dr. Hammerfield murmured
complacently."What are you then?" Ernest demanded."Philosophers.""There you go," Ernest laughed. "You have left the real and
solid earth and are up in the air with a word for a flying machine.
Pray come down to earth and tell me precisely what you do mean by
philosophy.""Philosophy is—" (Dr. Hammerfield paused and cleared his
throat)—"something that cannot be defined comprehensively except to
such minds and temperaments as are philosophical. The narrow
scientist with his nose in a test-tube cannot understand
philosophy."Ernest ignored the thrust. It was always his way to turn the
point back upon an opponent, and he did it now, with a beaming
brotherliness of face and utterance."Then you will undoubtedly understand the definition I shall
now make of philosophy. But before I make it, I shall challenge you
to point out error in it or to remain a silent metaphysician.
Philosophy is merely the widest science of all. Its reasoning
method is the same as that of any particular science and of all
particular sciences. And by that same method of reasoning, the
inductive method, philosophy fuses all particular sciences into one
great science. As Spencer says, the data of any particular science
are partially unified knowledge. Philosophy unifies the knowledge
that is contributed by all the sciences. Philosophy is the science
of science, the master science, if you please. How do you like my
definition?""Very creditable, very creditable," Dr. Hammerfield muttered
lamely.But Ernest was merciless."Remember," he warned, "my definition is fatal to
metaphysics. If you do not now point out a flaw in my definition,
you are disqualified later on from advancing metaphysical
arguments. You must go through life seeking that flaw and remaining
metaphysically silent until you have found it."Ernest waited. The silence was painful. Dr. Hammerfield was
pained. He was also puzzled. Ernest's sledge-hammer attack
disconcerted him. He was not used to the simple and direct method
of controversy. He looked appealingly around the table, but no one
answered for him. I caught father grinning into his
napkin."There is another way of disqualifying the metaphysicians,"
Ernest said, when he had rendered Dr. Hammerfield's discomfiture
complete. "Judge them by their works. What have they done for
mankind beyond the spinning of airy fancies and the mistaking of
their own shadows for gods? They have added to the gayety of
mankind, I grant; but what tangible good have they wrought for
mankind? They philosophized, if you will pardon my misuse of the
word, about the heart as the seat of the emotions, while the
scientists were formulating the circulation of the blood. They
declaimed about famine and pestilence as being scourges of God,
while the scientists were building granaries and draining cities.
They builded gods in their own shapes and out of their own desires,
while the scientists were building roads and bridges. They were
describing the earth as the centre of the universe, while the
scientists were discovering America and probing space for the stars
and the laws of the stars. In short, the metaphysicians have done
nothing, absolutely nothing, for mankind. Step by step, before the
advance of science, they have been driven back. As fast as the
ascertained facts of science have overthrown their subjective
explanations of things, they have made new subjective explanations
of things, including explanations of the latest ascertained facts.
And this, I doubt not, they will go on doing to the end of time.
Gentlemen, a metaphysician is a medicine man. The difference
between you and the Eskimo who makes a fur-clad blubber-eating god
is merely a difference of several thousand years of ascertained
facts. That is all.""Yet the thought of Aristotle ruled Europe for twelve
centuries," Dr. Ballingford announced pompously. "And Aristotle was
a metaphysician."Dr. Ballingford glanced around the table and was rewarded by
nods and smiles of approval."Your illustration is most unfortunate," Ernest replied. "You
refer to a very dark period in human history. In fact, we call that
period the Dark Ages. A period wherein science was raped by the
metaphysicians, wherein physics became a search for the
Philosopher's Stone, wherein chemistry became alchemy, and
astronomy became astrology. Sorry the domination of Aristotle's
thought!"Dr. Ballingford looked pained, then he brightened up and
said:"Granted this horrible picture you have drawn, yet you must
confess that metaphysics was inherently potent in so far as it drew
humanity out of this dark period and on into the illumination of
the succeeding centuries.""Metaphysics had nothing to do with it," Ernest
retorted."What?" Dr. Hammerfield cried. "It was not the thinking and
the speculation that led to the voyages of discovery?""Ah, my dear sir," Ernest smiled, "I thought you were
disqualified. You have not yet picked out the flaw in my definition
of philosophy. You are now on an unsubstantial basis. But it is the
way of the metaphysicians, and I forgive you. No, I repeat,
metaphysics had nothing to do with it. Bread and butter, silks and
jewels, dollars and cents, and, incidentally, the closing up of the
overland trade-routes to India, were the things that caused the
voyages of discovery. With the fall of Constantinople, in 1453, the
Turks blocked the way of the caravans to India. The traders of
Europe had to find another route. Here was the original cause for
the voyages of discovery. Columbus sailed to find a new route to
the Indies. It is so stated in all the history books. Incidentally,
new facts were learned about the nature, size, and form of the
earth, and the Ptolemaic system went glimmering."Dr. Hammerfield snorted."You do not agree with me?" Ernest queried. "Then wherein am
I wrong?""I can only reaffirm my position," Dr. Hammerfield retorted
tartly. "It is too long a story to enter into now.""No story is too long for the scientist," Ernest said
sweetly. "That is why the scientist gets to places. That is why he
got to America."I shall not describe the whole evening, though it is a joy to
me to recall every moment, every detail, of those first hours of my
coming to know Ernest Everhard.Battle royal raged, and the ministers grew red-faced and
excited, especially at the moments when Ernest called them romantic
philosophers, shadow-projectors, and similar things. And always he
checked them back to facts. "The fact, man, the irrefragable fact!"
he would proclaim triumphantly, when he had brought one of them a
cropper. He bristled with facts. He tripped them up with facts,
ambuscaded them with facts, bombarded them with broadsides of
facts."You seem to worship at the shrine of fact," Dr. Hammerfield
taunted him."There is no God but Fact, and Mr. Everhard is its prophet,"
Dr. Ballingford paraphrased.Ernest smilingly acquiesced."I'm like the man from Texas," he said. And, on being
solicited, he explained. "You see, the man from Missouri always
says, 'You've got to show me.' But the man from Texas says, 'You've
got to put it in my hand.' From which it is apparent that he is no
metaphysician."Another time, when Ernest had just said that the metaphysical
philosophers could never stand the test of truth, Dr. Hammerfield
suddenly demanded:"What is the test of truth, young man? Will you kindly
explain what has so long puzzled wiser heads than
yours?""Certainly," Ernest answered. His cocksureness irritated
them. "The wise heads have puzzled so sorely over truth because
they went up into the air after it. Had they remained on the solid
earth, they would have found it easily enough—ay, they would have
found that they themselves were precisely testing truth with every
practical act and thought of their lives.""The test, the test," Dr. Hammerfield repeated impatiently.
"Never mind the preamble. Give us that which we have sought so
long—the test of truth. Give it us, and we will be as
gods."There was an impolite and sneering scepticism in his words
and manner that secretly pleased most of them at the table, though
it seemed to bother Bishop Morehouse."Dr. Jordan* has stated it very clearly," Ernest said. "His
test of truth is: 'Will it work? Will you trust your life to
it?'"* A noted educator of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries of the Christian
Era. He was president of the Stanford University, a
private benefaction of the times."Pish!" Dr. Hammerfield sneered. "You have not taken Bishop
Berkeley* into account. He has never been answered."* An idealistic monist who long
puzzled the philosophers of that time with his denial of the
existence of matter, but whose clever argument was finally
demolished when the new empiric facts of science were
philosophically generalized."The noblest metaphysician of them all," Ernest laughed. "But
your example is unfortunate. As Berkeley himself attested, his
metaphysics didn't work."Dr. Hammerfield was angry, righteously angry. It was as
though he had caught Ernest in a theft or a lie."Young man," he trumpeted, "that statement is on a par with
all you have uttered to-night. It is a base and unwarranted
assumption.""I am quite crushed," Ernest murmured meekly. "Only I don't
know what hit me. You'll have to put it in my hand,
Doctor.""I will, I will," Dr. Hammerfield spluttered. "How do you
know? You do not know that Bishop Berkeley attested that his
metaphysics did not work. You have no proof. Young man, they have
always worked.""I take it as proof that Berkeley's metaphysics did not work,
because—" Ernest paused calmly for a moment. "Because Berkeley made
an invariable practice of going through doors instead of walls.
Because he trusted his life to solid bread and butter and roast
beef. Because he shaved himself with a razor that worked when it
removed the hair from his face.""But those are actual things!" Dr. Hammerfield cried.
"Metaphysics is of the mind.""And they work—in the mind?" Ernest queried
softly.The other nodded."And even a multitude of angels can dance on the point of a
needle—in the mind," Ernest went on reflectively. "And a
blubber-eating, fur-clad god can exist and work—in the mind; and
there are no proofs to the contrary—in the mind. I suppose, Doctor,
you live in the mind?""My mind to me a kingdom is," was the answer."That's another way of saying that you live up in the air.
But you come back to earth at meal-time, I am sure, or when an
earthquake happens along. Or, tell me, Doctor, do you have no
apprehension in an earthquake that that incorporeal body of yours
will be hit by an immaterial brick?"Instantly, and quite unconsciously, Dr. Hammerfield's hand
shot up to his head, where a scar disappeared under the hair. It
happened that Ernest had blundered on an apposite illustration. Dr.
Hammerfield had been nearly killed in the Great Earthquake* by a
falling chimney. Everybody broke out into roars of
laughter.* The Great Earthquake of 1906 A.D.
that destroyed San Francisco."Well?" Ernest asked, when the merriment had subsided.
"Proofs to the contrary?"And in the silence he asked again, "Well?" Then he added,
"Still well, but not so well, that argument of yours."But Dr. Hammerfield was temporarily crushed, and the battle
raged on in new directions. On point after point, Ernest challenged
the ministers. When they affirmed that they knew the working class,
he told them fundamental truths about the working class that they
did not know, and challenged them for disproofs. He gave them
facts, always facts, checked their excursions into the air, and
brought them back to the solid earth and its facts.How the scene comes back to me! I can hear him now, with that
war-note in his voice, flaying them with his facts, each fact a
lash that stung and stung again. And he was merciless. He took no
quarter,* and gave none. I can never forget the flaying he gave
them at the end:* This figure arises from the
customs of the times. When, among men fighting to the death in
their wild-animal way, a beaten man threw down his weapons,
it was at the option of the victor to slay him or spare
him."You have repeatedly confessed to-night, by direct avowal or
ignorant statement, that you do not know the working class. But you
are not to be blamed for this. How can you know anything about the
working class? You do not live in the same locality with the
working class. You herd with the capitalist class in another
locality. And why not? It is the capitalist class that pays you,
that feeds you, that puts the very clothes on your backs that you
are wearing to-night. And in return you preach to your employers
the brands of metaphysics that are especially acceptable to them;
and the especially acceptable brands are acceptable because they do
not menace the established order of society."Here there was a stir of dissent around the
table."Oh, I am not challenging your sincerity," Ernest continued.
"You are sincere. You preach what you believe. There lies your
strength and your value—to the capitalist class. But should you
change your belief to something that menaces the established order,
your preaching would be unacceptable to your employers, and you
would be discharged. Every little while some one or another of you
is so discharged.* Am I not right?"* During this period there were many
ministers cast out of the church for preaching
unacceptable doctrine. Especially were they cast out when their
preaching became tainted with socialism.This time there was no dissent. They sat dumbly acquiescent,
with the exception of Dr. Hammerfield, who said:"It is when their thinking is wrong that they are asked to
resign.""Which is another way of saying when their thinking is
unacceptable," Ernest answered, and then went on. "So I say to you,
go ahead and preach and earn your pay, but for goodness' sake leave
the working class alone. You belong in the enemy's camp. You have
nothing in common with the working class. Your hands are soft with
the work others have performed for you. Your stomachs are round
with the plenitude of eating." (Here Dr. Ballingford winced, and
every eye glanced at his prodigious girth. It was said he had not
seen his own feet in years.) "And your minds are filled with
doctrines that are buttresses of the established order. You are as
much mercenaries (sincere mercenaries, I grant) as were the men of
the Swiss Guard.* Be true to your salt and your hire; guard, with
your preaching, the interests of your employers; but do not come
down to the working class and serve as false leaders. You cannot
honestly be in the two camps at once. The working class has done
without you. Believe me, the working class will continue to do
without you. And, furthermore, the working class can do better
without you than with you."* The hired foreign palace guards of
Louis XVI, a king of France that was beheaded by his
people.
CHAPTER II
CHALLENGES.
After the guests had gone, father threw himself into a chair
and gave vent to roars of Gargantuan laughter. Not since the death
of my mother had I known him to laugh so heartily.
"I'll wager Dr. Hammerfield was never up against anything
like it in his life," he laughed. "'The courtesies of
ecclesiastical controversy!' Did you notice how he began like a
lamb—Everhard, I mean, and how quickly he became a roaring lion? He
has a splendidly disciplined mind. He would have made a good
scientist if his energies had been directed that way."
I need scarcely say that I was deeply interested in Ernest
Everhard. It was not alone what he had said and how he had said it,
but it was the man himself. I had never met a man like him. I
suppose that was why, in spite of my twenty-four years, I had not
married. I liked him; I had to confess it to myself. And my like
for him was founded on things beyond intellect and argument.
Regardless of his bulging muscles and prize-fighter's throat, he
impressed me as an ingenuous boy. I felt that under the guise of an
intellectual swashbuckler was a delicate and sensitive spirit. I
sensed this, in ways I knew not, save that they were my woman's
intuitions.
There was something in that clarion-call of his that went to
my heart. It still rang in my ears, and I felt that I should like
to hear it again—and to see again that glint of laughter in his
eyes that belied the impassioned seriousness of his face. And there
were further reaches of vague and indeterminate feelings that
stirred in me. I almost loved him then, though I am confident, had
I never seen him again, that the vague feelings would have passed
away and that I should easily have forgotten him.
But I was not destined never to see him again. My father's
new-born interest in sociology and the dinner parties he gave would
not permit. Father was not a sociologist. His marriage with my
mother had been very happy, and in the researches of his own
science, physics, he had been very happy. But when mother died, his
own work could not fill the emptiness. At first, in a mild way, he
had dabbled in philosophy; then, becoming interested, he had
drifted on into economics and sociology. He had a strong sense of
justice, and he soon became fired with a passion to redress wrong.
It was with gratitude that I hailed these signs of a new interest
in life, though I little dreamed what the outcome would be. With
the enthusiasm of a boy he plunged excitedly into these new
pursuits, regardless of whither they led him.
He had been used always to the laboratory, and so it was that
he turned the dining room into a sociological laboratory. Here came
to dinner all sorts and conditions of men,—scientists, politicians,
bankers, merchants, professors, labor leaders, socialists, and
anarchists. He stirred them to discussion, and analyzed their
thoughts of life and society.
He had met Ernest shortly prior to the "preacher's night."
And after the guests were gone, I learned how he had met him,
passing down a street at night and stopping to listen to a man on a
soap-box who was addressing a crowd of workingmen. The man on the
box was Ernest. Not that he was a mere soap-box orator. He stood
high in the councils of the socialist party, was one of the
leaders, and was the acknowledged leader in the philosophy of
socialism. But he had a certain clear way of stating the abstruse
in simple language, was a born expositor and teacher, and was not
above the soap-box as a means of interpreting economics to the
workingmen.
My father stopped to listen, became interested, effected a
meeting, and, after quite an acquaintance, invited him to the
ministers' dinner. It was after the dinner that father told me what
little he knew about him. He had been born in the working class,
though he was a descendant of the old line of Everhards that for
over two hundred years had lived in America.* At ten years of age
he had gone to work in the mills, and later he served his
apprenticeship and became a horseshoer. He was self-educated, had
taught himself German and French, and at that time was earning a
meagre living by translating scientific and philosophical works for
a struggling socialist publishing house in Chicago. Also, his
earnings were added to by the royalties from the small sales of his
own economic and philosophic works.
* The distinction between being
native born and foreign born was sharp and invidious in those
days.
This much I learned of him before I went to bed, and I lay
long awake, listening in memory to the sound of his voice. I grew
frightened at my thoughts. He was so unlike the men of my own
class, so alien and so strong. His masterfulness delighted me and
terrified me, for my fancies wantonly roved until I found myself
considering him as a lover, as a husband. I had always heard that
the strength of men was an irresistible attraction to women; but he
was too strong. "No! no!" I cried out. "It is impossible, absurd!"
And on the morrow I awoke to find in myself a longing to see him
again. I wanted to see him mastering men in discussion, the
war-note in his voice; to see him, in all his certitude and
strength, shattering their complacency, shaking them out of their
ruts of thinking. What if he did swashbuckle? To use his own
phrase, "it worked," it produced effects. And, besides, his
swashbuckling was a fine thing to see. It stirred one like the
onset of battle.
Several days passed during which I read Ernest's books,
borrowed from my father. His written word was as his spoken word,
clear and convincing. It was its absolute simplicity that convinced
even while one continued to doubt. He had the gift of lucidity. He
was the perfect expositor. Yet, in spite of his style, there was
much that I did not like. He laid too great stress on what he
called the class struggle, the antagonism between labor and
capital, the conflict of interest.
Father reported with glee Dr. Hammerfield's judgment of
Ernest, which was to the effect that he was "an insolent young
puppy, made bumptious by a little and very inadequate learning."
Also, Dr. Hammerfield declined to meet Ernest again.
But Bishop Morehouse turned out to have become interested in
Ernest, and was anxious for another meeting. "A strong young man,"
he said; "and very much alive, very much alive. But he is too sure,
too sure."
Ernest came one afternoon with father. The Bishop had already
arrived, and we were having tea on the veranda. Ernest's continued
presence in Berkeley, by the way, was accounted for by the fact
that he was taking special courses in biology at the university,
and also that he was hard at work on a new book entitled
"Philosophy and Revolution."*
* This book continued to be secretly
printed throughout the three centuries of the Iron
Heel. There are several copies of various editions in the National
Library of Ardis.
The veranda seemed suddenly to have become small when Ernest
arrived. Not that he was so very large—he stood only five feet nine
inches; but that he seemed to radiate an atmosphere of largeness.
As he stopped to meet me, he betrayed a certain slight awkwardness
that was strangely at variance with his bold-looking eyes and his
firm, sure hand that clasped for a moment in greeting. And in that
moment his eyes were just as steady and sure. There seemed a
question in them this time, and as before he looked at me over
long.
"I have been reading your 'Working-class Philosophy,'" I
said, and his eyes lighted in a pleased way.
"Of course," he answered, "you took into consideration the
audience to which it was addressed."
"I did, and it is because I did that I have a quarrel with
you," I challenged.
"I, too, have a quarrel with you, Mr. Everhard," Bishop
Morehouse said.
Ernest shrugged his shoulders whimsically and accepted a cup
of tea.
The Bishop bowed and gave me precedence.
"You foment class hatred," I said. "I consider it wrong and
criminal to appeal to all that is narrow and brutal in the working
class. Class hatred is anti-social, and, it seems to me,
anti-socialistic."
"Not guilty," he answered. "Class hatred is neither in the
text nor in the spirit of anything I have ever written."
"Oh!" I cried reproachfully, and reached for his book and
opened it.
He sipped his tea and smiled at me while I ran over the
pages.
"Page one hundred and thirty-two," I read aloud: "'The class
struggle, therefore, presents itself in the present stage of social
development between the wage-paying and the wage-paid
classes.'"
I looked at him triumphantly.
"No mention there of class hatred," he smiled back.
"But," I answered, "you say 'class struggle.'"
"A different thing from class hatred," he replied. "And,
believe me, we foment no hatred. We say that the class struggle is
a law of social development. We are not responsible for it. We do
not make the class struggle. We merely explain it, as Newton
explained gravitation. We explain the nature of the conflict of
interest that produces the class struggle."
"But there should be no conflict of interest!" I
cried.
"I agree with you heartily," he answered. "That is what we
socialists are trying to bring about,—the abolition of the conflict
of interest. Pardon me. Let me read an extract." He took his book
and turned back several pages. "Page one hundred and twenty-six:
'The cycle of class struggles which began with the dissolution of
rude, tribal communism and the rise of private property will end
with the passing of private property in the means of social
existence.'"
"But I disagree with you," the Bishop interposed, his pale,
ascetic face betraying by a faint glow the intensity of his
feelings. "Your premise is wrong. There is no such thing as a
conflict of interest between labor and capital—or, rather, there
ought not to be."
"Thank you," Ernest said gravely. "By that last statement you
have given me back my premise."
"But why should there be a conflict?" the Bishop demanded
warmly.
Ernest shrugged his shoulders. "Because we are so made, I
guess."
"But we are not so made!" cried the other.
"Are you discussing the ideal man?" Ernest asked, "—unselfish
and godlike, and so few in numbers as to be practically
non-existent, or are you discussing the common and ordinary average
man?"
"The common and ordinary man," was the answer.
"Who is weak and fallible, prone to error?"
Bishop Morehouse nodded.
"And petty and selfish?"
Again he nodded.
"Watch out!" Ernest warned. "I said 'selfish.'"
"The average man IS selfish," the Bishop affirmed
valiantly.
"Wants all he can get?"
"Wants all he can get—true but deplorable."
"Then I've got you." Ernest's jaw snapped like a trap. "Let
me show you. Here is a man who works on the street
railways."
"He couldn't work if it weren't for capital," the Bishop
interrupted.
"True, and you will grant that capital would perish if there
were no labor to earn the dividends."
The Bishop was silent.
"Won't you?" Ernest insisted.
The Bishop nodded.
"Then our statements cancel each other," Ernest said in a
matter-of-fact tone, "and we are where we were. Now to begin again.
The workingmen on the street railway furnish the labor. The
stockholders furnish the capital. By the joint effort of the
workingmen and the capital, money is earned.* They divide between
them this money that is earned. Capital's share is called
'dividends.' Labor's share is called 'wages.'"
* In those days, groups of predatory
individuals controlled all the means of transportation, and
for the use of same levied toll upon the
public.
"Very good," the Bishop interposed. "And there is no reason
that the division should not be amicable."
"You have already forgotten what we had agreed upon," Ernest
replied. "We agreed that the average man is selfish. He is the man
that is. You have gone up in the air and are arranging a division
between the kind of men that ought to be but are not. But to return
to the earth, the workingman, being selfish, wants all he can get
in the division. The capitalist, being selfish, wants all he can
get in the division. When there is only so much of the same thing,
and when two men want all they can get of the same thing, there is
a conflict of interest between labor and capital. And it is an
irreconcilable conflict. As long as workingmen and capitalists
exist, they will continue to quarrel over the division. If you were
in San Francisco this afternoon, you'd have to walk. There isn't a
street car running."
"Another strike?"* the Bishop queried with alarm.
* These quarrels were very common in
those irrational and anarchic times. Sometimes the
laborers refused to work. Sometimes the capitalists refused to
let the laborers work. In the violence and turbulence of
such disagreements much property was destroyed and many
lives lost. All this is inconceivable to us—as inconceivable
as another custom of that time, namely, the habit the men
of the lower classes had of breaking the furniture when
they quarrelled with their wives.
"Yes, they're quarrelling over the division of the earnings
of the street railways."
Bishop Morehouse became excited.
"It is wrong!" he cried. "It is so short-sighted on the part
of the workingmen. How can they hope to keep our sympathy—"
"When we are compelled to walk," Ernest said slyly.
But Bishop Morehouse ignored him and went on:
"Their outlook is too narrow. Men should be men, not brutes.
There will be violence and murder now, and sorrowing widows and
orphans. Capital and labor should be friends. They should work hand
in hand and to their mutual benefit."
"Ah, now you are up in the air again," Ernest remarked dryly.
"Come back to earth. Remember, we agreed that the average man is
selfish."
"But he ought not to be!" the Bishop cried.
"And there I agree with you," was Ernest's rejoinder. "He
ought not to be selfish, but he will continue to be selfish as long
as he lives in a social system that is based on pig-ethics."
The Bishop was aghast, and my father chuckled.
"Yes, pig-ethics," Ernest went on remorselessly. "That is the
meaning of the capitalist system. And that is what your church is
standing for, what you are preaching for every time you get up in
the pulpit. Pig-ethics! There is no other name for it."
