CHAPTER XV
LAST DAYS
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, the 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."
