CHAPTER XVI
THE END
When it came time for Ernest and me to go to Washington, father did
not accompany us. He had become enamoured of proletarian life. He
looked upon our slum neighborhood as a great sociological
laboratory, and he had embarked upon an apparently endless orgy of
investigation. He chummed with the laborers, and was an intimate
in scores of homes. Also, he worked at odd jobs, and the work was
play as well as learned investigation, for he delighted in it and
was always returning home with copious notes and bubbling over with
new adventures. He was the perfect scientist.
There was no need for his working at all, because Ernest managed to
earn enough from his translating to take care of the three of us.
But father insisted on pursuing his favorite phantom, and a protean
phantom it was, judging from the jobs he worked at. I shall never
forget the evening he brought home his street pedler's outfit of
shoe-laces and suspenders, nor the time I went into the little
corner grocery to make some purchase and had him wait on me. After
that I was not surprised when he tended bar for a week in the
saloon across the street. He worked as a night watchman, hawked
potatoes on the street, pasted labels in a cannery warehouse, was
utility man in a paper-box factory, and water-carrier for a street
railway construction gang, and even joined the Dishwashers' Union
just before it fell to pieces.
I think the Bishop's example, so far as wearing apparel was
concerned, must have fascinated father, for he wore the cheap
cotton shirt of the laborer and the overalls with the narrow strap
about the hips. Yet one habit remained to him from the old life;
he always dressed for dinner, or supper, rather.
I could be happy anywhere with Ernest; and father's happiness in
our changed circumstances rounded out my own happiness.
"When I was a boy," father said, "I was very curious. I wanted to
know why things were and how they came to pass. That was why I
became a physicist. The life in me to-day is just as curious as it
was in my boyhood, and it's the being curious that makes life worth
living."
Sometimes he ventured north of Market Street into the shopping and
theatre district, where he sold papers, ran errands, and opened
cabs. There, one day, closing a cab, he encountered Mr. Wickson.
In high glee father described the incident to us that evening.
"Wickson looked at me sharply when I closed the door on him, and
muttered, "Well, I'll be damned." Just like that he said it,
"Well, I'll be damned." His face turned red and he was so confused
that he forgot to tip me. But he must have recovered himself
quickly, for the cab hadn't gone fifty feet before it turned around
and came back. He leaned out of the door.
"'Look here, Professor,' he said, 'this is too much. What can I do
for you?'
"'I closed the cab door for you,' I answered. 'According to common
custom you might give me a dime.'
"'Bother that!' he snorted. 'I mean something substantial.'
"He was certainly serious--a twinge of ossified conscience or
something; and so I considered with grave deliberation for a
moment.
"His face was quite expectant when I began my answer, but you
should have seen it when I finished.
"'You might give me back my home,' I said, 'and my stock in the
Sierra Mills.'"
Father paused.
"What did he say?" I questioned eagerly.
"What could he say? He said nothing. But I said. 'I hope you are
happy.' He looked at me curiously. 'Tell me, are you happy?'" I
asked.
"He ordered the cabman to drive on, and went away swearing
horribly. And he didn't give me the dime, much less the home and
stock; so you see, my dear, your father's street-arab career is
beset with disappointments."
And so it was that father kept on at our Pell Street quarters,
while Ernest and I went to Washington. Except for the final
consummation, the old order had passed away, and the final
consummation was nearer than I dreamed. Contrary to our
expectation, no obstacles were raised to prevent the socialist
Congressmen from taking their seats. Everything went smoothly, and
I laughed at Ernest when he looked upon the very smoothness as
something ominous.
We found our socialist comrades confident, optimistic of their
strength and of the things they would accomplish. A few Grangers
who had been elected to Congress increased our strength, and an
elaborate programme of what was to be done was prepared by the
united forces. In all of which Ernest joined loyally and
energetically, though he could not forbear, now and again, from
saying, apropos of nothing in particular, "When it comes to powder,
chemical mixtures are better than mechanical mixtures, you take my
word."
The trouble arose first with the Grangers in the various states
they had captured at the last election. There were a dozen of
these states, but the Grangers who had been elected were not
permitted to take office. The incumbents refused to get out. It
was very simple. They merely charged illegality in the elections
and wrapped up the whole situation in the interminable red tape of
the law. The Grangers were powerless. The courts were in the
hands of their enemies.
This was the moment of danger. If the cheated Grangers became
violent, all was lost. How we socialists worked to hold them back!
There were days and nights when Ernest never closed his eyes in
sleep. The big leaders of the Grangers saw the peril and were with
us to a man. But it was all of no avail. The Oligarchy wanted
violence, and it set its agents-provocateurs to work. Without
discussion, it was the agents-provocateurs who caused the Peasant
Revolt.
In a dozen states the revolt flared up. The expropriated farmers
took forcible possession of the state governments. Of course this
was unconstitutional, and of course the United States put its
soldiers into the field. Everywhere the agents-provocateurs urged
the people on. These emissaries of the Iron Heel disguised
themselves as artisans, farmers, and farm laborers. In Sacramento,
the capital of California, the Grangers had succeeded in
maintaining order. Thousands of secret agents were rushed to the
devoted city. In mobs composed wholly of themselves, they fired
and looted buildings and factories. They worked the people up
until they joined them in the pillage. Liquor in large quantities
was distributed among the slum classes further to inflame their
minds. And then, when all was ready, appeared upon the scene the
soldiers of the United States, who were, in reality, the soldiers
of the Iron Heel. Eleven thousand men, women, and children were
shot down on the streets of Sacramento or murdered in their houses.
The national government took possession of the state government,
and all was over for California.
And as with California, so elsewhere. Every Granger state was
ravaged with violence and washed in blood. First, disorder was
precipitated by the secret agents and the Black Hundreds, then the
troops were called out. Rioting and mob-rule reigned throughout
the rural districts. Day and night the smoke of burning farms,
warehouses, villages, and cities filled the sky. Dynamite
appeared. Railroad bridges and tunnels were blown up and trains
were wrecked. The poor farmers were shot and hanged in great
numbers. Reprisals were bitter, and many plutocrats and army
officers were murdered. Blood and vengeance were in men's hearts.
The regular troops fought the farmers as savagely as had they been
Indians. And the regular troops had cause. Twenty-eight hundred
of them had been annihilated in a tremendous series of dynamite
explosions in Oregon, and in a similar manner, a number of train
loads, at different times and places, had been destroyed. So it
was that the regular troops fought for their lives as well as did
the farmers.
As for the militia, the militia law of 1903 was put into effect,
and the workers of one state were compelled, under pain of death,
to shoot down their comrade-workers in other states. Of course,
the militia law did not work smoothly at first. Many militia
officers were murdered, and many militiamen were executed by
drumhead court martial. Ernest's prophecy was strikingly fulfilled
in the cases of Mr. Kowalt and Mr. Asmunsen. Both were eligible
for the militia, and both were drafted to serve in the punitive
expedition that was despatched from California against the farmers
of Missouri. Mr. Kowalt and Mr. Asmunsen refused to serve. They
were given short shrift. Drumhead court martial was their portion,
and military execution their end. They were shot with their backs
to the firing squad.
Many young men fled into the mountains to escape serving in the
militia. There they became outlaws, and it was not until more
peaceful times that they received their punishment. It was
drastic. The government issued a proclamation for all law-abiding
citizens to come in from the mountains for a period of three
months. When the proclaimed date arrived, half a million soldiers
were sent into the mountainous districts everywhere. There was no
investigation, no trial. Wherever a man was encountered, he was
shot down on the spot. The troops operated on the basis that no
man not an outlaw remained in the mountains. Some bands, in strong
positions, fought gallantly, but in the end every deserter from the
militia met death.
A more immediate lesson, however, was impressed on the minds of the
people by the punishment meted out to the Kansas militia. The
great Kansas Mutiny occurred at the very beginning of military
operations against the Grangers. Six thousand of the militia
mutinied. They had been for several weeks very turbulent and
sullen, and for that reason had been kept in camp. Their open
mutiny, however, was without doubt precipitated by the agents-
provocateurs.
On the night of the 22d of April they arose and murdered their
officers, only a small remnant of the latter escaping. This was
beyond the scheme of the Iron Heel, for the agents-provocateurs had
done their work too well. But everything was grist to the Iron
Heel. It had prepared for the outbreak, and the killing of so many
officers gave it justification for what followed. As by magic,
forty thousand soldiers of the regular army surrounded the
malcontents. It was a trap. The wretched militiamen found that
their machine-guns had been tampered with, and that the cartridges
from the captured magazines did not fit their rifles. They hoisted
the white flag of surrender, but it was ignored. There were no
survivors. The entire six thousand were annihilated. Common shell
and shrapnel were thrown in upon them from a distance, and, when,
in their desperation, they charged the encircling lines, they were
mowed down by the machine-guns. I talked with an eye-witness, and
he said that the nearest any militiaman approached the machine-guns
was a hundred and fifty yards. The earth was carpeted with the
slain, and a final charge of cavalry, with trampling of horses'
hoofs, revolvers, and sabres, crushed the wounded into the ground.
Simultaneously with the destruction of the Grangers came the revolt
of the coal miners. It was the expiring effort of organized labor.
Three-quarters of a million of miners went out on strike. But they
were too widely scattered over the country to advantage from their
own strength. They were segregated in their own districts and
beaten into submission. This was the first great slave-drive.
Pocock* won his spurs as a slave-driver and earned the undying
hatred of the proletariat. Countless attempts were made upon his
life, but he seemed to bear a charmed existence. It was he who was
responsible for the introduction of the Russian passport system
among the miners, and the denial of their right of removal from one
part of the country to another.
* Albert Pocock, another of the notorious strike-breakers of
earlier years, who, to the day of his death, successfully held all
the coal-miners of the country to their task. He was succeeded by
his son, Lewis Pocock, and for five generations this remarkable
line of slave-drivers handled the coal mines. The elder Pocock,
known as Pocock I., has been described as follows: "A long, lean
head, semicircled by a fringe of brown and gray hair, with big
cheek-bones and a heavy chin, . . . a pale face, lustreless gray
eyes, a metallic voice, and a languid manner." He was born of
humble parents, and began his career as a bartender. He next
became a private detective for a street railway corporation, and by
successive steps developed into a professional strikebreaker.
Pocock V., the last of the line, was blown up in a pump-house by a
bomb during a petty revolt of the miners in the Indian Territory.
This occurred in 2073 A.D.
In the meantime, the socialists held firm. While the Grangers
expired in flame and blood, and organized labor was disrupted, the
socialists held their peace and perfected their secret
organization. In vain the Grangers pleaded with us. We rightly
contended that any revolt on our part was virtually suicide for the
whole Revolution. The Iron Heel, at first dubious about dealing
with the entire proletariat at one time, had found the work easier
than it had expected, and would have asked nothing better than an
uprising on our part. But we avoided the issue, in spite of the
fact that agents-provocateurs swarmed in our midst. In those early
days, the agents of the Iron Heel were clumsy in their methods.
They had much to learn and in the meantime our Fighting Groups
weeded them out. It was bitter, bloody work, but we were fighting
for life and for the Revolution, and we had to fight the enemy with
its own weapons. Yet we were fair. No agent of the Iron Heel was
executed without a trial. We may have made mistakes, but if so,
very rarely. The bravest, and the most combative and self-
sacrificing of our comrades went into the Fighting Groups. Once,
after ten years had passed, Ernest made a calculation from figures
furnished by the chiefs of the Fighting Groups, and his conclusion
was that the average life of a man or woman after becoming a member
was five years. The comrades of the Fighting Groups were heroes
all, and the peculiar thing about it was that they were opposed to
the taking of life. They violated their own natures, yet they
loved liberty and knew of no sacrifice too great to make for the
Cause.*
* These Fighting groups were modelled somewhat after the Fighting
Organization of the Russian Revolution, and, despite the unceasing
efforts of the Iron Heel, these groups persisted throughout the
three centuries of its existence. Composed of men and women
actuated by lofty purpose and unafraid to die, the Fighting Groups
exercised tremendous influence and tempered the savage brutality of
the rulers. Not alone was their work confined to unseen warfare
with the secret agents of the Oligarchy. The oligarchs themselves
were compelled to listen to the decrees of the Groups, and often,
when they disobeyed, were punished by death--and likewise with the
subordinates of the oligarchs, with the officers of the army and
the leaders of the labor castes.
Stern justice was meted out by these organized avengers, but most
remarkable was their passionless and judicial procedure. There
were no snap judgments. When a man was captured he was given fair
trial and opportunity for defence. Of necessity, many men were
tried and condemned by proxy, as in the case of General Lampton.
This occurred in 2138 A.D. Possibly the most bloodthirsty and
malignant of all the mercenaries that ever served the Iron Heel, he
was informed by the Fighting Groups that they had tried him, found
him guilty, and condemned him to death--and this, after three
warnings for him to cease from his ferocious treatment of the
proletariat. After his condemnation he surrounded himself with a
myriad protective devices. Years passed, and in vain the Fighting
Groups strove to execute their decree. Comrade after comrade, men
and women, failed in their attempts, and were cruelly executed by
the Oligarchy. It was the case of General Lampton that revived
crucifixion as a legal method of execution. But in the end the
condemned man found his executioner in the form of a slender girl
of seventeen, Madeline Provence, who, to accomplish her purpose,
served two years in his palace as a seamstress to the household.
She died in solitary confinement after horrible and prolonged
torture; but to-day she stands in imperishable bronze in the
Pantheon of Brotherhood in the wonder city of Serles.
We, who by personal experience know nothing of bloodshed, must not
judge harshly the heroes of the Fighting Groups. They gave up
their lives for humanity, no sacrifice was too great for them to
accomplish, while inexorable necessity compelled them to bloody
expression in an age of blood. The Fighting Groups constituted the
one thorn in the side of the Iron Heel that the Iron Heel could
never remove. Everhard was the father of this curious army, and
its accomplishments and successful persistence for three hundred
years bear witness to the wisdom with which he organized and the
solid foundation he laid for the succeeding generations to build
upon. In some respects, despite his great economic and
sociological contributions, and his work as a general leader in the
Revolution, his organization of the Fighting Groups must be
regarded as his greatest achievement.
The task we set ourselves was threefold. First, the weeding out
from our circles of the secret agents of the Oligarchy. Second,
the organizing of the Fighting Groups, and outside of them, of the
general secret organization of the Revolution. And third, the
introduction of our own secret agents into every branch of the
Oligarchy--into the labor castes and especially among the
telegraphers and secretaries and clerks, into the army, the agents-
provocateurs, and the slave-drivers. It was slow work, and
perilous, and often were our efforts rewarded with costly failures.
The Iron Heel had triumphed in open warfare, but we held our own in
the new warfare, strange and awful and subterranean, that we
instituted. All was unseen, much was unguessed; the blind fought
the blind; and yet through it all was order, purpose, control. We
permeated the entire organization of the Iron Heel with our agents,
while our own organization was permeated with the agents of the
Iron Heel. It was warfare dark and devious, replete with intrigue
and conspiracy, plot and counterplot. And behind all, ever
menacing, was death, violent and terrible. Men and women
disappeared, our nearest and dearest comrades. We saw them to-day.
To-morrow they were gone; we never saw them again, and we knew that
they had died.
There was no trust, no confidence anywhere. The man who plotted
beside us, for all we knew, might be an agent of the Iron Heel. We
mined the organization of the Iron Heel with our secret agents, and
the Iron Heel countermined with its secret agents inside its own
organization. And it was the same with our organization. And
despite the absence of confidence and trust we were compelled to
base our every effort on confidence and trust. Often were we
betrayed. Men were weak. The Iron Heel could offer money,
leisure, the joys and pleasures that waited in the repose of the
wonder cities. We could offer nothing but the satisfaction of
being faithful to a noble ideal. As for the rest, the wages of
those who were loyal were unceasing peril, torture, and death.
Men were weak, I say, and because of their weakness we were
compelled to make the only other reward that was within our power.
It was the reward of death. Out of necessity we had to punish our
traitors. For every man who betrayed us, from one to a dozen
faithful avengers were loosed upon his heels. We might fail to
carry out our decrees against our enemies, such as the Pococks, for
instance; but the one thing we could not afford to fail in was the
punishment of our own traitors. Comrades turned traitor by
permission, in order to win to the wonder cities and there execute
our sentences on the real traitors. In fact, so terrible did we
make ourselves, that it became a greater peril to betray us than to
remain loyal to us.
The Revolution took on largely the character of religion. We
worshipped at the shrine of the Revolution, which was the shrine of
liberty. It was the divine flashing through us. Men and women
devoted their lives to the Cause, and new-born babes were sealed to
it as of old they had been sealed to the service of God. We were
lovers of Humanity.
