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.[1] 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.

[1] 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.”