The Iron Heel (34 page)

It was by the merest chance that we had found each other in that terrible city. He had had no idea that I had left New York, and, coming through the room where I lay asleep, could not at first believe that it was I. Little more I saw of the Chicago Commune. After watching the balloon attack, Ernest took me down into the heart of the building, where I slept the afternoon out and the night. The third day we spent in the building, and on the fourth, Ernest having got permission and an automobile from the authorities, we left Chicago.

My headache was gone, but, body and soul, I was very tired. I lay back against Ernest in the automobile, and with apathetic eyes watched the soldiers trying to get the machine out of the city. Fighting was still going on, but only in isolated localities. Here and there whole districts were still in possession of the comrades, but such districts were surrounded and guarded by heavy bodies of troops. In a hundred segregated traps were the comrades thus held while the work of subjugating them went on. Subjugation meant death, for no quarter was given, and they fought heroically to the last man.
¹¹⁸

Whenever we approached such localities, the guards turned us back and sent us around. Once, the only way past two strong positions of the comrades was through a burnt section that lay between. From either side we could hear the rattle and roar of war, while the automobile picked its way through smoking ruins and tottering walls. Often the streets were blocked by mountains of débris that compelled us to go around. We were in a labyrinth of ruin, and our progress was slow.

The stockyards (ghetto, plant, and everything) were smouldering ruins. Far off to the right a wide smoke haze dimmed the sky,—the town of Pullman, the soldier chauffeur told us, or what had been the town of Pullman, for it was utterly destroyed. He had driven the machine out there, with despatches, on the afternoon of the third day. Some of the heaviest fighting had occurred there, he said, many of the streets being rendered impassable by the heaps of the dead.

Swinging around the shattered walls of a building, in the stockyards district, the automobile was stopped by a wave of dead. It was for all the world like a wave tossed up by the sea. It was patent to us what had happened. As the mob charged past the corner, it had been swept, at right angles and point-blank range, by the machine-guns drawn up on the cross street. But disaster had come to the soldiers. A chance bomb must have exploded among them, for the mob, checked until its dead and dying formed the wave, had white-capped and flung forward its foam of living, fighting slaves. Soldiers and slaves lay together, torn and mangled, around and over the wreckage of the automobiles and guns.

Ernest sprang out. A familiar pair of shoulders in a cotton shirt and a familiar fringe of white hair had caught his eye. I did not watch him, and it was not until he was back beside me and we were speeding on that he said:

“It was Bishop Morehouse.”

Soon we were in the green country, and I took one last glance back at the smoke-filled sky. Faint and far came the low thud of an explosion. Then I turned my face against Ernest's breast and wept softly for the Cause that was lost. Ernest's arm about me was eloquent with love.

“For this time lost, dear heart,” he said, “but not forever. We have learned. To-morrow the Cause will rise again, strong with wisdom and discipline.”

The automobile drew up at a railroad station. Here we would catch a train to New York. As we waited on the platform, three trains thundered past, bound west to Chicago. They were crowded with ragged, unskilled laborers, people of the abyss.

“Slave-levies for the rebuilding of Chicago,” Ernest said. “You see, the Chicago slaves are all killed.”

CHAPTER XXV

THE TERRORISTS

It was not until Ernest and I were back in New York, and after weeks had elapsed, that we were able to comprehend thoroughly the full sweep of the disaster that had befallen the Cause. The situation was bitter and bloody. In many places, scattered over the country, slave revolts and massacres had occurred. The roll of the martyrs increased mightily. Countless executions took place everywhere. The mountains and waste regions were filled with outlaws and refugees who were being hunted down mercilessly. Our own refuges were packed with comrades who had prices on their heads. Through information furnished by its spies, scores of our refuges were raided by the soldiers of the Iron Heel.

Many of the comrades were disheartened, and they retaliated with terroristic tactics. The set-back to their hopes made them despairing and desperate. Many terrorist organizations unaffiliated with us sprang into existence and caused us much trouble.
¹¹⁹
These misguided people sacrificed their own lives wantonly, very often made our own plans go astray, and retarded our organization.

And through it all moved the Iron Heel, impassive and deliberate, shaking up the whole fabric of the social structure in its search for the comrades, combing out the Mercenaries, the labor castes, and all its secret services, punishing without mercy and without malice, suffering in silence all retaliations that were made upon it, and filling the gaps in its fighting line as fast as they appeared. And hand in hand with this, Ernest and the other leaders were hard at work reorganizing the forces of the Revolution. The magnitude of the task may be understood when it is taken into
¹²⁰

Notes

EPIGRAPH

 

3
“At First, . . . Drama means”:
From Alfred, Lord Tennyson's “The Play,” in
Demeter, and Other Poems
(1889).

 

 

FOREWORD

 

5
Ernest Everhard:
According to Jack London's daughter Joan, the name Ernest Everhard was borrowed from one of his first cousins.

7
Herbert Spencer
(1820-1903)
:
British philosopher, biologist, and social scientist who popularized the notion of progressive evolution.

8
Wake Robin Lodge:
Ninetta Eames and Edward Payne, an editor of
Overland Monthly,
owned the Wake Robin Lodge, a guest cabin in Glen Ellen, California. London spent the summer of 1905 at Wake Robin Lodge before purchasing the Beauty Ranch estate a few miles away.

 

CHAPTER I. MY EAGLE

 

11
Sir Oliver Lodge
(1851-1940)
:
English physicist most widely known for his speculations about wireless telegraphy.

12
Blind Tom:
Thomas Bethune (1849-1908), a blind pianist and composer.

16
As Spencer . . . unified knowledge:
A summary of “knowable” in Spencer's
First Principles of a New System of Philosophy
(1862) (see note to p. 7). London writes in a letter to Cloudesley Johns dated August 10, 1899, that “Spencer's
First Principles
alone, leaving out all the rest of his work, has done more for mankind, and through the ages will have done far more for mankind, than a thousand books like
Nicholas Nickleby, Hard Cash, Book of Snobs,
and
Uncle Tom's Cabin.”

19
‘Will it work? . . . to it?' ”:
Quote from Dr. David Starr Jordan, president of Stanford University, in “The Stability of Truth,”
Popular Science Monthly
50 (March 1897), 646.

20
“My mind to me a kingdom is”:
From a 48-line poem by Sir Edward Dyer (1543-1607). The first stanza is “My mind to me a kingdom is, / Such present joys therein I find, / that it excels all other bliss / That earth affords or grows by kind: / Though much I want that most would have, / Yet still my mind forbids to crave.”

 

CHAPTER II. CHALLENGES

 

31
Austin Lewis
(1865-1944): A prominent attorney and socialist from California. London attended Lewis's lectures starting around 1900 and later befriended him.

33
Henry van Dyke
(1852-1933): Clergyman, author, and English professor at Princeton University.

 

CHAPTER III. JACKSON'S ARM

 

44
‘red of claw and fang':
From Alfred, Lord Tennyson's “In Memoriam,” stanza 56 (1850): “Who trusted God was love indeed / And love Creation's final law—/ Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw / With ravine, shriek'd against his creed—.”

45
socialist vote cast in the United States:
Although the figures London cites are accurate for socialist candidates up until 1904, he extrapolates and adds fictitious vote counts for 1908 and 1910.

 

CHAPTER IV. SLAVES OF THE MACHINE

 

53
John Stuart Mill
(1806-1873): British economist, political theorist, and philosopher; he wrote
On Liberty
in 1859.

54
George F. Baer
(1842-1914): American financier and legal adviser to J. P. Morgan.

55
Outlook:
London is referring to an article by Jocelyn Lewis entitled “Was It Worth While?” published in
Outlook
on August 10, 1906. London used many of the details in the article for his descriptions of the events surrounding Jackson's arm.

 

CHAPTER V. THE PHILOMATHS

 

64
“Such an army ... strong hands!' ”:
This passage is quoted verbatim from one of London's most popular lectures, “Revolution,” that he delivered across the country in 1905-06. In the original version published in
Revolution and Other Essays
(New York: 1910, p. 8), “twenty-five millions strong” is only “7,000,000.”

67
Rousseau
(1712-1778): Jean Jacques Rousseau, French philosopher, political theorist, and author. London is most likely referring to Rousseau's
Le Contrat Social
(1762), or the “Social Compact.”

68
mass-plays:
A “flying-wedge” (subsequently banned) in early American football that enabled players to protect the ball carrier by lining up en masse.

73
Ambrose Bierce
(1842-1914): American journalist and author known for his biting social satire.

 

CHAPTER VI. ADUMBRATIONS

 

80
Gethsemane:
See Matthew 26:36; the place where Jesus last speaks with his disciples before his capture and crucifixion.

 

CHAPTER VII. THE BISHOP'S VISION

 

83
“I was in my brougham . . . And so I say—”:
From a speech by the bishop of London published at the turn of the century. Frank Harris (1856-1931), a prominent literary critic, playwright, author, and former editor of
Vanity Fair,
plagiarized these words in a 1901 article that he authored and published in the
Candid Friend.
London copied the speech word for word and used it as Bishop Moreland's speech. He defended himself when Harris, in a series of highly heated verbal exchanges with London, accused him of theft and attempted to extort money from him. London, who would admit to copying the Harris article, never paid him any sum.

85
“ ‘The silver trumpets . . . salt with tears.' ”:
This sonnet, titled “Easter Day,” is from Oscar Wilde's (1854-1900)
Poems
(1881). London kept several copies of Wilde's books in his library, including
Children in Prison and Other Cruelties of Prison Life
(1898),
De Profundis
(1905), and
The Soul of Man under Socialism
(1892).

 

 

CHAPTER VIII. THE MACHINE BREAKERS

 

97
Joshua made . . . upon Gibeon:
See Joshua 10:12. God stops the sun so that Joshua can slay his enemies

99
Twice we . . . as unconstitutional:
The Sixteenth Amendment (1913), which gave Congress the right to levy an income tax, was passed in response to the Supreme Court rulings alluded to by London.

103
E. Untermann
(1865-1956): A friend of London and a frequent visitor to Beauty Ranch, Ernest Untermann was a German author, translator, and writer and helped found the American Socialist Party.

103
“Militia Bill”:
The Efficiency of Militia Bill H. R. 11654 (1902) split the militias into three separate and distinct units: the organized militia, or the National Guard; unorganized or state militias; and the regular army, which would include the four branches of the armed services. Its immediate effect, to which London refers, allows for state militia members to be called up to service in the federal army.

 

 

CHAPTER IX. THE MATHEMATICS OF A DREAM

 

112
Lucien Sanial
(1836-1928): Sociologist, socialist journalist and editor.

115
These five groups . . . “Rock Island crowd”:
London refers to seven major American players surrounding the intercontinental railroads: James Jerome Hill (1838-1916), railroad builder; Jacob Henry Schiff (1847-1920), railroad financier, banker, and philanthropist; Edward Henry Harriman (1848-1909), stockbroker and railroad executive; Henry Clay Frick (1849- 1919), steel industrialist; Benjamin Odell (1854-1926), Republican politician; Jay Gould (1836-1892), speculator and railroad financier; and William Moore (1848-1923), leader of the “Rock Island Crowd” syndicate.

 

CHAPTER X. THE VORTEX

 

122
The Appeal to Reason:
One of the socialist magazines that published London's writings. In a letter dated August 24, 1908, to his aunt Ninetta Eames, London remarks that “I should certainly charge them [the magazine] nothing for their use of
The Iron Heel
published in pamphlet form, or in any way they see fit.”