The iron heel

FOREWORD I. MY EAGLE II. CHALLENGES III. JACKSONS ARM IV. SLAVES OF THE MACHINE V. THE PHILOMATHS...

But to return to the Manuscript. Especially valuable is it in communicating to us the feel of those...

Black as Feudalism was, yet the coming of it was inevitable. What else than Feudalism could have...

Of Avis Everhard there is no further record. Undoubtedly she was executed by the Mercenaries; and,...

And then I am lonely. When I do not think of what is to come, I think of what has been and is no...

You see, I am full of what is impending. I have lived it day and night utterly and for so long that...

5 John Cunningham, Avis Everhards father, was a professor at the State University at Berkeley,...

In the interest of meeting the other guests, and what of my unfavorable impression, I forgot all...

You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every...

I do not understand, Bishop Morehouse said. It seems to me that all things of the mind are...

Remember, he warned, my definition is fatal to metaphysics. If you do not now point out a flaw in...

Ah, my dear sir, Ernest smiled, I thought you were disqualified. You have not yet picked out the...

I take it as proof that Berkeleys metaphysics did not work, because Ernest paused calmly for a...

But Dr. Hammerfield was temporarily crushed, and the battle raged on in new directions. On point...

Oh, I am not challenging your sincerity, Ernest continued. You are sincere. You preach what you...

There was something in that clarion call of his that went to my heart. It still rang in my ears,...

My father stopped to listen, became interested, effected a meeting, and, after quite an...

The veranda seemed suddenly to have become small when Ernest arrived. Not that he was so very large...

Then our statements cancel each other, Ernest said in a matter of fact tone, and we are where we...

Yes, pig ethics, Ernest went on remorselessly. That is the meaning of the capitalist system. And...

5 Proletariat. Derived originally from the Latin proletarii, the name given in the census of...

7 There is no more horrible page in history than the treatment of the child and women slaves in the...

Remember, I said, you see but one side of the shield. There is much good in us, though you give us...

It was some of the blood from that arm that I heard dripping from your roof beams, Ernest said with...

2 In those days thievery was incredibly prevalent. Everybody stole property from everybody else....

One thing was plain, Jacksons situation was wretched. His wife was in ill health, and he was unable...

I hadnt a fair chance, he began whining again. They made a fool out of Jackson and out of me, too....

I hadnt the ghost of a chance. Colonel Ingram and Judge Caldwell are pretty friendly. Im not saying...

It means hundreds of thousands a year to the stockholders, he said; and as he spoke I remembered...

After my interview with Smith I went to my fathers office in the Chemistry Building and there...

It is precisely what I am doing. And we intend to take, not the mere wealth in the houses, but all...

Oh, as a revolutionist, I have about eight chances to the workingmans one of being injured or...

Down in the depths of me I had a feeling that I stood on the edge of a precipice. It was as though...

And yet I found Colonel Ingram situated the same as the unlettered mechanics. He was not a free...

Were all solid with the corporations, he answered. If you paid advertising rates, you couldnt get...

I saw Mr. Wickson and Mr. Pertonwaithe, the two men who held most of the stock in the Sierra Mills....

The weakness in their position lies in that they are merely business men. They are not...

Also, they grew irritated when I told them of the deplorable condition of Jacksons family, and when...

My impression of him, the first time I saw him, had been unfavorable. Then I had found myself...

It was at this time that vanished my last doubt of the completeness of my love for him a...

Of all places, the Club gathered that night at the Pertonwaithe house. Extra chairs had been...

He arose and began, in a few well chosen phrases that carried an undertone of faint irony, to...

Amongst the revolutionists I found, also, warm faith in the human, ardent idealism, sweetnesses of...

I met men, he said, who invoked the name of the Prince of Peace in their diatribes against war, and...

Much more Ernest told them of themselves and of his disillusionment. Intellectually they had bored...

And as he spoke he extended from his splendid shoulders his two great arms, and the horseshoers...

You have failed in your management. You have made a shambles of civilization. You have been blind...

He snapped his fingers contemptuously and proceeded to sit down. There were lip exclamations of...

Dont take my word for it, Ernest continued, when the interruption had been led away. Your own...

But it seems you have breath to use, and Ill give you a chance to use it. I indicted your class....

Do not be downcast, Ernest said. Take consolation in the fact that no member of your class has ever...

Believe me, the situation is serious. That bear reached out his paws tonight to crush us. He has...

I am answered, Ernest said quietly. It is the only answer that could be given. Power. It is what we...

There were warnings, but I did not heed them. For instance, Mrs. Pertonwaithe and Mrs. Wickson...

Yes. I got that much out of him. He said the university needed ever so much more money this year...

2 Though, like Everhard, they did not dream of the nature of it, there were men, even before his...

He is soul sick from the journey through hell I have given him. I took him through the homes of a...

It is a bribe, he said. Behind it is the fine hand of Wickson, and behind him the hands of greater...

May I bring you to hear him. Of course, he is foredoomed to futility. It will break your heart it...

I live in one of the loveliest localities of San Francisco. The house in which I live cost a...

We must give ourselves and not our money alone. We must do as Christ did; that is the message of...

Not a word that he uttered will see print. You have forgotten the editors. They draw their salaries...

Very true, he replied. But such divergence of opinion would constitute no menace to society....

There was Owen, of Silverberg, Owen Company a large grocery firm with several branch stores. We...

The very thing, Mr. Asmunsen replied. Only a short time ago I had my books gone through for the...

So we thought. We tried it. Mr. Calvin paused a moment. It broke us. The Trust could put milk upon...

One and all you tell the same story, the passing away of competition and the coming on of...

There were flushed and angry faces at the table, and withal a measure of awe. They were a little...

This is the fiat of evolution. It is the word of God. Combination is stronger than competition....

Tell me, Ernest said, if this is not true. You are compelled to form a new political party because...

Nor is that all. While you diligently pursued that favorite phantom of yours, called profits, and...

Whats the Constitution got to do with it. Ernest demanded. The courts interpret the Constitution,...

There you are gentlemen, American citizens, and fellow militiamen. Nine years ago we socialists...

You tell me that I dream. Very good. Ill give you the mathematics of my dream; and here, in...

1 Everhard here clearly develops the cause of all the labor troubles of that time. In the division...

And now we come to the point. Four billion dollars of wealth is produced in one year in the United...

The very thing. You see, my argument is so clear and simple that in your own minds you carry it on...

He paused and regarded his listeners. The bepuzzlement in their faces was delicious. Also, there...

Ill tell you a way to get rid of the surplus, Ernest said. Throw it into the sea. Throw every year...

I have demonstrated to you mathematically the inevitable breakdown of the capitalist system. When...

5 This division of society made by Everhard is in accordance with that made by Lucien Sanial, one...

You see, labor has nothing concrete of which to be despoiled. Its share of the wealth of the...

The small manufacturer is like the farmer; and small manufacturers and farmers to day are reduced,...

Let me point out the power of but one of them, the railroad group. It employs forty thousand...

Little discussion took place after this, and the dinner soon broke up. All were quiet and subdued,...

The crisis in my own fortunes came simultaneously with great crises in society. First of all,...

When father became convinced that the book had actually been suppressed, he tried to get the fact...

Ernest had his hand on the pulse of events even more closely than the rest of the socialists, and...

And so perished fathers book. We were to see much of the Black Hundreds as the days went by. Week...

Also, the great machinist strike had been broken. Two hundred thousand machinists, along with their...

5 The name only, and not the idea, was imported from Russia. The Black Hundreds were a development...

Thus the summer of 1912 witnessed the virtual death thrust to the middle class. Even Ernest was...

1 One of the first ships that carried colonies to America, after the discovery of the New World....

Father insisted on laboratory methods. He brought the Sierra Mills into court, but he could not...

Father must have had strong in him the blood of adventure. He looked upon our catastrophe in the...

And all this he did with no hope of future reward. In his conception of things there was no future...

Joy upon joy and gain upon gain Are the destined rights of my birth, And I shout the praise of my...

The man you drove from Edens grove Was I, my Lord, was I, And I shall be there when the earth and...

It was after my marriage that I chanced upon Bishop Morehouse. But I must give the events in their...

As I say, he became well, quite well, and the newspapers and the church people hailed his return...

But I was soon to know. One day the Bishop disappeared. He had told nobody that he was going away;...

He halted with equal abruptness, and gasped. A large paper bag in his right hand fell to the...

I followed the Bishop into a small room, ten by twelve, in a rear tenement. And there we found a...

Yes, it has been a bad summer. The hard times. God must be angry. This is the first work the boss...

I heard the Bishop stumbling up the stairs, and I opened the door. What a spectacle he was. On his...

And yet there was in his face a permanent pain, the pain of the world that he was now taking to...

I sleep in cheap lodging houses, the Bishop went on. But I am afraid, and never stay long in one...

Of course Ernest was elected to Congress in the great socialist landslide that took place in the...

Hearst made a gallant fight. He brought his papers out at a loss of a million and a half each...

The hard times of 1912 had already caused a frightful slump in the farm markets. Prices were now...

Nevertheless the socialist landslide occurred. But, instead of a sweeping victory with chief...

The Oligarchy wanted the war with Germany. And it wanted the war for a dozen reasons. In the...

The general strike was the one great victory we American socialists won. On the 4th of December the...

The United States was paralyzed. No one knew what was happening. There were no newspapers, no...

And sure enough. The Oligarchys public defence for the act was that it had done it for the sake of...

Why does the United States lag behind.; Get busy, you American revolutionists.; Whats the matter...

And you saw what a general strike would do, Ernest went on. We stopped the war with Germany. Never...

The socialists used to foretell with joy, he said, the coming of the day when organized labor,...

Do you know what will happen to Farley3 and his strike breakers. Ill tell you. Strike breaking as...

On the other hand, the labor castes, the members of the favored unions, will strive to make their...

Thus will the surplus be constantly expended while labor does the work. The building of these great...

It was merely the logical development of what in the nineteenth century had been known as grab...

Countless heads were broken, and there were many killed. No member of the favored unions was safe....

The capture of the world market by the United States had disrupted the rest of the world....

And truly the religious revival assumed formidable proportions. The people, what of their...

Just wait till we get in, the Grangers said Calvin said it to us in our Pell Street quarters. Look...

I think the Bishops example, so far as wearing apparel was concerned, must have fascinated father,...

And so it was that father kept on at our Pell Street quarters, while Ernest and I went to...

In a dozen states the revolt flared up. The expropriated farmers took forcible possession of the...

A more immediate lesson, however, was impressed on the minds of the people by the punishment meted...

In the meantime, the socialists held firm. While the Grangers expired in flame and blood, and...

There was no trust, no confidence anywhere. The man who plotted beside us, for all we knew, might...

Ernest was in the thick of the fight when the end came. It was in the debate on the bill to assist...

I know nothing that I may say can influence you, he said. You have no souls to be influenced. You...

Though he was my husband, I was not permitted to get to him. When I announced who I was, I was...

On the other hand, there is evidence to show that the Iron Heel was responsible for the act. Of...

As for ourselves, not one of us knew how the bomb was thrown. Ernest told me that the fraction of...

Thus, throughout the organization of the Oligarchy, our own organization, weblike and spidery, was...

When the time was ripe, the spies were thrown off my track. An hour later Avis Everhard was no...

Without adventure we crossed the United States to California. When the train stopped at Sixteenth...

But he was dead now, nor did the ranch descend to his children. Of all men, it was now the property...

It was quite a scramble down to the stream bed, and, once on the bed, we went down stream perhaps...

When I was a young man I was a soldier, was his answer. It was in Germany. There all young men must...

For nineteen years now the refuge that I selected had been almost continuously occupied, and in all...

And so with our disguises. It was necessary for us to practise until our assumed roles became real;...

Six lonely months I spent in the refuge, but they were not idle months. Our organization went on...

I fixed him, was Carlsons unimaginative way of describing the affair. I fixed him, he repeated,...

Dr. Hammerfield and Dr. Ballingford achieved quite different fates from that of Jackson. They have...

4 In addition to the labor castes, there arose another caste, the military. A standing army of...

Despite our refusal to grant permission to do the deed, she went on with it. Now Anna Roylston was...