The Iron Heel Page #18

"The Iron Heel" by Jack London, published in 1908, is a dystopian political novel that explores themes of authoritarianism, class struggle, and revolution. It is considered one of the earliest examples of dystopian fiction, influencing later works like 1984 and Brave New World.

• Novel

								

red-handed Herod had killed.

 [5] Originally, they were private detectives; but they quickly became
 hired fighting men of the capitalists, and ultimately developed into
 the Mercenaries of the Oligarchy.

“This delicate, aristocratic-featured gentleman was a dummy director
and a tool of corporations that secretly robbed widows and orphans.
This gentleman, who collected fine editions and was a patron of
literature, paid blackmail to a heavy-jowled, black-browed boss of a
municipal machine. This editor, who published patent medicine
advertisements, called me a scoundrelly demagogue because I dared him
to print in his paper the truth about patent medicines.[6] This man,
talking soberly and earnestly about the beauties of idealism and the
goodness of God, had just betrayed his comrades in a business deal.
This man, a pillar of the church and heavy contributor to foreign
missions, worked his shop girls ten hours a day on a starvation wage
and thereby directly encouraged prostitution. This man, who endowed
chairs in universities and erected magnificent chapels, perjured
himself in courts of law over dollars and cents. This railroad magnate
broke his word as a citizen, as a gentleman, and as a Christian, when
he granted a secret rebate, and he granted many secret rebates. This
senator was the tool and the slave, the little puppet, of a brutal
uneducated machine boss;[7] so was this governor and this supreme court
judge; and all three rode on railroad passes; and, also, this sleek
capitalist owned the machine, the machine boss, and the railroads that
issued the passes.

 [6] Patent medicines were patent lies, but, like the charms and
 indulgences of the Middle Ages, they deceived the people. The only
 difference lay in that the patent medicines were more harmful and more
 costly.

 [7] Even as late as 1912, A.D., the great mass of the people still
 persisted in the belief that they ruled the country by virtue of their
 ballots. In reality, the country was ruled by what were called
 political machines. At first the machine bosses charged the master
 capitalists extortionate tolls for legislation; but in a short time
 the master capitalists found it cheaper to own the political machines
 themselves and to hire the machine bosses.

“And so it was, instead of in paradise, that I found myself in the arid
desert of commercialism. I found nothing but stupidity, except for
business. I found none clean, noble, and alive, though I found many who
were alive—with rottenness. What I did find was monstrous selfishness
and heartlessness, and a gross, gluttonous, practised, and practical
materialism.”

Much more Ernest told them of themselves and of his disillusionment.
Intellectually they had bored him; morally and spiritually they had
sickened him; so that he was glad to go back to his revolutionists, who
were clean, noble, and alive, and all that the capitalists were not.

“And now,” he said, “let me tell you about that revolution.”

But first I must say that his terrible diatribe had not touched them. I
looked about me at their faces and saw that they remained complacently
superior to what he had charged. And I remembered what he had told me:
that no indictment of their morality could shake them. However, I could
see that the boldness of his language had affected Miss Brentwood. She
was looking worried and apprehensive.

Ernest began by describing the army of revolution, and as he gave the
figures of its strength (the votes cast in the various countries), the
assemblage began to grow restless. Concern showed in their faces, and I
noticed a tightening of lips. At last the gage of battle had been
thrown down. He described the international organization of the
socialists that united the million and a half in the United States with
the twenty-three millions and a half in the rest of the world.

“Such an army of revolution,” he said, “twenty-five millions strong, is
a thing to make rulers and ruling classes pause and consider. The cry
of this army is: ‘No quarter! We want all that you possess. We will be
content with nothing less than all that you possess. We want in our
hands the reins of power and the destiny of mankind. Here are our
hands. They are strong hands. We are going to take your governments,
your palaces, and all your purpled ease away from you, and in that day
you shall work for your bread even as the peasant in the field or the
starved and runty clerk in your metropolises. Here are our hands. They
are strong hands!’”

And as he spoke he extended from his splendid shoulders his two great
arms, and the horseshoer’s hands were clutching the air like eagle’s
talons. He was the spirit of regnant labor as he stood there, his hands
outreaching to rend and crush his audience. I was aware of a faintly
perceptible shrinking on the part of the listeners before this figure
of revolution, concrete, potential, and menacing. That is, the women
shrank, and fear was in their faces. Not so with the men. They were of
the active rich, and not the idle, and they were fighters. A low,
throaty rumble arose, lingered on the air a moment, and ceased. It was
the forerunner of the snarl, and I was to hear it many times that
night—the token of the brute in man, the earnest of his primitive
passions. And they were unconscious that they had made this sound. It
was the growl of the pack, mouthed by the pack, and mouthed in all
unconsciousness. And in that moment, as I saw the harshness form in
their faces and saw the fight-light flashing in their eyes, I realized
that not easily would they let their lordship of the world be wrested
from them.

Ernest proceeded with his attack. He accounted for the existence of the
million and a half of revolutionists in the United States by charging
the capitalist class with having mismanaged society. He sketched the
economic condition of the cave-man and of the savage peoples of to-day,
pointing out that they possessed neither tools nor machines, and
possessed only a natural efficiency of one in producing power. Then he
traced the development of machinery and social organization so that
to-day the producing power of civilized man was a thousand times
greater than that of the savage.

“Five men,” he said, “can produce bread for a thousand. One man can
produce cotton cloth for two hundred and fifty people, woollens for
three hundred, and boots and shoes for a thousand. One would conclude
from this that under a capable management of society modern civilized
man would be a great deal better off than the cave-man. But is he? Let
us see. In the United States to-day there are fifteen million[8] people
living in poverty; and by poverty is meant that condition in life in
which, through lack of food and adequate shelter, the mere standard of
working efficiency cannot be maintained. In the United States to-day,
in spite of all your so-called labor legislation, there are three

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