The Iron Heel Page #8

"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

								


 [3] In those days, groups of predatory individuals controlled all the
 means of transportation, and for the use of same levied toll upon the
 public.

“Very good,” the Bishop interposed. “And there is no reason that the
division should not be amicable.”

“You have already forgotten what we had agreed upon,” Ernest replied.
“We agreed that the average man is selfish. He is the man that is. You
have gone up in the air and are arranging a division between the kind
of men that ought to be but are not. But to return to the earth, the
workingman, being selfish, wants all he can get in the division. The
capitalist, being selfish, wants all he can get in the division. When
there is only so much of the same thing, and when two men want all they
can get of the same thing, there is a conflict of interest between
labor and capital. And it is an irreconcilable conflict. As long as
workingmen and capitalists exist, they will continue to quarrel over
the division. If you were in San Francisco this afternoon, you’d have
to walk. There isn’t a street car running.”

“Another strike?”[4] the Bishop queried with alarm.

 [4] These quarrels were very common in those irrational and anarchic
 times. Sometimes the laborers refused to work. Sometimes the
 capitalists refused to let the laborers work. In the violence and
 turbulence of such disagreements much property was destroyed and many
 lives lost. All this is inconceivable to us—as inconceivable as
 another custom of that time, namely, the habit the men of the lower
 classes had of breaking the furniture when they quarrelled with their
 wives.

“Yes, they’re quarrelling over the division of the earnings of the
street railways.”

Bishop Morehouse became excited.

“It is wrong!” he cried. “It is so short-sighted on the part of the
workingmen. How can they hope to keep our sympathy—”

“When we are compelled to walk,” Ernest said slyly.

But Bishop Morehouse ignored him and went on:

“Their outlook is too narrow. Men should be men, not brutes. There will
be violence and murder now, and sorrowing widows and orphans. Capital
and labor should be friends. They should work hand in hand and to their
mutual benefit.”

“Ah, now you are up in the air again,” Ernest remarked dryly. “Come
back to earth. Remember, we agreed that the average man is selfish.”

“But he ought not to be!” the Bishop cried.

“And there I agree with you,” was Ernest’s rejoinder. “He ought not to
be selfish, but he will continue to be selfish as long as he lives in a
social system that is based on pig-ethics.”

The Bishop was aghast, and my father chuckled.

“Yes, pig-ethics,” Ernest went on remorselessly. “That is the meaning
of the capitalist system. And that is what your church is standing for,
what you are preaching for every time you get up in the pulpit.
Pig-ethics! There is no other name for it.”

Bishop Morehouse turned appealingly to my father, but he laughed and
nodded his head.

“I’m afraid Mr. Everhard is right,” he said. “Laissez-faire, the
let-alone policy of each for himself and devil take the hindmost. As
Mr. Everhard said the other night, the function you churchmen perform
is to maintain the established order of society, and society is
established on that foundation.”

“But that is not the teaching of Christ!” cried the Bishop.

“The Church is not teaching Christ these days,” Ernest put in quickly.
“That is why the workingmen will have nothing to do with the Church.
The Church condones the frightful brutality and savagery with which the
capitalist class treats the working class.”

“The Church does not condone it,” the Bishop objected.

“The Church does not protest against it,” Ernest replied. “And in so
far as the Church does not protest, it condones, for remember the
Church is supported by the capitalist class.”

“I had not looked at it in that light,” the Bishop said naively. “You
must be wrong. I know that there is much that is sad and wicked in this
world. I know that the Church has lost the—what you call the
proletariat.”[5]

 [5] Proletariat: Derived originally from the Latin proletarii, the
 name given in the census of Servius Tullius to those who were of value
 to the state only as the rearers of offspring (proles); in other
 words, they were of no importance either for wealth, or position, or
 exceptional ability.

“You never had the proletariat,” Ernest cried. “The proletariat has
grown up outside the Church and without the Church.”

“I do not follow you,” the Bishop said faintly.

“Then let me explain. With the introduction of machinery and the
factory system in the latter part of the eighteenth century, the great
mass of the working people was separated from the land. The old system
of labor was broken down. The working people were driven from their
villages and herded in factory towns. The mothers and children were put
to work at the new machines. Family life ceased. The conditions were
frightful. It is a tale of blood.”

“I know, I know,” Bishop Morehouse interrupted with an agonized
expression on his face. “It was terrible. But it occurred a century and
a half ago.”

“And there, a century and a half ago, originated the modern
proletariat,” Ernest continued. “And the Church ignored it. While a
slaughter-house was made of the nation by the capitalist, the Church
was dumb. It did not protest, as to-day it does not protest. As Austin
Lewis[6] says, speaking of that time, those to whom the command ‘Feed
my lambs’ had been given, saw those lambs sold into slavery and worked
to death without a protest.[7] The Church was dumb, then, and before I
go on I want you either flatly to agree with me or flatly to disagree
with me. Was the Church dumb then?”

 [6] Candidate for Governor of California on the Socialist ticket in
 the fall election of 1906 Christian Era. An Englishman by birth, a
 writer of many books on political economy and philosophy, and one of
 the Socialist leaders of the times.

 [7] There is no more horrible page in history than the treatment of
 the child and women slaves in the English factories in the latter half
 of the eighteenth century of the Christian Era. In such industrial
 hells arose some of the proudest fortunes of that day.

Bishop Morehouse hesitated. Like Dr. Hammerfield, he was unused to this
fierce “infighting,” as Ernest called it.

“The history of the eighteenth century is written,” Ernest prompted.
“If the Church was not dumb, it will be found not dumb in the books.”

“I am afraid the Church was dumb,” the Bishop confessed.

“And the Church is dumb to-day.”

“There I disagree,” said the Bishop.

Ernest paused, looked at him searchingly, and accepted the challenge.

“All right,” he said. “Let us see. In Chicago there are women who toil
all the week for ninety cents. Has the Church protested?”

“This is news to me,” was the answer. “Ninety cents per week! It is

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