The Iron Heel Jack London (free children's ebooks online .TXT) 📖

“Go ahead,” Ernest encouraged.

“It is true,” Mr. Calvin confessed. “We captured the state legislature of Oregon and put through splendid protective legislation, and it was vetoed by the governor, who was a creature of the trusts. We elected a governor of Colorado, and the legislature refused to permit him to take office. Twice we have passed a national income tax, and each time the supreme court smashed it as unconstitutional. The courts are in the hands of the trusts. We, the people, do not pay our judges sufficiently. But there will come a time⁠—”

“When the combination of the trusts will control all legislation, when the combination of the trusts will itself be the government,” Ernest interrupted.

“Never! never!” were the cries that arose. Everybody was excited and belligerent.

“Tell me,” Ernest demanded, “what will you do when such a time comes?”

“We will rise in our strength!” Mr. Asmunsen cried, and many voices backed his decision.

“That will be civil war,” Ernest warned them.

“So be it, civil war,” was Mr. Asmunsen’s answer, with the cries of all the men at the table behind him. “We have not forgotten the deeds of our forefathers. For our liberties we are ready to fight and die.”

Ernest smiled.

“Do not forget,” he said, “that we had tacitly agreed that liberty in your case, gentlemen, means liberty to squeeze profits out of others.”

The table was angry, now, fighting angry; but Ernest controlled the tumult and made himself heard.

“One more question. When you rise in your strength, remember, the reason for your rising will be that the government is in the hands of the trusts. Therefore, against your strength the government will turn the regular army, the navy, the militia, the police⁠—in short, the whole organized war machinery of the United States. Where will your strength be then?”

Dismay sat on their faces, and before they could recover, Ernest struck again.

“Do you remember, not so long ago, when our regular army was only fifty thousand? Year by year it has been increased until today it is three hundred thousand.”

Again he struck.

“Nor is that all. While you diligently pursued that favorite phantom of yours, called profits, and moralized about that favorite fetish of yours, called competition, even greater and more direful things have been accomplished by combination. There is the militia.”

“It is our strength!” cried Mr. Kowalt. “With it we would repel the invasion of the regular army.”

“You would go into the militia yourself,” was Ernest’s retort, “and be sent to Maine, or Florida, or the Philippines, or anywhere else, to drown in blood your own comrades civil-warring for their liberties. While from Kansas, or Wisconsin, or any other state, your own comrades would go into the militia and come here to California to drown in blood your own civil-warring.”

Now they were really shocked, and they sat wordless, until Mr. Owen murmured:

“We would not go into the militia. That would settle it. We would not be so foolish.”

Ernest laughed outright.

“You do not understand the combination that has been effected. You could not help yourself. You would be drafted into the militia.”

“There is such a thing as civil law,” Mr. Owen insisted.

“Not when the government suspends civil law. In that day when you speak of rising in your strength, your strength would be turned against yourself. Into the militia you would go, willy-nilly. Habeas corpus, I heard someone mutter just now. Instead of habeas corpus you would get post mortems. If you refused to go into the militia, or to obey after you were in, you would be tried by drumhead court martial and shot down like dogs. It is the law.”

“It is not the law!” Mr. Calvin asserted positively. “There is no such law. Young man, you have dreamed all this. Why, you spoke of sending the militia to the Philippines. That is unconstitutional. The Constitution especially states that the militia cannot be sent out of the country.”

“What’s the Constitution got to do with it?” Ernest demanded. “The courts interpret the Constitution, and the courts, as Mr. Asmunsen agreed, are the creatures of the trusts. Besides, it is as I have said, the law. It has been the law for years, for nine years, gentlemen.”

“That we can be drafted into the militia?” Mr. Calvin asked incredulously. “That they can shoot us by drumhead court martial if we refuse?”

“Yes,” Ernest answered, “precisely that.”

“How is it that we have never heard of this law?” my father asked, and I could see that it was likewise new to him.

“For two reasons,” Ernest said. “First, there has been no need to enforce it. If there had, you’d have heard of it soon enough. And secondly, the law was rushed through Congress and the Senate secretly, with practically no discussion. Of course, the newspapers made no mention of it. But we socialists knew about it. We published it in our papers. But you never read our papers.”

“I still insist you are dreaming,” Mr. Calvin said stubbornly. “The country would never have permitted it.”

“But the country did permit it,” Ernest replied. “And as for my dreaming⁠—” he put his hand in his pocket and drew out a small pamphlet⁠—“tell me if this looks like dream-stuff.”

He opened it and began to read:

“ ‘Section One, be it enacted, and so forth and so forth, that the militia shall consist of every able-bodied male citizen of the respective states, territories, and District of Columbia, who is more than eighteen and less than forty-five years of age.’

“ ‘Section Seven, that any officer or enlisted man’⁠—remember Section One, gentlemen, you are all enlisted men⁠—‘that any enlisted man of the militia who shall refuse or neglect to present himself to such mustering officer upon being called forth as herein prescribed, shall be subject to trial by court martial, and shall be punished as such court martial shall direct.’

“ ‘Section Eight, that courts martial, for the trial of officers or men of the militia, shall be composed of militia officers only.’

“ ‘Section Nine, that the militia, when called into the actual service of the United States, shall be subject to the same rules and articles of war as