The Iron Heel

sy hum of bees. It is so quiet and peaceful, and I sit here, and ponder, and am restless. It is the quiet that makes me restless. It seems unreal. All the world is quiet, but i

was largely the work

d, of course, with

ret execution of Ev

of 1932 A.D. Yet s

volt, that his fell

confusion or delay

Everhard's executi

a small bungalow in

ifo

on that mad maelstrom of death and destruction so soon to burst forth. In my ears are the cries of the stricken; and I can see, as I have seen in the past,* all the marring and mangling of the sweet, beautiful

e here refers to t

void, soaring toward what was ever his sun, the flaming ideal of human freedom. I cannot sit idly by and wait the great event that is his maki

to Avis Everhard, i

ut one of many able

And we to-day, look

y say that even had

ve been less calami

it

d, when my love grows unselfish, my chiefest regret is that he is not here to witness to-morrow's dawn. We cannot fail. He has built too stoutly and too surely for that. Woe to the Iron Heel! Soon shall it be thrust back from off prostrate humanity. When

lt was truly inte

olossal to be wroug

r, in all the oliga

e at the signal. Ge

were labor countri

lend aid to the r

for this reason, wh

they, too, were cr

world, their social

oligarchical

ong that it is ever present in my mind. For that matter, I cannot think of my husband witho

ffered sore. How hard he toiled and how greatly he suffered, I well know; for I have been with him during these twenty anxious years a

rew until I became a part of him, and the tremendous changes he wrought in my life. In this way may you look a

rst impression of him was favorable. He was one of many at dinner, and in the drawing-room where we gathered and waited for all to arrive, he made a rathe

Avis Everhard's fat

sity at Berkeley, C

and in addition h

eatly distinguished

n to science was

numental work on th

wherein he establish

the ultimate unit

rce were identical.

ut not demonstrated

in the new field

bulged with his muscles, while the coat between the shoulders, what of the heavy shoulder-development, was a maze of wrinkles. His neck was the neck of a prize-fighter,* thick and strong. So this was the social philosopher and

the custom of men t

ught with their h

bility or killed, t

ne

erence applies to a

d by storm in the

ntury of the

at that time had strong class instincts. Such boldness on the part of a man of my own class would have been almost unforgivable. I know that I could not avoid dropping my eyes, and I was qui

erisms. "You pleased me," he explained long afterward; "and why should I not fill my eyes with that which pleases me?" I have said that he was afraid of nothing. He was a natural aristocrat-

tzsche, the mad

of the Christian

but who, before h

great circle of h

mad

f another. He has humor, I thought, and I almost forgave him his clothes. But the time went by, and the dinner went by, and he never opened his mouth to speak, while the ministers talked interminably about the working class and its relation to the church, and what the ch

to be denied. Aft

that he can present things from a new point of view that w

titude toward him was so broadly tolerant and kindly that it was really patronizing. And I saw that E

lesiastical controversy," he began, and t

said: "We do not mind the truth that is i

ncerity from truth?"

to answer, "The best of us may be

ged on the instant.

mistaken. You know nothing, and worse than nothing, about the working class

of his voice. It was as bold as his eyes. It was a clarion-call that thrilled

hinking, young man?" Dr. Hammerfield demanded, and already ther

tion. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and

dle Ages who gravely and learnedly debated the absorbing question of how many angels could dance on the point of a needle. Why, my dear sirs, you are as

attack invariably made them forget themselves. And they were forgetting themselves now. Bishop Morehouse was leaning forward and listening intently. Exasperation and anger were flushing the face of Dr. Hammerfield. And others were exasperated,

ield interrupted. "Just precisely what do

s no validity to your conclusions. You can prove everything and nothing, and no two of you can agree upon anything. Each of you goes into his own co

ysical. That most exact and convincing of all sciences, mathematics, is sheerly metaphysical. Each a

scientist reasons inductively from the facts of experience. The metaphysician reasons from theory to facts, the scientist rea

ientists," Dr. Hammerfie

u then?" Ern

osoph

rth and are up in the air with a word for a flying machine. Pray com

ot be defined comprehensively except to such minds and temperaments as are philosophi

urn the point back upon an opponent, and he did it no

reasoning method is the same as that of any particular science and of all particular sciences. And by that same method of reasoning, the inductive method, philosophy fuses all particular sciences into one great science. As Spencer says, the

creditable," Dr. Hamm

st was m

w in my definition, you are disqualified later on from advancing metaphysical arguments. You mus

e-hammer attack disconcerted him. He was not used to the simple and direct method of controversy. He lo

ion of the blood. They declaimed about famine and pestilence as being scourges of God, while the scientists were building granaries and draining cities. They builded gods in their own shapes and out of their own desires, while the scientists were building roads and bridges. They were describing the earth as the centre of the universe, while the scientists were discovering America and probing space for the stars and the laws of the stars. In short, the metaphysicians have done nothing, absolutely nothing, for mankind. Step by step, befor

twelve centuries," Dr. Ballingford announced

d the table and was rewarded

at period the Dark Ages. A period wherein science was raped by the metaphysicians, wherein physics became a search for the Phil

ed pained, then he b

metaphysics was inherently potent in so far as it drew humanity out of th

thing to do with it

not the thinking and the speculation

d butter, silks and jewels, dollars and cents, and, incidentally, the closing up of the overland trade-routes to India, were the things that caused the voyages of discovery. With the fall of Constantinople, in 1453, the Turks blocked the way of the caravans to India. The traders of Europe had to

erfield

me?" Ernest queried. "T

. Hammerfield retorted tartly. "It is

est said sweetly. "That is why the scientist

a joy to me to recall every moment, every detail, of

tors, and similar things. And always he checked them back to facts. "The fact, man, the irrefragable fact!" he would proclaim triumphantly, when he had

the shrine of fact," Dr.

d Mr. Everhard is its prophet

ilingly a

the man from Missouri always says, 'You've got to show me.' But the man from Texas says,

metaphysical philosophers could never stand the

? Will you kindly explain what has so

they went up into the air after it. Had they remained on the solid earth, they would have found it easily enough-ay, they

Never mind the preamble. Give us that which we have sought so

ords and manner that secretly pleased most of them at

Ernest said. "His test of truth is: 'Will

r of the late nin

of the Christian E

iversity, a privat

me

have not taken Bishop Berkeley* into

ist who long puzzle

denial of the exist

nt was finally demo

ience were philosop

ughed. "But your example is unfortunate. As Berkel

usly angry. It was as though he ha

s on a par with all you have uttered to-nigh

ekly. "Only I don't know what hit me. Yo

u do not know that Bishop Berkeley attested that his metaphysics d

rkeley made an invariable practice of going through doors instead of walls. Because he trusted his life to solid bread

s!" Dr. Hammerfield cried.

the mind?" Ernes

ther

nt on reflectively. "And a blubber-eating, fur-clad god can exist and work-in the mind; an

a kingdom is,"

ime, I am sure, or when an earthquake happens along. Or, tell me, Doctor, do you have no appreh

under the hair. It happened that Ernest had blundered on an apposite illustration. Dr. Hammerfield had be

uake of 1906 A.D.

nci

the merriment had subside

ell?" Then he added, "Still well, but

n they affirmed that they knew the working class, he told them fundamental truths about the working class that they did not know, and challenged t

ng them with his facts, each fact a lash that stung and stung again. And he was merciless.

s from the customs

to the death in the

wn his weapons, it

o slay him o

he same locality with the working class. You herd with the capitalist class in another locality. And why not? It is the capitalist class that pays you, that feeds you, that puts the very clothes on your backs that you are wearing t

stir of dissent

r value-to the capitalist class. But should you change your belief to something that menaces the established order, your preaching would be

d there were many m

ching unacceptable

when their preachin

ial

sat dumbly acquiescent, with the ex

king is wrong that the

s are round with the plenitude of eating." (Here Dr. Ballingford winced, and every eye glanced at his prodigious girth. It was said he had not seen his own feet in years.) "And your minds are filled with doctrines that are buttresses of the established order. You are as much mercenaries (sincere mercenaries, I grant) as were the men of the Swiss Guard.* Be true to your salt

palace guards of L

as beheaded b