The Iron Heel

ion his revelation had produce

all pass away, but it is inevitable that the large capitalists, and the trusts also, shall pass away. Remember, the tide of evolution never flows backward. It flows on and on, and it flows from compe

to show that my mathematics are wrong. I shall develop the inevitability of the breakdown of the capitalist system, a

actory. This factory takes leather and makes it into shoes. Here is one hundred dollars' worth of leather. It goes through the factory and comes out in the form

ry, the machines, and paid all the expenses. Labor furnished labor. By the joint effort

ound the table

pproximate. Capital takes fifty dollars as its share, and labor gets in wages fifty dollars as its share. We will not enter into the squabbling over the division.* No matter how much squabbling

arly develops the c

e. In the division o

ll it could get,

This quarrel ove

o long as the sys

labor and capital

f the joint-product

t we must not forge

ge over those that

le table agre

lars, wanted to buy back shoes. It could only buy

ound figures, that the total production of wealth in the United States is one year is four billion dollars. Then labor has received in wages, during the same period, two billion dollars. Four billion dollars has been produced. How

to reason that labor can consume only two billions. There are still two

n," Mr. Kowalt spoke up. "If it did, it would

its are saved for old age, for sickness and accident, and for funeral expenses. The savings bank deposit is simply a piece of

paid its expenses, does it consume the remainder

tion point blank to a number of

," one of the

ot consume its share. Do you remember when England owned so much of our railroad bonds? As the years went by, we bought back those bonds. What does that mean? That part of capital's unconsumed share bought back the bonds. What is the meaning of the fact that to-day the capitalists of the United States own hundreds and h

wo billions. There is a large balance left over unconsumed. What is done with this balance? What can be done with it? Labor cannot consume any of it, for labor has already spent all its wages

road," Mr. Kow

s sold abroad. It has to be sold abroad. There is no other way of getting rid of it. And that unconsum

te these A B C's of commerce," Mr. Calvi

I shall confound you," Ernest retorted. "There's the beauty of i

of every other capitalist country with developed resources. Every one of such countries has an unconsumed surplus. Don't forget that they have already traded with one another, and that these surpluses yet remain. Labor in all these countries has spent its wa

t, President of the

is time, made the

e liberal and exten

le of commodities i

ion of the Unit

sposed of to fore

oduction he mention

m over and beyond th

t was at this time

oduction of wealth

annually than its

uncey Depew, said:

two billions more

sum

with undeveloped resourc

p. Suppose the United States disposes of its surplus to a country with undeveloped resources like, say, Brazil. Remember this surplu

said Mr.

old, and not much of it, in

rities and bonds and so f

s bonds and securities. And what does that mean? It means that the United States is coming to own r

ndered and sh

system, has developed her resources, she will herself have an unconsumed surplus. Can she get rid of this surplus to the United States? No, because the Un

esources of those countries are in turn developed. Soon they have surpluses, and are seeking other countries on which to unload. Now, gentlemen, follow me. The planet is only so large. There are only so man

, there was awe in their faces. Out of abstractions Ernest had conjured a vision and made

t. It is very simple. That is the beauty of it. You surely have the answer forthcoming. What, then, w

e was obviously questing back through E

hat capital did not consume all of the remainder of the product. We found that when labor had consumed to the full extent of its wages, and when capital had consumed all it wanted, there was still left an unconsumed surplus. We agreed that this surplus could only be disposed of abroad. We agreed, also, that the effect of unloading this surplus on another country would be t

o one a

in?" Erne

," Mr. Calvi

ng," Mr. Asmunsen said. "And y

ctrine of surplus value elaborated, and Ernest had don

eat intellectual h

nineteenth century

It seems incredibl

have elapsed afte

overies, in which ti

pted thinkers and s

as banished from his

n exile i

sea. Throw every year hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of shoes and wheat a

Calvin answered. "But it is ab

upon him li

get rid of the surplus? You would escape the problem of the surplus by not producing any surplus. And how do you propose to avoid producing a surplus? By retu

had been driven home. He swallow

of the middle class. We refuse to perish. We elect to be absurd and to return to the truly crude and wasteful methods of our fo

want the machines destroyed. And greater than the trusts, and more powerful, is labor. It will not let you destroy the machines. The ownership of the world, along with the machines, lies between the trusts and labor. That is the battle alignment. Neither side wants the destruction of the

e machines. The struggle then will be for the ownership of the machines. If labor wins, your way will be easy. The United States, and the whole world for that matter, will enter upon a new and tremendous era. Instead of being crushed by the machines, life will be made fairer, and happier, and nobler by them. You of the destroyed m

attle over the ownership of the machi

heel of a despotism as relentless and terrible as any despotism that has blackened the p

wn use of that nam

gar

ery man at the table meditated

s is a dream," Mr. Calvin s

ligarchy. You call it the Plutocracy. We both mean the same thing, the large capitalists or the trusts. Let

ation directors, and trust magnates. Second, is the middle class, your class, gentlemen, which is composed of farmers, merchants, s

ociety made by Everh

Lucien Sanial, one

time. His calculat

by occupation, fr

as follows: Plutocr

,845; and Proletari

occupations in the United States, only nine-tenths of one per cent are from the Plutocracy, yet the Plutocracy owns seventy per cent of the total wealth. The middle class owns twenty-four billions. Twenty-nine per cent of those in occupations are from the middle class, a

middle class are more powerful t

, and it is greater because it cannot be taken away. Our strength, the strength of the proletariat, is in our muscles, in our hands to cast ballots, in our fingers to pull triggers. This st

it all away from you. And then you will cease to be the middle class. You will descend to us. You will become proletarians. And the beauty

e the concrete wealth, twenty-four billions of it, and the Plutocracy will take it away from you. Of course, there is the large likelihood that the proletariat will take it away first. Don't you see your position, gentlem

n empty shell. That is why you are crying out your feeble little battle-cry, 'Return to the ways of our fathers.' Y

wn or control (which is the same thing only better)-own and control all the means of marketing the crops, such as cold storage, railroads, elevators, and steamship lines. And, furthermore, the trusts contro

lds? You know today, without my telling you, that the Railroad Trust owns or controls the entire anthracite and bituminous coal fields. Doesn't the Standard Oil Trust* own a score of the ocean lines? And does it not also control copper, to say nothing of running a smelter trust as a little side enterprise? There are ten thousand cities i

d Rockefeller-see

began as a

nt villeins in everything but name, while the politicians are henchmen. Why do you, Mr. Calvin, work all your nights and days to organize the farmers, along with the rest of the middle class, into a new political party? Becau

ther harmless to or commendatory of the Plutocracy. Whenever they propagate ideas that menace the Plutocracy, they lose their jobs, in which case, if they have not provided for the rainy day, they descend into the proletariat and either perish or become

ddle class, with its eight million occupied members? No more than the proletariat. Who, then, controls the government? The Plutocracy, with its paltry quarter of a million of occupied members. But this quarter of a million does not control the gover

07, it was considere

ry, but this number

e five railroad gr

the railroads. Th

g with their fina

ames J. Hill with

e Pennsylvania ra

with big banking fi

rriman, with Frick f

utenant, control

estern and Southern

(4) the Gould famil

, and Leeds, known

g oligarchs arose o

ravelled the inev

inat

ditors, ministers, university men, members of state legislatures, and of Congress. It maintains luxurious lobbies* at every state capital, and at the national capital; and in all the cities and towns of t

institution for bri

slators who were su

ple's i

this speech of Ever

ed a report from wh

ads control absolut

he states of the U

s Senators, congres

dictators of the g

ited S

y shell, and soon even the empty shell will be taken away from you. The Plutocracy has all power in its hands to-day. It to-day makes the laws, for it owns the Senate, Congress, the courts, and the state legislatures. And not only th

n as a member of t

unning succeeded in

ly that known as St

e following remar

s, to show how the

surplus crushed ou

eakdown of the capi

a radical writer o

is taken from a c

October 4, 1902 A.

ation that has come

and content, we cann

e popular period

The quotation

go Rockefeller's i

an excellent author

table investment o

en, were these eno

an $2,000,000 a mo

The problem of rein

me a nightmare.

, and the number o

limited than it is

s for more gains th

from oil into othe

y this inrolling t

agnet irresistib

f investment seeker

e chief of this st

000 a

cuous excursion a

into the railway

h of the railway mi

r, through dominan

werful in all the g

and west, except on

lions. They are i

from Chicago. They

t extend to the Pa

. Morgan so potent

s brains more than

combination of the

the 'community

not alone absorb r

old. Presently Joh

had increased to fo

o $75,000,000 a yea

ofit. The reinvestm

ite of many an

ent into gas and el

loped to the safe i

the American people

s soon as the sun

minant they use.

id that when prospe

to rid themselves

er was moved almo

had thought taken

terest were sudde

set up a-squawking

to his worriments

petroleum and the

as too much for the

a digest

ent into mines-iron

er industrial comp

onal, state, and mu

mboats and telegrap

nd residences and

nsurance, into bank

f industry where the

ork.

nk-the National Cit

ggest bank in the U

ld only by the Bank

deposits average m

d it dominates the

stock market. But it

kefeller chain of b

trust companies i

ngth and influence

in the

r owns Standard Oil

ed millions at the

ns in the steel trus

ilway system, half

and on until the

come last year was

the incomes of a

eater sum. And it

boun

place after this, and

subdued, and leave-ta

ost that they were sc

s they h

eed, serious," Mr. Cal

with the way you hav

out the doom of the

e shall overth

s of your fathers," Er

n answered gravely.

d that it is absurd.

f the machinations of

machine-breaking is

ream is not. Your soci

m. We cannot

ows knew a little som

t said wistfully, as

so much troub