IN WHICH THE TALKING DELEGATE IS ANSWERED BY THE
ROYAL VOICE AND I LEARN THAT LABOUR KNOWS NOT GOD
~1~
I had delayed in speaking to Grauble of our revolutionary plans, because
I wished first to arrange a meeting with Zimmern and Hellar and secure
the weight of their calmer minds in initiating Grauble into our plans of
sending a message to the World State authorities. I was prevented from
doing this immediately by difficulties in the Protium Works. Meanwhile
unbeknown to me the sailing date of Grauble's vessel was advanced, and
he departed to the Arctic.
Although my position as Director of the Protium Works had been more of
an honour than an assignment of active duties, I made it my business to
assume the maximum rather than the minimum of the functions of the
office as I wished to learn more of the labour situation in Berlin, of
which as yet I had no comprehensive understanding.
In a general way I understood that German labour differed not only in
being eugenically created as a distinct breed, but that the labour group
was also a very distinct caste economically and politically. The
labourer, being denied access to the Level of Free Women, had no need
for money or bank credit in any form. This seemed to me to reduce him to
a condition of pure slavery--since he received no pay for his services
other than the bare maintenance supplied by the state.
Because of this evidence of economic inferiority, I had at first
supposed that labour was in every way an inferior caste. But in this I
had been gravely mistaken, nor had I been able fully to comprehend my
error until this brewing labour trouble revealed in concrete form the
political superiority of labour. In my failure to comprehend the true
state of affairs I had been a little stupid, for the political basis of
German society is revealed to the seeing eye in the Hohenzollern eagle
emblazoned on the red flag, the emblem of the rule of labour.
Historically I believe this belies the origin of the red flag for it was
first used as the emblem of democratic socialism, a Nineteenth Century
theory of a social order in which all social and economic classes were
to be blended into a true democracy differing somewhat in its economic
organization, but essentially the same politically as the true democracy
which we have achieved in the World State. But with the Bolshevist
régime in Russia after the First World War, the red flag was
appropriated as the emblem of the political supremacy and rule of the
proletariat or labour class.
I make these references to bygone history because they throw light on
the peculiar status of the German Labour Caste, which is possessed of
political superiority combined with social and economic inferiority. It
was the Bolshevist brand of socialism that finally overran Germany in
the era of loose and ineffective rule of the world by the League of
Nations. Though I make no pretence of being an accurate authority on
history, the League of Nations, if I remember rightly, was humanity's
first timid conception of the World State. Rather weakly born, it was
promptly emasculated by the rise in America of a political party founded
on the ideas of a great national hero who had just died. The
obstructionist policy of this party was inherent in its origin, for it
was inspired and held together by the ideas of a dead man, whose
followers could only repeat as their test of faith a phrase that has
come down to us as an idiom--"What would He do?"
"He" being dead could do nothing, neither could he change his mind, but
having left an indelible record of his ideas by the strenuous verbiage
of his virile and inspiring rhetoric, there was no room for doubt. As in
all political and religious faiths founded on the ideas of dead heroes,
this made for solidarity and power and quite prevented any adaptation of
the form of government to the needs of the world that had arisen since
his demise.
I have digressed here from my theme of the political status of the
German labour caste, but it is fascinating to trace things to their
origin to find the links of the chain of cause and effect. So, if I have
read my history aright, the emasculation of the League of Nations by the
American obstructionists caused, or at least permitted the rise, and
dominance of the Bolshevists in Twentieth-Century Germany. Had the
Germans been democrats at heart the pendulum would have swung back as it
did with other peoples, and been stayed at the point of equilibrium
which we recognized as the stable mean of democracy.
But in the old days before the modern intermingling of the races it
seems that there were certain tastes that had become instinctive in
racial groups. Thus, just as the German stomach craved the rich flavour
of sausage, so the German mind craved the dazzling show of Royal
flummery. Had it not been for this the First World War could have never
been, for the socialists of that time were bitterly opposed to war and
Germany was the world's greatest stronghold of socialism, yet when their
beloved imperial poser, William the Great, called for war the German
socialists, with the exception of a few whom they afterwards murdered,
went forth to war almost without protest.
When I first began to hear of the political rights of Labour, I went to
my friend Hellar and asked for an explanation.
"Is not the chain of authority absolute," I asked, "up through the
industrial organization direct to the Emperor and so to God himself?"
"But," said Hellar, "the workers do not believe in God!"
"What," I stammered, "workers not believe in God! It is impossible. Have
not the workers simple trusting minds?"
"Certainly," said Hellar, "it is the natural mind of man! Scepticism,
which is the basis of scientific reasoning, is an artificial thing,
first created in the world under the competitive economic order when it
became essential to self-preservation in a world of trade based on
deceit. In our new order we have had difficulty in maintaining enough of
it for scientific purposes even in the intellectual classes. There is no
scepticism among the labourers now, I assure you. They believe as easily
as they breathe."
"Then how," I demanded in amazement, "does it come that they do not
believe in God?"
"Because," said Hellar, "they have never heard of God.
"The labourer does not know of God because we have restored God since
the perfection of our caste system, and hence it was easy to promulgate
the idea among the intellectuals and not among the workers. It was
necessary to restore God for the intellectuals in order to give them
greater respect for the power of the Royal House, but the labourers need
no God because they believe themselves to be the source from which the
Royal House derives its right to rule. They believe the Emperor to be
their own servant ruling by their permission."
"The Emperor a servant to labour!" I exclaimed; "this is absurd."
"Certainly," said Hellar; "why should it be otherwise? We are an absurd
people, because we have always laughed at the wrong things. Still this
principle is very old and has not always been confined to the Germans.
After the revolutions in the Twentieth Century the American plutocrats
employed poverty-stricken European nobility for servants and exalted
them to high stations and obeyed them explicitly in all social matters
with which their service was concerned.
"The labourers restored William III because they wished to have an
exalted servant. He led them to war and became a hero. He reorganized
the state and became their political servant, also their emperor and
their tyrant. It is not an impossible relation, for it is not unlike the
relation between the mother and the child or between a man and his
mistress. And yet it is different, more formal, with functions
better defined.
"The Emperor is the administrative head of the government and we
intellectuals are merely his hirelings. We are merely the feathers of
the Royal eagle, our colour is black, we have no part in the red blood
of human brotherhood, we are outcasts from the socialistic labour
world--for we receive money compensation to which labourers would not
stoop. But labour owns the state. This roof of Berlin over our heads and
all that is therein contained, is the property of the workers who
produced it."
I shook my head in mute admission of my lack of comprehension.
"And who," asked Hellar, "did you think owned Berlin?"
I confessed that I had never thought of that.
"Few of our intellectual class have ever thought of that," replied
Hellar, "unless they are well read in political history. But at the time
of the Hohenzollern restoration labour owned all property in true
communal ownership. They did not release it to the Royal House, but
merely turned over the administration of the property to the Emperor as
an agent."
These belated explanations of the fundamental ideas of German society
quite confused and confounded me, though Hellar seemed in no wise
surprised at my ignorance, since as a chemist I had originally been
supposed to know only of atoms and valences and such like matters.
Seeking a way out of these contradictions I asked: "How is it then that
labour is so powerless, since you say that it owns the state, and even
the Emperor rules by its permission?"
"Napoleon--have you ever heard of him?"
"Yes," I admitted--and then recalling my rôle as a German chemist I
hastened to add--"Napoleon was a directing chemist who achieved a plan
for increasing the food supply in his day by establishing the sugar beet
industry."
"Is that so?" exclaimed Hellar. "I didn't know that. I thought he was
only an Emperor--anyway, Napoleon said that if you tell men they are
equal you can do as you please with them. So when William III was
elected to the throne by labour, he insisted that they retain the power
and re-elect him every five years. He was very popular because he
invented the armoured city--our new Berlin--some day I will tell you of
that--and so of course he was re-elected, and his son after him. Though
most of the intellectuals do not know that it exists the ceremony of
election is a great occasion on the labour levels. The Emperor speaks
all day through the horns and on the picture screens. The workers think
he is actually speaking, though of course it is a collection of old
films and records of the Royal Voice. When they have seen and heard the
speeches, the labourers vote, and then go back to their work and are
very happy."
"But suppose they should sometime fail to re-elect him?"
"No danger," said Hellar; "there is only one name on the ballot and the
ballots are dumped into the paper mill without inspection."
"Most extraordinary," I exclaimed.
"Most ordinary," contradicted Hellar; "it is not even an exclusively
German institution; we have merely perfected it. Voting everywhere is a
very useful device in organized government. In the cruder form used in
democracies there were two or more candidates. It usually made little
difference which was elected; but the system was imperfect because the
voters who voted for the candidate which lost were not pleased. Then
there was the trouble of counting the ballots. We avoid all this."
"It is all very interesting," I said, "but who is the real authority?"
"Ah," said Hellar, "this matter of authority is one of our most subtle
conceptions. The weakness of ancient governments was in the fact that
the line of authority was broken. It came somewhere to an end. But now
authority flows up from labour to the Emperor and then descends again to
labour through the administrative line of which we are one link. It is
an unbroken circuit."
But I was still unsatisfied, for it annoyed me not to be able to
understand the system of German politics, as I had always prided myself
that, for a scientist, I understood politics remarkably well.
~2~
I had gone to Hellar for enlightenment because I was gravely alarmed
over the rumours of a strike among the labourers in the Protium Works. I
had read in the outside world of the murder and destruction of these
former civil wars of industry. With a working population so cruelly held
to the treadmill of industrial bondage the idea of a strike conjured up
in my fancy the beginning of a bloody revolution. With so vast a
population so utterly dependent upon the orderly processes of industry
the possible terrors of an industrial revolution were horrible beyond
imagining; and for the moment all thoughts of escape, or of my own plans
for negotiating the surrender of Berlin to the World State, were swept
aside by the stern responsibilities that devolved upon me as the
Director of Works wherein a terrible strike seemed brewing.
The first rumour of the strike of the labourers in the Protium Works had
come to me from the Listening-in-Service. Since Berlin was too
complicated and congested a spot for wireless communication to be
practical, the electrical conduct of sound was by antiquated means of
metal wires. The workers' Free Speech Halls were all provided with
receiving horns by which they made their appeals to His Majesty, of
which I shall speak presently. These instruments were provided with
cut-offs in the halls. They had been so designed by the electrical
engineers, who were of the intellectual caste, that not even the workers
who installed and repaired them knew that the cut-offs were a blind and
that the Listening-in-Service heard every word that was said at their
secret meetings, when all but workers were, by law and custom, excluded
from the halls.
And so the report came to me that the workers were threatening strike.
Their grievance came about in this fashion. My new process had reduced
the number of men needed in the works. This would require that some of
the men be transferred to other industries. But the transfer was a slow
process, as all the workers would have to be examined anatomically and
their psychic reflexes tested by the labour assignment experts and those
selected re-trained for other labour. That work was proceeding
slowly, for there was a shortage of experts because some similar need of
transfers existed in one of the metal industries. Moreover, my labour
psychologist considered it dangerous to transfer too many men, as they
were creatures of habit, and he advised that we ought merely to cease to
take on new workers, but wait for old age and death to reduce the number
of our men, meanwhile retaining the use of the old extraction process in
part of the works.
"Impossible," I replied, "unless you would have your rations cut and the
city put on a starvation diet. Do you not know that the reserve store of
protium that was once enough to last eight years is now reduced to less
than as many months' supply?"
"That is none of my affair," said the labour psychologist; "these
chemical matters I do not comprehend. But I advise against these
transfers, for our workers are already in a furor about the change of
operations in the work."
"But," I protested, "the new operations are easier than the old; besides
we can cut down the speed of operations, which ought to help you take
care of these surplus men."
"Pardon, Herr Chief," returned the elderly labour psychologist, "you are
a great chemist, a very great chemist, for your invention has upset the
labour operation more than has anything that ever happened in my long
experience, but I fear you do not realize how necessary it is to go slow
in these matters. You ask men who have always opened a faucet from left
to right to now open one that moves in a vertical plane. Here, I will
show you; move your arm so; do you not see that it takes
different muscles?"
"Yes, of course, but what of it? The solution flows faster and the
operation is easier."
"It is easy for you to say that; for you or me it would make no
difference since our muscles have all been developed indiscriminately."
"But what are your labour gymnasiums for, if not to develop all
muscles?"
"Now do not misunderstand me. I serve as an interpreter between the
minds of the workers and your mind as Director of the Works. As for the
muscles developed in the gymnasium, those were developed for sport and
not for labour. But that is not the worst of it; you have designed the
new benches so low that the mixers must stoop at their work. It is
very painful."
"Good God," I cried, "what became of the stools? The mixers are to sit
down--I ordered two thousand stools."
"That I know, Herr Chief, but the equipment expert consulted me about
the matter and I countermanded the order. It would never do. I did not
consult you, it is true, but that was merely a kindness. I did not wish
to expose your lack of knowledge, if I may call it such."
"Call it what you please," I snapped, for at the time I thought my
labour psychologist was a fool, "but get those stools, immediately."
"But it would never do."
"Why not?"
"Because these men have always stood at their work."
"But why can they not sit down now?"
"Because they never have sat down."
"Do they not sit down to eat?"
"Yes, but not to work. It is very different. You do not understand the
psychic immobility of labour. Habits grow stronger as the mentality is
simplified. I have heard that there are animals in the zoological garden
that still perform useless operations that their remote ancestors
required in their jungle life."
"Then do you infer that these men who must stand at their work inherited
the idea from their ancestors?"
"That is a matter of eugenics. I do not know, but I do know that we are
preparing for trouble with these changes. Still I hope to work it out
without serious difficulty, if you do not insist on these transfers.
When workmen have already been forced to change their habitual method of
work and then see their fellows being removed to other and still
stranger work it breeds dangerous unrest."
"One thing is certain," I replied; "we cannot delay the installation of
the new method; as fast as the equipment is ready the new operation must
replace the old."
"But the effect of that policy will be that there will not be enough
work, and besides the work is, as you say, lighter and that will result
in the cutting down of the food rations."
"But I have already arranged that," I said triumphantly; "the Rationing
Bureau have adjusted the calorie standards so that the men will get as
much food as they have been used to."
"What! you have done that?" exclaimed the labour psychologist; "then
there will be trouble. That will destroy the balance of the food supply
and the expenditure of muscular energy and the men will get fat. Then
the other men will accuse them of stealing food and we shall have
bloodshed."
"A moment ago," I smiled, "you told me I did not know your business. Now
I will tell you that you do not know mine. We ordered special food
bulked up in volume; the scheme is working nicely; you need not worry
about that. As for the other matter, this surplus of men, it seems to me
that the only thing is to cut down the working hours temporarily until
the transfers can be made."
The psychologist shook his head. "It is dangerous," he said, "and very
unusual. I advise instead that you have the operation engineers go over
the processes and involve the operations, both to make them more nearly
resemble the old ones, and to add to the time and energy consumption of
the tasks."
"No," I said emphatically, "I invented a more economical process for
this industry and I do not propose to see my invention prostituted in
this fashion. I appreciate your advice, but if we cannot transfer the
workers any faster, then the labour hours must be cut. I will issue the
order tomorrow. This is my final decision."
I was in authority and that settled the matter. The psychologist was
very decent about it and helped me fix up a speech and that next night
the workers were ordered to assemble in their halls and I made my speech
into a transmitting horn. I told them that they had been especially
honoured by their Emperor, who, appreciating their valuable service, had
granted them a part-time vacation and that until further notice their
six-hour shifts were to be cut to four. I further told them that their
rations would not be reduced and advised them to take enough extra
exercise in the gymnasium to offset their shorter hours so they would
not get fat and be the envy of their fellows.
~3~
For a time the workers seemed greatly pleased with their shorter hours.
And then, from the Listening-in-Service, came the rumour of the strike.
The first report of the strike gave me no clue to the grievance and I
asked for fuller reports. When these came the next day I was shocked
beyond belief. If I had anticipated anything in that interval of terror
it was that my workers were to strike because their communications had
been shut off or that they were to strike in sympathy for their fellows
and demand that all hours be shortened like their own. But the grievance
was not that. My men were to go on strike for the simple reason that
their hours had been shortened!
The catastrophe once started came with a rush, for when I reached the
office the next day the psychologist was awaiting me and told me that
the strike was on. I rushed out immediately and went down to the works.
The psychologist followed me. As I entered the great industrial
laboratories I saw all the men at their usual places and going through
their usual operations. I turned to my companion who was just coming up,
and said: "What do you mean; I thought you told me the strike was on,
that the men had already walked out?"
"What do you mean by 'walked out'?" he returned, as puzzled as I.
"Walked out of the works," I explained; "away from their duties, quit
work. Struck!"
"But they have struck. Perhaps you have never seen a strike before, but
do you not see the strike badges?"
And then I looked and saw that every workman wore a tiny red flag, and
the flag bore no imperial eagle.
"It means," I gasped, "that they have renounced the rule of the Royal
House. This is not a strike, this is rebellion, treason!"
"It is the custom," said the labour psychologist, "and as for rebellion
and treason that you speak of I hardly think you ought to call it that
for rebellion and treason are forbidden."
"Then just what does it mean?"
"It means that this particular group of workers have temporarily
withdrawn their allegiance to the Royal House, and they have, in their
own minds, restored the old socialist régime, until they can make
petition to the Emperor and he passes on their grievance. They will do
that in their halls tonight. We, of course, will be connected up and
listen in."
"Then they are not really on strike?"
"Certainly they are on strike. All strikes are conducted so."
"Then why do they not quit work?"
"But why should they quit work? They are striking because their hours
are already too short--pardon, Herr Chief, but I warned you!
"I think I know what you mean," he added after a pause; "you have
probably read some fiction of old times when the workers went on strike
by quitting work."
"Yes, exactly. I suppose that is where I did get my ideas; and that is
now forbidden--by the Emperor?"
"Not by the Emperor, for you see these men wear the flags without the
eagle. They at present do not acknowledge his authority."
"Then all this strike is a matter of red badges without eagles and
everything else will go on as usual?"
"By no means. These men are striking against the descending authority
from the Royal House. They not only refuse to wear the eagle until their
grievance is adjusted but they will refuse to accept further education,
for that is a thing that descends from above. If you will go now to the
picture halls, where the other shift should be, you will find the halls
all empty. The men refuse to go to the moving pictures."
That night we "listened in." A bull-throated fellow, whom I learned was
the Talking Delegate, addressed the Emperor, and much to my surprise I
thought I heard the Emperor's own voice in reply, stating that he was
ready to hear their grievance.
Then the bull voice of the Talking Delegate gave the reason for the
strike: "The Director of the Works, speaking for your Majesty, has
granted us a part time vacation, and shortened our hours from six to
four. We thank you for this honour but we have decided we do not like
it. We do not know what to do during those extra two hours. We had our
games and amusements but we had our regular hours for them. If we play
longer we become tired of play. If we sleep longer we cannot sleep as
well. Moreover we are losing our appetite and some of us are afraid to
eat all our portions for fear we will become fat. So we have decided
that we do not like a four-hour day and we have therefore taken the
eagles off our flags and will refuse to replace them or to go to the
educational pictures until our hours are restored to the six-hour day
that we have always had."
And now the Emperor's voice replied that he would take the matter under
consideration and report his decision in three days and, that meanwhile
he knew he could trust them to conduct themselves as good socialists who
were on strike, and hence needed no king.
The next day the psychologist brought a representative of the
Information Staff to my office and together we wrote the reply that the
Emperor was to make. It would be necessary to concede them the full six
hours and introduce the system of complicating the labour operations to
make more work. Much chagrined, I gave in, and called in the motion
study engineers and set them to the task. Meanwhile the Royal Voice was
sent for and coached in the Emperor's reply to the striking workmen, and
a picture film of the Emperor, timed to fit the length of the speech,
was ordered from stock.
The Royal Voice was an actor by birth who had been trained to imitate
His Majesty's speech. This man, who specialized in the Emperor's
speeches to the workers, prided himself that he was the best Royal Voice
in Berlin and I complimented him by telling him that I had been deceived
by him the evening before. But considering that the workers, never
having heard the Emperor's real voice, would have no standard of
comparison, I have never been able to see the necessity of the accuracy
of his imitation, unless it was on the ground of art for art's sake.