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"Comrade 'Gene," Lover of All Mankind and Apostle of the World's Emancipation, I dedicate THIS BOOK
"Comrade 'Gene," Lover of All Mankind and Apostle of the World's Emancipation, I dedicate THIS BOOK
This book is the result of an attempt to carry the monopolistic principle to its logical conclusion. For many years I have entertained the idea that if a monopoly be right in oil, coal, beef, steel or what not, it would also be right in larger ways involving, for example, the use of the ocean and the air itself. I believe that, had capitalists been able to bring the seas and the atmosphere under physical control, they would long ago have monopolized them. Capitalism has not refrained from laying
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CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER I.
Sunk far back in the huge leather cushions of his morris chair, old Isaac Flint was thinking, thinking hard. Between narrowed lids, his hard, gray eyes were blinking at the morning sunlight that poured into his private office, high up in the great building he had reared on Wall Street. From his thin lips now and then issued a coil of smoke from the costly cigar he was consuming. His bony legs were crossed, and one foot twitched impatiently. Now and again he tugged at his white mustache. A frown
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CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER II.
Then, as was his habit, translating ideas into immediate action, he strode to a door at the far end of the office, flung it open and said: "See here a minute, Wally!" "Busy!" came an answering voice, from behind a huge roll-top desk. "Of course! But drop it, drop it. I've got news for you." "Urgent?" asked the voice, coldly. "Very. Come in here, a minute. I've got to unload!" From behind the big desk rose the figure of a man about five and forty, sandy-haired, long-faced and sallow, with a pair
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CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER III.
Herzog was not long in arriving. To be summoned in haste by Isaac Flint, and to delay, was unthinkable. For eighteen years the chemist had lickspittled to the Billionaire. Keen though his mind was, his character and stamina were those of a jellyfish; and when the Master took snuff, as the saying is, Herzog never failed to sneeze. He therefore appeared, now, in some ten minutes—a fat, rubicund, spectacled man, with a cast in his left eye and two fingers missing, to remind him of early days in exp
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CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER IV.
On the eleventh day after this interview between the two men who, between them, practically held the whole world in their grasp, Herzog telephoned up from Oakwood Heights and took the liberty of informing Flint that his experiments had reached a point of such success that he prayed Flint would condescend to visit the laboratories in person. Flint, after some reflection, decided he would so condescend; and forthwith ordered his limousine from his private garage on William Street. Thereafter he ca
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CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER V.
Half an hour's run down Staten Island, along smooth roads lined with sleepy little towns and through sparse woods beyond which sparkled the shining waters of the harbor, brought the two plutocrats to the quiet settlement of Oakwood Heights. Now the blasé chauffeur swung the car sharply to the left, past the aviation field, and so came to the wide-scattered settlement—almost a colony—which, hidden behind high, barb-wire-topped fences, carried on the many and complex activities of the partners' ex
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CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VI.
A soft humming note began to vibrate through the inner laboratory—a note which rose in pitch, steadily, as Herzog shoved the lever from one copper post to another, round the half-circle. "I am now heating the little firebrick furnace," said the scientist. "In Norway, they use an alternating current of only 5,000 volts, between water-cooled copper electrodes, as I have already told you. I am using 30,000 volts, and my electrodes, my own invention, are—" "Never mind," growled Flint. "Just let's se
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CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VII.
Waldron was the first to speak. With a sudden laugh, boisterous and wild, he cried: "Flint, you old scoundrel, you're drunk!" "Drunk yourself!" retorted the Billionaire, half starting from his chair, his fist clenched in sudden passion. "How dare you—?" "Dare? I dare anything!" exclaimed Waldron. "Yes, I admit it—I am half seas over. That ozone—God! what a stimulant! Must be some wonderfully powerful form. If we—could market it—" Flint sank back in his chair, waving an extravagant hand. "Market
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CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER VIII.
Immediately on discovering his loss—which was soon after having reached his office—Flint, in something like a fright, telephoned down to the Oakwood Heights laboratory and instructed Herzog, in person, to make a careful search for it and to report results inside an hour. Even though some of the essentials of his plan were written in a code of his own devising, Flint paled before the possible results should the book fall into the hands of anybody intelligent enough to fathom its meaning. "Damn th
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CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER IX.
Almost all the following morning, working at his bench in the electro-chemical laboratories of the great Oakwood Heights plant, Gabriel Armstrong pondered deeply on the problems and responsibilities now opening out before him. The finding of that little red-leather note-book, he fully understood, had at one stroke put him in possession of facts more vital to the labor-movement and the world at large than any which had ever developed since the very beginning of Capitalism. A Socialist to the back
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CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER X.
The Longmeadow Country Club, on the Saturday afternoon following Armstrong's abrupt dismissal, was a scene of gaiety and beauty without compare. Set in broad acres of wood and lawn, the club-house proudly dominated far-flung golf-links and nearer tennis-courts. Shining motors stood parked on the plaza before the club garage, each valued at several years' wages of a workingman. Men and women—exploiters all, or parasites—elegantly and coolly clad in white, smote the swift sphere upon the tennis-co
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CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XI.
Trivial events sometimes precipitate catastrophies. It has been said that had James MacDonald not left the farm gate open, at Hugomont, Waterloo might have ended otherwise. So now, the rupture between Catherine Flint and Maxim Waldron was precipitated by a single unguarded oath. It was at the ninth hole, down back of the Terrace Woods bunker. Waldron, heated by exercise and the whiskey he had drunk, had already dismissed the caddies and had undertaken to carry the clubs, himself, hoping—man-fash
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CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XII.
As violently rent from his job as Maxim Waldron had been torn from his alliance with Catherine, Gabriel Armstrong met the sudden change in his affairs with far more equanimity than the financier could muster. Once the young electrician's first anger had subsided—and he had pretty well mastered it before he had reached the Oakwood Heights station—he began philosophically to turn the situation in his mind, and to rough out his plans for the future. "Things might be worse, all round," he reflected,
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CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIII.
For a time no danger seemed to threaten. Kate was not only fearless as a passenger, but equally intrepid at the wheel. Many a time and oft she had driven her father's highest-powered car at dizzying speeds along worse roads than the one her machine was now following. Velocity was to her a kind of stimulant, wonderfully pleasurable; and now, realizing nothing of the truth that Herrick was badly the worse for liquor, she leaned back in the tonneau, breathed the keen slashing air with delight, and
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CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XIV.
Gabriel Armstrong leaped, rather than clambered, through the gap in the wall, and, following the track of devastation through the trees, scrambled down the steep slope that led toward the Hudson. The forest looked as though a car of Juggernaut had passed that way. Limbs and saplings lay in confusion, larger trees showed long wounds upon their bark, and here and there pieces of metal—a gray mud-guard, a car door, a wind-shield frame, with shattered plate glass still clinging to it—lay scattered o
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CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XV.
Arriving at the sugar-house, tired yet strong, Gabriel put the wounded girl down, quickly raked together a few armfuls of dead leaves, in the most sheltered corner of the ramshackle structure, and laid the heavy auto-robe upon this improvised bed. Then he helped his patient to lie down, there, and bade her wait till he got water to wash and dress her cut. "Don't worry about anything," he reassured her. "You're alive, and that's the main thing, now. I'll see you through with this, whatever happen
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CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVI.
Old Isaac Flint loved but two things in all this world—power, and his daughter Catherine. I speak advisedly in putting "power" first. Much as he idolized the girl, much as she reminded him of the long-dead wife of his youth, he could have survived the loss of her. The loss of power would inevitably have crushed and broken him, stunned him, killed him. Yet, so far as human affection could still blossom in that withered heart, shrunk by cold scheming and the cruel piracies of many decades, he love
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CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVII.
During the long days, the June days, of her convalescence, Catherine found herself involuntarily reverting, more often than she could understand, to thoughts of the inscrutable and unknown man who had in all probability saved her life. "Had it not been for him," she reflected, as she sat there gazing out over the river, "I might not be here, this minute. Caught as I was, on the very brink of the precipice, I should almost certainly have slipped and fallen over, in my dazed condition, when I trie
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CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
"Tiger" Waldron's interview with old man Flint, regarding Catherine's breaking of the engagement, was particularly electric. Promptly at the appointed hour, Waldron appeared, shook hands with the older man, sat down and lighted a cigar, then proceeded to business. "Flint," said he, without any ado, "I've come here to tell you some very unpleasant news and to ask your help. Can you stand the one, and give me the other?" The Billionaire looked at him through his pince-nez, poised on that vulture-b
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CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XIX.
"Hear you, best and dearest father in the world?" she cried, looking quickly up at him again. "Of course I will! Only, I beg you, don't—don't ask me to—" "I will ask you nothing, Kate, my girl, save this—to consider everything well, and to act like a reasoning, thinking creature, not like an impetuous and romantic school-girl!" Releasing her hands, he once more sat down in the easy-chair, crossed his legs and peered keenly at her, to fathom if he could the inner workings of that other brain and
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CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XX.
He was aroused from this bitter revery by a rapping at the door. Opening, he admitted Slawson, his valet. The servile one handed him a letter with a special-delivery stamp on it. "Excuse me for intruding, sir," said Slawson, meekly smiling, "but I knew this was urgent." "All right. Get out!" growled Flint. When the man was gone, he fortified himself with a couple of morphine tablets, and ripped the long envelope. It was from Slade, he knew, of the Cosmos Agency. With a rapid eye he glanced it ov
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CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXI.
On the evening of July third, a week later, Gabriel Armstrong found himself at Rochester, having tramped the hundred miles from Syracuse, by easy stages. During this week, old Flint took good care not to reopen the subject of the break with Waldron; and his daughter, too, avoided it. They two were apparently at an impasse regarding it. But Flint inwardly rejoiced, knowing full well the plot now under way. And though Waldron urged him to take some further action and force the issue, Flint bade hi
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CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXII.
"It—it's all along o' that there Mr. Micolo!" the woman suddenly exclaimed, "Him an' his rent-bill! If he'd ha' let me in, there, tonight, I could ha' got Ed's things an' then started to my sister's, out to Scottsville. But he wouldn't. He claimed they was two-seventy-five still owin', and I didn't have but about fifty cents, so I couldn't pay it. So he wouldn't let me in. Natchally, anybody'd feel bad, like that, 'specially when a man told 'em he'd hold their kid's clothes an' things till they
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CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
"Fer Gawd's sake, let's have a light here, somebody!" panted the dishevelled policeman. Outside, the ringing of a gong became audible. Then came a clattering of hoofs, as the police-patrol, nicely-timed by the conspirators, and summoned by a confederate, drew up at the box on the corner. Somebody struck another match, and a raw gas-light flared. From the hallway, two or three others crowded into the wrecked room. Disjointed exclamations, oaths and curses intermingled with harsh laughter. The wom
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CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The meal was almost at an end—silently, like all their hours spent together, now—before the old man sprang his coup . It was characteristic of him to wait thus, to hold his fire till what he conceived to be the opportune moment; never to act prematurely, under any circumstances whatever. "By the way, Kate," he remarked, casually, when coffee had been served and he had motioned the butlers out of the room, "by the way, I've been rather badly disappointed, today. Did you know that?" "No, father,"
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CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXV.
True to her plan, Catherine ended her journey at Rochester. She engaged a room at a second-rate hotel—marvelling greatly at the meanness of the accommodations, the like of which she had never seen—and, at ten o'clock of the morning, appeared at the Central Police Station. The bundle of papers in her hand indicated that she had read the latest lies and venom poured out on Gabriel's defenseless head. The haughty, full-fed sergeant in charge of the station made some objections, at first, to letting
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CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Speechless and dazed, Gabriel stared at her as though at some strange apparition. "Daughter of—of Isaac Flint?" he stammered, clinging to the bars. "Come, come, lady, yuh can't stay no longer!" the officer again insisted, tapping her on the shoulder. "Yuh'd oughta been out o' here ten minutes ago! No, nuthin' doin'!" he concluded, as she turned to him appealingly. "Not today! Time's up an' more than up!" Catherine stretched out her hand to Gabriel, in farewell. He took it, silently. "Good-bye!"
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CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Four years and two months from the day when this iniquitous verdict fell from the lips of the "bought and paid for" judge, a sturdily built and square jawed man stood on the steps of the Atlanta Penitentiary and, for the first time in all these weary months and years, faced the sun. Pale with the prison-pallor that never fails to set its seal on the victims of a diseased society, which that society retaliates upon by shutting away from God's own light and air, this man stood there on the steps,
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CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Far on the western slopes of Clingman Dome in the great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, a broad, low-built bungalow stood facing the setting sun. Vast stretches of pine forest shut it off from civilization and the prying activities of Plutocracy. The nearest settlement was Ravens, twenty miles away to eastward, across inaccessible ridges and ravines. Running far to southward, the railway left this wilderness untouched. High overhead, an eagle soared among the "thunder-heads" that presaged a s
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CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXIX.
As Gabriel's voice fell to silence, after the last words, a stillness came upon the lamp-lit room, a hush broken only by the snapping of the pine-root fire on the hearth and by the busy ticking of the clock upon the chimneypiece. Then, after a minute's pause, Craig reached over and took Gabriel by the hand. "I salute you, O poet of the Revolution now impending!" he cried, while Catherine's eyes gleamed bright with tears. "Would God that I could write like that, old man!" "And would God that my p
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CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XXX.
Brevard was the first to speak. "Gabriel," said he, "we have agreed that you must be the leader in this whole affair. The actual, personal leader. To begin with, you're younger and physically stronger than any of us men. Your executive ability is, without any question whatever, far and away ahead of ours—for we are more in the analytical, compiling, organizing, preparing line. To cap all, your personality carries more, far more, with the mass of the comrades than any of ours. Your career, in the
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CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XXXI.
Quick as thought, at sound of the imperative summons and sight of the levelled weapons, Gabriel swept up most of the papers and crammed them into the breast of his loose flannel shirt, then dashed the lamp to the floor, extinguishing it. The room grew dark, for now the fire had burned down to hardly more than glowing coals. There was no panic; the men did not curse, neither did the women scream. As though the tactic had already been agreed on, Craig tipped the table up, making a kind of barricad
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CHAPTER XXXII.
CHAPTER XXXII.
The first intimation that Flint and Waldron had of any opposition to their plans, of any revolt, of any danger, was at quarter past three on the afternoon of October 8th, 1925. All that afternoon, busy with their final plans for the immediate extension of their system, they had been going over certain data with Herzog, receiving reports from branch managers and conferring with the Congressional committee that—together with Dillon Slade, their secret-service tool, now also President Supple's priv
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CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Hardly had the secret-service man taken his leave, slinking away like a whipped cur, yet with an ugly snarl that presaged evil, when Herzog appeared. "Come here," said Flint, curtly, heated with his burst of passion. "Yes, sir," the scientist replied, approaching. "What is it, sir?" Still shifty and cringing was he, in presence of the masters; though with the men beneath him, at the vast plant—and now his importance had grown till he controlled more than eight thousand—rumor declared him an into
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CHAPTER XXXIV.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
"Halt! Who goes there?" The challenge rang sharply on the night air, outside a small gate in the barricade of the Monck Aviation Grounds. "Liberty!" answered Gabriel, pausing as he gave the password. "All right, come on," said a vague figure at the gate. The little group approached. The gate opened. Silently they entered the enclosure. Another man stepped from a hangar. In his hand he held an electric flash, which he threw upon the newcomers, one by one. "Right!" he commented, and took Gabriel b
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CHAPTER XXXV.
CHAPTER XXXV.
When, despite Flint's imperative orders, Slade failed to reopen the lines of communication for him, before nightfall, and when President Supple wired in code for a little more time in obeying Air Trust orders, the Billionaire recognized that something of terrible menace now had suddenly broken in upon his dream of universal power. He summoned Waldron and Herzog for another conference and together they feverishly planned to put the works under defense, until such time as troops could be got throu
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CHAPTER XXXVI.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Plunged into the abyss of mist and flame by the attack of the Air Trust épervier , Gabriel had abandoned himself for lost. Death, mercifully swift, he had felt could be his only fate; and with this thought had come no fear, but only a wild joy that he had shared this glorious battle, sure to end in victory! This was his only thought—this, and a quick vision of Catherine. Then, as he hurtled down and over, whirling drunkenly in the void, all clear perception left him. Everything became a swift bl
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CHAPTER XXXVII.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
And Flint, now, what of him! And Waldron? While the Air Trust plant was burning, crumbling, smashing down, what of its masters, the masters of the world? A sense of vast relief possessed them both, at first, as the steel door clanged after them. Now, for a time at least, they realized that they were safe, safe from the People, safe from the awakened and triumphant Proletariat. Even now, had they surrendered, they would have been spared; but nothing was further from their thoughts than any treati
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CHAPTER XXXVIII.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Thus perished Flint and Waldron, scourges of the earth. Thus they died, slain by the very force which they had planned would betray mankind and deliver it into their chains. Thus vanished, forever, the most sinister and cruel minds ever evolved upon this planet; the greatest menace the human race had ever known; the evil Masters of the World. And as they died, massed around their perished Air Trust plant, a throng of silent, earnest watchers stood, with faces illumined by the symbolic, sacrifici
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