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Jack London:
THE MINIONS OF MIDAS
"Wir sind die Geschöpfe einer perversen sozialen Auslese.
Wir begegnen der Gewalt mit Gewalt. Nur die Starken werden überleben.
Wir glauben an das Überleben der Tüchtigsten. Sie haben
Ihre Lohnsklaven in den Dreck gestoßen und daurch haben sie
überlebt. Ihre Heeresführer haben sie auf ihren Befehl
hin niedergeschoßen in zahllosen blutigen Streiks. Mit solchen
Mitteln haben sie überlebt. Wir lamentieren nicht über
die Ergebnisse, weil wir diese Naturgesetze anerkennen und selbst
nach ihnen handeln. Und nun stellt sich die Frage: Wer von uns wird
unter den bestehenden sozialen Bedingungen überleben? Wir sind
uns sicher, dass wir es sein werden. - The Minions of Midas."
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Jack London:
THE MINIONS OF MIDAS
Wade Atsheler is dead--dead by his own hand. To say that this was
entirely unexpected by the small coterie which knew him, would be
to say an untruth; and yet never once had we, his intimates, ever
canvassed the idea. Rather had we been prepared for it in some incomprehensible
subconscious way. Before the perpetration of the deed, its possibility
is remotest from our thoughts; but when we did know that he was
dead, it seemed, somehow, that we had understood and looked forward
to it all the time. This, by retrospective analysis, we could easily
explain by the fact of his great trouble. I use "great trouble"
advisedly. Young, handsome, with an assured position as the right-hand
man of Eben Hale, the great street-railway magnate, there could
be no reason for him to complain of fortune's favors. Yet we had
watched his smooth brow furrow and corrugate as under some carking
care or devouring sorrow. We had watched his thick, black hair thin
and silver as green grain under brazen skies and parching drought.
Who can forget, in the midst of the hilarious scenes he toward the
last sought with greater and greater avidity--who can forget, I
say, the deep abstractions and black moods into which he fell? At
such times, when the fun rippled and soared from height to height,
suddenly, without rhyme or reason, his eyes would turn lacklustre,
his brows knit, as with clenched hands and face overshot with spasms
of mental pain he wrestled on the edge of the abyss with some unknown
danger.
He never spoke of his trouble, nor were we indiscreet enough to
ask. But it was just as well; for had we, and had he spoken, our
help and strength could have availed nothing. When Eben Hale died,
whose confidential secretary he was--nay, well-nigh adopted son
and full business partner--he no longer came among us. Not, as I
now know, that our company was distasteful to him, but because his
trouble had so grown that he could not respond to our happiness
nor find surcease with us. Why this should be so we could not at
the time understand, for when Eben Hale's will was probated, the
world learned that he was sole heir to his employer's many millions,
and it was expressly stipulated that this great inheritance was
given to him without qualification, hitch, or hindrance in the exercise
thereof. Not a share of stock, not a penny of cash, was bequeathed
to the dead man's relatives. As for his direct family, one astounding
clause expressly stated that Wade Atsheler was to dispense to Eben
Hale's wife and sons and daughters whatever moneys his judgement
dictated, at whatever times he deemed advisable. Had there been
any scandal in the dead man's family, or had his sons been wild
or undutiful, then there might have been a glimmering of reason
in this most unusual action; but Eben Hale's domestic happiness
had been proverbial in the community, and one would have to travel
far and wide to discover a cleaner, saner, wholesomer progeny of
sons and daughters. While his wife--well, by those who knew her
best she was endearingly termed "The Mother of the Gracchi."
Needless to state, this inexplicable will was a nine day's wonder;
but the expectant public was disappointed in that no contest was
made.
It was only the other day that Eben Hale was laid away in his stately
marble mausoleum. And now Wade Atsheler is dead. The news was printed
in this morning's paper. I have just received through the mail a
Ietter from him, posted, evidently, but a short hour before he hurled
himself into eternity. This letter, which lies before me, is a narrative
in his own handwriting, linking together numerous newspaper clippings
and facsimiles of letters. The original correspondence, he has told
me, is in the hands of the police. He has begged me, also, as a
warning to society against a most frightful and diabolical danger
which threatens its very existence, to make public the terrible
series of tragedies in which he has been innocently concerned. I
herewith append the text in full:
It was in August, 1899, just after my return from my summer vacation,
that the blow fell. We did not know it at the time; we had not yet
learned to school our minds to such awful possibilities. Mr. Hale
opened the letter, read it, and tossed it upon my desk with a laugh.
When I had looked it over, I also laughed, saying, "Some ghastly
joke, Mr. Hale, and one in very poor taste." Find here, my
dear John, an exact duplicate of the letter in question.
-------------
OFFICE OF THE M. OF M. August 17, 1899.
MR. EBEN HALE, Money Baron:
Dear Sir,--We desire you to realize upon whatever portion of your
vast holdings is necessary to obtain, IN CASH, twenty millions of
dollars. This sum we require you to pay over to us, or to our agents.
You will note we do not specify any given time, for it is not our
wish to hurry you in this matter. You may even, if it be easier
for you, pay us in ten, fifteen, or twenty instalments; but we will
accept no single instalment of less than a million.
Believe us, dear Mr. Hale, when we say that we embark upon this
course of action utterly devoid of animus. We are members of that
intellectual proletariat, the increasing numbers of which mark in
red lettering the last days of the nineteenth century. We have,
from a thorough study of economics, decided to enter upon this business.
It has many merits, chief among which may be noted that we can indulge
in large and lucrative operations without capital. So far, we have
been fairly successful, and we hope our dealings with you may be
pleasant and satisfactory.
Pray attend while we explain our views more fully. At the base of
the present system of society is to be found the property right.
And this right of the individual to hold property is demonstrated,
in the last analysis, to rest solely and wholly upon MIGHT. The
mailed gentlemen of William the Conqueror divided and apportioned
England amongst themselves with the naked sword. This, we are sure
you will grant, is true of all feudal possessions. With the invention
of steam and the Industrial Revolution there came into existence
the Capitalist Class, in the modern sense of the word. These capitalists
quickly towered above the ancient nobility. The captains of industry
have virtually dispossessed the descendants of the captains of war.
Mind, and not muscle, wins in to-day's struggle for existence. But
this state of affairs is none the less based upon might. The change
has been qualitative. The old-time Feudal Baronage ravaged the world
with fire and sword; the modern Money Baronage exploits the world
by mastering and applying the world's economic forces. Brain, and
not brawn, endures; and those best fitted to survive are the intellectually
and commercially powerful.
We, the M. of M., are not content to become wage slaves. The great
trusts and business combinations (with which you have your rating)
prevent us from rising to the place among you which our intellects
qualify us to occupy. Why? Because we are without capital. We are
of the unwashed, but with this difference: our brains are of the
best, and we have no foolish ethical nor social scruples. As wage
slaves, toiling early and late, and living abstemiously, we could
not save in threescore years--nor in twenty times threescore years--a
sum of money sufficient successfully to cope with the great aggregations
of massed capital which now exist. Nevertheless, we have entered
the arena. We now throw down the gage to the capital of the world.
Whether it wishes to fight or not, it shall have to fight.
Mr. Hale, our interests dictate us to demand of you twenty millions
of dollars. While we are considerate enough to give you reasonable
time in which to carry out your share of the transaction, please
do not delay too long. When you have agreed to our terms, insert
a suitable notice in the agony column of the "Morning Blazer."
We shall then acquaint you with our plan for transferring the sum
mentioned. You had better do this some time prior to October 1st.
If you do not, in order to show that we are in earnest we shall
on that date kill a man on East Thirty-ninth Street. He will be
a workingman. This man you do not know; nor do we. You represent
a force in modern society; we also represent a force--a new force.
Without anger or malice, we have closed in battle. As you will readily
discern, we are simply a business proposition. You are the upper,
and we the nether, millstone; this man's life shall be ground out
between. You may save him if you agree to our conditions and act
in time.
There was once a king cursed with a golden touch. His name we have
taken to do duty as our official seal. Some day, to protect ourselves
against competitors, we shall copyright it.
We beg to remain,
THE MINIONS OF MIDAS.
-------------
I leave it to you, dear John, why should we not have laughed over
such a preposterous communication? The idea, we could not but grant,
was well conceived, but it was too grotesque to be taken seriously.
Mr. Hale said he would preserve it as a literary curiosity, and
shoved it away in a pigeonhole. Then we promptly forgot its existence.
And as promptly, on the 1st of October, going over the morning mail,
we read the following:
-------------
OFFICE OF THE M. OF M., October 1, 1899.
MR. EBEN HALE, Money Baron:
Dear Sir,--Your victim has met his fate. An hour ago, on East Thirty-ninth
Street, a workingman was thrust through the heart with a knife.
Ere you read this his body will be lying at the Morgue. Go and look
upon your handiwork.
On October 14th, in token of our earnestness in this matter, and
in case you do not relent, we shall kill a policeman on or near
the corner of Polk Street and Clermont Avenue.
Very cordially,
THE MINIONS OF MIDAS.
-------------
Again Mr. Hale laughed. His mind was full of a prospective deal
with a Chicago syndicate for the sale of all his street railways
in that city, and so he went on dictating to the stenographer, never
giving it a second thought. But somehow, I know not why, a heavy
depression fell upon me. What if it were not a joke, I asked myself,
and turned involuntarily to the morning paper. There it was, as
befitted an obscure person of the lower classes, a paltry half-dozen
lines tucked away in a corner, next a patent medicine advertisement:
Shortly after five o'clock this morning, on East Thirty-ninth Street,
a laborer named Pete Lascalle, while on his way to work, was stabbed
to the heart by an unknown assailant, who escaped by running. The
police have been unable to discover any motive for the murder.
"Impossible!" was Mr. Hale's rejoinder, when I had read
the item aloud; but the incident evidently weighed upon his mind,
for late in the afternoon, with many epithets denunciatory of his
foolishness, he asked me to acquaint the police with the affair.
I had the pleasure of being laughed at in the Inspector's private
office, although I went away with the assurance that they would
look into it and that the vicinity of Polk and Clermont would be
doubly patrolled on the night mentioned. There it dropped, till
the two weeks had sped by, when the following note came to us through
the mail:
-------------
OFFICE OF THE M. OF M. October 15, 1899.
MR. EBEN HALE, Money Baron:
Dear Sir,--Your second victim has fallen on schedule time. We are
in no hurry; but to increase the pressure we shall henceforth kill
weekly. To protect ourselves against police interference we shall
hereafter inform you of the event but a little prior to or simultaneously
with the deed. Trusting this finds you in good health,
We are,
THE MINIONS OF MIDAS.
-------------
This time Mr. Hale took up the paper, and after a brief search,
read to me this account:
A DASTARDLY CRIME: Joseph Donahue, assigned only last night to special
patrol duty in the Eleventh Ward, at midnight was shot through the
brain and instantly killed. The tragedy was enacted in the full
glare of the street lights on the corner of Polk Street and Clermont
Avenue. Our society is indeed unstable when the custodians of its
peace are thus openly and wantonly shot down. The police have so
far been unable to obtain the slightest clue.
Barely had he finished this when the police arrived--the Inspector
himself and two of his keenest sleuths. Alarm sat upon their faces,
and it was plain that they were seriously perturbed. Though the
facts were so few and simple, we talked long, going over the affair
again and again. When the Inspector went away, he confidently assured
us that everything would soon be straightened out and the assassins
run to earth. In the meantime he thought it well to detail guards
for the protection of Mr. Hale and myself, and several more to be
constantly on the vigil about the house and grounds. After the lapse
of a week, at one o'clock in the afternoon, this telegram was received:
-------------
OFFICE OF THE M. OF M. October 2I, 1899.
MR. EBEN HALE, Money Baron:
Dear Sir,--We are sorry to note how completely you have misunderstood
us. You have seen fit to surround yourself and household with armed
guards, as though, forsooth, we were common criminals, apt to break
in upon you and wrest away by force your twenty millions. Believe
us, this is farthest from our intention.
You will readily comprehend, after a little sober thought, that
your life is dear to us. Do not be afraid. We would not hurt you
for the world. It is our policy to cherish you tenderly and protect
you from all harm. Your death means nothing to us. If it did, rest
assured that we would not hesitate a moment in destroying you. Think
this over, Mr. Hale. When you have paid us our price, there will
be need of retrenchment. Dismiss your guards now, and cut down your
expenses.
Within minutes of the time you receive this a nurse-girl will have
been choked to death in Brentwood Park. The body may be found in
the shrubbery lining the path which leads off to the left from the
band-stand.
Cordially yours,
THE MINIONS OF MIDAS.
-------------
The next instant Mr. Hale was at the telephone, warning the Inspector
of the impending murder. The Inspector excused himself in order
to call up Police Sub-station F and despatch men to the scene. Fifteen
minutes later he rang us up and informed us that the body had been
discovered, yet warm, in the place indicated. That evening the papers
teemed with glaring Jack-the-Strangler headlines, denouncing the
brutality of the deed and complaining about the laxity of the police.
We were also closeted with the Inspector, who begged us by all means
to keep the affair secret. Success, he said, depended upon silence.
As you know, John, Mr. Hale was a man of iron. He refused to surrender.
But, oh, John, it was terrible, nay, horrible--this awful something,
this blind force in the dark. We could not fight, could not plan,
could do nothing save hold our hands and wait. And week by week,
as certain as the rising of the sun, came the notification and death
of some person, man or woman, innocent of evil, but just as much
killed by us as though we had done it with our own hands. A word
from Mr. Hale and the slaughter would have ceased. But he hardened
his heart and waited, the lines deepening, the mouth and eyes growing
sterner and firmer, and the face aging with the hours. It is needless
for me to speak of my own suffering during that frightful period.
Find here the letters and telegrams of the M. of M., and the newspaper
accounts, etc., of the various murders.
You will notice also the letters warning Mr. Hale of certain machinations
of commercial enemies and secret manipulations of stock. The M.
of M. seemed to have its hand on the inner pulse of the business
and financial world. They possessed themselves of and forwarded
to us information which our agents could not obtain. One timely
note from them, at a critical moment in a certain deal, saved all
of five millions to Mr. Hale. At another time they sent us a telegram
which probably was the means of preventing an anarchist crank from
taking my employer's life. We captured the man on his arrival and
turned him over to the police, who found upon him enough of a new
and powerful explosive to sink a battleship.
We persisted. Mr. Hale was grit clear through. He disbursed at the
rate of one hundred thousand per week for secret service. The aid
of the Pinkertons and of countless private detective agencies was
called in, and in addition to this thousands were upon our payroll.
Our agents swarmed everywhere, in all guises, penetrating all classes
of society. They grasped at a myriad clues; hundreds of suspects
were jailed, and at various times thousands of suspicious persons
were under surveillance, but nothing tangible came to light. With
its communications the M. of M. continually changed its method of
delivery. And every messenger they sent us was arrested forthwith.
But these inevitably proved to be innocent individuals, while their
descriptions of the persons who had employed them for the errand
never tallied. On the last day of December we received this notification:
-------------
OFFICE OF THE M. OF M., December 31, 1899.
MR. EBEN HALE, Money Baron:
Dear Sir,--Pursuant of our policy, with which we flatter ourselves
you are already well versed, we beg to state that we shall give
a passport from this Vale of Tears to Inspector Bying, with whom,
because of our attentions, you have become so well acquainted. It
is his custom to be in his private office at this hour. Even as
you read this he breathes his last.
Cordially yours,
THE MINIONS OF MIDAS.
-------------
I dropped the letter and sprang to the telephone. Great was my relief
when I heard the Inspector's hearty voice. But, even as he spoke,
his voice died away in the receiver to a gurgling sob, and I heard
faintly the crash of a falling body. Then a strange voice hello'd
me, sent me the regards of the M. of M., and broke the switch. Like
a flash I called up the public office of the Central Police, telling
them to go at once to the Inspector's aid in his private office.
I then held the line, and a few minutes later received the intelligence
that he had been found bathed in his own blood and breathing his
last. There were no eyewitnesses, and no trace was discoverable
of the murderer.
Whereupon Mr. Hale immediately increased his secret service till
a quarter of a million flowed weekly from his coffers. He was determined
to win out. His graduated rewards aggregated over ten millions.
You have a fair idea of his resources and you can see in what manner
he drew upon them. It was the principle, he affirmed, that he was
fighting for, not the gold. And it must be admitted that his course
proved the nobility of his motive. The police departments of all
the great cities cooperated, and even the United States Government
stepped in, and the affair became one of the highest questions of
state. Certain contingent funds of the nation were devoted to the
unearthing of the M. of M., and every government agent was on the
alert. But all in vain. The Minions of Midas carried on their damnable
work unhampered. They had their way and struck unerringly.
But while he fought to the last, Mr. Hale could not wash his hands
of the blood with which they were dyed. Though not technically a
murderer, though no jury of his peers would ever have convicted
him, none the less the death of every individual was due to him.
As I said before, a word from him and the slaughter would have ceased.
But he refused to give that word. He insisted that the integrity
of society was assailed; that he was not sufficiently a coward to
desert his post; and that it was manifestly just that a few should
be martyred for the ultimate welfare of the many. Nevertheless this
blood was upon his head, and he sank into deeper and deeper gloom.
I was likewise whelmed with the guilt of an accomplice. Babies were
ruthlessly killed, children, aged men; and not only were these murders
local, but they were distributed over the country. In the middle
of February, one evening, as we sat in the library, there came a
sharp knock at the door. On responding to it I found, Lying on the
carpet of the corridor, the following missive:
-------------
OFFICE OF THE M. OF M., February 15, 1900.
MR. EBEN HALE, Money Baron:
Dear Sir,--Does not your soul cry out upon the red harvest it is
reaping? Perhaps we have been too abstract in conducting our business.
Let us now be concrete. Miss Adelaide Laidlaw is a talented young
woman, as good, we understand, as she is beautiful. She is the daughter
of your old friend, Judge Laidlaw, and we happen to know that you
carried her in your arms when she was an infant. She is your daughter's
closest friend, and at present is visiting her. When your eyes have
read thus far her visit will have terminated.
Very cordially,
THE MINIONS OF MIDAS.
-------------
My God! did we not instantly realize the terrible import! We rushed
through the dayrooms--she was not there--and on to her own apartments.
The door was locked, but we crashed it down by hurling ourselves
against it. There she lay, just as she had finished dressing for
the opera, smothered with pillows torn from the couch, the flush
of life yet on her flesh, the body still flexible and warm. Let
me pass over the rest of this horror. You will surely remember,
John, the newspaper accounts.
Late that night Mr. Hale summoned me to him, and before God did
pledge me most solemnly to stand by him and not to compromise, even
if all kith and kin were destroyed.
The next day I was surprised at his cheerfulness. I had thought
he would be deeply shocked by this last tragedy--how deep I was
soon to learn. All day he was light-hearted and high-spirited, as
though at last he had found a way out of the frightful difficulty.
The next morning we found him dead in his bed, a peaceful smile
upon his careworn face--asphyxiation. Through the connivance of
the police and the authorities, it was given out to the world as
heart disease. We deemed it wise to withhold the truth; but little
good has it done us, little good has anything done us.
Barely had I left that chamber of death, when--but too late--the
following extraordinary letter was received:
-------------
OFFICE OF THE M. of M., February 17, 1900.
MR. EBEN HALE, Money Baron:
Dear Sir,--You will pardon our intrusion, we hope, so closely upon
the sad event of day before yesterday; but what we wish to say may
be of the utmost importance to you. It is in our mind that you may
attempt to escape us. There is but one way, apparently, as you have
ere this doubtless discovered. But we wish to inform you that even
this one way is barred. You may die, but you die failing and acknowledging
your failure. Note this: WE ARE PART AND PARCEL OF YOUR POSSESSIONS.
WITH YOUR MILLIONS WE PASS DOWN TO YOUR HEIRS AND ASSIGNS FOREVER.
We are the inevitable. We are the culmination of industrial and
social wrong;. We turn upon the society that has created us. We
are the successful failures of the age, the scourges of a degraded
civilization.
We are the creatures of a perverse social selection. We meet force
with force. Only the strong shall endure. We believe in the survival
of the fittest. You have crushed your wage slaves into the dirt
and you have survived. The captains of war, at your command, have
shot down like dogs your employees in a score of bloody strikes.
By such means you have endured. We do not grumble at the result,
for we acknowledge and have our being in the same natural law. And
now the question has arisen: UNDER THE PRESENT SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT,
WHICH OF US SHALL SURVIVE? We believe we are the fittest. You believe
you are the fittest. We leave the eventuality to time and law.
Cordially yours,
THE MINIONS OF MIDAS.
-------------
John, do you wonder now that I shunned pleasure and avoided friends?
But why explain? Surely this narrative will make everything clear.
Three weeks ago Adelaide Laidlaw died. Since then I have waited
in hope and fear. Yesterday the will was probated and made public.
Today I was notified that a woman of the middle class would be killed
in Golden Gate Park, in faraway San Francisco. The despatches in
to-night's papers give the details of the brutal happening--details
which correspond with those furnished me in advance.
It is useless. I cannot struggle against the inevitable. I have
been faithful to Mr. Hale and have worked hard. Why my faithfulness
should have been thus rewarded I cannot understand. Yet I cannot
be false to my trust, nor break my word by compromising. Still,
I have resolved that no more deaths shall be upon my head. I have
willed the many millions I lately received to their rightful owners.
Let the stalwart sons of Eben Hale work out their own salvation.
Ere you read this I shall have passed on. The Minions of Midas are
all-powerful. The police are impotent. I have learned from them
that other millionnaires have been likewise mulcted or persecuted--how
many is not known, for when one yields to the M. of M., his mouth
is thenceforth sealed. Those who have not yielded are even now reaping
their scarlet harvest. The grim game is being played out. The Federal
Government can do nothing. I also understand that similar branch
organizations have made their appearance in Europe. Society is shaken
to its foundations. Principalities and powers are as brands ripe
for the burning. Instead of the masses against the classes, it is
a class against the classes. We, the guardians of human progress,
are being singled out and struck down. Law and order have failed.
The officials have begged me to keep this secret. I have done so,
but can do so no longer. It has become a question of public import,
fraught with the direst consequences, and I shall do my duty before
I leave this world by informing it of its peril. Do you, John, as
my last request, make this public. Do not be frightened. The fate
of humanity rests in your hand. Let the press strike off millions
of copies; let the electric currents sweep it round the world; wherever
men meet and speak, let them speak of it in fear and trembling.
And then, when thoroughly aroused, let society arise in its might
and cast out this abomination.
Yours, in long farewell,
WADE ATSHELER.
(1901).
Jack London (1876-1916):
The Wolf
The Minions Of Midas
In a far Country
Suicide
The Children
The Dignity of Dollars
What Life Means to Me
Jack London Ranch Album
The Jack London Collection
Jack London International
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