Revolution, and Other Essays

Transcribed from the 1910 Mills and Boon edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
by JACK LONDON
“History warns us that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.” Huxley.
MILLS & BOON, LIMITED 49 RUPERT STREET LONDON, W.1
Copyright in the United States of America , 1910, by The Macmillan Company .
Contents:
Revolution The Somnambulists The Dignity of Dollars Goliah The Golden Poppy The Shrinkage of the Planet The House Beautiful The Gold Hunters of the North Fomá Gordyéeff These Bones shall Rise Again The Other Animals The Yellow Peril What Life Means to Me
“The present is enough for common souls, Who, never looking forward, are indeed Mere clay, wherein the footprints of their age Are petrified for ever.”
I received a letter the other day. It was from a man in Arizona. It began, “Dear Comrade.” It ended, “Yours for the Revolution.” I replied to the letter, and my letter began, “Dear Comrade.” It ended, “Yours for the Revolution.” In the United States there are 400,000 men, of men and women nearly 1,000,000, who begin their letters “Dear Comrade,” and end them “Yours for the Revolution.” In Germany there are 3,000,000 men who begin their letters “Dear Comrade” and end them “Yours for the Revolution”; in France, 1,000,000 men; in Austria, 800,000 men; in Belgium, 300,000 men; in Italy, 250,000 men; in England, 100,000 men; in Switzerland, 100,000 men; in Denmark, 55,000 men; in Sweden, 50,000 men; in Holland, 40,000 men; in Spain, 30,000 men—comrades all, and revolutionists.
These are numbers which dwarf the grand armies of Napoleon and Xerxes. But they are numbers not of conquest and maintenance of the established order, but of conquest and revolution. They compose, when the roll is called, an army of 7,000,000 men, who, in accordance with the conditions of to-day, are fighting with all their might for the conquest of the wealth of the world and for the complete overthrow of existing society.