The Iron Heel

Congress becomes a farce as real decisions are determined by the Oligarchy. Ernest advocates for a bill to assist the unemployed, and Avis alludes to H. G. Wells’s term “the people of the abyss” to describe the people disadvantaged by capitalist greed (252). During his speech, Ernest knows that the congressmembers have been instructed to reject the bill and insults them for being soulless cowards. They accuse him of being an anarchist, and Ernest retorts that they are hypocrites. Avis watches her husband when a bomb suddenly explodes. Fifty-two socialist Congress members, including Ernest, are framed for the bomb, found guilty of high treason, and imprisoned. Ernest is sentenced to life in Alcatraz. The narrative shifts to Avis writing on the eve of the Second Revolt and her confidence that the Oligarchy will fall. She insists that the Oligarchy must have planted the bomb, but she has been unable to uncover any evidence.

In his footnotes, Meredith compares the Oligarchy’s rule to how British colonizers oppressed the people of India. He considers these moments in history as shameful stages of social evolution. In an extensive footnote, Meredith reveals that a confession was discovered 600 years after the bombing, proving that the terrorist was an agent of the Iron Heel. He compares the scheme to similar ploys in history to frame the socialists, such as the 1886 Haymarket Affair in Chicago and the 1906 case of Moyer and Haywood.

Avis is imprisoned for six months and sends letters back and forth to Ernest in Alcatraz through their network of spies. The socialist leaders plan a mass prison break as a show of their strength. Avis is released and scouts for a hiding place for Ernest. To keep the Iron Heel spies off her trail, she travels to California disguised as Felice Van Verdighan, a wealthy oligarch with a dog and three maids who are also comrades in disguise. Avis travels by boat and then on horseback to a hiding place in the Sonoma Mountains where Mr. Wickson owns a lodge nearby. Avis reasons that no one will dare look for her and Ernest so near the enemy. With the help of her comrade John Carlson, she builds a small cabin in a hidden sinkhole shielded by vegetation. Avis mentions a German terrorist named Comrade Biedenbach who once hid in the shelter with them. The Oligarchy had spread rumors that Biedenbach had betrayed the Fighting Group and was executed. Avis clarifies that the good man was mistakenly killed at another refuge by their lookouts when he forgot their secret signals. She explains that the refuge has been a safe hiding place for 19 years and was only once discovered by an outsider.

Meredith’s footnotes describe the fictional life of Anna Roylston, one of Avis’s comrades that disguised herself as a maid. Anna lived to the age of 91 and was an impressive member of the Fighting Groups known as the Red Virgin. Another footnote mentions that Meredith could find no records of Biedenbach.

Ernest instructs Avis to disguise herself thoroughly until her new identity becomes second nature. Avis learns that her father has mysteriously disappeared and is unable to locate him. Ernest and the other leaders continue to organize from prison, and Avis works from the refuge building their spy networks, underground railway system of refuges, and secret printing presses. Six months later, two young revolutionists, Lora Peterson and Kate Bierce, join her. They report that a spy in their ranks is on Avis’s trail and plans to expose her hiding place. John Carlson captures the informant and kills him. 

Avis reflects on her dangerous life and how she has become inured to violence. She marvels at how much she has changed from her bourgeois upbringing and remembers the people from her past. Bishop Morehouse was transferred to multiple psychiatric hospitals and presumed dead, but she would later see him for the last time in the bloodshed of the Chicago Commune riots. She credits Jackson for her conversion to socialism and recounts how he became an anarchist extremist who was imprisoned for bombing the Pertonwaithe mansion and died by suicide. Peter Donnelly, the foreman that testified at Jackson’s trial, joined the ’Frisco Reds, an extremist organization against the Oligarchy, while his son Timothy Donnelly joined the Oligarchy’s secret service known as the Mercenaries. While working as a spy in Berlin, she encountered Colonel Ingram, the lawyer for Sierra Mills who became the minister to Germany. Jackson’s lawyer, Joseph Hurd, was executed as a spy against the socialists, and Avis recalls fainting from the horror of watching the man beg her for his life. 

Meredith’s footnotes discuss the Revolution’s art of disguise, which avoided wigs and accessories in favor of a complete commitment to the role. Another footnote mentions how disappearances among the revolutionists were common.

In 1915, the revolutionists succeed in freeing all their imprisoned leaders in one synchronized night. After months of disguising her true identity, Avis has to relearn how to be herself when she reunites with Ernest. On the following morning of his return, Avis disguises herself and fools Ernest into believing that she is a woman named Mary. Ernest comments that with Avis’s two identities, he has a harem. The couple work from their refuge and are inseparable for 18 months. Avis balances her life of danger and hardship with the love and laughter of her husband and colleagues, commending them for their artistry, poetry, music, and science. Mr. Wickson’s son, Philip, accidentally discovers the refuge and is taken prisoner and educated on ethics and sociology. He converts to the socialist cause, falls in love with Anna Roylston, and becomes a loyal secret agent. He dies in 1927 of pneumonia. 

Meredith’s footnote contends that the world’s greatest artists and intellectuals came from the revolutionists. Other footnotes discuss the impact of fictional poet Rudolph Mendenhall and the frequency of young Oligarch men who converted and joined the Revolution.