but in the end every deserter from the
militia met death.

A more immediate lesson, however, was impressed on the minds of the
people by the punishment meted out to the Kansas militia. The great
Kansas Mutiny occurred at the very beginning of military operations
against the Grangers. Six thousand of the militia mutinied. They had
been for several weeks very turbulent and sullen, and for that reason
had been kept in camp. Their open mutiny, however, was without doubt
precipitated by the agents-provocateurs.

On the night of the 22d of April they arose and murdered their officers,
only a small remnant of the latter escaping. This was beyond the scheme
of the Iron Heel, for the agents-provocateurs had done their work too
well. But everything was grist to the Iron Heel. It had prepared for the
outbreak, and the killing of so many officers gave it justification for
what followed. As by magic, forty thousand soldiers of the regular army
surrounded the malcontents. It was a trap. The wretched militiamen found
that their machine-guns had been tampered with, and that the cartridges
from the captured magazines did not fit their rifles. They hoisted the
white flag of surrender, but it was ignored. There were no survivors.
The entire six thousand were annihilated. Common shell and shrapnel were
thrown in upon them from a distance, and, when, in their desperation,
they charged the encircling lines, they were mowed down by the
machine-guns. I talked with an eye-witness, and he said that the nearest
any militiaman approached the machine-guns was a hundred and fifty
yards. The earth was carpeted with the slain, and a final charge of
cavalry, with trampling of horses' hoofs, revolvers, and sabres, crushed
the wounded into the ground.

Simultaneously with the destruction of the Grangers came the revolt
of the coal miners. It was the expiring effort of organized labor.
Three-quarters of a million of miners went out on strike. But they
were too widely scattered over the country to advantage from their own
strength. They were segregated in their own districts and beaten into
submission. This was the first great slave-drive. Pocock* won his spurs
as a slave-driver and earned the undying hatred of the proletariat.
Countless attempts were made upon his life, but he seemed to bear a
charmed existence. It was he who was responsible for the introduction
of the Russian passport system among the miners, and the denial of their
right of removal f