The press in US then was controlled by various interests and Upton Sinclair found it difficult to publish his work since it was reportage with all his sincerity, no hiding or whitewashing in interest of the paymasters - and as he went on publishing he was hounded by mainstream press and publications, so he wrote about them, and called it Brass Check, something members of another profession were forced to carry once upon a time.
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February 5, 2016
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In between reading this, if one happens to read Love's Pilgrimage by the author, and has already read through the World's End series, one is likely to have come close to finding an answer to the question puzzling one as one read the World's End series, which has more than once found oneself questioning why the author is quite so Germanophile as to have his young protagonist protect a German spy working against France, which happens to be the home of the protagonist.
The answer begins to be clear somewhat simultaneously with answer to another question, namely, why didn't the protagonist of Love's Pilgrimage even mention WWI, but did stress about his reading newspapers assiduously while being anxious about news of the then current Russian revolution. These questions are suddenly and unexpectedly answered as one reads about the U.S. press setting forth to campaign with false stories attempting to implicate Woodrow Wilson, then the President of the United States, but holding back because this might get him votes.
"You didn’t happen to know that the “Scandal Bureau” had prepared a story on Woodrow Wilson! The “interests,” which wanted war with Germany and Mexico, had a scandal all ready to spring on him toward the end of the 1916 campaign. They had the dynamite planted, the wires laid; all they had to do was to press the button. At the last moment their nerve failed them, they did not press the button. I was told why by a prominent Republican leader, who was present in the councils of the party when the final decision was made. This man pounded on the table and declared: “I’d have said I’d sooner vote for the devil than for Woodrow Wilson, but if you start a dirty story on the President of the United States, I’ll vote for Woodrow Wilson, and one or two million Americans will do likewise.”"
So part of the answer is, Upton Sinclair was then - perhaps newly, as the protagonist of Love's Pilgrimage was - socialist, and saw the war as that of capitalist powers against workers of the world. But then why the love of Germany, which in fact was completely responsible for the war, as a regime if not as fault of every German, only most - as they did enthusiastically were for it?
This answer, not very explicitly stated but nevertheless clearly to be seen, is, too, in Love's Pilgrimage - the protagonist there, as the author in his life, taught himself German while very young, read a great deal of German literature, and came to see germany as the home of not only the beautiful forests or neat little villages, as any casual visitor would, but of all progressive thought and much wisdom.
One does need an effort to recall Upton Sinclair was young in an era of innocence that sought to exonerate Germany while reeling in horror at the Nazi atrocities, and this is the background of the curiously twisted tapestry of the World's End series with its loving descriptions of Germany right up to the U.S. forces marching through after WWII, while simultaneously an equally curiously disdainful and casual abandonment of France by the protagonist Lanny Budd who's life has been lived mostly in France until his mid thirties, when his travels to U.S. and U.K. and more have him only touching home base in France on equal basis, the weight shifting post war to U.S. for permanent settling.
His loyalty to U.S., and his almost worshipping stance with U.K., remains unquestionable through the World's End series, so much so he's disgustingly racist when it comes to India. But then, his abrahmic roots are deep enough to have his antisemitism and misogyny never quite be wiped, much less rooted out, despite his natural and consciously chosen liberal thought!
The answer begins to be clear somewhat simultaneously with answer to another question, namely, why didn't the protagonist of Love's Pilgrimage even mention WWI, but did stress about his reading newspapers assiduously while being anxious about news of the then current Russian revolution. These questions are suddenly and unexpectedly answered as one reads about the U.S. press setting forth to campaign with false stories attempting to implicate Woodrow Wilson, then the President of the United States, but holding back because this might get him votes.
"You didn’t happen to know that the “Scandal Bureau” had prepared a story on Woodrow Wilson! The “interests,” which wanted war with Germany and Mexico, had a scandal all ready to spring on him toward the end of the 1916 campaign. They had the dynamite planted, the wires laid; all they had to do was to press the button. At the last moment their nerve failed them, they did not press the button. I was told why by a prominent Republican leader, who was present in the councils of the party when the final decision was made. This man pounded on the table and declared: “I’d have said I’d sooner vote for the devil than for Woodrow Wilson, but if you start a dirty story on the President of the United States, I’ll vote for Woodrow Wilson, and one or two million Americans will do likewise.”"
So part of the answer is, Upton Sinclair was then - perhaps newly, as the protagonist of Love's Pilgrimage was - socialist, and saw the war as that of capitalist powers against workers of the world. But then why the love of Germany, which in fact was completely responsible for the war, as a regime if not as fault of every German, only most - as they did enthusiastically were for it?
This answer, not very explicitly stated but nevertheless clearly to be seen, is, too, in Love's Pilgrimage - the protagonist there, as the author in his life, taught himself German while very young, read a great deal of German literature, and came to see germany as the home of not only the beautiful forests or neat little villages, as any casual visitor would, but of all progressive thought and much wisdom.
One does need an effort to recall Upton Sinclair was young in an era of innocence that sought to exonerate Germany while reeling in horror at the Nazi atrocities, and this is the background of the curiously twisted tapestry of the World's End series with its loving descriptions of Germany right up to the U.S. forces marching through after WWII, while simultaneously an equally curiously disdainful and casual abandonment of France by the protagonist Lanny Budd who's life has been lived mostly in France until his mid thirties, when his travels to U.S. and U.K. and more have him only touching home base in France on equal basis, the weight shifting post war to U.S. for permanent settling.
His loyalty to U.S., and his almost worshipping stance with U.K., remains unquestionable through the World's End series, so much so he's disgustingly racist when it comes to India. But then, his abrahmic roots are deep enough to have his antisemitism and misogyny never quite be wiped, much less rooted out, despite his natural and consciously chosen liberal thought!
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"Two newspapers paid attention to his communication—the “New York Times,” a respectable paper, and the “New York American,” a “yellow” paper. The “American” sent a woman reporter, an agreeable and friendly young lady, to whom the author poured out his soul. She asked for his picture, saying that this would enable her to get much more space for the story; so the author gave his picture. She asked for his wife’s picture; but here the author was obdurate. He had old-fashioned Southern notions about “newspaper notoriety” for ladies; he did not want his wife’s picture in the papers. There stood a little picture of his wife on the table where the interview took place, and after the reporter had left, it was noticed that this picture was missing. Next day the picture was published in the “New York American,” and has been published in the “New York American” every year or two since. The author, meantime, has divorced his first wife and married a second wife—a fact of which the newspapers are fully aware; yet they publish this picture of the first wife indifferently as a picture of the first wife and of the second wife. When one of these ladies says or does a certain thing, the other lady may open her paper in the morning and receive a shock!
"Meantime he was existing by hack-work, and exploring the world in which ideas are bought and sold. He was having jokes and plots of stories stolen; he was having agreements broken and promises repudiated; he was trying to write worth-while material, and being told that it would not sell; he was trying to become a book-reviewer, and finding that the only way to succeed was to be a cheat. The editor of the “Independent” or the “Literary Digest” would give him half a dozen books to read, and he would read them, and write an honest review, saying that there was very little merit in any of them: whereupon, the editor would decide that it was not worth while to review the books, and the author would get nothing for his work. If, on the other hand, he wrote an article about a book, taking it seriously, and describing it as vital and important, the editor would conclude that the book was worth reviewing, and would publish the review, and pay the author three or four dollars for it."
Upton Sinclair wrote to Lincoln Steffens and the latter sent his letter for publication to McClure's Weekly, in vain; Collier's Weekly accepted it and the publisher met the author, and invited him for dinner at home to meet the editor Norman Hapgood and other writers, but publisher's father, the owner, nixed the publication. Hapgood claimed later that while he had no memory of the said incident, the owner never meddle with the publication's editorial decisions by him or by the publisher.
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"I was pigeon-holed with long-haired violinists from abroad, and painters with fancy-colored vests, and woman suffragists with short hair, and religious prophets in purple robes. All such things are lumped together by newspapers, which are good-naturedly tolerant of their fellow fakers."
The author is talking here about writing, and publication, of his most famous work, "The Jungle".
"The public likes to be amused, and “genius” is one of the things that amuse it: such is the attitude of a world which understands that money is the one thing in life really worth while, the making of money the one object of grown-up and serious-minded men."
But The Jungle was serious, and its being published far more so, no longer amusing to serious moneymaking.
"But from now on you will see that there enters into my story a new note. The element of horse-play goes out, and something grim takes its place."
Collier's played dirty by sending someone who accepted the hospitality of the packers and reported that Sinclair's charges were false or exaggerated, and they published this along with three paragraphs of lesser importance out of the article given by Sinclair which was backed by report of someone sent from London to investigate matters in Chicago after writing about meat industry in UK.
"Robert J. Collier was a gentleman and a “good fellow”; but he was a child of his world, and his world was a rotten one, a “second generation” of idle rich spendthrifts. The running of his magazine “on a personal basis” amounted to this: a young writer would catch the public fancy, and Robbie would send for him, as he sent for me; if he proved to be a possible person—that is, if he came to dinner in a dress-suit, and didn’t discuss the socialization of “Collier’s Weekly”—Robbie would take him up and introduce him to his “set,” and the young writer would have a perpetual market for his stories at a thousand dollars per story; he would be invited to country-house parties, he would motor and play golf and polo, and flirt with elegant young society ladies, and spend his afternoons loafing in the Hoffman House bar. I could name not one but a dozen young writers and illustrators to whom I have seen that happen. In the beginning they wrote about America, in the end they wrote about the “smart set” of Fifth Avenue and Long Island. In their personal life they became tipplers and cafe celebrities; in their intellectual life they became bitter cynics; into their writings you saw creeping year by year the subtle poison of sexual excess—until at last they became too far gone for “Collier’s” to tolerate any longer, and went over to the “Cosmopolitan,” which takes them no matter how far gone they are."
"And now young Collier is dead, and the magazine to which for a time he gave his generous spirit has become an instrument of reaction pure and simple. It opposed and ridiculed President Wilson’s peace policies; it called the world to war against the working-class of Russia; it is now calling for repression of all social protest in America; in short, it is an American capitalist magazine. As I write, word comes that it has been taken over by the Crowell Publishing Company, publishers of the “Woman’s Home Companion,” “Farm and Fireside,” and the “American Magazine.”"
The author gives a letter by a fellow writer.
"“Do you know the circumstances of Hapgood’s break with Collier? Hapgood was the highest paid editor of any periodical in the country. The business side was encroaching on the editorial—demanding that advertising be not jeopardized, and with it the commissions that were its part. Collier, as you know, for years had mixed his whiskey with chorus girls, and needed all the property could milk to supply his erratic needs. So the business office had his ear. And Hapgood left—and made his leaving effective. He took Harper’s and gave the country some of the most important exposes it had. Do you know the story of the Powder Trust treason? I wrote it. It was drawn from official records, and could not be contradicted, that the Powder Trust had once made a contract with a German military powder firm—in the days when military smokeless powder was the goal of every government—to keep it informed as to the quantity, quality, etc., of the smokeless powder it furnished to our government. And this was in the days when we were in the lead in that department. The Powder Trust jumped Hapgood hard. He could have had anything he wanted by making a simple disavowal of me, any loophole they would have accepted—and do you have any doubt that he could have named his own terms? He declined point blank, and threw the challenge to the heaviest and most important client his weekly could have had. That he guessed wrong and ‘backed the wrong horse’ in the ‘Jungle’, may be true. But isn’t it fair to assume, in the light of his final challenge to the Collier advertising autocracy, that he was meeting problems inside as best he could—and that he could not tell you at the time of all the factors involved in the Collier handling of the stockyards story?”"
Chicago Tribune sent James Keeley to investigate and he submitted a thirty two page report refuting everything Sinclair wrote; Doubleday sent McKee, who confirmed Sinclair's version. McKee went first to packers, and their publicity agent guided him around, and casually told about having written the thirty two page refuting.
The Saturday Evening Post published a series of articles against The Jungle after it was published - it was sensationally successful in U.S., Britain and more, and translated in seventeen languages - and Sinclair wrote an article, The Condemned Meat Industry, backed by testimony of various people involved, about how the industry was selling unhealthy and worse meat to public. This article by Sinclair was published in Everybody's Magazine, crusading about such matters.
"You may find it in the library, “Everybody’s” for May, 1906. Whatever you think of its literary style, you will see that it is definite and specific, and revealed a most frightful condition in the country’s meat supply, an unquestionable danger to the public health. It was therefore a challenge to every public service agency in the country; above all, it was a challenge to the newspapers, through which the social body is supposed to learn of its dangers and its needs."
"Of all the newspapers in America, not one in two hundred went so far as to mention “The Condemned Meat Industry.”"
Arthur Brisbane talked to Sinclair.
"I remember talking about this editorial with Adolph Smith, representative of the “London Lancet.” He remarked with dry sarcasm that in a court of justice Brisbane would be entirely safe; his statement that a slaughter-house is not an opera-house was strictly and literally accurate. But if you took what the statement was meant to convey to the reader—that a slaughter-house is necessarily filthy, then the statement was false. “If you go to the municipal slaughter-houses of Germany, you find them as free from odor as an opera-house,” said Adolph Smith; and five or six years later, when I visited Germany, I took the opportunity to verify this statement. But because of the kindness of American editorial writers to the interests which contribute full-page advertisements to newspapers, the American people still have their meat prepared in filth."
The President of the United States had an investigation done, which vindicated everything said by Upton Sinclair about the state of meat packing industry in Chicago.
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"All these stories the “Times” sold to scores of newspapers all over the country—newspapers which should have received them through the Associated Press, had the Associated Press been a news channel instead of a concrete wall. The “Times,” of course, made a fortune out of these sales; yet it never paid me a dollar for what I gave it, nor did it occur to me to expect a dollar. I only mention this element to show how under the profit-system even the work of reform, the service of humanity, is exploited. I have done things like this, not once but hundreds of times in my life; yet I read continually in the newspapers the charge that I am in the business of muck-raking for money. I have read such insinuations even in the “New York Times”!"
"I look back upon this campaign, to which I gave three years of brain and soul-sweat, and ask what I really accomplished. Old Nelson Morris died of a broken conscience. I took a few millions away from him, and from the Armours and the Swifts—giving them to the Junkers of East Prussia, and to Paris bankers who were backing, enterprises to pack meat in the Argentine. I added a hundred thousand readers to “Everybody’s Magazine,” and a considerable number to the “New York Times.” I made a fortune and a reputation for Doubleday, Page and Company, which immediately became one of the most conservative publishing-houses in America—using “The Jungle” money to promote the educational works of Andrew Carnegie, and the autobiography of John D. Rockefeller, and the obscene ravings of the Reverend Thomas Dixon, and the sociological bunkum of Gerald Stanley Lee. I took my next novel to Doubleday, Page and Company, and old Walter Page was enthusiastic for it and wanted to publish it; but the shrewd young business-men saw that “The Metropolis” was not going to be popular with the big trust companies and insurance companies which fill up the advertising pages of the “World’s Work.” They told me that “The Metropolis” was not a novel, but a piece of propaganda; it was not “art.” I looked them in the eye and said: “You are announcing a new novel by Thomas Dixon. Is that ‘art’?”
"Quite recently I tried them again with “King Coal,” and they did not deny that “King Coal” was “art.” But they said: “We think you had better find some publisher who is animated by a great faith.” It is a phrase which I shall remember as long as I live; a perfect phrase, which any comment would spoil. I bought up the plates of “The Jungle,” which Doubleday, Page and Company had allowed to go out of print—not being “animated by a great faith.” I hope some time to issue the book in a cheap edition, and to keep it in circulation until the wage-slaves of the Beef Trust have risen and achieved their freedom. Meantime, it is still being read—and still being lied about. I have before me a clipping from a Seattlepaper. Some one has written to ask if “The Jungle” is a true book. The editor replies, ex cathedra, that President Roosevelt made an investigation of the charges of “The Jungle,” and thoroughly disproved them all!
"And again, here is my friend Edwin E. Slosson, literary editor of the “Independent,” a man who has sense enough to know better than he does. He reviews “The Profits of Religion” in this brief fashion:
"The author of “The Jungle” has taken to muck-raking the churches—with similar success at unearthing malodorous features and similar failure to portray a truthful picture.
"I write to Slosson, just as I wrote to the “New York Evening Post,” to ask what investigation he has made, and what evidence he can produce to back up his charge that “The Jungle” is not a “truthful picture”; and there comes the surprising reply that it had never occurred to Slosson that I myself meant “The Jungle” for a truthful picture. I had not portrayed the marvelous business efficiency of the Stockyards, their wonderful economies, etc.; and no picture that failed to do that could claim to be truthful! That explanation apparently satisfied my friend Slosson, but it did not satisfy the readers of the “Independent”—for the reason that Slosson did not give them an opportunity to read it! He did not publish or mention my protest, and he left his readers to assume, as they naturally would, that the “Independent” considered that I had exaggerated the misery of the Stockyards workers."
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A young editor, W. W. Harris, of New York Herald, came to Point Pleasant, New Jersey, to see Sinclair and persuade him to write about the current situation in Chicago packing yards, being sure that the reforms were phony. Sinclair showed him a letter from a worker, the reforms were phony, but wanted the publisher's assurance before asking the President' S investigator to go see again.
"James Gordon Bennett, the younger, was the son of the man who had founded the “New York Herald,” establishing the sensational, so-called “popular” journalism which Pulitzer and Hearst afterwards took up and carried to extremes. Bennett, the elder, had been a real newspaper man; his son had been a debauche and spendthrift in his youth, and was now in his old age an embittered and cynical invalid, travelling in his yacht from Bermuda to the Riviera, and occasionally resorting to the capitals of Europe for fresh dissipations. He had made his paper the organ of just such men as himself; that is to say, of cosmopolitan cafe loungers, with one eye on the stock-ticker and the other on their “scotch and soda.” And this was the publisher who was to take up a new crusade against the Beef Trust!
"But to my surprise, the editor came back with a cablegram from Bennett, bidding him go ahead with the story. So I put the matter before Mrs. Bloor, and she and the “Herald” reporter went out to the Stockyards and spent about two months. Mrs. Bloor disguised herself as a Polish woman, and both she and the reporter obtained jobs in half a dozen different places in the yards. They came back, reporting that conditions were worse than ever; they wrote their story, enough to fill an eight-page Sunday supplement, with numerous photographs of the scenes described. There was a conference of the editorial staff of the “Herald,” which agreed that the story was the greatest the paper had ever had in its history. It must be read by Mr. Bennett, the staff decided. So it was mailed to Bermuda—which was the last ever seen or heard of it!"
That explains the Reverdy Holdenhurst character and his end in the World's End series. Meanwhile Upton Sinclair speaks about his observations 're glass and steel industries, latter presumably published in his book titled Steel. Next, shamefully shabby treatment of Maxim Gorky by U.S. press, senators and more. ...........................................................
He writes about Helicon Hall, a community of writers living in independent apartments, with pooling of services including kitchen, childcare and housekeeping.
"Also there were the two Yale boys who ran away from college and came to tend our furnaces, and then ran back to college and wrote us up in the “New York Sim.” They were Allan Updegraff and Sinclair Lewis, both of whom have grown up to be novelists. What they wrote about us was playful, and I would have shared in the fun, but for the fact that some of our members had their livings to think about. For example, there was a professor of philosophy at Columbia. Once or twice a week he had to give lectures to the young ladies at Barnard, and the Dean of Barnard was a lady of stern and unbending dignity, and after those articles had appeared our professor would quiver every time he saw her. We were trying in Helicon Hall not to have servants, in the sense of a separate class of inferior animals whom we put off by themselves in the basement of the building. We tried to treat our workers as human beings. Once a week we had a dance, and everybody took part, and the professor of philosophy danced with the two pretty Irish girls who waited on the table. The fact that his wife was present ought to have made a difference, even to a Dean, but the stories in the “Sun” did not mention the wife.
"So before long we began to notice dark hints in the newspapers; such esoteric phrases as “Sinclair’s love-nest.” I have since talked with newspaper men and learned that it was generally taken for granted by the newspaper-world that Helicon Hall was a place which I had formed for the purpose of having many beautiful women about me. Either that, or else a diseased craving for notoriety! I remember Ridgway of “Everybody’s” asking the question: “Couldn’t you find some less troublesome way of advertising yourself?”
"Now, I was still naive about many things in the world, but I assure the reader that I had by this time learned enough to have kept myself securely on the front pages of the newspapers, if that had been my aim in life. A group of capitalists had come to me with a proposition to found a model meat-packing establishment; they had offered me three hundred thousand dollars worth of stock for the use of my name, and if I had accepted that offer and become the head of one of the city’s commercial show-places, lavishing full-page advertisements upon the newspapers, I might have had the choicest and most dignified kind of publicity, I might have been another Nicholas Murray Butler or George Harvey; I might have been invited to be the chief orator at banquets of the Chamber of Commerce and the National Civic Federation, and my eloquence would have been printed to the extent of columns; I might have joined the Union League Club and the Century Club, and my name would have gone upon the list of people about whom no uncomplimentary news may be published under any circumstances. At the same time I might have kept one or more apartments on Riverside Drive, with just as many beautiful women in them as I wished, and no one would have criticized me, no newspaper would have dropped hints about “love-nests.” I have known many men, prominent capitalists and even prominent publishers and editors, who have done this, and you have never known about it—you would not know about it in ten thousand life-times, under our present system of predatory Journalism." ...........................................................
Helicon Home Colony was destroyed by fire, and press went to town with innuendos.
"They did not allow me to state that at the time the mysterious fire took place I had in the building the data of many months of secret investigation into the armor-plate frauds, whereby the Carnegie Steel Company had robbed the United States government of a sum which the government admitted to be seven hundred thousand dollars, but which I could have proven to be many millions. I had, for example, the precise designation of a certain plate (A.619) in the conning-tower of the battleship “Oregon,” which was full of plugged up blow-holes, and would have splintered like glass if struck by a shell. I had the originals of the shop-records of many such plates, which had been doctored in the hand-writings of certain gentlemen now high in the counsels of the Steel Trust. I had enough evidence to have sent these prominent gentlemen to the penitentiary for life, and I myself came very near being burned along with it. I put a brief account of these matters into “The Money-changers,” and some of the heads of the Steel Trust announced that they were going to sue me for libel, but thought better of it. I shall give some details about the matter later on, in telling the story of “The Money-changers” and its adventures." ...........................................................
He writes about the press attacking The Metropolis.
"I am not proud of “The Metropolis” as a work of art; I was ill and desperately harassed when I wrote it, and I would not defend it as literature. But as a picture of the manners and morals of the “smart set” of New York, I am prepared to defend it as a mild statement of the truth. I have been charged with exaggeration in the prices I quoted, the cost of the orgies of the “smart set.” These prices I had verified, not from the columns of the yellow journals, but by the inspection of bills. I was accused of crudeness in mentioning prices, because in “society” it is not good form to mention them. I would answer that this is one of the shams which “society” seeks to impose upon the wondering multitude. I have never anywhere heard such crude talk about the prices of things and the worldly possessions of people as I have heard among the idle rich in New York. And even if “society” were as austere and free from vulgarity as it wishes the penny-a-liners and hack-writers to believe, that would make no difference to me; for if people are squandering the blood and tears of the poor in luxury and wantonness, it does not seem to me such a great virtue that they avoid referring to the fact."
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The following is incorporated in The Moneychangers, which seems to be a sequel to The Metropolis.
"It happened that I was in New York in the fall of 1907, and was in Kelly’s study late one evening. I had to wait an hour or two for him, and he came in, deeply moved, and told me that he had just left the home of an old friend, Charles T. Barney, President of the Knickerbocker Trust Company, who was in dire distress. I had been reading in the papers for a couple of days wild rumors of trouble in this institution, which had built itself a miniature Greek temple at the corner of Thirty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue. Now I got the inside story of what was going on. It appeared that the masters of high finance in New York, of whom the late J. P. Morgan was king, had determined to break these new institutions, the independent trust companies which were creeping in upon their preserves. Morgan had deliberately led Barney into entanglements, and had given him definite promise of support. That night, when called upon by Barney, he had repudiated his pledge; so the Knickerbocker Trust Company was doomed, several other trust companies would go with it, and the whole financial structure of New York would be shaken to the foundations. Kelly had promised even that late at night to make appeals in Barney’s behalf, so I left him. Next morning I read in the paper that an hour or two after Kelly had parted from him, the President of the Knickerbocker Trust Company had shot himself through the body."
"It happened that I was in New York in the fall of 1907, and was in Kelly’s study late one evening. I had to wait an hour or two for him, and he came in, deeply moved, and told me that he had just left the home of an old friend, Charles T. Barney, President of the Knickerbocker Trust Company, who was in dire distress. I had been reading in the papers for a couple of days wild rumors of trouble in this institution, which had built itself a miniature Greek temple at the corner of Thirty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue. Now I got the inside story of what was going on. It appeared that the masters of high finance in New York, of whom the late J. P. Morgan was king, had determined to break these new institutions, the independent trust companies which were creeping in upon their preserves. Morgan had deliberately led Barney into entanglements, and had given him definite promise of support. That night, when called upon by Barney, he had repudiated his pledge; so the Knickerbocker Trust Company was doomed, several other trust companies would go with it, and the whole financial structure of New York would be shaken to the foundations. Kelly had promised even that late at night to make appeals in Barney’s behalf, so I left him. Next morning I read in the paper that an hour or two after Kelly had parted from him, the President of the Knickerbocker Trust Company had shot himself through the body."
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"Since the year 1908, when “The Money-changers” was published, it has been the rule of American literary authorities that in discussions of American novelists my name is not mentioned. In 1914 Georg Brandes, the greatest of living critics, visited America, and to reporters at the steamer he made the statement that there were three American novelists whom he found worth reading, Frank Norris, Jack London, and Upton Sinclair. Every New York newspaper except one quoted Dr. Brandes as saying that there were two American novelists he found worth reading, Frank Norris and Jack London. Dr. Brandes was puzzled by this incident, and asked me the reason; when I told him, he consented to write a preface to my next novel, “King Coal.” He spoke so highly of the book that I refrain from quoting him. But did his praise make any difference to American critics? It did not."
Author writes about the facts mentioned in the book, and the press being silent depending on degree of their "respectability ".
Author writes about the facts mentioned in the book, and the press being silent depending on degree of their "respectability ".
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Press sensationalised Upton Sinclair's diet and his letter of protest to hotel about overcharging, and worse, his conversation about facts regarding marriages he'd seen, and the southern gentleman who was later to be his father in law believed the press.
"He read this editorial, and got a certain impression of Upton Sinclair; and so you may imagine his feelings when, two or three years later, he learned that his favorite daughter intended to marry the possessor of this “diseased and perverted mind.” He took the beautiful oil painting of his favorite daughter which hangs in his drawing-room, and turned it to the wall.
".... after all the tears had been shed and the marriage was a couple of years in the past, I went down to visit this old Southern gentleman. It was a queer introduction; because the old gentleman was horribly embarrassed, and I, being impersonal and used to being called bad names, had no idea of it. After we had chatted for an hour or two I retired, and the daughter said: “Well, Papa, what do you think of him?”
"The old gentleman is quaintly shy and reticent, and had probably never made an apology in his life before. He did it all in one sentence; “I see I overspoke myself.”"
"He read this editorial, and got a certain impression of Upton Sinclair; and so you may imagine his feelings when, two or three years later, he learned that his favorite daughter intended to marry the possessor of this “diseased and perverted mind.” He took the beautiful oil painting of his favorite daughter which hangs in his drawing-room, and turned it to the wall.
".... after all the tears had been shed and the marriage was a couple of years in the past, I went down to visit this old Southern gentleman. It was a queer introduction; because the old gentleman was horribly embarrassed, and I, being impersonal and used to being called bad names, had no idea of it. After we had chatted for an hour or two I retired, and the daughter said: “Well, Papa, what do you think of him?”
"The old gentleman is quaintly shy and reticent, and had probably never made an apology in his life before. He did it all in one sentence; “I see I overspoke myself.”"
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Author moved to Arden, DE, and used the name of Newcastle close by in World's End series, only shifting it to CT, on Long Island Sound.
His experiences thereafter, including press treatment of his private life and that of George D. Herron, must be read, it cannot be summed in a few quotations.
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About the coal strike in Colorado:-
"The crux of the struggle in Denver during these critical months was the State militia. This militia had been called out and sent to the strike-field because of violence deliberately and systematically committed by the armed thugs of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency. There were one or two thousand of these thugs in the field, and they had beaten up the strikers and their wives, and turned machine-guns upon their tent-colonies. The militia had come, supposedly to restore law and order, but the militia authorities had proceeded to recruit new companies from among these detectives and thugs. This was systematically denied by the newspapers, not merely in Colorado, but all over the country; later on, however, the State legislature forced the production of the roster of the militia, and it appeared that of one single company, newly recruited, one hundred and nineteen members out of one hundred and twenty-two had been employes of the strike-breaking agencies, and had continued on the pay-rolls of the coal-companies while serving in the State militia! They had been armed by the State, clothed in the uniform of the State, covered by the flag of the State—and turned loose to commit the very crimes they were supposed to be preventing! The culmination of this perversion of government had been the Ludlow Massacre, which drove the miners to frenzy. There had been a miniature revolution in Colorado; armed working-men had taken possession of the coal-country, and the helpless State government had appealed to the Federal authorities to send in Federal troops.
"The Federal troops had come, and the miners had loyally obeyed them. From the hour that the first regulars appeared, no shot was fired in the whole region. The Federal authorities preserved law and order, and meantime the State legislature was called to deal with the situation. This State legislature was composed of hand-picked machine politicians, and all its orders were given from the offices of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, Senator Van Tilborg, machine-leader, personally declared to me his opinion that all the State needed was “three hundred men who could shoot straight and quick.” The State authorities meant to find these three hundred men; they passed a bill appropriating a million dollars for military purposes, and another bill providing for the disarming of all people in the State who were not in the service of the corporations.
"The strike at this time had continued for seven months, and the strikers were in their tent-colonies, sullenly awaiting developments. The program of the corporations was to strengthen the State militia, then have it take charge and maintain itself by machine-guns. The attitude of the general public to this proposition may be gathered from the mass-meeting in the State capitol, where one or two thousand people raised their hands and pledged themselves that they would never permit the prostituted militia to go back to the mines.
So stood matters as of Saturday, May 16th, 1914. President Wilson had realised what was going on and wrote sternly to Governor Ammons of Colorado, who pleaded inability to deal with the situation when Upton Sinclair saw him, refused to accept suggestions, and consulted mining operators about how to deal with the strike and the President.
A democratic senator, Helen Ring Robinson, tried to bring the President's telegram, and the Governor's reply, to attention of legislature, but her efforts were cut of by a republican one. Upton Sinclair sent a telegram to President Wilson detailing the lie and trickery, and showed it to the local newspaper, who assured him they'd print it. Associated Press did not send it out, and instead gave an impression to the country thst the President was satisfied with Governor. When pointed out their lies, the Governor and the press chose to attack Upton Sinclair.
Upton Sinclair made it clear to them they were lying, and lying to the President, and communicated this to the President. He took it all to AssociatedPress, who refused to send it out. Upton Sinclair sent it out personally to most of respectable newspapers across the country by collect telegrams, and fifteen out of twenty accepted it.
Upton Sinclair returned to Colorado, having warned his wife to be aware that he'd be attacked and persecuted with false scandals in press.
"There are people who live upright and straightforward lives, and concerning whom no breath of scandal is ever whispered; such people are apt to think that all anyone has to do to avoid scandal is to lead upright and straightforward lives as they do. They see some man who keeps dubious company, and is given to “smart” conversation; concerning such a man an evil report is readily believed; and they conclude that if any man is a victim of scandal, he must be such a man as that. But how if a scandal were deliberately started, concerning a person who had done nothing whatever to deserve it? My wife tells of a woman in her home town who would destroy the reputation of a young girl by the lifting of an eyebrow, the gesture of a fan in a ballroom. She would do this, sometimes from pure malice, sometimes from jealousy for her daughter. You can understand that among sophisticated people such practices might become a subtle art; and how if it were to occur to great “interests,” threatened in their power, to hire such arts? Let me assure you that this thing is done all over the United States; it is done all over the world, where there is privilege defending itself against social protest."
"In San Francisco they raised a million dollar fund, and with the help of their newspapers set to work deliberately to railroad five perfectly innocent labor-men to the gallows. In Lawrence, Massachusetts, the great Woolen Trust planted dynamite in the homes of strike-breakers, and with the help of their newspapers sought to fasten this crime upon the union; only by an accident were these conspirators exposed, and all but the rich one brought to justice."
"I was assured by Judge Lindsey, and by James Randolph Walker, at that time chairman of Denver’s reform organization, that the corporations of that city had a regular bureau for such work. The head of it was a woman doctor, provided with a large subsidy, numerous agents, and a regular card catalogue of her victims. When someone was to be ruined, she would invent a story which fitted as far as possible with the victim’s character and habits; and then some scheme would be devised to enable the newspapers to print the story without danger of libel suits."
Upton Sinclair offered to talk to ladies of Law and Order League of Denver who met in the parlour of a great hotel.
"Instead of hearing me, the league heard a clergyman, the Rev. Pingree, who declared that if he could have his way he would blow up all the strikers’ homes with dynamite!"
Upton Sinclair and his wife moved to Southern California, she was unwell, and he proceeded to write King Coal. He spoke at a Ladies Club Luncheon, and press unreported it deliberately, with a Times editorial going vituperative subsequently. He accompanied a friend later to the same club, and spoke to the ladies referring to the press, after the friend's speech.
"I referred playfully to what the “Times” had said about me, and was astonished at the ovation I received. The women rose from their seats to let me know that they appreciated the insult to them involved in the “Times” editorial. It is the same thing that I have noted everywhere, whenever I refer to the subject of our newspapers. The American people thoroughly despise and hate their newspapers; yet they seem to have no idea what to do about it, and take it for granted that they must go on reading falsehoods for the balance of their days!"
Times quoted from Upton Sinclair's speech at a meeting in California when he changed his pacifist stance due to need of joining WWI.
"“My one interest in the world is democratic self-government. I have fought for this at every sacrifice of personal advantage for twenty years. I consider that all modern governments are evil, based upon injustice, but I am bound to recognize that there are degrees in this evil. The test is whether the government leaves the people free to agitate against it. This the British government to a great extent has done; so has the French; the German has not.
"“For us to permit the Prussian ruling class to beat England to her knees by the methods of general piracy that have been adopted is to put democracy in peril of its life, and to make certain an age of military preparation in the United States, Canada and Australia.
"“If we go into the war the thing to do is to decide in advance the terms, and let these be such as to unite all the democratic forces of the world behind us. We do not want Germany beaten to her knees and territories given to her enemies. We do not want to underwrite the program of Russia in Constantinople. We want to remove these points of contention from the arena.
"“We want to heal up the ancient wounds. We want to teach all rulers and all peoples that civilization will permit no one to gain territory by war. We want to inter-nationalize the Dardanelles, Alsace-Lorraine, Belgium, Poland, and to say that we, all the world, will fight to put down any state which at any time attempts to invade them.”"
"The crux of the struggle in Denver during these critical months was the State militia. This militia had been called out and sent to the strike-field because of violence deliberately and systematically committed by the armed thugs of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency. There were one or two thousand of these thugs in the field, and they had beaten up the strikers and their wives, and turned machine-guns upon their tent-colonies. The militia had come, supposedly to restore law and order, but the militia authorities had proceeded to recruit new companies from among these detectives and thugs. This was systematically denied by the newspapers, not merely in Colorado, but all over the country; later on, however, the State legislature forced the production of the roster of the militia, and it appeared that of one single company, newly recruited, one hundred and nineteen members out of one hundred and twenty-two had been employes of the strike-breaking agencies, and had continued on the pay-rolls of the coal-companies while serving in the State militia! They had been armed by the State, clothed in the uniform of the State, covered by the flag of the State—and turned loose to commit the very crimes they were supposed to be preventing! The culmination of this perversion of government had been the Ludlow Massacre, which drove the miners to frenzy. There had been a miniature revolution in Colorado; armed working-men had taken possession of the coal-country, and the helpless State government had appealed to the Federal authorities to send in Federal troops.
"The Federal troops had come, and the miners had loyally obeyed them. From the hour that the first regulars appeared, no shot was fired in the whole region. The Federal authorities preserved law and order, and meantime the State legislature was called to deal with the situation. This State legislature was composed of hand-picked machine politicians, and all its orders were given from the offices of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, Senator Van Tilborg, machine-leader, personally declared to me his opinion that all the State needed was “three hundred men who could shoot straight and quick.” The State authorities meant to find these three hundred men; they passed a bill appropriating a million dollars for military purposes, and another bill providing for the disarming of all people in the State who were not in the service of the corporations.
"The strike at this time had continued for seven months, and the strikers were in their tent-colonies, sullenly awaiting developments. The program of the corporations was to strengthen the State militia, then have it take charge and maintain itself by machine-guns. The attitude of the general public to this proposition may be gathered from the mass-meeting in the State capitol, where one or two thousand people raised their hands and pledged themselves that they would never permit the prostituted militia to go back to the mines.
So stood matters as of Saturday, May 16th, 1914. President Wilson had realised what was going on and wrote sternly to Governor Ammons of Colorado, who pleaded inability to deal with the situation when Upton Sinclair saw him, refused to accept suggestions, and consulted mining operators about how to deal with the strike and the President.
A democratic senator, Helen Ring Robinson, tried to bring the President's telegram, and the Governor's reply, to attention of legislature, but her efforts were cut of by a republican one. Upton Sinclair sent a telegram to President Wilson detailing the lie and trickery, and showed it to the local newspaper, who assured him they'd print it. Associated Press did not send it out, and instead gave an impression to the country thst the President was satisfied with Governor. When pointed out their lies, the Governor and the press chose to attack Upton Sinclair.
Upton Sinclair made it clear to them they were lying, and lying to the President, and communicated this to the President. He took it all to AssociatedPress, who refused to send it out. Upton Sinclair sent it out personally to most of respectable newspapers across the country by collect telegrams, and fifteen out of twenty accepted it.
Upton Sinclair returned to Colorado, having warned his wife to be aware that he'd be attacked and persecuted with false scandals in press.
"There are people who live upright and straightforward lives, and concerning whom no breath of scandal is ever whispered; such people are apt to think that all anyone has to do to avoid scandal is to lead upright and straightforward lives as they do. They see some man who keeps dubious company, and is given to “smart” conversation; concerning such a man an evil report is readily believed; and they conclude that if any man is a victim of scandal, he must be such a man as that. But how if a scandal were deliberately started, concerning a person who had done nothing whatever to deserve it? My wife tells of a woman in her home town who would destroy the reputation of a young girl by the lifting of an eyebrow, the gesture of a fan in a ballroom. She would do this, sometimes from pure malice, sometimes from jealousy for her daughter. You can understand that among sophisticated people such practices might become a subtle art; and how if it were to occur to great “interests,” threatened in their power, to hire such arts? Let me assure you that this thing is done all over the United States; it is done all over the world, where there is privilege defending itself against social protest."
"In San Francisco they raised a million dollar fund, and with the help of their newspapers set to work deliberately to railroad five perfectly innocent labor-men to the gallows. In Lawrence, Massachusetts, the great Woolen Trust planted dynamite in the homes of strike-breakers, and with the help of their newspapers sought to fasten this crime upon the union; only by an accident were these conspirators exposed, and all but the rich one brought to justice."
"I was assured by Judge Lindsey, and by James Randolph Walker, at that time chairman of Denver’s reform organization, that the corporations of that city had a regular bureau for such work. The head of it was a woman doctor, provided with a large subsidy, numerous agents, and a regular card catalogue of her victims. When someone was to be ruined, she would invent a story which fitted as far as possible with the victim’s character and habits; and then some scheme would be devised to enable the newspapers to print the story without danger of libel suits."
Upton Sinclair offered to talk to ladies of Law and Order League of Denver who met in the parlour of a great hotel.
"Instead of hearing me, the league heard a clergyman, the Rev. Pingree, who declared that if he could have his way he would blow up all the strikers’ homes with dynamite!"
...........................................................
"I referred playfully to what the “Times” had said about me, and was astonished at the ovation I received. The women rose from their seats to let me know that they appreciated the insult to them involved in the “Times” editorial. It is the same thing that I have noted everywhere, whenever I refer to the subject of our newspapers. The American people thoroughly despise and hate their newspapers; yet they seem to have no idea what to do about it, and take it for granted that they must go on reading falsehoods for the balance of their days!"
...........................................................
"I read that Russia had a Socialist premier by the name of Kerensky, and that he did not know what to do with the Tsar and his family, I wrote to him a letter suggesting “An Island of Kings”—one of the Catalina Islands, off Los Angeles, as a place where the dethroned sovereigns of Europe might be interned, under the guardianship of the United States government. This, you perceive, was a “boost” to Southern California; it conveyed to the outside world the information that Southern California has a wonderful out-door climate, and beautiful islands with wild goats running over them, and deep sea fishing off the shores. I offered this story to the “Los Angeles Times,” and they grabbed it, and it went out at once over the Associated Press wires."
...........................................................
Times quoted from Upton Sinclair's speech at a meeting in California when he changed his pacifist stance due to need of joining WWI.
"“My one interest in the world is democratic self-government. I have fought for this at every sacrifice of personal advantage for twenty years. I consider that all modern governments are evil, based upon injustice, but I am bound to recognize that there are degrees in this evil. The test is whether the government leaves the people free to agitate against it. This the British government to a great extent has done; so has the French; the German has not.
"“For us to permit the Prussian ruling class to beat England to her knees by the methods of general piracy that have been adopted is to put democracy in peril of its life, and to make certain an age of military preparation in the United States, Canada and Australia.
"“If we go into the war the thing to do is to decide in advance the terms, and let these be such as to unite all the democratic forces of the world behind us. We do not want Germany beaten to her knees and territories given to her enemies. We do not want to underwrite the program of Russia in Constantinople. We want to remove these points of contention from the arena.
"“We want to heal up the ancient wounds. We want to teach all rulers and all peoples that civilization will permit no one to gain territory by war. We want to inter-nationalize the Dardanelles, Alsace-Lorraine, Belgium, Poland, and to say that we, all the world, will fight to put down any state which at any time attempts to invade them.”"
...........................................................
"There are, of course, libel laws in California, so the “Times” dares not come out fairly and squarely with the statement that I was disloyal during the war. What it does is to scan my every word and action, and report them with subtly chosen phrases which expose me to suspicion, without making definite charges."
"When in war-time they add the words: “Sinclair is still under surveillance,” they mean, of course, that their readers shall derive the impression that the “Anarchist writer” is under surveillance by the Department of Justice; but if I should sue them for libel, they would plead that they meant I was under surveillance by a surgeon!"
"When in war-time they add the words: “Sinclair is still under surveillance,” they mean, of course, that their readers shall derive the impression that the “Anarchist writer” is under surveillance by the Department of Justice; but if I should sue them for libel, they would plead that they meant I was under surveillance by a surgeon!"
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"There was brought to my attention the case of Raoul Palma, a young Mexican Socialist of an especially fine type, who had earned the enmity of the Los Angeles police by persisting in speaking on the Plaza. They had brought against him a charge of murder, as perfect a case of “frame-up” as I ever saw. I spent much time investigating the case, which failed for lack of evidence when brought before a jury."
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"It is “Wall Street,” it is “Big Business,” it is “the Trusts.” It is the “System” of Lincoln Steffens, the “Invisible Government” of Woodrow Wilson, the “Empire of Business” of Andrew Carnegie, the “Plutocracy” of the populists. It has been made the theme of so much stump-oratory that in cultured circles it is considered good form to speak of it in quotation marks, with a playful and skeptical implication; but the simple fact is that this power has controlled American public life since the civil war, and is greater at this hour than ever before in our history."
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"There are perhaps a dozen newspapers in America which have been built up by slow stages out of the pennies of workingmen, and which exist to assert the rights of workingmen. The ones I happen to know are the “New York Call,” the “Jewish Daily Forwards,” the “Milwaukee Leader,” the “Seattle Union Record,” the “Butte Daily Bulletin.” It should be understood that in future discussions I except such newspapers from what I say about American Journalism. This reservation being made, I assert there is no daily newspaper in America which does not represent and serve vested wealth, and which has not for its ultimate aim the protection of economic privilege."
"Some one has said that to talk of regulating capital is to talk of moralizing a tiger; I would say that to expect justice and truth-telling of a capitalist newspaper is to expect asceticism at a cannibal feast."
"There will be certain immediate financial interests—the great family which owns the paper, the great bank which holds its bonds, the important local trade which furnishes its advertising. Concerning these people you observe that no impolite word is ever spoken, and the debut parties given to the young ladies of these families are reported in detail. On the other hand, if there are interests aggressively hostile to the great family, the great bank, the important local trade, you observe that here the newspaper becomes suddenly and unexpectedly altruistic. It will be in favor of public ownership of the gas-works; it will be in favor of more rigid control of state banks; whatever its policy may be, you will, if you sit at the dinner-tables of the rich in that city, have revealed to you the financial interests which lie behind that unexpected altruism."
"You could not buy the editorial support of the “Springfield Republican” or the “Baltimore Sun”; you could not buy the advertising space of these papers for the cheaper and more obvious kinds of fraud. But ask yourself this question: Is there a newspaper in America which will print news unfavorable to department-stores? If the girl-slaves of the local department-store go on strike, will the newspaper maintain their right to picket? Will it even print the truth about what they do and say?"
"Some years ago an old man committed suicide because his few shares of express-stock lost their value. The “New York Times” was opposing parcel-post, because the big express-companies were a prominent part of the city’s political and financial machine; the “New York Times” presented this item of news as a suicide caused by the parcel-post!"
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"Hardly a week passes that someone does not send me a copy of some country paper which calls for the stringing-up of Socialists to lamp-posts, and denounces highly educated Bolshevik leaders in editorials with half a dozen grammatical errors to the column.
"And if you go to the small town in Pennsylvania or Arkansas or Colorado, or wherever this paper is published, you find a country editor on the level of intelligence of the local horse-doctors of Englewood, New Jersey, and Tarrytown, New York, whose proceedings I have described in this book. Frequently you find this editor hanging on by his eye-teeth, with a mortgage at the local bank, carried because of favors he does to the local money-power. You find him getting a regular monthly income from the copper-interests or the coal-interests or the lumber-interests, whatever happens to be dominant in that locality. You find him heavily subsidized at election-time by the two political machines of these great interests. His paper is used to print the speeches of the candidates of these interests, and five or ten or fifty thousand copies of this particular issue are paid for by these interests and distributed at meetings. Campaign circulars and other literature are printed in the printing-office of this newspaper, and of course the public advertising appears in its columns—a graft which is found in every state and county of the Union, and is a means by which hundreds of millions of dollars are paid as a disguised subsidy by the interests which run our two-party political system.
"Our great metropolitan newspapers take a fine tone of dignity, they stand for the welfare of the general public, they are above all considerations of greed. But the conditions under which these small-town newspapers are published do not permit them to pretend to such austerity, or even to conceive of it. They are quite frankly “out for the stuff”—as everybody else they know is “out for the stuff.” For example, the “Tarrytown News,” which jumped on me with its cloven hoofs, declaring that my home had been raided as a “free love” place. This “Tarrytown News” explained quite honestly why it was opposed to allowing agitators to come to Tarrytown and denounce the Rockefellers. And why was it? Because the Rockefellers stood for religion and the home, the Constitution and the Star-Spangled Banner and the Declaration of Independence? No, not at all; it was because the Rockefellers carried a pay-roll in Tarrytown of thirty thousand dollars a month."
"And if you go to the small town in Pennsylvania or Arkansas or Colorado, or wherever this paper is published, you find a country editor on the level of intelligence of the local horse-doctors of Englewood, New Jersey, and Tarrytown, New York, whose proceedings I have described in this book. Frequently you find this editor hanging on by his eye-teeth, with a mortgage at the local bank, carried because of favors he does to the local money-power. You find him getting a regular monthly income from the copper-interests or the coal-interests or the lumber-interests, whatever happens to be dominant in that locality. You find him heavily subsidized at election-time by the two political machines of these great interests. His paper is used to print the speeches of the candidates of these interests, and five or ten or fifty thousand copies of this particular issue are paid for by these interests and distributed at meetings. Campaign circulars and other literature are printed in the printing-office of this newspaper, and of course the public advertising appears in its columns—a graft which is found in every state and county of the Union, and is a means by which hundreds of millions of dollars are paid as a disguised subsidy by the interests which run our two-party political system.
"Our great metropolitan newspapers take a fine tone of dignity, they stand for the welfare of the general public, they are above all considerations of greed. But the conditions under which these small-town newspapers are published do not permit them to pretend to such austerity, or even to conceive of it. They are quite frankly “out for the stuff”—as everybody else they know is “out for the stuff.” For example, the “Tarrytown News,” which jumped on me with its cloven hoofs, declaring that my home had been raided as a “free love” place. This “Tarrytown News” explained quite honestly why it was opposed to allowing agitators to come to Tarrytown and denounce the Rockefellers. And why was it? Because the Rockefellers stood for religion and the home, the Constitution and the Star-Spangled Banner and the Declaration of Independence? No, not at all; it was because the Rockefellers carried a pay-roll in Tarrytown of thirty thousand dollars a month."
"He gets his “filler” in the form of “boiler-plate,” sent practically free from Washington and New York—this matter containing fiction, poetry, “special stories,” novelty and gossip of the sort his readers find entertaining. What difference does it make if sandwiched in between this reading matter is the poison propaganda of the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association, of the tariff-lobbyists, the railroad-lobbyists, the liquor-lobbyists, the whole machine of capitalist graft and greed?"
"The other day I had a call from the editor of a small newspaper, out here in this broad free West, about which you read in romances. The editor explained that he hadn’t dared to write and order my books; he couldn’t afford to let a check, payable to me, go through his bank; he called personally, and would carry the books home in his trunk!"
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"The methods by which the “Empire of Business” maintains its control over Journalism are four: First, ownership of the papers; second, ownership of the owners; third, advertising subsidies; and fourth, direct bribery. By these methods there exists in America a control of news and of current comment more absolute than any monopoly in any other industry. This statement may sound extreme, but if you will think about it you will realize that in the very nature of the case it must be true. It does not destroy the steel trust if there are a few independent steel-makers, it does not destroy the money trust if there are a few independent men, of wealth, but it does destroy the news trust if there is a single independent newspaper to let the cat out of the bag."
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There is just too much content, as usual, to quote or even comment, in this succinct and mindboggling detailed indictment of the press enslavement by capital, but a small quote that's quite startling and perplexing for a very different reason, at once apparent, comes up :-
"The strong movement in New Hampshire, headed by Winston Churchill, to free that state from the grasp of the Boston and Maine Railway Company and the movement in New Jersey led by Everett Colby, which resulted in the defeat of Senator Dryden, the president of the Prudential Insurance Company, have not been given to the people adequately as matters of news."
It's not the British PM Upton Sinclair refers to, but an author of U.S. origin and citizenship, coincidence of whose name had the effect of him being overshadowed even in his own field, since the more famous namesake was a prolific author of his memoirs and was awarded the Nobel prize!
There is just too much content, as usual, to quote or even comment, in this succinct and mindboggling detailed indictment of the press enslavement by capital, but a small quote that's quite startling and perplexing for a very different reason, at once apparent, comes up :-
"The strong movement in New Hampshire, headed by Winston Churchill, to free that state from the grasp of the Boston and Maine Railway Company and the movement in New Jersey led by Everett Colby, which resulted in the defeat of Senator Dryden, the president of the Prudential Insurance Company, have not been given to the people adequately as matters of news."
It's not the British PM Upton Sinclair refers to, but an author of U.S. origin and citizenship, coincidence of whose name had the effect of him being overshadowed even in his own field, since the more famous namesake was a prolific author of his memoirs and was awarded the Nobel prize!
...........................................................
About Associated Press:-
"Will Irwin, writing in “Harper’s Weekly,” shows how the old reactionary forces shape the policy of the organization. “The subordinates have drifted inevitably toward the point of view held by their masters.” And again, of the average Associated Press correspondent: “A movement in stocks is to him news—big news. Wide-spread industrial misery in a mining camp is scarcely news at all.” At a conference at the University of Wisconsin, the editor of the “Madison Democrat” stated that he had been a correspondent of the Associated Press for many years, and had never been asked “to suppress news or to color news in any way whatever.” Reply was made by A. M. Simons: “I have had many reporters working under me, and every one of you know that you will not have a reporter on your paper who cannot ‘catch policy’ in two weeks.”
"The general manager of the Associated Press makes public boast of the high character of his employes. “Throughout the profession, employment in its service is regarded as an evidence of character and reliability.” Such is the glittering generality; but investigate a little, and you find one Associated Press correspondent, Calvin F. Young, of Charleston, West Virginia, engaged in sending strike-news to his organization, and at the same time in the pay of the mine-owners, collecting affidavits against the strikers. You find a second Associated Press correspondent, E. Wentworth Prescott, of Boston, dipping into the slush funds of the New Haven Railroad, and giving an explanation of his services, so lacking in plausibility that Interstate Commerce Commissioner Anderson remarks: “I don’t see why they couldn’t just as well have hired you to count the telegraph poles on the street!”
"The Associated Press is probably the most iron-clad monopoly in America. It was organized originally as a corporation under the laws of Illinois, but the Illinois courts declared it a monopoly, so it moved out of Illinois, and reorganized itself as a “membership corporation,” thus evading the law. Today, if you wish to start a morning newspaper in the village of Corn Center, Kansas, you may get an Associated Press franchise; but if you want to start one in any city or town within circulating distance of the big “forty-one-vote” insiders, you might as well apply for a flying-machine to visit the moon. The members of the Associated Press have what is called “the right of protest”—that is, they can object to new franchises being issued; and this power they use ruthlessly to maintain their monopoly. Says Will Irwin:
"To the best of my knowledge, only two or three new franchises have ever been granted over the right of protest—and those after a terrible fight. Few, indeed, have had the hardihood to apply. When such an application comes up in the annual meeting, the members shake with laughter as they shout out a unanimous “No!” For owing to the exclusive terms of the charter, an Associated Press franchise to a metropolitan newspaper is worth from fifty thousand dollars to two hundred thousand dollars. Abolish the exclusive feature, throw the Association open to all, and you wipe out these values. The publishers are taking no chances with a precedent so dangerous."
"A few years ago the editor of the “News” of Santa Cruz, California, applied for the Associated Press franchise for his paper. The San Francisco manager of the Associated Press refused it, and gave this explanation, according to a statement by the editor of the “News”:
"The San Francisco daily papers owned all the Associated Press franchises for that city, and they also controlled a vast outlying territory, including Santa Cruz, eighty miles away, and would refuse to permit Associated Press dispatches to be printed by me or anyone else in Santa Cruz.
"There is only one way to get by this barrier, and that is to pay the price. Joseph A. Scranton, proprietor of the “Scranton Republican,” forced a man who wished to start another newspaper in Scranton to pay him ten thousand dollars before he could have the Associated Press franchise for that small city. When the “San Francisco Globe” wanted the Associated Press franchise, it had to buy the “San Francisco Post” at the price of a hundred and ten thousand dollars. Admittedly the “Post” had no value, it was not a competitor in any sense; the price paid was for the franchise alone—and it was stated by the “San Francisco Star” that the greater part of the value consisted in a lower telegraph rate, a special privilege granted by the Western Union telegraph company to the Associated Press.
"Also the Associated Press, being a membership corporation or club, possesses the legal right to expel and to discipline its members. This right it has specifically asserted in its charter; it may expel a member “for any conduct on his part, or on the part of anyone in his employ or connected with his newspaper, which in its absolute discretion it shall deem of such a character as to be prejudicial to the welfare and interest of the corporation and its members, or to justify such expulsion. The action of the members of the corporation in such regard shall be final, and there shall be no right of appeal or review of such action.”
"This, you perceive, is power to destroy any newspaper overnight. Not merely may a franchise worth two hundred thousand dollars be wiped out at the whim of the little controlling oligarchy; the entire value of the newspaper may be destroyed; for of course a big morning newspaper cannot exist without its franchise. The masters of the “A. P.” hold this whip over the head of every member; and Will Irwin tells what use they make of it:
"Two or three liberal publishers have expressed to me, after mutual pledges of confidence, their opinion of the “A. P. cinch.” And they have finished by saying something like this:
"“But for heaven’s sake don’t quote me in print, and don’t tell anyone I’ve said this. The fine for such an offense runs from fifty thousand dollars up!”"
"Max Eastman, in the “Masses” for July, 1913, made very specific charges against the Associated Press, which thereupon caused Eastman’s arrest for criminal libel. The indictment brought by the Grand Jury against Eastman and Art Young quotes a paragraph from the offending editorial, as follows:
"I am told that every trust is to be encouraged to live its life and grow to such proportions that it may and must be taken over by the working public. But one trust that I find it impossible to encourage is this Truth Trust, the Associated Press. So long as the substance of current history continues to be held in cold storage, adulterated, colored with poisonous intentions, and sold to the highest bidder to suit his private purposes, there is small hope that even the free and the intelligent will take the side of justice in the struggle that is before us.
"The indictment goes on to interpret the above:
"Meaning and intending thereby that the said corporation intentionally withheld, suppressed and concealed from its members information of important items of news and intelligence and intentionally supplied its members with information that was untruthful, biased, inaccurate and incomplete, and that the said corporation for and in consideration of moneys paid to it intentionally supplied to its members misinformation concerning happenings and events that constituted the news and intelligence of the day.
"Then the indictment quotes another paragraph from the editorial:
"The representative of the Associated Press was an officer in that military tribunal that hounded the Paint Creek miners into the penitentiary in violation of their constitutional liberties; and this fact is even more significant and more serious than the abrogation of those liberties. It shows that the one thing which all tribes and nations in time have held sacred—the body of Truth—is for sale to organized capital in the United States."
"The indictment interprets this as follows:
"Meaning and intending thereby that the said corporation was willing to and did in consideration of money paid to it knowingly supply to its members information of such untruthful, biased and prejudiced nature and so distorted and incomplete as the person paying such money might desire.
"This indictment was widely heralded in the press, and everybody thought they were going to get the truth about the Associated Press at last. But when the case was ready for trial, it was mysteriously dropped. For six years I have wondered why it was dropped. I cannot say now that I know; but I have just met Max Eastman, and heard from his lips the story of a certain eminent corporation lawyer in New York, who on several occasions has “kicked over the traces” of Big Business. This man knows a great deal about the Associated Press, and he came forward in this “Masses” case, offering to assist the defense, and to conduct the trial. It was his plan to summon the heads of high finance in New York, beginning with Pierpont Morgan, and to question them as to the precise details of their relationship to the Associated Press! Aren’t you sorry that trial didn’t come off? And don’t you think it a very serious matter that the Associated Press did not face this precise and definite issue, which it had so publicly raised? Let me speak for myself: If any man accused me in the specific and damaging way above quoted, I would consider that my time, my money, my energy, my very life must be called to the task of vindicating my honor. And if, instead of fighting, I put my tail between my legs and sneaked away from the scene, I would expect men to conclude that there was some guilt upon my conscience."
"Will Irwin, writing in “Harper’s Weekly,” shows how the old reactionary forces shape the policy of the organization. “The subordinates have drifted inevitably toward the point of view held by their masters.” And again, of the average Associated Press correspondent: “A movement in stocks is to him news—big news. Wide-spread industrial misery in a mining camp is scarcely news at all.” At a conference at the University of Wisconsin, the editor of the “Madison Democrat” stated that he had been a correspondent of the Associated Press for many years, and had never been asked “to suppress news or to color news in any way whatever.” Reply was made by A. M. Simons: “I have had many reporters working under me, and every one of you know that you will not have a reporter on your paper who cannot ‘catch policy’ in two weeks.”
"The general manager of the Associated Press makes public boast of the high character of his employes. “Throughout the profession, employment in its service is regarded as an evidence of character and reliability.” Such is the glittering generality; but investigate a little, and you find one Associated Press correspondent, Calvin F. Young, of Charleston, West Virginia, engaged in sending strike-news to his organization, and at the same time in the pay of the mine-owners, collecting affidavits against the strikers. You find a second Associated Press correspondent, E. Wentworth Prescott, of Boston, dipping into the slush funds of the New Haven Railroad, and giving an explanation of his services, so lacking in plausibility that Interstate Commerce Commissioner Anderson remarks: “I don’t see why they couldn’t just as well have hired you to count the telegraph poles on the street!”
"The Associated Press is probably the most iron-clad monopoly in America. It was organized originally as a corporation under the laws of Illinois, but the Illinois courts declared it a monopoly, so it moved out of Illinois, and reorganized itself as a “membership corporation,” thus evading the law. Today, if you wish to start a morning newspaper in the village of Corn Center, Kansas, you may get an Associated Press franchise; but if you want to start one in any city or town within circulating distance of the big “forty-one-vote” insiders, you might as well apply for a flying-machine to visit the moon. The members of the Associated Press have what is called “the right of protest”—that is, they can object to new franchises being issued; and this power they use ruthlessly to maintain their monopoly. Says Will Irwin:
"To the best of my knowledge, only two or three new franchises have ever been granted over the right of protest—and those after a terrible fight. Few, indeed, have had the hardihood to apply. When such an application comes up in the annual meeting, the members shake with laughter as they shout out a unanimous “No!” For owing to the exclusive terms of the charter, an Associated Press franchise to a metropolitan newspaper is worth from fifty thousand dollars to two hundred thousand dollars. Abolish the exclusive feature, throw the Association open to all, and you wipe out these values. The publishers are taking no chances with a precedent so dangerous."
"A few years ago the editor of the “News” of Santa Cruz, California, applied for the Associated Press franchise for his paper. The San Francisco manager of the Associated Press refused it, and gave this explanation, according to a statement by the editor of the “News”:
"The San Francisco daily papers owned all the Associated Press franchises for that city, and they also controlled a vast outlying territory, including Santa Cruz, eighty miles away, and would refuse to permit Associated Press dispatches to be printed by me or anyone else in Santa Cruz.
"There is only one way to get by this barrier, and that is to pay the price. Joseph A. Scranton, proprietor of the “Scranton Republican,” forced a man who wished to start another newspaper in Scranton to pay him ten thousand dollars before he could have the Associated Press franchise for that small city. When the “San Francisco Globe” wanted the Associated Press franchise, it had to buy the “San Francisco Post” at the price of a hundred and ten thousand dollars. Admittedly the “Post” had no value, it was not a competitor in any sense; the price paid was for the franchise alone—and it was stated by the “San Francisco Star” that the greater part of the value consisted in a lower telegraph rate, a special privilege granted by the Western Union telegraph company to the Associated Press.
"Also the Associated Press, being a membership corporation or club, possesses the legal right to expel and to discipline its members. This right it has specifically asserted in its charter; it may expel a member “for any conduct on his part, or on the part of anyone in his employ or connected with his newspaper, which in its absolute discretion it shall deem of such a character as to be prejudicial to the welfare and interest of the corporation and its members, or to justify such expulsion. The action of the members of the corporation in such regard shall be final, and there shall be no right of appeal or review of such action.”
"This, you perceive, is power to destroy any newspaper overnight. Not merely may a franchise worth two hundred thousand dollars be wiped out at the whim of the little controlling oligarchy; the entire value of the newspaper may be destroyed; for of course a big morning newspaper cannot exist without its franchise. The masters of the “A. P.” hold this whip over the head of every member; and Will Irwin tells what use they make of it:
"Two or three liberal publishers have expressed to me, after mutual pledges of confidence, their opinion of the “A. P. cinch.” And they have finished by saying something like this:
"“But for heaven’s sake don’t quote me in print, and don’t tell anyone I’ve said this. The fine for such an offense runs from fifty thousand dollars up!”"
"Max Eastman, in the “Masses” for July, 1913, made very specific charges against the Associated Press, which thereupon caused Eastman’s arrest for criminal libel. The indictment brought by the Grand Jury against Eastman and Art Young quotes a paragraph from the offending editorial, as follows:
"I am told that every trust is to be encouraged to live its life and grow to such proportions that it may and must be taken over by the working public. But one trust that I find it impossible to encourage is this Truth Trust, the Associated Press. So long as the substance of current history continues to be held in cold storage, adulterated, colored with poisonous intentions, and sold to the highest bidder to suit his private purposes, there is small hope that even the free and the intelligent will take the side of justice in the struggle that is before us.
"The indictment goes on to interpret the above:
"Meaning and intending thereby that the said corporation intentionally withheld, suppressed and concealed from its members information of important items of news and intelligence and intentionally supplied its members with information that was untruthful, biased, inaccurate and incomplete, and that the said corporation for and in consideration of moneys paid to it intentionally supplied to its members misinformation concerning happenings and events that constituted the news and intelligence of the day.
"Then the indictment quotes another paragraph from the editorial:
"The representative of the Associated Press was an officer in that military tribunal that hounded the Paint Creek miners into the penitentiary in violation of their constitutional liberties; and this fact is even more significant and more serious than the abrogation of those liberties. It shows that the one thing which all tribes and nations in time have held sacred—the body of Truth—is for sale to organized capital in the United States."
"The indictment interprets this as follows:
"Meaning and intending thereby that the said corporation was willing to and did in consideration of money paid to it knowingly supply to its members information of such untruthful, biased and prejudiced nature and so distorted and incomplete as the person paying such money might desire.
"This indictment was widely heralded in the press, and everybody thought they were going to get the truth about the Associated Press at last. But when the case was ready for trial, it was mysteriously dropped. For six years I have wondered why it was dropped. I cannot say now that I know; but I have just met Max Eastman, and heard from his lips the story of a certain eminent corporation lawyer in New York, who on several occasions has “kicked over the traces” of Big Business. This man knows a great deal about the Associated Press, and he came forward in this “Masses” case, offering to assist the defense, and to conduct the trial. It was his plan to summon the heads of high finance in New York, beginning with Pierpont Morgan, and to question them as to the precise details of their relationship to the Associated Press! Aren’t you sorry that trial didn’t come off? And don’t you think it a very serious matter that the Associated Press did not face this precise and definite issue, which it had so publicly raised? Let me speak for myself: If any man accused me in the specific and damaging way above quoted, I would consider that my time, my money, my energy, my very life must be called to the task of vindicating my honor. And if, instead of fighting, I put my tail between my legs and sneaked away from the scene, I would expect men to conclude that there was some guilt upon my conscience."
...........................................................
"Not merely have the money-masters stamped their sign upon the contents of the magazines, they have changed the very form to suit their purposes. Time was when you could take the vast bulk of a magazine, and rip off one fourth from the front and two fourths from the back, and in the remaining fourth you had something to read in a form you could enjoy. But the advertising gentry got on to that practice and stopped it. They demanded what they call “full position,” next to reading-matter. One magazine gave way, and then another; until now all popular magazines are cunning traps to bring your mind into subjection to the hawkers of wares. I pick up the current number of the “Literary Digest”; there are a hundred and twenty-eight pages, and the advertising begins on page thirty-five. I pick up the current number of the “Saturday Evening Post”; there are a hundred and fifty-eight pages, and the advertising begins on page twenty-nine. You start an article or a story, and they give you one or two clean pages to lull your suspicions, and then at the bottom you read, “Continued on page 93.” You turn to page ninety-three, and biff—you are hit between the eyes by a powerful gentleman wearing a collar, or swat—you are slapped on the cheek by a lady in a union-suit. You stagger down this narrow column, as one who runs the gauntlet of a band of Indians with clubs; and then you read, “Continued on page 99.” You turn to page ninety-nine, and somebody throws a handful of cigarettes into your face, or maybe a box of candy; or maybe it is the crack of a revolver, or the honk of an automobile-horn that greets you. The theme of the reading-matter may be the importance of war-savings, but before you get to the end of the article you have been tempted by every luxury from a diamond scarf-pin to a private yacht, and have spent in imagination more money than you will earn in the balance of your life-time."
...........................................................
In between reading this, if one happens to read Love's Pilgrimage by the author, and has already read through the World's End series, one is likely to have come close to finding an answer to the question puzzling one as one read the World's End series, which has more than once found oneself questioning why the author is quite so Germanophile as to have his young protagonist protect a German spy working against France, which happens to be the home of the protagonist.
The answer begins to be clear somewhat simultaneously with answer to another question, namely, why didn't the protagonist of Love's Pilgrimage even mention WWI, but did stress about his reading newspapers assiduously while being anxious about news of the then current Russian revolution. These questions are suddenly and unexpectedly answered as one reads about the U.S. press setting forth to campaign with false stories attempting to implicate Woodrow Wilson, then the President of the United States, but holding back because this might get him votes.
"You didn’t happen to know that the “Scandal Bureau” had prepared a story on Woodrow Wilson! The “interests,” which wanted war with Germany and Mexico, had a scandal all ready to spring on him toward the end of the 1916 campaign. They had the dynamite planted, the wires laid; all they had to do was to press the button. At the last moment their nerve failed them, they did not press the button. I was told why by a prominent Republican leader, who was present in the councils of the party when the final decision was made. This man pounded on the table and declared: “I’d have said I’d sooner vote for the devil than for Woodrow Wilson, but if you start a dirty story on the President of the United States, I’ll vote for Woodrow Wilson, and one or two million Americans will do likewise.”"
So part of the answer is, Upton Sinclair was then - perhaps newly, as the protagonist of Love's Pilgrimage was - socialist, and saw the war as that of capitalist powers against workers of the world. But then why the love of Germany, which in fact was completely responsible for the war, as a regime if not as fault of every German, only most - as they did enthusiastically were for it?
This answer, not very explicitly stated but nevertheless clearly to be seen, is, too, in Love's Pilgrimage - the protagonist there, as the author in his life, taught himself German while very young, read a great deal of German literature, and came to see germany as the home of not only the beautiful forests or neat little villages, as any casual visitor would, but of all progressive thought and much wisdom.
One does need an effort to recall Upton Sinclair was young in an era of innocence that sought to exonerate Germany while reeling in horror at the Nazi atrocities, and this is the background of the curiously twisted tapestry of the World's End series with its loving descriptions of Germany right up to the U.S. forces marching through after WWII, while simultaneously an equally curiously disdainful and casual abandonment of France by the protagonist Lanny Budd who's life has been lived mostly in France until his mid thirties, when his travels to U.S. and U.K. and more have him only touching home base in France on equal basis, the weight shifting post war to U.S. for permanent settling.
His loyalty to U.S., and his almost worshipping stance with U.K., remains unquestionable through the World's End series, so much so he's disgustingly racist when it comes to India. But then, his abrahmic roots are deep enough to have his antisemitism and misogyny never quite be wiped, much less rooted out, despite his natural and consciously chosen liberal thought!
"More definite even than this, there was a story in “McClure’s Magazine,” which had already gone to press, and could not be recalled. “McClure’s,” now a tool of the “interests,” was conducting a raging campaign for “preparedness,” and Wilson stood in the way. The story was called “That Parkinson Affair,” by Sophie Kerr, and was published in the issue of September, 1916—just when the scandal was ready to be sprung. It is ostensibly a piece of fiction, but so transparent that no child could fail to recognize it. It is the vilest piece of innuendo in American political history, and remains on our library shelves as a monumental example of the depths to which our predatory interests have been willing to drag their “kept” magazines."
The answer begins to be clear somewhat simultaneously with answer to another question, namely, why didn't the protagonist of Love's Pilgrimage even mention WWI, but did stress about his reading newspapers assiduously while being anxious about news of the then current Russian revolution. These questions are suddenly and unexpectedly answered as one reads about the U.S. press setting forth to campaign with false stories attempting to implicate Woodrow Wilson, then the President of the United States, but holding back because this might get him votes.
"You didn’t happen to know that the “Scandal Bureau” had prepared a story on Woodrow Wilson! The “interests,” which wanted war with Germany and Mexico, had a scandal all ready to spring on him toward the end of the 1916 campaign. They had the dynamite planted, the wires laid; all they had to do was to press the button. At the last moment their nerve failed them, they did not press the button. I was told why by a prominent Republican leader, who was present in the councils of the party when the final decision was made. This man pounded on the table and declared: “I’d have said I’d sooner vote for the devil than for Woodrow Wilson, but if you start a dirty story on the President of the United States, I’ll vote for Woodrow Wilson, and one or two million Americans will do likewise.”"
So part of the answer is, Upton Sinclair was then - perhaps newly, as the protagonist of Love's Pilgrimage was - socialist, and saw the war as that of capitalist powers against workers of the world. But then why the love of Germany, which in fact was completely responsible for the war, as a regime if not as fault of every German, only most - as they did enthusiastically were for it?
This answer, not very explicitly stated but nevertheless clearly to be seen, is, too, in Love's Pilgrimage - the protagonist there, as the author in his life, taught himself German while very young, read a great deal of German literature, and came to see germany as the home of not only the beautiful forests or neat little villages, as any casual visitor would, but of all progressive thought and much wisdom.
One does need an effort to recall Upton Sinclair was young in an era of innocence that sought to exonerate Germany while reeling in horror at the Nazi atrocities, and this is the background of the curiously twisted tapestry of the World's End series with its loving descriptions of Germany right up to the U.S. forces marching through after WWII, while simultaneously an equally curiously disdainful and casual abandonment of France by the protagonist Lanny Budd who's life has been lived mostly in France until his mid thirties, when his travels to U.S. and U.K. and more have him only touching home base in France on equal basis, the weight shifting post war to U.S. for permanent settling.
His loyalty to U.S., and his almost worshipping stance with U.K., remains unquestionable through the World's End series, so much so he's disgustingly racist when it comes to India. But then, his abrahmic roots are deep enough to have his antisemitism and misogyny never quite be wiped, much less rooted out, despite his natural and consciously chosen liberal thought!
"More definite even than this, there was a story in “McClure’s Magazine,” which had already gone to press, and could not be recalled. “McClure’s,” now a tool of the “interests,” was conducting a raging campaign for “preparedness,” and Wilson stood in the way. The story was called “That Parkinson Affair,” by Sophie Kerr, and was published in the issue of September, 1916—just when the scandal was ready to be sprung. It is ostensibly a piece of fiction, but so transparent that no child could fail to recognize it. It is the vilest piece of innuendo in American political history, and remains on our library shelves as a monumental example of the depths to which our predatory interests have been willing to drag their “kept” magazines."
...........................................................
"You guess that this chapter will show how the press exploits crime for its profit; and that sounds tiresome, you know all about that. You know how the yellow journals take up murder cases and divorce cases and sexual irregularities, and carry on campaigns of scandal, lasting for months. You know how they send out their amateur sleuths, and work up a case against some one, and make it a matter of journalistic prestige that this person shall be hounded to jail.
"No; this chapter does not deal with the crimes which the press exploits, nor yet with the crimes which it invents. I could tell a hilarious anecdote of a group of New York reporters assigned to the immigration service, shy of news and bored to death, who cooked up a tale of an imaginary murder by an imaginary Austrian countess, kept all New York thrilled for a week, and “got away with it.” But all that is comparatively nothing. The theme of this chapter is the crimes which the press commits.
"What is a crime? The definition is difficult; you have to know first who commits it. Many things are crimes if done by workingmen, which are virtuous public services if done by great corporations. It is a crime when workingmen conspire to boycott; but it is no crime when newspapers do it, when advertisers do it. It is a crime when an individual threatens blackmail; but when a great newspaper does it, it is business enterprise. For example, in Los Angeles there was started a municipal newspaper, which was thriving. Gen. Harrison Gray Otis of the “Times” sent agents to various advertisers to notify them that if they continued to advertise in this paper they would be boycotted, black-listed, and put out of business. So the big advertisers deserted the municipal paper.
"I have told in this book about many crimes committed by newspapers against myself; not metaphorical crimes, but literal, legal crimes. It was a crime when a Philadelphia reporter broke into my home and stole a photograph. It was a crime when the “New York Evening Journal” sent forged cable-grams to Dr. James P. Warbasse and Mrs. Jessica Finch Cosgrave. It was a crime when the newspapers of New York bribed a court-clerk to give them the testimony in my divorce case. Any lawyer will tell you that these things are crimes, yet they are a recognized part of the practice of American Journalism, and follow logically and inevitably from the competitive sale of news.
"Nietzsche says of the soul of man that it “hungers after knowledge as the lion for his food.” Just so the yellow journals hunger after news, and just so their proprietors hunger after profits. When profits are at stake, they stop at nothing. I have quoted Hearst’s telegram to Frederick Remington: “You make the pictures and I’ll make the war.” I have told of Hearst’s ruffian conduct towards myself in the case of Adelaide Branch. Do you think that a man who would commit such acts would stop at anything? When Hearst ventured to run for governor of New York State, his enemies brought out against him a mass of evidence, showing that he had deliberately organized his newspapers so that the corporations which published them owned no property, and children who had been run down and crippled for life by Mr. Hearst’s delivery-wagons could collect no damages from him.
"Mr. Hearst poses as a friend of labor, but he keeps his newspapers on a non-union basis, and when his employes go on strike, he treats them as other corporations treat their strikers. And all newspaper corporations do the same. I could name not one, but several cities in which newspapers have hired thugs to break the strikes of newsboys; or where they have hired strikes against their rivals. During the Colorado coal-strike the “Denver Express” was publishing the truth about the strike, and the other newspapers organized a boycott of the dealers who handled the “Express.” When the “Express” hired its own newsboys, mysterious gangs of rowdies appeared, and beat up these newsboys and scattered their papers in the streets. And no interference from the police, no line about these riots in any Denver newspaper—except the “Express,” which could not get distributed!
"Wherever you dig in the cellars of these great predatory institutions, you find buried skeletons. I have dragged some of them into the light of day; I would drag others—but the test here is not what I know to be true, but what I can prove in a court of law. And it is so easy for a great newspaper to buy witnesses; so easy for a great newspaper to terrorize witnesses! I came upon one typical story that I could prove, and prove to the hilt; I prepared to tell the story, with names and places and dates, but while I was collecting the evidence, a friend of the victim exclaimed: “You will ruin him! You will set the newspaper after him again!”
"This man, a former city official, an honest public servant, had been deliberately ruined by a newspaper conspiracy, and brought to utter despair. The thing happened six years ago, and only now is he beginning to recover his practice as a lawyer. If now I revive this story, he will take up his morning paper and read something like this: “The defendant was represented by John Jones, who a few years ago was indicted—etc.” Or: “The striking carpenters have retained John Jones, who was once city prosecutor, and concerning whom several witnesses testified—etc., etc.” Shall I inflict this upon a man, in spite of his wishes? I thought the matter over from many angles, and decided to ask the reader to accept the story on my word. Really, it is too incredible a story to be an invention! Listen:
"John Jones, city prosecutor, caused the arrest of the proprietor of a great and powerful newspaper for printing salacious advertisements. He forced this newspaper to make abject public apology, and to promise reform. Later he caused the arrest of the proprietor for criminal libel; whereupon this proprietor set out to “get” the city prosecutor. The paper had a “literary editor,” a man who has since become well-known as a critic and novelist, author of perhaps a dozen books. At this time his salary was thirty dollars a week, and he was told by the proprietor of the newspaper to go and “get” John Jones, using either wine or women.
"A woman was brought on from the Middle West, a woman just one month under twenty-one, which is the “age of consent” in the state in question. This woman sought a city position from John Jones, came to his office, threw her arms about his neck, and screamed. Instantly the door was broken in, and it was made known that “sleuths” had bored a hole through the office-wall, and were prepared to testify that they had seen John Jones committing a crime with this woman under age.
"Now, I hear you say, with a knowing smile, “That’s the story John Jones tells!” No, reader, I assure you I am not so naïve; I did not get this story from John Jones, I did not get it from any friend of John Jones. It happens that I know the “literary editor” fairly well, and I know a dozen of his friends. To one of these, an intimate friend of mine, this “literary editor” told the entire story. Two friends of mine were present at a club dinner, when the man was confronted by accident with his victim, and admitted what he had done, and begged pardon for it. It was his “job,” he said—his “job” of thirty dollars a week! And that is how I came on the story!
"I go over in my mind the newspapers concerning which I can make the statement that I know, either from direct personal knowledge, or from the evidence of a friend whom I trust, that the owner or manager of this paper has committed a definite act of crime for which, if the laws were enforced, the owner or manager would be sent to the penitentiary. I count a total of fifteen such papers, located in leading American cities, such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles. Each one of these criminals sits in a seat of power and poisons the thinking of hundreds of thousands of helpless people. I ask myself: In what respect is the position of these people different from that of the peasantry of mediæval Germany, who lived and labored subject to raids from robber knights and barons whose castles they saw upon distant cliffs and mountain tops?"
"You guess that this chapter will show how the press exploits crime for its profit; and that sounds tiresome, you know all about that. You know how the yellow journals take up murder cases and divorce cases and sexual irregularities, and carry on campaigns of scandal, lasting for months. You know how they send out their amateur sleuths, and work up a case against some one, and make it a matter of journalistic prestige that this person shall be hounded to jail.
"No; this chapter does not deal with the crimes which the press exploits, nor yet with the crimes which it invents. I could tell a hilarious anecdote of a group of New York reporters assigned to the immigration service, shy of news and bored to death, who cooked up a tale of an imaginary murder by an imaginary Austrian countess, kept all New York thrilled for a week, and “got away with it.” But all that is comparatively nothing. The theme of this chapter is the crimes which the press commits.
"What is a crime? The definition is difficult; you have to know first who commits it. Many things are crimes if done by workingmen, which are virtuous public services if done by great corporations. It is a crime when workingmen conspire to boycott; but it is no crime when newspapers do it, when advertisers do it. It is a crime when an individual threatens blackmail; but when a great newspaper does it, it is business enterprise. For example, in Los Angeles there was started a municipal newspaper, which was thriving. Gen. Harrison Gray Otis of the “Times” sent agents to various advertisers to notify them that if they continued to advertise in this paper they would be boycotted, black-listed, and put out of business. So the big advertisers deserted the municipal paper.
"I have told in this book about many crimes committed by newspapers against myself; not metaphorical crimes, but literal, legal crimes. It was a crime when a Philadelphia reporter broke into my home and stole a photograph. It was a crime when the “New York Evening Journal” sent forged cable-grams to Dr. James P. Warbasse and Mrs. Jessica Finch Cosgrave. It was a crime when the newspapers of New York bribed a court-clerk to give them the testimony in my divorce case. Any lawyer will tell you that these things are crimes, yet they are a recognized part of the practice of American Journalism, and follow logically and inevitably from the competitive sale of news.
"Nietzsche says of the soul of man that it “hungers after knowledge as the lion for his food.” Just so the yellow journals hunger after news, and just so their proprietors hunger after profits. When profits are at stake, they stop at nothing. I have quoted Hearst’s telegram to Frederick Remington: “You make the pictures and I’ll make the war.” I have told of Hearst’s ruffian conduct towards myself in the case of Adelaide Branch. Do you think that a man who would commit such acts would stop at anything? When Hearst ventured to run for governor of New York State, his enemies brought out against him a mass of evidence, showing that he had deliberately organized his newspapers so that the corporations which published them owned no property, and children who had been run down and crippled for life by Mr. Hearst’s delivery-wagons could collect no damages from him.
"Mr. Hearst poses as a friend of labor, but he keeps his newspapers on a non-union basis, and when his employes go on strike, he treats them as other corporations treat their strikers. And all newspaper corporations do the same. I could name not one, but several cities in which newspapers have hired thugs to break the strikes of newsboys; or where they have hired strikes against their rivals. During the Colorado coal-strike the “Denver Express” was publishing the truth about the strike, and the other newspapers organized a boycott of the dealers who handled the “Express.” When the “Express” hired its own newsboys, mysterious gangs of rowdies appeared, and beat up these newsboys and scattered their papers in the streets. And no interference from the police, no line about these riots in any Denver newspaper—except the “Express,” which could not get distributed!
"Wherever you dig in the cellars of these great predatory institutions, you find buried skeletons. I have dragged some of them into the light of day; I would drag others—but the test here is not what I know to be true, but what I can prove in a court of law. And it is so easy for a great newspaper to buy witnesses; so easy for a great newspaper to terrorize witnesses! I came upon one typical story that I could prove, and prove to the hilt; I prepared to tell the story, with names and places and dates, but while I was collecting the evidence, a friend of the victim exclaimed: “You will ruin him! You will set the newspaper after him again!”
"This man, a former city official, an honest public servant, had been deliberately ruined by a newspaper conspiracy, and brought to utter despair. The thing happened six years ago, and only now is he beginning to recover his practice as a lawyer. If now I revive this story, he will take up his morning paper and read something like this: “The defendant was represented by John Jones, who a few years ago was indicted—etc.” Or: “The striking carpenters have retained John Jones, who was once city prosecutor, and concerning whom several witnesses testified—etc., etc.” Shall I inflict this upon a man, in spite of his wishes? I thought the matter over from many angles, and decided to ask the reader to accept the story on my word. Really, it is too incredible a story to be an invention! Listen:
"John Jones, city prosecutor, caused the arrest of the proprietor of a great and powerful newspaper for printing salacious advertisements. He forced this newspaper to make abject public apology, and to promise reform. Later he caused the arrest of the proprietor for criminal libel; whereupon this proprietor set out to “get” the city prosecutor. The paper had a “literary editor,” a man who has since become well-known as a critic and novelist, author of perhaps a dozen books. At this time his salary was thirty dollars a week, and he was told by the proprietor of the newspaper to go and “get” John Jones, using either wine or women.
"A woman was brought on from the Middle West, a woman just one month under twenty-one, which is the “age of consent” in the state in question. This woman sought a city position from John Jones, came to his office, threw her arms about his neck, and screamed. Instantly the door was broken in, and it was made known that “sleuths” had bored a hole through the office-wall, and were prepared to testify that they had seen John Jones committing a crime with this woman under age.
"Now, I hear you say, with a knowing smile, “That’s the story John Jones tells!” No, reader, I assure you I am not so naïve; I did not get this story from John Jones, I did not get it from any friend of John Jones. It happens that I know the “literary editor” fairly well, and I know a dozen of his friends. To one of these, an intimate friend of mine, this “literary editor” told the entire story. Two friends of mine were present at a club dinner, when the man was confronted by accident with his victim, and admitted what he had done, and begged pardon for it. It was his “job,” he said—his “job” of thirty dollars a week! And that is how I came on the story!
"I go over in my mind the newspapers concerning which I can make the statement that I know, either from direct personal knowledge, or from the evidence of a friend whom I trust, that the owner or manager of this paper has committed a definite act of crime for which, if the laws were enforced, the owner or manager would be sent to the penitentiary. I count a total of fifteen such papers, located in leading American cities, such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles. Each one of these criminals sits in a seat of power and poisons the thinking of hundreds of thousands of helpless people. I ask myself: In what respect is the position of these people different from that of the peasantry of mediæval Germany, who lived and labored subject to raids from robber knights and barons whose castles they saw upon distant cliffs and mountain tops?"
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"Three hundred miles from our national capital, in the lonely mountains of West Virginia, exists an empire of coal, governed in all respects as Russia was governed in the days of the Tsardom. I take up two printed volumes of testimony given before the investigating committee of the United States Senate, a total of 2,114 closely printed pages; I turn these pages at random, and pick out a few heads that will give you glimpses of how things are managed by the coal barons of West Virginia: “Check weighmen guaranteed by law, but not allowed to the miners.” “Men paid in scrip which they could not cash.” “Men discharged and put out of their houses, as fast as they talked unionism.” “Mail burned by store manager.” “Law of West Virginia relieves coal owners from liability for injuries in the mine, no matter how they occur.” “Independent store-keeper refused his goods at the express office which was on company grounds.” “Men not allowed to approach post office on company property.” “Provost Marshal imprisoned nine men without trial.” “No mine guard has ever been tried for participating in any battle.” “Machine-guns and guards turned on peaceful crowd coming from meeting.”
"In “King Coal” I have portrayed the conditions in Colorado. In West Virginia conditions were in all respects the same, and for the same reason. When the sixteen months’ strike in West Virginia had been smashed, the same mine guards, with the same rifles and machine-guns, were shipped to Colorado, and under the direction of the same Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency they smashed the fourteen months’ strike in Colorado. And both in West Virginia and Colorado the same Associated Press was made use of to send to the country the same misrepresentations and suppressions of truth.
"In the “Independent” for May 15, 1913, after the West Virginia strike had lasted more than a year, there appeared an article by Mrs. Fremont Older, describing the farcical military trial of some union officials at Paint Creek Junction. Mrs. Older, the only impartial person who was able to get into this court-room, made the statement: “The Provost Marshal was not only the ruling officer of Paint Creek Junction; he was the Associated Press correspondent. He had the divine gift for creating darkness.” In the next issue of the “Independent” appeared a letter from the assistant general manager of the Associated Press, declaring: “The Provost Marshal was not the Associated Press correspondent, and never had been.”
"Nevertheless, this rumor would not down, and in the “Masses” for July, 1913, appeared a cartoon: “Poisoned at the Source,” representing the president of the Associated Press engaged in pouring the contents of a bottle labeled “Lies” into a reservoir labeled “Public Opinion.” Accompanying the cartoon was an editorial, one sentence of which read: “The representative of the Associated Press was an officer in that military tribunal that hounded the Paint Creek miners into the penitentiary in violation of their constitutional liberties.” The answer of the Associated Press to this was the indictment for criminal libel of Max Eastman and Art Young. The “Masses,” presumably by advice of counsel, did not discuss the case, and continued to maintain silence, even after the case was dropped.
"You are, doubtless, a loyal American. You believe in the constitution and laws of your country, and you do not understand just what it meant to be Provost Marshal of the West Virginia State Militia during the coal strike of 1912-13. If you think that it meant to be a public official, performing a public service in the interest of the public, you are naïve. To have had anything to do with the West Virginia State Militia during that strike meant to be a creature of the mine operators, in the pay of the mine operators, owned body and soul by the mine operators. It meant that you were setting aside, not merely the laws of the state of West Virginia, but the Constitution of the United States. It meant that you were beating and flogging and shooting strikers, kicking their wives and children out of their homes to freeze in the mountain snows, turning machine-guns upon their tent-colonies, throwing their leaders into jail without trial, and torturing them there for months on end. It meant this, whether you were the lowest Baldwin-Felts mine-guard taken out of a city slum and put into the militia uniform; or whether you were Capt. Lester, an official of militia, who testified under oath before the Senate committee that it was not his business to know if miners had a legal right to organize or not—he was sent there to prevent their organizing, and he did what he was sent there to do.
"The Associated Press correspondent at Charleston, who covered all the strike, and who had been officially appointed and acknowledged, was a man named Cal Young, and he had his office in the office, or connected with the office, of the Adjt. General of Militia. This Cal Young had an intimate friend by the name of John C. Bond, who was Provost Marshal of Militia, and also was correspondent for several newspapers. Cal Young did not trouble himself to travel about in the strike field, which was widely scattered, occupying a number of mountain valleys. Bond, however, was compelled by his militia duties to travel to the scene of all troubles; therefore Bond and Young had an arrangement whereby Bond telephoned news from wherever he was, and Young sent this news, not only over the Associated Press wire, but to the papers which Bond represented.
"The above was stated from first-hand positive knowledge by Jesse Sullivan at the State House to an attorney for whom I can vouch. Also it was sworn to by W. Bruce Reid, reporter for the “Charleston Gazette” and the “Kanawha Citizen.” Reid swore that he knew Young intimately; that Young maintained his offices in the Adjt. General’s office without charge; that Young from this office transmitted orders for the movements of the State Militia, and for these services was paid out of the Governor’s contingent fund; that he acted as official reporter for the state administration; that anyone who called at the State House for news was referred by the Governor and the Adjt. General to Young; that Young received news of military doings and of strike incidents from J. C. Bond, who was a printing clerk in the Secretary of State’s office, and also captain and paymaster of militia; that Bond was made Provost Marshal, with absolute authority over the strike territory, and tried a number of citizens, ninety-eight in all, by military tribunal; that Bond had a regular arrangement with Young whereby he furnished Young with news reports; and that Young had an understanding with the military department whereby all news was given out through him.
"Reid further testified that he was instructed by the militia authorities to distort news, and also to write editorials for his paper, supporting the military policy; that when he refused to do this, the editors of his paper were called up and practically instructed to write such editorials, and that they did this; that furthermore Reid was threatened if he failed to distort news as directed; that all these things were well known to Young, correspondent of the Associated Press; that Young was “extremely bitter against the miners’ cause”; that he continually so expressed himself before Reid; that a correspondent of the “Baltimore Sun,” who came to Charleston, was so impressed with Young’s prejudice that he went into the field for himself, and wrote an entirely different account of the events. It was known that Young, while Associated Press representative, was seeking employment from the state administration, and he had since obtained such employment.
"So much for outside evidence. And now let us hear from Young himself. The attorney sent by the “Masses” called upon Cal Young, who told him that after the strike he had been discharged from the Associated Press by W. H. French, manager of the Pittsburgh division, and that French had stated to him that the reason was that Fremont Older and others had made complaint concerning the news that the Associated Press had furnished from West Virginia. Young admitted practically everything as stated by Reid: his desk in the Adjt. General’s office, his relations with the administration, and his arrangement with Bond, whereby Bond furnished him regularly and continually with news from the field. I note three sentences from the investigator’s report:
"Young also stated that before martial law he got most of his information from the Sheriff or Deputy Sheriff, or from telegraph operators who were in the employ of the railroad company or the mine owners. He stated that although he went up the Creek a few times, he obtained most of the information through official reports. Young stated that through the Senatorial investigation he had to cover other territory and that during that time Bond covered the investigation for the A. P."
"Senator John W. Kern of Indiana was justified in his statements made in the United States Senate three months later, regarding the suppression of other news from this coal strike:
"But to me the most startling fact bearing on the subject under discussion was this: Here was a proceeding not only unusual but almost unheard of being carried on almost in sight of the capital of West Virginia and within 300 miles of the National capital. One of the best-known women in America—a woman past her eightieth year—a woman known and loved by millions of the working people of America for the promotion of whose welfare and for the amelioration of whose condition she had dedicated her life—a woman so honored and beloved by these millions that she was known to all of them in every humble home as Mother Jones, was being tried in this unusual way before this mock tribunal.
"The fact of the trial was sensational. The subject matter of the trial was of the deepest interest. The incidents of such a trial would be of necessity, not only sensational, but would interest the country.
"And yet the great news-gathering agencies of the country, active, alert, with a large, intelligent force searching everywhere for items of news, were not able to furnish a line of information to their newspaper patrons concerning this astonishing proceeding.
"I was informed by a representative of the greatest of all these news-gathering agencies that the proceedings were not reported because the conditions there were such that it was not safe for newspaper men to enter the field to secure the facts for publication.
"This same agency has had a representative in the City of Mexico throughout the period of the recent revolutions. He was not afraid to remain there and report faithfully the news while the streets were being plowed and mowed by the deadly missiles from the cannons of contending armies. But in West Virginia the situation was such that the American reading public was kept in profound ignorance of the startling happenings there because of a reign of terror which could not be braved by the dauntless representatives of the American Press associations."
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Upton Sinclair writes that he hoped to give both sides of the story above.
"My hope was roused by Mr. Stone himself, who entered into correspondence with me, and made the flat-footed statement: “I am glad to give anyone information respecting this organization.” I, being a trusting person, took Mr. Stone at his word, and wrote him a courteous letter, putting to him four questions, as follows:
"1. Was any investigation made of my wife’s complaint to you of the false report sent out by the Associated Press that she was arrested on April 29, 1914, in New York City? And why was no correction of this false report ever made, in spite of my wife’s written request? Every New York newspaper and every other press association in America sent out a correct report of my arrest, only the Associated Press reported that my wife was arrested.
"2. What was the result of the investigation which you promised to make concerning my article published in the “Appeal to Reason” in the latter part of May, 1914, telling of the refusal of the Associated Press to send out a report of a deliberate lie told by Gov. Ammons of Colorado to President Wilson? Mr. John P. Gavit of the “New York Evening Post” showed me your letter, promising to investigate this matter.
"3. What was the reason the Associated Press decided to drop the libel suit against the “Masses”?
"4. What action, if any, did the Associated Press take concerning the charges published in “Pearson’s Magazine” by Charles Edward Russell, dealing with its gross and systematic misrepresentation of the Calumet strikers?
"I put these four questions politely, and in entire good faith, and instantly my correspondence with Mr. Stone comes to an end! I wait day by day; I wait with sorrow and yearning, but no answer comes from Mr. Stone. I delay sending my book to the printer for more than two months, hoping to get a reply from Mr. Stone; but I get no reply!
"I now publicly address to Mr. Stone one final communication. I implore him, for the sake of the honor of the great institution which he represents, for the sake of the good name of all American Journalism, not to swallow in silence the charges published in a book called “The Brass Check.” I implore him to have the author of that volume arrested for criminal libel—and when the case is ready for trial, not to drop it!"
Upton Sinclair writes that he hoped to give both sides of the story above.
"My hope was roused by Mr. Stone himself, who entered into correspondence with me, and made the flat-footed statement: “I am glad to give anyone information respecting this organization.” I, being a trusting person, took Mr. Stone at his word, and wrote him a courteous letter, putting to him four questions, as follows:
"1. Was any investigation made of my wife’s complaint to you of the false report sent out by the Associated Press that she was arrested on April 29, 1914, in New York City? And why was no correction of this false report ever made, in spite of my wife’s written request? Every New York newspaper and every other press association in America sent out a correct report of my arrest, only the Associated Press reported that my wife was arrested.
"2. What was the result of the investigation which you promised to make concerning my article published in the “Appeal to Reason” in the latter part of May, 1914, telling of the refusal of the Associated Press to send out a report of a deliberate lie told by Gov. Ammons of Colorado to President Wilson? Mr. John P. Gavit of the “New York Evening Post” showed me your letter, promising to investigate this matter.
"3. What was the reason the Associated Press decided to drop the libel suit against the “Masses”?
"4. What action, if any, did the Associated Press take concerning the charges published in “Pearson’s Magazine” by Charles Edward Russell, dealing with its gross and systematic misrepresentation of the Calumet strikers?
"I put these four questions politely, and in entire good faith, and instantly my correspondence with Mr. Stone comes to an end! I wait day by day; I wait with sorrow and yearning, but no answer comes from Mr. Stone. I delay sending my book to the printer for more than two months, hoping to get a reply from Mr. Stone; but I get no reply!
"I now publicly address to Mr. Stone one final communication. I implore him, for the sake of the honor of the great institution which he represents, for the sake of the good name of all American Journalism, not to swallow in silence the charges published in a book called “The Brass Check.” I implore him to have the author of that volume arrested for criminal libel—and when the case is ready for trial, not to drop it!"
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Upton Sinclair explicitly states that he supports the then current WWI, but is scathing in his indictment of press supporting war against Germany, and more.
"The writer of this book gave his support to the war against Germany, and has no apology to make for that course. He believed that the world would be a safer place for radicals to work in when the Kaiser had been overthrown; he still believes this—even though at the moment it seems that the result of our fighting has been to set up new imperialisms in Italy, France, England and America."
Obviously this book preceded rise of horrors of fascism of axis. That he could have then added footnotes, but didn't, seems curious. He wrote the World's End series, instead.
"During the war our industrial autocracy has learned to organize for propaganda; it has learned the arts of hate. Today all the energies which were directed against the Kaiser have been turned against the radicals; also the spy-system which the government developed for the war has been turned against the radicals. Government agents raid their offices and seize their letters, and these letters are spread broadcast in the capitalist press—duly doctored, of course, and supplied with commentaries to distort their meaning.
"For example, the “Lusk Committee” of the New York State Legislature holds a secret session with the executives of the New York newspapers (June 3, 1919, at the Murray Hill Hotel), and lays out its campaign in detail. It then proceeds, with a carload of soldiers and detectives, to raid the Rand School of Social Science; taking along a secret service agent of the British government, which is shooting radicals in Ireland and India, and wishes to find out all it can about their supporters in America. They find a manuscript, outlining a plan for propaganda among negroes. It was a rejected manuscript, as it happens; but the Lusk Committee “accepts” it, and spreads it broadcast. I shiver, contemplating the day when they raid my office, and publish all the queer manuscripts that arrive in my day’s mail! Manuscripts of health-cures, manuscripts of bible-prophecies, manuscripts of plans to abolish money, to communicate with Mars, to exterminate the vermin in the Los Angeles County Jail!
"Also they find a circular of the Rand School, saying that the Socialists “must prepare to take over the government.” They publish this in the newspapers with horrified clamor: Sedition! Treason! Let the charter of the Rand School be annulled! As if there were any political party or political association in America which does not propose to take over the government! As if there were anything else which any political party or political association could propose!"
"They lie about the pacifists and those whom they call Bolsheviks; they lie equally about a man like myself, who supported the war, and is opposing Bolshevism. In the accounts of the proceedings of the Senate Committee investigating “Bolshevism in America,” there was submitted, according to newspaper accounts, a long list of writings “urging the overthrow of the United States government by violence”; among the writers named being Upton Sinclair. I at once wrote to Solicitor Lamar of the post office department, to Major Humes, and to Senator Overman—these being the parties who had compiled the writings in question. I explained to these gentlemen that for twenty years I had been writing for the precise purpose of avoiding “the overthrow of the United States government by violence,” and I requested to know what writings of mine could have justified their charge. I have letters from all three of these parties, stating that nothing of mine was included, or had been included in the list; the published report of the Overman Committee reveals that this statement is correct; yet the dispatch including my name was sent broadcast over the country by the Associated Press—and I am without redress!"
"The United States government is deporting Hindu revolutionists to be executed by the British government when they reach India. Prof. Richard Gottheil of Columbia University writes to the “New York Times” denying that this is so. Robert Morse Lovett, editor of the “Dial,” writes to the “Times,” citing case after case, upon British official authority. And the “Times” refuses to print Mr. Lovett’s letter! A friend of mine writes to Prof. Gottheil about it, and he answers that he wishes the “Times” would print Mr. Lovett’s letter, because he believes in fair play. But the “Times” does not believe in fair play!"
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For someone who supposedly believes in knowledge, facts and truth, rather than blind racist prejudice, here is a typical counterexample of his own ignorance of facts, the ignorance furthermore blindly adhering to lies despite knowledge that those are lies:-
"The workers of the country are in the condition of a frontier settlement besieged by savage Indians."
Columbus lied, and forced moreover all his sailors to lie, claiming they'd got to India, knowing fully well they hadn't. In any case, the facts were known long before Upton Sinclair was born, in fact long before U.S. was independent of U.K..
Moreover it was known that mainstream people of India had nothing in common with natives of the continent stolen to create U.S., Canada or Uruguay or any of the other countries in the "New World" across Atlantic from Europe.
And the last guess so far, by West, is that the natives of the said continent had drifted across from Mongolia and Siberia, walking across the Bering strait to Alaska when it's frozen. Well, Mongols did storm through to Europe more than once through history, and right up to South of France according to Upton Sinclair in the World's End series, too; there's a reason English speaking West refers to Germans as "hun", and while it's due to barbaric behaviour of Germans in treatment of others, it isn't disassociated from Mongolian occupation of the land.
So if the author was serious about his stance against racism, lies, prejudices and his adherence to facts, he should have referred to natives of the land his ancestors invaded as Huns or Turk rather than Indian.
After all, thanksgiving is about turkey.
But no, he adheres to his savage prejudices thoroughly, and goes on to say :-
"They defend themselves with such weapons as they find at hand; but sooner or later, it is evident, they will organize a regular force, and invade the woods, and be done with those Indians once for all."
He might be talking of Hitler after invading Poland.
"The workers of the country are in the condition of a frontier settlement besieged by savage Indians."
Columbus lied, and forced moreover all his sailors to lie, claiming they'd got to India, knowing fully well they hadn't. In any case, the facts were known long before Upton Sinclair was born, in fact long before U.S. was independent of U.K..
Moreover it was known that mainstream people of India had nothing in common with natives of the continent stolen to create U.S., Canada or Uruguay or any of the other countries in the "New World" across Atlantic from Europe.
And the last guess so far, by West, is that the natives of the said continent had drifted across from Mongolia and Siberia, walking across the Bering strait to Alaska when it's frozen. Well, Mongols did storm through to Europe more than once through history, and right up to South of France according to Upton Sinclair in the World's End series, too; there's a reason English speaking West refers to Germans as "hun", and while it's due to barbaric behaviour of Germans in treatment of others, it isn't disassociated from Mongolian occupation of the land.
So if the author was serious about his stance against racism, lies, prejudices and his adherence to facts, he should have referred to natives of the land his ancestors invaded as Huns or Turk rather than Indian.
After all, thanksgiving is about turkey.
But no, he adheres to his savage prejudices thoroughly, and goes on to say :-
"They defend themselves with such weapons as they find at hand; but sooner or later, it is evident, they will organize a regular force, and invade the woods, and be done with those Indians once for all."
He might be talking of Hitler after invading Poland.
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"A solution that comes at once to mind is state-owned or municipal-owned newspapers. This is the orthodox Socialist solution, and is also being advocated by William Jennings Bryan. Fortunately, we do not have to take his theories, or anyone’s theories; we have facts—the experience of Los Angeles with its public paper, the “Municipal News,” which was an entire success. I inquire of the editor of the paper, Frank E. Wolfe, and he writes:
"The “Municipal News”? There’s a rich story buried there. It was established by an initiative ordinance, and had an ample appropriation. It was launched in the stream with engines going full steam ahead. Its success was instantaneous. Free distribution; immense circulation; choked with high-class, high-rate advertising; well edited, and it was clean and immensely popular.
"Otis said: “Every dollar that damned socialistic thing gets is a dollar out of the ‘Times’ till.” Every publisher in the city re-echoed, and the fight was on. The chief thing that rankled, however, was the outgrowth of a clause in the ordinance which gave to each political party polling a three per cent vote a column in each issue for whatsoever purpose it might be used. The Socialist Labor Party nosed out the Prohibitionists by a fluke. The Socialists had a big margin in the preceding elections, so the Reds had two columns, and they were quick to seize the opportunity for propaganda. The Goo-goos, who had always stoutly denied they were a political party, came forward and claimed space, and the merry war was on. Those two columns for Socialist propaganda were the real cause for the daily onslaught of the painted ladies of Broadway (newspaper district of Los Angeles). There were three morning and three evening papers. Six times a day they whined, barked, yelped and snapped at the heels of the “Municipal News.” Never were more lies poured out from the mouths of these mothers of falsehood. The little, weakly whelps of the pornographic press took up the hue and cry, and Blanche, Sweetheart and Tray were on the trail. Advertisers were cajoled, browbeaten and blackmailed, until nearly all left the paper. The “News” was manned by a picked staff of the best newspaper men on the coast. It was clean, well edited, and gave both sides to all controversies—using the parallel column system. It covered the news of the municipality better than any paper had ever covered it. It was weak and ineffective editorially, for the policy was to print a newspaper. We did not indulge in a clothes-line quarrel—did not fight back.
"The “News” died under the axe one year from its birth. They used the initiative to kill it. The rabble rallied to the cry, and we foresaw the end.
"The paper had attracted attention all over the English-reading world. Everywhere I have gone I have been asked about it, by people who never dreamed I had been an editor of the paper. Its death was a triumph for reaction, but its effect will not die. Some day the idea will prevail. Then I might want to go back into the “game.”"
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"There are a few millionaires in America who have liberal tendencies. They have been willing to finance reform campaigns, and in great emergencies to give the facts to the people; they have been willing now and then to back radical magazines, and even to publish them. But—I state the fact, without trying to explain it—there has not yet appeared in America a millionaire willing to found and maintain a fighting daily paper for the abolition of exploitation. I have myself put the proposition before several rich men. I have even known of cases where promises were made, and plans drawn up. My friend Gaylord Wilshire intended to do it with the proceeds of his gold-mine, but the gold-mine has taken long to develop. I had hopes that Henry Ford would do it, when I read of his purchase of the “Dearborn Independent.” I urged the matter upon him with all the eloquence I could muster; he said he meant to do it, but I have my fears. The trouble is his ignorance; he really does not know about the world in which he finds himself, and so far the intellectual value of the “Dearborn Independent” has been close to zero."
Explains a great deal.
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"In every great city of Europe where the revolution took place, the first move of the rebels was to seize these offices, and the first move of the reactionaries was to get them back. We saw machine-guns mounted in the windows of newspaper-offices, sharp-shooters firing from the roofs, soldiers in the streets replying with shrapnel. It is worth noting that wherever the revolutionists were able to take and hold the newspapers, they maintained their revolution; where the newspapers were retaken by the reactionaries, the revolution failed.
"In Petrograd the “Little Gazette,” organ of the “Black Hundreds,” became the “Red Gazette,” and has remained the “Red Gazette.” The official military organ, the “Army and Fleet,” became the “Red Army and Fleet.” The “Will of Russia,” organ of Protopopov, last premier of the Tsar, became the “Pravda,” which means “Truth.” In Berlin, on the other hand, the “Kreuz-Zeitung,” organ of black magic and reaction, became for a few days “Die Rothe Fahne,” the “Red Flag”; but, alas, it went back to the “Kreuz-Zeitung” again!"
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September 01, 2019 - October 25, 2019.
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