Arizona republican., 1904-10-28
'LITERATURE CIGARS AND SOAP

Mir. Upton Sinclair. the author O.: Manassas" writing in Golfers for Oc- tober 8 on Our Bocrgeoise Literature. in conclusion says:
 Tt is safe to say that it is the ambi- tion of every new writer to get into the magazines How can one man. age to beat about the bush so long and not get at the central fact-that the new writer who has it as his am bition to "get into the magazines" ts simply out of place in a. discussion O. literature? Is there any magazine now published in the world for the sake of literature which has any more relation to literature than it has to cigars and soap? Speaking not figuratively nor jestingly. but the simple fact-what is a magazine today but a means Of en- abling the exploiters of cigars and soap to mako known their wares to their customers? To do this, of course, the magazine has to have readers. and to get the readers it publishes a mass or reading matter; but what possible re- lationship has this reading matter to literature? What possible meeting ground is there between literature and the tastes of a cigar and soap-buylng public?
 These things are deplorabIe. of course, and men with cons fence. mag azine editors among them. battle against them bravely. but only to faU and either give up or else sink into ob- scurity. They fail and they must fail forever; it is intended by Nature that thy should fail. just as it is intended that our political reformers should fail. that cur tenement house refOrmers. our stage refOTmers, out anti-imperialists. rsaHr #-,A ators, should all go down beneath the juggernaut of the bourgeOisie. The point is that we have now a system Of society which makes wage slaves out of the vast mass of humanity, and shuts them out forever from all hope of sharing in civilization, progress, and light; the failure Of all our efforts al reform, of all our dreams of joy and beauty. is simply the justice of Nature, the vengeance of this down. trodden class.
 Follow the chain of the slave" said Emerson, "and you will fird the oshe- end upon the wrist of the master" So it is today. and 90 it win be forever: there can be no haven Of refuge and no palace of art for any, oae-onIy strife and failure for all-untfl the fact O. human brotherhood is granted. until lHe truth mas been pounded into our sluggish minds, that there can be no soul-life for any man until it is for all, that there can be among ua neither political virtue, nor social refinement. nor true religion, nor vital art. so long as men, women and little children are chained up to toll for us in mines and factories and sweatshops, are penned in filthy slums, and fed upon offaI, and doomed to rot and perish in soul-sick- ening misery ard horrcr. We have now reached a state today when it is pos sible to say in the words of John Tan ner, Member of the Idle Rich Class. that "any person under the age of thir- ty, who, having any knowledge of the existing social Crder is not a revolu- tionist, is an inferior" And if we are interiors, what have we to do with art? How can we be expected to produce art-how to understand art? So long as we are without heart, so long as we are without conscience, so long as We are without even a mind-pray, in the name of heaven, why should any one think it worth while to be troubled be- cause we are without a literature