The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1906-06-07

Upton Sinclair seems to have gone JUS,
about as far out of his way to find a
name for his Appeal to Passion" as he
has for a subject around which to weave
a story whose thread of love is so slen-
der that 1t snaps before the story is half
told.
One could scarcely call Packingtown
"A Jungle" The Slough" 1.-THE Mo-
rass," THE Abbatoir Slums"-any OF
these would have better fitted this story
for title than the one selected. But
the story. the story's the thing after all
And such a story 1t has not In il
one single ray of sunlight from the first
page to the last one. 1t begins with a
wedding, where the participants. and
principals have entered the marriage
state by mourning a debt of $500 or
more for the purpose of keeping up the
customs of the old world in the new,
thing that can't be done, and these
principals having been here two years
should have known it. The scene of the
story is laid in the Polish section OF
Chicago, although the characters who
do or do not do things in the story are
.internamed" "Lithuanians' The we'd
ding merges into a dance and a drunk,
and p pages-the Introductory pages
are devoted to this sort of a thing, and
it is the highest society you meet dur
ing the Alb pages of the book These
400 and odd pages drag you through
stfnks and mud, slime, blood, fogs Of
Idtty StSdI1l, IoEtllIZerS, Of1al, IN Wnlcn
Ignorance, ifliteracy, bestiality are the
characteristics of the people who play
the parts in the unwholesome story. Not
one whit above these does a single char
acter in the book rise at any moment.
There Is not suggestion of wit, of
humor, of ordinary common-sense in
the book. 1t deals with degradation
from cover to cover but 1t is a degrade
ton out of which but one or two char
acteFs in the book as depicted by Mr..
Sinclair would have ever arisen under
the most favorable circumstances In
this lies the unfairness, the unjustness
of the attacks which he makes by
stringing together incidents of long
years in packing-house existence, and
presenting them as everyday occur
FENCES, While the characters in the play
are people alien to American customs
and conditions, so stolid, so stupid that
they do not learn enough of the English
language in the four years of the sup
posed story or our supposed acquaint-
ance with them we will say, to make
them understood in ordinary converse
tion-not, enough for the brightest one
among them, Ona, the bride to be able
to make a conductor understand that
she wants a street-car transfer.
1T is true that one of them, the bride
groom, Jurgis, finally gets into politics:
but that is not difficult; he still could
not read and write and when the last
come a Socialist, an Anarchist. He
could not stand the trials which came
to him-and they were awful, 1t must
be admitted-so he took to drink and
used up the little money he had that
way, leaving his poor little wife to bear
the children. and the burden of caring
for them, and she was pretty, and the
foreman was a brute-and then
The Instalment Plan.
Jurgis went very mad when his wife
confessed that TO save him his place.
and TO get food for her starving child,
she had gone wrong, and he tried to
kill the foreman. Then his wife died
in childbirth, and he wept over her,
heartbroken, but he did not become a
man. He had never been one in reality.
He had been creature OF blood and
Drawn, mere brute strength, gentle it
Is true, but with mere brute instincts,
lacking in brain power, and none ever
developed.
The story is tinged with blue on the
'installment" plan. Jurgis buys a house
on the installment plan and is bitterly
duped. His prototype in this may be
found in all the walks Of life from low
est to highest. They bought furniture
on the installment plan. Here again
they have aristocratic company. In and
out in the Shiny story Is woven the warp
of this installment plan of living and
being set out OF doors after a bitter
struggle curdles the little life left in
these Poles-or Lithuanians. OF course
this part Of the story is so common that
we do not stop to comment on it; it
only goes to show that human nature
IS the same everywhere. the disposition
to put on a good front, and make believe
that we have more than we really have.
The sting Of loss is no less bitter to the
higher class than 1t is to the lower, only,
possibly, the higher class should have
had better sense than TO be thus duped.
But the story! All this is but the
filling
Jurgis gets work In the packing house
just as soon as he comes to Chicago;
has been there but two days, in fact
And the breaking hearts of women life
crushed out of little children, strength of
strong men broken are but fncidentafs
I'm the story Of THE Jungle" The whole
slam in the story, which was evidently
written for the purpose of "sIamming"
IS at the packing-house industry.
You read it. and you wonder Just how
much is true and how much can be laid
to keen imagination and desire for EFF
feet" Common sense and a moderate
acquaintance with conditions In pack
lighthouses gained from knowledge of
them from San Francisco to Boston
and that line will nearly take in every
great packing house in the world-Ieads
the writer to believe that Mr.. Sinclair
has laid on his high lights with a view
TO immediate enect, and that they Will
not stand full inspection.
Jurgis went to the packing house to
Inspect Ii before ne asked for work
there, and he sees the whole thing from
the great yards Of the "Durham's"
Jurgis pronounced Yoorghis) got a
place In the killing beds" at the pack
fnghouse. THE work which Jurgis
was to do here was very simple" the
book says, land 1t took him only a short
time to do IL. He was provided with a
stiff bosom. such as Is used by street
sweepers, and 1t was his place to follow
down the line the man who drew out
the smoking entrails from the carcass
of the steer. This mass was to be
swept into a trap, which was then
closed. so that no one might slip into
It. II was sweltering July day,
and the place ran with steaming hot
blood-one waded in 1t on the floor. The
stencil was almost oyerpowering. but to
Jurgis IL was nothing. His whole soul
was dancing with joy--he was at work
He was paid the fabulous sum OF
TN cents an hour" The conditions
tt Will be seen. did not revolt the man in
the least, and the story goes on to say
that he went home on the run to carry
the joyful tidings that ne had earned