The sun. (Jacksonville, Fla.) 1905-1908, 1906-09-29
THE SUN
BY Upton Sinclair

the place. There are all stages OF be-
ing out of work In PackingtoWn, and
he faced In dread the prospect Of
reaching the lowest. There is a place
that waits for the lowest rnan--th6
fertilizer plant!
The men would talk about It In
awe-stricken whispers. Not more
r than one In ten had ever really tried
It.: the other nine had contented
themselves with hearsay evidence and
"a peep through the door, There
were some things worse than even
starving to death. They would ask
Jurgis II he had worked there yet,
and IL he meant to; and Jurgis would
debate the matter with himself. AS
poor as they were, and making all the
sacrifices that they were, would he
dare to refuse any sort of work that
was offered to him, be Il az horrible
as ever Il could? Would he dare to
go homie and eat bread that had been
earned by Ona, Weak and complaining
as she was, knowing he had been given
a chance, and had not had the nerve
to take it?--And yet he might argue
that way to himself all day, and one
glimpse into the fertilizer works
would send him away again shudder-
Ing. He was a man, and he would do
his duty: he went and made applica.
tion-but surely he was not also re.
quired to hope for success!
The fertilizer works Of Durham's
lay away from the rest of the plant,
rev visitors ever saw them, and the
few who did would come out looking
like Dante, of whom the peasants de.
clared that he had been into hell. TO
this part of the yards came all the
"tankage," and the waste products OF
all sorts; here they dried out the
bones, and In suffocatlng cellars
wnere the daylight never came you
might see men and women and chill
zen bending over whirling machines
and saving bits of bone into all sorts
Of shapes, breathing their lungs full
of the fine dust, and doomed to die,
every one of them, within q certain
definite time. E4
Here they made the blood into albu4
men, and made other foul-smellitig
things into things still more foul
smelling. In the corridors and cav
ems where It was done you might
lose yopurself az In the great caves of
Kentucky In the dust and the steam
the electric lights would shine like
far-ok twinkling stars--red and blue,
green and purple stars, according to
the color of the mist and the brew
from which It came. For the odors
In these CHASTITY charnel-houses there
may be words in Lithuanian, but
there are none In English. The person
entering would have to summon his
courage as for a cold water plunge.
He would 20 on like a man swimming
under water; he would put his hand.
Aerchief over his face, and begin to
cough and choke; and then, II he were
still obstinate, he would find his head
beginning to ring, and the veins In his
forehead to throb, until finally he
would be assailed by an overpowering
blast of ammonia fumes, and would
turn and run for his life, and come out
half dazed.
On top, of this were the rooms
where they dried the "tankage,"' the
mass of brown, stringy stun that was
left over after the waste portions OF
the carcasses had had the lard and
tallow dried out of them. This dried
material they would then grind to
fine powder, and after they had mixed
It up well with mysterious but In
offensive brown rock, which they
brought in and ground up by the hum
dreds of carloads for that purpose, the
substance was ready to be put into
bags and sent out to the world as any
one of hundred different brands OF
standard bone-phosphate. And then
the farmer in Maine or California or
Texas would buy this, at say twenty
Eve dollars ton, and plant II with