The sun., 1919-05-25
Upton Sinclair Frees His Imagination

and neither does contemptuouS criticism.
Both have been tried. He is an emotional
realist Of size and power conspicuous
among Americans. His worst fault, still
as a novelist, is that his emotion is fire.
quently second rate, and ever at the dis
posal of an utterly credulous imagination.
His great merit is the homely richness Of
his realism. Both are exempIifed in
Jimmie Higgins.
BE calls it his best book If he means
his highest achievement in fiction, as such,
we disagree with him; although as a phys
ical performance-considering the num-
Der and variety Of its characters, the
spread of its geography and the adequacy
of episode treatment, together with its
very moderate length-Jimmie Higgins
has all but revived In US the salad days
belief that q Great American Novel is
physically possible. Few authors have
really covered so much ground and really
worked so much material in 282 pages.
Its publisher calls it sensational and
controversial. The adjectives ought to be
qualified "Sensationap in one sense
the sense politely applied to murder stor-
les in yellow newspapers-parts of it are;
but not much of it seems to us sensational
as Socialist propaganda. controversial"
you Will hardly find it, if you read ex-
pecting an impassioned indictment of the
monstrousness of the present social order,
or an impassioned vision of the beauties
of Red commune. The authors atti-
tude is different from his attitude in The
Jungle; it is fatherly, almost motherly,
defence and delineation, more than grim
attack and exposition.
At the end Jimmie Higgins, doggishly
devoted little Socialist, having reached
Archangel with the American military
force, goes mad under third degree tor
ture applied to make him betray the Boil
sheviki, who have worked through him.
(His madness il of an imaginary, senti-
mentally invented End-and, by the way,
SINCE this brings the novel down close to
date, and since it is strongly implied that
Jimmie Higgins's fate is fact, to exam
inc Mr.. Sinclair's fetional license in the
matter might be well.) But Bolshevism
is not glorifed, nor is militarism in gen.
eral or the American Army in particular
assailed. It is Jimmie's steadfastness that
Is glorifed, and it Is specific persecution
of Socialists on the ground of military
necessity that exercises the authors indig-
nation.
Indeed, Mr.. Sinclair seems throughout
to take pains to be humanity fair, to &C
count without rancor for the conduct Of
his SocialistS oppressors At times his
conscientious lovingkindness becomes ran
cid and irritating; it doesn't ring true. He
thinks well Of President Wilson's inten-
lions, and tries to see extenuating circum-
stances around the Governments policy in
the war. He explains Americas part in
the Archangel expedition thus: "In order
to persuade the British to submit their
armies to the control of French General
and thus to save the situation in France,
the Americans had been forced to sub
NIT their own armies also; and now they
found themselves ordered to march in and
fight revolutionary Government which
had repudiated its debt to France, and so
had given offence to a naturally frugal
people"
The author does not take personal re-
sponsibility for the explanation. In fact,
he contrives to put forth a great deal of
political innuendo without taking re-
sponsibility at all.
As for capitalists, Lacey Granitch,
gilded heir Of the arch capitalist of Lees
vile, U. s. A., in whose shops Jimmie has
worked, finally accounts to Jimmie, out
of his own mouth, for his spoiled and
vicious nature. To reduce Lacey to a
pass where this is possible, Mr.. Sinclair
subjects him to a humiliation evidently
horrowad froyn ON old paucnaDor ,,,Y,or