The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-10-26
By Upton Sinclair

that truth will again some day be of
interest to mankind, I will set down
briefly the experience which bulked
largest in my life as a would-be
truth-teller; and which, incidentally,
has determined the development of
America for twenty years, and turned
my sweet land of liberty into pay
master of reaction throughout the
world.
Twenty-Five years ago the old an
archie idea of a free field and no
favor prevailed throughout the
American publishing business, and it
occurred to couple of bright young
ad men that the people might be in
terested in knowing how they were
being robbed wholesale. They bought
derelict magazine from John Wanna
maker, and made the try with Tom
Lawson's "Frenzied Finance"
To use the ad mems own slang, it
was "a knockout; the American peo-
pie showed that more than any other
thing in the entire world they wanted
to read about how they were being
robbed wholesale.
One publisher after another leaped
to the assault on the fortress OF
graft-there was a whirlwind of ex-
posure, "the undertaking era" it was
called, and for several years the writ
ers made thousands of dollars, and
the publishers made millions. 1t was
no uncommon thing for a magazine
to take on a hundred thousand new
subscribers a month; and to US young
enthusiasts of those lively days 1t
seemed that the dragon of big busl-
ness was going to devour himself.
But alas, dragon does not swallow
very much of his own tail before II
begins to hurt. Big business rallied
and organized itself, and the Wall
Street banks got to work. You may
read the details in "The Brass
CT eek" if you are one Of the few
Americans who retain an interest IN
public affairs. Suffice it to say that
every magazine in the United States
that was publishing any statements
injurious to big business was either
bought up, or driven into bankruptcy,
and "the undertaking era" passed into
unwritten history. The public was
told that it, the public, had become
Disguised with the excuses of the
muckrakers; and the public believed
that, just as it had formerly believed
the muckrakers. The public believes
whatever it is told in print-what else
can it believe? 1t was obvious enough
that the "excesses" had been COM
mitted by those who made the muck,
not by those who raked it; and the
fact stands on record that out of the
hundreds of exposures published, and
hundreds of thousands of single facts
stated, not one was ever disproved in
court Of law.
Then came the war; and the manu-
facture of -tropisms, which had
been semi-criminal activity of bank
ers and big business men, became all
at once the service of the Lord, car
ried on by the organized responsibility
of the country, with the whole powe,
of the Federal government behind it.
Just who was to blame for the world
war is a question which will not be
settled in our generation, if ever; but
this much has become clear, history
will not acquit any nation of guilt,
and the diplomatic conspirators of
France and Russia will carry the
heaviest load. am one of the hun
bred and ten million suckers who
swallowed the hook of the British
official propaganda, conducted by an
eminent bourgeois novelist, Gilbert
Parker, who was afterwards knighted
for what he did to me. Now he grins
at me behind the shelter of his title,
and my only recourse is to call upon
the workers of Britain to wipe out
that title, and the system of caste
banditry upon which it rests.
Meantime, here we were, the hum
bred and ten million suckers, do
ing everything we were officially told