PUBLISHER’S NOTE
Two years ago I finished “The Profits of Religion,” and offered it to publishers. They said it could not be sold; no book on religion could be sold, it was the deadest subject in the world. I believed that “The Profits of Religion” could be sold, and I published it myself. In less than a year I have sold forty thousand copies, and am still selling them.
One reason, of course, is the low price. Everybody told me that a book could not be published at that price. I would report on the figures if I could, but I gave the book as a premium for my magazine, and never made any attempt to separate the two ventures. All that I can report is that since February, 1918, when I started the magazine, I have taken in for magazines and books a total of $14,269, and I have paid out for printing, postage, labor and advertising, a total of $20,995. This deficit represents some two hundred thousand magazines sent out free for propaganda purposes; the deficit was made up by donations from friends, so it cost me nothing but my time, which I gladly gave. And I am willing to give it again; I can’t expect either royalty as author or profit as publisher from “The Brass Check.” The cost of book manufacturing has increased fifty per cent in the past two years, and to make matters worse, “The Brass Check” is exactly twice as long as “The Profits of Religion.” If this book were published in the ordinary way, to be sold to book-stores, it would be priced at $2.00, postage extra; or possibly even $2.50. Sold, as it is, at $1.00, postpaid, it is an appeal to the conscience of every reader to do his part in helping to get it widely distributed.
“The Profits of Religion” was practically boycotted by the capitalist press of America. Just one newspaper, the “Chicago Daily News,” reviewed it—or rather allowed me space in which to review it myself. Just one religious publication, the “Churchman,” took the trouble to ridicule it at length. Half a dozen others sneered at it in brief paragraphs, and half a dozen newspapers did the same, and that was all the publicity the book got, except in the radical press. That this was a deliberate boycott, and not the fault of the book, is something which I leave for my readers to assert.
“The Brass Check,” of course, will be treated in the same way. If it gets any publicity, it will be only because of a libel suit or something sensational. If the great mass of the people ever hear of the book, it will be because you, the reader, do your part. If it seems to you an honest book, and one which the public ought to know, get busy. If you can afford it, order a number of copies and give them to your friends. If you can’t afford that, make up a subscription list among your friends. If you need to earn money, turn agent, and sell the book among your neighbors, in the shop where you work, on the road. If your experience is the same as mine, you will find nearly everybody distrustful of Capitalist Journalism, and willing at least to consider the truth about it.
POSTSCRIPT TO SECOND EDITION.—A letter from E. J. Costello, managing editor of the “Federated Press”:
“Let me say in this very first sentence that the ‘Brass Check’ is the most remarkable book that has ever been published in America. It is one that should, in the quickest possible manner, be placed in the hands of every American who can read, and read to every American who cannot read.
“I have been in this newspaper game for about twenty years, and I know from my own experience that your story is the absolute truth. For dozens of the incidents of ‘kept press’ rottenness I can cite counterparts. Your story of the Associated Press is without doubt the most concise exposé on record of the despicable methods which prevail in that organization.”
Mr. Costello goes on to tell me that he was for seven years a staff correspondent and editor for the Associated Press. He was in charge of its Des Moines bureau at the time I was trying to get out the truth from the Colorado coal strike. One day there came through on the Associated Press wire instructions from the New York office “that henceforth Upton Sinclair must be kept out of the Denver office, and that no relations with him might be had by any employe of the Denver bureau. I remember that my operator copied the message and brought it to me, and that I determined to keep it for possible future reference.
“Within fifteen minutes after the message had been sent the chief operator at Chicago asked the Des Moines operator if he had copied it, and on being informed affirmatively he ordered the copy sent to Chicago. The operator asked me for the message, but I declined to let him have it. I placed it in a locked compartment of my desk, where it remained for several weeks, when one day it turned up missing. I have never been able to ascertain just how it disappeared, but I am quite positive that other keys fitted my desk, and that there was a reason for its disappearance. It wasn’t so many months after this occurrence that I was ordered in to the Chicago office, presumably because it was thought I would bear watching. My radical views led finally, in 1916, to my leaving the Associated Press service entirely.