The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism

by Upton Sinclair

But, as it happened, the “Tarrytown News” was carrying on a furious war against the village trustees, because of their halfway-decent treatment of the “agitators”; the “News” wanted us all exterminated, and it called on the “law-abiding” citizens of the village to assemble at the aqueduct and stop that meeting. So the speakers were met by a mob of rich men and chauffeurs, who tooted horns and howled at them, threw rotten vegetables and sand and stones into their faces, filling their eyes and mouth with filth and streaming blood. Running through the village toward the railroad-station, the little group was ridden down by mounted members of the aqueduct police-force, who pursued them even on board the train, and clubbed them over the heads when they sought refuge in the seats. These incidents were described to me by several indignant newspaper reporters, including my friend Isaac Russell, of the “Times.” But the “Times” cut out from Russell’s story the incident of the clubbing on the train.

Here was another call for protest; but by this time the Sinclair family had reached the point of exhaustion. My wife had been a semi-invalid at the beginning of the affair, and was now near to nervous breakdown. We had spent every dollar we owned, and a great many that we did not own; so we were forced to retire, and let the Tarrytown rowdies and their rowdy newspapers have their way. We remained in New York for a couple of weeks to straighten our affairs; and on the very day we had planned to leave for the country, the telephone rang, and my wife answered, and a voice said: “This is the 100th St. Police Station. Do you know a man named Arthur Caron?”

Yes, my wife knew Arthur Caron. “What about him?” she asked, and the voice answered: “We found your name in a note-book in his pocket. Will you come to the station and identify his body?”

There had been, it appeared, an explosion in a tenement-house on Third Avenue. At first the police thought it was a gas-explosion, but soon the truth became known; Arthur Caron and two or three of his friends had been making bombs with the intention of blowing up the Rockefellers. There had been a premature explosion, which had blown out several stories of the tenement, and killed the three lads.

It was interesting to observe the conduct of the New York newspapers during this affair. It made, of course, a tremendous excitement. Bombs are news; they are heard all the way around the world. But the outrages which have caused the bombs are not news, and no one ever refers to them. No one makes clear that these outrages will continue to cause bombs, so long as the human soul remains what it is.

Now the New York newspapers knew perfectly well that our Broadway demonstration, our “Free Silence League,” as they had dubbed it, had been a peaceable demonstration. They knew that at the opening meeting, at which the plan was discussed, I had declared that I desired the co-operation only of those who would pledge their word to me personally that they would offer no resistance, no matter what was done to them; that they would not even speak a word, nor argue with anyone, they would do nothing but walk up and down. At our first meeting Frederick Sumner Boyd, an I. W. W. leader, repudiated my ideas, and called upon the meeting to organize itself to raise money and send arms to the coal-strikers. I replied that if any wished to organize such a group, it was his right, but I had called this meeting for the purpose of organizing one kind of demonstration, and I thought that those who wished to organize some other kind of demonstration should utilize one of the other rooms of the Liberal Club; whereupon Boyd and about half the audience withdrew. All this had been fully reported in the New York papers, and was known to everyone.

Also it was known to the Rockefellers that at the headquarters of our Colorado Committee I personally obtained the pledge of every man and woman, before I allowed them to join us, that they would conform to the rule laid down. I say this was known to the Rockefellers, because they had spies among us; I knew perfectly well who those spies were, and allowed one of them to think he was my friend. From first to last I had nothing to hide, and for that reason I had nothing to fear, and this was as well known to the newspapers as it was to the police who were probing the explosion. Except for the first telephone call, which had come from a desk-sergeant who knew nothing about the matter whatever, the police did not trouble us, nor even question us; yet day by day, while that sensation was before the public, the whole effort of the New York newspapers was concentrated upon making it appear that Upton Sinclair was in some way connected with the bomb-plot. Day after day there would be circumstantial accounts of how the police and the coroner and other officials were preparing to summon my wife and myself, and to subject us to a “rigid examination” concerning Arthur Caron and the other victims of the explosion. We would call up the police and the coroner and other officials, and inform them that we were perfectly willing to be questioned, but that we knew nothing but what we had told the public; to which the police and the coroner and the other officials would reply: “We have no wish to question you; that’s just newspaper talk.” All officials understand what “newspaper talk” means; but the public doesn’t understand, and so what the public carried away from this affair was the general impression that my wife and I were dangerous characters. We were too cunning to get caught, of course; but we incited obscure and half-educated young people to make bombs and set them off, and then we washed our hands of them and left them to their fate.

There is one final story which ought to be told in connection with these “mourning pickets.” You may recall that I had appealed against the decision of Police-magistrate Sims, to the effect that one whose conduct had been “that of a perfect gentleman” might properly be found guilty of “using threatening, abusive and insulting behavior.” I had told the story of this court-decision at a public meeting in the State capitol in Denver, and again at a dinner of the Progressive Party workers in Chicago—saying: “I don’t know whom the magistrate supposed I had threatened, abused and insulted—unless perhaps it were John D. Rockefeller, Junior!” The audience had laughed appreciatively; they thought that was a funny joke; I, too, thought it was a funny joke. But now—can you believe it?—Justice Crain of the Court of General Sessions handed down his august decision, which had cost me several hundred dollars in lawyer’s fees and court costs to obtain; and this Daniel come to judgment upheld the decision of Police-magistrate Sims, and gave his reasons therefor—and lo, his reasons were my funny joke! Seventeen thousand, five hundred dollars per year the people of New York State pay to Justice Crain of the Court of General Sessions, for handing down such august decisions; and forever and ever, so long as capitalist civilization endures, that particular august decision will be printed on expensive paper, and bound in expensive sheepskin, and treasured in the libraries of learned jurists. Such a wonder of a decision deserves to be read, as well as preserved in law-books; so I will quote it here, as follows:

No citizen has a right to rebuke another citizen by subjecting him to ridicule or insult.

The defendant intended by his conduct in the presence of others to rebuke the conduct of Mr. Rockefeller. His action was in the language of the statute, abusive or insulting; abusive because it is derogatory to the one whose conduct is referred to, and the insult lies in part in the subject matter of the rebuke and in part in the publicity of the infliction.