Many people believe that the prattlings of an anarchistic Upton Sinclair before a woman’s club are unworthy of serious attention; but the fact that the hall of the Friday Morning Club was filled to overflowing at his programme, and that the great majority of them sat throughout the entire lecture, would seem to prove that such illogical ravings have at least some power to impress. Some few women have been found courageous enough to voice their indignation that the club rostrum should be used for such ungodly purposes.
It is depressing to find a great number of intelligent women, well able to think for themselves, lending time and ear to a piffling collection of more-or-less brilliant quotations upholding anarchy, destruction, lawlessness, revolution, from the lips of an effeminate young man with a fatuous smile, a weak chin and a sloping forehead, talking in a false treble, and accusing them of leading selfish, self-indulgent lives. It would be laughable if it were not a little disconcerting. These women, who are doing such earnest work for their city, who, indeed, rank among the best intellect of the city, who have deeds rather than words to their credit—it seems incredible that they should be prepared to lend encouragement to such unintelligent, witless, anarchistic outpourings.
While slyly veiling his false doctrines as quotations from “intelligent ancient peasants,” and the prophet Isaiah, and the Greek classics, Upton Sinclair nevertheless makes no secret of his sympathy with dynamiters and murderers, and considers it an example of exquisite wit to speak of Jesus Christ with patronizing irreverence. His sense of humor also demanded that he belittle the flag of the United States, and, after pretending to confuse it with a barber’s pole scoff at the great national wave of emotion for the country’s righteous defense and honor.
An assembly of men of the same standing as the women of the Friday Morning Club could never be induced to listen to such insults to their creed and their country without violent protest. Never before an audience of red-blooded men could Upton Sinclair have voiced his weak, pernicious, vicious doctrines. His naïve, fatuous smile alone would have aroused their ire before he opened his vainglorious mouth.
Let the fact remain that this slim, beflanneled example of perverted masculinity could and did get several hundred women to listen to him.
Now, as a matter of fact, it happened that I had given a far more radical lecture at the monthly dinner of the University Club, where three hundred men of Los Angeles had heard me with every evidence of cordial interest. The secretary of the club had told me that it was the only occasion he could remember when none of the diners had withdrawn to play chess until after the speaking was finished. But I had, of course, no way to make known this fact to the readers of the “Times,” nor even the true sentiments of the ladies of the Friday Morning Club. It happened that my friend George Sterling spoke at the club the following week, and I went with him and was asked to speak at the luncheon. I referred playfully to what the “Times” had said about me, and was astonished at the ovation I received. The women rose from their seats to let me know that they appreciated the insult to them involved in the “Times” editorial. It is the same thing that I have noted everywhere, whenever I refer to the subject of our newspapers. The American people thoroughly despise and hate their newspapers; yet they seem to have no idea what to do about it, and take it for granted that they must go on reading falsehoods for the balance of their days!
CHAPTER XXXIII
A FOUNTAIN OF POISON
I have lived in Southern California four years, and it is literally a fact that I have yet to meet a single person who does not despise and hate his “Times.” This paper, founded by Harrison Gray Otis, one of the most corrupt and most violent old men that ever appeared in American public life, has continued for thirty years to rave at every conceivable social reform, with complete disregard for truth, and with abusiveness which seems almost insane. To one who understands our present economic condition, the volcano of social hate which is smouldering under the surface of our society, it would seem better to turn loose a hundred thousand mad dogs in the streets of Los Angeles, than to send out a hundred thousand copies of the “Times” every day.
You cannot live in Southern California and stand for any sort of liberal ideas without encountering the wrath of this paper. And when you have once done this, it pursues you with personal vindictiveness; no occasion is too small for it to lay hold of, nor does it ever forget you, no matter how many years may pass. My friend Rob Wagner writes me an amusing story about the feud between Otis and the city of Santa Barbara, a millionaire colony about a hundred miles from Los Angeles:
When the big fleet came around here some years ago I was director-generaling a very snappy flower festival at Santa Barbara, and as the “Times” played up all the bar-room brawls the sailors got into and belittled my pretty show, I got hold of the local correspondent and says: “Mac, why are you crabbing the show and featuring the rough stuff?” “Well the truth is, Bob, my pay depends upon the kind of stuff I send. A rotten story is good for columns, against a few paragraphs of the birds and the flowers. You know the General has towns as well as individuals on his index, and Santa Barbara is one of them. The General once owned the Santa Barbara ‘Press,’ and with his usual cave-man methods got in bad with the villagers, and they bumped him socially so hard that he finally left in great heat and swore vengeance, which he practices to this day. This has been going on for years.”