The Jungle

by Upton Sinclair

“Yes,” said the other, “I have no doubt that in a hundred years the Vatican will be denying that it ever opposed Socialism, just as at present it denies that it ever tortured Galileo.”

Sell that ye have and give alms!’—

until he sweat blood—

and he would take pretty little imitation-lemons, such as are now being shipped into Russia, handy for carrying in the pockets, and strong enough to blow a whole temple out

and debited with his purchases; and after that the processes of production, exchange and consumption would go on automatically, and without our being conscious of them, any more than a man is conscious of the beating of his heart.

who liked to read

after the abolition of privilege and exploitation, any one would be able to support himself by an hour’s work a day.

The editor requested to know upon what ground Dr. Schliemann asserted that it might be possible for a society to exist upon an hour’s toil by each of its members. “Just what,” answered the other, “would be the productive capacity of society if the present resources of science were utilized, we have no means of ascertaining; but we may be sure it would exceed anything that would sound reasonable to minds inured to the ferocious barbarisms of Capitalism.

money is necessarily the test of prowess, and wastefulness the sole criterion of power.

contriving tens of thousands of catch-penny devices,

the very center of the ghastly charnel-house of capitalist destructiveness,

the potato-flour sausages—” “And consider the moral aspects of these things,” put in the ex-preacher.

Horace Fletcher, the inventor of the noble science of clean eating; and incidentally, perhaps, for the discouraging of long skirts,

Now set aside the modern system of pneumatic house-cleaning, and the economies of co-operative cooking, and consider just one single item, the washing of dishes.

and then take Kropotkin’s “Fields, Factories and Workshops,” and read about the new science of agriculture, which has been built up in the last ten years;

the newest discovery of physiologists, that most of the ills of the human system are due to over-feeding. It has been demonstrated by Dr. Chittenden that the quantity of food needed by the body is about four-tenths of that previously considered essential by all authorities.

year by year the cost of slaughter-house products will increase; until eventually those who want to eat meat will have to do their own killing—and how long do you think the custom would survive then?

dependent upon the street-corner

is that not only do the Socialists contend for the right to own things, but their principal objection to the present system is that under it most people are unable to own anything. Here are Comrade Hinrichs and I, who wear pants; and imagine us owning our pants in common! Do you think that Hinrichs would stay in a party that wanted him to go round in my pants? Not collective ownership of pants, but collective ownership of the means of producing pants, is the object of the Socialist party!” Then there

“God was feeling mighty good when he made him,”

“He has ten hopes to your one hope,” wrote another poet who loved him. “He has ten loves to your one love.”4

the fancy pet poodle-establishment of a society dame,

for the strike had been won by southern negroes, thousands of whom had stayed on since the trouble—

swore like a Hessian.

This was a work at which the Socialists had to be careful, for it was unlawful to distribute printed matter on the streets, and though a Y. M. C. A. or Methodist church meeting might be so announced, and nothing said, the police would recollect the

1. What did you or your party ever do for the working class? 2. What makes you think that the shooting, hanging, and burning of Southern black workers, which you advise, will keep negroes from taking the jobs of Northern white workingmen? 3. If the working class owned the mills, mines, factories and machines with which wealth is produced, would they need to fight each other for jobs?

wild horses could not have kept him away.

“If you were living in hell, wouldn’t you be glad to get into purgatory for a while!” To which a voice replied: “We don’t want hell or purgatory, either!” And when the senator inquired, “What do you want, then?” the whole building rang with the reply: “Socialism! Socialism!”

“If the negroes are the cause of all the workingmen’s troubles, do they own the Southern cotton mills?”

the senator set out to show that it was the negroes who had broken the strike. They had done it once, and they

Finally, however, he threw up his hands and cried: “I can face any man, but, my God, I’m not used to arguing with women!”

“And do you expect to accomplish all these things this election?” the senator inquired; and when the other had answered, “No,” he said: “Then you want the workingmen here to throw away their votes?”

“But, Senator,” asked the man, “why should the capitalists all be so anxious to save the workingman’s vote? If it is to the workingman’s interests to vote the Democratic ticket, why do the capitalists contribute millions of dollars to keep him from voting any other?”

and didn’t he do what he promised?”

deadly terror clutching his heart. He kept gazing, as if he were hypnotized, at a certain spot in the crowd to the right of the platform, where for one brief instant he had seen a face peering out at him—the face of his one enemy in the world—“Phil” Connor, the boss!

And then, later on, came reports from the Far West, which was the most American part of the country, and accordingly the part in which the Socialist movement was the strongest. Washington had gone from 2,000 to 10,000. Oregon from 1,500 to 7,600, California from 7,600 to 30,000.

shall have the sham reformers self-stultified and self-convicted!

the tide that will never turn till it has reached its flood—