(1878 - 1968)
Upton Sinclair’s famous novel The Jungle aroused much public indignation—not about the conditions of the workers but of the food, leading to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and to Sinclair remarking, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” He wrote many novels, among them Oil!, based on the Teapot Dome Scandal, and Boston, premised on the Sacco-Vanzetti trial.
Miscellany
After thousands of dockworkers went on strike in the Los Angeles area in 1923 and the Industrial Workers of the World called on workers in other industries to strike in solidarity, the police announced a ban on public meetings. Upton Sinclair organized a rally in response, saying, “We’re testing the right of the police to suppress free speech and assemblage.” As soon as he took the platform, a police captain threatened, “I’m taking you in if you utter a word.” Sinclair began reciting the First Amendment and, according to a longshoreman who was present, the captain promptly “grabbed the people’s novelist by the collar” and arrested him.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
—Upton Sinclair, 1935
