Upton Sinclair

“ Come with us, Bill, come out into the open, we’re Robin Hood and his Merry Men! Bill, we’ve got the loveliest little ranch in Oklahoma; and with this fifteen thousand dollars we’re planning to buy it and settle down. Come along, and share the good life.
Porter (with his customary gravity, not in the least disturbed by a bank hold-up) : No, Colonel, I can’t help you earn the money, so I can’t help you spend it. I could never point a gun at a man!
Jennings: Well, come and hold the horses. We’ll give you a share if you’ll just hold the horses—won’t we, Raidler? ”

“ Every night in this hospital at least one man dies; they bring a wheelbarrow, and throw in the corpse, and a sheet over it, and cart it to the dead-house—through that passage they go (indicating the passage across the stage, on the other side of the counter) I hear them—rumble, rumble, rumble—bump, bump—while I’m trying to write. (he pauses) I have put a shell about me. I say, I am not here; I do not belong in this world; I have nothing to do with it; I live in my spirit, in my dreams. That is why I do not permit you to call me a convict, or to say that I carry the brand. ”

“ Drink, Bill, take it quick, take it raw, and slide into oblivion. When you come out again, things will be duller, your grief won’t weigh so heavy, you’ll have a headache and a fuzzy tongue and a few other things to think about. (presses the glass upon him) Down with it! For Jimmie and me, if not for yourself, Bill! (as Porter drinks) There, that’s better! That’s the philosopher! (as Porter drains the glass and sinks back into his chair, Jennings pours the rest of the bottle into the other five glasses) Here, gentlemen, we won’t wait for Creole style, we’ll take it a la Texas. ”

“ Porter: Life doesn’t do us that favor, Jimmie.
Jimmie: I know it. But I’m all right now. I’m going to marry a sweet girl, and be vice-president of this bank before long. Would you like me to show you how I opened the vault?
Porter: No, Jimmie, no! That’s another way I was a coward; I wrote it differently—I had you use a kit of tools.
Jimmie: That’s all right, Mr. Porter—that’s the way I wanted it. People will see me like I wanted to be, and maybe that’ll help some poor kid to keep straight. Write your stories that way, and people will get some good out of them. Well, so long, Mr. Porter. ”

“ One of the guards seizes Margaret and carries her off right, crying. The other two seize Porter and throw him down and bind him to the floor. Joe makes pantomime of impotent despair. The guards take the paddles and proceed to beat Porter. At the first blows the light begins to fade, and after two or three blows the scene is in total darkness. The sounds of the blows increase to heavy crashings, and Porter’s moans rise to a general wailing and shouting, which cover a quick change to the scene of the feast in the prison postoffice. ”

“ WHO OWNS YOU, AND WHY?
“Mammonart” examines art and literature as instruments of propaganda and repression, employed by ruling classes of the community; or as weapons of attack, employed by new classes rising into power.
“Mammonart” challenges the great ones now honored by critical authority and asks to what extent they are servants of ruling-class prestige and instruments of ruling-class safety.
“Mammonart” asserts that mankind is today under the spell of utterly false conceptions of what art is and should be; of utterly vicious and perverted standards of beauty and dignity in all the arts. ”

“ Raidler: Maybe he was!
Joe (with wide-open eyes) : Was you, boss?
Jennings: By God, I don’t know whether you’re joking or not, you old pudding-bag!
Porter: Gentlemen, gentlemen, remember the spirit of this hallowed hour. Ten million pairs of parents in the United States are hanging up stockings for their little ones; at such a moment the hardest heart turns to sentimentality, the trigger-finger of the grimmest killer is stayed, the burglar becomes sociable—
39Raidler: Yea, Bill! Did I ever tell you how Jersey Pete ran into the fellow that had rheumatism? ”

“ Jennings: I’m out, and promised a job in the postoffice! How do you like me in my new dress? I’ve come to pay my thanks.
Porter: To me?
Jennings: They tell me, Bill, that you had the main finger where he had to listen. It’s not every convict has a chance to save his warden’s life!
Porter: Colonel, you and I are insiders. What saved that warden’s life was my bedside manner! Nature has endowed me with a rare blessing, the ability to keep silent when I have nothing to say. The warden was dying—yes, but dying of fright.
Jennings: Men sometimes die of swallowing arsenic, Bill. ”

“ By the way, Porter—this is serious—I’ve been looking into the matter of that missing alcohol; there’s more of it gone.
Porter: Is that so, doctor?
Dr. Walters: Is there anybody you suspect?
Porter: Well, you know how it is in a prison, there are many men who might take alcohol; but there’s no one I have any reason to name.
Dr. Walters: Well, it has certainly got to be stopped. I don’t like the job of playing detective, but some one has to do it. I’ll slip a little drug into the alcohol, and make somebody mighty sick. ”

“ Bill Porter, the night drug-clerk on duty, takes the prescriptions and fills them silently and swiftly; they are all standard prescriptions, which he has ready mixed and measured, and for the most part all he does is to shove out two or three pills, or a powder folded up in blue paper. He is a smooth-shaven, fair-haired man of thirty-seven, not stout but well filled out, benevolent, but reserved in manner. He wears a white hospital costume, clean, but old and worn. The Negro, Joe, a trusty, is puttering about the place, making a pretense at dusting off the contents of the shelves with a rag. ”

“ Raidler: Can’t we shoot even one of them?
Jennings: I’d like to bust that fat, white old bond-worm at the counter, but he’d make a mess. Away we go—to the great open spaces! (they fire a parting volley and ride out as they came; shots and yells outside, and hoof-beats dying away)
Judge (recovering the self-possession of a Southern bank-president) : Well, gentlemen, we’ve had an adventure. I think, after that, we’re entitled to a drink. Gather round; I’ll mix them red-hot, in Creole style. (takes a quart bottle from his desk) Mr. Porter, we’re obliged to you. ”

“ Jennings: Well, Bill, our paths are different; I’m going to keep my own name and be what I am.
Porter: That’s the way for you, Colonel; you’re a great man, a celebrity; you’ve had your picture in the papers, you can go upon the stage, they’ll put you in that new device they’ve invented, the pictures that move, and that they throw upon a screen. You’re a historical figure—you’ll go down to the future with Robin Hood of Sherwood 25Forest. But me—what am I? A drug-clerk, a newspaper scribbler, a bank-teller who didn’t find as much money in his drawer as he should have had. ”

“ I’m writing some stories, and maybe some day I’ll write that story about Miss Azalea Adair. Is she dead?
Joe: Yes, suh, dey all daid.
Porter: I’ll quote that fellow who says you couldn’t write about 12Nashville, Tennessee. I tell you Joe, you can write about any place where human beings live—provided you know how to get into their hearts and report what’s going on there; it doesn’t matter who they are—white or black—or where they are—in jail, or in Nashville. A story is a report on human hearts. ”

“ Men howlin’ like devils.
Raidler: Now ain’t that a horror?
Jennings: God damn the crooks that run this state!
Joe: Oh, po Jimmie Valentine!
Valentine: Take it easy, boys—I expected it.
Raidler (strikes his fist on the table) : They kept the news for today!
Jennings (shaking his clenched hands in the air) : And you can’t do a damned thing! You’ve got to take it!
Valentine: Forget it, forget it.
Porter (rises suddenly, pale with anger) : This is the end for me! I’ll stand no more! (starts toward the door)
Jennings (in alarm) : What do you mean, Bill? ”

“ The vault is small, but this new patented door is a wonder. Three solid steel bolts are thrown with one handle; it has a time lock, and once that is set and fastened, we defy any safe-cracker in the land. Would you like to examine it, Valentine?
Valentine: Unfortunately, I don’t know much about safes; it wouldn’t mean anything to me. (he politely looks over the outfit)
Delacour (to Dr. Walters) : Is there anything I can do for you?
Dr. Walters (who is leaning on the counter peering through the railings) : No, I’m just waiting for a man I know. ”

“ I said, “Here’s a man that’s been in prison most of his life, since he was ten years old. He’s dying of T. B.—had three hemorrhages in the hospital. Surely it won’t hurt the state of Ohio to let him die in his old mother’s arms.” The warden said, “Tell him I’ll ask the governor for a pardon, and I think I can get it—at least, the governor has never yet turned down a request from me.” What do you think, Bill?
Porter: Well, Jimmie’s a peculiar fellow, you know.
Jennings: What the men here call a “stir bug”; got the prison poison in his soul. But I know him better than anybody else ”

“ We gathered the Americans of the town, with their Winchesters, Colts and Navy forty-fives; we bought up all the fireworks, and most of the fire-water, and early in the evening, as soon as the thermometer had come down to 110, we started in at the Saloon of the Immaculate Saints—the Cantina de los Santos Immaculatos—taking all the drinks that bore American labels, and informing the atmosphere as to the glory and preeminence of the United States, and its ability to subdue, outjump and eradicate the other nations of the earth. ”

“ You can’t see the sky for the foliage about you, and the ground is knee deep in rotting leaves. Hop-along and Liverpool slept in a grass hut, along with red, yellow, and black employes, and there they’d lie all night fighting mosquitoes and listening to the monkeys squalling and the alligators grunting and splashing in the lagoon. ”

“ Those convicts who have listed themselves as sick are getting their evening supply of drugs. They file along from right to left, hard-faced, desolate looking men both white and black, clad in the old-fashioned black and white striped convict suits. They shove bits of paper over the counter, and take their pills or powders, for the most part silently, sometimes with a grunt or a growl. A guard stands by the door, watching them, a club in his hand; the guard wearing blue uniform with brass buttons. ”

“ Joe makes a quick change into the blue uniform of a bank porter. The Judge enters and seats himself at the desk, made up as an elderly, dignified bank president with white moustache and goatee. Delacour, stout and pompous, places himself as cashier at the window. Dr. Walters takes a place outside the gratings, as a bank customer. Porter stands by the half-open door of the vault, watching the scene, as it gradually comes into view by red light.
The rumble of the wheelbarrow turns into the galloping of horses’ hoofs; the screams from the basement become yells, off-stage left ”

“ He looks out for customers, he hunts them as his grandaddy used to hunt heads in the Congo. He’s one of the crowd of hackmen—he storms down on you like a race riot, a company of freedmen, or Arabs, or Zulus, armed with whips!
(Uncle Caesar looks about, with growing energy and excitement; appearing to discover Porter, he stretches out the whip, crying) : Kyar you anywhere in de town, boss, fo fifty cents! (he dusts an imaginary hack with his duster) Step right in, suh; aint a speck of dust in it—jes got back from a funeral.
Porter: Driver, take me to the home of Miss Azalea Adair. ”

“ But at some other place in the line men will shout, exclamations which are repeated again and again: “Jimmie Valentine is dead! You murdered Jimmie Valentine! Liars! Scoundrels! To hell with you! To hell with the state of Ohio! God damn this prison! You killed Jimmie Valentine! Murderers!” Porter fills the prescriptions, keeping tightly shut lips, but his hands are trembling, and it is evident that he also is deeply moved. Joe is making his usual pretense of cleaning up, but with difficulty, because of his excitement ”

“ An mah ole daddy, he was de hackman what met dat Yankee man, an drove him to Miss Azalea Adair’s home. It was a ole hack, de horse was so weak he could hardly stagger—cause you see how it was, all de money what de fares brung in had to go to keep Miss Azalea Adair alive. Well, dat Yankee man, he pay Miss Azalea Adair fifty dollars fo what she write, an den he go away. An Major Caswell—dat’s de husban—he find out she got dat money, an he grab her by de wrist an twist it till she mos faint—she too proud to make a soun, you know—an he take dat money an sneak off. ”

“ Who owns the press and why? When you read your daily paper, are you reading facts or propaganda? And whose propaganda?
Who furnishes the raw material for your thoughts about life? Is it honest material?
No man can ask more important questions than these; and here for the first time the questions are answered in a book. ”

“ Porter (yielding a little to her beguilement) : Ah, sweetheart, if only I could have your guidance.
Athol (leads him to chair beside the desk, facing audience; she kneels beside him) : You have it, Will—always; you have everything you’ve ever had, and many things you’ve only dreamed. Precious 58gifts, you have—fancy, and tenderness—and merry words, a shining flood. You will take them into prison with you, and bring them out unharmed; and you will learn new things, new understanding, new pity—and the future will be before you. You will find a way to help people—your own way ”