I

t was a ‘socialist weekly
| called Appeal to Reason
which commissioned »lJpton
Sinclair in 1904 to write =
novel exposing the conditions

in the meat packing plants of-

Chicago.

When it eventually appear-
ed in book form as ‘The Jun-
gle,” it created a sensation on
a scale few other books have
ever done. Even Winston
Churchill, then a 32-year-old
journalist, wrote a 5,000-word
article about it in an English
periodical.

“It has disturbed in the
Old World and the New the
digestions, and perhaps the
conscience of mankind . .
The indignation of millions of

Americans has been aroused.”

x Bo *

Sinclair was trying to show
the brutality and hideous na-
ture of capitalist exploitation.
What he succeeded in doing,
however, was to shock the
nation about the inhuman and
unhygenic conditions in the
meat packing factories:

“There were those who
made the tins for the canned
Meat, and their hands too,
Were a maze of cuts, and
each cut represented a chance
of blood poisoning.

“Some worked at the
stamping machines, and it
Was very seldom that one
could work there at the pace
that was set, and not give
out and forget himself, and
have a part of his hand chop-
Eds OL 5s

“|. as for the other men,
who worked in tank rooms
full of steam, and in some of
which were open vats near
the level of the floor, their
peculiar trouble was that they
fell into the vats; and when
they were fished out there
was never enough of them
left to be worth exhibiting—
sometimes they would be
overlooked for days, till all
but the bones of them had

gone out to the world as ‘Dur- -

ham’s Pure Leaf Lard’.”
* * *

So great was the outcry

that the White House sent for
Sinclair and the President an-
nounced he was to ask the
Dept. of Agriculture to inves-
tigate the situation. Sinclair
told him this was like having
a burglar to investigate his
own guilt, and what was need-
ed was a secret and confiden-
tial investigation. This was
eventually carried through by
two special commissioners.

The story of the publication
of “The Jungle” is told by
Sinclair in his Autobiography,
recently published. (Available
at People’s Co-op Bo ok
Store).

“The commissioners obtain-
ed evidence of practically
everything charged in ‘The
Jungle,’ except that I was not

able to produce legal proof of
men falling into vats and be-
ing rendered into pure leaf
lard.

“There had been several
cases, but always the packers
had seen to it that the widows
were returned to the old coun-
Hee

* * x

There is no doubt that Sin-
clair, though he had “aimed
at the public’s heart, and by
accident hit it in the stom-
ach,’ had rendered a great
service in cleaning up the

Chicago yards and improving _

UPTON SINCLAIR, at the age
of 26, when he wrote “The
Jungle.” Sinclair is approach-
ing his 85th birthday.

Upton Sinclair: idealist

the country’s meat services
The packers lost a few mil-
lions, but “in the end they
stood without a dent.”

Capitalist exploitation re-
mained; but “The Jungle”,
translated into many lang-
uages, has played a role in in-
spiring socialists, trade union-
ists and radicals of many
countries in the fight for so-
cial justice. :

*& * *

Sinclair has al-
ways considered himself a so-
cialist and a crusader, though
Mike Gold, the veteran Am-
erican Marxist critic, once
chided him for his ‘Jesus
complex.”

“T answered as humbly as
I could that the world needs
Jesus more than it needs any-
thirg else, and volunteers
should be called for daily.”
This is pure Sinclair, and in-
dicates the idealism of the
man and its profound limita-
tions. He has championed
many good and praiseworthy
causes. His two books “on the
dreadful ravages of alcohol-
ism” may, he says, have had

some effect.
* x *

Many people believe he

was responsible for robbing
the world of what might have
been a masterpiece of the
cinema by refusing to allow
the Soviet film director, Eis-
enstein, to edit the film he
shot in Mexico, and in his
autobiography Sinclair’s ac-
count of this episode, which
caused such a furore in the
'30’s, if far from convincing.

He met with the hostility
of many socialists when he
defended American participa-
tion in the First World War,
and in his later years he has
stoutly defendeqg the Ameri-
can position in the cold war.

Yet in spite of this, much
of his work has been a genu-
ine contribution to socialist
and radical literature.

—JACK SUTHERLAND

Cold war

aaa information of in-
estimable value is being lost

to the Western world in startling
quantities—because of the cold

- War.

The information is from Soviet
‘sources; and experts estimate

WORTH
_ READING

Beyond All Pity — (the
diary of Carolina Marie De
Jesus). My life in the slums
°f Sao Paulo. Price $4.50.

If you want to know why
there is so much turmoil in

' South America this book is a

Must. When first published in
Brazil it shocked the entire
Country and has sold more
than any other book in Brazil-
lan history.

In simple style, Carolina

aria De Jesus lays bare in
day-by-day diary form the
brutal, sordid life of a Sao
Paulo favela (slum)—a breed-
Ng ground of social dynamite
Waiting to be set off by a local
Castro, :

She tells of the half meas-
ures taken to help the slum
dwellers by politicians and
churchmen. Her story €X-

‘ Plodes as a vivid and territy-

8 social document.

costly to West

that 400 million words of it are
published each year. Of this, the
West lets roughly 95 percent slip
through its fingers.

Doctors studying Soviet medi-
cal papers have been astounded
by cell research and human
growth data coming from Lenin-
grad’s famous Institute of Onco-
logy. Surgeons have been sur-
prised by news of revolutionary
surgical techniques.

The range of interests in Soviet

scientific journals is almost end- .

less as research experts discover-
ed when they studied a Soviet
method for breaking down men-

SCIENCE

.

acing Iong-life bubbles produced

by detergents.

The Soviet method is economic- : : :
tronics is being pressed into ser-

al. American scientists, now that
they think of it, estimate they
can cut costs even more.

New improved sounding gear
for locating fish, invented by So-
viet electronic engineers, could
render valuable service to our
fishing industry. oF

What benefits to Western scien-
tists, industrialists and average
citizens lurk in the 95 percent the
West. tosses aside can only be
guessed at. de

Lack of translators 1S given as
the reason for this waste, but

writers on the subject indicate
this is just a symptom of more
serious ills — the failure to take
Soviet science seriously and the
compulsion for individualism in
the West. 5

While the USSR was making
steady advances, the West made
jokes about its ‘backwardness’.
Only after the orbiting of Sput-
nik I in October, 1957 did we ack-
nowledge their science.

Furthermore, some of our scien-
tists now feel that to ‘‘catch up”
to the USSR, we must emulate
their centralization of informa-
tion. (They established central
clearing houses for scientific in-
formation in 1952, five years be-
fore the first earth satellite.)

While it is estimated that 30,000
scientific experts would have to
work full time to translate all
Soviet scientific information, elec-

vice. §
_ Massive computer-translators
which store vast amounts of in-
formation also match English
words and phrases to those in the
foreign language. Their speed is
fantastic. Such a computer can
translate from Russian to Eng-
lish at 150,000 words an hour. -At
that rate a 700-page book can be
translated in 2% hours. It would
be a months-long job for human
translators working at 400 words
an hour.

DICK GREGORY shows reporters bruises resulting from the beating

administered to him in Birmingham jail by the guards.

Modern Pied Piper
leads freedom fight

“Write me a letter

Send it by mail

Send it in care of

Birmingham Jail”

—From an old American folk song

e

ECENTLY Negro comedian

Dick Gregory played Pied
Piper and nobody was laughing.
He led 751 children into jail and
from behind bars, incommunica-
do, Gregory’s piping was calling
leading Negro performers in the
arts and entertainment to stand
up and be counted on the issue
of civil rights.

Gregory is not the leader of
the stars-for-integration move-
ment.

But Gregory is the first to ally
himself in the sense of taking
part in demonstrations in the deep
south and of placing his services
at the disposal of the movement
regardless of the personal and
financial risks.

* alee *

Just a month ago Gregory was
marching with civil rights demon-
strators in Greenwood, Mississip-
pi, and challenging the police to
arrest him when they were round-
ing up others of the non-violent
marchers.

Following his release from a
‘Birmingham jail, where he re-
ported that conditions were worse
than in any concentration camp,
he announced that he was cancel-
ling all future nightclub engage-
ments (fee $2,000 a night) to con-
tinue in the struggle.

Being involved in the struggle
is nothing new to the former
Chicago mail clerk.

He was the first Negro comed-
jan to crack the big time, and he
did it without presenting him-
self in any cf the stereotyped for-
mats. His manner is Ivy League
‘and up-to-date. He is a stand-up
comic, playing to integrated aud-
iences only, and his comment is
topical and pertinent. ‘“ I would-
n’t mind paying income tax,”
goes one of his jokes, “if I knew
it was going to a friendly coun-
try.”

* * *

His amiable delivery makes his
humor, pointed though it is, less
biting on the surface than many
of his white counterparts, such
as Mort Sahl.

Gregory has little sympathy
with the proposition that life is
better for the American Negro
in the north than in the south.
“You think the north has more
civil rights than the south?” he
asks. ‘‘You wake up tomorrow as
black as I am, and see what hap-
pens.

“To me, there’s no difference in

the north and south. Down south
they don’t care how close I get
as long as I don’t get too big.
Up north they don’t care how big
I get as long as I don’t get too
close.”’

Birmingham has long been a
target for his jokes. “Talk about
living dangerously,” he once re-
marked on the Jack Paar show.
“They got this new game, Free-
dom Rider Roulette. You pick
from six bus tickets. Five go to
Chicago and one to Birmingham.”

* * *

Gregory has been fighting for
integration all his life. When he
was a youngster, he was involved
in a struggle for Negro children
to use a swimming pool previously
restricted to whites only. In col-
lege in Missouri he took a prom-
inent part in the battle for inte-
grated sports.

He believes that Negro athletes
should refuse to participate in
the Olympics until the U.S. is ful-
ly integrated.

Just thre2 years ago Gregory
was a $5-a-night humorist playing
the Negro circuit. His big break
as a performer for white audienc-
es came on Jan. 13, 1961, wher
the Playboy Club in Chicago hir.
ed him to replace an ailing com.
edian. His audience was largely
southern, and he greeted them:
“T .know. the south very well. I.
spent 20 years there one night.”

* a *

By the end of his nine week en-

, gagement, Gregory was a nation-

al name. Since then, he has stead-
ily risen to the top.

His income last year was esti-
mated at $290,000. It would have
been easy for him to confine him-
self to giving money and making
statements of support.

Instead he has chosen to jeop-
ardize his financial future and to
endanger his life to join Martin
Luther King and the freedom
marchers.

Why? Because to Gregory the
right of the American Negro to
integration transcends everything
and his conscience demands he
put the battle first.

Film award

Luchino Visconti’s color film “Tl
Gattopardo’’ (The Leopard), star-
ring Burt Lancaster as a 19th
century Sicilian prince, has been
chosen as the best film at the
Cannes Film Festival.

It was a triumph for the Italian
director, who gave energetic pub-
lic support to the Communists in ©
the recent Italian elections.

June 7, 1963—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 9