Page:The Brass Check (Sinclair 1919).djvu/210

 before a mass meeting of the Russian Revolutionary Society of Los Angeles, I defended the idea that Russia must stand by the Allies until the Kaiser was overthrown. The "Times" gave two columns to this story, with big headlines. I quote the opening paragraphs, with apologies for the "Times'" atrocious English:

TOSSES WRENCH INTO RED RUSSIAN MACHINE

Invited Speaker Gives the Bolshevik Adherents Talk on Patriotism.

Upton Sinclair threw a monkey-wrench of facts of American manufacture into a mass meeting of Socialists and near-Socialists at the Labor Temple yesterday, that after cheers and tears for the Bolsheviki, their red riot of revolution, pledges of support of Lenine and his associates, and a notable evasion of facts for the sake of indulgence in rhetorical idealism, wound up by adopting a resolution for home rule in Ireland.

"So long as the United States government is behind the small nations and for justice in the world, every Socialist and every revolutionist should be behind the American government," Sinclair told more than five hundred men and women, ranging in their sympathies from pale pacifism and yellow disloyalty up, amid hisses and cheers.

Mr. Sinclair's speech, while not unexpected by the committee in charge of the arrangements, was not in keeping with the spirit of the meeting and threw a damp blanket on the more radical element that had gathered to pass resolutions and cheer the social revolution and the economic disintegration of the Russian Empire.

The Sinclair speech, which bristled with loyal and patriotic utterances, was sandwiched between an address by Michael Bey, secretary to Prof. Lomonosoff of the Russian Mission, and the address of Paul Jordan Smith.

Such was my stand during the war, as set forth in the news columns of the "Times." But when the Kaiser was overthrown, and I saw America's war for democracy being turned into a war to put down the first proletarian government in history, I went back into the radical camp—and what happened then? What happened was that instantly the news channels became a concrete wall! If you know anything about my going back into the radical camp, and the reasons therefor, you know it from the radical press, and not from the capitalist press. Since the day when I announced the change, the Associated Press has sent out not one word about my point of view or my utterances; while the "Los Angeles Times" goes farther yet—the "Times" deliberately blinks the fact that I once "tossed a wrench into the red Russian machine," and embarks on a campaign to make the public believe that I was disloyal during the war! You may find this beyond believing; but I