Page:The Brass Check (Sinclair 1919).djvu/347



THE CALL OF THE WILD

Jack London Puts an "If" in the Condemned Constitution.

And here is the "New York Evening Sun," denouncing Jack; here is the "Chicago Inter-Ocean," in an editorial:

If Jack London speaks only for himself, he is either a cheap seeker after notoriety or a pestilential agitator. If the latter, he is more dangerous than the agitators whose fulminations led to the assassination of President McKinley, and assassination is as likely to follow his diatribes.

Our laws prevent the importation of foreign Anarchists. Are the laws and public sentiment not strong enough to suppress the exploiter of sensationalism who preaches treason to the flag and war on the Government?

And here is the "Rochester Post Express," with the headline: "A LITERARY ANARCHIST." Here is the "Milwaukee Sentinel": "LONDON BELCHES MORE FIRE." Here is the "Chicago Inter-Ocean": "ASSASSINATION PET JOY OF MR. LONDON."

And here are various public libraries, rushing to defend our imperiled institutions by barring the books of Jack London from their shelves: Derby, Connecticut; Des Moines, Iowa; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And here is Jack, writing to Gaylord Wilshire: "Thanks for the enclosures. You bet they amuse me! I leave it to you if my situation isn't amusing!" In a letter to me, Mrs. London explains this amusement: "Down went his royalties!" And she adds:

Several years ago Jack learned, from one newspaper man and another, what he had often suspected—that the standing instructions in practically every newspaper office on the Pacific Coast were to give Jack London the worst of it whenever possible. Of course this meant no matter what the occasion, whether slamming his work, or wilfully misrepresenting his personal actions. And they only subsided, as I have said above, when they adjudged he had a bank account, and therefore must needs be less radical.

This trick played upon Jack London is a favorite one with our newspapers—to take some quotation, and put it in the mouth of the quoter. What a sordid man is William Shakespeare; he said: "Put money in thy purse!" What a vainglorious man is the apostle Matthew; he said: "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me!" What a violent man is James H. Maurer, president of the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor; he said: "Down with the Stars and Stripes!"