Chapter LXXI: Conclusion

When I first talked over this book with my wife, she gave me a bit of advice: “Give your facts first, and then call your names.” So throughout this book I have not laid much stress on the book’s title. Perhaps you are wondering just where the title comes in!

What is the Brass Check? The Brass Check is found in your pay-envelope every week—you who write and print and distribute our newspapers and magazines. The Brass Check is the price of your shame—you who take the fair body of truth and sell it in the market-place, who betray the virgin hopes of mankind into the loathsome brothel of Big Business. And down in the counting-room below sits the “madame” who profits by your shame; unless, perchance, she is off at Palm Beach or Newport, flaunting her jewels and her feathers.

Please do not think that I am just slinging ugly words. Off and on for years I have thought about this book, and figured over the title, and what it means; I assert that the Brass Check which serves in the house of ill-fame as “the price of a woman’s shame” is, both in its moral implications and in its social effect, precisely and identically the same as the gold and silver coins and pieces of written paper that are found every week in the pay-envelopes of those who write and print and distribute capitalist publications.

The prostitution of the body is a fearful thing. The young girl, trembling with a strange emotion of which she does not know the meaning, innocent, confiding and tender, is torn from her home and started on a road to ruin and despair. The lad, seeking his mate and the fulfilment of his destiny, sees the woman of his dreams turn into a foul harpy, bearer of pestilence and death. Nature, sumptuous, magnificent, loving life, cries: “Give me children!” And the answer comes: “We give you running sores and bursting glands, rotting lips and festering noses, swollen heads and crooked joints, idiot gabblings and maniac shrieks, pistols to blow out your brains and poisons to still your agonies.” Such is the prostitution of the body.

But what of the mind? The mind is master of the body, and commands what the body shall do and what it shall become; therefore, always, the prostitution of the mind precedes and causes the prostitution of the body. Youth cries: “Life is beautiful, joyous! Give me light, that I may keep my path!” The answer comes: “Here is darkness, that you may stumble, and beat your face upon the stones!” Youth cries: “Give me Hope.” The answer comes: “Here is Cynicism.” Youth cries: “Give me understanding, that I may live in harmony with my fellow-men.” The answer comes: “Here are lies about your fellow-men, that you may hate them, that you may cheat them, that you may live among them as a wolf among wolves!” Such is the prostitution of the mind.

When I planned this book I had in mind a sub-title: “A Study of the Whore of Journalism.” A shocking sub-title; but then, I was quoting the Bible, and the Bible is the inspired word of God. It was surely one of God’s prophets who wrote this invitation to the reading of “The Brass Check”:

Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore
that sitteth upon many waters;

With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the
inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her
fornication.

For eighteen hundred years men have sought to probe the vision of that aged seer on the lonely isle of Patmos. Listen to his strange words:

So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a
woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy,
having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple
and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and
pearls, having a golden cup in her hands full of abominations and
filthiness of her fornication:

And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT,
THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

Now, surely, this mystery is a mystery no longer! Now we know what the seer of Patmos was foreseeing—Capitalist Journalism! And when I call upon you, class-conscious workers of hand and brain, to organize and destroy this mother of all iniquities, I do not have to depart from the language of the ancient scriptures. I say to you in the words of the prophet Ezekiel:

So the spirit took me up, and brought me into the inner court; and
behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house.

And I heard him speaking unto me out of the house:

Now let them put away their whoredom, and the carcases of their kings,
far from me, and I will dwell in the midst of them forever.

A PRACTICAL PROGRAM

As I am about to send this book to press, I take one last look at the world around me. Half a million coal-miners have struck, a court injunction has forced the leaders to call off the strike, the miners are refusing to obey their leaders—and the newspapers of the entire United States are concealing the facts. For a week it has been impossible for me to learn, except from vague hints, what is happening in the coal-strike. And at the same time, because of false newspaper stories from Centralia, Washington, a “white terror” reigns in the entire West, and thousands of radicals are beaten, jailed, and shot.

I have pleaded and labored long to avoid a violent revolution in America; I intend to go on pleading and laboring to the last hour. I know that thousands of my readers will, like myself, be desperately anxious for something they can do. I decided to work out a plan of action; something definite, practical, and immediate.

I propose that we shall found and endow a weekly publication of truth-telling, to be known as “The National News.” This publication will carry no advertisements and no editorials. It will not be a journal of opinion, but a record of events pure and simple. It will be published on ordinary newsprint paper, and in the cheapest possible form. It will have one purpose and one only, to give to the American people once every week the truth about the world’s events. It will be strictly and absolutely nonpartisan, and never the propaganda organ of any cause. It will watch the country, and see where lies are being circulated and truth suppressed; its job will be to nail the lies, and bring the truth into the light of day. I believe that a sufficient number of Americans are awake to the dishonesty of our press to build up for such a paper a circulation of a million inside of a year.

Let me say at the outset that I am not looking for a job. I have my work, and it isn’t editing a newspaper; nor do I judge myself capable of that rigid impartiality which such an enterprise would require. It is my idea that control of the paper should be vested in a board of directors, composed of twenty or thirty men and women of all creeds and causes, who have proven by their life-time records that they believe in fair play. By way of illustration, I will indicate my idea of such a board: Allan Benson, Alice Stone Blackwell, Harriet Stanton Blatch, Arthur Bullard, William C. Bullitt, Herbert Croly, Max Eastman, William Hard, Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, Rev. John Haynes Holmes, Hamilton Holt, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Paul Kellogg, Amos Pinchot, Charles Edward Russell, Lincoln Steffens, J. G. Phelps Stokes, Ida Tarbell, Col. William Boyce Thompson, Samuel Untermyer, Frank A. Vanderlip, Oswald Garrison Villard, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise.

The above list is confined to men and women who live in or near New York, and who therefore could attend directors’ meetings, and not be merely “dummies.” You will note that the list contains some practical publishers and editors; it contains Socialists and anti-Socialists, pro-Bolsheviks and anti-Bolsheviks, radicals and liberals of all shades.

In addition I would like to provide for a number of directors to be appointed by various organized groups in the country: one representative each from the Nonpartisan League, The American Federation of Labor, the National Teachers’ Federation, the Federation of Catholic Societies, the Federation of Protestant Churches, the Federation of Women’s Clubs, etc. The members thus named should not be sufficient in number to control the publication, for it is obvious in common sense that control must rest with the stockholders who have founded and made possible the paper. But these various groups should have a voice on the board, for the purpose of criticizing the publication and holding it rigidly to its declared policy, “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” It should be provided that each director has the right to a column twice a year in the publication, in which to state any criticism of its policy which he may have; also that any five directors have the right once a month to insert a column pointing out what they consider failure of the paper to live up to its professed standards. There should be a directors’ meeting in New York City once every month, and all these meetings should be open to representatives of the press; the editorial staff should be present, and answer all criticisms and explain their policy. Unless I am mistaken, this would result in making “National News” in another sense; the capitalist press would be forced to discuss the paper, and to advertise it.

I picture a publication of sixty-four pages, size nine inches by twelve, with three columns of ordinary newspaper type. The paper will have special correspondents in several of the big cities, and in the principal capitals of Europe, and will publish telegraphic news from these correspondents. It will obtain the names of reliable men in cities and towns throughout America, and in case of emergency it can telegraph, say to Denver, ordering five hundred words about the Ludlow massacre, or to Spokane, ordering the truth about the Centralia fight. The editor of the “National News” will sit in a watch-tower with the world spread before him; thousands of volunteers will act as his eyes, they will send him letters or telegrams with news. He and his staff will consider it all according to one criterion: Is the truth being hidden here? Is this something the American people ought to know? If so, the editor will send a trusted man to get the story, and when he has made certain of the facts he will publish them, regardless of what is injured, the Steel Trust or the I. W. W., the Standard Oil Company or the Socialist Party—even the “National News” itself.

Our editor will not give much space to the news that all other papers publish. The big story for him will be what the other papers let alone. He will employ trained investigators, and set them to work for a week, or maybe for several months, getting the facts about the lobby of the Beef Trust in Washington, the control of our public schools in the interest of militarism, the problem of who is paying the expenses of the American railway mission in Siberia. Needless to say, the capitalist press will provide the “National News” with a complete monopoly of this sort of work. Also it will provide the paper with many deliberate falsehoods to be nailed. When this is done, groups of truth-loving people will buy these papers by the thousands, and blue-pencil and distribute them. So the “National News” will grow, and the “kept” press will be moved by the only force it recognizes—loss of money.

There are in America millions of people who could not be persuaded to read a Socialist paper, or a labor paper, or a single tax paper; but there are very few who could not be persuaded to read a paper that gives the news and proves by continuous open discussion that it really does believe in “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” I do not think I am too optimistic when I say that such a publication, with a million circulation, would change the whole tone of American public life.

What would such a paper cost? To be published without advertisements, it would have to charge a high subscription price, two dollars a year at least; and there are not enough who will subscribe to a paper at that price. It would be better for the people to go without shoes than without truth, but the people do not know this, and so continue to spend their money for shoes. If the “National News” is to succeed, the few who do realize the emergency must pay more than their share; in other words, the paper must have a subsidy, and the subsidy must be large enough to make success certain—otherwise, of course, no one ought to give anything.

I have telegraphed to publishers of liberal sympathies in the East, and present herewith the following estimate of the cost of launching and maintaining the “National News”:

Weekly cost on basis of half million circulation: Editorial, overhead
and paid matter, $1,000; paper, composition and printing, $9,000;
addressing and mailing, $1,000; stencil list, $1,000; postage, $1,250;
telegraph 50; business and circulation, $500; total, $14,000 per week,
$728,000 per year.

The above is figured, as requested, on 64 page paper, size nine by
twelve. Such work has to be done in a job plant and is more expensive.
By making 32 pages, size twelve by eighteen, the cost could be cut to
$650,000 per year.

Income on basis of 500,000 circulation, three-fifths consisting of
paid subscriptions at one dollar per year, and two-fifths of
news-stand sales at five cents per copy retail, three cents wholesale:
$612,000. Deficit to be made up by subsidy, $116,000. Deficit on
larger size, $38,000.

On basis of one million circulation, cost in smaller size will be
$1,300,000; income will be $1,224,000; deficit, $76,000. On the larger
size there would be no deficit.

It is recommended that no definite policy as to advertising be fixed
in preliminary stages, but the matter left to the directing board.
There is a great deal of advertising, relating to books, liberal
organizations and political movements, which adds to the interest of a
publication; also there is some commercial advertising which would not
seek to control policy. A definite declaration contained in
advertising contracts, to the effect that the contract carries no
expectation of editorial favors, and rigid adherence to this principle
should suffice. The deficits here figured would be covered by one or
two pages of advertising per week, so it is not necessary to figure a
permanent deficit on the paper.

The income from subscriptions has been figured without agents’
commissions and premiums, on the understanding that the paper will
rely on volunteer labor for canvassing. For the same reason the sum of
one hundred thousand dollars may be set as the maximum cost of
establishing the paper.

The above represents the combined views of three different persons, all qualified experts. As suggested, I will leave the questions of detail to be worked out by the governing board. It appears that we may have an honest paper if we will give one hundred thousand dollars in cash, and will pledge, say thirty thousand dollars a year for two years to cover a possible deficit.

Such are the figures. I believe that this amount of money can be raised, and I purpose to set out and raise it. To every reader of this book I say: Will you help, and if so, how much? Presumably nobody will want to cut out a page from a book, so I will not print a stock subscription blank. I ask that you write me a letter as follows:

UPTON SINCLAIR,

Pasadena, California:

Assuming that you are able to raise the total necessary endowment fund
and permanent annual subsidy for the “National News,” and that you
name an organization committee satisfactory to us, we, the
undersigned, agree to contribute to the project as follows:

Then give, in vertical columns, names; addresses; the number of subscribers that each signer undertakes to obtain, on a basis of not more than one dollar per year; the amount of money that each signer will contribute to the endowment fund; the amount that each will contribute each year to make up the permanent deficit.

_Please do not send money for the paper._ I will let you know when I reach that stage, and meantime I do not want the responsibility of keeping money. If you are enough interested in the plan to care to help in advertising it, printing circulars and soliciting pledges from people of means, I will be glad to receive such money and to account for it. If I succeed in raising the necessary sum, I will name an organization committee, and have a charter prepared, and submit the whole matter to you for endorsement.

Sometimes people criticize my books as being “destructive.” Well, here is a book with a constructive ending. Here is something to be done; something definite, practical, and immediate. Here is a challenge to every lover of truth and fair dealing in America to get busy and help create an open forum through which our people may get the truth about their affairs, and be able to settle their industrial problems without bloodshed and waste. Will you do your share?

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

Two years ago I finished “The Profits of Religion,” and offered it to publishers. They said it could not be sold; no book on religion could be sold, it was the deadest subject in the world. I believed that “The Profits of Religion” could be sold, and I published it myself. In less than a year I have sold forty thousand copies, and am still selling them.

One reason, of course, is the low price. Everybody told me that a book could not be published at that price. I would report on the figures if I could, but I gave the book as a premium for my magazine, and never made any attempt to separate the two ventures. All that I can report is that since February, 1918, when I started the magazine, I have taken in for magazines and books a total of $14,269, and I have paid out for printing, postage, labor and advertising, a total of $20,995. This deficit represents some two hundred thousand magazines sent out free for propaganda purposes; the deficit was made up by donations from friends, so it cost me nothing but my time, which I gladly gave. And I am willing to give it again; I can’t expect either royalty as author or profit as publisher from “The Brass Check.” The cost of book manufacturing has increased fifty per cent in the past two years, and to make matters worse, “The Brass Check” is exactly twice as long as “The Profits of Religion.” If this book were published in the ordinary way, to be sold to book-stores, it would be priced at $2.00, postage extra; or possibly even $2.50. Sold, as it is, at $1.00, postpaid, it is an appeal to the conscience of every reader to do his part in helping to get it widely distributed.

“The Profits of Religion” was practically boycotted by the capitalist press of America. Just one newspaper, the “Chicago Daily News,” reviewed it—or rather allowed me space in which to review it myself. Just one religious publication, the “Churchman,” took the trouble to ridicule it at length. Half a dozen others sneered at it in brief paragraphs, and half a dozen newspapers did the same, and that was all the publicity the book got, except in the radical press. That this was a deliberate boycott, and not the fault of the book, is something which I leave for my readers to assert.

“The Brass Check,” of course, will be treated in the same way. If it gets any publicity, it will be only because of a libel suit or something sensational. If the great mass of the people ever hear of the book, it will be because you, the reader, do your part. If it seems to you an honest book, and one which the public ought to know, get busy. If you can afford it, order a number of copies and give them to your friends. If you can’t afford that, make up a subscription list among your friends. If you need to earn money, turn agent, and sell the book among your neighbors, in the shop where you work, on the road. If your experience is the same as mine, you will find nearly everybody distrustful of Capitalist Journalism, and willing at least to consider the truth about it.

POSTSCRIPT TO SECOND EDITION.—A letter from E. J. Costello, managing
editor of the “Federated Press”:

“Let me say in this very first sentence that the ‘Brass Check’ is the
most remarkable book that has ever been published in America. It is
one that should, in the quickest possible manner, be placed in the
hands of every American who can read, and read to every American who
cannot read.

“I have been in this newspaper game for about twenty years, and I know
from my own experience that your story is the absolute truth. For
dozens of the incidents of ‘kept press’ rottenness I can cite
counterparts. Your story of the Associated Press is without doubt the
most concise exposé on record of the despicable methods which prevail
in that organization.”

Mr. Costello goes on to tell me that he was for seven years a staff
correspondent and editor for the Associated Press. He was in charge of
its Des Moines bureau at the time I was trying to get out the truth
from the Colorado coal strike. One day there came through on the
Associated Press wire instructions from the New York office “that
henceforth Upton Sinclair must be kept out of the Denver office, and
that no relations with him might be had by any employe of the Denver
bureau. I remember that my operator copied the message and brought it
to me, and that I determined to keep it for possible future reference.

“Within fifteen minutes after the message had been sent the chief
operator at Chicago asked the Des Moines operator if he had copied it,
and on being informed affirmatively he ordered the copy sent to
Chicago. The operator asked me for the message, but I declined to let
him have it. I placed it in a locked compartment of my desk, where it
remained for several weeks, when one day it turned up missing. I have
never been able to ascertain just how it disappeared, but I am quite
positive that other keys fitted my desk, and that there was a reason
for its disappearance. It wasn’t so many months after this occurrence
that I was ordered in to the Chicago office, presumably because it was
thought I would bear watching. My radical views led finally, in 1916,
to my leaving the Associated Press service entirely.

“Perhaps you have not heard that it was because of his efforts to do
the square thing by you in the Ammons matter that Rowsey was
discharged by Superintendent Cowles upon the orders of Melville E.
Stone. Yet that was what was currently reported in inner ‘A. P.’
circles at the time.”

Mr. Costello goes on to tell me that he left the Associated Press with
his mind made up as to what was to be his life’s work, “the
establishment of a press association which would represent the people
who work, as against the eight or ten millionaire publishers, who,
through the ownership of Associated Press bonds, outvote nearly 2,000
other members of the organization, and absolutely control the channels
through which the great public gets its poisoned news.”

The “Federated Press” had its inception at a convention of the Labor
Party in Chicago, November, 1919. It is a co-operative
non-profit-making organization of working class newspapers, and
maintains an admirable service of vital news from all over the world.
It publishes a weekly four-page bulletin, which it will mail to you
for five dollars a year, and which you will find worth the price many
times over. The address of the “Federated Press” is 156 West
Washington Street, Chicago, Illinois.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

_A book which has been absolutely boycotted by the literary reviews of
America._

THE PROFITS OF RELIGION

BY UPTON SINCLAIR

A study of Supernaturalism as a Source of Income and a Shield to Privilege; the first examination in any language of institutionalized religion from the economic point of view. “Has the labour as well as the merit of breaking virgin soil,” writes Joseph McCabe. The book has had practically no advertising and only two or three reviews in radical publications; yet forty thousand copies have been sold in the first year.

_From the Rev. John Haynes Holmes_: “I must confess that it has fairly
made me writhe to read these pages, not because they are untrue or
unfair, but on the contrary, because I know them to be the real facts.
I love the church as I love my home, and therefore it is no pleasant
experience to be made to face such a story as this which you have
told. It had to be done, however, and I am glad you have done it, for
my interest in the church, after all, is more or less incidental,
whereas my interest in religion is a fundamental thing.... Let me
repeat again that I feel that you have done us all a service in the
writing of this book. Our churches today, like those of ancient
Palestine, are the abode of Pharisees and scribes. It is as spiritual
and helpful a thing now as it was in Jesus’ day for that fact to be
revealed.”

_From Luther Burbank_: “No one has ever told ‘the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth’ more faithfully than Upton Sinclair
in ‘The Profits of Religion.’”

_From Louis Untermeyer_: “Let me add my quavering alto to the chorus
of applause of ‘The Profits of Religion.’ It is something more than a
book—it is a Work!”

315 pages. Single copy, paper, 50c postpaid; three copies, $1.20;
ten copies, $3.50. By freight collect, 25 copies or more at 30 cents
per copy. Single copy, cloth, $1.00 postpaid; three copies, .25; ten
copies, $7.00. By freight collect, 25 copies or more at 60 cents per
copy.

JIMMIE HIGGINS

“Jimmie Higgins” is the fellow who does the hard work in the job of
waking up the workers. Jimmie hates war—all war—and fights against it
with heart and soul. But war comes, and Jimmie is drawn into it,
whether he will or no. He has many adventures—strikes, jails,
munitions explosions, draft-boards, army-camps, submarines and
battles. “Jimmie Higgins Goes to War” at last, and when he does he
holds back the German army and wins the battle of “Chatty Terry.” But
then they send him into Russia to fight the Bolsheviki, and there
“Jimmie Higgins Votes for Democracy.”

A picture of the American working-class movement during four years of
world-war; all wings of the movement, all the various tendencies and
clashing impulses are portrayed. Cloth, $1.00 postpaid.

_From “the Candidate”_: I have just finished reading the first
installment of “Jimmie Higgins” and I am delighted with it. It is the
beginning of a great story, a story that will be translated into many
languages and be read by eager and interested millions all over the
world. I feel that your art will lend itself readily to “Jimmie
Higgins,” and that you will be at your best in placing this dear
little comrade where he belongs in the Socialist movement. The opening
chapter of your story proves that you know him intimately. So do I and
I love him with all my heart, even as you do. He has done more for me
than I shall ever be able to do for him. Almost anyone can be “The
Candidate,” and almost anyone will do for a speaker, but it takes the
rarest of qualities to produce a “Jimmie Higgins.” You are painting a
superb portrait of our “Jimmie” and I congratulate you.

EUGENE V. DEBS.

_From Mrs. Jack London_: Jimmie Higgins is immense. He is real, and so
are the other characters. I’m sure you rather fancy Comrade Dr.
Service! The beginning of the narrative is delicious with an
irresistible loving humor; and as a change comes over it and the Big
Medicine begins to work, one realizes by the light of 1918, what you
have undertaken to accomplish. The sure touch of your genius is here,
Upton Sinclair, and I wish Jack London might read and enjoy.

CHARMIAN LONDON.

_From a Socialist Artist_: Jimmie Higgins’ start is a master portrayal
of that character. I have been out so long on these lecture tours that
I can appreciate the picture. I am waiting to see how the story
develops. It starts better than “King Coal.”

RYAN WALKER.

Price, cloth, $1.00 postpaid.

=UPTON SINCLAIR—Pasadena, California=

OTHER BOOKS BY UPTON SINCLAIR

=KING COAL=: a Novel of the Colorado coal country. Cloth, $1.00.

“Clear, convincing, complete.”—Lincoln Steffens.

“I wish that every word of it could be burned deep into the heart of every American.”—Adolph Germer.

=THE CRY FOR JUSTICE=: an Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest, with an Introduction by Jack London, who calls it “this humanist Holy-book.” Thirty-two illustrations, 891 pages, $1.50.

“It should rank with the very noblest works of all time. You could scarcely have improved on its contents—it is remarkable in variety and scope. Buoyant, but never blatant, powerful and passionate, it has the spirit of a challenge and a battle cry.”—Louis Untermeyer.

“You have marvelously covered the whole ground. The result is a book that radicals of every shade have long been waiting for. You have made one that every student of the world’s thought—economic, philosophic, artistic—has to have.”—Reginald Wright Kauffman.

=SYLVIA=: a Novel of the Far South. Price $1.00.

=SYLVIA’S MARRIAGE=: a sequel. Price $1.00.

=DAMAGED GOODS=: a Novel made from the play by Brieux. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents.

=PLAYS OF PROTEST=: four dramas. Price $1.00.

=THE FASTING CURE=: a study of the problem of health. Price $1.00.

_The above prices postpaid._

=UPTON SINCLAIR—Pasadena, California=

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. 2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. 4. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.