THE CHICAGO HORROR.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 135, 11 June 1906, Page 4

THE CHICAGO HORROR.

(By J. T. Paul, iii'Otfigo Daily Times.) I append some further extracts from Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle," concerning the doings at Packmgton, selected almost at random: — Steers which had been condemned by the Government inspectors, and which, therefore, contained ptomaines, which are deadly poisons, were iett upon an open platform and carted away to be sold in the city. There had not been even a pretence of any interference with the graft. There' was said to be 2000dol a week week hush money for the tubercular steers alone, and as much again tor the ho<t,a which had died of cholera on the trains, which you might'see any day being loaded into box cars and hauled away to a place called-Globe, in Indiana, where they made'a fancy grade of lard. It was only when the whole ham was spoiled that it came into the department of Ona. Cut up by the 2000-re-volutions-a-minute flyers, and mixed with half a ton of other meat, no odour that was ever in a ham could make any difference; and if people all over the world ate the sausage and died ot ptomaine poisoning,' the packers would not even have to know it. There was never the least attention paid to what was cut up for sausages; there would come all the way back from Europe old sausage that had been rejected, and that was"mouldy', and white—it would be dozed with borax and glycerine, and uumped into the hoppers and made over again for home consumption. There would be meat that had been tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt attd sawdust, where the workers had tramped- and spit uncounted billions of consumption germs. There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and the water from leaky roofs Avould drip over it, and thousands''of vats would race about on it. It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off'handfuls of dried dung of rats. These rats-were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread .put for them; they, would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together. This is no fairy story, and no joke; the meat would be shovelled into carts, and the man who did th,e shovelling would not trouble to lift '■■'■ out a Vat even when he saw one—there were things that went into the sausage.fih comparison with which a poisoned rat was a titbit. There was no place for the men to wash their hands before they ate their dinner, ■aiicTso-they made a practise of washing them in "the water that was to be ladled into the sausage. There were the but ends of smoked meat, and the scraps of corned beef, and all the odds and ends of the plants, that ■would be dumped into old barrels in the cellar and left there. Under the system of rigid economy which the packers enforced there were some jobs that it only paid to do once m a long time, and among these was the cleaning out of the waste-barrels, livery .spring they did. it; and in the barrels would be dirt, and rust, and old nails, and stale water—and filth that cannot be named. The meat would be mouldy and white, stinking, and full of magcots • and still, cartload after cartload, it would be taken up and dumped into the hoppers with fresh meat, and sent out to the dear public's breakfast, Some of it they would make into "smoked" sausage—but as the smoking took time, and was therefore expensive, they would preserve it with borax, and colour it with gelatine to make it brown. All of their sausage came out of the same bowl, but when they came to pack it they would stamp some of it "special," and for this they would charge tAvo cents more a pound. The men hated the whole works with an intense and deadly hate. The cause was not far to seek. Reasons were many. , . In addition to all this is the realistic romance of Jurgis. He obtains a job on account of his splendid physique. He is a success at his work, but is ignorant. He buys from an agent a house, supposed to be new, but which is really fifteen years old. U cost oOOdol. Jurgis pays loOOdol. He pays 12dol a month for the house and 8.50 interest, Jurgis marries, and is fairly happy. All the while he is being squeezed and, robbed by the packers. He gets poorer. One day he finds that his wife, who has had to go to work at the yards, holds her situation by virtue of surrendering herself to the head foreman. Jurgih almost chokes the life out of the fiend; goes to the Packingtown Gaol, is tried by the Packingtown judge. In a powerful chapter Sinclair showsi Jurgis's indignation at his "trial," his conception of justice, and leaves Jurgis in prison with the Christmas bells ringing out their message of "peace and good will." This is " the _ beginning of Jurgis's rebellion, Ins outlawry, and his unbelief." These are his fatal hours. At last he is released, only to find his home sold, his wife dying on child-bed, without money, doctor, nurse, or help. She and the baby die. Jurgis in frenzy flies to drink, but temporarily pulls himself together. He returns to the packinghouse, but there is no work for him— he had committed the " crime of striking the foreman. The yards were closed to him for ever. He gets intermittent work, finally abandons hope, and takes to the road. This is after the packing industry has killed one after another" of Jurgis's family. Lastly he becomes a criminal, and the book dscribes many social ulcers. A sensational chapter is devoted to the unspeakable things said to have been permitted and promoted by the packers during the big strike. They lodged men and women on the same floor, "and with the night there began a saturnalia of debauchery—scenes such as never before had been witnessed in America. And as the women were the dregs from the the brothels of Chicago, and the men for the most part ignorant country negroes, the nameless diseases of vice were soon rife, and this where food was being handled which was sent out to every corner of the civilised world.'' The hero is at last converted to Socialism, and believes it to be a remedy for the evils which have smitten him so sorely. The great question for the people is: How much of all this is true. The cables have told us that President Roosevelt has acted, the people of America are appalled, and the Beei Trust is panic-stricken. At the time the last mail left Upton Sinclair was under a cloud. The President had read "The Jungle," but he could not believe it. He invited the author to the White House. Sinclair tried to prove to him the truth of the charges. President Roosevelt acted quickly. He appointed a commission, the commission inquired, and found as follows:— " Certain packers and certain inspectors might at certain times conspire together to violate the law and permit the sale of condemned meat; " That a man did once fall into a vat of condemned cattle, and never came out alive. .. . . and the material in the vat into which he fell was drawn off and was sold as a food product; "That some of the rooms were not as clean as they might have been; there were places covered with a coat of whitewash where paint should have been ; " That there was offal in many cases which should have been removed, and here and there was unpleasant conditions which might have been bettered by more active supervision." ' Though there was no positive denial of the charges made by Sinclair, President Roosevelt (judging by a section of the press) was quite decided what to do. He was going to deliver a great address, the title of which was "The Men With the Muck Rake." And Sinclair was to be included among them. The Chicago Tribune said two of the most expert men in the Bureau of Animal Industry had been commissioned to hunt down the "Jungle" stories. The commission is supposed to have found in addition to the above that Chicago meat inspectors were of a specially high grade. It is supposed, therefore, to have been settled beyond doubt that Sinclair was to be denounced. A little later it was found that the commissioners report had been drawn up hurriedly, Sinclair was sure of his ground, and declared he would win. The President wavered, and the special correspondent of the Chicago Tribune wired this despatch direct from Washington just as the mail left: There is a possibility that Upton Sinclair's statements may be found to be reasonably justifiable. The preliminary reports of the investigators sent out do not justify this supposiI tion. They insist the novel only tells

the truth in patches. Their report declares the author has picked up incidents here and there, each of which might be true in itself, but he has woven the whole into a consistent mass of horrible accusations,» perverting a case of isolated facts into a continuous condition of awful import. And yet the book, alter all, may tell enough truth to reveal a shocking condition, .which public sentiment ought to correct if the law is able to do so. A patient investigation at the stockyards may develop a condition of affairs which the preliminary inquiry scarcely hinted at. If that be true tho packers will be the guilty persons, and they, in turn, -will be held up in somo public manner to the contempt of the people, and, if possible, a legal process will be discovered to punish them or to prevent a repetition of the shocking offences. This is the crisis up to which President; Roosevelt is leading. He proposes to show, if he can, that "The Jungle " is reasonaably false or reasonably true. Something will be sure to drop when the investigation now in process is completed. The President has no notion of dropping his campaign over "The Jungle." On the contrary, he considers everything done thus far merely preliminary, and the investigation into ..conditions at the stockyards, instead of being discontinued, is to be given a much wider scope,

The last word in American papers received by the mail was from Upton Sinclair himself. That he meant to fight can be gathered from his telegram to the " Appeal to Reason " to save half a page of space for more Beef Trust revelations. The editor, in up-to-date American journalese, declared that Lawson's "Frenzied Finance" would read " like Sunday school literature " alongside Sinclair's disclosures. He declared that if the President meant to "down" Sinclair he "was up against a sterner proposition than the Spanish army at Santiago." The latest cables seem to show that Sinclair has won. The President has changed his mind apparently, and stands on the same side as Sinclair and the publishers' attorney who tested Sinclair's statements before "The Jungle " was published. Let me say in closing, as in opening, that the revelations are only amazing in degree. The careful student of American affairs should hardly feel surprised at anything in the way of disclosures. In a country where a State Governor is allowed to consign the people and the Constitution to the warmest clime known without serious protest it is not at all wonderful to find the trend of things is towards that clime. It is early to prophesy, but it at least looks as though Upton Sinclair had won. The last word from the Beef Trust is advice to the Government to inquire into lobster packing. Perhaps it is the best excuse they have—"perhaps we are bad but the other fellow is worse." There is not much logic in it certanily, but the Beef Trust let go its supply of logic a long while since. There may even be worse things in the Land of Liberty than " The Jungle " has told us.