_The Autobiography of Upton Sinclair_
_The Autobiography
of_
UPTON SINCLAIR
New York
HARCOURT, BRACE & WORLD, INC.
Printed in the United States of America
_Preface_
All through my seventy-one years of writing life--I started at
thirteen--I have had from my readers suggestions that I should tell my
own story. When I was halfway through those writing years I accepted the
suggestion and wrote a book called _American Outpost_. The major part of
that book, revised and brought up to date, is incorporated in this
volume.
I put myself in the position of a veteran of many campaigns who gathers
the youngsters about his knee. He knows these youngsters cannot really
share the anguish and turmoil of his early years, for they belong to a
new generation which is looking to be entertained and amused. So the old
campaigner takes a casual and lighthearted tone.
If any old-timer is offended by this--well, there are any number of
serious books, plays, and pamphlets of mine that he can read, plus an
anthology and a selection of letters written to me by the really great
writers of our time. If that is not enough he can travel to the
University of Indiana and there, in the Lilly Library, he can read the
250,000 letters that have been written to me over the years--and the
carbon copies of my replies. After he has read all this, I shall have
written more.
_Contents_
_Preface_ v
I _Childhood_ 3
II _Youth_ 28
III _Genius_ 53
IV _Marriage_ 75
V _Revolt_ 99
VI _Utopia_ 127
VII _Wandering_ 147
VIII _Exile_ 169
IX _New Beginning_ 191
X _West to California_ 212
XI _The Muckrake Man_ 222
XII _More Causes--and Effects_ 243
XIII _Some Eminent Visitors_ 254
XIV _EPIC_ 268
XV _Grist for My Mill_ 278
XVI _Lanny Budd_ 291
XVII _Harvest_ 303
XVIII _A Tragic Ordeal_ 310
XIX _End and Beginning_ 318
XX _Summing Up_ 327
_Books by Upton Sinclair_ 331
_Index_ 333
_List of Illustrations_
(_The illustrations will be found between pages 166 and 167. All but the
last three were supplied by the Upton Sinclair Collection, Lilly
Library, Indiana University, Indiana._)
Priscilla Harden Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair, Sr.
Upton Sinclair at the age of eight
Upton Sinclair at twenty-seven, when he was writing _The Jungle_
Winston Churchill reviews _The Jungle_
George Bernard Shaw at Ayot-St. Lawrence, about 1913
Mary Craig Sinclair and Upton Sinclair in Bermuda, 1913
George Sterling, his wife, Carrie, and Jack London
Mrs. Kate Crane-Gartz
Sergei Eisenstein, about 1933
Upton Sinclair during the EPIC campaign, 1934
Upton Sinclair and Harry Hopkins, 1934
_Flivver King_ in Detroit, 1937
Upton Sinclair, about 1960, with autographed picture of Albert
Einstein
Upton Sinclair standing before his home in Monrovia, California
May Hard Sinclair and Upton Sinclair, 1962
Upton Sinclair with seventy-nine of the books he has written
_The Autobiography of Upton Sinclair_
_1_
_Childhood_
I
My first recollection of life is one that my mother insisted I could not
possibly have, because I was only eighteen months old at the time. Yet
there it is in my mind: a room where I have been left in the care of a
relative while my parents are taking a trip. I see a little old lady,
black-clad, in a curtained room; I know where the bed is located, and
the oilstove on which the cooking is done, and the thrills of exploring
a new place. Be sure that children know far more than we give them
credit for; I hear fond parents praising their precious darlings, and I
wince, noting how the darlings are drinking in every word. Always in my
childhood I would think: “How silly these grownups are! And how easy to
outwit!”
I was a toddler when one day my mother told me not to throw a piece of
rag into a drain. “Paper dissolves, but rag doesn’t.” I treasured up
this wisdom and, visiting my Aunt Florence, remarked with great
impressiveness, “It is all right to throw paper into the drain, because
it dissolves, but you mustn’t throw rags in, because they don’t
dissolve.” Wonder, mingled with amusement, appeared on the face of my
sweet and gentle relative. My first taste of glory.
Baltimore, Maryland, was the place, and I remember boardinghouse and
lodginghouse rooms. We never had but one room at a time, and I slept on
a sofa or crossways at the foot of my parents’ bed; a custom that caused
me no discomfort that I can recall. One adventure recurred; the
gaslight would be turned on in the middle of the night, and I would
start up, rubbing my eyes, and join in the exciting chase for bedbugs.
They came out in the dark and scurried into hiding when they saw the
light; so they must be mashed quickly. For thrills like this, wealthy
grown-up children travel to the heart of Africa on costly safaris. The
more bugs we killed, the fewer there were to bite us the rest of the
night, which I suppose is the argument of the lion hunters also. Next
morning, the landlady would come, and corpses in the washbasin or
impaled on pins would be exhibited to her; the bed would be taken to
pieces and “corrosive sublimate” rubbed into the cracks with a chicken
feather.
My position in life was a singular one, and only in later years did I
understand it. When I went to call on my father’s mother, a black-clad,
frail little lady, there might be only cold bread and dried herring for
Sunday-night supper, but it would be served with exquisite courtesy and
overseen by a great oil painting of my grandfather in naval
uniform--with that same predatory beak that I have carried through life
and have handed on to my son. Grandfather Sinclair had been a captain in
the United States Navy and so had his father before him, and ancestors
far back had commanded in the British Navy. The family had lived in
Virginia, and there had been slaves and estates. But the slaves had been
set free, and the homestead burned, and the head of the family drowned
at sea in the last year of the Civil War. His descendants, four sons and
two daughters, lived in embarrassing poverty, but with the
consciousness, at every moment of their lives, that they were persons of
great consequence and dignity.
II
Being interested in the future rather than the past, I always considered
ancestors a bore. All I knew about mine were a few anecdotes my mother
told me. Then my friend Albert Mordell, who was writing a paper for a
historical magazine, came upon my great-grandfather. He wrote me: “The
life of your ancestors is a history of the American navy.” It amused him
to discover that a notorious “red” had such respectable forefathers, and
he had a manuscript called _The Fighting Sinclairs_, which may someday
be published. Meanwhile, since every biography is required to have
ancestors, I quote a summary that Mr. Mordell kindly supplied. Those not
interested in ancestors are permitted to skip.
* * * * *
Commodore Arthur Sinclair, the great-grandfather of Upton, fought in the
first American naval battle after the Revolution, he being a midshipman
on the _Constellation_, when it fought the _Insurgente_, in 1798. He was
also in the latter part of the war with Tripoli. He was on the _Argus_
in the first cruise of the War of 1812, and captured many prizes. He
fought in the leading battle of Lake Ontario under Commander Chauncey.
The battle was between the _Pike_, on which he was captain, and the
_Wolf_. He also a little later had command of the entire squadron on the
upper lakes. He commanded the _Congress_ in its cruise to South America
in 1818, carrying the commissioners to investigate conditions, and on
its cruise was born the Monroe Doctrine, for the commissioner’s report
led to the promulgation of the Doctrine. He also founded a naval school
at Norfolk. When he died in 1831, the flags of all the ships were
ordered at half-mast, and mourning was ordered worn by the officers for
thirty days. He was an intimate friend of practically all the naval
heroes in the War of 1812.
He had three sons, Arthur, George T., and Dr. William B., all of whom
became officers in the old navy and resigned in 1861 to join the
Confederacy. Arthur, who is Upton’s grandfather, was with Perry in Japan
in the early fifties. He also commanded a ship in the late fifties--the
_Vandalia_--and was compelled to destroy a village of cannibals on an
island in the Pacific.
His brother, George T., was in the famous voyage of the _Potomac_ around
the world in the early thirties, which went to attack a town in the
Malay Islands for some ravages upon an American ship. He also was with
Commander Elliott, the Lake Erie hero, on the _Constitution_ in the
Mediterranean. He was in the famous Wilkes exploring expedition around
1840, when they discovered the Antarctic continent; and, like the rest
of the officers, he had trouble with Wilkes, whom they had
court-martialed. He also served in the African Squadron hunting slavers
in the early fifties, and later in the home squadron in the _Wabash_
under Commander Paulding. It was on this ship that the famous
filibuster, William Walker, who made himself dictator of Nicaragua,
surrendered to Paulding.
The third brother, Dr. William B. Sinclair, was in the Mediterranean
Squadron with Commander Isaac Hull about 1840. He was also in the
African Squadron. All these three brothers were in the Mexican waters
during the war, but saw no active service there. At the opening of the
Civil War, they became officers in the Confederate Navy and saw various
services.
Arthur was compelled to burn his ship the _Mississippi_ at the battle of
New Orleans to prevent its falling into the hands of his friend (now his
enemy) Farragut. He was drowned on a blockade runner when leaving
Liverpool toward the end of the war. George built a ship in England for
the Confederacy, but it was never taken over by them because the English
took hold of it. Dr. Sinclair served as physician in the Confederate
Navy.
These three men also had four sons who became officers in the
Confederate Navy. Arthur had two sons in this navy--Arthur, Jr., and
Terry. Arthur, Jr., an uncle of Upton, was in the battle between the
_Monitor_ and the _Merrimac_, and wrote an account of it. He served two
years on the _Alabama_, and was in the famous fight with the
_Kearsarge_, and left a book about his experiences: _Two Years on the
Alabama_.
His brother, Terry, also an uncle of Upton, was on the Confederate
Cruiser _Florida_, the most important ship next to the _Alabama_, for
two years. This was captured unlawfully, and Terry was made a prisoner
of war, but was soon released. He left a magazine article about his
experience. George T.’s son, William H., commanded a prize ship taken by
the _Alabama_. Dr. William B.’s son, William B., Jr., was drowned at the
age of eighteen from the _Florida_ because he gave his oar to a shipmate
who could not swim.
III
My father was the youngest son of Captain Arthur Sinclair and was raised
in Norfolk. In the days before the war, and after it, all Southern
gentlemen “drank.” My father became a wholesale whisky salesman, which
made it easy and even necessary for him to follow the fashion. Later on
he became a “drummer” for straw-hat manufacturers, and then for
manufacturers of men’s clothing; but he could never get away from drink,
for the beginning of every deal was a “treat,” and the close of it was
another. Whisky in its multiple forms--mint juleps, toddies, hot
Scotches, egg-nogs, punch--was the most conspicuous single fact in my
boyhood. I saw it and smelled it and heard it everywhere I turned, but I
never tasted it.
The reason was my mother, whose whole married life was poisoned by
alcohol, and who taught me a daily lesson in horror. It took my good and
gentle-souled father thirty or forty years to kill himself, and I
watched the process week by week and sometimes hour by hour. It made an
indelible impression upon my childish soul, and is the reason why I am a
prohibitionist, to the dismay of my “libertarian” friends.
It was not that my father could not earn money, but that he could not
keep it. He would come home with some bank notes, and the salvation of
his wife and little son would depend upon the capture of this treasure.
My mother acquired the habit of going through his pockets at night; and
since he never knew how much he had brought home, there would be
arguments in the morning, an unending duel of wits. Father would hide
the money when he came in late, and then in the morning he would forget
where he had hidden it, and there would be searching under mattresses
and carpets and inside the lining of clothing--all sorts of unlikely
places. If my mother found it first, you may be sure that my father was
allowed to go on looking.
When he was not under the influence of the Demon Rum, the little
“drummer” dearly loved his family; so the thirty years during which I
watched him were one long moral agony. He would make all sorts of
pledges, with tears in his eyes; he would invent all sorts of devices to
cheat his cruel master. He would not “touch a drop” until six o’clock in
the evening; he would drink lemonade or ginger ale when he was treating
the customers. But alas, he would change to beer, in order not to
“excite comment”; and then after a week or a month of beer, we would
smell whisky on his breath again, and the tears and wranglings and
naggings would be resumed.
This same thing was going on in most of the homes in Maryland and
Virginia of which I had knowledge. My father’s older brother died an
inebriate in a soldiers’ home. My earliest memory of the home of my
maternal grandfather is of being awakened by a disturbance downstairs,
and looking over the banisters in alarm while my grandfather--a
Methodist deacon--was struggling with his grown son to keep him from
going out when he was drunk. Dear old Uncle Harry, burly and full of
laughter, a sportsman and favorite of all the world--at the age of forty
or so he put a bullet through his head in Central Park, New York.
IV
Human beings are what life makes them, and there is no more fascinating
subject of study than the origin of mental and moral qualities. My
father’s drinking accounted for other eccentricities of mine besides my
belief in prohibition. It caused me to follow my mother in everything,
and so to have a great respect for women; thus it came about that I
walked in the first suffrage parade in New York, behind the snow-white
charger of Inez Milholland. My mother did not drink coffee, nor even
tea; and so, when I visited in England, I made all my hostesses unhappy.
No lady had ever been known to smoke in Baltimore--only old Negro women
with pipes; therefore I did not smoke--except once. When I was eight
years old, a big boy on the street gave me a cigarette, and I started
it; but another boy told me a policeman would arrest me, so I threw the
cigarette away, and ran and hid in an alley, and have never yet
recovered from this fear. It has saved me a great deal of money, and
some health also, I am sure.
The sordid surroundings in which I was forced to live as a child made me
a dreamer. I took to literature, because that was the easiest refuge. I
knew practically nothing about music; my mother, with the upbringing of
a young lady, could play a few pieces on the piano, but we seldom had a
piano, and the music I heard was church hymns, and the plantation
melodies that my plump little father hummed while shaving himself with a
big razor. My mother had at one time painted pictures; I recall a snow
scene in oils, with a kind of tinsel to make sparkles in the snow. But I
never learned this wonderful art.
My mother would read books to me, and everything I heard I remembered. I
taught myself to read at the age of five, before anyone realized what
was happening. I would ask what this letter was, and that, and go away
and learn it, and make the sounds, and very soon I was able to take care
of myself. I asked my numerous uncles and aunts and cousins to send me
only books for Christmas; and now, three quarters of a century later,
traces of their gifts are still in my head. Let someone with a taste for
research dig into the Christmas books of the early eighties, and find a
generous broad volume, with many illustrations, merry rhymes, and a
title containing the phrase “a peculiar family.” From this book I
learned to read, and I would ask my mother if she knew any such
“peculiar” persons; for example, the “little boy who was so dreadfully
polite, he would not even sneeze unless he asked you if he might.” He
sneezed by accident, and “scared all the company into the middle of next
week.”
While arguments between my father and my mother were going on, I was
with Gulliver in Lilliput, or on the way to the Celestial City with
Christian, or in the shop with the little tailor who killed “seven at
one blow.” I had Grimm and Andersen and _The Story of the Bible_, and
Henty and Alger and Captain Mayne Reid. I would be missing at a party
and be discovered behind the sofa with a book. At the home of my Uncle
Bland there was an encyclopedia, and my kind uncle was greatly impressed
to find me absorbed in the article on gunpowder. Of course, I was
pleased to have my zeal for learning admired--but also I really did want
to know about gunpowder.
Readers of my novels know that I have one favorite theme, the contrast
between the social classes; there are characters from both worlds, the
rich and the poor, and the plots are contrived to carry you from one to
the other. The explanation is that as far back as I can remember, my
life was a series of Cinderella transformations; one night I would be
sleeping on a vermin-ridden sofa in a lodginghouse, and the next night
under silken coverlets in a fashionable home. It all depended on whether
my father had the money for that week’s board. If he didn’t, my mother
paid a visit to her father, the railroad official in Baltimore. No
Cophetua or Aladdin in fairy lore ever stepped back and forth between
the hovel and the palace as frequently as I.
V
When _The Metropolis_ was published in 1908, the New York critics said
it was a poor novel because the author didn’t know the thing called
“society.” As a matter of fact, the reason was exactly the opposite; the
author knew “society” too well to overcome his distaste for it.
Attempting to prove this will of course lay me open to the charge of
snobbery; it is not good form to establish your own social position.
But, on the other hand, neither is it good form to tell about your
drunken father, or the bedbugs in your childhood couch; so perhaps one
admission will offset the other. What I am doing is explaining a
temperament and a literary product, and this can be done only by making
real to you both sides of my double life--the bedbugs and liquor on the
one hand, the snobbery on the other.
My maternal grandfather was John S. Harden, secretary-treasurer of the
Western Maryland Railroad. I remember going to his office and seeing
rows of canvas bags full of gold and silver coin that were to go into
pay envelopes. I remember also that the president of the road lived just
up the street from us and that I broke one of his basement windows with
a ball. I was sent to confess my crime and carry the money to pay for
it.
Grandfather Harden was a pillar of the Methodist Church, which was not
fashionable; but even so, the leaders of Baltimore’s affairs came to his
terrapin suppers, and I vividly recall these creatures--I mean the
terrapin--crawling around in the backyard, and how a Negro man speared
them through the heads with a stout fork, and cut off their heads with a
butcher knife. Apparently it was not forbidden for a Methodist to serve
sherry wine in terrapin stew--or brandy, provided it had been soaked up
by fruitcake or plum pudding.
I recall the long reddish beard of this good and kindly old man and the
large bald spot on the top of his head. It did not occur to me as
strange that his hair should grow the wrong way; but I recall that I was
fascinated by a mole placed exactly on the top, like a button, and once
I yielded to a dreadful temptation and gave it a slap. Then I fled in
terror to the top story of the house. I was brought down by my shocked
mother and aunts, and ordered to apologize. I recollect this grandfather
carving unending quantities of chickens, ducks, turkeys, and hams; but I
cannot to save me recall a single word that he spoke. I suppose the
reason the carving stands out in my mind is that I was the youngest of
the family of a dozen or so and therefore the last to get my plate at
mealtimes.
I recall even better my maternal grandmother, a stout, jolly old lady,
who made delightful ginger cookies and played on the piano and sang
little tunes to which I danced as a child:
Here we go, two by two,
Dressed in yellow, pink and blue.
Mary Ayers was her maiden name, and someone who looked up her family
tree discovered that she could lay claim to several castles in Ireland.
The family got in touch with the Irish connections, and letters were
exchanged, with the result that one of the younger sons came
emigrating--a country “squire,” six feet or more, rosy-cheeked, and with
a broad brogue. He told us about his search for a job and of the
unloving reception he met when he went into a business place. “‘Git
oot,’ said the man, and so I thought I’d better git oot.” Not finding
anything in Baltimore, our Irish squire wound up on the New York police
force--a most dreadful humiliation to the family. My mother, of a
mischievous disposition, would wait until her fashionable niece and
nephew were entertaining company, and then inquire innocently: “By the
way, whatever became of that cousin of ours who’s a policeman up in New
York?”
My mother’s older sister married John Randolph Bland, named for John
Randolph, the Virginia statesman. This Uncle Bland, as I called him,
became one of the richest men in Baltimore. Sometime before his death, I
saw him scolded in a country club of his home city because of his
dictatorial ways. The paper referred to him as “the great Bland”--which
I suppose establishes his position. He knew all the businessmen of the
city, and they trusted him. So he was able to sell them shares in a
bonding concern he organized. I remember walking downtown with him one
day when I was a child. We stopped at a big grocery store while he
persuaded the owner to take shares in the company he was founding. Its
name was the United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company, and of course
he became its president. You have probably heard of it because it has
branches all over America and in many of the world’s capitals.
After I had taken up my residence in Pasadena, he made a tour of the
country to become acquainted with the agents of his company; he gave a
banquet to those in southern California. There must have been two
hundred of them, for they filled the biggest private dining room of our
biggest hotel. His muckraker-nephew was invited to partake of this feast
and listen to the oratory--but not to be heard, you may be sure! We all
sang “Annie Laurie” and “Nellie Gray” and other songs calculated to work
up a battle spirit and send us out to take away the other fellow’s
business.
In my childhood, I lived for months at a time at Uncle Bland’s. He and
his family lived in one of those brick houses--four stories high, with
three or four white marble steps--which are so characteristic of
Baltimore and were apparently planned and built by the block. Uncle
Bland’s daughter married an heir of many millions, and through the years
of her young ladyhood I witnessed dances and parties, terrapin suppers,
punch, dresses, gossip--everything that is called “society.” Prior to
that came the debut and wedding of my mother’s younger sister, all of
which I remember, even to the time when she woke my mother in the middle
of the night, exclaiming, “Tell me, Priscie, shall I many him?” For the
benefit of the romantically minded, let me say that she did and that
they lived happily until his death.
Let me picture for you the training of a novelist of social contrasts!
My relatives were intimate with the society editor of Baltimore’s
leading newspaper; a person of “good family,” no common newspaperman, be
it understood. His name was Doctor Taylor, so apparently he was a
physician as well as a writer. I see him, dapper, blond, and dainty,
with a boutonniere made of one white flower in a ring of purple flowers;
he was one of those strange, half-feminine men who are accepted as
sexless and admitted to the boudoirs of ladies in deshabille to help
drape their dresses and design their hats. All the while he kept up a
rapid-fire chatter about everybody who was anybody in the city. I sat in
a corner and heard the talk--whose grandfather was a grocer and whose
cousin eloped with a fiddler. I breathed that atmosphere of pride and
scorn, of values based upon material possessions preserved for two
generations or more, and the longer the better. I do not know why I came
to hate it, but I know that I did hate it from my earliest days. And
everything in my later life confirmed my resolve never to “sell out” to
that class.
VI
Nor were the members of my father’s family content to remain upon a diet
of cold bread and dried herring. My father’s older sister had lovely
daughters, and one of them married a landed estate in Maryland. In 1906,
in the days of _The Jungle_, when I went to Washington to see Theodore
Roosevelt, I visited this cousin, who was now a charming widow and was
being unsuccessfully wooed by Senator Albert J. Beveridge of Indiana.
Later she became the wife of General George Barnett, who commanded the
United States Marine Corps in France. This marriage gave rise much later
to a comic sequence, which required no change to be fitted into one of
my novels. I will tell it here--even though it requires skipping thirty
years ahead of my story.
It was at the height of the White Terror, after World War I, and one of
the cities of which the American Legion had assumed control was Santa
Barbara, California. I was so unwise as to accept an invitation to
address some kind of public-ownership convention in that city, and my
wife and I motored up with several friends, and learned upon our arrival
that the Legion chiefs had decreed that I was not to be heard in Santa
Barbara.
In the effort to protect ourselves as far as possible, we registered at
the most fashionable hotel, the Arlington--shortly afterward destroyed
by an earthquake. Upon entering the lobby, the first spectacle that met
our anxious eyes was a military gentleman in full regalia: shiny leather
boots, Sam Browne belt, shoulder straps and decorations--I don’t know
the technical names for these things, but there was everything to
impress and terrify. “He is watching you!” whispered my wife, and so he
was; there could be no doubt of it, the stern military eye was riveted
upon my shrinking figure. There has always been a dispute in the family
as to whether I did actually try to hide behind one of the big pillars
of the hotel lobby. My wife said it was so, and I was never permitted to
spoil her marital stories.
The military gentleman disappeared, and a few minutes later came a
bellboy. “Are you Mr. Sinclair?” I pleaded guilty, and was told: “There
is a lady who wishes to speak to you in the reception room.” “Is it an
ambush?” I thought. I had been warned not to go anywhere alone; there
were rumors that the Ku Klux Klan was after me, as well as the Legion.
(This proved not to be true; I was shortly afterward invited to join the
Klan!)
In the reception room sat a lady, none other than my cousin Lelia,
somewhat plump, but as lovely as any lady can be with the help of both
nature and art. How glad we were to see each other! And how much gossip
we had to exchange after sixteen years! “You must meet my hubby,” she
said, and led me into the lobby--and who should “hubby” be but the
stern-eyed general! Whatever displeasure he may have felt at having a
revolutionary cousin-in-law he politely concealed, and we discussed the
weather of southern California in the most correct booster spirit.
Presently the general reminded his wife that the military machine of the
United States Government was awaiting his arrival in San Francisco; they
had some three hundred and fifty miles to drive that night. But the
Southern beauty shook her proud head (you see I know the language of
chivalry) and said, “I haven’t seen my cousin for sixteen years.” So the
general paced the lobby in fierce impatience for two hours, while Lelia
chatted with my wife and my socialist bodyguard--a millionaire woman
friend of my wife, about whom I shall have much to tell later on. Did I
remember the time when I was romping with Kate, and put a pillow on
Kate’s head and sat on it, and when they pulled me off she was black in
the face? Yes, I remembered it Kate was married to a civil engineer,
Walter was ill--and so on.
At last I saw my childhood playmate off in a high-powered military car,
with a chauffeur in khaki and a guard to ride at his side, both with
holsters at their belts; most imposing. It was fine local color for a
novelist--and incidentally it was a knockout for the American Legion
chiefs of Santa Barbara. Since I was cousin-in-law to the commander in
chief of this military district, it was impossible to prevent my
speaking in favor of the public ownership of water power in California!
VII
To return to childhood days: my summers were spent at the country home
of the Bland family or with my mother at summer resorts in Virginia. My
father would be “on the road,” and I remember his letters, from which I
learned the names of all the towns in Texas and the merits of the
leading hotels. If my father was “drinking,” we stayed in some
low-priced boardinghouse--in the city in winter and in the country in
summer. On the other hand, if my father was keeping his pledges, we
stayed at one of the springs hotels. My earliest memory of these hotels
is of a fancy-dress ball, for which my mother fixed me up as a baker,
with a white coat and long trousers and a round cap. That was all right,
except that I was supposed to carry a wooden tray with rolls on it,
which interfered with my play. Another story was told to me by one of
the victims, whom I happened to meet. I had whooping cough, and the
other children were forbidden to play with me; this seemed to me
injustice, so I chased them and coughed into their faces, after which I
had companions in misery. I should add that this early venture in
“direct action” is not in accordance with my present philosophy.
I remember one of the Virginia boardinghouses. I would ask for a second
helping of fried chicken, and the little Negro who waited table would
come back and report, “’Tisn’ any mo’.” No amount of hungry protest
could extract any words except, “’Tisn’ any mo’, Mista Upton, ’tisn’ any
mo’.” At another place the formula ran, “Will you have ham or an egg?” I
went fishing and had good luck, and brought home the fish, thinking I
would surely get enough to eat that day; but my fish was cooked and
served to the whole boardinghouse. I recall a terrible place known as
Jett’s, to which we rode all day in a bumpy stagecoach. The members of
that household were pale ghosts, and we discovered that they were users
of drugs. There was an idiot boy who worked in the yard, and gobbled his
food out of a tin plate, like a dog.
My Aunt Lucy was with us that summer, and the young squires of the
country came calling on Sunday afternoons, vainly hoping that this
Baltimore charmer with the long golden hair might consent to remain in
rural Virginia. They hitched their prancing steeds to a rail in the
yard, and I, an adventurer of eight or ten years, would unhitch them one
by one and try them out. I rode a mare to the creek, her colt following,
and let them both drink; then I rode back, and can see at this hour the
expedition that met me--the owner of the mare, my mother and my aunt,
many visitors and guests, and farmhands armed with pitchforks and
ropes. There must have been a dozen persons, all looking for a
tragedy--the mare being reputed to be extremely dangerous. But I had no
fear, and neither had the mare. From this and other experiences I
believe that it is safer to go through life without fear. You may get
killed suddenly, but meantime it is easier on your nerves.
VIII
When I was eight or nine, my father was employed by a New York firm, so
we moved north for the winter, and I joined the tribe of city nomads, a
product of the new age, whose formula runs: “Cheaper to move than to pay
rent.” I remember a dingy lodginghouse on Irving Place, a derelict hotel
on East Twelfth Street, housekeeping lodgings over on Second Avenue, a
small “flat” on West 65th Street, one on West 92nd Street, one on West
126th Street. Each place in turn was home, each neighborhood full of
wonder and excitement. Second Avenue was especially thrilling, because
the “gangs” came out from Avenue A and Avenue B like Sioux or Pawnees in
war paint, and well-dressed little boys had to fly for their lives.
Our longest stay--several winters, broken by moves to Baltimore--was at
a “family hotel” called the Weisiger House, on West 19th Street. The
hotel had been made by connecting four brownstone dwellings. The parlor
of one was the office. The name sounds like Jerusalem; but it was really
Virginia, pronounced Wizziger. Colonel Weisiger was a Civil War veteran
and had half the broken-down aristocracy of the Old South as his guests;
he must have had a sore time collecting his weekly dues.
I learned much about human nature at the Weisiger House, observing
comedies and tragedies, jealousies and greeds and spites. There was the
lean Colonel Paul of South Carolina, and the short Colonel Cardoza of
Virginia, and the stout Major Waterman of Kentucky. Generals I do not
remember, but we had Count Mickiewicz from Poland, a large, expansive
gentleman with red beard and booming voice. What has become of little
Ralph Mickiewicz, whom I chased up and down the four flights of stairs
of each of those four buildings--sixteen flights in all, quite a hunting
ground! We killed flies on the bald heads of the colonels and majors,
we wheedled teacakes in the kitchen, we pulled the pigtails of the
little girls playing dolls in the parlor. One of these little girls,
with whom I quarreled most of the time, was destined to grow up and
become my first wife; and our married life resembled our childhood.
Colonel Weisiger was large and ample, with a red nose, like Santa Claus;
he was the judge and ultimate authority in all disputes. His son was six
feet two, quiet and reserved. Mrs. Weisiger was placid and kindly, and
had a sister, Miss Tee, who made the teacakes--this pun is of God’s
making, not of mine. Completing the family was Taylor Tibbs, a large
black man, who went to the saloon around the corner twice every day to
fetch the Colonel’s pail of beer. In New York parlance this was known as
“rushing the growler,” and you will find Taylor Tibbs and his activities
all duly recorded in my novel _The Wet Parade_. Later in life I would go
over to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to see him in the “talkie” they were making
of the novel.
IX
In those days at the Weisiger House I was one of Nature’s miracles, such
as she produces by the millions in tenement streets--romping, shouting,
and triumphant, entirely unaware that their lot is a miserable one. I
was a perpetual explosion of energy, and I cannot see how anybody in the
place tolerated me; yet they all liked me, all but one or two who were
“mean.” I have a photograph of myself, dressed in kilts; and my mother
tells me a story. Some young man, teasing me, said: “You wear dresses;
you are a girl.” Said I: “No, I am a boy.” “But how do you know you are
a boy?” “Because my mother says so.”
My young mother would go to the theater, leaving me snugly tucked in
bed, in care of some old ladies. I would lie still until I heard a
whistle, and then forth I would bound. Clad in a pair of snow-white
canton-flannel nighties, I would slide down the banisters into the arms
of the young men of the house. What romps I would have, racing on bare
feet, or borne aloft on sturdy shoulders! We never got tired of pranks;
they would set me up in the office and tell me jokes and conundrums,
teach me songs--it was the year of McGinty, hero of hilarity:
Down went McGinty to the bottom of the sea;
He must be very wet,
For they haven’t found him yet,
Dressed in his best suit of clothes.
These young men would take me to see the circus parade, which went up
Broadway on the evening prior to the opening of Barnum and Bailey’s.
Young Mr. Lee would hold me on his shoulder a whole evening for the sake
of hearing my whoops of delight at the elephants and the gorgeous ladies
in spangles and tights. I remember a trick they played on one of these
parade evenings. Just after dinner they offered me a quarter if I would
keep still for five minutes by the watch, and they sat me on the big
table in the office for all the world to witness the test. A couple of
minutes passed, and I was still as any mouse; until one of the young men
came running in at the front door, crying, “The parade is passing!” I
leaped up with a wail of despair.
As a foil to this, let me narrate the most humiliating experience of my
entire life. Grown-up people do not realize how intensely children feel,
and what enduring impressions are made upon their tender minds. The
story I am about to tell is as real to me as if it had happened last
night.
My parents had a guest at dinner, and I was moved to another table,
being placed with old Major Waterman and two young ladies. The venerable
warrior started telling of an incident that had taken place that day. “I
was walking along the street and I met Jones. ‘Come in and have a
drink,’ said he, and I replied, ‘No, thank you’--”
What was to be the end of that story I shall never know in this world.
“Oh, Major Waterman!” I burst out, and there followed an appalled
silence. Terror gripped my soul as the old gentleman turned his bleary
eyes upon me. “What do you mean, sir? Tell me what you mean.”
Now, if this had been a world in which men and women spoke the truth to
one another, I could have told exactly what I meant. I would have said,
“I mean that your cheeks are inflamed and your nose has purple veins in
it, and it is difficult to believe that you ever declined anyone’s
invitation to drink.” But it was not a world in which one could say such
words; all I could do was to sit like a hypnotized rabbit, while the
old gentleman bored me through. “I wish to have an answer, sir! What did
you mean by that remark?” I still have, as one of my weaknesses, the
tendency to speak first and think afterwards; but the memory of Major
Waterman has helped me on the way to reform.
X
The pageant of America gradually revealed itself to my awakening mind. I
saw political processions--I remember the year when Harrison defeated
Cleveland, and our torchlight paraders, who had been hoping to celebrate
a Democratic triumph, had to change their marching slogan at the last
minute. “Four, four, four years more!” they had expected to shout; but
they had to make it four months instead. The year was 1888, and my age
was ten.
Another date that can be fixed: I remember the excitement when Corbett
defeated the people’s idol, John L. Sullivan. Corbett was known as
Gentleman Jim, and I told my mother about the new hero. “Of course,”
said the haughty Southern lady, “it means that he is a gentleman for a
prize-fighter.” But I assured her, “No, no, he is a real gentleman. The
papers all say so.” This was in 1892, and I was fourteen, and still
believed the papers.
There was a Spanish dancer called Carmencita and a music hall, Koster
and Bial’s; I never went to such places, but I heard the talk. There was
a book by the name of _Trilby_, which the ladies blushed to hear spoken
of. I did not read it until later, but I knew it had something to do
with feet, because thereafter my father always called them “trilbies.”
There were clergymen denouncing vice in New York, and editors denouncing
the clergymen. I heard Tammany ardently defended by my father, whose
politics were summed up in a formula: “I’d rather vote for a nigger than
for a Republican.”
I recall another of his sayings--I must have heard it a hundred
times--that Inspector Byrnes was the greatest detective chief in the
world. I now know that Inspector Byrnes ran the detective bureau of New
York upon this plan: local pickpockets and burglars and confidence men
were permitted to operate upon two conditions--that they would keep out
of the Wall Street and Fifth Avenue districts, and would report to
Byrnes all outside crooks who attempted to invade the city. Another of
my father’s opinions--this one based upon knowledge--was that you should
never argue with a New York policeman, because of the danger of getting
your skull cracked.
What was the size and flavor of Blue Point oysters as compared with
Lynnhaven Bay’s? Why was it impossible to obtain properly cooked food
north of Baltimore? What was the wearing quality of patent-leather shoes
as compared with calfskin? Wherein lay the superiority of Robert E. Lee
over all other generals of history? Was there any fusel oil in whisky
that was aged in the wood? Were the straw hats of next season to have a
higher or a lower brim? Where had the Vanderbilts obtained the
fifty-thousand-dollar slab of stone that formed the pavement in front of
their Fifth Avenue palace? Questions such as these occupied the mind of
my little, fat, kindhearted father and his friends. He was a fastidious
dresser, as well as eater, and especially proud of his small hands and
feet--they were aristocratic; he would gaze down rapturously at his
tight little shoes, over his well-padded vest. He had many words to
describe the right kind of shoes and vests and hats and gloves; they
were “nobby,” they were “natty,” they were “neat”--such were the phrases
by which he sold them to buyers.
I heard much of these last-named essential persons, but cannot recall
ever seeing one. They were Jews, or countrymen, and the social lines
were tightly drawn; never would my father, even in the midst of drink
and degradation, have dreamed of using his aristocratic Southern wife to
impress his customers. Nor would he use his little son, who was expected
to grow up to be a naval officer like his ancestors. “The social
position of a naval officer is the highest in the world,” pronounced my
father. “He can go anywhere, absolutely anywhere; he can meet crowned
heads as their equals.” And meantime the little son was reaching out
into a strange world of books; reading things of which the father had
never heard. “What are you reading?” he would ask, and the son would
reply, none too generously, “A book.” The father got used to this
answer. “Reading a book!” he would say, with pathetic futility. The
chasm between the two was widening, never to be closed in this world.
XI
I was ten years old before I went to school. The reason was that some
doctor told my mother that my mind was outgrowing my body, and I should
not be taught anything. When finally I was taken to a public school, I
presented the teachers with a peculiar problem; I knew everything but
arithmetic. This branch of learning, so essential to a commercial
civilization, had shared the fate of alcohol and tobacco, tea and
coffee; my mother did not use it, so neither did I.
The teachers put me in the first primary grade, to learn long division;
promising that as soon as I caught up in the subject, I would be moved
on. I was humiliated at being in a class with children younger than
myself, so I fell to work and got into the grammar school in less than a
month, and performed the unusual feat of going through the eight grammar
grades in less than two years. Thus at the age of twelve I was ready for
the City College--it was called a college, but I hasten to explain that
it was in reality only a high school.
Unfortunately the college was not ready for me. No one was admitted
younger than fourteen; so there was nothing for me to do but to take the
last year of grammar school all over again. I did this at old Number 40,
on East 23rd Street; my classmates were the little “toughs” of the East
Side tenements. An alarming experience for a fastidious young
Southerner, destined for the highest social circles--but I count it a
blessing hardly to be exaggerated. That year among the “toughs” helped
to save me from the ridiculous snobbery that would otherwise have been
my destiny in life. Since then I have been able to meet all kinds of
humans and never see much difference; also, I have been able to keep my
own ideals and convictions, and “stand the gaff,” according to the New
York phrase.
To these little East Side “toughs” I was, of course, fully as strange a
phenomenon as they were to me. I spoke a language that they associated
with Fifth Avenue “dudes” wearing silk hats and kid gloves. The Virginia
element in my brogue was entirely beyond their comprehension; the first
time I spoke of a “street-cyar,” the whole class broke into laughter.
They named me Chappie, and initiated me into the secrets of a dreadful
game called “hop, skip, and a lepp,” which you ended, not on your feet,
but on your buttocks; throwing your legs up in the air and coming down
with a terrific bang on the hard pavement. The surgeons must now be
performing operations for floating kidney upon many who played that game
in boyhood.
The teacher of the class was a jolly old Irishman, Mr. Furey; he later
became principal of a school, and I would have voted for his promotion
without any reservation. He was a disciplinarian with a homemade method;
if he observed a boy whispering or idling during class, he would let fly
a piece of chalk at the offender’s head. The class would roar with
laughter; the offender would grin, pick up the chalk, and bring it to
the teacher, and get his knuckles smartly cracked as he delivered it,
and then go back to his seat and pay attention. From this procedure I
learned that pomposity is no part of either brains or achievement, and I
have never in my life tried to impress anyone by being anything but what
I am.
One feature of our school was the assembly room, into which we marched
by classes to the music of a piano, thumped by a large dark lady with a
budding mustache. We sang patriotic songs and listened to recitations in
the East Side dialect, a fearful and wonderful thing. This dialect tried
to break into the White House in the year 1928, and the rest of America
heard it for the first time. Graduates of New York public schools who
had made millions out of paving and contracting jobs put up the money to
pay for radio “hookups,” and the voice of Fulton Fish Market came
speaking to the farmers of the corn belt and the fundamentalists of the
bible belt. “Ladies and genn’lmun, the foist thing I wanna say is that
the findin’s of this here kimittee proves that we have the woist of
kinditions in our kimmunity.” I sat in my California study and listened
to Al Smith speaking in St. Louis and Denver, and it took me straight
back to old Number 40, and the little desperados throwing their buttocks
into the air and coming down with a thump on the hard pavement.
As I read the proofs of this book I have returned from a visit to New
York after thirty years. The old “El” roads are gone, and many of the
slum tenements have been replaced by sixty-story buildings. The “micks”
and the “dagos” have been replaced by Negroes and Puerto Ricans, who
have taken possession of Harlem.
XII
Behold me now, a duly enrolled “subfreshman” of the College of the City
of New York; a part of the city’s free educational system, not very
good, but convenient for the son of a straw-hat salesman addicted to
periodical “sprees.” It was a combination of high school and college,
awarding a bachelor’s degree after a five-year course. I passed my
entrance examinations in the spring of 1892, and I was only thirteen,
but my public-school teacher and principal entered me as fourteen. The
college work did not begin until September 15, and five days later I
would be of the required age, so really it was but a wee little lie.
The college was situated in an old brick building on the corner of
Lexington Avenue and 23rd Street. It was a firetrap, but I did not know
it, and fortunately never had to learn it. There were about a thousand
students in its four or five stories, and we trooped from one classroom
to another and learned by rote what our bored instructors laid out for
us. I began Latin, algebra, and solid geometry, physics, drawing, and a
course called English, which was the most dreadful ordeal I ever had to
endure. We had a list of sentences containing errors, which we were
supposed to correct. The course was necessary for most of the class
because they were immigrants or the sons of immigrants. For me it was
unnecessary, but the wretched teacher was affronted in his dignity, and
would set traps for me by calling on me when my mind had wandered.