100%: the Story of a Patriot

by Upton Sinclair

  Then, being in a friendly mood, Gladys talked to Peter abouthimself. They had mounted to a height from which they could lookback upon the past and see it as a whole, and in the intimacy andconfidence of their domestic partnership they could draw lessonsfrom their mistakes and plan their future wisely. Peter had mademany blunders--he must surely admit that. Did Peter admit that? Yes,Peter did. But, continued Gladys, he had struggled bravely, and hehad the supreme good fortune to have secured for himself thatgreatest of life's blessings, the cooperation of a good and capablewoman. Gladys was very emphatic about this latter, and Peter agreedwith her. He agreed also when she stated that it is the duty of agood and capable wife to protect her husband for the balance oftheir life's journey, so that he would be able to avoid the trapswhich his enemies set for his feet. Peter, having learned by bitterexperience, would never again go chasing after a pretty face, andwake up next morning to find his pockets empty. Peter admitted thistoo. As this conversation progressed, he realized that the tour oftriumph his life had become was a thing entirely of his wife'screation; at least, he realized that there would be no use in tryingto change his wife's conviction on the subject. Likewise he meeklyaccepted her prophecies as to his future conduct; he would bringhome his salary at the end of each week, and his wife would use it,together with her own salary, to improve the appearance and tone ofboth of them, and to aid them to climb to a higher social position.

  Peter, following his wife's careful instructions, has already becomemore dignified in his speech, more grave in his movements. She tellshim that the future of society depends on his knowledge and hisskill, and he agrees to this also. He has learned what you can doand what you had better not do; he will never again cross thedead-line into crime, or take chances with experiments in blackmail.He will try no more free lance work under the evil influence of lowcreatures like Nell Doolin, but will stand in with the "machine,"and bear in mind that honesty is the best policy. So he willsteadily progress; he will meet the big men of the country, and willgo to them, not cringing and twisting his hat in his hands, butwith quiet self-possession. He will meet the agents of theAttorney-General aspiring to become President, and will furnish themwith material for their weekly Red scares. He will meet legislatorswho want to unseat elected Socialists, and governors who wish tojail the leaders of "outlaw" strikes. He will meet magazine writersgetting up articles, and popular novelists looking for local Redcolor.

  But Peter's best bid of all will be as a lecturer. He will be ableto travel all over the country, making a sensation. Did he know why?No, Peter answered, he was not sure he did. Well, Gladys could tellhim; it was because he was romantic. Peter didn't know just whatthis word meant, but it sounded flattering, so he smiled sheepishly,showing his crooked teeth, and asked how Gladys found out that hewas romantic. The reply was a sudden order for him to stand up andturn around slowly.

  Peter didn't like to get up from his comfortable Morris chair, buthe did what his wife asked him. She inspected him on all sides andexclaimed, "Peter, you must go on a diet; you're gettingombongpoing!" She said this in horrified tones, and Peter wasfrightened, because it sounded like a disease. But Gladys added:"You can not be a romantic figure on a lecture platform if you'vegot a bay-window!"

  Peter found it interesting to be talked about, so he asked again whyGladys thought he was romantic. There were several reasons, shesaid, but the main one was that he had been a dangerous criminal,and had reformed, which pleased the church people; he had made ahappy ending by marriage, which pleased those who read novels.

  "Is that so?" said Peter, guilelessly, and she assured him that itwas. "And what else?" he asked, and she explained that he had knownintimately and at first hand those dreadful and dangerous people,those ogres of the modern world, the Bolsheviks, about whom theaverage man and woman learned only thru the newspapers. And notmerely did he tell a sensational story, but he ended it with amoney-making lesson. The lesson was "Contribute to the ImproveAmerica League. Make out your checks to the Home and FiresideAssociation. The existence of your country depends upon yoursustaining the Patriot's Defense Legion." So the fame of Peter'slecture would spread, and the Guffeys and Billy Nashes of every cityand town in America would clamor for him to come, and when he came,the newspapers would publish his picture, and he and his wife wouldbe welcomed by leaders of the best society. They would become sociallions, and would see the homes of the rich, and gradually become oneof the rich.

  Gladys looked her spouse over again, as they started totheir sleeping apartment. Yes, he was undoubtedly putting on"ombongpoing"; he would have to take up golf. He was wearing alittle American flag dangling from his watch chain, and she wonderedif that wasn't a trifle crude. Gladys herself now wore a realdiamond ring, and had learned to say "vahse" and "baahth." Sheyawned prettily as she took off her lovely brown "tailor-made," andreflected that such things come with ease and security.

  Both she and Peter now had these in full measure. They had lost allfear of ever finding themselves out of a job. They had come tounderstand that the Red menace is not to be so easily exterminated;it is a distemper that lurks in the blood of society, and breaks outevery now and then in a new rash. Gladys had come to agree with theReds to this extent, that so long as there is a class of the richand prosperous, so long will there be social discontent, so longwill there be some that make their living by agitating, denouncingand crying out for change. Society is like a garden; each year whenyou plant your vegetables there springs up also a crop of weeds, andyou have to go down the rows and chop off the heads of these weeds.Gladys' husband is an expert gardener, he knows how to chop weeds,and he knows that society will never be able to dispense with hisservices. So long as gardening continues, Peter will be a headweedchopper, and a teacher of classes of young weedchoppers.

  Ah, it was fine to have married such a man! It was the reward a goodwoman received for helping her husband, making him into a goodcitizen, a patriot and an upholder of law and order: For always, ofcourse, those who own the garden would see that their headweedchopper was taken care of, and had his share of the best thatthe garden produced. Gladys stood before her looking-glass, braidingher hair for the night, and thinking of the things she would askfrom this garden. She and Peter had earned, and they would demand,the sweetest flowers, the most luscious fruits. Suddenly Gladysstretched wide her arms in an ecstasy of realization. "We're aSuccess, Peter! We're a Success! We'll have money and all the lovelythings it will buy! Do you realize, Peter, what a hit you've made?"

  Peter saw her face of joy, but he was a tiny bit frightened anduncertain, because of this unusual sharing of the honors. So Gladyswas impelled to affection, mingled with pity. She held out her armsto him. "Poor, dear Peter! He's had such a hard life! It was cruelhe didn't have me sooner to help him!"

  And then Gladys reflected for a moment, and was moved to anotheroutburst. "Just think, Peter, how wonderful it is to be an American!In America you can always rise if you do your duty! America is theland of the free! Your example of a poor boy's success ought toconvince even the fool Reds that they're wrong--that any boy canrise if he works hard! Why, I've heard it said that in America thepoorest boy can rise to be President! How would you like to bePresident, Peter?"

  Peter hesitated. He doubted if he was equal to that big a job, buthe knew that it would not please Gladys for him to say so. Hemurmured, "Perhaps--some day--"

  "Anyhow, Peter," his wife continued, "I'm for this country! I'm anAmerican!"

  And this time Peter didn't have to hesitate. "You bet!" he said, andadded his favorite formula--"100%!"

  APPENDIX

  A little experimenting with the manuscript of "100%" has revealed tothe writer that everybody has a series of questions they wishimmediately to ask: How much of it is true? To what extent have thebusiness men of America been compelled to take over the detectionand prevention of radicalism? Have they, in putting down the Reds,been driven to such extreme measures as you have here shown?

  A few of the incidents in "100%" are fictional,
for example thestory of Nell Doolin and Nelse Ackerman; but everything that hassocial significance is truth, and has been made to conform to factspersonally known to the writer or to his friends. Practically allthe characters in "100%" are real persons. Peter Gudge is a realperson, and has several times been to call upon the writer in thecourse of his professional activities; Guffey and McGivney are realpersons, and so is Billy Nash, and so is Gladys Frisbie.

  To begin at the beginning: the "Goober case" parallels in its mainoutlines the case of Tom Mooney. If you wish to know about thiscase, send fifteen cents to the Mooney Defense Committee, PostOffice Box 894, San Francisco, for the pamphlet, "Shall MooneyHang," by Robert Minor. The business men of San Francisco raised amillion dollars to save the city from union labor, and the Mooneycase was the way they did it. It happened, however, that the judgebefore whom Mooney was convicted weakened, and wrote to theAttorney-General of the State to the effect that he had becomeconvinced that Mooney was convicted by perjured testimony. Butmeantime Mooney was in jail, and is there still. Fremont Older,editor of the San Francisco "Call," who has been conducting aninvestigation into this case, has recently written to the author:"Altogether, it is the most amazing story I have ever had anythingto do with. When all is known that I think can be known, it will beshown clearly that the State before an open-eyed community was ableto murder a man with the instruments that the people have providedfor bringing about justice. There isn't a scrap of testimony ineither of the Mooney or Billings cases that wasn't perjured, exceptthat of the man who drew the blue prints of Market Street."

  To what extent has the detection and punishment of radicalism inAmerica passed out of the hands of public authorities and into thehands of "Big Business?" Any business man will of course agree thatwhen "Big Business" has interests to protect, it must and willprotect them. So far as possible it will make use of the publicauthorities; but when thru corruption or fear of politics thesefail, "Big Business" has to act for itself. In the Colorado coalstrike the coal companies raised the money to pay the state militia,and recruited new companies of militia from their privatedetectives. The Reds called this "Government by Gunmen," and thewriter in his muckraking days wrote a novel about it, "King Coal."The man who directed the militia during this coal strike was A. C.Felts of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, who was killed just theother day while governing several coal counties in West Virginia.

  You will find this condition in the lumber country of Washington andOregon, in the oil country of Oklahoma and Kansas, in the coppercountry of Michigan, Montana and Arizona, and in all the big coaldistricts. In the steel country of Western Pennsylvania you willfind that all the local authorities are officials of the steelcompanies. If you go to Bristol, R. I., you will find that theNational India Rubber Company has agreed to pay the salaries oftwo-thirds of the town's police force.

  In every large city in America the employers' associations haveraised funds to hold down the unions and smash the Reds, and thesefunds are being expended in the way portrayed in "100%." In LosAngeles the employers' association raised a million dollars, and theresult was the case of Sydney R. Flowers, briefly sketched in thisstory under the name of "Sydney." The reader who wishes the detailsof this case is referred to Chapter LXVI of "The Brass Cheek."Flowers has been twice tried, and is about to be tried a third time,and our District-Attorney is quoted as saying that he will be triedhalf a dozen times if necessary. At the last trial there wereproduced a total of twenty-five witnesses against Flowers, and outof these nineteen were either Peter Gudges and McGivneys, or elsepolice detectives, or else employees of the local political machine.A deputy United States attorney, talking to me about the case, toldme that he had refused to prosecute it because he realized that the"Paul letter," upon which the arrest had been based, was a frame-up,and that he was quite sure he knew who had written it. He also toldme that there had been formed in Los Angeles a secret committee offifty of the most active rich men of the town; that he could notfind out what they were doing, but they came to his offices anddemanded the secret records of the government; and that when herefused to prosecute Flowers they had influence enough to have thegovernor of California telegraph to Washington in protest.Questioned on the witness stand, I repeated these statements, andthe deputy United States attorney was called to the stand andattributed them to my "literary imagination."

  In the old Russian and Austrian empires the technique of trappingagitators was well developed, and the use of spies and "under cover"men for the purpose of luring the Reds into crime was completelyworked out. We have no English equivalent for the phrase "agentprovocateur," but in the last four years we have put thousands ofthem at work in America. In the case against Flowers three witnesseswere produced who had been active among the I. W. Ws., trying toincite crime, and were being paid to give testimony for the state.One of these men admitted that he had himself burned some fortybarns, and was now receiving three hundred dollars a month andexpenses. At the trial of William Bross Lloyd in Chicago, chargedwith membership in the Communist party, a similar witness wasproduced. Santeri Nourteva, of, the Soviet Bureau in New York, hascharged that Louis C. Fraina, editor of the "Revolutionary Age," wasa government agent, and Fraina wrote into the platform of theCommunist party the planks which were used in prosecuting anddeporting its members. On December 27, 1919, the chief of the Bureauof Investigation of the Department of Justice in Washington sent tothe head of his local bureau in Boston a telegram containing thefollowing sentences: "You should arrange with your under coverinformants to have meetings of the Communist Party and CommunistLabor Party held on the night set. I have been informed by some ofthe bureau officers that such arrangements will be made." So muchevidence of the activity of the provocateur was produced beforeFederal Judge G. W. Anderson that he declared as follows: "What doesappear beyond reasonable dispute is that the Government owns andoperates some part of the Communist Party."

  It appears that Judge Anderson does not share the high opinion ofthe "under cover" operative set forth by the writer of "100%." SaysJudge Anderson: "I cannot adopt the contention that Government spiesare any more trustworthy, or less disposed to make trouble in orderto profit therefrom, than are spies in private industry. Except intime of war, when a Nathan Hale may be a spy, spies are alwaysnecessarily drawn from the unwholesome and untrustworthy classes. Aright-minded man refuses such a job. The evil wrought by the spysystem in industry has, for decades, been incalculable. Until it iseliminated, decent human relations cannot exist between employersand employees, or even among employees. It destroys trust andconfidence; it kills human kindliness; it propagates hate."

  To what extent have the governmental authorities of America beenforced to deny to the Reds the civil rights guaranteed to goodAmericans by the laws and the constitution? The reader who iscurious on this point may send the sum of twenty-five cents to theAmerican Civil Liberties Union, 138 West 13th Street, New York, forthe pamphlet entitled, "Report upon the Illegal Practices of theUnited States Department of Justice," signed by twelve eminentlawyers in the country, including a dean of the Harvard Law school,and a United States attorney who resigned because of hisold-fashioned ideas of law. This pamphlet contains sixty-sevenpages, with numerous exhibits and photographs. The practices setforth are listed under six heads: Cruel and unusual punishments;arrests without warrant; unreasonable searches and seizures;provocative agents; compelling persons to be witnesses againstthemselves; propaganda by the Department of Justice. The reader mayalso ask for the pamphlet entitled "Memorandum Regarding thePersecution of the Radical Labor Movement in the United States;"also for the pamphlet entitled "War Time Prosecution and MobViolence," dated March, 1919, giving a list of cases which occupiesforty pages of closely printed type. Also he might read "The Case ofthe Rand School," published by the Rand School of Social Science, 7East Fifteenth Street, New York, and the pamphlets published by theNational Office of the Socialist Party, 220 South Ashland Blvd.,Chicago, dealing with the prosecutions of that organization.

  To what exten
t has it been necessary to torture the Reds in prisonin America? Those who are interested are advised to write to HarryWeinberger, 32 Union Square, New York, for the pamphlet entitled"Twenty Years Prison," dealing with the case of Mollie Steimer, andthree others who were sentenced for distributing a leafletprotesting against the war on Russia; also to the American CivilLiberties Union for the pamphlet entitled "Political Prisoners inFederal Military Prisons," also the pamphlet, "Uncle Sam: Jailer,"by Winthrop D. Lane, reprinted from the "Survey;" also the pamphletentitled "The Soviet of Deer Island, Boston Harbor," published bythe Boston Branch of the American Civil Liberties Union; also forthe publications of the American Industrial Company, and theAmerican Freedom Foundation, 166 West Washington St., Chicago.

  There may be some reader with a sense of humor who asks about thebrother of a United States senator being arrested for reading aparagraph from the Declaration of Independence. This gentleman wasthe brother of United States Senator France of Maryland, andcuriously enough, the arrest took place in the city of Philadelphia,where the Declaration of Independence was adopted. There may be somereader who is curious about a clergyman being indicted and arrestedin Winnipeg for having quoted the prophet Isaiah. The paragraph fromthe indictment in question reads as follows: "That J. S. Woodsworth,on or about the month of June, in the year of our Lord one thousandnine hundred and nineteen, at the City of Winnipeg, in the Provinceof Manitoba, unlawfully and seditiously published seditious libelsin the words and figures following: `Woe unto them that decreeunrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they haveprescribed; to turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take awaytheir right from the poor of my people that widows may be their preyand that they may rob the fatherless. . . . And they shall buildhouses and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards and eat thefruit of them. They shall not build and another inhabit, they shallnot plant and another eat; for as the days of a tree are the days ofmy people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.'"