WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.720 --> 00:00:06.480
Dedication and introduction of King Cole. This is a LibriVox recording.
2
00:00:07.040 --> 00:00:10.919
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
3
00:00:10.919 --> 00:00:16.199
information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
4
00:00:16.239 --> 00:00:24.039
by Michel Harris, King Cole by Upton Sinclair, Dedication to
5
00:00:24.239 --> 00:00:29.239
Mary Craig Kimbrough, to whose persistence in the perilous task
6
00:00:29.320 --> 00:00:33.399
of tearing her husband's manuscript to pieces, the reader is
7
00:00:33.439 --> 00:00:36.240
indebted for the absence of most of the faults from
8
00:00:36.320 --> 00:00:44.719
this book. End of dedication, introduction. Upton Sinclair is one
9
00:00:44.759 --> 00:00:47.719
of the not too many writers who have consecrated their
10
00:00:47.799 --> 00:00:51.560
lives to the agitation for social justice, and who have
11
00:00:51.679 --> 00:00:55.079
also enrolled their art in the service of a set purpose.
12
00:00:56.159 --> 00:01:00.399
A great and non temporizing enthusiast, he never fled lenched
13
00:01:00.399 --> 00:01:05.120
from making sacrifices now and then. He attained great material
14
00:01:05.200 --> 00:01:09.719
successes as a writer, but invariably he invested and lost
15
00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:12.959
his earnings in enterprises by which he had hoped to
16
00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:18.079
ward off injustice and to further human happiness. Though disappointed
17
00:01:18.120 --> 00:01:21.799
time after time, he never lost faith nor courage to
18
00:01:21.879 --> 00:01:27.159
start again. As a convinced socialist and eager advocate of
19
00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:31.640
unpopular doctrines, as an exposer of social conditions that would
20
00:01:31.680 --> 00:01:35.599
otherwise be screened away from the public eye. The most
21
00:01:35.599 --> 00:01:39.519
influential journals of his country were as a rule arraigned
22
00:01:39.519 --> 00:01:43.640
against him. Though always a poor man, though never willing
23
00:01:43.760 --> 00:01:48.359
to grant to publishers the concessions essential for many editions.
24
00:01:48.359 --> 00:01:52.840
In general popularity, he was maliciously represented to be a
25
00:01:52.879 --> 00:01:57.719
carpet knight of radicalism and a socialist millionaire. He has
26
00:01:57.799 --> 00:02:01.879
several times been obliged to change his publisher, which goes
27
00:02:01.920 --> 00:02:04.879
to prove that he is no seeker of material gain.
28
00:02:06.159 --> 00:02:09.240
Upton Sinclair is one of the writers of the present
29
00:02:09.360 --> 00:02:14.039
time most deserving of the sympathetic interest. He shows his
30
00:02:14.199 --> 00:02:18.319
patriotism as an American not by joining in hymns to
31
00:02:18.360 --> 00:02:22.120
the very conditional kind of liberty peculiar to the United States,
32
00:02:22.680 --> 00:02:26.400
but by agitating for infusing it with the elixir of
33
00:02:26.520 --> 00:02:30.759
real liberty, the liberty of humanity. He does not limit
34
00:02:30.840 --> 00:02:34.840
himself to a dispassionate and entertaining description of things as
35
00:02:34.879 --> 00:02:38.240
they are, but in his appeals to the honor and
36
00:02:38.280 --> 00:02:42.199
good fellowship of his compatriots, he opens their eyes to
37
00:02:42.240 --> 00:02:46.680
the appalling conditions under which wage earning slaves are living
38
00:02:46.759 --> 00:02:50.520
by the hundreds of thousands. His object is to better
39
00:02:50.599 --> 00:02:54.800
these unnatural conditions, to obtain for the very poorest a
40
00:02:54.879 --> 00:02:58.840
glimpse of light and happiness, to make even them realize
41
00:02:58.879 --> 00:03:02.280
the sensation of zzy well being and the comfort of
42
00:03:02.360 --> 00:03:05.360
knowing that justice is to be found also for them.
43
00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:10.520
This time, Upton Saint Clair has absorbed himself in the
44
00:03:10.560 --> 00:03:13.759
study of the miner's life in the lonesome pits of
45
00:03:13.800 --> 00:03:18.400
the rocky mountains, and his sensitive and enthusiastic mind has
46
00:03:18.479 --> 00:03:22.919
brought to the world an American parallel to germanol Emil
47
00:03:23.080 --> 00:03:29.240
Zola's technical masterpiece. The conditions described in the two books are, however,
48
00:03:29.439 --> 00:03:34.599
essentially different. While Sola's workingmen are all natives of France,
49
00:03:35.280 --> 00:03:39.879
one meets in Sainclair's book a motley variety of European immigrants,
50
00:03:40.319 --> 00:03:44.719
speaking a babel of languages, and therefore debarred from forming
51
00:03:44.800 --> 00:03:49.159
some sort of association to protect themselves against being exploited
52
00:03:49.479 --> 00:03:55.080
by the anonymous limited company. Notwithstanding this natural bar against
53
00:03:55.199 --> 00:03:58.199
united action on the part of the wage earning slaves,
54
00:03:58.800 --> 00:04:03.120
the company feels far from at ease and jealously guards
55
00:04:03.120 --> 00:04:08.120
its interests against any attempt of organizing the men. A
56
00:04:08.120 --> 00:04:11.800
young American of the upper class, with great sympathy for
57
00:04:11.919 --> 00:04:15.199
the downtrodden and an honest desire to get a first
58
00:04:15.240 --> 00:04:18.240
hand knowledge of their conditions in order to help them,
59
00:04:18.639 --> 00:04:22.600
decides to take employment in a mine under a fictitious
60
00:04:22.680 --> 00:04:26.759
name and dressed like a working man. His unusual way
61
00:04:26.879 --> 00:04:31.480
of trying to obtain work arouses suspicion. He is believed
62
00:04:31.480 --> 00:04:35.319
to be a professional strike leader, sent out to organize
63
00:04:35.399 --> 00:04:39.040
the miners against their exploiters, and he is not only
64
00:04:39.120 --> 00:04:44.439
refused work, but thrashed mercilessly. When finally he succeeds in
65
00:04:44.480 --> 00:04:49.199
getting inside, he discovers with growing indignation, the shameless and
66
00:04:49.279 --> 00:04:52.839
inhuman way in which those who unearth the black coal
67
00:04:52.920 --> 00:04:58.360
are being exploited. These are the fundamental ideas of the book,
68
00:04:58.959 --> 00:05:02.759
but they give but a f of the author's poetic attitude.
69
00:05:03.319 --> 00:05:06.639
Most beautifully is this shown in Howe's relation to a
70
00:05:06.720 --> 00:05:10.800
young Irish girl read Mary. She is poor, and her
71
00:05:10.879 --> 00:05:15.480
daily life harsh and joyless, but nevertheless, her wonderful grace
72
00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:18.879
is one of the outstanding features of the book. The
73
00:05:18.920 --> 00:05:22.279
first impression of Mary is that of a Celtic madonna
74
00:05:22.639 --> 00:05:26.480
with a tender heart for little children. She develops into
75
00:05:26.519 --> 00:05:30.279
a valkyrie of the working class, always ready to fight
76
00:05:30.360 --> 00:05:34.279
for the worker's right. The last chapters of the book
77
00:05:34.360 --> 00:05:37.720
give a description of the miner's revolt against the company.
78
00:05:38.480 --> 00:05:41.439
They insist upon their right to choose a deputy to
79
00:05:41.519 --> 00:05:45.040
control the weighing in of the coal, and upon having
80
00:05:45.079 --> 00:05:49.839
the mind sprinkled regularly to prevent explosion. They will also
81
00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:53.560
be free to buy their food and utensils wherever they like,
82
00:05:54.120 --> 00:05:59.240
even in shops not belonging to the company. In a PostScript,
83
00:05:59.319 --> 00:06:02.920
Sinclair explains the fundamental facts on which his work of
84
00:06:03.079 --> 00:06:06.839
art has been built up. Even without the PostScript, one
85
00:06:06.839 --> 00:06:09.920
could not help feeling convinced that the social conditions he
86
00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:13.920
describes are true to life. The main point is that
87
00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:18.399
Sinclair has not allowed himself to become inspired by hackneyed
88
00:06:18.439 --> 00:06:22.279
phrases that bondage and injustice, and the other evils and
89
00:06:22.360 --> 00:06:26.600
crimes of kingdoms have been banished from republics, but that
90
00:06:26.680 --> 00:06:30.399
he is earnestly pointing to the honeycombed ground on which
91
00:06:30.439 --> 00:06:34.639
the greatest modern money power has been built. The fundament
92
00:06:34.759 --> 00:06:38.959
of this power is not granite, but minds. It lives
93
00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:41.959
and breathes in the light because it has thousands of
94
00:06:42.040 --> 00:06:46.160
unfortunates toiling in the darkness. It lives and has its
95
00:06:46.240 --> 00:06:50.439
being in proud liberty because thousands are slaving for it,
96
00:06:50.800 --> 00:06:55.000
whose thraldom is the price of this liberty. This is
97
00:06:55.040 --> 00:06:58.279
the impression given to the reader of this exciting novel
98
00:07:00.319 --> 00:07:04.439
Brandies end of introduction
1
00:00:00.720 --> 00:00:06.480
Dedication and introduction of King Cole. This is a LibriVox recording.
2
00:00:07.040 --> 00:00:10.919
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
3
00:00:10.919 --> 00:00:16.199
information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
4
00:00:16.239 --> 00:00:24.039
by Michel Harris, King Cole by Upton Sinclair, Dedication to
5
00:00:24.239 --> 00:00:29.239
Mary Craig Kimbrough, to whose persistence in the perilous task
6
00:00:29.320 --> 00:00:33.399
of tearing her husband's manuscript to pieces, the reader is
7
00:00:33.439 --> 00:00:36.240
indebted for the absence of most of the faults from
8
00:00:36.320 --> 00:00:44.719
this book. End of dedication, introduction. Upton Sinclair is one
9
00:00:44.759 --> 00:00:47.719
of the not too many writers who have consecrated their
10
00:00:47.799 --> 00:00:51.560
lives to the agitation for social justice, and who have
11
00:00:51.679 --> 00:00:55.079
also enrolled their art in the service of a set purpose.
12
00:00:56.159 --> 00:01:00.399
A great and non temporizing enthusiast, he never fled lenched
13
00:01:00.399 --> 00:01:05.120
from making sacrifices now and then. He attained great material
14
00:01:05.200 --> 00:01:09.719
successes as a writer, but invariably he invested and lost
15
00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:12.959
his earnings in enterprises by which he had hoped to
16
00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:18.079
ward off injustice and to further human happiness. Though disappointed
17
00:01:18.120 --> 00:01:21.799
time after time, he never lost faith nor courage to
18
00:01:21.879 --> 00:01:27.159
start again. As a convinced socialist and eager advocate of
19
00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:31.640
unpopular doctrines, as an exposer of social conditions that would
20
00:01:31.680 --> 00:01:35.599
otherwise be screened away from the public eye. The most
21
00:01:35.599 --> 00:01:39.519
influential journals of his country were as a rule arraigned
22
00:01:39.519 --> 00:01:43.640
against him. Though always a poor man, though never willing
23
00:01:43.760 --> 00:01:48.359
to grant to publishers the concessions essential for many editions.
24
00:01:48.359 --> 00:01:52.840
In general popularity, he was maliciously represented to be a
25
00:01:52.879 --> 00:01:57.719
carpet knight of radicalism and a socialist millionaire. He has
26
00:01:57.799 --> 00:02:01.879
several times been obliged to change his publisher, which goes
27
00:02:01.920 --> 00:02:04.879
to prove that he is no seeker of material gain.
28
00:02:06.159 --> 00:02:09.240
Upton Sinclair is one of the writers of the present
29
00:02:09.360 --> 00:02:14.039
time most deserving of the sympathetic interest. He shows his
30
00:02:14.199 --> 00:02:18.319
patriotism as an American not by joining in hymns to
31
00:02:18.360 --> 00:02:22.120
the very conditional kind of liberty peculiar to the United States,
32
00:02:22.680 --> 00:02:26.400
but by agitating for infusing it with the elixir of
33
00:02:26.520 --> 00:02:30.759
real liberty, the liberty of humanity. He does not limit
34
00:02:30.840 --> 00:02:34.840
himself to a dispassionate and entertaining description of things as
35
00:02:34.879 --> 00:02:38.240
they are, but in his appeals to the honor and
36
00:02:38.280 --> 00:02:42.199
good fellowship of his compatriots, he opens their eyes to
37
00:02:42.240 --> 00:02:46.680
the appalling conditions under which wage earning slaves are living
38
00:02:46.759 --> 00:02:50.520
by the hundreds of thousands. His object is to better
39
00:02:50.599 --> 00:02:54.800
these unnatural conditions, to obtain for the very poorest a
40
00:02:54.879 --> 00:02:58.840
glimpse of light and happiness, to make even them realize
41
00:02:58.879 --> 00:03:02.280
the sensation of zzy well being and the comfort of
42
00:03:02.360 --> 00:03:05.360
knowing that justice is to be found also for them.
43
00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:10.520
This time, Upton Saint Clair has absorbed himself in the
44
00:03:10.560 --> 00:03:13.759
study of the miner's life in the lonesome pits of
45
00:03:13.800 --> 00:03:18.400
the rocky mountains, and his sensitive and enthusiastic mind has
46
00:03:18.479 --> 00:03:22.919
brought to the world an American parallel to germanol Emil
47
00:03:23.080 --> 00:03:29.240
Zola's technical masterpiece. The conditions described in the two books are, however,
48
00:03:29.439 --> 00:03:34.599
essentially different. While Sola's workingmen are all natives of France,
49
00:03:35.280 --> 00:03:39.879
one meets in Sainclair's book a motley variety of European immigrants,
50
00:03:40.319 --> 00:03:44.719
speaking a babel of languages, and therefore debarred from forming
51
00:03:44.800 --> 00:03:49.159
some sort of association to protect themselves against being exploited
52
00:03:49.479 --> 00:03:55.080
by the anonymous limited company. Notwithstanding this natural bar against
53
00:03:55.199 --> 00:03:58.199
united action on the part of the wage earning slaves,
54
00:03:58.800 --> 00:04:03.120
the company feels far from at ease and jealously guards
55
00:04:03.120 --> 00:04:08.120
its interests against any attempt of organizing the men. A
56
00:04:08.120 --> 00:04:11.800
young American of the upper class, with great sympathy for
57
00:04:11.919 --> 00:04:15.199
the downtrodden and an honest desire to get a first
58
00:04:15.240 --> 00:04:18.240
hand knowledge of their conditions in order to help them,
59
00:04:18.639 --> 00:04:22.600
decides to take employment in a mine under a fictitious
60
00:04:22.680 --> 00:04:26.759
name and dressed like a working man. His unusual way
61
00:04:26.879 --> 00:04:31.480
of trying to obtain work arouses suspicion. He is believed
62
00:04:31.480 --> 00:04:35.319
to be a professional strike leader, sent out to organize
63
00:04:35.399 --> 00:04:39.040
the miners against their exploiters, and he is not only
64
00:04:39.120 --> 00:04:44.439
refused work, but thrashed mercilessly. When finally he succeeds in
65
00:04:44.480 --> 00:04:49.199
getting inside, he discovers with growing indignation, the shameless and
66
00:04:49.279 --> 00:04:52.839
inhuman way in which those who unearth the black coal
67
00:04:52.920 --> 00:04:58.360
are being exploited. These are the fundamental ideas of the book,
68
00:04:58.959 --> 00:05:02.759
but they give but a f of the author's poetic attitude.
69
00:05:03.319 --> 00:05:06.639
Most beautifully is this shown in Howe's relation to a
70
00:05:06.720 --> 00:05:10.800
young Irish girl read Mary. She is poor, and her
71
00:05:10.879 --> 00:05:15.480
daily life harsh and joyless, but nevertheless, her wonderful grace
72
00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:18.879
is one of the outstanding features of the book. The
73
00:05:18.920 --> 00:05:22.279
first impression of Mary is that of a Celtic madonna
74
00:05:22.639 --> 00:05:26.480
with a tender heart for little children. She develops into
75
00:05:26.519 --> 00:05:30.279
a valkyrie of the working class, always ready to fight
76
00:05:30.360 --> 00:05:34.279
for the worker's right. The last chapters of the book
77
00:05:34.360 --> 00:05:37.720
give a description of the miner's revolt against the company.
78
00:05:38.480 --> 00:05:41.439
They insist upon their right to choose a deputy to
79
00:05:41.519 --> 00:05:45.040
control the weighing in of the coal, and upon having
80
00:05:45.079 --> 00:05:49.839
the mind sprinkled regularly to prevent explosion. They will also
81
00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:53.560
be free to buy their food and utensils wherever they like,
82
00:05:54.120 --> 00:05:59.240
even in shops not belonging to the company. In a PostScript,
83
00:05:59.319 --> 00:06:02.920
Sinclair explains the fundamental facts on which his work of
84
00:06:03.079 --> 00:06:06.839
art has been built up. Even without the PostScript, one
85
00:06:06.839 --> 00:06:09.920
could not help feeling convinced that the social conditions he
86
00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:13.920
describes are true to life. The main point is that
87
00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:18.399
Sinclair has not allowed himself to become inspired by hackneyed
88
00:06:18.439 --> 00:06:22.279
phrases that bondage and injustice, and the other evils and
89
00:06:22.360 --> 00:06:26.600
crimes of kingdoms have been banished from republics, but that
90
00:06:26.680 --> 00:06:30.399
he is earnestly pointing to the honeycombed ground on which
91
00:06:30.439 --> 00:06:34.639
the greatest modern money power has been built. The fundament
92
00:06:34.759 --> 00:06:38.959
of this power is not granite, but minds. It lives
93
00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:41.959
and breathes in the light because it has thousands of
94
00:06:42.040 --> 00:06:46.160
unfortunates toiling in the darkness. It lives and has its
95
00:06:46.240 --> 00:06:50.439
being in proud liberty because thousands are slaving for it,
96
00:06:50.800 --> 00:06:55.000
whose thraldom is the price of this liberty. This is
97
00:06:55.040 --> 00:06:58.279
the impression given to the reader of this exciting novel
98
00:07:00.319 --> 00:07:04.439
Brandies end of introduction
