The History Book Club discussion

Hello Everyone,

For the week of April 25th - May 1st, we are reading Chapter Three of Unreasonable Men: Theodore Roosevelt and the Republican Rebels who Created Progressive Politics by Michael Wolraich.

The third week's reading assignment is:

Week Three - April 25th - May 1st
Chapter Three - The Muck Rake - (pages 53 - 78)

We will open up a thread for each week's reading. Please make sure to post in the particular thread dedicated to those specific chapters and page numbers to avoid spoilers. We will also open up supplemental threads as we did for other spotlighted books.

This book was kicked off on April 11th. It is never too late to start a book here at the History Book Club.

We look forward to your participation. Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other noted on line booksellers do have copies of the book and shipment can be expedited. The book can also be obtained easily at your local library, local bookstore or on your Kindle. This weekly thread will be opened up April 25th.

There is no rush and we are thrilled to have you join us. It is never too late to get started and/or to post.

Bentley will be moderating this discussion and Assisting Moderators Teri, Jill, Bryan, Francie and Samanta will be backups.

The author Michael Wolraich will also be actively participating in the moderation with Bentley. We welcome him to the discussion.

Welcome,

~Bentley

TO ALWAYS SEE ALL WEEKS' THREADS SELECT VIEW ALL

by Michael Wolraich

REMEMBER NO SPOILERS ON THE WEEKLY NON SPOILER THREADS - ON EACH WEEKLY NON SPOILER THREAD - WE ONLY DISCUSS THE PAGES ASSIGNED OR THE PAGES WHICH WERE COVERED IN PREVIOUS WEEKS. IF YOU GO AHEAD OR WANT TO ENGAGE IN MORE EXPANSIVE DISCUSSION - POST THOSE COMMENTS IN ONE OF THE SPOILER THREADS. THESE CHAPTERS HAVE A LOT OF INFORMATION SO WHEN IN DOUBT CHECK WITH THE CHAPTER OVERVIEW AND SUMMARY TO RECALL WHETHER YOUR COMMENTS ARE ASSIGNMENT SPECIFIC. EXAMPLES OF SPOILER THREADS ARE THE GLOSSARY, THE BIBLIOGRAPHY, THE INTRODUCTION AND THE BOOK AS A WHOLE THREADS.

Notes:

It is always a tremendous help when you quote specifically from the book itself and reference the chapter and page numbers when responding. The text itself helps folks know what you are referencing and makes things clear.

Citations:

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If you need help - here is a thread called the Mechanics of the Board which will show you how:

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Also the citation thread:

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Introduction Thread:

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Table of Contents and Syllabus

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Glossary

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Bibliography

There is a Bibliography where books cited in the text are posted with proper citations and reviews. We also post the books that the author used in his research or in his notes. Please also feel free to add to the Bibliography thread any related books, etc with proper citations. No self promotion, please. We will be adding to this thread as we read along.

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Book as a Whole and Final Thoughts - SPOILER THREAD

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

by Michael Wolraich

Directions on how to participate in a book offer and how to follow the t's and c's - Unreasonable Men - What Do I Do Next?

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

This is a non spoiler thread. For the Week Three assignment - we are reading Chapter Three - The Muck Rake which begins on page 53 and runs through page 78.

Therefore, you may discuss any element or quote, event or person or anything else dealing with Chapter Three and pages 53 though 78. You may also discuss anything that came before in the book - so the Preface through page 78 are the only pages that can be discussed here. Try to read with the group so that you are NOT posting any spoilers.

We do have spoiler threads where you can post anything - glossary, bibliography threads, the introduction and Book as a Whole thread.

But the weekly threads are non spoiler.

Everyone, for the week of April 25th - May 1st, we are reading Chapter Three - The Muck Rake - (pages 53 - 78).

The third week's reading assignment is:

Week Three - April 25th - May 1st
Chapter Three - The Muck Rake - (pages 53 - 78)



Chapter Overview and Summary:

Chapter Three - The Muck Rake

The chapter begins with the following quote:

Our people are too busy to be disturbed by professional agitators. They just go ahead attending to business and let the agitators howl." --- Uncle Joe

Chapter Three begins with Bob LaFollete arriving in DC on January 3rd, 1906. The chapter ends on December 3rd, 1906.

When LaFollette had come to Washington before - he was a youth and an unknown, now he was notorious!

On January 4th, Fighting Bob was ushered to his seat in the Senate. John Spooner announced: "Mr. LaFollette, the senator-elect, is now in attendance."

There was an inauguration party and the LaFollettes were introduced to Theodore Roosevelt who stated that he was "dee-lighted and overjoyed" to see his old friends again from the days when he was a civil service commissioner and LaFollette a young congressman.

There was great tension in DC with the Dolliver bill and Hepburn was threatening to sponsor an identical bill - but getting it to survive the Senate was going to be a challenge.

LaFollette met with the president and there was a difference of opinion as to how that meeting went.

Theodore almost gets cut by the barber when Baker confronts Roosevelt on the Railroad bill. Roosevelt retorted - "No one knew better than he how "inefficient and undependable" federal employees were. Government ownership of free enterprise would be a "disaster," he warned.

Roosevelt went on to say, "Here is the thing you must bear in mind - I do not represent public opinion: I represent the public. There is a wide difference between the two, between the real interests of the public and the public's opinion of those interests".

Nelson Aldrich believed "that the masses of people did not know what they wanted or what was best for them in the way of legislation." Uncle Joe espoused to the "root hog or die" laissez-faire principles while Aldrich believed in the collaboration between government and business. Aldridge kept the Pure Food and Drug Act bottled up for three years straight with Spooner's help. He did an about face in February 1906 - he abstained and it passed. But then Hepburn sat on it for four months in the House.

The railroad bill took a different turn when Tillman and not Dolliver was to report on it. Roosevelt despised Tillman. There was tension in the air and Roosevelt coined the term muck raker in a speech that he gave at the Gridiron Club in DC - news of the speech had leaked out. TR denounced investigative journalists comparing them to a character from John Bunyan's Pilgrim Progress who obsessed with cleaning up filth - The Man with the Muck Rake.

TR was not enamored with Senator LaFollette and the constant praise by Steffens and Baker. Roosevelt thought that "Fighting Bob" was a "shifty self seeker". Other bills created problems for Roosevelt but finally the Pure Food and Drug Act passed on June 30, 1906.

On December 3, 1906 - President Roosevelt made his sixth annual message. He stated - "As a nation, we still continue to enjoy a literally unprecedented prosperity," "and it is probable that only reckless speculation and disregard of legitimate business methods on the part of the business world can materially mar this prosperity."

The House of Morgan felt that there was something amiss in New York.

by John Bunyan

THE MAN WITH THE MUCK RAKE (Theodore Roosevelt Speech)
April 15, 1906

Over a century ago Washington laid the corner stone of the Capitol in what was then little more than a tract of wooded wilderness here beside the Potomac. We now find it necessary to provide by great additional buildings for the business of the government.

This growth in the need for the housing of the government is but a proof and example of the way in which the nation has grown and the sphere of action of the national government has grown. We now administer the affairs of a nation in which the extraordinary growth of population has been outstripped by the growth of wealth in complex interests. The material problems that face us today are not such as they were in Washington's time, but the underlying facts of human nature are the same now as they were then. Under altered external form we war with the same tendencies toward evil that were evident in Washington's time, and are helped by the same tendencies for good. It is about some of these that I wish to say a word today.

In Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress you may recall the description of the Man with the Muck Rake, the man who could look no way but downward, with the muck rake in his hand; who was offered a celestial crown for his muck rake, but who would neither look up nor regard the crown he was offered, but continued to rake to himself the filth of the floor.

In Pilgrim's Progress the Man with the Muck Rake is set forth as the example of him whose vision is fixed on carnal instead of spiritual things. Yet he also typifies the man who in this life consistently refuses to see aught that is lofty, and fixes his eyes with solemn intentness only on that which is vile and debasing.

Now, it is very necessary that we should not flinch from seeing what is vile and debasing. There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck rake; and there are times and places where this service is the most needed of all the services that can be performed. But the man who never does anything else, who never thinks or speaks or writes, save of his feats with the muck rake, speedily becomes, not a help but one of the most potent forces for evil.

There are in the body politic, economic and social, many and grave evils, and there is urgent necessity for the sternest war upon them. There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil man, whether politician or business man, every evil practice, whether in politics, business, or social life. I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform or in a book, magazine, or newspaper, with merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful.

The liar is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves. It puts a premium upon knavery untruthfully to attack an honest man, or even with hysterical exaggeration to assail a bad man with untruth.

An epidemic of indiscriminate assault upon character does no good, but very great harm. The soul of every scoundrel is gladdened whenever an honest man is assailed, or even when a scoundrel is untruthfully assailed.

Now, it is easy to twist out of shape what I have just said, easy to affect to misunderstand it, and if it is slurred over in repetition not difficult really to misunderstand it. Some persons are sincerely incapable of understanding that to denounce mud slinging does not mean the endorsement of whitewashing; and both the interested individuals who need whitewashing and those others who practice mud slinging like to encourage such confusion of ideas.

One of the chief counts against those who make indiscriminate assault upon men in business or men in public life is that they invite a reaction which is sure to tell powerfully in favor of the unscrupulous scoundrel who really ought to be attacked, who ought to be exposed, who ought, if possible, to be put in the penitentiary. If Aristides is praised overmuch as just, people get tired of hearing it; and over censure of the unjust finally and from similar reasons results in their favor.

Any excess is almost sure to invite a reaction; and, unfortunately, the reactions instead of taking the form of punishment of those guilty of the excess, is apt to take the form either of punishment of the unoffending or of giving immunity, and even strength, to offenders. The effort to make financial or political profit out of the destruction of character can only result in public calamity. Gross and reckless assaults on character, whether on the stump or in newspaper, magazine, or book, create a morbid and vicious public sentiment, and at the same time act as a profound deterrent to able men of normal sensitiveness and tend to prevent them from entering the public service at any price.

As an instance in point, I may mention that one serious difficulty encountered in getting the right type of men to dig the Panama canal is the certainty that they will be exposed, both without, and, I am sorry to say, sometimes within, Congress, to utterly reckless assaults on their character and capacity.

At the risk of repetition let me say again that my plea is not for immunity to, but for the most unsparing exposure of, the politician who betrays his trust, of the big business man who makes or spends his fortune in illegitimate or corrupt ways. There should be a resolute effort to hunt every such man out of the position he has disgraced. Expose the crime, and hunt down the criminal; but remember that even in the case of crime, if it is attacked in sensational, lurid, and untruthful fashion, the attack may do more damage to the public mind than the crime itself.
It is because I feel that there should be no rest in the endless war against the forces of evil that I ask the war be conducted with sanity as well as with resolution. The men with the muck rakes are often indispensable to the well being of society; but only if they know when to stop raking the muck, and to look upward to the celestial crown above them, to the crown of worthy endeavor. There are beautiful things above and round about them; and if they gradually grow to feel that the whole world is nothing but muck, their power of usefulness is gone.

If the whole picture is painted black there remains no hue whereby to single out the rascals for distinction from their fellows. Such painting finally induces a kind of moral color blindness; and people affected by it come to the conclusion that no man is really black, and no man really white, but they are all gray.

In other words, they neither believe in the truth of the attack, nor in the honesty of the man who is attacked; they grow as suspicious of the accusation as of the offense; it becomes well nigh hopeless to stir them either to wrath against wrongdoing or to enthusiasm for what is right; and such a mental attitude in the public gives hope to every knave, and is the despair of honest men.

To assail the great and admitted evils of our political and industrial life with such crude and sweeping generalizations as to include decent men in the general condemnation means the searing of the public con science. There results a general attitude either of cynical belief in and indifference to public corruption or else of a distrustful inability to discriminate between the good and the bad. Either attitude is fraught with untold damage to the country as a whole.

The fool who has not sense to discriminate between what is good and what is bad is well nigh as dangerous as the man who does discriminate and yet chooses the bad. There is nothing more distressing to every good patriot, to every good American, than the hard, scoffing spirit which treats the allegation of dishonesty in a public man as a cause for laughter. Such laughter is worse than the crackling of thorns under a pot, for it denotes not merely the vacant mind, but the heart in which high emotions have been choked before they could grow to fruition.

There is any amount of good in the world, and there never was a time when loftier and more disinterested work for the betterment of mankind was being done than now.

The forces that tend for evil are great and terrible, but the forces of truth and love and courage and honesty and generosity and sympathy are also stronger than ever before. It is a foolish and timid, no less than a wicked thing, to blink the fact that the forces of evil are strong, but it is even worse to fail to take into account the strength of the forces that tell for good.

Hysterical sensationalism is the poorest weapon wherewith to fight for lasting righteousness. The men who with stern sobriety and truth assail the many evils of our time, whether in the public press, or in magazines, or in books, are the leaders and allies of all engaged in the work for social and political betterment.

But if they give good reason for distrust of what they say, if they chill the ardor of those who demand truth as a primary virtue, they thereby betray the good cause and play into the hands of the very men against whom they are nominally at war.

In his Ecclesiastical Polity that fine old Elizabethan divine, Bishop Hooker, wrote:
He that goeth about to persuade a multitude that they are not so well governed as they ought to be shall never want attentive and favorable hearers, because they know the manifold defects whereunto every kind of regimen is subject, but the secret lets and difficulties, which in public proceedings are innumerable and inevitable, they have not ordinarily the judgment to consider.
This truth should be kept constantly in mind by every free people desiring to preserve the sanity and poise indispensable to the permanent success of self- government. Yet, on the other hand, it is vital not to permit this spirit of sanity and self-command to degenerate into mere mental stagnation. Bad though a state of hysterical excitement is, and evil though the results are which come from the violent oscillations such excitement invariably produces, yet a sodden acquiescence in evil is even worse.

At this moment we are passing through a period of great unrest -- social, political, and industrial unrest. It is of the utmost importance for our future that this should prove to be not the unrest of mere rebelliousness against life, of mere dissatisfaction with the inevitable inequality of conditions, but the unrest of a resolute and eager ambition to secure the betterment of the individual and the nation.

So far as this movement of agitation throughout the country takes the form of a fierce discontent with evil, of a determination to punish the authors of evil, whether in industry or politics, the feeling is to be heartily welcomed as a sign of healthy life.

If, on the other hand, it turns into a mere crusade of appetite against appetite, of a contest between the brutal greed of the "have nots" and the brutal greed of the "haves," then it has no significance for good, but only for evil. If it seeks to establish a line of cleavage, not along the line which divides good men from bad, but along that other line, running at right angles thereto, which divides those who are well off from those who are less well off, then it will be fraught with immeasurable harm to the body politic.

The Speech Continues:

We can no more and no less afford to condone evil in the man of capital than evil in the man of no capital.

The wealthy man who exults because there is a failure of justice in the effort to bring some trust magnate to account for his misdeeds is as bad as, and no worse than, the so-called labor leader who clamorously strives to excite a foul class feeling on behalf of some other labor leader who is implicated in murder.

One attitude is as bad as the other, and no worse; in each case the accused is entitled to exact justice; and in neither case is there need of action by others which can be construed into an expression of sympathy for crime.

It is a prime necessity that if the present unrest is to result in permanent good the emotion shall be translated into action, and that the action shall be marked by honesty, sanity, and self-restraint. There is mighty little good in a mere spasm of reform.

The reform that counts is that which comes through steady, continuous growth; violent emotionalism leads to exhaustion.

It is important to this people to grapple with the problems connected with the amassing of enormous fortunes, and the use of those fortunes, both corporate and individual, in business.

We should discriminate in the sharpest way between fortunes well won and fortunes ill won; between those gained as an incident to performing great services to the community as a whole and those gained in evil fashion by keeping just within the limits of mere law honesty. Of course, no amount of charity in spending such fortunes in any way compensates for misconduct in making them.

As a matter of personal conviction, and without pretending to discuss the details or formulate the system, I feel that we shall ultimately have to consider the adoption of some such scheme as that of a progressive tax on all fortunes, beyond a certain amount, either given in life or devised or bequeathed upon death to any individual -- a tax so framed as to put it out of the power of the owner of one of these enormous fortunes to hand on more than a certain amount to any one individual; the tax of course, to be imposed by the national and not the state government. Such taxation should, of course, be aimed merely at the inheritance or transmission in their entirety of those fortunes swollen beyond all healthy limits.

Again, the national government must in some form exercise supervision over corporations engaged in interstate business -- and all large corporations engaged in interstate business -- whether by license or otherwise, so as to permit us to deal with the far reaching evils of overcapitalization.

This year we are making a beginning in the direction of serious effort to settle some of these economic problems by the railway rate legislation. Such legislation, if so framed, as I am sure it will be, as to secure definite and tangible results, will amount to something of itself; and it will amount to a great deal more in so far as it is taken as a first step in the direction of a policy of superintendence and control over corporate wealth engaged in interstate commerce; this superintendence and control not to be exercised in a spirit of malevolence toward the men who have created the wealth, but with the firm purpose both to do justice to them and to see that they in their turn do justice to the public at large.

The first requisite in the public servants who are to deal in this shape with corporations, whether as legislators or as executives, is honesty. This honesty can be no respecter of persons.

There can be no such thing as unilateral honesty. The danger is not really from corrupt corporations; it springs from the corruption itself, whether exercised for or against corporations.

The eighth commandment reads, "Thou shalt not steal." It does not read, "Thou shalt not steal from the rich man." It does not read, "Thou shalt not steal from the poor man." It reads simply and plainly, "Thou shalt not steal."

No good whatever will come from that warped and mock morality which denounces the misdeeds of men of wealth and forgets the misdeeds practiced at their expense; which denounces bribery, but blinds itself to blackmail; which foams with rage if a corporation secures favors by improper methods, and merely leers with hideous mirth if the corporation is itself wronged.

The only public servant who can be trusted honestly to protect the rights of the public against the misdeeds of a corporation is that public man who will just as surely protect the corporation itself from wrongful aggression.

If a public man is willing to yield to popular clamor and do wrong to the men of wealth or to rich corporations, it may be set down as certain that if the opportunity comes he will secretly and furtively do wrong to the public in the interest of a corporation.

But in addition to honesty, we need sanity. No honesty will make a public man useful if that man is timid or foolish, if he is a hot-headed zealot or an impracticable visionary. As we strive for reform we find that it is not at all merely the case of a long uphill pull. On the contrary, there is almost as much of breeching work as of collar work. To depend only on traces means that there will soon be a runaway and an upset.

The men of wealth who today are trying to prevent the regulation and control of their business in the interest of the public by the proper government authorities will not succeed, in my judgment, in checking the progress of the movement. But if they did succeed they would find that they had sown the wind and would surely reap the whirlwind, for they would ultimately provoke the violent excesses which accompany a reform coming by convulsion instead of by steady and natural growth.

On the other hand, the wild preachers of unrest and discontent, the wild agitators against the entire existing order, the men who act crookedly, whether because of sinister design or from mere puzzle headedness, the men who preach destruction without proposing any substitute for what they intend to destroy, or who propose a substitute which would be far worse than the existing evils -- all these men are the most dangerous opponents of real reform. If they get their way they will lead the people into a deeper pit than any into which they could fall under the present system.

If they fail to get their way they will still do incalculable harm by provoking the kind of reaction which in its revolt against the senseless evil of their teaching would enthrone more securely than ever the evils which their misguided followers believe they are attacking.

More important than aught else is the development of the broadest sympathy of man for man. The welfare of the wage worker, the welfare of the tiller of the soil, upon these depend the welfare of the entire country; their good is not to be sought in pulling down others; but their good must be the prime object of all our statesmanship.

Materially we must strive to secure a broader economic opportunity for all men, so that each shall have a better chance to show the stuff of which he is made. Spiritually and ethically we must strive to bring about clean living and right thinking. We appreciate that the things of the body are important; but we appreciate also that the things of the soul are immeasurably more important.

The foundation stone of national life is, and ever must be, the high individual character of the average citizen.

Discussion Topics:


John Bunyan at the House of Representatives - Roosevelt 1906

a) Let us begin by discussing The Man with the Muck Rake speech given by Theodore Roosevelt on March 17th at the Gridiron Club in Washington DC. He also gave it publicly at the dedication of the congressional office building in April. What is your impression of the speech itself? (Read the speech above)

b) Did you like the speech or not - why or why not? Do you think that the investigative journalists like Baker had reason to complain and be upset about it?

c) What did you think about what Mr. Baker wrote to the President - "My Dear President, I have been much disturbed at the report of your proposed address," he wrote. "Even admitting that some of the so called "exposures" have been extreme, have they not, as a whole, been honest and useful?" Did Baker have a point that "if Roosevelt used his authority to attack the magazines, he would end up destroying the honest journalists who endeavored to expose misconduct to "light and air". Had Baker gone too far? Was this the beginning of the end for "civil discourse" or had that time already passed? What do you think of cable news nowadays - do you think that news reporting has become too slanted and too mean spirited - are we looking at modern day "muck rakers"?

d) What did you think of President Roosevelt's reply - "I want to "let in the light air', but I do not want to let in sewer gas. If a room is fetid and the windows are bolted, I am perfectly contented to knock out the windows, but I would not knock a hole into the drain pipe." Was this warranted and was TR right about his response? Was it measured and direct or was it "over the top"? What are your thoughts as we begin Chapter Three?

Source: Photo above:
President Theodore Roosevelt at the cornerstone laying ceremony, 1906 - Image courtesy of the Architect of the Capitol

Full Speech - http://www.emersonkent.com/speeches/t...

You can listen to the speech being read with text - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wyEu...

Dive in guys - we are open.

Our people are too busy to be disturbed by professional agitators. They just go ahead attending to business and let the agitators howl." --- Uncle Joe

Question:

What did you think about the quote by Uncle Joe which opened up this chapter? Do you agree or disagree?

As far as the speech goes, it certainly emphasizes Roosevelt's desires to make sure that while capitalism has its place, it cannot deny the bad that can come from it. The idea that wealthy people should have more rights than working people is a dangerous way to live. After all, there are more working people than wealthy and if they were to lash out at the rich, there would be a civil war.

Russia would learn this lesson only 10 years later when the monarchy failed to appreciate the terrible conditions their subjects were living in.

But back to Roosevelt's speech, the worse thing that any politician can do is side with the rich to line their own pockets and think that the people will not catch on. The most responsible part of any politician's job is to be aware of the conditions of their constituents and not just their supporters.

I don't think many politicians took this speech seriously because it is human nature to want what's best for yourself even if it's not to spite others but rather just to have better opportunities for themselves and their families. I think this was a lesson that wasn't to be learned until the Depression.

Ray Standard Baker

Ray Standard Baker had some advice for President Roosevelt and Roosevelt had scheduled him during his morning shave.

Roosevelt started his shave on February 9, 1906 in a fairly good mood. The Hepburn bill had passed the house but he pinned his hopes on the Democratic support for the Dolliver bill.

Baker was waiting for the President to become quieter (for the barber to apply the razor) - and he started by complimenting the President on the railroad bill - but aroused the President by saying that it was only the first step. He wanted the government to "own the railroads" and he tried to sway the president that public opinion was moving in that direction in the western states. Roosevelt came to attention and would have none of that.

Fully at attention and heedless of the razor - TR reacted vehemently.

"No one knew better than he how "inefficient and undependable" federal employees were. Government ownership of free enterprise would be a "disaster," he warned.

Roosevelt went on to say, "Here is the thing you must bear in mind - I do not represent public opinion: I represent the public. There is a wide difference between the two, between the real interests of the public and the public's opinion of those interests".

Quotes from pages 58 and 59:

Discussion Topics:

a) What are your feelings about the interactions? Who was on the right side and why? There are no right or wrong answers here so feel free to comment on how you feel and why. Did you like when TR stated that he did not represent public opinion but the public and that there was wide difference between the two?

b) Did TR come off as being somewhat "paternalistic" or what he just assiduously protecting the country from harm? Was Baker over zealous?

Gary wrote: "As far as the speech goes, it certainly emphasizes Roosevelt's desires to make sure that while capitalism has its place, it cannot deny the bad that can come from it. The idea that wealthy people s..."

Thank you Gary so you think this speech because it was not on television (like speeches today) or publicly given was largely ignored at the time? In fact it was publicly given a week or so later - see photo - message 7. TR gave it at the Gridiron Club on March 17th, 1906 but gave it later publicly on April 14, 1906 I believe.

For starters, I need to clarify my opinion of the speech. I do agree that successful companies need to be allowed to succeed in order for their employees to succeed. But this cannot be allowed to occur at the expense of the general public.

Anyway, considering the times, I'm sure the only people who actually heard this speech were the people who got ringside seats for this or any other speeches back in the day.

In regards to whether it was ignored by the general public, I'm sure the press would pick and choose the parts of the speech that allowed them to sell the most papers and this was based on their particular audience (just like today - Fox News targets conservative audiences and CNN targets democrats) so while the speech was not ignored...it was doled out to the general public based upon the opinions of the editors and reporters.

Paragraph One - yes I see where you are coming from

Paragraph Two - yes it was a private speech at first but then it was publicly given remember so that might have horrified Baker even more. It was given to the general public at the upcoming dedication of the new congressional office building

Yes, there were leaks - that is how Baker found out on the street - being addressed humorously as a "muck raker".

Quotes from the book on page 63 and 64: "According to club rules, journalists are prohibited from publishing anything spoken within, but news of the speech had leaked out" On page 64 - "Baker was aghast. Hadn't he done the President a great service by stoking public interest in railroad abuses? Why had Roosevelt so often praised his investigative work only to denounce exposure articles at the Gridiron dinner? To make matters worse, he learned that Roosevelt planned to repeat the speech for the general public at the upcoming dedication of a new congressional office building shown in message 7.

Topics for Discussion:

a) Were there any quotes/lines from the speech that you especially liked or disliked or agreed or disagreed with?

a) Were there any quotes/lines from the speech that you especially liked or disliked or agreed or disagreed with?

Well, since you asked... I was a little put off by the three references to either the Bible or Christian authors, but that's because of my modern mindset. First, TR quoted John Bunyan (while admitting that Bunyan had another meaning in mind), then Richard Hooker (whom he calls "fine old Elizabethan divine"), and finally the eighth commandment. If I heard a politician use this many references today I would suspect he is trying to cater to the majority of voters, or to give an impression of religiosity. I would see it as a breech of the separation of church and state. I am sure things were different back then.

Now, it is very necessary that we should not flinch from seeing what is vile and debasing. There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck rake; and there are times and places where this service is the most needed of all the services that can be performed. But the man who never does anything else, who never thinks or speaks or writes, save of his feats with the muck rake, speedily becomes, not a help but one of the most potent forces for evil.

This paragraph jumped out at me. Haven't we all known people in our lives who only focus on the negative aspects? Not just a contrarian, but a person who always takes the most pessimistic train of thought imaginable. It can be exhausting to combat on a regular basis.

I could see how Roosevelt was so worked up by the sensationalist muck rakers.

Simonetta wrote: "a) Were there any quotes/lines from the speech that you especially liked or disliked or agreed or disagreed with?

Well, since you asked... I was a little put off by the three references to either ..."

I think they were Simonetta but it is interesting seeing and hearing a speech from that timeframe.

Steve I can see where he was coming from and for the most part he believed he was doing the right thing - and Baker did admit he may have gone a bit far in the piece but I think if given free rein - like the tabloids - the folks called muckrakers by TR would ruin many a life.

Also another point - I think that TR had a sense of fair play.

a) What are your feelings about the interactions? Who was on the right side and why? There are no right or wrong answers here so feel free to comment on how you feel and why. Did you like when TR stated that he did not represent public opinion but the public and that there was wide difference between the two?

I think TR is correct with the quote about representing the public, but not public opinion. An elected official needs to figure out the right combination of voting his conscience and his district. We elect the people we think are best suited to make tough decision.

Over the years the country has moved towards more democracy, and I think that's been good for the most part. But there is an important idea behind the original safeguards against too much democracy.

John Adams: "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself." Aristotle (Politics) and Tocqueville (Democracy in America) had similar fears about too much democracy.

We're getting a fascinating case study in where the line is this year with Sanders & Trump.

by Aristotle
by Alexis de Tocqueville

The Panama Canal


President Roosevelt, center, discussing America's task with workmen at Bas Obispo on the Panama Canal in 1906

I am not sure how many of you have seen the Panama Canal or what it looks like today. The US was constructing the Panama Canal between 1904 and 1914 and it created quite a stir before that. TR had his hands full with this project. He was handling this as well during the Chapter Three timeframe. This time lapse video shows the Panama Canal now.

This is from PBS - Take a ride through the Panama Canal in this time-lapse video from 2010

URL:http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexper...

Also from PBS -

Panama Canal Animation

From the program "TR, the Story of Theodore Roosevelt," an animation of the locks system of the Panama Canal demonstrates how a ship would travel across the Panamanian Isthmus. This "lake and lock" canal was favored by Roosevelt, whose Chief Engineer George Goethals called "the real builder of the Panama Canal."

URL:http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexper...

Source: PBS and Learning English

Learning English - http://learningenglish.voanews.com/co...

More: The Panama Canal opened 100 years ago, on August 15, 1914. It is 77 kilometers long. It joins the Atlantic and Pacific oceans at Panama. It made the world smaller -- cargo ships no longer had to sail around South America

This is a great informative little video:

Panama Canal Turns 100 Amid Growing Pains, Competition

Link: https://youtu.be/1eYZFhPcS4s

by Julie Greene (no photo)

Excellent Documentary on the Growing Pains of the Panama Canal - National Geographic

https://youtu.be/pcObU650fmc


Theodore Roosevelt, left, stands with Manuel Amador, center>

For our foreign members and others who would like some quick background info - http://learningenglish.voanews.com/co...

Why the US did not choose Nicaragua for the site of the canal?


A photo dated 1902 shows smoke coming from the Momotombo volcano, the "smoking terror" in Nicaragua

Source: VOA News

Here is a great cartoon:


TR Struggles with the Railroad Trusts - "Who is master?" A cartoon from the New York Herald shows Theodore Roosevelt struggling with a wrestler representing the railroads, as Uncle Sam watches.

Also remember that TR helped stop the Coal Strike of 1902. This current chapter starts with 1906 so this is not a spoiler.

http://gdb.voanews.com/CA613379-173E-...

More: For those of our global friends learning English - this is for you as well - Source Learning English - http://learningenglish.voanews.com/co...

President Theodore Roosevelt stands by a globe in this 1905 photograph

This audio starts with 1903 - the treaty giving the US the right to build the Panama Canal - TR was very smart about how he handled the problems in Latin America.

This is a quote - "To protect the canal, President Roosevelt declared greater responsibility for a wide area around the canal. The greatest responsibility was financial. Roosevelt said the United States would guarantee repayment of loans made to Latin American countries.

He did this to prevent European countries from using the issue of non-payment as an excuse to seize new territory in the Western Hemisphere."

Theodore Roosevelt had his hands full.

Other events going on which TR was involved in:

President Roosevelt's most important foreign policy success came as a result of a war between Russia and Japan.


A Japanese painting from 1904 showing the Battle of the Yalu River between the forces of Japan and Russia

TR received the Nobel Peace Prize Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating an end to the Russian-Japanese war. Although TR did not have an easy time for this either.


President Roosevelt with representatives of the Russian Czar and the Japanese Emperor

Roosevelt was involved in solving many world disputes at the same time he was involved with all of the domestic issues discussed in this book.



A cartoon from Harper's Magazine shows President Roosevelt carrying his "big stick" while trying to end a dispute of European powers over Morocco

More: Some great background information for those folks trying to catch up. Also great for our foreign members.

Learning English site: Theodore Roosevelt Exercises US Power Around the World - http://learningenglish.voanews.com/co...

Folks - please feel free to discuss any of these events.

Jason wrote: "a) What are your feelings about the interactions? Who was on the right side and why? There are no right or wrong answers here so feel free to comment on how you feel and why. Did you like when TR s..."

Jason - excellent comments. I agree with you. Good quote.

Another cartoon:



"Taking the Bull by the Horns," a cartoon showing President Roosevelt trying to control the railroad trusts represented by a bull

Some additional information on the Pure Food and Drug Act: A Muckraking Triumph

Pure Food and Drug Act: A Muckraking Triumph



The first Pure Food and Drug Act was passed in 1906. The purpose was to protect the public against adulteration of food and from products identified as healthful without scientific support. The original Pure Food and Drug Act was amended in 1912, 1913, and 1923. A greater extension of its scope took place in 1933.

The muckrakers had successfully heightened public awareness of safety issues stemming from careless food preparation procedures and the increasing incidence of drug addiction from patent medicines, both accidental and conscious. Scientific support came from Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, the Department of Agriculture`s chief chemist, who published his findings on the widespread use of harmful preservatives in the meat-packing industry. The experience of American soldiers with so-called “embalmed beef" during the Spanish-American War added impetus to the movement.

President Theodore Roosevelt began the process by ensuring the passage of the Meat Inspection Act of 1906, which was followed by the Pure Food and Drug Act, passed in 1906 to become effective at the start of 1907. It was to be applied to goods shipped in foreign or interstate commerce. The purpose was to prevent adulteration or misbranding. Adulteration was defined in various ways. For confectionary, adulteration would be the result of any poisonous color or flavor, or of any other ingredients harmful to human health. Food was adulterated if it contained filthy or decomposed animal matter, poisonous or deleterious ingreidents, or anything that attempted to conceal inferior components. Provisions included

Creation of the Food and Drug Administration, which was entrusted with the responsibility of testing all foods and drugs destined for human consumption

The requirement for prescriptions from licensed physicians before a patient could purchase certain drugs

The requirement of label warnings on habit-forming drugs.

An offending manufacturer or distributor could be prosecuted by the Federal government, except that a distributor was not liable to such action if he could show an adequate guarantee from the vendor.

Passage of the measure in Congress was not assured. The lobbying association representing the medicine makers was vocal and well-funded, as were representatives of the “beef trust" and other food producers. Some members of Congress, especially a number of Southern senators, opposed the bill as constitutionally unsound.

The active involvement of Theodore Roosevelt, who was repulsed by slaughterhouse practices described in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, successfully overcame the lawmakers’ reluctance.

The first casualty of this legislation was the patent medicine industry; few of the nostrums gained certification from the FDA. The law was strengthened in 1912 when additional provisions were added to combat fraudulent labeling. In 1913, the law was supplemented with a provision requiring packaged goods to show their weight. In 1923, "filled" milk was defined and its interstate shipment made illegal.

During the Great Depression, the Wheeler-Lea Act was passed to make false or misleading statements about "foods, drugs, diagnostic and therapeutics devices, and cosmetics" illegal through product markings or advertising when such advertising was spread beyond the boundaries of a single state. The Federal Trade Commission was given responsibility for the advertising portion and the Food and Drug Administration took charge of the misbranding issues.

Source: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h917...

Jason - excellent comments. I agree with you. Good quote. Here are the citations - you were mighty close...

Updated! Thanks Bentley.

I really liked the speech, and I don't understand Baker's objections to it.

"The men with the muck rakes are often indispensable to the well being of society; but only if they know when to stop raking the muck, and to look upward to the celestial crown above them, to the crown of worthy endeavor. There are beautiful things above and round about them; and if they gradually grow to feel that the whole world is nothing but muck, their power of usefulness is gone."

TR acknowledged the importance of the journalists to society, but he said it was possible to go too far. It seems to me that what he called a "muck raker" is very similar to what we call a "whistle blower" today.

@Jason - thanks

@Kressel - I am glad that you liked the speech - but I do not see a whistle blower as a muck raker (MHO) - of course you could be thinking of investigative journalists - TR I believe was talking about the kind of investigative journalism that digs around in the dirt to try to find out anything bad or any mistakes an individual may have made and exposes them to the world and/or embellishes them making up what isn't even factual representations - just for sensational journalism - maybe a National Enquirer or other tabloids (paparazzi type would apply I am sure) - I doubt that TR would like the 24x7 entertainment news channels with all of their hype either. I think he did not like journalists who try to take everybody down and tarnish people's reputation or ruin the individuals lives for no reason. I do not think that he is talking about an Erin Brockovich for example or somebody who exposed the Flint, Michigan pipe and water problems - remember TR had the backs of the coal miners and often the average person who could not afford the railroad rates and other injustices. So complaining about an injustice is not what he was referring to (MHO). It was the way it was done from my viewpoint. He also did not want the good that folks do (the light) to be overshadowed by the dark (sordid aspects of life) and only focusing on the negative which he compared to "sewer gas".

In some ways I can understand Baker's objections to it - he thought he was righting some wrong in society by exposing it - even if he erred on the side of sensationalism or exaggeration - printing an ugly story. He did not want to have journalism stifled or silenced into only painting a pretty picture of abuses and corruption. But in his note to the President I suspect he knew he had crossed some decency line.

Upton Sinclair seems like a whistle blower to me, and wasn't he the classic muck raker?

Regarding Upton Sinclair - @Kressel


Time Magazine Photo - Cover - Upton Sinclair

Upton Sinclair was a muck raker even though in retrospect - maybe he has become known as a "benevolent muckraker" - his muckraking did result in the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act - see message 25 - but "classic muckraking" it was.

Time Magazine called him a man with every gift except humor and silence (absolutely a muck raker). In fact he was quite political.

Yes, he did in a way whistle blow the conditions in the factories and yes it did result in the Pure Food and Drug Act - but he did things because of his view of the world and it wasn't because he was there in that situation by happenstance - he engineered his working undercover (secretly) with the expressed purpose of exposing and causing a disturbance.

And he selected his causes for the purposes of writing books, etc. which would sell and give him his livelihood. Not totally altruistic or just caught up in a situation by accident or by the fate of life.

For example, he wasn't there by accident in the factories - he targeted factories, and other establishments that he deemed unfair "in his world view." And many of them were unjust and evil - but he was not your average whistleblower.

See the Wikipedia article below:

Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American author who wrote nearly 100 books and other works across a number of genres. Sinclair's work was well-known and popular in the first half of the twentieth century, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943.

In 1906, Sinclair acquired particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle, which exposed conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. In 1919, he published The Brass Check, a muckraking exposé of American journalism that publicized the issue of yellow journalism and the limitations of the “free press” in the United States.

Four years after publication of The Brass Check, the first code of ethics for journalists was created. Time magazine called him "a man with every gift except humor and silence." He is remembered for writing the famous line: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

He attacked J. P. Morgan, whom many regarded as a hero for ending the Panic of 1907, saying that he had engineered the crisis in order to acquire a bank.

Sinclair was an outspoken socialist and ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a nominee from the Socialist Party. He was also the Democratic Party candidate for Governor of California during the Great Depression, but was defeated in the 1934 elections. He was also a political activist.

See Remainder of Article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_S...

If anybody would like to read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair - it is on line free:

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/SIN...

or

http://www.online-literature.com/upto...


Upton Sinclair wearing a white suit and armband picketing the Rockefeller Building in New York City. Photograph shows author Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (1878-1968), who was arrested on April 29, 1914 for protesting conditions of Colorado coal miners in front of the offices of John D. Rockefeller at the Standard Oil Building, New York City


Upton Sinclair himself, selling the “Fig Leaf Edition” of his book Oil! in Boston - 1927


President Lyndon B. Johnson greets Upton Sinclair as others look on - 15 December 1967

all by Upton Sinclair

Wow! What a bunch of books!

There are probably quite a few more. Have you read The Jungle - very powerful.

by Upton Sinclair

Chapter 3 The Muck Rake

I was impressed on how a progressive agenda of passing the Pure Food and Drug Bill got passed in the Senate finally. This shows how things move in Congress.

This bill was pending before the Senate. Pure food advocates were clamoring about mislabeled and adulterated substances in foods. And of course, Aldrich and Spooner kept the bill bottled up for years because he claimed on page 60 that the pure food bill jeopardized “the liberty of all people of the United States…. Are we going to take up what a man shall eat or drink and put him under penalties if he is eating or drinking something different from what the chemists of the Agricultural Department think is desirable for him to eat or drink?’ He decided to move on this bill because the Senate needed to pass something but he didn’t want to pass the railroad bill and thought the Pure Food bill would stall in the house which it did for months. Aldrich was more concerned about federal regulators than mislabeled food. We see the same attitude in Congress today.

This stalling and obstruction is so reminiscent of things in Congress today. But the Pure Food and Drug Act did become an important piece of legislation and precursor to the FDA and was a true piece of progressive legislation.

Bentley wrote: "There are probably quite a few more. Have you read The Jungle - very powerful.

by Upton Sinclair"

To be honest, I don't have the stomach for it. But I did see part of the modern-day documentary "Food, Inc." It was recommended to me by an organic farmer I know.

Bentley wrote: "Jovita - Weeks One..."

Bentley, there is an oversight in the Readers list. I did participate in the Week 2 discussion. I posted my response to the Week 2 discussion questions, and you responded with some additional information on the death of Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams 50 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence (Thank you for the link, I too thought that was a cool coincidence). I haven't responded on the Week 3 thread yet, as I haven't yet completed the chapter.

Here is an interesting article on Upton Sinclair and his book The Jungle and its relationship to the Meat Packing Industry.

It is from the Constitutional Rights Foundation: (some of the questions that it asks are quite good too):

Upton Sinclair's The Jungle:
Muckraking the Meat-Packing Industry



Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle to expose the appalling working conditions in the meat-packing industry. His description of diseased, rotten, and contaminated meat shocked the public and led to new federal food safety laws.

Before the turn of the 20th century, a major reform movement had emerged in the United States. Known as progressives, the reformers were reacting to problems caused by the rapid growth of factories and cities. Progressives at first concentrated on improving the lives of those living in slums and in getting rid of corruption in government.

By the beginning of the new century, progressives had started to attack huge corporations like Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, and the Armour meat-packing company for their unjust practices. The progressives revealed how these companies eliminated competition, set high prices, and treated workers as "wage slaves."

The progressives differed, however, on how best to control these big businesses. Some progressives wanted to break up the large corporations with anti-monopoly laws. Others thought state or federal government regulation would be more effective. A growing minority argued in favor of socialism, the public ownership of industries. The owners of the large industries dismissed all these proposals: They demanded that they be left alone to run their businesses as they saw fit.

Theodore Roosevelt was the president when the progressive reformers were gathering strength. Assuming the presidency in 1901 after the assassination of William McKinley, he remained in the White House until 1909. Roosevelt favored large-scale enterprises. "The corporation is here to stay," he declared. But he favored government regulation of them "with due regard of the public as a whole."

Roosevelt did not always approve of the progressive-minded journalists and other writers who exposed what they saw as corporate injustices. When David Phillips, a progressive journalist, wrote a series of articles that attacked U.S. senators of both political parties for serving the interests of big business rather than the people, President Roosevelt thought Phillips had gone too far. He referred to him as a man with a "muck-rake."

Even so, Roosevelt had to admit, "There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck-rake." The term "muckraker" caught on. It referred to investigative writers who uncovered the dark side of society.

Few places had more "filth on the floor" than the meat- packing houses of Chicago. Upton Sinclair, a largely unknown fiction writer, became an "accidental muckraker" when he wrote a novel about the meat-packing industry.

Packingtown

By the early 1900s, four major meat-packing corporations had bought out the many small slaughterhouse companies throughout the United States. Because they were so large, the Armour, Swift, Morris, and National Packing companies could dictate prices to cattle ranchers, feed growers, and consumers.

The Big Four meat-packing companies centralized their operations in a few cities. Largest of all was the meat-packing industry in Chicago. It spread through acres of stockyards, feed lots, slaughterhouses, and meat-processing plants. Together with the nearby housing area where the workers lived, this part of Chicago was known as Packingtown.

Long before Henry Ford adapted it to automobile production, meat packers had developed the first industrial assembly line. It was more accurately a "disassembly line," requiring nearly 80 separate jobs from the killing of an animal to processing its meat for sale. "Killing gangs" held jobs like "knockers," "rippers," "leg breakers," and "gutters." The animal carcasses moved continuously on hooks until processed into fresh, smoked, salted, pickled, and canned meats. The organs, bones, fat, and other scraps ended up as lard, soap, and fertilizer. The workers said that the meat-packing companies "used everything but the squeal."

Unskilled immigrant men did the backbreaking and often dangerous work, laboring in dark and unventilated rooms, hot in summer and unheated in winter. Many stood all day on floors covered with blood, meat scraps, and foul water, wielding sledgehammers and knives. Women and children over 14 worked at meat trimming, sausage making, and canning.

Most workers earned just pennies per hour and worked 10 hours per day, six days a week. A few skilled workers, however, made as much as 50 cents an hour as "pacesetters," who sped up the assembly line to maximize production. The use of pacesetters caused great discontent among the workers.

By 1904, most of Chicago's packing-house workers were recent immigrants from Poland, Slovakia, and Lithuania. They crowded into tenement apartments and rented rooms in Packingtown, next to the stinking stockyards and four city dumps.

Real estate agents sold some immigrants small houses on credit, knowing that few would be able to keep up with the payments due to job layoffs, pay cuts, or disabling injuries. When an immigrant fell behind in payments, the mortgage holder would foreclose, repaint, and sell the house to another immigrant family.

Upton Sinclair

Born in Baltimore in 1878, Upton Sinclair came from an old Virginia family. The Civil War had wiped out the family's wealth and land holdings. Sinclair's father became a traveling liquor salesman and alcoholic. The future author's mother wanted him to become a minister. At age 5, he wrote his first story. It told about a pig that ate a pin, which ended up in a family's sausage.

When he was 10, Sinclair's family moved to New York City where he went to school and college. While attending Columbia University, he began to sell stories to magazines. He specialized in western, adventure, sports, and war-hero fiction for working-class readers.

Sinclair graduated from Columbia in 1897, and three years later he married Meta Fuller. They had one child. Sinclair began to write novels but had difficulty getting them published.

As he was struggling to make a living as a writer, he began reading about socialism. He came to believe in the idea of a peaceful revolution in which Americans would vote for the government to take over the ownership of big businesses. He joined the Socialist Party in 1903, and a year later he began to write for Appeal to Reason, a socialist magazine.

In 1904, the meat-packer's union in Chicago went on strike, demanding better wages and working conditions. The Big Four companies broke the strike and the union by bringing in strikebreakers, replacements for those on strike. The new workers kept the assembly lines running while the strikers and their families fell into poverty.

The editor of Appeal to Reason suggested that Sinclair write a novel about the strike. Sinclair, at age 26, went to Chicago at the end of 1904 to research the strike and the conditions suffered by the meat-packing workers. He interviewed them, their families, lawyers, doctors, and social workers. He personally observed the appalling conditions inside the meat-packing plants.

The Jungle is Sinclair's fictionalized account of Chicago's Packingtown. The title reflects his view of the brutality he saw in the meat-packing business. The story centered on a young man, Jurgis Rudkis, who had recently immigrated to Chicago with a group of relatives and friends from Lithuania.

Full of hope for a better life, Jurgis married and bought a house on credit. He was elated when he got a job as a "shoveler of guts" at "Durham," a fictional firm based on Armour & Co., the leading Chicago meat packer.

Jurgis soon learned how the company sped up the assembly line to squeeze more work out of the men for the same pay. He discovered the company cheated workers by not paying them anything for working part of an hour.

Jurgis saw men in the pickling room with skin diseases. Men who used knives on the sped-up assembly lines frequently lost fingers. Men who hauled 100-pound hunks of meat crippled their backs. Workers with tuberculosis coughed constantly and spit blood on the floor. Right next to where the meat was processed, workers used primitive toilets with no soap and water to clean their hands. In some areas, no toilets existed, and workers had to urinate in a corner. Lunchrooms were rare, and workers ate where they worked.

Almost as an afterthought, Sinclair included a chapter on how diseased, rotten, and contaminated meat products were processed, doctored by chemicals, and mislabeled for sale to the public. He wrote that workers would process dead, injured, and diseased animals after regular hours when no meat inspectors were around. He explained how pork fat and beef scraps were canned and labeled as "potted chicken."

Sinclair wrote that meat for canning and sausage was piled on the floor before workers carried it off in carts holding sawdust, human spit and urine, rat dung, rat poison, and even dead rats. His most famous description of a meat-packing horror concerned men who fell into steaming lard vats:

. . . and when they were fished out, there was never enough of them left to be worth exhibiting,--sometimes they would be overlooked for days, till all but the bones of them had gone out to the world as Durham's Pure Leaf Lard!

Jurgis suffered a series of heart-wrenching misfortunes that began when he was injured on the assembly line. No workers' compensation existed, and the employer was not responsible for people injured on the job. Jurgis' life fell apart, and he lost his wife, son, house, and job.

Then Jurgis met a socialist hotel owner, who hired him as a porter. Jurgis listened to socialist speakers who appeared at the hotel, attended political rallies, and drew inspiration from socialism. Sinclair used the speeches to express his own views about workers voting for socialist candidates to take over the government and end the evils of capitalist greed and "wage slavery."

In the last scene of the novel, Jurgis attended a celebration of socialist election victories in Packingtown. Jurgis was excited and once again hopeful. A speaker, probably modeled after Socialist Party presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs, begged the crowd to "Organize! Organize! Organize!" Do this, the speaker shouted, and "Chicago will be ours! Chicago will be ours! CHICAGO WILL BE OURS!"

The Public Reaction

The Jungle was first published in 1905 as a serial in The Appeal to Reason and then as a book in 1906. Sales rocketed. It was an international best-seller, published in 17 languages.

Sinclair was dismayed, however, when the public reacted with outrage about the filthy and falsely labeled meat but ignored the plight of the workers. Meat sales dropped sharply. "I aimed at the public's heart," he said, "and by accident I hit it in the stomach."

Sinclair thought of himself as a novelist, not as a muckraker who investigated and wrote about economic and social injustices. But The Jungle took on a life of its own as one of the great muckraking works of the Progressive Era. Sinclair became an "accidental muckraker." (but Kressel - he kept it up so it wasn't so accidental although some would view him as a "benevolent" one - probably not TR but he did not ignore the book - on the contrary)

by Upton Sinclair

Continued from above:

The White House was bombarded with mail, calling for reform of the meat-packing industry. After reading The Jungle, President Roosevelt invited Sinclair to the White House to discuss it. The president then appointed a special commission to investigate Chicago's slaughterhouses.

The special commission issued its report in May 1906. The report confirmed almost all the horrors that Sinclair had written about. One day, the commissioners witnessed a slaughtered hog that fell part way into a worker toilet. Workers took the carcass out without cleaning it and put it on a hook with the others on the assembly line.

The commissioners criticized existing meat-inspection laws that required only confirming the healthfulness of animals at the time of slaughter. The commissioners recommended that inspections take place at every stage of the processing of meat. They also called for the secretary of agriculture to make rules requiring the "cleanliness and wholesomeness of animal products."

New Federal Food Laws

President Roosevelt called the conditions revealed in the special commission's report "revolting." In a letter to Congress, he declared, "A law is needed which will enable the inspectors of the [Federal] Government to inspect and supervise from the hoof to the can the preparation of the meat food product."

Roosevelt overcame meat-packer opposition and pushed through the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. The law authorized inspectors from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to stop any bad or mislabeled meat from entering interstate and foreign commerce. This law greatly expanded federal government regulation of private enterprise. The meat packers, however, won a provision in the law requiring federal government rather than the companies to pay for the inspection.

Sinclair did not like the law's regulation approach. True to his socialist convictions, he preferred meat-packing plants to be publicly owned and operated by cities, as was commonly the case in Europe.

Passage of the Meat Inspection Act opened the way for Congress to approve a long-blocked law to regulate the sale of most other foods and drugs.

For over 20 years, Harvey W. Wiley, chief chemist at the Department of Agriculture, had led a "pure food crusade." He and his "Poison Squad" had tested chemicals added to preserve foods and found many were dangerous to human health. The uproar over The Jungle revived Wiley's lobbying efforts in Congress for federal food and drug regulation.

Roosevelt signed a law regulating foods and drugs on June 30, 1906, the same day he signed the Meat Inspection Act. The Pure Food and Drug Act regulated food additives and prohibited misleading labeling of food and drugs. This law led to the formation of the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The two 1906 laws ended up increasing consumer confidence in the food and drugs they purchased, which benefitted these businesses. The laws also acted as a wedge to expand federal regulation of other industries, one of the strategies to control big business pursued by the progressives.

After The Jungle

The Jungle made Upton Sinclair rich and famous. He started a socialist colony in a 50-room mansion in New Jersey, but the building burned down after a year. In 1911, his wife ran off with a poet. He divorced her, but soon he remarried and moved to California.

During his long life, he wrote more than 90 novels. King Coal was based on the 1914 massacre of striking miners and their families in Colorado. Boston was about the highly publicized case of Sacco and Vanzetti, two anarchists tried and executed for bank robbery and murder in the 1920s. His novel Dragon's Teeth, about Nazi Germany, won the 1943 Pulitzer Prize. None of these novels, however, achieved the success of The Jungle.

Several of Sinclair's books were made into movies. In 1914, Hollywood released a movie version of The Jungle.

Recently, his work Oil which dealt with California's oil industry in the 1920s, was made into the film There Will Be Blood.

During the Great Depression, Sinclair entered electoral politics. He ran for governor of California as a socialist in 1930 and as a Democrat in 1934. In the 1934 election, he promoted a program he called "End Poverty in California." He wanted the state to buy idle factories and abandoned farms and lease them to the unemployed. The Republican incumbent governor, Frank Merriam, defeated him, but Sinclair still won over 800,000 votes (44 percent).

After the death of his second wife in 1961, Sinclair moved to New Jersey to be with his son. He died there in 1968 at age 90.

People still read The Jungle for its realistic picture of conditions in the meat-packing industry at the turn of the 20th century.

Like Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Jungle proved the power of fiction to move a nation.

For Discussion and Writing

1. Why did the existing inspection system fail to guard the safety of meat for human consumption?

2. Why was Upton Sinclair dismayed about the public reaction and legislation that followed publication of The Jungle?

3. How did The Jungle help the progressives achieve their goals?

For Further Reading

Mattson, Kevin. Upton Sinclair and the Other American Century. Hoboken, N. J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2006.

Phelps, Christopher, ed. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.

by Kevin Mattson (no photo)

by Upton Sinclair

by Upton Sinclair

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Upton Sinclair

by Upton Sinclair

by Upton Sinclair

Source: Constitutional Rights Foundation - http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights...

Note: The Jungle would almost make somebody become a vegetarian overnight.

Kressel wrote: "Bentley wrote: "There are probably quite a few more. Have you read The Jungle - very powerful.

by Upton Sinclair"

To ..."Yes, I have seen Food, Inc. and other documentaries and books like it.

Yes, very much so Helga - investigative journalism and media is alive and well - is that modern day "muckraking"?

Helga wrote: "Chapter 3 The Muck Rake

I was impressed on how a progressive agenda of passing the Pure Food and Drug Bill got passed in the Senate finally. This shows how things move in Congress.

This bill was ..."

Helga - isn't it something how a politician like Aldridge could twist it around that they are giving "free will" to the citizenry who did not know what they were eating in the first place and that it was hazardous to their health. His attitude was "let them eat it" - what they do not know might not kill them. But in this case - it sure could have.

Kressel wrote: "Bentley wrote: "There are probably quite a few more. Have you read The Jungle - very powerful.

by Upton Sinclair"

To ..."

See if you can get through The Jungle ( a true classic)

by Upton Sinclair

Jovita wrote: "Bentley wrote: "Jovita - Weeks One..."

Bentley, there is an oversight in the Readers list. I did participate in the Week 2 discussion. I posted my response to the Week 2 discussion questions, and ..."

@Jovita - Don't worry if you posted I am going to update it - I am a little behind due to the Readathon this weekend and opening up the new thread here. I will get to it later today.

Bentley wrote: "Helga wrote: "Chapter 3 The Muck Rake

I was impressed on how a progressive agenda of passing the Pure Food and Drug Bill got passed in the Senate finally. This shows how things move in Congress.

..."Yes exactly. Conditions were bad enough that it could have killed people. I have the Jungle on my books to read.

On another manipulation by Aldrich:

Another manipulation by Aldrich was how since he couldn’t stop Dolliver and the Democratic members of Committee on Interstate Commerce wanted to report out the railroad rate bill. He did not want Dolliver in charge so he announced since there were 4 Democrats in favor and 2 Republicans it would be a Democratic measure and moved for Senator Tillman of SC to report it. This was interesting move because Tillman was detested by TR and rightly so because “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman was a populist racist. He was responsible for lynching in SC and enforcing racial segregation-Jim Crow laws and wanted to eliminate black voters.

I think it was a sign of Teddy Roosevelts strength and resiliency that he could work with a sworn enemy and collaborate to secure passage of the Hepburn Act. It was also during this time that Aldrich used the term “conservatives” for those who stood with him and the rest were called “radicals”. A political realignment formed and beginning of possibly two new political parties.

Helga wrote: "Bentley wrote: "Helga wrote: "Chapter 3 The Muck Rake

I was impressed on how a progressive agenda of passing the Pure Food and Drug Bill got passed in the Senate finally. This shows how things mov..."

Don't forget to cite it - I have cited it enough above to give you a few hints (smile). It is something - powerful fiction which wasn't that fictional.

Helga wrote: "On another manipulation by Aldrich:

Another manipulation by Aldrich was how since he couldn’t stop Dolliver and the Democratic members of Committee on Interstate Commerce wanted to report out the ..."

Yes I felt that was very clever maneuvering by Aldridge - and rightly so TR detested Tillman. Aldridge obviously was clever.

It's getting harder and harder not to read ahead (smile). I loved this chapter and wish it had gone into even more depth on the muckrakers and the things they exposed. You are right, Bentley. The Jungle is an example of extremely powerful writing. I read it well over 50 years ago and still remember the impact it had on me. No wonder it helped to change the law. Oddly, I have been thinking of it ever since we started the book. For me it's like the national banner of Progressivism.

As to TR's speech, there were so many good quotes in it that I would literally have to retype the entire thing to point them out but here are the two I thought most pertinent to today.

"An epidemic of indiscriminate assault upon character does no good, but very great harm. The soul of every scoundrel is gladdened whenever an honest man is assailed, or even when a scoundrel is untruthfully assailed."

" ...they neither believe in the truth of the attack, nor in the honesty of the man who is attacked; they grow as suspicious of the accusation as of the offense; it becomes well nigh hopeless to stir them either to wrath against wrongdoing or to enthusiasm for what is right; and such a mental attitude in the public gives hope to every knave, and is the despair of honest men. "

Both made me think of the current Stop Trump campaign by the media and opposition candidates. Too much emphasis on his ignorance, lack of character, and prejudicial comments is, I'm afraid, starting to make him a sympathetic character. And, of course, the public has been for a long time suspicious of almost everyone or thing in public life. I think these things both illustrate TR's point.

I have to say though that my biggest love is the term "puzzle headedness". What a super descriptive phrase!

I certainly agree that TR would not have liked the 24/7 news coverage of today. I don't like it either (and I thought I would). It has turned journalists into entertainers instead of the watchmen we expect them to be and definitely blurred the lines between the idea of reporting and editorializing. Sad and dangerous for a free society.

by Upton Sinclair

Helga wrote: "On another manipulation by Aldrich:

Another manipulation by Aldrich was how since he couldn’t stop Dolliver and the Democratic members of Committee on Interstate Commerce wanted to report out the ..."
Page 61, Washington DC Feb 24, 1906 and page 62

links about Tillman:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjami...

http://www.britannica.com/biography/B...

Bentley wrote: "Helga wrote: "Bentley wrote: "Helga wrote: "Chapter 3 The Muck Rake

I was impressed on how a progressive agenda of passing the Pure Food and Drug Bill got passed in the Senate finally. This shows ..."
Aldrich quote came from page 60.

Thank you Helga - also place these in the glossary: (everyday we are adding full blown glossary items about folks and events and legislative entities on that thread regarding this book).

All the glossary for this book is a great thread to take a look at regularly.

Here is the link folks to the glossary thread for this book - https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Make sure to check it out regularly. And if you have items to add please add them there.

Thanks. I tried but am having trouble with BOLD and the image. I need help with that.