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    The Machine
    The Machine
    The Machine
    Ebook119 pages1 hour

    The Machine

    By Upton Sinclair

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJun 1, 2004
    Author

    Upton Sinclair

    Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) was a Pulitzer Prize–winning author, activist, and politician whose novel The Jungle (1906) led to the passage of the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Born into an impoverished family in Baltimore, Maryland, Sinclair entered City College of New York five days before his fourteenth birthday. He wrote dime novels and articles for pulp magazines to pay for his tuition, and continued his writing career as a graduate student at Columbia University. To research The Jungle, he spent seven weeks working undercover in Chicago’s meatpacking plants. The book received great critical and commercial success, and Sinclair used the proceeds to start a utopian community in New Jersey. In 1915, he moved to California, where he founded the state’s ACLU chapter and became an influential political figure, running for governor as the Democratic nominee in 1934. Sinclair wrote close to one hundred books during his lifetime, including Oil! (1927), the inspiration for the 2007 movie There Will Be Blood; Boston (1928), a documentary novel revolving around the Sacco and Vanzetti case; The Brass Check, a muckraking exposé of American journalism, and the eleven novels in Pulitzer Prize–winning Lanny Budd series.

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    Reviews for The Machine

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    • 3/5
      Relatively standard Sinclair fare, but this time in a play.

      A short read, nowhere near as preachy as the end of The Jungle.
    • 4/5
      A short play by man-of-the-people author Upton Sinclair, the titular “machine” is the unholy union of business and politics that leads to widespread corruption and the exploitation of the poor disenfranchised by the rich elitist power-brokers manipulating the system for their personal gain. The Machine seems eerily relevant over a hundred years since its initial publication in 1912, with the United States now literally being run by a billionaire businessman. The weakest aspect of the short seventy page play is that the characters never have the time to be developed much beyond the sociopolitical ideologies they represent, so the father/daughter conflict and budding love interest serve as little more than vehicles for lengthy discussions about corruption and responsibility. But Sinclair’s argument and position is made crystal clear, and the utilitarian dialogue rarely feels bogged down. In today’s polarized political climate, there are those that would probably denigrate this play based solely on its socialist message, but this is probably why it is still has a literary resonance over a century later.

    Book preview

    The Machine - Upton Sinclair

    The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Machine, by Upton Sinclair

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

    almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

    re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

    with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

    Title: The Machine

    Author: Upton Sinclair

    Release Date: February 28, 2009 [EBook #3304]

    Last Updated: January 9, 2013

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MACHINE ***

    Produced by Charles Franks, the Online Distributed Proofreading team,

    and David Widger

    THE MACHINE

    By Upton Sinclair

    Contents

    CHARACTERS

         (In order of appearance)

         JULIA PATTERSON: a magazine writer.

         JACK BULLEN: a parlor Socialist.

         LAURA HEGAN: Hegan's daughter.

         ALLAN MONTAGUE: a lawyer.

         JIM HEGAN: the traction king.

         ANNIE ROBERTS: a girl of the slums.

         ROBERT GRIMES: the boss.

         ANDREWS: Hegan's secretary.

         PARKER: a clerk.

                                  ACT I

    Julia Patterson's apartments in a model tenement on the lower East

    Side.

                                 ACT II

    Library at The Towers, Hegan's country place on Long Island, two

    weeks later.

                                 ACT III

    Hegan's private office in Wall street, the next morning.

    THE MACHINE

    ACT I

    [JULIA PATTERSON'S apartments in a model tenement on the lower East Side. The scene shows the living-room, furnished very plainly, but in the newest taste; arts and crafts furniture, portraits of Morris and Ruskin on the walls; a centre table, a couple of easy-chairs, a divan and many book-shelves. The entrance from the outer hall is at centre; entrance to the other rooms right and left.]

    [At rise: JULIA has pushed back the lamp from the table and is having a light supper, with a cup of tea; and at the same time trying to read a magazine, which obstinately refuses to remain open at the right place. She is an attractive and intelligent woman of thirty. The doorbell rings.]

    JULIA. Ah, Jack! [Presses button, then goes to the door.]

    JACK. [Enters, having come upstairs at a run. He is a college graduate and volunteer revolutionist, one of the organizers of the Society of the Friends of Russian Freedom; handsome and ardent, eager in manner, and a great talker.] Hello, Julia. All alone?

    JULIA. Yes. I expected a friend, but she can't come until later.

    JACK. Just eating?

    JULIA. I've been on the go all day. Have something.

    JACK. No; I had dinner. [As she starts to clear things away.] Don't stop on my account.

    JULIA. I was just finishing up. [As he begins to help.] No; sit down.

    JACK. Nonsense. Let the men be of some use in the world.

    JULIA. What have you been up to to-day?

    JACK. We're organizing a demonstration for the Swedish strikers.

    JULIA. It's marvelous how those Swedes hold on, isn't it?

    JACK. The people are getting their eyes open. And when they're once open, they stay open.

    JULIA. Yes. Did you see my article?

    JACK. I should think I did! Julia, that was a dandy!

    JULIA. Do you think so?

    JACK. I do, indeed. You've made a hit. I heard a dozen people talking about it.

    JULIA. Indeed?

    JACK. You've come to be the champion female muck-raker of the country, I think.

    [JULIA laughs.]

    JACK. Why did you want to see me so specially tonight?

    JULIA. I've a friend I want you to meet. Somebody I'm engaged in educating.

    JACK. You seem to have chosen me for your favorite proselytizer.

    JULIA. You've seen things with your own eyes, Jack.

    JACK. Yes; I suppose so.

    JULIA. And you know how to tell about them. And you've such an engaging way about you...nobody could help but take to you.

    JACK. Cut out the taffy. Who's your friend?

    JULIA. Her name's Hegan.

    JACK. A woman?

    JULIA. A girl, yes. And she's coming right along, Jack. You must take a little trouble with her, for if we can only bring her through, she can do a lot for us. She's got no end of money.

    JACK. No relative of Jim Hegan, I hope?

    JULIA. She's his daughter.

    JACK. [With a bound.] What!

    JULIA. His only daughter.

    JACK. Good God, Julia!

    JULIA. What's the matter?

    JACK. You know I don't want to meet people like that.

    JULIA. Why not?

    JACK. I don't care to mix with them. I've nothing to say to them.

    JULIA. My dear Jack, the girl can't help her father.

    JACK. I know that, and I'm sorry for her. But, meantime, I've got my work to do...

    JULIA. You couldn't be doing any better work than this. If we can make a Socialist of Laura Hegan...

    JACK. Oh, stuff, Julia! I've given up chasing after will-o'-the-wisps like that.

    JULIA.—But think what she could do!

    JACK. Yes. I used to think what a whole lot of people could do. You might as well ask me to think what her father could do... if he only wanted to do it, instead of poisoning the life-blood of the city, and piling up his dirty millions. Go about this town and see the misery and horror... and think that it's Jim Hegan who sits at the top and reaps the profit of it all! It's Jim Hegan who is back of the organization... he's the real power behind Boss Grimes. It's he who puts up the money and makes possible this whole regime of vice and graft...

    JULIA. My dear boy, don't be silly.

    JACK. How do you mean? Isn't it true?

    JULIA. Of course it's true... but why declaim to me about it? You forget you are talking to the champion female muckraker of the country.

    JACK. Yes, that's right. But I don't want to meet these people socially. They mean well, a lot of them, I suppose; but they've been accustomed all their lives to being people of importance... to have everybody stand in awe of them, because of their stolen money, and all the wonderful things they might do with it

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