my reflections when I
consider the Syndicalist--how he grows or when I look up and see a
class-war socialist--an Upton Sinclair banging loosely about the world.

My first wild, aboriginal impulse with Upton Sinclair when I come up to
him as I do sometimes--violent, vociferous roaring behind his bars, is
to whisk him right over from being an Upton Sinclair into being me. I do
not deny it.

Then I remember softly, suddenly, how I felt when I was watching the
lions eat.

I remember the pelican.

Thus I save my soul in time.

Incidentally, of course, Upton Sinclair's insides are saved also.

It is beautiful the way the wild beasts in their cages persuade one
almost to be a Christian!

Of course when one gets smoothed down one always sees people very
differently. In being tolerant the rub comes usually (with me) in being
tolerant in time. I am tempted at first, when I am with Upton Sinclair,
to act as if he were a whole world of Upton Sinclairs and of course
(anybody would admit it) if he really were a whole world of Upton
Sinclairs he would have to be wiped out. There would be nothing else to
do. But he is not and it is not fair to him or fair to the world to act
as if he were.

The moment I see he is confining himself to just being Upton Sinclair I
rather like him.

It is the same with Ella Wheeler Wilcox. It is when I fall to thinking
of her as if she were, or were in danger of being, a whole world of Ella
Wheeler Wilcoxes that I grow intolerant of her. Ella Wheeler Wilcox as a
Tincture, which is what she really is, of course, is well enough. I do
not mind.

The real truth about a man like Upton Sinclair, when one has worked down
through to it, is that while from my point of view a class-war
socialist--a man who proposes to put society together by keeping men
apart--is wrong and is sure to do a great deal of harm to some people,
there are other people to whom he does a great deal of good.

There really are people who need Upton Sinclair. It may be a hard fact
to face perhaps, but when one faces it one is glad there is one. Some of
the millionaires need Sinclair. There are others whose attention would
be attracted better in more subtle ways.

The class-war socialist, though I may be at this moment in the very act
of trying to make him impossible, to put him out of date, has been and
is, in his own place and his own time, I gratefully acknowledge, of
incalculable value.

Any man who can, by saying violent