Upton Sinclair

In 1934, long before the Occupy movement, in California there was an End Poverty In California movement, founded by Upton Sinclair, the novelist, who changed his registration from Socialist to Democrat to run for governor and won the primary in a landslide. A book now digitized tells the incredible story.

THE CAMPAIGN OF THE CENTURY: Upton Sinclair's Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics by Greg Mitchell

"I have been asked to explain to you the political movement which has just achieved such an extraordinary victory in the state of California," Sinclair began. "I did not make this victory, it has been made by the people of our state. It is a spontaneous movement which has spread all over the state by the unpaid labor of tens of thousands of devoted workers. They were called amateurs but they have put all the profes- sional politicians on the shelf. In less than a year they have built a movement which has carried a state of more than six million population. It has been called a political miracle and the rest of the states will wish to know what it means. "We confront today the collapse of an institution which is worldwide and age-old," Sinclair exclaimed in his pinched, nasal tenor, with just the suggestion of a lisp, sounding a bit like a patrician Jimmy Cagney. "Capitalism has served its time and is passing from the earth."

A political movement based on ending capitalism and redistributing the wealth! Unlike the Occupy movement, EPIC had a specific agenda, a program, concrete goals. The powers that be weren't about to let this happen. Even Hollywood got in the act.

In politics, Mayer had no peers, not even a serious challenger, in Hollywood. As vice-chairman of the state Republican party, he liked nothing better than showing visiting politicians around the MGM lot, hosting luncheons in their honor, inviting them to his Santa Monica home (which was practically off-limits to mere movie people), and introducing them to Mae West. Consequently, Mayer had clout, and he intended to wield it mightily against Upton Sinclair.

Under the headline is THIS STILL AMERICA? the editors of the Times declared that the nomination of Upton Sinclair had created a crisis not only for California, but for America.

1934 and EPIC, more than the sixties protests, are the antecedents to Occupy 2011.

---

In high school, my good friend Matt went on a Sinclair reading jag, and my intro to him was Matt's telling me about the books. In our nerdy group of 5, all Future Scientists of America, Matt was the most well read with the broadest intellectual interests. I remember his raving about H. G. Wells' Outline of History. None of us other four were interested in reading such a book at the time. This is high school, remember.

Matt's story ends tragically. He and I were the two from our high school to go to Cal Tech (2 went to Stanford, the other to MIT -- only the Stanford guys went straight through to graduation), where we drifted apart, mainly because I went out for sports, giving me a very different schedule.

Between our freshman and sophomore years, Matt committed suicide. I talked to him the same day, his mother asking me to come over to help calm him down. He was very upset but not making much sense and I didn't seem to help any.

In retrospect, I think a lot of Matt's stress came from being a closet gay, no easy road in the 1950s. He also had a very over-bearing mother and far more expectations demanded from him by family than I ever had, thank the gods.