Cinema Style

Gospel truth is not always plausible. Neither was California's pre-primary campaign that closed last week. Nominations for two major posts were at stake: Senator and Governor. No state could have a simpler contest for Senator. Hiram Johnson ran for renomination on the Republican ticket--and was conceded victory. He ran also on the Democratic ticket--and was conceded victory. He ran for it on several lesser tickets--and was conceded victory. How Hiram Johnson could fail of nomination no one could figure out and in November's election he was headed undoubtedly for a severe contest with strong rivals, all named Hiram Johnson.

Not so was the race for governorship nominations. Many were the candidates. On the Republican side, Acting Governor Merriam, Lawyer Raymond LeRoy Haight and former Governor Clement Calhoun Young were among those asking voters to listen to their eloquence. On the Democratic side George Creel, Wartime Chief of Propaganda, backed by William Gibbs McAdoo; Justus Wardell, oldtime politician, and a handful of others all called to Californians to heed them. But the man whom Californians heeded--favorably and unfavorably--had no machine backing, was no politician and broke all the rules of politics. He was journalist, pamphleteer, reformer, and his name was Upton Sinclair.

Year ago Upton Sinclair started his campaign with a running leap, announcing his candidacy for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. To be sure, he was a Socialist, had run twice for Governor, once for U. S. Senator on the Socialist ticket. But he changed his party for convenience. Then he launched EPIC ("End Poverty In California"). He would pension every needy person over 60, every blind person, every widow with children at the rate of $50 a month. He would tax heavily all building land not built on, all farm land not farmed. He would exempt from taxation all homes and ranches assessed at less than $3,000 and make it up on the holders of more valuable property. His inheritance tax would take 50% of any personal bequest over $50,000, 50% of any estate over $250,000. But his greatest project was for the unemployed. He would have the State rent or buy land and inactive factories, establish colonies of unemployed, feed, clothe and house them with the products of one another's labor until they became so happy that all other Californias envied them.

I, Governor of California and How I Ended Poverty was a booklet Candidate Sinclair put out. Besides telling about EPIC it gave a list of all his books (The Jungle, The Metropolis, The Brass Check, Oil etc.). It sold for 2O-c-. Politicians laughed at such campaigning. By last week he had sold about 200,000 copies. He wrote other pamphlets. He started a weekly newspaper Epic News, carrying advertisements, priced 5-c-. Its circulation reached about 175,000. (Biggest vote he ever polled as a Socialist was about 60,000.) Rivals accused him of running not a campaign but a publishing racket. He replied that he had two bank accounts with $108.74 in one and $20.68 in the other, that his living and his cottage in Pasadena--with two fig trees in its door-yard--were only made secure by his more practical wife, Mary Craig Sinclair.

No gladhander, he stayed most of the time in his little white house, only emerging to campaign, to tell the public that he was going to take the wild beast of greed by the beard; that EPIC was needed to put the unemployed to work and take the burden of relief off the backs of the Tax Payers; that he was no radical, believed in Democracy, was abjured by Communists; that he was not to be confused with Sinclair Lewis; that upon election he would instantly pardon Tom Mooney. Lean, white-haired, hollow-eyed, he had no barkers to drum up audiences for him. Instead he charged admission fees, usually 25-c-, for his meetings, drew greater crowds than any other candidate.

By last spring straw polls showed him far and away the leading candidate for the nomination. California's conservatives got the jitters. Then San Francisco's general strike--in which Sinclair took no sides-- brought a conservative reaction, how great no man knew. Last week, the jittery conservatives hoped that Upton Sinclair might not win the nomination, but from the standpoint of showmanship it did not matter. He had conducted a superlative campaign, original, dramatic, gripping. Hollywood's best director could not have done better.

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