Subject: Re: Anyone know about Upton Sinclair?

From: [email-masked] (George Suttle)
Date: 14 Sep 1994 18:11:14 GMT

According to Robert Jaffe <[email-masked]>:
>
>He wrote a series of popular novels the hero of which was named Lanny
>Budd.  If I remember correctly he published many, many books after "The
>Jungle".  I don't think anyone ever considered him a literary star.
>He was lucky to have made his name with "The Jungle".  He exploited that
>fame for the rest of his writing life.

Well, sort of. It didn't hurt him any that "The Jungle" was well known,
but he didn't exactly rest on his laurels. He ran for governor of
California in 1933(?) on the Socialist ticket, did extremely well early
on, and scared the bejeezus out of the Republicans and the old-guard pols
in the state. They mounted a truly massive smear campaign against him,
enlisting the services of the LA Times, the Hollywood film establishment,
and so forth. All this was well written up in a book that came out a year
or two ago, and was also well covered in one segment of the PBS series on
the Great Depression.  Sinclair ran on the EPIC platform -- End Poverty In
California. The race is now considered the first "modern" political
campaign.