< Page:The Brass Check (Sinclair 1919).djvu
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never struck a human being, and can only remember threatening

to do so on one occasion—in a public park, when I saw an old bootblack beating a very small boy. As for raising a disturbance with a waiter, I can only say that when a poor wage-slave in a leisure-class hotel brings me an improper bill, my impulse is to give him, not a scolding, but an I. W. W. tract. My anger is reserved for the management of the hotel which is robbing me, and I give vent to this anger in a polite letter, which causes the management to rob me still further. As Shakespeare says:

Who steals my purse steals trash;
But he that filches from me my good Name,
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And leaves me poor indeed.

My wife reads this story, and laughs; she says the world will find me comical, defending myself so very solemnly against a comical charge. Well, I am not without a sense of humor; I look back in retrospect, and have not a little fun over my "monkey diet" days. But I am serious in this book, and if you will bear with me to the end, you will see why; you will see this same predatory Journalism, which made a "monkey" out of me, engaged in blasting the best hopes of mankind, and perpetuating slavery and torment for hundreds of millions of people.

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