“The Goose-step” would have been a failure if it had not excited bitter antagonism. Many collegians rushed to defend their alma mater; and the purpose of this final chapter is to review their reviews.

There must be at least ten thousand statements of fact in “The Goose-step”; which means ten thousand possible errors. I wish I could announce that I scored a hundred per cent exactness. I set out to do that in “The Brass Check,” but it couldn’t be done. I have to rely upon many other people for my information, and it is inevitable that slips should be made by some of these; also, it is necessary to type each manuscript several times—and after that comes the printer and his “devil,” and three sets of proofs to be read. I am told that some pious society in England offered a reward of a thousand pounds for an edition of the Bible without a typographical error; but the reward has not yet been claimed.

I begin with my own blunders. There exists in our national capital an institution called the Catholic University of America; also, in the same place, a Methodist institution called American University. It so happened that I did not know of the latter institution, but assumed that “American University” was an every-day name for the Catholic University of America. As soon as “The Goose-step” appeared, Father John A. Ryan wrote me a note, calling attention to my error, which was corrected in the second edition. This was my most serious slip—and it is amusing to note that it was not caught in a single one of the several hundred reviews I have read!

The most important error which the critics did catch was that referring to Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During a period of a few years there existed an alliance between these two institutions; and in my manuscript I had referred to M. I. T. as “until recently a part of Harvard.” My Harvard chapters were revised by at least a score of Harvard professors, alumni and students, but only at the last moment was this phrase questioned, by an M. I. T. student, Phillip Herrick, son of Robert Herrick, who happened to call upon me. I had him telegraph to the authorities at M. I. T., and get me by telegraph a statement of the exact relationship. Upon that basis I put into the proofs of the book, pages 80-81, a footnote giving the facts.

But, alas, I overlooked the fact that the phrase, “until recently a part of Harvard,” occurred in two places in the manuscript; there were about seven hundred pages of this manuscript, and it was hard to remember every word. I did not correct the other place—and so Harvard and M. I. T. had an error upon which to base a whole indictment of “The Goose-step”! The “Technology Review,” organ of M. I. T., even took up the fact that I put my corrected statement in a footnote; “for a technical reason of Sinclair’s own”—which sounds very mysterious and wicked! The fact was that I was making corrections in the proofs, and it was cheaper to slip in a footnote than to have a paragraph reset.

Mr. John Macy made strenuous use of this slip in his review of “The Goose-step” in the “Nation.” Mr. Macy dealt with the book “as a friend,” and was pained to discover that it was “cluttered with misstatements and sophomoric conceit.” And pray, how many instances of misstatement would you think it takes to make a “cluttering”? It took precisely one—this Harvard-M. I. T. detail!

As to my “sophomoric conceit” Mr. Macy quoted from “The Goose-step” (page 11): “In the course of the next year I read all the standard French classics.” He pictured Brander Matthews answering, with a superior smile: “My dear young man, a born Frenchman could not read all the standard French classics in ten years.” Professor Matthews would love to say something incisive like that; but possibly he would be honest enough to mention, what my context makes plain, that I was referring to “standard French classics” as taught in undergraduate language courses at Columbia, and not to standard French classics as understood by “a born Frenchman.”

Mr. Macy was also troubled by the “pathetically absurd egotism” of my sentence on page 17: “I was as much alone in the world as Shelley a hundred years before me.” Here is a case of suppression of the context, so flagrant as to be beyond excuse. In the passage in question I was criticizing the education I had received from my college and university, on the ground that it had taught me nothing about the modern Socialist movement, to which the rest of my life was to be devoted. I took two whole paragraphs to explain this in detail. The first two sentences were as follows: “Most significant of all to me personally, I was unaware that the modern revolutionary movement existed. I was all ready for it, but I was as much alone in the world as Shelley a hundred years before me.” Is not the meaning of that statement plain—that “I felt myself as much alone in the world,” etc.? Of course, I wasn’t really “alone in the world,” for my millions of Socialist comrades existed, and in the rest of the two paragraphs I tell how I found them. How came it that Mr. Macy, indicting “The Goose-step” for being “cluttered with misstatements,” could bring himself to suppress one half a sentence, and thus obscure its meaning?

Fourth and last of this critic’s specifications: “And even his unverifiable statistics: ‘Eighty-five per cent of college and university professors are dissatisfied with being managed by floorwalkers.’ Why not sixty-nine per cent or ninety-three per cent?” The answer to this is found on page 55 of “The Goose-step,” referring to Professor Cattell at Columbia University: “In 1913 he published a book on ‘University Control,’ in which he demonstrated that eighty-five per cent of the members of college and university faculties are dissatisfied with the present system of the management of scholars by business men.” The same matter is discussed more at length on page 401: “Three hundred leading men were consulted, and out of these, eighty-five per cent agreed that the present arrangements for the government of colleges are unsatisfactory.” Now, if Professor Cattell’s questionnaire had revealed that sixty-nine per cent were dissatisfied, or ninety-three per cent, I should have given this figure. As it was, I gave eighty-five per cent, as Professor Cattell records it in his book.

Also, my respects to Mr. Charles Merz, who gave a page and three-quarters to kidding “The Goose-step” in the “New Republic.” Mr. Merz would be disappointed if I passed him over; he says: “There is a tradition that whoever takes issue with Mr. Sinclair about one of his own books is certain to be pounced upon, in turn, by an eagerly dissenting author.” Mr. Merz has a lot of fun calling me Captain Parklebury Todd:

/* He couldn’t walk into a room Without ejaculating “Boom!” Which startled ladies greatly. */

This is good fun, and the fact that in the course of it Mr. Merz admits my entire contention makes it easy for me to share the laughter. Mr. Merz thinks it natural and inevitable “that able and successful capitalists ordinarily control the universities produced by capitalism.” Of course, Mr. Merz; you know it, and I know it—and a lot of other people know it, since “The Goose-step” has been passed about in colleges.

Mr. Merz had one serious objection—that in fifty-six cases I failed to name sources of information. He doesn’t tell you in how many cases I did name sources of information; and it seems to me that in fairness the two figures should have been put side by side. I can only say that I named my sources in every case where I was permitted to name them; and I suppressed them in every case where I had pledged my word to do so. Mr. Merz complains that in some cases I do not even name my “villains”; and again I think he ought to count up the “villains” I do name. Let me tell him, in strict confidence: I think I take more risks of libel suits than any other man in America; but there is a limit to the risks I am willing to run. I never make a statement unless I feel sure it is the truth, but I frequently make statements which cause great distress to friends who happen to be lawyers. As this book goes to press, my wife sends me a special delivery letter from one of these gentlemen: “Of course, if Upton wants to go to jail, this is a good way to break in”—and so on.

In the case of “The Brass Check,” one of the most prominent corporation lawyers in the United States read the manuscript, and told me there were fifty criminal libels in it, and not less than a thousand civil suits—unless I could prove my charges. Right now I am on the point of going over “The Goslings,” for the last time before the manuscript goes to the printer; and in a hundred different places I shall stop with my pencil in the air, and ponder the question: shall I leave in this name, or shall I cut it out? And in each case there will be a series of guesses: what will be in this “villain’s” mind? How much has he done, and how much will he think I know? And if it came to a show-down, would this professor or that teacher stand by me? And would I have to travel to Minnesota, or to Massachusetts, or to Texas to defend a libel suit? And where would I get the money? And how would my poor wife stand the ordeal? You see, Mr. Merz, the rôle of Captain Parklebury Todd is a lot more complicated than you realize; there is really more to it than just walking into a room and ejaculating “Boom!”

To come back to the confessions of myself, my secretaries, and my printer and his “devil”: Somebody—I don’t know who it was—played a trick on my Vassar story, taking one of the letters of the Y. W. C. A. and turning it upside down; which brought a worried communication from the president of that institution, asking if I could possibly be under the impression that it was co-educational. (I wasn’t!) But I made several small slips. I got one professor’s initial wrong; I made Finley J. Shepard a lawyer as well as a railroad official; I made Frank B. Leland, Detroit banker, a brother to the motor-magnate, and confused Ogden L. Mills with his grandfather, D. Ogden Mills. I have a letter from Judge Lindsey, telling me that some high-up educator in Denver proved “The Goose-step” an unreliable book by the fact that I stated “that J. P. Morgan was buried from Trinity Church, when as a matter of fact he was buried from St. George’s Church!”

In this case I seem to be, but really am not, guilty. In “The Goose-step,” page 21, I was drawing a humorous picture of the interlocking directorates, and how they work. I imagined Justice Brandeis, in his account of these directorates, going from railroads and steel and coal and telegraphs, to such things as hospitals and churches and universities. “He ought to picture Mr. Morgan dying, and being buried from Trinity Church, in which several of his partners are vestrymen.” Elsewhere I have described Trinity Church as the “Church of J. P. Morgan & Company”Company”—and this not merely because of its supply of Morgan vestrymen, but because of the whole spirit of the institution is Morgan. I was aware that Mr. Morgan himself had his own church, for many times in my boyhood I attended it, and saw the old wild boar of Wall Street passing the collection plate.

Also, I made some statements concerning Delaware, and the benevolent feudalism which the du Ponts have set up in the education of that state. My statements were disputed by an elderly gentleman, formerly connected with Delaware College, and having a reputation as a liberal. On the other hand, the statements were strenuously sustained by the two people who had given me the information, and who have reputations as hard-fighting radicals. Not being able to visit Delaware and make a thorough investigation, I cut these paragraphs from the second edition of “The Goose-step.”

No book of mine can be published nowadays without a report upon the latest activities of Professor James Melvin Lee, director of the Department of Journalism at the University of Jabbergrab. I gave Professor Lee a whole chapter in “The Goose-step,” explaining what a peculiar antagonist he is—you supply him with evidence, and he pays no heed to it, but goes right on clamoring for the same evidence. Among many cases, I listed the following detail:

Soon after “The Goose-step” came out I began receiving letters from college professors and others, asking for the names and dates of these two newspapers. So I knew that Professor Lee must be up to his old trick! And sure enough, there came a letter from John Haynes Holmes, stating that Professor Lee persisted in arguing with him concerning my truthfulness, and was now basing his case upon the fact that in “The Goose-step” I stated that I had furnished him with the names and dates of two newspapers dealing with the Wilshire story—whereas I had done nothing of the sort. Dr. Holmes requested that I would be so good as to settle the matter by advising him when and how I had supplied these names and dates to Professor Lee.

This issue had come up during my controversy with Professor Lee in New York “Evening Globe,” mentioned in “The Goose-step,” pages 324-6. The conduct of this controversy was as follows: Professor Lee submitted his first article to the “Globe,” and either sent me a copy, or the “Globe” sent me a copy. I then wrote my reply, and either sent a copy to Professor Lee, or the “Globe” sent it. Each of us studied the other’s arguments in detail, trying to pick flaws therein. I presume therefore I may fairly assume that Professor Lee read my three articles! One of these three articles bears the date of Thursday, August 4, 1921, and in it occurs the following:

If you will consult the second edition of “The Goose-step,” you will find that on page 309 I have added in parentheses the words, “A joke.” This has to do with Mr. Hendrik Willem Van Loon’s adventures at Cornell: “When he asked to see the Dante collection, they took him to inspect an electric manure sprayer.” Several reviewers of “The Goose-step” took occasion solemnly to suspect that in this anecdote Van Loon must have been “spoofing” me! Not being supposed to have a sense of humor myself, I am resolved that in future, whenever I do any “spoofing,” or allow anybody else to do any “spoofing,” I will follow the precedent of Artemus Ward, and put in the explanation: “This is a goak.”

Another bit of comedy: In my jesting at Mr. Rockefeller’s University of Chicago, I wrote: “They are sensitive on the subject of petroleum at the university; they blush at the mention of the word, and do not admit the conventional book-plates showing the lamp of knowledge.” This was a pure piece of phantasy on my part; some more “spoofing,” in short. But, lo and behold, soon after “The Goose-step” was out, came a letter from a former student, as follows: “One fact you got, Lord knows how, I got it straight from Dean Robertson (in an address in chapel); it is a matter of the rejection of the oil lamp as a symbol in the ‘Coat of Arms’ of the University.”