It develops that Upton Sinclair only served two of his three days’ sentence, after all. He was on a hunger strike, and after he had gone unfed for two days, his wife came and paid the rest of his fine and forced him out of jail. Wait till they have been married a little longer, and perhaps she will let him serve three years if he wants to do it. I enquire among friends and learn that the general impression is that I declared a “hunger-strike,” and couldn’t stick it out, and let my wife come to my rescue. Again the newspapers! The truth is that I was as comfortable as any man ought to ask to be in jail; I had a cell to myself, and it was clean, and near a window, and I was allowed to have my mail, and all the books I wanted, and visitors at reasonable hours. But I wanted to appeal from that stupid decision; and in order to appeal, the lawyers explained, I must have something to appeal _for_. I couldn’t appeal for the time I spent in jail, for no court could restore that to me. I had to pay some money—one dollar at the least; and having paid this, I had to come out, whether I would or no. So the newspapers had a chance to report that Upton Sinclair, who had written a book telling how he had fasted for ten or twelve days, had been unable to stick out a three-day “hunger-strike”! CHAPTER XXXII THE ROOF-GARDEN OF THE WORLD After these strenuous adventures I retired to private life to recuperate. I edited “The Cry for Justice,” and then, finding that I was still haunted by the Colorado situation, I wrote “King Coal.” Meantime I had moved to Southern California, seeking an open-air life. I have been here four years, and alas, I have had a new set of experiences with newspapers. As preliminary to them, there must be given a brief account of this “Roof-garden of the World.” It exists because of climate. There are, of course, ranchmen who raise fruits and vegetables, and there are servants and chauffeurs and house-builders and plumbers, but the main industry of Southern California is climate. Everybody is consuming climate, and in addition to this, nearly everybody is trying to sell climate to “come-ons” from the East. The country has been settled by retired elderly people, whose health has broken down, and who have come here to live on their incomes. They have no organic connection with one another; each is an individual, desiring to live his own little life, and to be protected in his own little privileges. The community is thus a parasite upon the great industrial centres of other parts of America. It is smug and self-satisfied, making the sacredness of property the first and last article of its creed. It has a vast number of churches of innumerable sects, and takes their aged dogmas with deadly seriousness; its social life is display, its intellectual life is “boosting,” and its politics are run by Chambers of Commerce and Real Estate Exchanges.