The deputy United States attorney, Mr. Palmer, happened to be a Southerner, a type of man I understand, and I got to know him during these negotiations. Later on I went to see him and said: “Mr. Palmer, I am writing a story, ‘Jimmie Higgins,’ which I want to publish serially in my magazine. It is a story of a Socialist in war-time, and its purpose is to win the Socialists to the idea of supporting the war. But I am in this dilemma. If I am going to show a man converted from opposition to the war, I first have to show how he felt when he was opposing it; I have to make him a real character, I have to make his arguments real arguments—which is a difficult thing to do in war-time. I would not want anybody to misunderstand my purpose and point of view; so I wonder if you would read the manuscript, and tell me if there is anything in it that might be open to misunderstanding.” Mr. Palmer’s answer was that he was forbidden to give official opinions on anything before publication, but he would be very glad to give me a personal, unofficial opinion. I answered that I would regard this as a favor, and Mr. Palmer read the manuscript. No doubt he spoke about it to others, and the “Times” must have heard of the matter. Some months later appeared the following paragraph on the editorial page of the “Times”: Upton Sinclair has stuck his fingers in the Tom Mooney mess. Sinclair has dropped his pen that for some time has been engaged in preparing the manuscript of a book whose loyalty had to be passed on by the United States District-Attorney, and is therefore in a position to sympathize with those who might run afoul of the law. Now, note the subtle treachery of this phrasing. The loyalty of my manuscript “had to” be passed on. Practically everybody who read that paragraph would understand from it that the government had taken some action in the matter, had placed me under compulsion to submit the manuscript. Nobody would get the impression that the compulsion in the matter was the compulsion of my own conscience and judgment, my wish to make sure that my piece of fiction was not open to misunderstanding. Needless to say, the “Times” didn’t mention the fact that Mr. Palmer, having read the manuscript, wrote cordially to assure me that there was no possibility of its being misunderstood, and no need of any changes being made. Case two—and still more significant: