The Profits of Religion: An Essay in Economic InterpretationSinclair, Upton
Religion
The Profits of Religion: An Essay in Economic Interpretation
Sinclair, Upton
Christianity -- Controversial literature
In the same way, there is a rule that our earthquake shocks are
never mentioned, unless they destroy whole towns. On the
afternoon of Jan. 26th, 1918, a cyclone hit Pasadena, of violence
sufficient to lift a barn over a church-steeple and deposit it in
the pastor's front yard. That evening a friend of mine in Los
Angeles called up the office of the "Times" to make inquiry; and
although they are only thirteen miles away, and have a branch
office and a special correspondent in Pasadena, the answer was
that they had heard nothing about the cyclone! And next morning I
made a careful search of their columns. On the front page I read:
"Fourth Blizzard of Season Raging in East"; also: "Another
Earthquake in Guatemala". But not a line about the Pasadena
cyclone That there was plenty of space in that issue, you may
judge from the fact that there were twenty headlines like the
following--many of them representing full page and half page
illustrated "write-ups":
Where Spring is January; Wealth Waits in California; The Bright
Side of Sunshine Land; Come to California: Southland's Arms
Outstretched in Cordial Invitation to the East; Flower Stands
Make Gay City Streets; Southland Climate Big Manufacturing
Factor; Joy of Life Demonstrated in Los Angeles' Beautiful Homes;
Nymphs Knit and Bathe at Ocean's Sunny Beach; etc.
Now we are in the War and our business is booming, we are making
money hand over fist. It is all the more delightful, because we
are putting our souls into it, we are lending our money to the
government and saving the world for Democracy! Our labor
unionists have been driven to other cities, and our Mexican
agitators and I. W. W.'s are in jail; so, in the gilt ball-room
of our palatial six-dollar-a-day hotel the four hundred masters
of our prosperity meet to pat themselves on the back, and they
invite the new Catholic bishop to come and confer the grace of
God upon their eating.
The Bishop comes; and I take up the "Times"--the labor-hating,
labor-baiting, fire-and-slaughter-breathing "Times"--and here is
the episcopal picture on the front page, the arms stretched four
columns wide in oratorical beneficence. How the shepherd of Jesus
does love the Merchants and Manufacturers! How his eloquence is
poured out upon them! "You represent, gentlemen, the largest and
the most civilizing secular body in the country. You are the
pioneers of American civilization..... I am glad to be among you;
glad that my lines have fallen in this glorious land by the
sunset sea, and honored to meet in intimate acquaintance the big
men who have raised here in a few years a city of metropolitan
proportions."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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