Jimmie Higgins A Story Author:Upton Sinclair General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1919 Original Publisher: s.n. Subjects: World War, 1914-1918 European War, 1914-1918 Fiction / Classics Fiction / Historical Fiction / Literary Fiction / Science Fiction / General Fiction / Science Fiction / Adventure History / Military / World War I Notes: ... more »This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER IX JIMMIE HIGGINS RETURNS TO NATURE UMME'S bicycle-shop went out of business, and its contents were sold at auction. Jimmie Higgins watched the process wistfully, reflecting how, if he had not wasted his substance on Socialist tracts, if he had saved a bit of his wages like any normal human being, he might have bought this little business and got a start in life. But alas, such hopes were not for Jimmie! He must remain in the condition which the President of his country described as "industrial serfdom"; he must continue to work for some other man's profit, to be at the mercy of some other man's whim. He found himself a job in the railroad-shops; but in a couple of weeks came an organiser, trying to start a union in the place. Jimmie, of course, joined; how could he refuse? And so the next time he went to get his pay he found a green slip in his envelope, informing him that the Atlantic Western Eailroad Company would no longer require his services. No explanation was given, and none sought -- for Jimmie was old in the ways of American wage-slavery, euphemistically referred to as "industrial serfdom." He got another start as helper to a truckman. It was the hardest work he had yet done -- all the harder because the boss was a dull fellow who would not talk about politics or the war. So Jimmie was discontented; perhaps the spring-time was getti...« less