The Profits of Religion. Upton Sinclair

and Women

       Moth and Rust

       The Octopus

       The Industrial Shelley

       The Outlook for Graft

       Clerical Camouflage

       The Jungle

       BOOK FIVE — The Church of the Merchants

       The Head Merchant

       "Herr Beeble"

       Holy Oil

       Rhetorical Black-hanging

       The Great American Fraud

       Riches in Glory

       Captivating Ideals

       Spook Hunting

       Running the Rapids

       Birth Control

       Sheep

       BOOK SIX — The Church of the Quacks

       Tabula Rasa

       The Book of Mormon

       Holy Rolling

       Bible Prophecy

       Koreshanity

       Mazdaznan

       Black Magic

       Mental Malpractice

       Science and Wealth

       New Nonsense

       "Dollars Want Me"

       Spiritual Financiering

       The Graft of Grace

       BOOK SEVEN — The Church of the Social Revolution

       Christ and Caesar

       Locusts and Wild Honey

       Mother Earth

       The Soap Box

       The Church Machine

       The Church Redeemed

       The Desire of Nations

       The Knowable

       Nature's Insurgent Son

       The New Morality

       Envoi

       Reader

INTRODUCTORY

       Table of Contents

BOOTSTRAP-LIFTING

       Table of Contents

Bootstrap-lifting? says the reader.

       Table of Contents

      It is a vision I have seen: upon a vast plain, men and women are gathered in dense throngs, crouched in uncomfortable and distressing positions, their fingers hooked in the straps of their boots. They are engaged in lifting themselves; tugging and straining until they grow red in the face, exhausted. The perspiration streams from their foreheads, they show every symptom of distress; the eyes of all are fixed, not upon each other, nor upon their boot-straps, but upon the sky above. There is a look of rapture upon their faces, and now and then, amid grunts and groans, they cry out with excitement and triumph.

      I approach one and say to him, "Friend, what is this you are doing?"

      He answers, without pausing to glance at me, "I am performing spiritual exercises. See how I rise?"

      "But," I say, "you are not rising at all!"

      Whereat he becomes instantly angry. "You are one of the scoffers!"

      "But, friend," I protest, "don't you feel the earth under your feet?"

      "You are a materialist!"

      "But, friend, I can see—"

      "You