“..“I, Governor of California, and How I Ended Poverty,” by Upton Sinclair – is probably the most thrilling piece of campaign literature ever written.
Instead of the usual flummery, Sinclair, the author of forty-seven books, including, most famously, “The Jungle,” wrote a work of fiction.
“I, Governor of California,” published in 1933, announced Sinclair’s gubernatorial bid in the form of a history of the future, in which Sinclair is elected governor in 1934 – and by 1938 has eradicated poverty.
“So far as I know,” the author remarked, “this is the first time an historian has set out to make his history true.”
It was only sixty-four pages – but it sold a hundred and fifty thousand copies in four months.
Chapter 1: “On an evening in August, 1933, there took place a conference attended by five members of the County Central Committee of the Democratic party, Sixtieth Assembly District of the State of California.”
That might not sound like a page-turner – unless you remember that at the time California was a one-party state: in 1931, almost all of the hundred and twenty seats in the state legislature were held by Republicans -
- not a single Democrat held a statewide office.
Also useful to recall: the unemployment rate in the state was twenty-nine per cent…”
(cont..)
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