CHAPTER LV
THE PRESS AND JACK LONDON
I once had the pleasure of hearing Jack London express
his opinion of American Journalism; it was a picturesque and
vivid experience, a sort of verbal aurora borealis. Not wishing
to trust to my memory of the incidents, I write to Mrs.
London, and she sends me a huge scrap-book, the journalistic
adventures of Jack London during the year 1906. I open it,
and the first thing I come upon is a clipping from the "St.
Louis Post-Dispatch," with a picture of Mrs. London which is
not Mrs. London! Then, a couple of pages on, a clipping
from the "New Haven Palladium," with a picture of Jack
London which is not Jack London!
They just take any old picture, you understand, and slap your name under it. I have seen Jack London's picture serving for me, and I have seen my own picture serving for a vaudeville actor. As I write, the "Los Angeles Times" comes to my desk, with a scare-headline all the way across the page: "Britain Defies Union Labor Threat of Revolution." It appears that the miners are preparing a general strike, and the "Los Angeles Times," wishing to make them odious, publishes on its front page a large portrait, with this caption: "Trying to Throw Britain Off Balance. Robert Smillie, Brains of the Triple Alliance of Powerful Labor Unions, Seeking Social and Economic Revolution in the United Kingdom." The portrait shows a foreign-looking individual with straggly beard and tousled hair, wearing a Russian blouse. It is Abram Krylenko, commander-in-chief of the Russian Bolshevist armies! If you are near a library you may find the picture in the "Outlook," Vol. 118, p. 254; or in the "Independent," Vol. 93, p. 405; or in the "Metropolitan Magazine" for October, 1919. A picture of Smillie appears in "Current Opinion" for August, 1919—an entirely conventional-looking Englishman!
To return to Jack London: This was the year that Charmian and Jack got married. It was in Chicago, and the Hearst paper of that city reported it in this chaste fashion:
