The Jungle eBook


Chapter 9


Also the union made another great difference with him—­it made him begin to pay attention to the country.  It was the beginning of democracy with him.  It was a little state, the union, a miniature republic; its affairs were every man’s affairs, and every man had a real say about them.  In other words, in the union Jurgis learned to talk politics.  In the place where he had come from there had not been any politics—­in Russia one thought of the government as an affliction like the lightning and the hail.  “Duck, little brother, duck,” the wise old peasants would whisper; “everything passes away.”  And when Jurgis had first come to America he had supposed that it was the same.  He had heard people say that it was a free country—­but what did that mean?  He found that here, precisely as in Russia, there were rich men who owned everything; and if one could not find any work, was not the hunger he began to feel the same sort of hunger?


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The Jungle from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.