Jack London on America

Jack London

An excerpt from the Jack London book The Valley of the Moon.

“Aw, what’s the use of gettin’ grouched?” Billy cheered. “It’s a pretty good country.”

“It was a pretty good country,” Bert replied, “when we was all Mohegans. But not now. We’re jiggerooed. We’re hornswoggled. We’re backed to a standstill. We’re double-crossed to a fare-you-well. My folks fought for this country. So did yourn, all of you. We freed the niggers, killed the Indians, an’ starved, an’ froze, an’ sweat, any fought. This land looked good to us. We cleared it, an’ broke it, an’ made the roads, an’ built the cities. And there was plenty for everybody. And we went on fightin’ for it. I had two uncles killed at Gettysburg. All of us was mixed up in that war. Listen to Saxon talk any time what her folks went through to get out here an’ get ranches, an’ horses, an’ cattle, an’ everything. And they got ‘em. All our folks got ‘em, Mary’s, too –”

“And if they’d ben smart they’d a-held on to them,” she interpolated.

“Sure thing,” Bert continued. “That’s the very point. We’re the losers. We’ve ben robbed. We couldn’t mark cards, deal from the bottom, an’ ring in cold decks like the others. We’re the white folks that failed. You see, times changed, and there was two kinds of us, the lions and the plugs. The plugs only worked, the lions only gobbled. They gobbled the farms, the mines, the factories, an’ now they’ve gobbled the government. We’re the white folks an’ the children of white folks, that was too busy being good to be smart. We’re the white folks that lost out. We’re the ones that’s ben skinned. D’ye get me?”

Book Title: The Valley of the Moon. Contributors: Jack London - author. Publisher: Macmillan. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1913. Page Number: 173 - 174.

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Jack London on America
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