The American Dream
Many residents of America as well as newly introduced immigrants first believed that America would be the land of the free. Most never dreamed it would be the land free of morals values, and integrity. However, during the last thirty-five years of the nineteenth century, that is exactly what it became. Some inhabitants of America thought it to be such a ring of the morally corrupt and dishonest politics that they were compelled to write literature based on the deceptions and misgivings of the time period. Upton Sinclair and Frank Norris, authors of The Jungle and The Octopus respectively, reflected the political manipulations and economic injustices during the period of 1865 to 1900. These authors used a manner of writing that depicted political corruption as harsh, cruel, and even tragic. Corruption ranged from the president and vice president to everyday people, including immigrants as well as Americans.Even Mr. President Ulysses S. Grant complied with requests from "Jubilee Jim" Fisk and Jay Gould to make the federal treasury refrain from selling gold. The president received $25,000 for his complicity and Fisk and Gould cornered the gold market. Not only accepting bribery, the president's cabinet was full of "favor seeke
Forced to make do without his wages, Jurgis's family was evicted and moved to a run-down boardinghouse. Tilden among many others, the world today still remains full of corrupt industries and monopolies. Unfortunately, Jurgis abandoned all hope, as well as his family, when Antanas drowned in the street. The Tweed Ring helped its own Boss Tweed to cheat honest, hard-working people of New York out of as much as $200 million, raising their tax assessments. Jurgis also compromised his positive values for the union simply for a money source to become a scab. Sinclair further wrote that the solution to all of Jurgis's problems and his inspiration was socialism, and the ideal that everyday hard-working men should own plants and factories. Jurgis Rudkis, the main character in The Jungle, came to America with the hopes of high wages and a life full of happiness. Jurgis then took a job at the fertilizer plant in Chicago, one of the worst possible jobs at the time. Instead of acceptance, opportunity, and a place where hard work leads to material success, they found exploitation, prejudice, and a harsh world in which moral corruption and crime led to material success. Like Boss Tweed, Scully cheated hard-working honest people out of money and good shelter. Arduously attempting to maintain a job in an unheated packinghouse, Jurgis sprained his ankle, restraining him to three months in bed, leaving his family to barely scrape by without his wages. The Whiskey Ring cheated the Treasury out of millions in excise-tax revenues, and the Secretary of War William Belknap pocketed bribes from suppliers to the Indian Reservations. It was also discovered that the vice president had accepted a sums of money from this corrupt company. One could see blatant corruption when he asked a bartender to change a one hundred dollar bill he received from begging and he gave him ninety-five cents back. Presidential candidate in 1876, democrat Samuel Tilden assisted in bringing down the Tweed Ring in 1871.
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Acceptance Essays
