100 pages • 3 hours read
Upton SinclairA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Chapters 1-3
Chapters 4-6
Chapters 7-9
Chapters 10-12
Chapters 13-15
Chapters 16-18
Chapters 19-21
Chapters 22-24
Chapters 25-27
Chapters 28-30
Chapters 31-33
Chapters 34-36
Chapters 37-39
Chapters 40-42
Chapters 43-45
Chapters 46-48
Chapters 49-51
Chapters 52-54
Chapters 55-57
Chapters 58-60
Chapters 61-63
Chapters 64-66
Chapters 67-69
Chapters 70-72
Chapters 73-75
Chapters 76-78
Chapters 79-81
Chapters 82-84
Chapters 85-92
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Abner’s youngest son Tom is now 15, and Abner finds his way of thinking “annoying”: “He did not share the family sense of gratitude to Henry Ford, but insisted that Henry had got more out of his workers than they had ever got out of him. He had no respect for the Klan, but on the contrary referred to it as a ‘racket’” (116). Abner decides to let his children speak as they please and blames the teachers at school.
Meanwhile, the Klan have come to support Henry Ford, now a billionaire, as their candidate for President: “It was a strange kind of political campaign, for nobody knew whether the candidate was a Democrat or a Republican; the candidate wouldn’t say, and probably didn’t know” (117).
Abner, like many Americans, supports Ford’s candidacy. Newspaper polls show Ford far ahead of all the other candidates, and the campaign is well financed (though the source of the funds remains well hidden). Ford will benefit no matter what the outcome of the election: “there could be no better way to advertise a car than on the ballots in a national election” (118).
When President Harding dies unexpectedly and Vice-President Calvin Coolidge succeeds him, the Klan and Ford view him as “their man already in office, a white Protestant Gentile hundred per cent Vermont Yankee, close-fisted, close-mouthed, the strong, silent statesman, Cautious Cal,” ready to “take charge of a nation imperiled by grafters, speculators, Jews, Negroes, Catholics, and Bolsheviki” (118).