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This classic novel follows the life of a young man who immigrated to the United States and settles in Chicago during the early twentieth century together with his extended family made up of his fiancée and future in-laws. They're ambitious and hard workers, but due to a combination of predatory house financing, draconian working conditions, and corrupt business/governmental powers their situation deteriorates to the point of economic and social devastation�(i.e loss of their house and death of his wife and son).

As the book portrays these harsh conditions and exploited lives it also describes nauseating health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meat packing industry. It is this aspect of the novel that resulted in historic legislation that eventually led to the formation of the U.S.Food and Drug Administration.

At this point the book's narrative is barely two thirds complete. The story's protagonist is devastated by the death of his wife and son and tries to escape his sorrowful and miserable life by escaping to the life of a hobo. After awhile he returned to Chicago and lived through a variety of activities through which he learns about the workings of power in Chicago that contribute to making life difficult for working people like him. Through the descriptions of his activities the book demonstrates the corrupt relationship of crime, politics, and business in Chicago at that time. The following excerpt describes the situation. It's a lengthy excerpt because there's a lot to describe.

The city, which was owned by an oligarchy of business men, being nominally ruled by the people, a huge army of graft was necessary for the purpose of effecting the transfer of power. Twice a year, in the spring and fall elections, millions of dollars were furnished by the business men and expended by this army; meetings were held and clever speakers were hired, bands played and rockets sizzled, tons of documents and reservoirs of drinks were distributed, and tens of thousands of votes were bought for cash. And this army of graft had, of course, to be maintained the year round. The leaders and organizers were maintained by the business men directly—aldermen and legislators by means of bribes, party officials out of the campaign funds, lobbyists and corporation lawyers in the form of salaries, contractors by means of jobs, labor union leaders by subsidies, and newspaper proprietors and editors by advertisements. The rank and file, however, were either foisted upon the city, or else lived off the population directly. There was the police department, and the fire and water departments, and the whole balance of the civil list, from the meanest office boy to the head of a city department; and for the horde who could find no room in these, there was the world of vice and crime, there was license to seduce, to swindle and plunder and prey. The law forbade Sunday drinking; and this had delivered the saloon-keepers into the hands of the police, and made an alliance between them necessary. The law forbade prostitution; and this had brought the "madames" into the combination. It was the same with the gambling-house keeper and the poolroom man, and the same with any other man or woman who had a means of getting "graft," and was willing to pay over a share of it: the green-goods man and the highwayman, the pickpocket and the sneak thief, and the receiver of stolen goods, the seller of adulterated milk, of stale fruit and diseased meat, the proprietor of unsanitary tenements, the fake doctor and the usurer, the beggar and the “pushcart man," the prize fighter and the professional slugger, the race-track “tout,� the procurer, the white-slave agent, and the expert seducer of young girls. All of these agencies of corruption were banded together, and leagued in blood brotherhood with the politician and the police; more often than not they were one and the same person,—the police captain would own the brothel he pretended to raid, the politician would open his headquarters in his saloon. "Hinkydink" or “Bathhouse John," or others of that ilk, were proprietors of the most notorious dives in Chicago, and also the "gray wolves" of the city council, who gave away the streets of the city to the business men; and those who patronized their places were the gamblers and prize fighters who set the law at defiance, and the burglars and holdup men who kept the whole city in terror. On election day all these powers of vice and crime were one power; they could tell within one per cent what the vote of their district would be, and they could change it at an hour's notice.

The story told by this book is so depressing that I couldn't help but wonder how the author was going the end the story. Surely he would find a way of adding a bit of optimism. Sure enough the author provides a vision for the future. It's called Socialism.

One evening the story's protagonist happens to attend a speech promoting the socialist cause. The text for the equivalent of about a half hour speech is included in the book. It's clear that this is the message that the author wants to convey. Below I have included the beginning of this speech because I think it summarizes perfectly the life of our protagonist up to this point.

And so you return to your daily round of toil, you go back to be ground up for profits in the world-wide mill of economic might! To toil long hours for another's advantage; to live in mean and squalid homes, to work in dangerous and unhealthful places; to wrestle with the specters of hunger and privation, to take your chances of accident, disease, and death. And each day the struggle becomes fiercer, the pace more cruel; each day you have to toil a little harder, and feel the iron hand of circumstance close upon you a little tighter. Months pass, years maybe—and then you come again; and again I am here to plead with you, to know if want and misery have yet done their work with you, if injustice and oppression have yet opened your eyes!

So the book ends with a variety of conversations that defend the cause of socialism. The book suggests that support for it is trending up and that eventually will win nationwide popular support. So that's how things looked in 1906 when this book was published.