FOR US THE LIVING BY ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

So Upton Sinclair lost the election.

But Robert Heinlein did not give up the fight.

He was a neophyte political volunteer in the 1934 election, although he was quickly given six precincts to run. But after Sinclair’s loss, Heinlein began to move up in the Democratic Party, to carry on the EPIC fight over the next four years. Eventually, he helped write and edit the EPIC newsletter (with a circulation of two million in 1934), became a major player in the Democratic Party in Los Angeles, helped write the platform for the state EPIC movement, and served at the state level of the Democratic Party on the California State Central Committee. In 1938, Robert Heinlein moved from behind the scenes and took up the race for political office, running for California State Assembly.

His opponent was the Republican incumbent, corporate attorney Charles Lyons. Their district included Beverly Hills and part of Hollywood, which at that time were not only wealthy, but also conservative and Republican. Heinlein had only a small group of supporters in his campaign, because the Democratic Party believed there was no way to win that seat. He fought the good fight, but because his opponent had cross-filed as a Democrat for the primaries (which eventually became illegal in California), if Heinlein lost the primary, Lyons would automatically win the election—as the only candidate. Heinlein lost, by fewer than five hundred votes.

In many ways, the 1938 election was a triumph for the Democrats—they gained the governor’s seat for former EPIC member Culbert Olson and a number of state assembly seats. Although Heinlein’s loss stung, it did not end his political involvement. He continued in Democratic politics at least until 1940, when he attended the Democratic National Convention in Chicago as an observer with press credentials.

Still, with his formal education stalled and his political career stymied, where would he turn to pay off the mortgage on his house? His naval disability pension would be enough to keep the Heinleins fed and clothed, but not enough to cope with the mortgage, and in 1938, owing money to a bank was still somewhat shameful.

And how would he continue his efforts to help his country?

EPIC showed every sign of falling apart: the EPIC newsletter ceased publication even before the 1938 primaries were over, and most of the EPIC politicians stopped identifying themselves as such, in order to win elections. Sinclair himself had returned full time to writing.

Sinclair’s writings had always harbored social commentary, not to mention social crusades. Heinlein knew Sinclair personally and had worked with him on the EPIC movement. Thus one writer’s life and work provided the model for another’s incipient career.

Heinlein turned to writing For Us, The Living.

Of course, Upton Sinclair was not the first writer to suggest solutions to social problems in the form of fiction—Utopias (perfect worlds) and dystopias (nightmare worlds) were well-known literary forms by 1938. Heinlein would have known of the genre’s two most famous practitioners: Edward Bellamy and H. G. Wells, both major influences on Upton Sinclair’s Utopian socialism. Bellamy’s 1887 Looking Backward remains the most famous Utopian novel ever written by an American and may well be the book Heinlein had in mind when writing this first novel. In both novels, the main character awakens in the future to find an ideal society he does not understand. Through a series of Socratic dialogues, the protagonists (and the audience) learn how such a wonderful world can truly exist. Wells, whose “scientific romances” established the paradigms of science fiction for much of the twentieth century, also wrote many novels that portrayed future Utopias and dystopias. When the Sleeper Wakes was a particular favorite of Heinlein’s (the 1910 revision The Sleeper Awakes was the book H. G. Wells autographed for Heinlein when they met). The 1936 film Things to Come, adapted by Wells from his earlier novel, The Shape of Things to Come, ends with a launch into outer space, as does For Us, The Living.

Heinlein was primed by these writers, as well as by the science fiction pulp magazines he read regularly, to trumpet the future as a wonderful opportunity for progress. When he sat down to write For Us, The Living he was trying to do what he had done throughout his four years of political activity and would continue to do for much of his writing career—generate change for the better. The title comes from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: