Oil! A Novel by Upton Sinclair by Upton Sinclair

  III

  Under the arrangements which had kept peace in the oil industry during the war, a government "oil board" would listen to grievances of the workers, and decide what was fair. But now the war was fading in men's memories, and the operators were restive under this "outside" control. Was it not the fundamental right of every American to run his own business in his own way? Was it not obvious that war-time wages had been high, and that "deflation" was desirable? Here and there some operator would refuse to obey the orders of the "oil board"; there would be long arguments, and resorts to the courts, and meantime the workers would be protesting, and threatening, and everyone could see that a crisis was at hand. In the old days, J. Arnold Ross had been one of the little fellows, and all that Bunny could do was to await events. But now he dwelt among the Olympians, and saw the fates in the making. The Petroleum Employers' Federation, by its executive committee, of which Vernon Roscoe was a member, came to a decision to brush the Federal Oil Board aside, ignore the unions, and announce a new schedule of wages for the industry. A copy of this schedule was in Dad's hands, and it averaged about 10 per cent under the present scale. It was going to mean a bitter struggle, and Bunny was so much concerned that, without saying anything to his father, he made an appeal to Mr. Roscoe. This being a business matter, the properties suggested a visit to the office, so Bunny called up the secretary and asked for an appointment in the regular way. The great man sat at his flat mahogany desk, as clear of papers as the prevailing superstition required. It appeared as if a captain of industry had not a thing to do but grin at a college boy, and gossip about the boy's mistress and his own. But then Bunny remarked, "Mr. Roscoe, I came to see you here because I want to talk to you about the new wage-scale." And in a flash the smile went off the magnate's face, and it seemed as if even the fat went off his jaws; if you have thought of him as a mixture of geniality and buffoonery, this is the time for you to set yourself straight, along with Bunny, and all other rebels against the American system. Bunny started to tell about the way the men felt, and the trouble that was brewing; but Mr. Roscoe stopped him. "Listen here, Jim Junior, and save a lot of breath. I know everything the men are saying, and everything that Bolshevik bunch up there is teaching them. I get a confidential report every week. I know about your friend, Tom Axton, and your Paul Watkins, and your Eddie Piatt, and your Bud Stoner and your Jick Duggan—I could tell you all you know, and a lot that would surprise you." Bunny was taken aback, as the other had intended. "Jim Junior," he continued, "you're a bright boy, and you'll get over this nonsense, and I want to help you over it—I might save you a lot of suffering, and also your father, that's the salt of the earth. I've been in this world thirty or forty years longer than you, and I've learned a lot that you don't know, but some day you will. Your father and the rest of us that are running the oil industry, we got here because we know how, and that's a real thing, by Jees, and not just a lot of words. But some other fellers want to kick us out, and think all they got to do is to make speeches to oil workers and set them to raising hell—but let me tell you, kiddo, it's going to take a lot more than that!" "Yes, Mr. Roscoe, but that's not the point—" "Pardon me, but it is. Let's cut out the hokum—just say to yourself that I've been sitting in at the arguments of that Bolshevik bunch of yours. Do they mean to take the industry away from me and your old man, or don't they?" "Well, they may think that ultimately—" "Yes, exactly. And so far as I'm concerned, the time to stop the ultimately is now. And I tell you that if any sons-of-bitches imagine they're going to live off my wages while they're getting ready to rob me, they're mistaken; and if they find themselves in the jute-mill at San Quentin, they're not going to get my money to bail them out!" That was a centre shot, and Vernon Roscoe was looking Bunny straight in the eye. "Jim Junior, I know all the fine idealistic phrases them fellers use on you. It's all lovely and sweet and for the good of humanity—but they know that's all bait for suckers, and if you could hear them laughing at you behind your back, you'd realize how you're being used. What I tell you is, you better get on your own side of the fence before the shooting begins." "Is there going to be shooting, Mr. Roscoe?" "That's up to your Bolshevik friends. We've got what we want, and they're going to take it away from us." "We needed the oil workers during the war, Mr. Roscoe, and we made them promises—" "Pardon me, kiddo—we didn't make any promises at all! A god-damn long-faced snivelling college professor made them for us, and we're done with that bunk for good! We've got a business man for president, and we're going to run this country on business lines. And let me tell you for one, I'm god-damn sick of having to buy labor leaders, and I can think of cheaper ways to manage it." Bunny was startled. "Is that really true, Mr. Roscoe? Have you been able to buy the oil workers' officials?" Verne hitched himself a few inches across the desk, and stuck a large finger at Bunny's face. "Kiddo," he said, "get this straight: I can buy any officials, just the same as I can buy any politicians, or anybody else that a bunch of boobs can elect to office. And I know what you're thinking—here's an old cow-puncher, without any fine ideals, and he's got a barrel o' money and thinks he can do anything he pleases with it. But that ain't the point, my boy— it's because I had the brains to make the money, and I got the brains to use it. Money ain't power till it's used, and the reason I can buy power is because men know I can use it—or else, by Jees, they wouldn't sell it to me. You get that?" "Yes, but what are you going to do with the power, Mr. Roscoe?" "I'm going to find oil and bring it to the top of the ground and refine it and sell it to whoever's got the price. So long as the world needs oil, that's my job; and when they can get along without oil, I'll do something else. And if anybody wants a share in that job, let him do like I done, get out and sweat, and work, and play the game." "But Mr. Roscoe, that's hardly practical advice for all the workers. Everybody can't be an operator." "No, kiddo, you bet your boots they can't—only them that's got the brains. The rest have to work; and if they work for me, they'll get fair wages, and the money will be there every Saturday night for them, no matter how much worrying and planning I got to do. But when some feller comes along with the gift of the gab, and sticks himself in between me and my men, and says I can't deal with them except by paying him a rake-off, why then I say, The jute-mill for him!'"

  IV

  The thing that Bunny carried away from this interview was Vernon Roscoe's final appeal. "Can't you see, boy, that your father's a sick man? You're not going to have him with you many years more, and some day when it's too late you're going to wake up and realize what you done to him. That old man ain't had a thought in the world but to make things easier for you; you can say he shouldn't if you want to, but all the same, that's what he lived for. And now—now you're spittin' on his life! Yes, just that, and you might as well face it. Everything he's done has been no good, it's all crooked and dirty, and the only people with any ideals or any rights on their side are a bunch of ne'er-do-wells that hate him because he's made good and they never will. And if you think the old man don't feel that, if you don't know it's eating his heart out—well, you take it from me, and get your eyes open before it's too late. If you got to despise your father's money, for Christ's sake wait till he's dead, and the money's your own." So when Bunny went out from the office, he was not thinking about the troubles of the oil-workers. Was it true that Dad's health was so bad? And wasn't there some way he could be got to stop working so hard? Was it necessary for him to be on hand and see every new well that Ross Consolidated brought in, whether it was at Lobos River or Paradise or Beach City? And what was going to happen to Dad when this labor struggle actually came to a head? Early in the spring the union leaders held a, conference, and served notice on the oil board that the defiance of government authority by the operators was beyond endurance; either the board must assert its authority, or else the workers would take matters into their own hands. The board did nothing; and when the union officials addressed letters to the operators' committee, the letters were ignored. A strike was inevitable; and the longer it was p
ostponed, the worse for the men. Then a peculiar thing happened. Vee Tracy came to Bunny; she had just completed another picture—no propaganda this time, no, she had laid down the law to Schmolsky, she would never again have anything to do with Russia, or with strikes, or anything that might wound the sensibilities of her oil prince. This time the billboards announced Viola Tracy in "An Eight Reel Comedy of College Capers, entitled 'Come-hither Eyes.'" Vee was glorious as the flirt of the campus, breaking hearts of football stars by the eleven at a time, and incidentally foiling the plot of a band of bookmakers, who had bet a million dollars on the outcome of the big game, and sought to paralyze the team by kidnapping its mascot and darling. Bunny having no sympathy with either bookmakers or kidnappers, it had been all right for him to watch this picture in the making, and supply local color out of his experience with college capers. The "world premiere" of "Come-hither Eyes" was to take place in New York, and the star had to attend. "Bunny," she said, "why not come with me, and have a little fun?" Now Bunny had never been east, and the idea was tempting. He had two weeks' Easter vacation, and if he missed a bit of college, it could be made up. He said he would think it over; and later in the day—this was at the Monastery—Annabelle opened up on him, "Why don't you go with Vee, and take Dad along? The change would be the very thing for him." He studied her ingenuous countenance, and a grin came over his own. "What's this, Annabelle—you and Verne trying to get us out of the way of the strike?" She answered, "If your friends really care for you, they'll wish you to be happy." And when he said something about it's being cowardly to run away, she made a striking reply. "We're going to have roast spring lamb for dinner, but you didn't consider it necessary to visit the slaughter-house." "Annabelle," he replied, "you are a social philosopher." And she told him that people went to universities to learn long names for plain common sense! Evidently the plot was deeply laid; for when Bunny got back home, there was Dad, inquiring, "Did Verne say anything about what he wants me to do?" "No, Dad, what's that?" "There's a conference in New York that somebody's got to attend, and he wanted to know if I could get away. I was wondering if it would break you up at the university if you were to take a bit of vacation." Bunny debated with himself. What could be accomplished by staying? In the first strike, he had managed to keep the workers in their homes, but he couldn't do even that much now, for Verne would be in charge, and would not budge an inch. Annabelle's simile of the spring lamb appeared to fit exactly the position of the oil workers' union. The job of slaughtering might take weeks, or even months, but it would be done—and all that Bunny could do would be to torment his poor father. And then Bertie was called into the conspiracy. Bertie wanted him to go. She was to visit the fashionable Woodbridge Riley's, and after that to be on Thelma Norman's yacht, and she didn't want her brother getting mixed up in an oil strike and perhaps making another stink in the newspapers! Wouldn't he think about Dad for once, and get the old man to take a rest? Bunny was tired of arguing, and said, all right.

  V The proposed trip brought up a curious problem. How did one travel with one's mistress, in this "land of the pilgrim's pride?" Bunny remembered vaguely having heard of people being put out of hotels, because of the lack of marriage certificates. Would he and Vee have to meet clandestinely? He asked her about it, assuming that her experience would cover the question; and it did. On the trains one took a compartment, and no questions were asked. As for hotels, you went to the most fashionable, and let them know who you were, and they made no objection to putting you in adjoining suites, with a connecting door. Look at Verne and Annabelle, said Vee; when it suited their convenience they stayed quite openly at the most high-toned of Angel City's hotels, and there was never a peep from either the management or the newspapers. It had happened more than once that Mrs. Roscoe had been stopping at the same hotel, and the papers would report her doings on the society page, and Annabelle's on the dramatic page, so there was never any clash. In truth the land of the pilgrim's pride no longer existed; in its place was the land of the millionaire's glory. When a moving picture star went east, with or without a paramour, she always left by daylight, and her publicity man saw to it that the newspapers published the time and place. There would be shouting thousands, and policemen to hold them back, and cameras clicking, and armfuls of flowers to let everybody on the train know who was who. There would be crowds at every station, calling for a glimpse of their darling; and if she had an oil prince travelling in the same compartment, that was not a scandal, it was a romance. And when they got to New York, there was another crowd, conjured into being by the efficient publicity machine of Schmolsky-Superba. At the hotel there were people waiting, and more armfuls of flowers, and a dozen reporters demanding interviews. And with all that free advertising for the hotel, was any officious clerk or house detective going to concern himself with the question of whether or not the connecting door between two suites was kept locked? And with a personage of such magnificent authority as J. Arnold Ross travelling along, and beaming his approval on the situation? Dad's face was as good as a dozen marriage certificates at any hotel in the land! For the old man this journey was just peaches and cream all the way; a vicarious jag, with no "hang-over" the next morning. He insisted upon paying all the bills; and he had his secretary along, so everything just happened by magic—train accommodations, hotel suites, taxicabs, flowers, candy, theatre tickets—you had only to hint a wish, and the thing was there. What more could there be to add to mortal bliss? Only that Vee would have liked to eat a square meal now and then; and to have spent the morning in bed, instead of having to keep an appointment to "reduce" at a gymnasium! They saw the world premiere of "Come-hither Eyes." Possibly you have never been to college in America, and do not understand our lively ways of speech; so let it be explained that sometimes the eyes of "co-eds" have been observed to possess, whether from natural endowment or by practice acquired, a certain quality suggestive to the male creature of an impulse to proximity. A delicious title, you see; and a delicious picture, transporting tired and bored millions into that very same world of glorious money-spending to which Vee and Bunny had been lifted up. The mechanic who had been screwing up nut number 847 in an automobile factory all day, the housewife who had been washing baby-diapers and buying shoddy goods in a five and ten cent store—these were placed in the same position as Dad, enjoying a vicarious jag with no hang-over the next morning! The scenes at the New York premiere were the same as in Angel City; the crowds as great, and the cheering as enthusiastic. And Vee and Bunny, sitting up in bed in their silken garments, while black-clad robots silently and mechanically served breakfast on silver trays—Vee and Bunny read the accounts of their triumph, and who had attended and what they had worn. And then, turning over the paper, Bunny read a dispatch from Angel City— ten thousand oil workers had walked out on strike, and the industry was tied up tight. The operators announced that they were no longer willing to recognize the oil board, and issued a new wage-scale that was to be taken or left. Trouble was feared, added the newspapers, because it was known that radical agitators had for some time been active among the men.