II
Bunny's speculations upon the problem of capital and labor were not destined to remain academic. Spending his Christmas holidays at Paradise, he found Paul looking very serious, and asking what would be Dad's attitude towards the matter of unions in this field. There was an organizer for the carpenters here, and Paul had talked with him, and decided that it was his duty to join. Some of the men had joined secretly, but Paul wouldn't have any concealment in his relations with Mr. Ross. Bunny answered that his father didn't think much of unions, but he certainly wouldn't object to Paul's joining, if Paul thought it was right; anyhow they'd talk it out. So that evening they had a session, which wasn't quite the same as a class at high school. Dad believed in organization; he always said that, and his formula would apply to workingmen—at least in theory. But in practice Dad had observed that a labor union enabled a lot of officials to live off the work of the real workers; these officials became a class by themselves, a sort of vested interest, and they looked out for themselves, and not for labor. They naturally had to make some excuse for their own existence, and so were apt to stir up the workers to discontent which otherwise the workers wouldn't feel. Paul said that was one way to look at it; but as a matter of fact, it was just as apt to work the other way—the men would be discontented, and officials .would be trying to smooth them down. The officials made bargains with the employers, and naturally wanted the workers to fall into line. Didn't it seem more reasonable to account for disputes in industry by the fundamental fact that one group was selling labor, and the other was buying it? Nobody was ever surprised that a man who was buying a horse didn't value it so high as the owner. You could see Dad didn't like that, because it was a view that made his business more difficult. He said that what troubled him about unions was, they deprived a man of his personal liberty; he was no longer a free American citizen, he was just a part of a machine, run by politicians, and often by grafters. What had made this country great was individual enterprise, and we ought to protect that. And Paul said yes, but the employers had set the men a bad example; they had joined a "Petroleum Employers' Federation," which ruled the industry very strictly. Paul had been told that in his early days Mr. Ross had paid his men a dollar a day more than the regular scale, so as to get the best labor; but when he had got into the Prospect Hill field, he had had to join the Federation, and now wasn't allowed to pay more than the regular scale. That was true, Dad admitted, but he hastened to explain, he hadn't reduced anybody's wages; his business had grown so fast, he had put his men into higher classifications, and when he engaged new men for the old jobs, they had got the regular price. But when Paul pinned him down, Dad admitted that it really was a union he belonged to, and he had sacrificed his personal liberty to that extent. It was clear enough, there had to be some order among the employers, to keep them from cutting one another's throats; and Dad was fair enough to admit that maybe if he were a laborer, he'd see the same necessity. Paul pleased Dad by saying that if all the employers were as fair as Mr. Ross, it would be easy to deal with them; but the fact was plain that many of them would respect only power, and the workers had no power except as a group. Why was it the carpenters were working only eight hours? Because they were organized all over the country, you couldn't get a lot of good carpenters on any other terms. But the oil workers were poorly organized, so here was this two-shift arrangement, an inhuman thing, and the reason why Bunny couldn't get the men to make use of his reading-room. Paul said that with a smile, to take the sting out of it; he knew it would hurt Bunny, and that Dad wouldn't feel comfortable over it, either. Dad couldn't give his oil-workers an eight hour day, even if he wanted to—because the Petroleum Employers' Federation had taken away his personal liberty and initiative in that respect. Paul added that the Federation would have to face this issue very shortly, because the oil-workers were organizing—right in this Paradise field, as Mr. Ross no doubt knew. Dad said he had heard it; he went so far as to admit that the Federation had sent him bulletins to keep him posted. But he wasn't worrying, he said; if his men wanted a union, he guessed he'd find a way to get along with it—he had tried to be fair all his life, and the men knew it, most of them. Paul answered that Mr. Ross ought to understand the fundamental fact, which was that the cost of everything had been going up, ever since the war in Europe had begun; the price of oil was going up also, but the Employers' Federation held to the old wage schedule, and that was not fair, and was making the trouble. The employers who fought the unions were short-sighted, for what they really did was to turn the men over to the I. W. W. Dad looked startled at that, for the "wob-blies," as they were called, had the reputation of being dangerous people, almost Anarchists, who wanted to seize the wells and run them for the workers; you heard terrible rumors of a thing called "sabotage," which meant that the men, if they didn't get what they considered a square deal, would punish the employers by damaging the property, even setting fire to wells. Were I. W. W. really in the field? Paul answered that it wouldn't be fair for him to report on the men, that would be making him a spy; but as a matter of fact the wobblies were in every field, and in every industry—you could never keep them out, and the only thing to do was to keep their influence down by a policy of fair play. Paul had been studying this question of capital and labor, as he studied everything that came his way. He had been reading books of which Bunny had never heard even the names—they were not taught in the high school courses, because, so Paul declared, they gave the labor side. Paul had been talking to an organizer who was here for the Oil Workers' Union, an especially intelligent man, who had been working in oil fields for several years, and knew conditions thoroughly. Bunny was tremendously interested at that, and said he'd like to meet the man, and wouldn't Dad like to? Dad made the answer he always made now-a-days, he was just too crowded with business over the new pipe line, and the problem of a refinery, but later on, perhaps, he might be interested. Dad was always fooling himself that way; there was going to be some time in the future when he would be free! However, he hadn't any objection to Bunny's meeting all the union organizers he pleased; he'd no doubt have to bargain with a lot of them during his life. Paul said that Tom Axton was supposed to be here secretly, but as a matter of fact the bosses all knew him, he had been kicked off the Excelsior Pete property only yesterday. He'd no doubt be willing to talk with Bunny, provided it was made clear that this wouldn't affect his right to organize the men in Mr. Ross' employ. The upshot of it was that Axton was invited to meet Bunny one morning in the reading-room; and that was the biggest sensation this Watkins tract had known since the discovery well had busted loose and caught fire. The men of the night-shift forgot to go to sleep; they waited round to see the sight, and you saw faces pass by doors and windows—and always turned inwards as they passed! The union organizer was supposed to be a mysterious and terrible person, who came onto the tract at night, and met you and your friends somewhere out in the hills; but here he was, being publicly entertained by the Old Man's son! Great kid, that Bunny Ross, said the men—agreeing with Dad on this point! Tom Axton was a big fellow, slow spoken, soft of voice, with a trace of Southern accent; he looked powerful, and had need to be, considering the treatment he got. Of course, he couldn't swear that it was the Employers' Federation which sent thugs to beat him up and try to cripple him; but when the same thing happened to him in several different fields in Southern California, and didn't happen to anybody else, he naturally drew his own conclusions. Bunny was aghast at this; he had never heard anything like it, and didn't know what to answer—except that he hoped Mr. Axton knew that his father didn't have anything to do with such dirty work. The organizer smiled; he had evidently had a talk with Paul, for he said, "Your father thinks that labor unions are run by grafters and parasites. Well, I wish you'd ask him how much he really knows about the Employers' Federation, and the kind of men who run it, and what they're doing to us. You may find that your father has been neglecting the affairs of his union, just as most of the workers neglect theirs." Bunn
y had to admit that was a fair point, and when he asked Dad, and found that Dad had never attended a meeting of the Federation, but merely paid its assessments without question—why naturally, that made Bunny have more respect for Tom Axton, and believe what he said about conditions here in Paradise, and in the other fields, and how rapidly discontent was spreading among the men. Only yesterday the Victor Oil Company had fired fourteen who had signed up with the union; the bosses had a spy among them, and had waited to give everybody a chance to hang himself! "You're surely going to have a strike before long," said the organizer. "It will be a strike for the three-shift day, among other things; and when it comes, your father will have to consider whether to deal separately with his own men, or to stand by his employers' union, and let a bunch of big business rowdies drag him into trouble." You can imagine how much that gave Bunny to think about, and how many discussions he had with his father, and with Paul, and with the teacher of the class in "social ethics" at the Beach City High School!
III
The Allies, having control of the sea, were engaged in starving out Germany; and the Germans were replying with the only weapon they had, the submarine. The United States had forced the German government to agree not to torpedo passenger vessels without warning; but now, early in the winter of 1917, the Germans gave notice that they would no longer follow this policy, and everybody was saying that America would have to go into the war. The German ambassador at Washington was sent home, and after that the spirit of neutrality was no longer dominant in the "current events" classes at school. To the oil operators it seemed most unpatriotic on the part of workers, to demand the eight hour day and an increase of wages at this crisis. What?—when the country was about to defend itself, and would need oil as never before in history! But the workers replied that the employers did not make concessions because they wanted to, but because they had to, and this might be the only time they would have to. It was not necessary to assume that the employers were giving the oil away; they were getting a fancy price for it, and would get the same price, or better, if the country went to war. The workers claimed a share, proportioned to the price of everything they had to buy. They were holding meetings all over the field, and in the latter part of February their union officials wrote to the various companies, asking for a conference. When this request was ignored, they served notice on the employers that there would be a strike. Three men came to see Dad; one of them an old employee, the others new men. All three were young in years—indeed, you almost never saw an oil worker over thirty-five, and they were all white Americans. This committee held their hats in their hands, and were somewhat pale, embarrassed but determined. They all liked Mr. Ross, and said so; he was "square," and he must know that their demands were reasonable. Wouldn't he set the example to the other employers, granting the new schedule, so that his work could go on without interruption? The strike, if it came, would be bound to spread, and the cost of oil would go up at once; Mr. Ross would gain far more than he would have to pay to the men. But Dad answered that he had joined the Federation, and agreed to stand by its decisions; what would become of his reputation for "squareness," if he were to go back on his associates in a crisis? What he would do was to work within the Federation for an agreement with the men; he would drop everything else, and go down to Angel City and see what he could accomplish. He thought the eight hour day was fair, and he would favor a wage scale adjusted to the cost of living, so that the men's income would not be subject to fluctuations. The committee was cheered by these promises, and there was hand-shaking all around. Left to himself, you understand that J. Arnold Ross would probably never have taken this advanced position. His mind was on his money—or on the things he wanted to do, and that his money enabled him to do; he would probably have gone with his crowd, as he had done hitherto. But there was Bunny, a "little idealist"; Bunny liked the men, and the men liked him, and Dad was proud of that mutual liking, and could be sentimental for Bunny, where he would never have dreamed of being for himself. Furthermore, there was Paul, who knew the men's side at first hand; and Bunny persisted in bringing Paul into their life, in plying Paul with questions, and making him say, right out, the things he might not otherwise have felt free to say. So Paul had become a force in Dad's consciousness; and so Dad promised to try to help the men. He attended for the first time a meeting of his own trade union. It was at night, and lasted till one o'clock in the morning; and the next day being Saturday, Bunny came up to town and met his father at the hotel, and heard the story of what had happened. Most of the oil employers, it appeared, were exactly like J. Arnold Ross, in that they left the running of their union to others; there had been not more than forty men at this critical meeting, and the dominant group consisted of representatives of the "Big Five." The chairman, and obviously the man who ran the organization, was an attorney for Excelsior Pete, who owned a small well, presumably to give him standing. He had a group which took the cue from him and voted with him. It had been rather a steam-roller affair, said Dad. Bunny wanted all the particulars, and plied his father with questions. Dad had pleaded the men's side, as tactfully as he could, and had found exactly two operators in the gathering who were willing to agree, ever so timidly, with his point of view. To the ruling group he had seemed something of a renegade, and they had hinted as much. "You know how it is, son," Dad explained, "this is an 'open shop' town; that's the way the crowd feels, and you might just as well butt your head against a stone wall as argue with them about unions. There's everything to be said for them—they've had trouble with organized labor, and it's made them bitter. They say"—and Dad went on to detail the arguments that had been hurled at him; unions meant graft, unions meant "hold-ups," unions meant disorder, unions meant strikes, unions meant Socialism. "What are they going to do, Dad?" "They're just not a-goin' to let the men have a union—that's all. I said, Tt looks as if the Federation has turned into a strikebreaking organization.' And Fred Naumann—that's the chairman— snapped back at me, 'You said it!' They'll be a strike-breaking organization, if and when and so long as there's strikes in their field—that's the way Raymond put it, the vice-president of Victor. And then Ben Skutt put in an oar—" "Ben Skutt’ "Yes, he was there; it seems he's been doing some 'investigation work' for the Federation—a polite name for spyin'. He knew just exactly what I'd said to our men the day before; and he wondered if I realized the unfortunate effect of my attitude—it amounted to givin' the strikers moral support. I told Ben that I usually took the liberty of saying what I thought; I was taking it in this meeting, and I'd take it in the newspapers if they asked me. Naumann smiled sarcastically: 'I really don't think they're going to ask you, Mr. Ross.'" And sure enough, they didn't—either then, or later! The meeting was supposed to be secret—which meant that individual members were not allowed to be quoted, but the chairman or somebody gave to the press an official story, telling how the meeting had voted to stand firm against the threats of the union. It was a time for all lovers of America to uphold the country's welfare against enemies without and within—so ran the statement in both the morning newspapers. "What are you going to do?" asked Bunny. "What can I do, son?" Dad's face was grey, and deeply lined; he was not used to staying up so late, Bunny knew, and he had probably lain awake until morning, worrying over this situation. And yet Bunny could not help making it harder for him. "Are we going to let those fellows run our business, Dad?" "It looks as if we'd have to, son. I'm in no position financially to buck the game." "But with all the oil you've got!" "I've got a good deal of oil, but it's mostly in the ground, and what I'd need for this job would be a couple of million dollars in the bank." He went on to explain how modern affairs were conducted. A man never had enough money, no matter how much he had; he was always reaching out, doing business with the future, so to speak. He put money into the bank, and that gave him the right to take out more than he had put in; the bank would take his "paper," as it was called. Here Dad was drilling a lot of new wells, he was buying machinery and materials, and paying f
or labor in advance—all on the certainty of the oil he was going to get next month and the month after; he knew he was going to get it, and the banks trusted him, on the basis of his reputation, and the known value of his property. But if Dad were to set out to fight the Federation, he might just as well forget there was such a thing as a bank in the State of California; he'd have to pay cash for everything, he'd have to stop all his development work, and even then, he mightn't be able to meet his notes when they fell due. Bunny was appalled; for he had thought of his father as one of the richest men in the state, and one of the most independent. "Why, Dad, we don't own our own business! We don't even own our souls!" That started the other on one of his stock themes. Business was business, and not the same as a tea-party. Property was hard to get, and, as he had told his son many times, there was always people trying to take it away from you. If there was going to be any security for wealth, there had to be discipline, and men of wealth had to stand together. It might seem harsh, if you didn't understand, but it was the way of life. Look at that war over there in Europe; it was a horrible thing—just made you sick to think about it; but there it was, and if you was in it, you was in, and you had to fight. It was exactly the same with the business game; there was no safety for you, unless you stood with the group that had power. If you stepped out of the reservation, the wolves would tear you to pieces in short order. But Bunny was not satisfied with general principles; he wanted the details of this situation. "Please tell me, Dad, just who are these men we have to work with?" Dad answered: they were a group, it was hard to define them, you might say the "open shop crowd"; they were the big business men who ran Angel City, and the territory which lived upon the city, or supported the city, according as you looked at it. They had several organizations, not merely the Petroleum Employers' Federation, but the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association, the Chamber of Commerce, the Bankers' Club. They were interlocked, and a little group ran them all—Fred Naumann could call a dozen men on the telephone, and turn you into an outcast from business society; no bank would lend you a dollar, and none of the leading merchants would give you credit, some would refuse to do business with you even for cash. To the hour of his death, the elder Ross never really understood this strange son of his. He was always being surprised by the intensity with which Bunny took things, which to the father were part of the nature of life. The father kept two compartments in his mind, one for things that were right, and the other for things that existed, and which you had to allow to exist, and to defend, in a queer, half-hearted, but stubborn way. But here was this new phenomenon, a boy's mind which was all one compartment; things ought to be right, and if they were not right, you ought to make them right, or else what was the use of having any right—you were only fooling yourself about it. "Listen, Dad," the boy pleaded; "isn't there some way we could break that combination? Couldn't you stop your new developments, and put everything on a cash basis, and go slow? You know, that might be better, in a way; you're trying to do too much, and you need a rest badly." The other could not help smiling, in spite of the pain he read in Bunny's face. "Son," he answered, "if I set out to buck that game, I'd never have another hour's rest, till you buried me up there on the hill beside Joe Gundha." "But you've got the oil, and if you settle with the men, it will go on flowing. It will be the only oil from this whole district!" "Yes, son, but oil ain't cash; it has got to be sold." "You mean they wouldn't take it from you?" "I can't say, son; I've never known such a case, and I don't know just what they'd do. All I say is this—they wouldn't let me lose their strike for them! They'd find some way to get me, just as sure as tomorrow's sunrise!"
Oil! A Novel by Upton Sinclair Page 20