IV
Dad went back to the field and got the representatives of his men together. He did not tell them the whole story, of course, but said that he had tried his best to bring the employers to his views, and had failed. He was bound by agreements that he could not break, but he would be very glad to meet the men's terms if the Federation would do so. If there was a strike, he would make no attempt to work his properties for the present. It would mean heavy losses to him, the shutting down of his best paying wells, but he would try to stick it out, and his men might consider they were taking a vacation, and come back to him when the strike was over. Meantime, he would not turn them out, they might continue to occupy the bunk-house, provided they would keep order, and not injure the property. That was, of course, a very unusual concession, and he hoped the men would appreciate it. The committee answered that the men undoubtedly would do so; they were deeply grateful to Mr. Ross for his attitude. The members of the committee were embarrassed, and very respectful; you see, it is hard for humble working-men to confront their employer, a "big" man, and armed with the magic power of money. The strike was called for noon on Wednesday, and the men all marched out singing songs. Not more than ten percent had joined the union, but they quit to a man—the few who might have liked to stay were not enough to work the wells, anyhow. They shut off the flow, and left everything in good order, and marched in to Paradise, where they held a mass meeting. There were nearly three thousand workers in this field, and they all came, and most of the townspeople, and a number of the ranchers; the sympathy of the community appeared to be all with the workers. Tom Axton made a speech, in which he set forth the grievances of the men, and told them, out of his previous experience, how a strike must be conducted. One thing above all others, they must keep public sympathy with them, by obeying the law and avoiding every suggestion of disorder; this would not be easy, because the Employers' Federation knew this, as well as the strike leaders, and would do everything possible to provoke the men to violence; that was the purpose for which the "guards" were coming, the strikers' difficulty would be to keep out of the way. That was generally the case in strikes, if you could believe Axton; he said that the guards were men of a low type, hired by the big detective agencies out of the city's underworld, and supplied with a gun on their hip-pocket. Whether the whiskey-bottle on the other hip-pocket was supplied by the employers, or got by the men themselves, was something Tom Axton did not know. Anyhow, they were brought here by the truck-load, and on the way they stopped at the sheriff's office in San Elido—kept open day and night for the purpose—and were sworn in wholesale as "deputy-sheriffs," and supplied with a silver shield to wear on their coat-lapels, and after that, anything they did was according to law. A few of these deputies were standing about, listening to Axton's speech, and needless to say, they did not appreciate it. The president of the union, who had come to the field to conduct the strike, also made a speech; and the secretary of the union, and the organizer of the carpenter's union—there could not be too many speeches, for the men were full of enthusiasm, and their minds were open to ideas; it was an education in the meaning of solidarity. They signed up by hundreds, and paid their assessments out of their scanty savings. Committees were appointed, and these got down to work in an old barn which had been hired for headquarters, the only vacant place of any size to be found in the midst of this oil boom. The place was crowded with men, coming and going, and there was not a little confusion, officials and volunteer helpers working as if such things as rest and sleep were unknown to the human organism. There were temporary lodgings to be found—for not many oil operators were being so generous as to provide shelter for strikers! The union had ordered a lot of tents, and would need more yet, when leases expired on shacks which had been rented on company property. Fortunately, not many of the men had families in this field; your oil worker is a migratory bird—he moves to a new field, and has to work quite a while before he gets enough money to bring his wife and children from the last field. Bunny drove up on Saturday morning; by which time the first flush of excitement had passed. It was a rainy day, and the men had no meeting place, and you saw bunches of them crowded into doorways, or under awnings, wherever there was free shelter; they looked rather melancholy, as if they found being on strike less romantic than they had expected. In front of the oil properties, especially those of the big companies, you saw men pacing up and down, wearing rubber coats and hats, from under which they eyed you suspiciously; some of them carried rifles on their shoulders, like military sentries. Bunny drove up to his father's tract, and there he saw the same sight, and it cut him to the heart—the very personification of that hatred which so pained him in the industrial world, and which he had fondly dreamed he might exclude from the "Ross Junior" field. But the truth was, the "junior" aspects of the business were fading temporarily; the "senior" aspects were in control, and giving the impress to events. Sitting in the office on the tract, Bunny pinned his father down on the matter of guards; did they really have to have guards against their own men? "But surely, son," protested Dad, "you can't be serious! Leave three million dollars worth of property unprotected?" "Where did we hire these guards, Dad?" "We didn't hire them, son; the Federation is handling that." "But couldn't we have got guards of our own?" "I don't know any guards, or where to get them. I'd have had to go to some agency, just the same." "And we couldn't have used our own men, that we know?" "Turn strikers into guards? Why, son, you must know that wouldn't do!" "Why not?" "Well, for one thing, the insurance companies—imagine how quick they'd jump to cancel my fire insurance! And then, suppose I was to have a fire, I'd be ruined. Don't you see that?" Yes, Bunny saw; it appeared as if the whole world was one elaborate system, opposed to justice and kindness, and set to making cruelty and pain. And he and his father were part of that system, and must help to maintain it in spite of themselves! "Do we pay for these guards, Dad?" "We're assessed for it, of course." "Then what it comes to, is this: we have to put up the money for Fred Naumann to break the strike; and even though we may not want the strike broken!" To this Dad remarked, it was devilish inconvenient to have all those paying wells shut off all of a sudden. He turned to some papers on his desk, and Bunny sat in silence for a while, thinking his father's thoughts. They were elemental thoughts, not requiring any subtlety to interpret. There were eleven producing wells on the tract, which on last Thursday morning had been flowing at a total rate of thirty-seven thousand barrels of oil per day. That meant, at present boom prices, a gross income of close to two million dollars a month. Dad's mind had been full of all the things he was going to do with that money; and now his mind was full of problems of how to get along without it. His face was still grey and lined with care, and Bunny's heart smote him. He, Bunny, wanted the men to win; but did he want it at the cost of having his father carry this extra burden?
V
Paul had gone with the strikers, so Bunny learned. Mr. Ross had offered to keep him on, for there was some building that needed to be done, and the carpenters were not on strike. But Paul had thought it over and decided that his duty lay with the oil workers; they hadn't many educated men among them—that was one of the burdens the twelve hour day put upon them; so Mr. Ross would have to accept Paul's resignation, permanently or temporarily, as he might think best. Dad had said there would be no hard feelings, and Paul might come back when the strike was over. Bunny went up to the Rascum place to see Ruth and ask her about it. The "Superintendent of Horticultural Operations" had gone on strike with the boss carpenter, but they were still occupying the bungalow, and Ruth did the work for Dad, whenever he occupied the cabin. Ruth said that Paul couldn't get out here any more, he was sleeping on some sacks of straw in the union headquarters, where he worked about twenty hours a day. So Meelie was staying with her sister, and they spent all their spare time baking things, and old Mr. Watkins came, with the same old horse hitched to the same old wagon, and carried the things to Paradise, where they were sold to the strikers. They had closed up their stand
at the Watkins tract, because there wasn't nobody there but guards, and they wouldn't feed no guards, not if they starved. So spoke Meelie, who was a little chatter-box; and Ruth looked at Bunny with some embarrassment, thinking that wasn't proper talk before him. But Bunny said he wasn't strong for guards himself, it had made him sort of sick to see them on the place that was supposed to be his. And Meelie said the man that was in charge at their place wasn't a bad fellow, he had been a forester and fireguard; but some of them others was awful mean, and Pap was a-scairt for the girls to go on the road at night, they cussed something fierce, and they had liquor all the time. There was an alluring odor of hot gingerbread in the kitchen, and Bunny had not yet had his lunch; so the girls set the little table, and the three sat down, and had a meal of scrambled eggs and potatoes, and bread and butter, and goat's milk and gingerbread and strawberries—for the plants which Paul had set out had been diligently tended by Ruth, who couldn't bear to let living things suffer, even green ones. Ruth was now a young lady of almost eighteen, the same age as Bunny, but she felt a lot older, as girls do. Her fair hair was done up on the top of her head, and you saw her bare legs no longer. She always looked nice working in the kitchen, because then her cheeks were rosy; she was competent in her own domain, and told you to sit down and not mess things up trying to help. She had the bright blue eyes of all the Watkins family; in her case they went with a candid, quiet gaze that seemed to go to the depths of you, and make both deception and unkindness impossible. Bunny at this time was just beginning an intense experience back at home—his first serious love affair, about which we shall be told before long. Eunice Hoyt was a rich girl, and complicated; to know her was sometimes pleasure and sometimes torment. But Ruth was a poor girl, and simple; her presence was soothing, calm and still like a Sabbath morning. The basis of Ruth's life was the conviction that her brother Paul was a great and good man. Now Paul had given up his ten dollar a day job to help the strikers, and Ruth was baking food for the strikers, and while they had money she would sell it to them, and when they had no more money she would give it to them. Meelie, likewise, was delighted to bake for the men, but that was not her only interest in them. The coming of oil to the Watkins tract had meant vast changes in Meelie's life, she was no longer to be recognized as a goat-herd, but had blossomed out, acquiring sophistication and conversation, and a bright colored ribbon in her hair and a necklace of yellow beads about her neck. Meelie had been to town the evening before, and it had been so exciting! Eli was a full-fledged preacher now, with a church of his own, and was holding services every evening for the glory of the Lord, and great numbers of the strikers had come, and grace had been abounding; and in between the pentecostal manifestations, Meelie had picked up news of the strike—there had been a fight on Main Street because a drunken guard had been rude to Mamie Parsons; and Paul had been one of a committee to see the sheriff and demand that he take either the liquor or the guns away from his deputies; and tomorrow Meelie was going to church again— there would be three services all through the day; and it was said that on Monday the operators were going to bring in strikebreakers, and start the wells flowing on Excelsior Pete; and the men were getting ready to stop that if they could—it would be terrible! Bunny drove to town and wandered about to see the sights, but none of them brought happiness to him. He could not see Paul, for Paul was hard at work in the strike headquarters, and Bunny could not go there, because it would not look right, somebody might think he was spying. No longer was Bunny the young oil prince, flattered and admired by all; he was an enemy, and read hostility in men's glances, even where there might be none. He was in the position of a soldier in an army, who feels that his cause is unjust, and has no stomach for the fight—yet it is hard to wish one's self defeat! On Sunday morning the sun was shining, and never had Bunny seen such crowds in Paradise. Eli was holding a service in the grove alongside his new "tabernacle," and was telling the strikers that if only they would have faith in the Holy Spirit, they need not worry about their wages, there was the miracle of the loaves and fishes, and was not their Heavenly Father able to feed them if they would trust him? Some believed this, and shouted "Amen"; others jeered, and went off to the playground at the school-house, where the union was holding a meeting for those who believed that wages were necessary. Bunny went there, and heard Paul make his first speech. It was a great sensation to Bunny, and in fact, to the whole town; a picturesque situation, you must admit—the two Watkins boys, the rival prodigies of the neighborhood, making speeches at the same time, and preaching somewhat opposite doctrines! It must be said on behalf of Eli that he did not deliberately oppose the strike, and probably never clearly understood how his doctrine was likely to aid the Employers' Federation. His sisters were baking bread for the strikers, working hard with their physical hands kneading physical dough—and all the while Eli was
proclaiming that he could make magical miraculous bread, whole baskets of it, by the agency of prayer. Why didn't he do it, jeered the skeptics; and Eli answered that it was because of their lack of faith. But they said it was up to him to begin; and the production of one single loaf of bread by the Bible method would multiply faith a million-fold, and bring the whole organized labor movement into the Church of the Third Revelation! Paul had a deep, mature voice, and a slow, impressive way of speaking. He was a good orator, for the very reason that he knew none of the tricks, but was entirely wrapped up in what he had to say. There was a struggle impending over the issue of the reopening of the wells, and Paul had been consulting lawyers, and told the strikers exactly what they had a right to do, and what they must refrain from doing. They would maintain their legal rights, but not weaken their case by committing the least breach of the law, and giving their enemies a chance to put them in the wrong. Their whole future was at stake, and the future of their wives and children; if they could win the three-shift day, they would have leisure to study and think, and raise their own status, and keep their children longer in school. That was the real issue in this strike, and if democracy did not mean that, it had no meaning, and talk about patriotism was buncombe. The vast throng cheered Paul, and Bunny could hardly keep from cheering also, and went away feeling cheap, and utterly out of harmony with life. He had time to think it over on the long drive back to Beach City by himself; he did not get in until midnight, and all the way he heard Paul's voice above the hum of the engine, challenging everything that Bunny thought he believed!
VI
Back in school, Bunny had to get his news about the strike from the papers, and these did not give him much comfort. The papers thought the strike was a crime against the country in this crisis, and they punished the strikers, not merely by denouncing them in long editorials, but by printing lurid accounts of the strikers' bad behavior. On Tuesday morning you read how several truck-loads of oil workers—the despatches did not call them strike-breakers— had been brought into the Excelsior Petroleum Company's tract, and how, at the entrances, they were met by howling mobs, which cursed them, and called them vile names, and even threw bricks at them. The Employers' Federation issued a statement denouncing this rule of a peaceful community by riot, and the statement was published in full. Next day it was the turn of the Victor Oil Company, which concern had brought a train-load of men to Roseville, and from there to Paradise by automobiles, with armed guards to defend them. There had been more mob scenes; and also fights between the deputies and strikers at various other places. It was not long before several strikers were wounded, and a couple of deputies badly beaten. The Federation issued an appeal to the governor to send in militia to protect them in their rights, which were being jeopardized by lawless criminals, organized to defy the State of California, and cripple the country on the eve of war. Nine people out of ten read these things in the papers and believed them. Practically everyone Bunny knew believed them, and thought he was some kind of freak because he hesitated and doubted. Aunt Emma, for example; she just knew the strikers were born criminals, and German agents besides, or at a
ny rate in league with German agents, and what difference did it make? The ladies in the clubs had inside information, right from headquarters, for many of them were the wives of influential men, who learned what was going on, and told their wives, and the wives told Aunt Emma, who was thrilled to be on the inside, as her brother-in-law's financial position entitled her. And Bertie, who was still worse, the very princess of all the tight little snobs you ever knew! Bertie went round with the younger set, and these likewise knew everything, but without having to wait for anyone to tell them. Bertie had condescended to visit one of her father's oil wells now and then, and there she had noted a race of lower beings at their appointed tasks—creatures smudged with black, who tipped their caps to her, or forgot to, but in either case stared with dumb awe, and beneath their lowering brows showed signs of intelligence that was almost human, and filled Bertie with uneasiness. She had visited Paradise once, and spent a night at the cabin, and patronized Paul and Ruth while they waited upon her, and both of them, sensing this, had been frozen
Oil! A Novel by Upton Sinclair Page 21