to silence, and Bertie had condescended to admit that they were very decent working people, but she couldn't comprehend why her brother persisted in making intimates of such. "My God," stormed Bunny, in a rage, "what are we?" And that, of course, was disgusting of him—to remind his sister that their father had been driving mule-teams in a construction camp once upon a not very long time, and why was it any better to drive mules than to build houses? Bertie said with dignity that her father had raised himself by innate superiority; she knew he had "good blood," even though she could not prove it. Bunny answered that Paul and Ruth might have "good blood" too, and they were certainly on the way to raising themselves. It was a subject about which the two would never cease to quarrel. Bertie insisted that Paul patronized her brother, and presumed upon his good nature, taking towards him an intolerable attitude of superiority. Paul had taken to calling him "son," as he heard Dad doing, and such impudence was that! Bertie referred to her brother's friend as "your old Paul"; and, said Bertie, "your old Paul has gone and turned traitor to Dad, and it's just what I told you all along, you can't trust such people." And when Bertie found that Bunny was half-heartedly sympathizing with Paul, and yearning towards the "mob" himself, she called him a perfect little wretch, an ingrate, and what not. Their father was risking his life, staying up there among those outlaw mobs, something which none of the other operators did—they remained in their offices in Angel City, and let their agents break the strike for them. But Dad, of course, was influenced by Bunny, with his silly, sentimental notions; and if anything were to happen to him up there, Bunny would carry the responsibility all his life. Dad came home after a few days, and made Bertie still more indignant by telling the members of the family they would have to go slow on expenditures until the strike was over; he was going to have a hard time with his financing. Bertie suggested sarcastically that Bunny might like to sell his car to help his father out in the pinch. Dad told how there had been a little fuss on the property, one of the strikers had got into a fight with a guard at night; it wasn't clear just whose the blame was, but the captain of the guards had threatened to withdraw them all if Dad did not turn the strikers out of the bunk-house and off the property. They had finally compromised by Dad's putting up a fence between the rest of the property, and the part near the road which was occupied by the bunk-house and the homes of the men. It was a fence of barbed wire, eight feet high, and Bertie remarked sarcastically that it would be another place where Bunny and "his Ruth" could grow roses. This jibe hurt, because it summed up to Bunny the part he was playing in this struggle—growing roses on the barbed wire fence which separated capital from labor. Dad rebuked Bertie, saying that the men were not criminals, they were decent fellows, most of them, and good Americans; the Germans had nothing to do with it at all. The trouble was, they were being misled by agitators just now. But that didn't help matters with Bertie, because "Bunny's old Paul" was one of the worst of these agitators. And Bertie didn't think her father ought to sleep up there in that lonely cabin, and let those Watkins people cook for him. She had heard a wild tale about some restaurant workers on strike who had put poison in the soup; and when Dad and Bunny burst into laughter at that, she said she didn't exactly mean Paul or Ruth would do such a thing, but they certainly couldn't enjoy cooking for both the strikers and for Dad at the same time, and Dad ought to be indignant with them for deserting him in a crisis. Bunny took occasion to declare that Ruth was a true-hearted girl; and his sister broke in, oh yes, of course, she knew Bunny's admiration for the wonderful Miss Ruth, the next thing they'd be hearing he was in love with her—or would it be with Meelie, or what was the other one's name? Bunny got up and walked out of the room. Bunny was in love with somebody else, and his sister was hateful in this attitude of class-bigotry. And yet, he had to remind himself, within her own circle Bertie was generous, and sometimes tender-hearted. She was loyal to her friends, she would help them if they got into trouble, and would work and scheme to entertain them. You see, Bertie knew these people; they were all rich, and so she considered them her equals, and was willing to enter into their lives. But the oil-workers Bertie did not know; they were a lower order of beings, created for her pleasure, and owing her a debt of submission, which they were trying to get out of paying. And what was Bertie, that the oil workers should support her? She was a dashing and brilliant young person, who knew how to spend a great deal of money in super-elegant ways, in the company of other young persons possessing the same accomplishment; she was racing about with them, and her talk was of what they said and what they did and what they owned. Bertie was going a fast pace, seldom in before the small hours of the morning, and if she was up before lunch, it was because she had an engagement to rush away. What was the use of having a lot of money if you didn't have a good time with it? That was the doctrine Bertie hammered into her younger brother; and Aunt Emma echoed it; and now came Eunice Hoyt, who had chosen Bunny, and had the most powerful leverage of all. Be young, be young! everybody cried. Why should you carry all the burden of the world upon your shoulders? Especially since there was not a thing you could do—since the world was fixed and ordained, and would not let you touch the least of all its vested and endowed and chartered disharmonies!
VII
The German submarines had sunk one American vessel too many, and America was going to war; Congress had been summoned, and the whole country was on tiptoe with belligerency. The newspapers had pages of despatches from Washington and New York, and from the capitals of Europe; so it was not surprising that the news of the Paradise oil strike got crowded out. Once in a while you saw an inch or two buried in a back page; three strikers had been arrested, charged with beating up a strike-breaker on a dark night; it was declared by the operators that the strikers had attempted to set fires in the district, and that German agents were active among the trouble-makers: some little thing like that, to remind you that three thousand men, and the wives and children of many of them, were waging a desperate struggle with starvation. Dad of course had daily reports of what was happening, and so Bunny got the news. Little by little the operators had gathered up a supply of men, paying them extra wages, and bringing them to the field. They were seldom skilled men, and there were many accidents; nevertheless, a number of the wells were back on production, and in two or three cases some drilling was being done. But on the Ross tract everything stood idle; and Bunny could see that his father was irritated by this situation. He was losing a fortune every day, and at the same time losing caste with his associates, who thought he was either crack-brained, or a traitor, they could not make out which. Of course, the Big Five were glad enough to see one of the independents cutting his own throat; but they pretended to be indignant, and spread rumors and propaganda against their rival, and magnified the trouble he was causing in the field. Bunny could see all this, and he got the sting of it from the gossip which Aunt Emma brought home from the clubs, and Bertie from her house-parties and dinner-dances. And then he would think of the men, clinging pitifully to their hope of a better life, and his heart would be torn in half. There was only one thing that could justify Dad's course, and that was for the men to win; they must win, they must! It was the way Bunny felt when he sat and watched a foot-ball game, and cheered himself hoarse for the home-team. He had an impulse to jump into the arena and help the team—but alas, the rules of the game forbade such action! There had been more trouble with the guards at the Ross tract, and Dad was going up to the field, and Bunny went along for a week-end. It was springtime now, and the hills were green, and the fruit-trees in blossom—oh, beautiful, beautiful! But human beings were miserable, millions of them, and why could they not learn to be happy in such a world? It was springtime all over the country, and yet everybody was preparing to go to war, and form vast armies, and kill other people, also groping for happiness! Everybody said that it had to be; and yet something in Bunny would not cease to dream of a world in which people did not maim and kill one another, and destroy, not merely the happiness of ot
hers, but their own. They came to Paradise, and there was the strange sight of idle men, hanging about the streets; and of guards at the entrances to all the oil properties. There was somebody making a speech on a vacant lot, and a crowd listening. It was a great time for all sorts of cranks with things to teach—itinerant evangelists, and patent medicine venders, and Socialist orators—the people heard them all impartially. Bunny found that his reading room was being patronized now, there were men who had read all the magazines, even to the advertisements! Dad interviewed a committee of his men. It was an impossible situation, they reported, the guards were deliberately making trouble, they were drunk part of the time, and didn't know what they were doing or had done. Therefore the union had put up some more tents, and the men in the bunk-house were about to move out. Those who had families, and occupied the houses, would try to stay on, if Mr. Ross would permit it; there was no place for the families to go, and they dared not leave the women and children alone in the neighborhood of the guards. Dad interviewed the captain of the latter, and got the information that the men had liquor, of course; how could you expect men to stay in a God-forsaken hole like this without liquor? Dad had to admit that was true; men were like that, and when you had your property to protect in an emergency, you had to take what you could get. Bunny wasn't satisfied with this argument, but then, Bunny was an "idealist," and such people are seldom satisfied in this harsh world. Bunny went up to see Ruth and Meelie—the place to get the news! The girls were hard at work baking, but that didn't occupy their tongues, and from Meelie's there poured a stream of gossip. Dick Nelson was in hospital with a part of his jaw shot away— that nice young fellow, Bunny remembered him, he had worked on Number Eleven well; he had knocked a guard down for dirty talk to his sister, and two other guards had shot him. And Bob Murphy was in jail, he had been arrested when they were bringing the strike-breakers into the Victor place. And so on, name after name that Bunny knew. Meelie's eyes were wide with horror, and yet you could see that she was young, and this was more excitement than had ever come into her life before. If the devil, with his hoofs and horns and pitchfork and burning smell, had appeared at a meeting of the Tabernacle of the Third Revelation, Meelie would have enjoyed the sensation; and in the same way she enjoyed this crew of whiskey-drinking, cursing ruffians, suddenly vomited out of the city's underworld into her peaceful and pious and springtime-decorated village. Bunny asked about Paul, and learned that he had been put on the strike committee, and was editing a little paper which the union was publishing; it was lovely, and had Bunny seen it? They produced a copy—a double sheet, mimeographed on both sides for economy, and with a little oil-derrick at the top of the first sheet, alongside the title, "The Labor Defender." It was full of strike news, and exhortations, and an appeal to the governor of the State against the violence of the deputies and the refusal of the sheriff to take their whiskey away; also there was a poem, "Labor Awake, by Mrs. Weenie Martin, a Tool-dresser's Wife." Paul had just got back from a trip to some of the other fields, where he had gone to persuade the men to join the strike; in Oil Center they had tried to arrest him, but he had got a tip and got away by a back road. America was going to war, and everybody was thrilled about it; at school they were singing patriotic songs and organizing drill corps. This oil war was so little in comparison that nobody heeded it; but it got hold of Bunny, and came to seem the big war to him. All this arrogance of power, this defiance of law and decency, this miserable lying about workingmen! Here Bunny got the truth, he got it face to face with the men and women whom he knew; and then he would remember the tales he had read in the newspapers— and would hate himself, because he lived upon money which had been obtained by such means! His father was paying the "assessments" of the Federation, and thus paying the salaries of these blackguards—paying for their guns and ammunition, and for the bottles of whiskey without which they would not stay! What did it mean? What was back of it? One thing—the greed of a little ruling group of operators, who wouldn't pay their men a living wage, but would work them twelve hours a day. They were driving the men with revolvers and rifles, holding them away from the wells, their only source of livelihood, and starving them back to work on the old unfair terms. That was the story, just that simple; and here, in Ruth's little kitchen, you saw the process from the inside. The girls had had to reduce the price of the bread they sold, because some people couldn't afford it otherwise! Oil-workers never do save much, because they have to move about, and to bring their families, or to send them money. And now their savings were used up, and the contributions which came from other fields were not enough, and Paul, who had been saving money to study and become a scientist, was using it to support hungry families, and Ruth and Meelie were giving all their time, and even old Mrs. Watkins was helping when she could! Bunny carried this anguish back to his father. What were the people going to do, when they no longer had food to keep alive? Dad gave the answer, they'd have to go back to work! "And lose the strike, Dad?" Yes, he said, if they couldn't win, they'd have to lose—that was the law of strikes, as of everything else. Life was stern, and sooner or later you had to learn it. They must give up, and wait till a time when their union was stronger. "But Dad, how can they make it stronger, when the operators boycott them? You know how they weed out the union men—right now, if they give up, most of the companies won't take back the active ones." And Dad said he knew that, but the men would have to keep on trying, there was no other way. Certainly he could not support the strike by keeping his wells idle! The men must understand that he couldn't stand the gaff much longer, they had no right to expect it; they must either close the other wells, or see the Ross wells opened. And Bunny turned sort of sick inside, and went about hiding a thought like a dirty vice: "We're going to bring scabs into our tract!"
VIII
There was really only one place where Bunny could be happy, and that was up at the bungalow. He spent his Saturday afternoon there, helping Ruth and Meelie—the one kind of aid he was permitted to give to the strike! Part of the time they talked about the suffering of which they knew; and part of the time they were jolly, making jokes like other young people; but all the time they worked like beavers, turning flour belonging to the union into various kinds of eatables. At supper-time Mr. Watkins came with the wagon, his second trip, and they loaded him up, and Meelie drove off with him to headquarters, while Bunny stayed with Ruth, and helped clean up the place, and tried to explain the predicament of his father, and why he, Bunny, could not really help the strike. On Sunday he went in to the meetings, and heard Paul make another speech. Paul, always sombre looking, was now gaunt from several weeks of little food and less sleep, and there was a fury of passion in his voice; he told about his trip to the other fields, and how there was no justice anywhere—the authorities of town and county and state were simply pawns of the operators, doing everything possible to hold the men down and break their organization. In this white flame of suffering Paul's spirit had been tempered to steel, and the crowd of workers shared this process, and took new vows of solidarity; Bunny felt the thrill of a great mass experience, and yearned to be part of it, and then shrunk back, like the young man in the Bible story who had too many possessions. Paul had seen him in the crowd, and after the meeting sought him out. "I want to talk to you," he said, and they strolled away from the others, and Paul, who had no time to waste, came directly to the point: "See here, I want you to let my sister alone." "Let her alone!" cried the other, and stopped short in his tracks, and stared at Paul. "Why, what do you mean?" "Meelie tells me you've been up there at the place a lot—you were there last evening with her." "But Paul! Somebody had to stay with her!" "We'll take care of ourselves; she could have come to father's place. And I want you to understand, I won't have any rich young fellows hanging round my sister." "But Paul!" Bunny's tone was one of shocked grief. "Truly, Paul, you're utterly mistaken." "I don't want you to be mistaken about this one thing—if any fellow was to do any wrong to my sister, I'd kill him, just as sure as anything
on earth." "But Paul, I never dreamed of such a thing! Why, listen—I'll tell you—I'm in love with a girl—a girl in school. Oh, honest, Paul, I'm terribly in love, and I—I couldn't think of anybody else that way." A quick blush had spread over Bunny's face as he made this confession, and it was impossible not to realize that he was sincere. Paul's voice became kinder. "Listen, son; you're not a child any more, and neither is Ruth. I don't doubt what you say— naturally, you'll pick out some girl of your own class. But it mightn't be that way with Ruth, she might get to be interested in you, and you ought to keep away." Bunny didn't know what to say to that—the idea was too new to him. "I wanted to know about the strike," he explained; "and I've had no chance to talk with you at all. You can't imagine how bad I feel, but I don't know what to do." He rushed on, crowding all his grief into a few sentences; he was torn in half, between his loyalty to his father and his sympathy for the men; it was a trap he was in, and what could he do? When Paul answered, his voice was hard again. "Your father is helping to keep these blackguards in the field, I understand." "He's paying assessments, if that's what you mean. He's under contract with the Federation—when he joined—" "No contract is valid that requires breaking the law! And don't you know these fellows are breaking a hundred laws a day?" "I know, Paul; but Dad is tied up with the other operators; you don't understand—he's really having trouble financially, because his wells are shut down; and he's doing that entirely for the men." "I know it, and we appreciate it. But now he says he's got to give up, and bring in scabs like the rest. They're driving us beyond endurance; they're making a dirty fight, and your father knows it—and yet he goes along with them!" There was a pause, and Paul went on grimly. "I know, of course; his money is at stake, and he won't risk it; and you'll do what he tells you." "But Paul! I couldn't oppose Dad! Would you expect that?" "When my father set up his will, and tried to keep me from thinking and learning the truth, I opposed him, didn't I? And you encouraged me to do it—you thought that was all right." "But Paul! If I were to oppose Dad in such a thing—why, I'd break his heart." "Well, maybe I broke my father's heart—I don't know, and neither do you. The point is, you father's doing wrong, and you know it; he's helping to turn these ruffians loose on us, and deprive us of our rights as citizens, and even as human beings. You can't deny that, and you have a duty that you owe to the truth." There was a silence, while Bunny tried to face the appalling idea of opposing Dad, as Paul had opposed old Mr. Watkins. It had seemed so right in the one case, and seemed so impossible in the other! At last Paul went on. "I know how it is, son. You won't do it, you haven't the nerve for it—you're soft." He waited, while those cruel words sank in. "Yes, that's the word, soft. You've always had everything you wanted—you've had it handed to you on a silver tray, and it's made you a weakling. You have a good heart, and you know what's right, but you couldn't bear to act, you'd be too afraid of hurting somebody." And that was the end of their talk. Paul had nothing more to say, and Bunny had no answer. Tears had come into his eyes—and that was weak, wasn't it? He turned his head away, so that Paul might not see them. "Well," said the latter, "I've got a pile of work to do, so I'll be off. This fight will be over some day, and your father will go on making money, and I hope it will bring you happiness, but I doubt it, really. Good-bye, son." "Good-bye," said Bunny, feebly; and Paul turned on his heel and hurried away. Bunny walked on, and there was a fever in his soul. He was enraged because of Paul's lack of understanding, his cruel harshness; but all the time another voice inside him kept insisting, "He's right! You're soft, you're soft—that's the word for it!" Here, you see, was the thing in Bunny which made his sister Bertie so absolutely furious; that Bunny subjected himself to Paul, that he was willing to let Paul kick him, and to take it meekly. He was so utterly without sense of the dignity which his father's millions conferred upon him!
Oil! A Novel by Upton Sinclair Page 22