Эптон Синклер - Oil!

This was Big Magic. Not only did it thrill the believers, and bring swarms of people to town, but it caught the fancy of the newspapers, and they rushed reporters to write up the event. Many new miracles were wrought, and many crutches hung up; and in the midst of the excitement the Lord vouchsafed a fresh sign of His mercy—Eli, preaching to the throngs outside, announced in the Lord’s name that if the reading were completed, Divine Omnipotence would cause the rest of the money to be offered, and the Angel City tabernacle would be erected within a year. After that, of course, nothing could stop the “Marathon,” and the epoch-making feat was accomplished in the time of four days, five hours, seventeen minutes, and forty-two and three-quarter seconds—glory hallelujah, praise the Lord!

Bunny saw the shouting thousands with their heads bared, their faces uplifted and a searchlight playing upon them; for Eli had money now, and used it for spectacular effects. His “silver band” was mounted upon a platform with electric lights shining upon the instruments; and the prophet would exhort, and then wave his hand, and the musicians would blare forth an old gospel tune, and the crowd would burst into a mighty chorus, and sway and stamp, their souls transported to glory, the tears running down their cheeks.

There were many wives of oil workers among the audience, and these would plead and pray, and persuade their husbands to attend. There is not much for a man to do out in a lonely place like Paradise; a third-rate movie was the only form of amusement—and here were the bright lights and the silver trumpets and the heavenly raptures, all free—and with a gambler’s chance of heaven thrown in! No wonder many of the men “fell for it”; and Paul and his little bunch of rebels insisted that the employers had hired Eli to come there at this critical time, while the struggle to save the union was impending. Bunny would have thought the idea exaggerated—but then he remembered that five hundred dollars his father had given to Eli! Also, he remembered a remark of Vernon Roscoe at the Monastery—“They can have their pie in the sky, so long as they let me have the oil.” Annabelle had given a frightened exclamation, “Hush, Verne! What a horrid thing to say!” For Annabelle knew that the heavenly powers are jealous, and liable to cruel whims.

The “wobblies” also were trying to stir the revival spirit in their members, and use the power of song. But feeble indeed was the singing in the “jungles,” compared with the mighty blast of Eli’s silver trumpets, and the hosannas of his hosts. The operators were not subsidizing the “wobblies,” you bet! They had sent their sheriff, and a score of deputies, carrying shotguns loaded with buckshot, and raided the camping place of the rebels, and loaded eleven of them into a motor truck and locked them up in the county jail. There they were now, and Bunny had to hear the tragic tale of Eddie Piatt, one of Paul’s friends, who had gone down to San Elido to find out what the bail was, and had been locked up on suspicion of being a member of the outlaw organization. He wasn’t, but how could he prove it?

Ruth, who told Bunny about it, wanted to know if Dad wouldn’t put up the money to bail him out. Did Bunny remember him, a dark-haired young fellow, very quiet, determined-looking? Yes, Bunny remembered him. Well, he was as trust-worthy as a Jewish garment worker, and the food they gave you in that terrible place was full of worms, and the boys hadn’t even a blanket to cover them. It was planned to railroad them all to San Quentin, and Paul knew one of the “politicals” who had just come out of there, and oh, the most horrible stories—the tears came into Ruth’s eyes as she told how they put the men to work in the jute mill, and the brown stuff filled their lungs, and presently they were coughing, it was the same as a death-sentence. When they could not stand the labor, they were beaten and thrown into the “hole”—and think of fellows that you knew and cared for having to go through such things!

Bunny knew the sheriff of San Elido county, and also the district attorney, and knew that Dad had named these officials, and could give them orders. But would Dad butt in on their efforts to protect the oil companies? Would he go against the wishes of all the other directors, executives and superintendents of Ross Consolidated? No, assuredly he would not! All that Bunny could do was to give Ruth a couple of hundred dollars, with which to get food for the prisoners. He went back to take up his work at the university; and inside himself there was a “hole,” and his conscience would drag him to it, protesting and resisting in vain, and throw him in, and shut a steel door behind him with a terrifying clang. Yes, even when Bunny was up in the snow-white room with the ivy vines wreathing the window, even while he held in his arms the eager body of his beloved—even then the prison door would clang, and he would be in a tank of the county jail with the “class-war prisoners”!

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!”