Эптон Синклер - Oil!

“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!’”

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 postponed, 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?”