THE STRIKE
I
A year had passed, and you would hardly have known the town of Paradise.
The road was paved, all the way up from the valley, and lined with
placards big and little, oil lands for sale or lease, and shacks and
tents in which the selling and leasing was done. Presently you saw
derricks—one right alongside Eli’s new church, and another by that
holier of holies, the First National Bank. Somebody would buy a lot and
build a house and move in, and the following week they would sell the
house, and the purchaser would move it away, and start an oil-derrick. A
great many never got any farther than the derrick—for subdividers of
real estate had made the discovery that all the advertising in the world
was not equal to the presence of one such structure on the tract. You
counted eleven as you drove to the west side of the valley, where the
Excelsior gusher had spouted forth; and from the top of the ridge, you
could count fifty, belonging to a score of different companies. Going
east, there were a dozen more before you reached the Ross tract, and now
some one was prospecting on the far side of this tract, along the slide
to Roseville, where the Mineral Springs Hotel was being built.
The little Watkins arroyo was the site of a village. You counted
fourteen derricks here and there on the slopes, and big tanks down
below, and tool-houses and sheds, and an office. Dad had built the new
home of the Watkins family near the entrance to the place; they had sold
their goats, and they now irrigated a tract and raised strawberries and
garden truck and chickens and eggs for the company mess. In addition to
that, they had a little stand by the roadside, and Mrs. Watkins and the
girls baked pies and cakes and other goodies, which disappeared down the
throats of oil workers with incredible rapidity, assisted by “soft
drinks” of vivid hues. But you couldn’t buy any “smokes” at the stand,
these being contrary to the Third Revelation, and obtainable at the
rival stand across the road.
The new bunk-house stood a little way back, under the shelter of some
eucalyptus trees. It had six shower-baths, which were generously
patronized, but to Bunny’s great sorrow you seldom saw anybody in the
reading-room, despite the pretty curtains which Ruth had made; the
high-brow magazines were rarely smudged by the fingers of oil workers.
Bunny tried to find out why, and Paul told him it was because the men
had to work too long hours; Paul himself, as a carpenter, had an eight
hour day, and found time for reading; but the oil workers were on two
shifts, twelve hours each, and they worked every day in the year, both
Sundays and holidays. When you had put in that much time handling heavy
tools, you wanted nothing but to get your supper and lie down and snore.
This was a problem which Dad was too busy to solve just now.
Paul was boss-carpenter, having charge of all the building operations;
quite a responsibility for a fellow not quite of age. So far they had
completed forty shacks for the workers’ families, costing about six
hundred dollars each, and renting for thirty dollars a month, with
water, gas and electric light free. No one knew exactly what these
latter services cost, so Bunny could not determine whether the price was
fair or not, and neither could the oil workers; but Dad said they were
glad to get the houses, which was the business man’s way of determining
fairness.
But there was one point upon which Bunny had interfered with energy; he
didn’t see why everything about the oil industry had to be so ugly, and
certainly something ought to be done about these shacks. He asked Ruth
about it, and they drove to a nursery in San Elido, and without saying
anything to Dad, incurred a bill for a hundred young acacia trees, each
in a tin can, and two hundred climbing roses, each with its roots tied
up in a gunny sack. So now at every shack there was a young tree with a
stake beside it, and all along the road there were frames made of gas
pipe, with a rose vine getting ready to climb. It was Ruth’s duty once a
month to pull one of the laborers off his job and make him soak the
trees and the vines, and next day cultivate them and dig away the grass
and weeds. For this service Ruth was compelled to receive a salary of
ten dollars a month, and bore the imposing title of “Superintendent of
Horticultural Operations.” Bunny would inspect the growing plants, and
sit in his reading-room, and persuade himself that he had made a start
as a social reformer, resolving the disharmonies between capital and
labor, about which he was being taught in the “social ethics” class in
school.
Bunny was now almost eighteen, slender, but well built, and something of
a runner. He was brown as ever, and his hair was still wavy, and his
lips red and pretty like a girl’s; he was merry on the surface, but
serious underneath, trying most conscientiously to prepare for the task
of administering some millions of dollars of capital, and directing the
lives of some thousands of workingmen. If the people who wrote books
about these matters, and taught them in school, had any useful
suggestions, Bunny wanted to get them; so he listened, and read what he
was told to read, and then he would come home and ask Dad about it, and
when he visited the field, he would ask Paul. The teachers and the
textbooks said there was no real disharmony between capital and labor;
both were necessary to industry, they were partners, and must learn to
get along together. And Dad said that was all right, only, like
everything else, it was theory, and didn’t always work out. Dad said
that the workingmen were ignorant, and wanted things the industry
couldn’t afford to give; it was from this the quarrels grew. But Dad
didn’t know what to do about it, and apparently wasn’t trying to find
out; he was always too busy getting some new tract developed; and Bunny
couldn’t very well complain—having got Dad into this latest pile of
work!
It seemed a shame, when you came to realize it. This ranch had been a
place where Dad could come to rest and shoot quail; but now that they
had struck oil, it was the last place in the world where he could rest.
There were new wells to be planned and drilled, and pipe-lines to be
run, and oil to be marketed, and financing to be seen to, and houses and
roads, and a gas-plant, and more water—there was something new every
day. The books showed that nearly three million dollars had gone into
the place so far, and now Dad was talking about the absolute necessity
of having his own refinery; his mind was full of a thousand technical
details along this line. There was a group of men—really big
capitalists—who wanted to go in with him, and turn this into one of the
monster oil fields, with a company capitalized at sixty million dollars;
there would be a “tank-farm,” and several distilleries, and a chain of
distributing stations. Should Dad follow this course, or should he save
the business for Bunny? The boy would have to decide pretty soon, did he
want to shoulder an enormous burden like this, or to let other people
carry it for him? Did he want to study all kinds of things, like Paul,
or did he want to buckle down to the oil-game, and give his attention to
the process of cracking distillation, and the use of dephlegmators in
connection with tower stills?
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 jist 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 “wobblies,” 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 jist 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.”
Bunny 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 jist 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 jist not a-goin’ to let the men have a union—that’s all. I
said, ‘It looks as if the Federation has turned into a strike-breaking
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 jist 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 for
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 jist 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—jist 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 jist
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, jist as sure as
tomorrow’s sunrise!”
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 workingmen 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, jist 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
chatterbox; 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
fire-guard; 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 strike-breakers, 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 re-opening 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 any 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 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 football 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 others, 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, your 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!
IX
Bunny went back to school, and the oil workers took a hitch in their
belts, hanging on by their eye teeth, as the saying is. Meantime,
America was in the war, and Congress was passing a series of
measures—one providing for a vast “liberty loan,” to pay the war costs,
and another for the registering of all men of fighting age, and the
drafting of a huge army.
And then began to come wild rumors of a truce with labor. It came first
in connection with the railway men, many of whom were on strike for a
living wage and better conditions. The railways were absolutely vital to
the winning of the war, and so Congress must authorize the Government to
intervene in disputes, and make terms with the unions, and see that
everybody got a square deal. If such steps were taken for the railway
men, they would surely have to be taken for others; the oil workers
might get those rights of which the Employers’ Federation was
endeavoring to deprive them! The labor press was full of talk about the
new deal that was coming, and telegrams came from labor headquarters in
Washington, bidding the men at Paradise stand firm.
It was like the “big scene” in the old “ten-twenty-thirty” melodrama
that we used to see on the Bowery in our boyhood, in which the heroine
is lashed to a log in the saw-mill, and being swiftly drawn to the place
where she will be sliced down the middle; the hero comes galloping madly
on horseback, and leaps from his steed, and smashes in the door with an
axe, and springs to the lever and stops the machinery at exactly the
critical instant. Or, if you want to be more high-brow and dignified, it
was like the ancient Greek tragedies, in which, after the fates of all
the characters have been tied into a hopeless knot, a god descends from
the sky in a machine, and steps out, and resolves the perplexities, and
virtue is triumphant and vice is cast down. You believe this, because it
is in a Greek classic; but you will find it less easy to believe that
the “open shop crowd” of California, the whole power of their industrial
system, with all the millions of their banks, their political machine
and their strike-breaking agencies, their spies and gunmen, and their
state militiamen with machine guns and armored cars in the
background—that all this terrific power felt its hand suddenly grasped
by a stronger hand, and drawn back from the throat of its victim!
Another god descended from a machine—a lean old Yankee divinity, with a
white goatee and a suit made of red and white stripes with blue stars
spangled over it; Uncle Sam himself stretched out his mighty hand, and
declared that oil workers were human beings as well as citizens, and
would be protected in their rights as both!
The announcement came from labor headquarters in Washington, saying that
the oil workers would get a living wage and the eight hour day; a
government “conciliator” would be sent out to see to it, and meantime,
they were to go back to work, so that the benevolent old gentleman with
the white goatee and the red, white and blue suit might have all the oil
he needed. The President of the United States was making speeches—oh,
such wonderful, convincing speeches, about the war that was to end war,
and bring justice to all mankind, and establish the rule of the people
and by the people and for the people over all the earth. Such thrills as
shook all hearts, such a fervor of consecration! And such rejoicing on
the playground of the school-house at Paradise, when the news came that
the gunmen would slink back into the slums from which they had come, and
that work was to start up at once!
Dad got the news early in the morning, and Bunny danced all over the
house, and made as much noise as if it were a football game; and Dad
said he felt pretty good himself, it would sure be nice to get those
wells on production again, he wouldn’t have been able to hold on another
week without them. And Bunny said he’d cut school in the afternoon, and
they’d drive out and see the celebration, and make friends with
everybody again, and get things started. The first thing they would do
was to tear down that barbed wire fence that separated capital from
labor! In the new world there would be no more barbed wire and no more
bad feeling—the roses would bloom on the hedges in front of the
workers’ homes, and there would be a book of the President’s speeches in
the reading-room, and all the oil workers would have time to read it!