THE DEDICATION
I
Bunny was alone in the roaring city of New York—six or seven millions
of people, and not many known to him. There were reporters, of
course—it made a “human interest” story, fate snatching one of the oil
magnates away from the Senate inquisitors. The country was near the end
of a bitter presidential campaign, and the smallest item about the oil
scandal was of importance. Also Bunny had cablegrams and telegrams of
sympathy—from Verne and Annabelle, from Paul and Ruth, from Rachel and
her father and brothers; yes, and one from the Princess Marescu, signing
herself, with old-time nearness, “Vee-Vee.”
He purchased his ticket home, by way of Washington, and on the train he
read the back newspapers, with the day by day account of what happened
to his boyhood dream of a great oil field: enormous oceans of flame
rolling over the earth, turning night into day with the glare, turning
day into night with thunder clouds of smoke; rivers of blazing oil
rushing down the valleys, and a gale of wind sweeping the fire from one
hill to the next. A dozen great storage tanks had gone, and the whole
refinery, with all its tanks, and some three hundred derricks, licked up
and devoured in that roaring furnace. It was the worst oil fire in
California history, eight or ten million dollars loss.
In Washington was someone for Bunny to tell his troubles to—Dan Irving!
They took a long walk, and the older man put his arm about Bunny and
told him that he had done everything possible in a difficult situation.
Dan could assure him that he didn’t have to think of his father as a bad
man; Dan had made it his business to know, and could confirm Bunny’s
judgment, American big business men all purchased government, they all
justified the purchase of government. It was something that had shocked
Dan in the beginning, but he had come to realize now that it was a
system; without the purchase of government, American big business could
not exist. You saw it written plain in the instinctive reaction of the
whole business world to the oil scandals, the determinaton to damp them
down, to make nothing of them, to indict and prosecute, not the
criminals, but the exposers of the crime.
So they got to talking politics, which was the best thing for Bunny, to
divert his mind and get him back to his job. Dan had been doing what he
could in this presidential campaign, but he was sick with the sense of
impotence. The whole capitalist publicity machine had been set to work
on a new job, to glorify “Cautious Cal” to the American people—this
pitiful little man, a fifth-rate country politician, a would-be
store-keeper, he was the great strong silent statesman and the plain
people’s hero! One thing, and one only, the business men expected of
him, to cut down their income taxes; in everything else he would be a
cipher. The newspaper men were disgusted by their job, but all were
helpless, their papers at home would take only one kind of news. And
here was poor Dan with his labor press service, a score or two of
obscure papers, perhaps a hundred thousand circulation in all, and most
of the time not enough money for the office rent.
“That’s what I want to talk to you about,” said Bunny. “Before I left
France, Dad gave me a million dollars in Ross Consolidated stock. I
don’t know what it’ll be worth since the fire, but Verne says there’s
full insurance. I’m not going to touch the principal till I have time to
think things over, but I’ll put a thousand dollars a month of the income
into your work, if that will help.”
“Help? My God, Bunny, that’s more money than we’ve ever thought of! I’ve
been trying to raise an extra hundred a month, so as to mail free copies
where they would count.”
Said Bunny, “I’ll turn the money over to you with only one
provision—that you’re to have two hundred a month salary. There’s no
reason why you should run yourself into debt financing the radical
movement.”
Dan laughed. “No reason, except that there wouldn’t be any radical
movement if some didn’t do that. You’re the first really fat angel that
has appeared in my sky.”
“Well, wait,” said Bunny, “till I find out just how fat I’m going to be.
I’ve an idea my friend Vernon Roscoe will do what he can to keep me
lean. He knows that whatever I get will go to making trouble for him.”
“My gosh!” said Dan. “Have you seen the things we’ve been sending out
about Roscoe’s foreign concessions, and what the state department is
doing to make him rich? That story would beat the Sunnyside lease, if we
could get the Senate to investigate it!”
II
Chicago, and more messages for Bunny. He had cabled Dad’s secretary to
ascertain if there was any will among Dad’s papers. The secretary
replied that nothing had been found, and neither the widow nor the
daughter knew of such document. They were proceeding to Paris after the
funeral, and the secretary would cable if anything was found there.
So then to Angel City, and more cablegrams; the secretary advised that
no will was among Mr. Ross’s papers in Paris, and Bertie cabled, “I
believe that infamous woman has destroyed will. Have you anything in
Dad’s writing or hers.” From which Bunny made note that death-bed
repentances do not last very long—at least not when it’s another
person’s death-bed! Bunny had nothing from Dad, except the order for the
Ross stock, and that wouldn’t bring much satisfaction to Bertie. He
cabled to Alyse, at her Paris hotel, reminding her that his father had
stated the terms of their marriage to be that she was to receive one
million dollars from the estate, and no more, and asking her to confirm
that agreement. The reply which he received was from a firm of American
lawyers in Paris, advising him on behalf of their client, Mrs. Alyse
Huntington Forsythe Olivier Ross, that she knew of no such agreement as
he had mentioned in his cablegram, and that she would claim her full
rights in the estate. Bunny smiled grimly as he read. A clash between
Spiritualism and Socialism!
Also a clash between Capitalism and Socialism! Bunny went to call on his
father’s partner, at the office, where both could speak frankly; and
they did. Verne’s first statement was a knockout—Bunny’s father had
been mistaken in thinking that he had any Ross Consolidated Class B
stock, and therefore his order upon Verne was worthless. All those
street certificates had been sold some time ago at Dad’s order; Dad’s
memory had evidently been failing since his illness—or perhaps he had
not been watching his affairs since taking up with Spiritualism. His
business was in a bad way. In the first place, the Ross Consolidated
Operating Company, which had been Dad’s choicest holding, was
practically bankrupt. Verne had that day been notified by the fire
insurance companies involved that they would not pay the claims, because
they had evidence that the fires had been of incendiary origin; they
didn’t quite say it in plain English, but they implied that Verne or his
agents had started the fires, because the company had an oversupply of
oil and was caught with a failing market.
“Good God!” said Bunny. “What’s that, a bluff?”
“No,” said Verne, “that’s a scheme of Mark Eisenberg, who runs the
banking business in this city for the Big Five, to knock one of the
independents out. They’ll tie us up in the courts for Christ knows how
many years. Ross Operating won’t have the cash to develop that burned
over field, and if it has to assess its stockholders for the money, your
father’s estate won’t be able to finance its share without help. The
Lobos River wells are played out, and the Prospect Hill field is filling
with water. Of course your father’s got shares in my foreign
undertakings, but none of them will realize anything for a long time; so
it looks as if you’ll have to sell them out.”
“Who is to handle all this?”
“Here’s a copy of Jim’s will—you can take it home and study it at your
leisure. The executors are you and me and Fred Orpan, and you and Bertie
are to divide the estate. Of course that’s been knocked out by his
marriage; unless he’s made another will, the widow gets one-half, and
you and Bertie a quarter. I promised your father I’d do the executor’s
work, so I suppose it’s up to me. Let me say this right away—that
Paradise field bears your name, and if you want to take it over and run
it, I won’t stand in your way. You can sell some of your other holdings
and buy me out at the market price and run the business for yourself. Do
you want to be an oil man?”
“No,” said Bunny, promptly. “I do not.”
“Well, then, I’ll have to buy out your father’s stock; because the
company is bankrupt, and I won’t carry it unless I have control. You and
me couldn’t work together, Jim Junior—your ideals are too high.” Verne
laughed—but without his usual jollity. “If I hadn’t promised your old
man to do this job, I’d like to dump Ross Operating onto you and let it
go bankrupt on your hands, and see what you’d do. You didn’t agree with
your father about business men controlling the courts. Well, by Jees,
you just be an upright public-spirited young citizen, and let the courts
appoint a receiver for Ross Operating, without any bribery or undue
influence of any sort—not pulling any political wires or making any
threats or improper promises—and see how much you’d have left of the
eight or ten millions, or whatever will be collected from the insurance
companies a few years from now!”
III
From these ugly problems Bunny had a refuge—his little paper. He had
arrived on a Sunday, and Rachel had met him at the train, with a dozen
of the Ypsels, their faces shining. There was a cheer at sight of
him—just as if he had been a moving picture star! There were handshakes
all round—he and Rachel had several extra shakes, they were so glad to
be together. The young people knew that Bunny would be sad over his
father’s death, and possibly also the burning of his oil field; so they
crowded round, and told him all the news at once, and Rachel produced
the proofs of a new issue of “The Young Student,” also last week’s
issue, and several others that he might not have received.
The little office was home—the only home Bunny had, because the mansion
his father had rented had been subleased, and their personal belongings
put in storage before Aunt Emma came to Europe. The office was only one
room, but quite impressive with files and records accumulating; they had
a subscription list of over six thousand now, and were printing eight
thousand this week. But Rachel still had only one assistant—the Ypsels
did the wrapping and addressing, evenings and Saturdays and Sundays.
They hadn’t got mobbed or arrested any more; the Socialists were
supporting LaFollette for president, and that gave them the right to be
let alone for a while.
And then Ruth. Bunny went to call on her, in the same little cottage.
Paul had not got home yet; he had stopped in Chicago for a party
conference, and now was coming by way of the northwest, speaking every
night. He was having good meetings, because of the prominence his
arrests had given him. The story of his expulsion from France had been
in the papers all over the country, and Ruth showed Bunny letters
telling about this and other adventures with police and spies. Ruth had
made Paul promise to write her a post-card every single day; and when
she didn’t get one, then right away she began to imagine him in some
police dungeon, getting the third degree.
Bunny watched her face as she talked. Her words were cheerful—she was a
graduate nurse now, and able to earn good money, and save some if Paul
should be in need. But she was pale, and her face was strained. There
were Communist papers and magazines on the table, and Bunny could see at
a glance what was happening. These papers came for Paul; and Ruth,
sitting here alone many and many an evening, had read them, looking for
news about her brother; so she had absorbed all the horrors about the
torturing and maiming and shooting of political prisoners, and it had
been exactly as if Paul had been in battle.
Ruth hadn’t what you would call a theoretical mind; you never heard her
talk about party tactics and political developments and things like
that. She was instinctive, yet with class-consciousness all the more
intense and passionate for that. She had been through two strikes, and
the things she had seen with her own eyes had been all the lessons in
economics she would ever need. She knew that the workers in big industry
are wage-slaves, fighting for their very lives. And this war was not
like capitalist wars—this one had to be, because the masters made it.
But even thus believing in Paul’s work, Ruth could not help being in a
tension of anxiety.
Also—a strange and perplexing thing—Ruth was angry with Rachel and
“The Young Student”! It appeared that the Socialists had been getting up
meetings all over the country for a so-called Social-revolutionary from
Russia, a lecturer who made the imprisonment of his partisans in Russia
the pretext for attacks on the Soviet Government. The
Social-revolutionaries were the people who had tried to assassinate
Lenin, and who had taken the money of capitalist governments to stir up
civil war inside Russia. How could Bunny’s paper give support to them?
Bunny went back to Rachel and the Ypsels, who declared that this man was
a Socialist, opposing the partisans of violence; the Communists had come
to the meeting and tried to howl him down, and there had been almost a
fight. So here was poor Bunny, facing with dismay the same internal
warfare in the movement, which had so distressed him in Paris and Berlin
and Vienna! He had been so profoundly impressed by Paul and his account
of Russia, but he found that Rachel had not moved an inch from her
position. She would defend the right of the Russians to work out their
own destiny, she would defend their right to be heard in America—even
though they would not defend her right. But she would have nothing to do
with the Third International, and no talk about dictatorships—unless it
was her own dictatorship, that was going to see to it that “The Young
Student” didn’t give the post-office authorities or the district
attorney’s office any pretext for a raid! No, they were going to stand
for a democratic solution of the social problem; and Bunny, as usual,
was going to be bossed by a woman!
It was a curious thing—the nature of women! They seemed so gentle and
impressionable; but it was the pliability of rubber, or of water—that
comes right back the way it was before! From the very first—look at
Eunice Hoyt, so set upon having her own way! And even little Rosie
Taintor—if he had married her, he would have discovered that she had a
fixed religious conviction as to the proper style of window-curtains,
and how often they had to be laundered! And Vee Tracy, who had given up
her happiness—she would not be happy with a Roumanian prince, Bunny
knew. And Ruth and Grandma, in the matter of the war! And Bertie, so
hell-bent upon getting into fashionable society, in spite of having been
born a mule-driver’s daughter! And now here was Rachel Menzies, and
Bunny knew exactly the situation—it would break her heart to give up
the little paper, she had adopted it with the passion of a mother for a
child; but she would walk out of the office in a moment, if ever Bunny
should fall victim to the Communist process of “boring from within.”
IV
Bertie arrived in Angel City a week behind her brother, and afforded him
still more evidence of the unchangeable nature of femininity. Bertie had
come to get her share of the estate, and she went after it with the
single-mindedness of a rabbit-hound. Bertie knew a lawyer—her kind of
lawyer, another rabbit-hound—and she saw him the day of her arrival;
and then Bunny must come to this lawyer’s office, and with the help of
Bertie and a stenographer have the insides of his mind turned out and
recorded: exactly what Dad had said about his arrangements with Mrs.
Alyse Huntington Forsythe Olivier—Dad hadn’t said a word about it to
Bertie, alas, nor to anyone else; he had made a will, of course, and
that infamous woman had destroyed it—Bertie knew that with the
certainty of God.
And then, everything else about Dad’s affairs that Bunny could recall;
where he had kept his money and his papers, what secret hiding-place for
stocks and bonds he may have had, what he had spent, so far as Bunny
could guess, who had been in his confidence. And then the statements
which Vernon Roscoe rendered; and all the files of Dad’s correspondence
with Verne; and the trusted young executives—Bolling and Heimann and
Simmons and the rest; and the bankers and their clerks; and Dad’s
secretary whom Bertie had brought back from Paris with her—a veritable
mountain of detail, and Bunny was required to attend all the sessions,
and be just as much a rabbit-hound as the rest. He told himself that it
was his duty to the movement, which so badly needed the aid of a “fat
angel”!
Right at the outset, there was one bitter pill that Bertie had to
swallow. Her lawyer advised her that there was no chance of depriving
Mrs. Alyse Ross of her half of the estate. Bunny’s testimony was worth,
in law, precisely nothing; and so, unless there should be found another
will, they must accept the inevitable, and combine with the widow to get
as much as possible out of Vernon Roscoe. Mrs. Ross’s Paris lawyers had
named some very high priced lawyers in Angel City as their
representatives, and Bertie had to swallow her rage and admit these men
to their counsels.
There were troubles enough to need the very highest-priced lawyers.
Accountants were put to work on the books of J. Arnold Ross, and on the
statements rendered by his partner, and in a few days there began to
emerge out of the tangle one colossal fact: over and above all the money
that Dad had put into new business ventures with Verne and others, above
all the cash which he had handled through his bank, there was more than
ten million dollars’ worth of stocks and bonds which had disappeared
without a trace. Verne declared that these securities had been taken by
Dad, and used by him for purposes unknown; and Bertie declared that was
idiocy, and that Vernon Roscoe was the biggest thief in all history.
Having access to Dad’s safe deposit box, he had simply helped himself to
the contents. And with rage Bertie turned upon her brother, asserting
that he was to blame—Verne knew that Bunny would use his money to try
to overturn society, and so it was only common sense to keep him down.
Nor could Bunny deny that this sounded reasonable. It was easy to
imagine Verne saying to himself that Bunny was a social danger, and
Bertie a social waster, and the widow a poor half-wit, while he, Verne,
was a capable business man, who would use those securities for the
proper purpose—to bring more oil out of the ground. Learning of Dad’s
death, Verne had quietly transferred the securities from Dad’s strong
box to his own, before the state inheritance tax commissioner came along
to make his records! Verne wouldn’t consider that stealing, but simply
common sense—the same as taking the naval reserves away from a
government which hadn’t intelligence enough to develop them.
Now Bertie wanted to start a law-suit against her father’s partner, and
put him on the stand and make him tell everything about his affairs; and
Bunny, with the help of the lawyers, had to argue with her, and bear the
brunt of her rage. So far, Verne had been careful to put nothing into
writing; and when he took the stand, he would have a story fixed up to
leave them helpless. He could say that Dad had given him the securities,
and how could they disprove it? He could say that Dad had taken the
securities, unknown to his partner, and lost the money on the stock
market—how could they disprove that? Even if they traced the sales of
Dad’s securities through Verne’s brokers, they would gain nothing,
because Verne could say that he had turned over the money to Dad, or
that he had been authorized to invest it, and had lost it—a hundred
different tales he could invent! “Then we’ve simply got to take what
that scoundrel allows us!” cried Bertie; and the lawyers agreed that was
the situation. Being themselves on a percentage basis, their advice was
sincere!
Then an incident that multiplied the bitterness between Bertie and her
brother. Bunny went to the storage warehouse where his belongings had
been put away, and in an atlas that his father had occasionally
consulted he came upon five liberty bonds for ten thousand dollars each.
It was some money Dad had been keeping handy—possibly to bribe the
officers in case he should be caught; anyhow, here it was, and Bunny
would have been free to consider it a part of the million which Dad had
tried to give him in Paris. But he haughtily decided that he would not
join in plundering the estate; he would turn the bonds in, to be counted
as part of the assets.
But he made the mistake of telling Bertie about it—and oh, what a riot!
The imbecile, to make Alyse and her lawyers a present of twenty-five
thousand dollars! Instead of quietly dividing with his sister, and
holding his mouth! That twenty-five thousand became to Bertie a thing of
more importance than all the millions that Verne had got away with;
these bonds were something tangible—or almost tangible—until Bunny
took them out of her reach, and made them a present to those greedy
vultures! And right when both of them needed cash, and were having to go
to one of their father’s bankers to borrow money on the basis of their
claims to the estate.
Bertie raved and stormed, and Bunny, to get it over with, took the bonds
to the bank and turned them in; and after that Bertie never forgave him,
she would mention his imbecility every time they were alone. She was
making herself ill with all this hatred and fuming; she would sit up
half the night poring over figures, and then she couldn’t sleep for
excitement. Like all young society ladies, she set much store by the
freshness of her skin and its freedom from wrinkles; but now she was
throwing away her charms, and making herself pale and haggard. In after
years she would be going to beauty specialists and having the corners of
her mouth lifted, and the skin of her face treated with chemicals and
peeled off—because now she could not control her fury of
disappointment, that she was to get only a paltry one or two million,
instead of the glorious ten or fifteen million she had been confident of
some day possessing.
V
Rachel had published a brief article about Bunny’s return from abroad,
quoting him as saying that he intended to use his inheritance for the
benefit of the movement. And this statement had attracted the attention
of a bright young newspaper woman, who had written a facetious article:
MILLIONAIRE RED TO SAVE SOCIETY
And now it appeared that there were a great many people who had ideas as
to how to save society, and they all wanted to see Bunny, and waited for
him in the lobby of his hotel. One had a sure cure for cancer, and
another a perpetual motion machine actually working; one wanted to raise
bullfrogs for their legs, and another to raise skunks for their skins.
There were dozens who wanted to prevent the next war, and several who
wanted to start colonies; there were many with different ways of
bringing about Socialism, and several great poets and philosophers with
manuscripts, and one to whom God had revealed Himself—the bearer of
this message was six-feet-four and broad in proportion, and he towered
over Bunny and whispered in an awe-stricken voice that the Words which
God had spoken had been set down and locked in a safe, and no human eye
ever had beheld them, or ever would. Several others wrote that they were
not able to call because they were unjustly confined to asylums, but if
Bunny would get them out they would deliver their messages to the world
through him.
There was one more “nut,” and his name was J. Arnold Ross—no longer
“junior.” He had a plan, which he had been turning over and over in his
mind; and now he gathered his friends to get their reaction. Old Chaim
Menzies, who had been a long time in the movement, and watched most of
its mistakes; Chaim was working in a clothing shop, as usual, and giving
his spare time to getting up meetings. And Jacob Menzies, the pale
student—Jacob had got a job teaching school for a year, but then he had
been found out, and now was selling insurance. And Harry Seager, who was
growing walnuts, and escaping the boycotts. And Peter Nagle, who was
helping his father run a union plumbing business in an open shop city,
and spending his earnings on a four-page tabloid monthly ridiculing God.
And Gregor Nikolaieff, who had done his Socialist duty working for a
year in a lumber camp, and was now assistant to an X-ray operator in a
hospital. And Dan Irving, who had come from Washington at Bunny’s
expense—these six people sat down with Rachel and Bunny at a dinner
party in a private dining-room, to discuss how to save society with a
million dollars.
Bunny explained with becoming modesty that he was not putting forth his
plan as the best of all possible plans, but merely as the best for him.
He wasn’t going to evade the issue by giving his money away, putting off
the job on other people; he had learned this much from Dad, that money
by itself is nothing, to accomplish anything takes money plus
management. Moreover, Bunny himself wanted something to do; he was tired
of just looking on, and talking. He had thought for a long time about a
big paper, but he had no knowledge of journalism, and would only be a
blunderer. The one thing he did know was young people; he had been to
college, and knew what a college ought to be, and wasn’t.
“What we’re doing—Rachel and Jacob and the rest of us Ypsels—is trying
to work on young minds; but the trouble is, we only get them a few hours
in the week, and the things that count for most in their lives are the
enemy’s—I mean the schools, the job, the movies—everything. So I want
to get some students together for a complete life, twenty-four hours a
day; and see if we can’t build a Socialist discipline, a personal life,
with service to the cause as its goal. Rachel will agree with me in
this—I don’t know if anyone else will—I think one reason the movement
suffers is that we haven’t made the new moral standards that we need.
Our own members, many of them, are personally weak; the women have to
have silk stockings and look like the bourgeoisie, and their idea of
freedom is to adopt the bad habits of the men. If the movement really
meant enough to Socialists, they wouldn’t have to spend money for
tobacco, and booze, and imitation finery.”
“Dat let’s me out!” said old Chaim Menzies, who had already lighted his
ten-cent cigar.
The substance of what Bunny wanted was a labor college on a tract of
land somewhere out in the country; but instead of spending his million
on steel and concrete, he wanted to begin in tents, and have all the
buildings put up by the labor of the students and teachers. Everybody on
the place was to have four hours’ manual labor and four of class work
daily; and they were all to wear khaki, and have no fashionable society.
Bunny had the idea of going out among the colleges and high schools, and
talking to little groups of students, and here and there seducing one
away from football and fraternities to a new dedication. Also the labor
unions would be invited to select promising young men and women. It was
a thing that should grow fast, and take little money, because, with the
exception of building materials, everything could be produced on the
place; they would have a farm, and a school of domestic arts—in short,
teach all the necessary trades, and provide four hours’ honest work of
some sort for all students who wanted to come.
VI
What did they think about it? Chaim Menzies was, as always, the first to
speak. Perhaps his feelings had been hurt by the reference to tobacco;
anyhow, he said it looked to him like it vas anodder colony; you didn’t
change a colony by calling it a college, and a colony vas de vorst trap
you could set for de movement. “You git people to go off and live by
demselves, different from de rest of de vorkers, and vedder dey are
comfortable or vedder dey ain’t—and dey von’t be!—all de time dey are
tinking about someting else but de class struggle out in de vorld.”
“That’s quite true,” said Bunny. “But we shan’t be so far from the
world, and the purpose of our training will be, not the colony, but the
movement outside, and how to help it.”
“De people vot are going to help de movement has got to be in it every
hour. You git dem out vun mont’ and dey are no good any more; dey have
got some sort of graft den, someting easy, dey are no longer vorkers.”
“But this isn’t going to be so easy, Comrade Chaim——”
“Listen to him! He is going to git nice young college ladies and
gentlemen to come and live lives dat vill not seem easy to de vorkers!”
“You might as well admit it, Bunny,” put in Harry Seager. “You’ll have a
nice polite place, with all the boys and girls wearing William Morris
costumes. They’ll work earnestly for a while, but they’ll never be
efficient, and if you really have any buildings put up, or any food
raised, you’ll have regulation hard-fisted workingmen to do it. I know,
because we’re picking walnuts now!”
“I don’t want a polite place,” said Bunny. “I want a gymnasium where
people train for the class struggle; and if we can’t have discipline any
other way, how about this as part of the course—every student is
pledged to go to jail for not less than thirty days.”
“Attaboy!” cried Peter Nagle. “Now you’re talking!”
“Vot is he going to do—break de speed laws?” inquired Chaim,
sarcastically.
“He’s going into Angel City and picket in a strike. Or he’s going to
hold Socialist meetings on street-corners until some cop picks him up.
You don’t need me to tell you how to get arrested in the class struggle,
Comrade Chaim.”
“Yes, but he might run into some judge dat vould not understand de
college regulation, and might give him six mont’s.”
“Well, that’s a chance we’ll have to take; the point is simply, no
senior student is in good social standing until he or she has been in
jail for at least thirty days in a class struggle case.”
“And the teachers?” demanded Gregor Nikolaieff.
“Once every three years, or every five years for the teachers.”
“And the founder! How often for the founder?” Peter clamored in glee;
but Dan Irving said the founder would have to wait until he had got rid
of his money.
They argued back and forth. Could you interest young people in the idea
of self-discipline? Would your danger be in setting the standard too
easy, so that you wouldn’t accomplish much, or in setting it too high,
so that you wouldn’t have any students? Bunny, the young idealist, was
for setting it high; and Harry Seager said that people would volunteer
more quickly to die than they would to get along without tobacco. And he
wanted to know, what were they going to do about the Communists. Harry
was no politician any more, he was a social revolutionist, and only
waiting for the day of action. Regardless of what Socialist party
members might wish, they couldn’t keep Bolshevik students out of a
college, and even if they did, the ideas would bust in.
Bunny answered by setting forth his ideal of the open mind. Why couldn’t
the students do their own educating, and make their own decisions? Let
the teachers give the information they were asked for: and then let the
students thresh it out—every class-room an open forum, and no loyalty
except to research and freedom? They were all willing to admit that
there would be no use starting a sectarian institution, to advocate one
set of doctrines and exclude the others. Also, it took a partisan of
each doctrine to set it forth fairly. So then, here was Bunny pinning
them down: “Chaim, would you be willing for Harry to explain his ideas
to your class? Harry, would you give Chaim a chance to talk?” Bunny
could see his own job—the arbitrator who kept these warring fractions
out of each other’s hair!
Then said Chaim, the skeptic, “I vant to know, vot are you going to do
about sex?”
Bunny admitted that this worried him. “I suppose we’ll have to conform
to bourgeois standards.”
“Oh, my God!” cried Peter Nagle. “Let the bourgeoisie begin!”
Jacob Menzies, the student, had just been reading a book about Ruskin,
the old-time Socialist colony in Tennessee. It was the sex problem which
had broken up that colony, he declared; and his father chimed in, “It
vill break up any colony dat ever exists under capitalism! Dere is only
vun vay you can make vun man live vit vun voman all his life, and dat is
to shut dem up in a house togedder and never let dem out. But if you let
dem get vit odder couples, den right avay vun man finds he vants some
odder voman but de right vun.”
“But then,” said Dan Irving, “according to bourgeois standards, they get
a divorce.”
“Sure ting!” said Chaim. “But not in a Socialist colony! If dey vould do
it in a colony, it vould be a free love nest, and you vould be on de
front page of de papers, and de American Legion come and bust you in de
snoot!”
VII
The upshot of the debate was that no one of them was sure the enterprise
would be a success, but all the young ones were willing to pitch in and
help, if Bunny was determined for a try. And Bunny said that he had
already been looking about for a site, with good land and plenty of
water, somewhere about fifty miles from Angel City; he was going to make
a first payment on land as soon as he could get the cash, and meantime
they would work out the details. He would give his own time for three
years to getting the institution on its feet, and if it proved possible
to develop the right discipline and morale, he would make the
institution self-directing, and furnish whatever money could be used
effectively. They would need teachers, organizers, and business
managers, so there were jobs for all.
And meantime, Bunny must go back to the interviews with lawyers, to try
to save as much as possible of the estate. It meant long wrangles with
Bertie, for their affairs were in a snarl, and getting worse every day.
Verne insisted that Ross Operating must have funds to meet its current
expenses; and did they want him to assess the stock, and force the
estate to raise the money, or did they want him to buy the lease to the
Ross Junior tract, the only asset of Ross Operating, except the claims
against the insurance companies? Verne could do what he pleased, because
the directors of the concern were himself and his trusted young
executives. He was proposing to form another concern, the Paradise
Operating Company—with other trusted young executives as directors, and
sell himself the lease, which had twenty years still to run, and was
worth nobody could tell how many millions of dollars, for the sum of six
hundred thousand!
All right then, said Verne, let the estate do better. Bertie took up the
challenge, and exchanged long cables with her husband in Paris, and went
out among her rich friends—to make the embarrassing discovery that
people who have six hundred thousand dollars in cash do a lot of
investigating before they spend it, and then want to hog the whole thing
for themselves. Bertie spent much worry and hard work—and what made her
most furious was that she couldn’t do it for herself alone, but had to
do it for the whole estate, giving the incompetent Bunny and the
infamous Alyse the benefit of her labors. She got a proposition; and
then the lawyers of the infamous Alyse turned up with another
proposition; and Bertie declared they were bigger thieves than Verne.
And then Ross Consolidated needed money, and Verne was going to assess
that stock—meaning to drive the estate to the wall and plunder it of
everything. Presently he made a proposition—there was the Roumanian oil
venture, into which Dad had put a million and a quarter in cash. Verne
offered to purchase this back for the same amount, and the necessary
papers were prepared—the heirs all had to consent to the sale, and they
did so, and then the court must approve the proposal. This meant delay,
and meanwhile the estate was delinquent in the assessment on the Ross
Consolidated stock, and this stock was to be sold out. The money from
the Roumanian deal was to save it, but to the consternation of the
lawyers, the court refused its consent to this deal. There were
technical points involved—the court questioned the authority of Mrs.
Alyse Ross’ lawyers, and demanded her personal signature, attested in
France. In short, the estate couldn’t get the money in time for the
sale, and it was Vernon Roscoe who bought the Ross Consolidated stock at
a bargain.
Oh, how Bertie raved and swore—the veritable daughter of a mule-driver!
Verne, the filthy swine, had put that trick over on them! Not content
with having stolen Dad’s papers, he had diddled them along like this,
and got one of his crooked judges to hold up the order, so that he might
grab another plum! Bertie threatened to take a gun to Verne’s office and
shoot him down like a dog; but what she really did was to abuse her
brother, who had been such a fool as to make a mortal enemy out of the
most powerful man they knew.
It taught them a lesson. They would get themselves out of Verne’s
clutches, get rid of everything that he controlled. Dad had put nearly a
million into a concern called Anglo-California, which was to develop the
big Mosul concession; and the lawyers of Alyse got an offer for that
stock, but it included time payments, and Bertie wouldn’t agree to that,
and the lawyers wouldn’t agree to Verne’s cash offer, and Bertie was in
terror lest Verne would do some more hocus-pocus—organize an
Anglo-California Operating Company, and lease the Mosul tract to it, and
swipe all the profits!
Amid which wrangling came a letter from Alyse to Bunny. She was sure
that he would not let horrid money troubles come between him and her,
and break their sacred bond, the memories of dear Jim. Alyse had gone to
consult her favorite medium, immediately upon her arrival in Paris, and
at the third seance Jim had “manifested,” and ever since then Alyse had
had his words taken down by a stenographer, and here was a bulky record,
big as the transcript of a legal trial, and tied with blue ribbons of
feminine elegance. Alyse hoped that Bunny had not failed to consult a
medium, and would send her whatever dear Jim had had to say in his old
home.
Bunny went through the record, and it gave him a strange thrill. There
were pages and pages of sentimental rubbish about this happy shore and
this new state of bliss, with angel’s wings and the music of harps, and
tell my dear ones that I am with them, but I am wiser now, and my dear
Bunny must know that I understand and forgive—all stuff that might have
come out of the conscious or subconscious mind of a sentimental elderly
lady or of a rascally medium. But then came something that made the
young man catch his breath: “I want my dear Bunny to know that it is
really his father who speaks to him, and he will remember the man who
got all the land for us, and that he had two gold teeth in the front of
his mouth, and Bunny said that somebody would rob his grave.” How in the
name of all the arts of magic was a medium in Paris to know about a joke
which Bunny had made to his father about Mr. Hardacre, the agent who had
bought them options on ranches in Paradise, California?
By golly, it was something to think about! Could it really be that Dad
was not gone forever, but had just disappeared somewhere, and could be
got hold of again? Bunny would go for a walk to think about it; and
through the streets of Angel City he would hear the voice of Eli Watkins
booming over the radio. Eli’s Tabernacle was packed day and night, with
the tens of thousands who crowded to see the prophet who had been
floated over the sea by the angels, and had brought back a feather to
prove it; all California heard Eli’s voice, proclaiming the ancient
promise: “Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we
shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the
last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised
incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”