Oil! A Novel by Upton Sinclair

  CHAPTER XVII THE EXPOSURE

  1

  All that fall and winter the quail had been calling from the hills of Paradise unheeded. Bunny didn't want to go there. But now it chanced that Dad had some matters to see to, and his chauffeur had got sent to jail for turning bootlegger in his off hours. Dad was having spells of bad health, when he did not feel equal to driving; and this being a Friday, his son offered to take him. The Ross Junior tract had nothing left of Bunny but the name. There was a strange woman as housekeeper in the ranch-house, and the Rascum cabin had been moved, and the bougainvillea vine replaced by a derrick. Every one of the fellows who had met with Paul was gone, and there were no more intellectual discussions. Paradise was now a place where men worked hard at getting out oil, and kept their mouths closed. There were hundreds of men Bunny had never seen before, and these had brought a new atmosphere. They patronized the bootleggers and the poolrooms, and places for secret gambling and drinking. "Orange-pickers" was the contemptuous name the real oil-workers applied to this new element, and their lack of familiarity with their jobs was a cause of endless trouble; they would slip from greasy derricks, or get crushed by the heavy pipe, and the company had had to build an addition to the hospital. But of course that was cheaper than paying union wages to skilled men! A deplorable thing happened to Bunny; his reading of a book was interrupted by a visit from the wife of Jick Duggan, one of the men in the county jail. The woman insisted on seeing him, and then insisted on weeping all over the place, and telling him harrowing tales about her husband and the other fellows. She begged him to go and see for himself, and he was weak enough to yield— you can see how imprudent it was, on the part of a young oil prince who was trying to grow his hard shell, so that he could be a help to his old father, and enjoy life with a darling of the world. Bunny knew that he was doing wrong, and showed his guilt by not telling his father where he was going that rainy Saturday afternoon. They let him into the jail without objection; the men who kept the place being used to it, and unable to foresee the impression it would make upon a young idealist. The ancient dungeon had been contrived by an architect with a special genius for driving his fellow beings mad. The "tanks," instead of having doors with keys, like other jail cells, were designed as revolving turrets, and whenever you wanted to put a prisoner in or take one out, you revolved the turret until an opening in one set of bars corresponded with an opening in another set. This revolving was done by means of a hand-winch, and involved a frightful grinding and shrieking of rusty iron. There were three such tanks, one on top of the other, and the revolving of any one inflicted the uproar on everybody. In the course of the jail's forty years of history, scores of men had gone mad from having to listen to these sounds at all hours of the day and night. Have you ever had the experience of seeing some person you know and love shut behind bars like a wild beast? It was something that hit Bunny in the pit of his stomach, and made him weak and faint. Here were seven fellows, all but two of them young as himself, crowding together like so many friendly and affectionate deer, nuzzling through the bars and expecting lumps of sugar or bits of bread. Their pitiful clamor of welcome, the grateful light on their faces—just for a visit, a few minutes of a rich young man's time! These were all ranch-fellows, out-door men, that had worked in the sun and rain all their lives, and grown big and bronzed and sturdy; but now they were bleached white or yellow, dirty and unshaven, with sunken cheeks and hollow eyes. Jick Duggan was coughing, just as his wife had said, and there was not one healthy-looking man in the bunch. If Bunny had been able to say to himself that these men had done some vile deed, and this was their atonement, he might have justified it, even while he questioned what good it would do; but they were there because they had dared to dream of justice for their fellows, and to talk about it, in defiance of the "open shop" crowd of big business men! Bunny had sent them some books—they were allowed to have books that didn't look radical to very ignorant jailers, and provided the books came direct from the publishers, so that they would not have to be searched too carefully for concealed objects such as saws and dope. Now they wanted to tell him how much these books had helped, and to ask for more. And what did Bunny know about their prospects of getting a trial? Had he seen Paul, and what did Paul think? And what about the union—was there anything left of it? They were not allowed any sort of "radical" paper, so they were six or seven months behind the news of their own world.

  II

  Bunny came out into the sunshine with a fresh impulse of desperation. His father was half sick, but even so, his father must have this burden of pain dumped onto him! The last time they had discussed the matter, Dad had said to wait, Vernon Roscoe would "see what he could do." But now Bunny would wait no longer; Dad must compel Verne to act, or Bunny would take up the job himself. He drove his father back to Angel City, and learned that the radicals had organized a "defense committee," and there was to be a mass meeting of protest, at which funds would be raised for the approaching trial. Paul was to be the principal speaker—despite the fact that it might cause his bail privilege to be cancelled. When Bunny got that news, he served an ultimatum on his father; the meeting was to take place the following week, and unless Verne had acted in the meantime, Bunny was going to be one of the speakers, and say his full say about the case. Dad of course protested. But it was one of those times when his son surprised him by failing to be "soft." Bunny went farther than ever in his desperation. "Maybe you'll feel I haven't any right to behave like this while I've living on your money and perhaps I ought to quit college and go to work for myself." "Son, I've never said anything like that!" "No, but I'm putting you in a hole with Verne, and it would be easier if you could say I'm not living on you." "Son, I don't want to say any such thing. But I do think you ought to consider my position." "I've considered everything, Dad—considered till I'm sick at heart. I just can't let my love for any one person in the world take the place of my sense of justice. We're committing a crime to keep those men in jail, and I say Verne has got to let them out, and if he don't, then I'm going to make it hot for him." Verne was on his way back from the east; and Bunny demanded that he should phone the district attorney his wishes; he might phone the judge, too, if he thought necessary—it wouldn't be the first time, Bunny would wager. If he didn't do it, then Bunny's name would be announced as one of the speakers at that mass-meeting. Upon Dad flashed the memory of that terrible meeting of Harry Seager's; he saw his beloved son publicly adopting that same ferocious mob, clasping that sea of angry faces and uplifted hands and lungs of leather! Also Bunny renewed his threat about Annabelle. "You tell Verne with my compliments, I'm going to lay siege to his girl, and take her to that meeting. I'll tell her he's trying to keep her in a golden cage, and that'll make her go; and if ever she hears the full story of those political prisoners, she'll make Verne wish he'd known when to quit!" Dad could hardly keep from grinning. Poor old man, in his secret heart he was proud of the kid's nerve! Whether Dad used the argument about Annabelle, or what he said, this much is history—two days after Vernon Roscoe arrived from Washington in his private car, carrying in his own hands the precious documents with the big red seals of the department of the interior, the district attorney of San Elido county appeared before Superior Judge Patten, and entered a "nolle pros" in the eight criminal syndicalism cases. So Vee Tracy got back her ten thousand dollars, and the seven oil workers were turned out half-blinded into the sunshine, and Bunny postponed his premier appearance in the role of that ill bird—whatever may be the name of it—which is reputed to foul its own nest.

  Bunny got the news before it was in the papers, and he hastened to take it to Paul and Ruth. Paul had got work as a carpenter, and they had rented a little cottage on the rear of a lot. Ruth had started her nurse's course in one of the big hospitals, and Paul had got some books, and there was a little of Paradise transported to a working-class part of Angel City. And oh, the happiness that shone in Ruth's face when Bunny came in with the news! And then the strange mixture of anguis
h and pride, as Paul spoke: "It's good of you, son, to have taken so much trouble, and I do appreciate it; but I'm afraid you won't think me very grateful when you hear what I'm going to do with my freedom." "What is it, Paul?" "I've decided to join the Workers' party." "Oh, Paul!" Bunny's face showed dismay. "But why?" "Because I believe in their tactics. I always have, ever since my time in Siberia. I waited, because I didn't want to hurt the strike; and after I got arrested, I couldn't do anything without compromising the other fellows. But now it won't hurt anyone but myself, so I'm going to say what I know." "But Paul! They'll only arrest you again!" "Maybe so. But this time they'll arrest me as a Communist, and they'll try me that way." "But they've already convicted so many!" "That's the way an unpopular cause has to grow—there's no other way. Here I am, an obscure workingman, and nobody pays any attention to what I think or say; but if they try me as a Communist, I make people talk and think about our ideas." Bunny stole a look at Ruth: a pitiful sight, her eyes riveted upon her brother, and her hands clasped tight in fear. It was so that she had looked when Paul was going off to war. It was her fate to see him go off to war! "Are you sure there's nothing more important you can do, Paul?" "I used to think I was going to do a lot of great things. But the last few years have taught me that a workingman isn't very important in this capitalist world, and he has to remember his place. A lot of us are going to jail, and a lot more are going to die. The one thing we must be sure of is that we help to awaken the slaves." There was a pause. "You're quite sure it can't come peaceably, Paul?" "The other has to say about that, son. Do you think they were peaceable during the strike? You should have been there!" "And you've given up hope for democracy?" "Not at all! Democracy is the goal—it's the only thing worth working for. But it can't exist till we've broken the strangle-hold of big business. That's a fighting job, and it can't be done by democracy. Look at the boobs that Eli has got in his tabernacle, and imagine them setting out to get the best of Vernon Roscoe!" Bunny could not avoid a smile. "That's exactly Verne's own statement." "Well, he's a practical man, and I've a great respect for him. He wants to do something, and he finds out the way, and he does it. He doesn't let the government get in his way, does he? No, he overthrows the government by bribery. By the way, son, have you seen Dan Irving's Washington letter this week?" "The paper's at home, but I didn't stop to look at it." "Well, you'll be interested. Dan says it's known to all the newspaper men in Washington that Roscoe and O'Reilly made a deal with the attorney-general to buy the nomination for Harding, on condition that they were to get these naval reserve leases. They've been buying government officials right and left, and newspaper men also. There's a clamor for an investigation, but the gang won't let it happen." There was a pause. Paul, watching his friend's face, saw an uneasy look, and added, "Don't talk to me about it, son—I don't want to know anything I'm not free to tell. But you and I both understand—that is capitalist government, and what has it got to do with democracy?" Again Bunny didn't answer; and Paul said, "I think about Verne, as you call him, because I've just had a run-in with him, and he's the system to me. I want to take his powers away from him; and how am I going to do it? I've boxed the compass, trying to figure how it can be done legally. He's got the courts, and they'll call anything legal that he says; they'll wind you up in a spi-

  der's web of technicalities. He's got the machinery for reaching the masses—you can't tell them anything but what he wants them to hear. He's got the movies—people say he has a movie star for a mistress—maybe you know about that. And you've been to college—O'Reilly attends to that, I'm told. We could never get a majority vote—because Verne has the ballot-boxes stuffed; even if we elected anybody, he'd have them bought before they got into office. The more I think of the idea that he would give up to paper ballots—the crazier it seems to me." "But then, Paul, what can you hope for?" "I'm going to the workers! Verne's oil workers are the basis of his power, they produce his wealth, and they can be reached, they're not scattered all over. They have one common job, and one common interest—they want the wealth that Verne takes from them. Of course they know that only dimly; they read his newspapers, and go to his movies. But we're going to teach them—and when they take the oil wells, how can Verne get them back?" "He'll send troops and take them, Paul!" "He won't send troops, because we'll have the railwaymen. We'll have the telegraphers, and they'll send our messages instead of his. We'll have the men in all the key industries—we're going out to organize them, and tell them exactly how to do it—all power to the unions." Bunny was contemplating once more the vision which his friend had brought back from Siberia. And Paul went on, with that condescending air that had always impressed Bunny, and infuriated his sister. "It seems dreadful to you, because it means a fight, and you don't want to fight—you don't have to. The men for this job are the ones that have had the iron in their souls—men that have been beaten and crushed, thrown into jail and starved there. That's how Verne makes the revolution, he throws us into jail and lets us rot. We lie there and have bitter, black thoughts. All the Bolsheviks got their training in dungeons; and now the masters are giving the same course in America. It's not only that we're tempted and made hard—it's that we become marked men, the workers know us; the poor slaves that don't dare move a hand for themselves, they learn that there are fellows they can trust, that won't sell them out to Vernon Roscoe! I'm going back to Paradise, son, and teach Communism, and if Verne has me arrested again, the Moscow program will go into the court records of San Elido county!"