Chapter VII: The Strike (1)

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.