Oil! A Novel by Upton Sinclair

by Upton Sinclair

  IV

  The newspapers announced a social event of the first importance, the engagement of Miss Alberta Ross, only daughter of Mr. J. Arnold Ross, to Mr. Eldon Burdick, a scion of one of the oldest families of the city, and recently chosen president of the California Defense League. A few days later came the announcement that Mr. Burdick had been appointed a secretary to the American embassy at Paris; and so the wedding was a state occasion, with more flowers than were ever seen in a church before, and Bunny all dolled up for a groomsman, and Dad looking as handsome as the ringmaster of a circus, and Aunt Emma, who considered that she had made this match, assuming the mental position of the bride's mother, with the proper uncertain expression, half elation and half tears. "Mrs. Emma Ross, aunt of the bride, wore pink satin embroidered in pastel colored beads and carried pink lilies"— thus the newspapers, which set forth the importance of the Burdick family, and all about the Ross millions, and never mentioned that the father of the bride had once been a mule-driver, nor even that he had kept a general store at Queen Center, California! And when the excitement was all over, and bride and groom had set out for their post of duty, then a funny thing happened; Aunt Emma, uplifted by her success as match-maker, turned her arts upon Bunny! The occasion was the world premiere of "The Princess of Patchouli," a sort of family event. Had not Dad and Bunny been present at the inception of this sumptuous work of art? Had not Dad been king? By golly, he had, and he had told Aunt Emma about it at least a dozen times—and so, what more natural than that he should escort her upon his arm, following immediately behind the star of the occasion and her Bunny-rabbit? And what more natural than that Aunt Emma should meet Vee Tracy, and fall in love with her at first sight, and tell her darling nephew about her feelings? In short, Bunny became aware that he was being manipulated by the proverbial tact of woman to think that Vee Tracy made a perfect princess on the screen, she was a natural-born aristocrat in both appearance and manner. It is part of the proverbial intuitive powers of woman, that she will be able to say exactly how an aristocrat will look and act, even though she has never been outside the state of California, and never laid eyes upon a single aristocrat in all her fifty years. Bunny said, yes, Vee was all right; she was a good-looker. With the proverbial unresponsiveness of the selfish male, he did not warm up to his aunt's hints and tell about his love affair. In fact he was rather shocked, because he thought she was too old to know about anything improper. So Aunt Emma had to come right out with it, "Why don't you marry her, Bunny?" "Well, but Aunt Emma, I don't know that she'd have me." "Have you ever asked her?" "Well, I've sort of hinted round." "Well, you stop hinting, and ask her plain. She's a lovely girl, and you're getting old enough to be serious now, and I think it would make a very distinguished marriage, and I know it would please your father—I believe he'll propose to her himself if you don't." Aunt Emma was quite charmed with this naughtiness, giving the younger generation to understand that they needn't be laying the old folks away on the shelf quite yet! Bunny always liked to oblige; so he went off and thought it over, and half made up his mind to talk it over with Vee. But alas, the next time they met they got into one of those disputes that were making it so hard for them to be happy. Vee had just come from Annabelle Ames, and reported that Annabelle was in distress, because some rascal journalist was writing letters from Washington, accusing Verne of having bought the presidency of the United States, denouncing the Sunnyside lease as the greatest steal of the century, and demanding that Verne be prosecuted for bribery. Some thoughtful friend had cut out a copy of this printed article, and marked it all with red pencil and mailed it to Annabelle's home, marked "Personal." The article was most abusive, and the name of the writer sounded familiar to Vee—Daniel Webster Irving, where had she heard of Daniel Webster Irving? Of course Bunny had to tell her at once—because she'd be bound to find it out, and would think he was hiding it from her: Dan Irving was his former teacher at the university, and head of the labor college that had failed. So then Vee went up into the air. This fellow had been worming secrets out of Bunny! And when Bunny stated firmly that he had never mentioned the matter to Dan or to any other of his radical friends, Vee cried, "Oh, my God! My God! You poor, naive, trusting soul!" She went on like that, it was proof positive of the cunning of these dangerous reds, that they should be able to keep him in ignorance while they used him for an oil well and pumped him dry! In Vee's view of the matter, it now became of the utmost urgency that Annabelle and Verne should not find out that Bunny knew this rascal journalist, and had actually helped to support him. If they found out, it would be all over with their friendship, they would be sure they had been basely betrayed, or at least that Bunny was such a scatter-brain that it was unsafe to have him about. Vee wanted to be loyal and romantic and melodramatic, just like one of her "continuities." And Bunny was bored, and told her that Dad had probably told Verne all about the matter, at the time that he, Bunny, had told his father. So the young oil prince did not ask the "natural-born aristocrat" to marry him. No, he went off and was wretchedly unhappy; because he ached for Vee whenever he was away from her, and yet they seemed to be always having violent emotional crises, and having to make it up with tears. There was no way for him to avoid trouble, except to give up the radical movement; and it was a fact that intellectually nothing else appealed to him. He wanted to see Paul, and argue with him,, and present a score of new objections to the Workers' party! He wanted to take Rachel to meet Paul and Ruth, and hear the arguments that would fly fast and furious, when Rachel set forth her opinion of the left wing insanity! He wanted to go to the meetings of the "Ypsels," the Young Peoples' Socialist League, of which Rachel had recently taken on the duties of secretary—here was real education, young folks who actually wanted to use their minds, and took ideas with the seriousness that other students reserved for football and fraternity politics!

  Of all the people Bunny knew, it appeared just now that only one was perfectly successful and completely happy, and that was Eli Watkins, prophet of the Third Revelation. For the Lord had carried out to the letter the promise revealed to the runners of the Bible Marathon; he had caused a great banker, Mark Eisenberg, who ran the financial affairs of Angel City, to reflect upon the importance of Eli's political influence, and to put up a good part of the money for the new tabernacle. Now the structure was completed, and was opened amid such glory to the Lord as had never been witnessed in this part of the world. Southern California is populated for the most part by retired farmers from the middle west, who have come out to die amid sunshine and flowers. Of course they want to die happy, and with the assurance of sunshine and flowers beyond; so Angel City is the home of more weird cults and doctrines—you couldn't form any conception of it till you came to investigate. To run your eye over the pages of performances advertised in the Sunday newspapers would cause you to burst into laughter or tears, according to your temperament. Wherever three or more were gathered together in the name of Jesus or Buddha or Zoroaster, or Truth or Light or Love, or New Thought or Spiritualism or Psychic Science—there was the beginning of a new revelation, with mystical, inner states of bliss and esoteric ways of salvation. Eli had advantages over most of these spiritual founders. In the first place, he had been a real shepherd of flocks and herds, and there are age-old traditions attaching to this profession. Also it was symbolically useful; what Eli had done to the goats he was now doing to the human goats of Angel City, gathering them into the fold and guarding them from the cruel wolf Satan. He had taken to carrying a shepherd's crook on the platform, and with his white robes and the star shining in his yellow hair, he would call the flocks, just as he had done upon the hills, and when he passed the collection plate, they would do the shearing of themselves. Eli possessed a sense of drama and turned it loose in the devising of primitive little tableaux and pageants, which gave rapture to his simple minded followers. When he told how he had been tempted of the devil, the wicked One came upon the scene, hoofs, horns and tail, and with a red spotlight on him; when Eli li
fted up the cross on high, the devil would fall and strike his forehead on the ground, and the silver trumpets would peal, and the followers would burst into loud hosannahs. Or perhaps it would be the command, "Suffer little children to come unto me"; there would be hundreds of children, all robed in white, and when Eli lifted his shepherd's crook and called, they came storming to the platform, their fresh young voices shouting, "Praise the Lord!" And of course there was the regular mourners' bench, and the baptisms in the marble tank. You were never allowed to forget that you had a soul, and that it was of supreme importance to you and to Jesus, and that you were having it saved by Eli's aid. You were always being called upon to do something—to stand up for the Lord, or to clap your hands for salvation, or to raise your right hand if you were a new-comer to the tabernacle. But the great advantage Eli had over the other prophets was the pair of leathern bellows he had developed out on the hills of Paradise. Never was there such an electrifying voice, and never one that could keep going so long. All day Sunday it bellowed and boomed—morning, afternoon, evening; there were week-day services every evening but Saturday, and in the mornings and afternoons there were prayer meetings and Bible schools and services of song and healing blessings and baptismal ceremonials and thank offerings and wholesale weddings and Bride of the Lamb dedications—you just couldn't keep track of all that was going on in the many rooms and meeting-halls of this half million dollar tabernacle. Science had just completed a marvelous invention; the human voice became magnified a hundred million fold, it could be spread over the whole earth. The population of America had gone wild over radio, and everybody had rushed to get a set. The first great public use made of this achievement in Angel City was to open a new three million dollar hotel for the pleasure of the very rich, and the opening ceremonies were broadcasted, and the newspapers were full of the wonder of it; but it proved to be dreadful, because everybody in the hotel got drunk, and the manager of the institution placed himself in front of the microphone and poured out a stream of obscenities such as farmers' wives from Iowa had

  never dreamed in all their lives. So it was felt that the new invention needed to be sanctified and redeemed, and Eli proceeded to install one of the biggest and most powerful broadcasting stations. Through the Lord's mercy, his words were heard over four million square miles, and it was worthwhile to preach to audiences of that size, praise Jesus! Eli's preaching had thus become one of the major features of Southern California life. You literally couldn't get away from him if you tried. Dad had been told by his doctor that he needed more exercise, and he had taken to walking for half an hour before dinner; he declared that he listened to Eli's sermons on all these walks, and never missed a single word! Everybody's house was wide open in this warm spring weather, and all you had to do was to choose a neighborhood where the moderately poor lived—and 90 per cent of the people were that. You would hear the familiar bellowing voice, and before you got out of range of it, you would come in range of another radio set, and so you would be relayed from street to street and from district to district! In these houses sat old couples with family bibles in their hands and tears of rapture in their eyes; or perhaps a mother washing her baby's clothes or making a pudding for her husband's supper—and all the time her soul caught up to glory on the wings of the mighty prophet's eloquence! And Dad walking outside, also exalted—because, don't forget that he was the man who had started this Third Revelation— he had invented all its patter, that day he had tried to keep old Abel Watkins from beating his daughter Ruth!

  VI

  Bunny received a letter from Dan Irving, telling about his new job. It was a simple matter to be a radical press correspondent in Washington these days; the regular newspaper fellows were loaded up with material they were not allowed to handle. All but a few of the "hard guys" were boiling over with indignation at what they saw, and when they met Dan, they boiled over on him. The only trouble was, his labor press service had so little space, and only a score or two of radical papers that would look at its material. President Harding had brought with him a swarm of camp followers, his political bodyguard at home; the newspaper men knew them as "the Ohio gang," and they were looting everything in sight. Barney Brockway had given one of his henchmen a desk in the secret service department; this was the "fixer," and if you wanted anything, he would tell you the price. The Wilson administration had grown fat by exploiting the properties seized from enemy aliens; and now the Harding administration was growing fat out of turning them back! Five per cent was the regular "split"; if you wanted to recover a ten million dollar property, you turned over half a million in liberty bonds to the "fixer." Bootlegging privileges were sold for millions, and deals were made right in the lobbies of the Capitol. Dan heard from insiders that more than three hundred millions had already been stolen from the funds appropriated for relief of war veterans—the head of that bureau was another of the "Ohio gang." And the amazing fact was, no matter how many of these scandals you might unearth, you couldn't get a single big newspaper or magazine in the country to touch them! Bunny took that letter to his father, and as usual it meant to the old man exactly the opposite of what it meant to Bunny. Yes, politics were rotten, and so you saw the folly of trusting business matters to government. Take business away from the politicians, and turn it over to business men, who would run it without graft. If those oil lands had been given to Dad and Verne in the beginning, there wouldn't have been any bribing—wasn't that clear? Dad and Verne were patriots, putting an end to a vicious public policy! Did Dad really believe that? It was hard for Bunny to be sure. Dad had lies that he told to the public; and perhaps he had others that he told to his son, and yet others that he told to himself. If you laid hold of him and tore all those lies away, he would not be able to stand the sight of his nakedness. His enemies, the "soreheads" in Congress, were busily engaged in depriving him of these spiritual coverings. There was one old senator in Washington by the name of LaFollette—his head had been sore for forty years, and no way could be found to heal it. Now he was denouncing the oil leases, and demanding an investigation. The Harding machine had blocked him, but it couldn't keep him from making speeches—he would talk for eight hours at a stretch, and the galleries would be full, and then he would mail out his speeches under government frank. Dad would grumble and growl—and then in the midst of it he would realize that his own dear son was on the side of these trouble-makers! Instead of sympathizing with his father's lies, Bunny was criticizing them, and making his father ashamed! Then a painful thing happened. There was a newspaper publisher in a western city, one of those old pirates of the frontier type, who had begun life as a bartender, and delighted to tell how he would toss a silver dollar up to the ceiling, and if it stuck it belonged to the boss and if it came down it belonged to him. By this means he had got rich, and now he owned a paper, and he got onto this scandal of the oil leases. There came to him a man who had some old claim to part of the Sunnyside lease, and the publisher made a deal with this man to go halves, and then he served notice on Verne that they had to have a million dollars. Verne told him to go to hell, and the result was, this newspaper opened up with front page exposures of the greatest public steal in history. And this was no obscure Socialist sheet, this was one of the most widely read newspapers in the country, and copies were being mailed to all members of Congress, and to other newspapers— gee, it was awful! Dad and Verne and the rest held anxious conferences, and suffered agonies of soul; in the end they had to give up to the old pirate, and paid him his million in cold cash—and the great newspaper lost all its interest in the public welfare! When Bunny was a youngster, he had read the stories of Captain Mayne Reid, and he remembered one scene—a fishhawk capturing a fish, and then a swift eagle swooping down from the sky and taking the prize away. Just so it was in the oil game—a world of human hawks and eagles!

  VII

  Bunny no longer felt comfortable about going to the Monastery. But Vee would not let him quit, she argued and pleaded; Annabelle was so kind and good,
and would be so hurt if he let horrid political quarrels break up their friendship! Bunny answered—he knew Verne must be sore as the dickens; and imagine Verne being tactful or considerate of a guest! When you went out into society and refused to take a drink, you caused everybody to begin talking about Prohibition. In the same way, when you did not join in denunciation of the "insurgent" senators in Washington, you caused some one to comment on your sympathy for bomb-throwers. The little bunch of "reds" in Congress were interfering with legislation much desired by the rich, and they were denounced at every dinner table, including Vernon Roscoe's. The great Schmolsky said, what the hell were they after, anyhow? And Verne replied, "Ask Jim Junior—he's chummy with them." Annabelle had to jump in and cry, "No politics! I won't have you picking on my Bunny!" Then, later in the evening, when Harvey Manning got drunk, he sat on Bunny's knee, very affectionate, as he always was, and shook one finger in front of Bunny's nose and remarked, "You gonna tell'm bout me?" And when Bunny inquired, "Tell who, Harve?" the other replied, "Those muckrakin friends o yours. I aint gonna have 'em tellin on me! My ole uncle fines out I get drunk he'll cut me out o his will." So Bunny knew that his intimacy with the enemy had been a subject of discussion at the Monastery! There had been a series of violent outbreaks in Angel City. The members of the American Legion, roused by the "red revolutionary raving," had invaded the headquarters of the I. W. W. and thrown the members down the stairs, and thrown their typewriters and desks after them. Since the courts wouldn't enforce law and order, these young men were going to attend to it. They had raided bookstores which sold books with red bindings, and dumped the books into the street and burned them. They had beaten up newsdealers who were selling radical magazines. Also they were taking charge of the speakers the public heard—if they didn't like one, they notified the owner of the hall, and he hastened to break his contract. John Groby, one of Verne's oil associates from Oklahoma, was at the dinner-table, and he said, that was the way to handle the rattle-snakes. Groby may not have known that one of the snakes was sitting across the way from him, so Bunny took no offense, but listened quietly. "That's the way we did the job at home, we turned the Legion loose on 'em and cracked their heads, and they moved on to some other field. You're too polite out here, Verne." Annabelle had put Bunny beside her, so that she might protect him from assaults. Now she started telling him about her new picture, "A Mother's Heart." Such a sweet, old-fashioned story! Bunny would call it sentimental, perhaps, but the women would just love it, and it gave her a fine part. Also Vee had a clever scenario for her new picture, "The Golden Couch." Quite a fetching title, didn't Bunny think? And all the time, above the soft murmur of Annabelle's voice, Bunny heard the loud noise of John Groby blessing the Legion. Bunny longed to ask him what the veterans would say to the "Ohio gang," stealing the funds from their disabled buddies. Someone mentioned another stunt of the returned soldiers— their setting up a censorship of moving pictures. One Angel City theatre had started to show a German film, "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," and this Hun invasion had so outraged the Legion men, they had put on their uniforms and blockaded the theatre, and beaten up the people who tried to get in. Tommy Paley laughed— the courage of each of those veterans had been fortified by a five dollar bill, contributed by the association of motion picture producers! They didn't want foreign films that set them too high a standard! Then Schmolsky. He was too fat to comprehend such a thing as irony, and he remarked that the directors were mighty damn right. Schmolsky, a Jew from Ruthenia, or Rumelia, or Roumania, or some such country, said that we didn't want no foreign films breaking in on our production schedules. An hour or so later Bunny heard him telling how the Hollywood films were sweeping the German market—it wouldn't be three years before we'd own this business. "Vae victis!" remarked Bunny; and Schmolsky looked at him, puzzled, and said, "Huh?"