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!