“Is there going to be shooting, Mr. Roscoe?”
“That’s up to your Bolshevik friends. We’ve got what we want, and they’re going to take it away from us.”
“We needed the oil workers during the war, Mr. Roscoe, and we made them promises—”
“Pardon me, kiddo—we didn’t make any promises at all! A god-damn long-faced snivelling college professor made them for us, and we’re done with that bunk for good! We’ve got a business man for president, and we’re going to run this country on business lines. And let me tell you for one, I’m god-damn sick of having to buy labor leaders, and I can think of cheaper ways to manage it.”
Bunny was startled. “Is that really true, Mr. Roscoe? Have you been able to buy the oil workers’ officials?”
Verne hitched himself a few inches across the desk, and stuck a large finger at Bunny’s face. “Kiddo,” he said, “get this straight: I can buy any officials, just the same as I can buy any politicians, or anybody else that a bunch of boobs can elect to office. And I know what you’re thinking—here’s an old cow-puncher, without any fine ideals, and he’s got a barrel o’ money and thinks he can do anything he pleases with it. But that ain’t the point, my boy—it’s because I had the brains to make the money, and I got the brains to use it. Money ain’t power till it’s used, and the reason I can buy power is because men know I can use it—or else, by Jees, they wouldn’t sell it to me. You get that?”
“Yes, but what are you going to do with the power, Mr. Roscoe?”
“I’m going to find oil and bring it to the top of the ground and refine it and sell it to whoever’s got the price. So long as the world needs oil, that’s my job; and when they can get along without oil, I’ll do something else. And if anybody wants a share in that job, let him do like I done, get out and sweat, and work, and play the game.”
“But Mr. Roscoe, that’s hardly practical advice for all the workers. Everybody can’t be an operator.”
“No, kiddo, you bet your boots they can’t—only them that’s got the brains. The rest have to work; and if they work for me, they’ll get fair wages, and the money will be there every Saturday night for them, no matter how much worrying and planning I got to do. But when some feller comes along with the gift of the gab, and sticks himself in between me and my men, and says I can’t deal with them except by paying him a rake-off, why then I say, ‘The jute-mill for him!’ ”