Oil (filmed as There Will Be Blood) (53 page)

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!"

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 lifted 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!