Read Ebook: Oil! by Sinclair Upton

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 2491 lines and 226948 words, and 50 pages

PREFACE

POSTSCRIPTUM: A PERSONAL STATEMENT

APPENDICES:

PREFACE In the following pages I have tried to make a plain and easily understandable outline of the origin, history, and meaning of Bolshevism. I have attempted to provide the average American reader with a fair and reliable statement of the philosophy, program, and policies of the Russian Bolsheviki. In order to avoid confusion, and to keep the matter as simple and clear as possible, I have not tried to deal with the numerous manifestations of Bolshevism in other lands, but have confined myself strictly to the Russian example. With some detail--too much, some of my readers may think!--I have sketched the historical background in order that the Bolsheviki may be seen in proper perspective and fairly judged in connection with the whole revolutionary movement in Russia.

I am not a Bolshevik or a defender of the Bolsheviki. As a Social Democrat and Internationalist of many years' standing--and therefore loyal to America and American ideals--I am absolutely opposed to the principles and practices of the Bolsheviki, which, from the very first, I have regarded and denounced as an inverted form of Czarism. It is quite clear to my mind, however, that there can be no good result from wild abuse or from misrepresentation of facts and motives. I am convinced that the stupid campaign of calumny which has been waged against the Bolsheviki has won for them the sympathy of many intelligent Americans who love fairness and hate injustice. In this way lying and abuse react against those who indulge in them.

In this study I have completely ignored the flood of newspaper stories of Bolshevist "outrages" and "crimes" which has poured forth during the past year. I have ignored, too, the remarkable collection of documents edited and annotated by Mr. Sisson and published by the United States Committee on Public Information. I do not doubt that there is much that is true in that collection of documents--indeed, there is some corroboration of some of them--but the means of determining what is true and what false are not yet available to the student. So much doubt and suspicion is reasonably and properly attached to some of the documents that the value of the whole mass is greatly impaired. To rely upon these documents to make a case against the Bolsheviki, unless and until they have been more fully investigated and authenticated than they appear to have been as yet, and corroborated, would be like relying upon the testimony of an unreliable witness to convict a man serious crime.

That the Bolsheviki have been guilty of many crimes is certain. Ample evidence of that fact will be found in the following pages. They have committed many crimes against men and women whose splendid service to the Russian revolutionary movement serves only to accentuate the crimes in question. But their worst crimes have been against political and social democracy, which they have shamefully betrayed and opposed with as little scruple, and as much brutal injustice, as was ever manifested by the Romanovs. This is a terrible charge, I know, but I believe that the most sympathetic toward the Bolsheviki among my readers will, if they are candid, admit that it is amply sustained by the evidence.

Concerning that evidence it is perhaps necessary to say that I have confined myself to the following: official documents issued by the Bolshevist government; the writings and addresses of accredited Bolshevik leaders and officials--in the form in which they have been published by the Bolsheviki themselves; the declarations of Russian Socialist organizations of long and honorable standing in the international Socialist movement; the statements of equally well-known and trusted Russian Socialists, and of responsible Russian Socialist journals.

While I have indicated the sources of most of the evidence against the Bolsheviki, either in the text itself or in the foot-notes and references, I have not thought it advisable to burden my pages with such foot-notes and references concerning matters of general knowledge. To have given references and authorities for all the facts summarized in the historical outlines, for example, would have been simply a show of pedantry and served only to frighten away the ordinary reader.

Among the Appendices at the end of the volume will be found some important documents containing some contemporary Russian Socialist judgments of Bolshevism. These documents are, I venture to suggest, of the utmost possible value and importance to the student and general reader.

JOHN SPARGO,

BOLSHEVISM

THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

As a matter of historical fact, the ferment of revolution had appeared in the land of the Czars long before the German economist made his remarkably ill-judged forecast. At the end of the Napoleonic wars many young officers of the Russian army returned to their native land full of revolutionary ideas and ideals acquired in France, Italy, and Germany, and intent upon action. At first their intention was simply to make an appeal to Alexander I to grant self-government to Russia, which at one time he had seemed disposed to do. Soon they found themselves engaged in a secret conspiratory movement having for its object the overthrow of Czarism. The story of the failure of these romanticists, the manner in which the abortive attempt at revolution in December, 1825, was suppressed, and how the leaders were punished by Nicholas I--these things are well known to most students of Russian history. The Decembrists, as they came to be called, failed, as they were bound to do, but it would be a mistake to suppose that their efforts were altogether vain. On the contrary, their inspiration was felt throughout the next thirty years and was reflected in the literature of the period. During that period Russian literature was tinged with the faith in social regeneration held by most of the cultured intellectual classes. The Decembrists were the spiritual progenitors of the Russian revolutionary movement of our time. In the writings of Pushkin--himself a Decembrist--Lermontoff, Gogol, Turgeniev, Dostoyevsky, and many others less well known, the influence of the Decembrist movement is clearly manifested.

If we are to select a single figure as the founder of the modern social revolutionary movement in Russia, that title can be applied to Alexander Herzen with greater fitness than to any other. His influence upon the movement during many years was enormous. Herzen was half-German, his mother being German. He was born at Moscow in 1812, shortly before the French occupation of the city. ept past the red line of the speedometer--thirty-five--forty--forty-five--fifty--fifty-five. The boy was half lifted out of his seat, his eyes shining and his hands clenched.

The concrete ribbon had come to an end; there was now a dirt road, wide and level, winding in slow curves through a country of gentle hills, planted in wheat. The road was rolled hard, but there were little bumps, and the car leaped from one to another; it was armed with springs and shock-absorbers and "snubbers", every invented device for easy riding. Out in front were clouds of dust, which the wind seized and swept over the hills; you would have thought that an army was marching there. Now and then you got a glimpse of the speeding car, and the motor-cycle close behind it. "He's trying to get away! Oh, Dad, step on her!" This was an adventure you didn't meet on every trip!

"Damn fool!" was Dad's comment; a man who would risk his life to avoid paying a small fine. You couldn't get away from a traffic-officer, at least not on roads like this. And sure enough, the dust clouds died, and on a straight bit of the highway, there they were--the car drawn up at the right, and the officer standing alongside, with his little notebook and pencil, writing things. Dad slowed down to the innocent thirty miles and went by. The boy would have liked to stop, and listen to the argument inevitable on such occasions; but he knew that the schedule took precedence, and here was the chance to make a "get-away." Passing the first turn, they hit it up; the boy looked round every half minute for the next half hour, but they saw no more of the "speed-cop." They were again their own law.

Some time ago these two had witnessed a serious traffic accident, and afterwards had appeared to testify concerning it. The clerk of the court had called "J. Arnold Ross," and then, just as solemnly, "J. Arnold Ross, junior," and the boy had climbed into the witness-chair, and testified that he knew the nature of an oath, and knew the traffic regulations, and just what he had seen.

That had made him, as you might say, "court-conscious." Whenever, in driving, anything happened that was the least bit irregular, the boy's imagination would elaborate it into a court scene. "No, your honor, the man had no business on the left side of the road; we were too close to him, he had no time to pass the car in front of him." Or it was: "Your honor, the man was walking on the right side of the road at night, and there was a car coming towards us, that had blinding lights. You know, your honor, a man should walk on the left side of the road at night, so that he can see the cars coming towards him." In the midst of these imaginings of accidents, the boy would give a little jump; and Dad would ask, "What's the matter, son?" The boy would be embarrassed, because he didn't like to say that he had been letting his dreams run away with him. But Dad knew, and would smile to himself; funny kid, always imagining things, his mind jumping from one thing to another, always excited!

Dad's mind was not like that; it got on one subject and stayed there, and ideas came through it in slow, grave procession; his emotions were like a furnace that took a long time to heat up. Sometimes on these drives he would say nothing for a whole hour; the stream of his consciousness would be like a river that has sunk down through rocks and sand, clean out of sight; he would be just a pervading sense of well-being, wrapped in an opulent warm overcoat, an accessory, you might say, of a softly purring engine running in a bath of boiling oil, and traversing a road at fifty miles an hour. If you had taken this consciousness apart, you would have found, not thoughts, but conditions of physical organs, and of the weather, and of the car, and of bank-accounts, and of the boy at his side. Putting it into words makes it definite and separate--so you must try to take it all at once, blended together: "I, the driver of this car, that used to be Jim Ross, the teamster, and J. A. Ross and Co., general merchandise at Queen Centre, California, am now J. Arnold Ross, oil operator, and my breakfast is about digested, and I am a little too warm in my big new overcoat because the sun is coming out, and I have a new well flowing four thousand barrels at Lobos River, and sixteen on the pump at Antelope, and I'm on my way to sign a lease at Beach City, and we'll make up our schedule in the next couple of hours, and 'Bunny' is sitting beside me, and he is well and strong, and is going to own everything I am making, and follow in my footsteps, except that he will never make the ugly blunders or have the painful memories that I have, but will be wise and perfect and do everything I say."

Meantime the mind of "Bunny" was not behaving in the least like this, but on the contrary was leaping from theme to theme, as a grass-hopper in a field leaps from one stalk of grass to another. There was a jackrabbit, racing away like mad; he had long ears, like a mule, and why were they so transparent and pink? There was a butcher-bird, sitting on the fence; he stretched his wings all the time, like he was yawning--what did he mean by that? And there was a road-runner, a long lean bird as fast as a race-horse, beautiful and glossy, black and brown and white, with a crest and a streaming tail. Where do you suppose he got water in these dry hills? There on the road was a mangled corpse--a ground squirrel had tried to cross, and a car had mashed it flat; other cars would roll over it, till it was ground to powder and blown away by the wind. There was no use saying anything to Dad about that--he would remark that squirrels carried plague, or at least they had fleas which did; every now and then there would be cases of this disease and the newspapers would have to hush it up, because it was bad for real estate.

But the boy was thinking about the poor little mite of life that had been so suddenly snuffed out. How cruel life was; and how strange that things should grow, and have the power to make themselves, out of nothing apparently--and Dad couldn't explain it, and said that nobody else could, you were just here. And then came a ranch wagon in front of them, a one-sided old thing loaded with household goods; to Dad it was just an obstacle, but "Bunny" saw two lads of his own age, riding in back of the load and staring at him with dull, listless eyes. They were pale, and looked as if they hadn't enough to eat; and that was another thing to wonder about, why people should be poor and nobody to help them. It was a world you had to help yourself in, was Dad's explanation.

"Bunny," the every-day name of this boy, had been started by his mother when he was little--because he was soft and brown and warm, and she had dressed him in a soft, fuzzy sweater, brown in color with white trimmings. Now he was thirteen, and resented the name, but the boys cut it to "Bun," which was to stay with him, and which was satisfactory. He was a pretty boy, still brown, with wavy brown hair, tumbled by the wind, and bright brown eyes, and a good color, because he lived outdoors. He did not go to school, but had a tutor at home, because he was to take his father's place in the world, and he went on these rides in order that he might learn his father's business.

Wonderful, endlessly wonderful, were these scenes; new faces, new kinds of life revealed. There came towns and villages--extraordinary towns and villages, full of people and houses and cars and horses and signs. There were signs along the road; guide-posts at every crossing, giving you a geography lesson--a list of the places to which the roads led, and the distances; you could figure your schedule, and that was a lesson in arithmetic! There were traffic signs, warning you of danger--curves, grades, slippery places, intersections, railroad crossings. There were big banners across the highway, or signs with letters made of electric lights: "Loma Vista: Welcome to Our City." Then, a little farther on: "Loma Vista, City Limits: Good-bye: Come Again."

Also there were no end of advertising signs, especially contrived to lend variety to travel. "Picture ahead; kodak as you go," was a frequent legend, and you looked for the picture, but never could be sure what it was. A tire manufacturer had set up big wooden figures of a boy waving a flag; Dad said this boy looked like Bunny, and Bunny said he looked like a picture of Jack London he had seen in a magazine. Another tire manufacturer had a great open book, made of wood, and set up at a turn of the road leading into each town; it was supposed to be a history book, and told you something about that place--facts at once novel and instructive: you learned that Citrus was the location of the first orange grove in California, and that Santa Rosita possessed the finest radium springs west of the Rocky mountains, and that on the outskirts of Crescent City Father Junipero Serra had converted two thousand Indians to Christianity in the year 1769.

There were people still engaged in converting, you learned; they had gone out on the highway with pots of vari-colored paint, and had decorated rocks and railway culverts with inscriptions: "Prepare to meet thy God." Then would come a traffic sign: "Railroad crossing. Stop. Look. Listen." The railroad company wanted you to meet your God through some other agency, Dad explained, because there would be damage suits for taking religious faith too seriously. "Jesus waits," a boulder would proclaim; and then would come, "Chicken Dinner, ." There were always funny signs about things to eat--apparently all the world loved a meal, and became jolly at the thought. "Hot Dog Kennels," was an eating-place, and "Ptomaine Tommy," and "The Clam-Baker," and the "Lobster-Pot." There were endless puns on the word inn--"Dew Drop Inn" and "Happen Inn," "Welcome Inn" and "Hurry Inn." When you went into these places you would find the spirit of jollity rampaging on the walls: "In God we Trust, All Others Cash." "Don't complain about our coffee; some day you may be old and weak yourself." "We have an arrangement with our bank; the bank does not sell soup, and we do not cash checks."

"Business zone, 15 miles per hour." The main street of Santa Ynez was a double avenue, with two lines of cars parked obliquely in the centre of it, and another line obliquely against each curb. You crept along through a lane, watching for a car that was backing out, and you dived into the vacant place, just missing the fender of the car at your right. Dad got out, and took off his overcoat, and folded it carefully, outside in, the sleeves inside; that was something he was particular about, having kept a general store, which included "Gents' Clothing." He and Bunny laid their coats neatly in the rear compartment, locked safe, and then strolled down the sidewalk, watching the ranchers of Santa Ynez valley, and the goods which the stores displayed for them. This was the United States, and the things on sale were the things you would have seen in store-windows on any other Main Street, the things known as "nationally advertised products." The ranchman drove to town in a nationally advertised auto, pressing the accelerator with a nationally advertised shoe; in front of the drug-store he found a display of nationally advertised magazines, containing all the nationally advertised advertisements of the nationally advertised articles he would take back to the ranch.

There were a few details which set this apart as a Western town: the width of the street, the newness of the stores, the shininess of their white paint, and the network of electric lights hung over the centre of the street; also a man with a broad-brimmed hat, and a stunted old Indian mumbling his lips as he walked, and a solitary cowboy wearing "chaps." "Elite Caf?," said a white-painted sign, reading vertically; the word "Waffles" was painted on the window, and there was a menu tacked by the door, so that you could see what was offered, and the prices charged. There were tables along one side of the wall, and a counter along the other, with a row of broad backs in shirtsleeves and suspenders perched on top of little stools; this was the way if you wanted quick action, so Dad and the boy took two stools they found vacant.

Dad was in his element in a place like this. He liked to "josh" the waitress; he knew all kinds of comic things to say, funny names for things to eat. He would order his eggs "sunny side up," or "with their eyes open, please." He would say, "Wrap the baby in the blanket," and laugh over the waitress' effort to realize that this meant a fried egg sandwich. He would chat with the rancher at his other side--learning about the condition of the wheat, and the prospects of prices for the orange and walnut crops; he was interested in everything like this, as a man who had oil to sell, to men who would buy more or less, according to what they got for their products. Dad owned land, too; he was always ready to "pick up" a likely piece, for there was oil all over Southern California, he said, and some day there would be an empire here.

But now they were behind their schedule, and no time for play. Dad would take fried rabbit; and Bunny thought he wouldn't--not because of the cannibalistic suggestion, but because of one he had seen mashed on the road that morning. He chose roast pork--not having seen any dead pigs. So there came on a platter two slices of meat, and mashed potatoes scooped out in a round ball, with a hole in the top filled with gluey brown gravy; also a spoonful of chopped up beets, and a leaf of lettuce with apple sauce in it. The waitress had given him an extra helping, because she liked this jolly brown kid, with his rosy cheeks and hair tumbled by the wind, and sensitive lips, like a girl's, and eager brown eyes that roamed over the place and took in everything, the signs on the wall, the bottles of catsup and slices of pie, the fat jolly waitress, and the tired thin one who was waiting on him. He cheered her up by telling her about the speed-cop they had met, and the chase they had seen. In turn she tipped them off to a speed-trap just outside the town; the man next to Bunny had been caught in it and fined ten dollars, so they had plenty to talk about while Bunny finished his dinner, and his slice of raisin pie and glass of milk. Dad gave the waitress a half dollar for a tip, which was an unheard-of thing at a counter, and seemed almost immoral; but she took it.

They drove carefully until they were past the speed-trap; then they "hit it up," along a broad boulevard known as the Mission Way, with bronze bells hanging from poles along it. They had all kinds of picturesque names for highways in this country; the Devil's Garden Way and the Rim of the World Drive, Mountain Spring Grade and Snow Creek Run, Thousand Palm Ca?on and Fig Tree John's Road, Coyote Pass and the Jackrabbit Trail. There was a Telegraph Road, and that was thrilling to the boy because he had read about a battle in the civil war for the possession of a "Telegraph Road"; when they drove along this one, he would see infantry hiding in the bushes and cavalry charging across the fields; he would give a start of excitement, and Dad would ask, "What is it?" "Nothing, Dad; I was just thinking." Funny kid! Always imagining things!

Also, there were Spanish names, reverently cherished by the pious "realtors" of the country. Bunny knew what these meant, because he was studying Spanish, so that some day he would be equipped to deal with Mexican labor. "El Camino Real"--that meant the Royal Highway; and "Verdugo Ca?on"--that meant "executioner." "What happened there, Dad?" But Dad didn't know the story; he shared the opinion of the manufacturer of a nationally advertised automobile--that history is mostly "bunk."

The road was asphalt now; it shimmered in the heat, and whenever it fell away before you, a mirage made it look like water. It was lined with orange-groves; dark green shiny trees, golden with a part of last year's crop, and snowy white with the new year's blossoms. Now and then a puff of breeze blew out, and you got a ravishing sweet odor. There were groves of walnuts, broad trees with ample foliage, casting dark shadows on the carefully cultivated, powdery brown soil. There were hedges of roses, extending for long distances, eight or ten feet high, and covered with blossoms. There were wind-breaks of towering thin eucalyptus trees, with long wavy leaves and bark that scales off and leaves them naked; all the world is familiar with them in the moving pictures, where they do duty for sturdy oaks and ancient elms and spreading chestnuts and Arabian date-palms and cedars of Lebanon and whatever else the scenario calls for.

You had to cut your speed down here, and had to watch incessantly; there were intersections, and lanes coming in, and warning signs of many sorts; there was traffic both ways, and delicate decisions to be made as to whether you could get past the car ahead of you, before one coming in the other direction would bear down on you and shut you in a pair of scissors. It was exciting to watch Dad's handling of these emergencies, to read his intentions and watch him carry them out.

There were towns every five or ten miles now, and you were continually being slowed up by traffic, and continually being warned to conform to a rate of movement which would have irritated an able-bodied snail. The highway passed through the main street of each town; the merchants arranged that, Dad said, hoping you would get out and buy something at their places; if the highway were shifted to the outskirts of the town, to avoid traffic congestion, all the merchants would forthwith move to the highway! Sometimes they would put up signs, indicating a turn in the highway, attempting to lure the motorist onto a business street; after you had got to the end of that street, they would steer you back to the highway! Dad noted such tricks with the amused tolerance of a man who had worked them on others, but did not let anyone work them on him.

Each town consisted of some tens, or hundreds, or thousands of perfectly rectangular blocks, divided into perfectly rectangular lots, each containing a strictly modern bungalow, with a lawn and a housewife holding a hose. On the outskirts would be one or more "subdivisions," as they were called; "acreage" was being laid out into lots, and decorated with a row of red and yellow flags fluttering merrily in the breeze; also a row of red and yellow signs which asked questions and answered them with swift efficiency: "Gas? Yes." "Water? Best ever." "Lights? Right." "Restrictions? You bet." "Schools? Under construction." "Scenery? Beats the Alps."--and so on. There would be an office or a tent by the roadside, and in front of it an alert young man with a writing pad and a fountain-pen, prepared to write you a contract of sale after two minutes conversation. These subdividers had bought the land for a thousand dollars an acre, and soon as they had set up the fluttering little flags and the tent it became worth 75 per lot. This also Dad explained with amused tolerance. It was a great country!

They were coming to the outskirts of Angel City. Here were trolley tracks and railroads, and subdivisions with no "restrictions"--that is, you might build any kind of house you pleased, and rent it to people of any race or color; which meant an ugly slum, spreading like a great sore, with shanties of tin and tar-paper and unpainted boards. There were great numbers of children playing here--for some strange reason there seemed to be more of them where they were least apt to thrive.

They came to Beach City, with its wide avenue along the ocean-front. Six-thirty, said the clock on the car's running-board--exactly on the schedule. They stopped before the big hotel, and Bunny got out of the car, and opened the back compartment, and the bell-hop came hopping--you bet, for he knew Dad, and the dollars and half dollars that were jingling in Dad's pockets. The bell-hop grabbed the suit-cases and the overcoats, and carried them in, and the boy followed, feeling responsible and important, because Dad couldn't come yet, Dad had to put the car in a parking place. So Bunny strode in and looked about the lobby for Ben Skutt, the oil-scout, who was Dad's "lease-hound." There he was, seated in a big leather chair, puffing at a cigar and watching the door; he got up when he saw Bunny, and stretched his long, lean body, and twisted his lean, ugly face into a grin of welcome. The boy, very erect, remembering that he was J. Arnold Ross, junior, and representing his father in an important transaction, shook hands with the man, remarking: "Good evening, Mr. Skutt. Are the papers ready?"

The number of the house was 5746 Los Robles Boulevard, and you would have had to know this land of hope in order to realize that it stood in a cabbage field. Los Robles means "the oaks"; and two or three miles away, where this boulevard started in the heart of Beach City, there were four live oak trees. But out here a bare slope of hill, quite steep, yet not too steep to be plowed and trenched and covered with cabbages, with sugar-beets down on the flat. The eye of hope, aided by surveyors' instruments, had determined that some day a broad boulevard would run on this line; and so there was a dirt road, and at every corner white posts set up, with a wing north and a wing east--Los Robles Blvd.-Palomitas Ave.; Los Robles Blvd.-El Centro Ave.; and so on.

Two years ago the "subdividers" had been here, with their outfit of little red and yellow flags; there had been full-page advertisements in the newspapers, and free auto rides from Beach City, and a free lunch; consisting of "hot dog" sandwiches, a slice of apple pie, and a cup of coffee. At that time the fields had been cleared of cabbages, and graded, and the lots had blossomed with little signs: "Sold." This was supposed to refer to the lot, but in time it came to refer to the purchaser. The company had undertaken to put in curbs and sidewalks, water and gas and sewers; but somebody made off with the money, and the enterprise went into bankruptcy, and presently new signs began to appear: "For Sale, by Owner," or "Bargain: See Smith and Headmutton, Real Estate." And when these signs brought no reply, the owners sighed, and reflected that some day when little Willie grew up he would make a profit out of that investment. Meantime, they would accept the proposition of Japanese truck-gardeners, to farm the land for one-third of the crop.

But three or four months ago something unexpected had happened. A man who owned an acre or two of land on the top of the hill had caused a couple of motor-trucks to come toiling up the slope, loaded with large square timbers of Oregon pine; carpenters had begun to work on these, and the neighborhood had stared, wondering what strange kind of house it could be. Suddenly the news had spread, in an explosion of excitement: an oil-derrick!

A deputation called upon the owner, to find out what it meant. It was pure "wild-catting," he assured them; he happened to have a hundred thousand dollars to play with, and this was his idea of play. Nevertheless, the bargain signs came down from the cabbage fields, and were replaced by "Oil Lot for Sale." Speculators began to look up the names and addresses of owners, and offers were made--there were rumors that some had got as high as a thousand dollars, nearly twice the original price of the lots. Motor-cars took to bumping out over the dirt roads, up and down the lanes; and on Saturday and Sunday afternoons there would be a crowd staring at the derrick.

The drilling began, and went on, monotonously and uneventfully. The local newspapers reported the results: the D. H. Culver Prospect No. 1 was at 1478 feet, in hard sandstone formation and no signs of oil. It was the same at 2,000, and at 3,000; and then for weeks the rig was "fishing" for a broken drill, and everybody lost interest; it was nothing but a "dry hole," and people who had refused double prices for their lots began to curse themselves for fools. "Wild-catting" was nothing but gambling anyhow--quite different from conservative investments in town lots. Then the papers reported that D. H. Culver Prospect No. 1 was drilling again; it was at 3059 feet, but the owners had not yet given up hope of striking something.

Then a strange thing happened. There came trucks, heavily loaded with stuff, carefully covered with canvas. Everybody connected with the enterprise had been warned or bribed to silence; but small boys peered under the canvas while the trucks were toiling up the hill with roaring motors, and they reported big sheets of curved metal, with holes along the edges for bolts. That could be only one thing, tanks. And at the same time came rumors that D. H. Culver had purchased another tract of land on the hill. The meaning of all this was obvious: Prospect No. 1 had got into oil-sands!

But suddenly there was no possibility of secrecy; literally all the world knew--for telegraph and cable carried the news to the farthest corners of civilization. The greatest oil strike in the history of Southern California, the Prospect Hill field! The inside of the earth seemed to burst out through that hole; a roaring and rushing, as Niagara, and a black column shot up into the air, two hundred feet, two hundred and fifty--no one could say for sure--and came thundering down to earth as a mass of thick, black, slimy, slippery fluid. It hurled tools and other heavy objects this way and that, so the men had to run for their lives. It filled the sump-hole, and poured over, like a saucepan boiling too fast, and went streaming down the hill-side. Carried by the wind, a curtain of black mist, it sprayed the Culver homestead, turning it black, and sending the women of the household flying across the cabbage-fields. Afterwards it was told with Homeric laughter how these women had been heard to lament the destruction of their clothing and their window-curtains by this million-dollar flood of "black gold"!

Word spread by telephone to Beach City; the newspapers bulletined it, the crowds shouted it on the street, and before long the roads leading to Prospect Hill were black with a solid line of motor-cars. The news reached Angel City, the papers there put out "extras," and before nightfall the Beach City boulevard was crowded with cars, a double line, all coming one way. Fifty thousand people stood in a solid ring at what they considered a safe distance from the gusher, with emergency policemen trying to drive them further back, and shouting: "Lights out! Lights out!" All night those words were chanted in a chorus; everybody realized the danger--some one fool might forget and light a cigarette, and the whole hill-side would leap into flame; a nail in your shoe might do it, striking on a stone; or a motor-truck, with its steel-rimmed tires. Quite frequently these gushers caught fire at the first moment.

But still the crowds gathered; men put down the tops of their automobiles, and stood up in the seats and conducted auction rooms by the light of the stars. Lots were offered for sale at fabulous prices, and some of them were bought; leases were offered, companies were started and shares sold--the traders would push their way out of the crowd to a safe distance on the windward side, where they could strike a match, and see each other's faces, and scrawl a memorandum of what they agreed. Such trading went on most of the night, and in the morning came big tents that had been built for revival meetings, and the cabbage fields became gay with red and black signs: "Beach Co-operative No. 1," "Skite Syndicate, No. 1, ten thousand units, ."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet