And of course these hired athletes were hired to win, and did not bother about the rules of the game; they slugged and fouled, and the rival teams paid them back, and there was a nasty mess, with charges and countercharges, bribery and intimidation—all the atmosphere of a criminal trial. Along with secret professionalism, came its accompaniments of the underworld, bootleggers and bookmakers and prostitutes. Study was a joke to hired gladiators, and quickly became a joke to students who associated with them. The one purpose was to win games, and the reward was two hundred thousand dollars in gate receipts; and when it came to distributing this prize, there were just as many kinds of graft as if it had been a county government: students putting in bills for this and that, students looking for easy jobs, students and alumni building up a machine, and paying themselves and their henchmen with contracts and favors. Such was the result of an oil king’s resolve to manufacture culture wholesale, by executive order!
IV
Bunny went to see the young lawyer whom the oil workers’ union had engaged to defend the eight “political prisoners.” The union had since become practically extinct, and the young lawyer had been wondering where he was going to get his pay. When Bunny came to question him, it was a great relief—for surely this young oil prince would put up something for the defense of his friends! Or could it be that he was sent as an emissary from the other side, to feel out the situation?
Young Mr. Harrington talked freely about the case. The thing which the state was doing to these eight men was without precedent in our law, and if it could stand, it meant the end of American justice. Every prisoner was supposed to know the charges against him, the specific acts he was alleged to have committed. But in all these “criminal syndicalism” cases, the state simply alleged violation of the law in its vague general terms, and that was all. How could you prepare a defense in such a case? What witnesses would you summon—when you didn’t know the time, or the place, or the particular things a man was alleged to have done, or said, or written, or published? You were taken into court blindfolded, bound and gagged. Yet, so completely were the courts terrorized by the business crowd, no judge would order the district attorney to make a detailed statement of the charges!
Bunny went away, and in his desperation played a dirty trick on Vernon Roscoe—he went to see Annabelle Ames. Annabelle was kind and gentle, and he would wring her soul, and see if in that way he could not get under the hide of the old petroleum pachyderm! He told her about these boys, what they looked like, what they believed, what they were suffering in the jail. Annabelle listened, and the tears came into her eyes, and she said it was horrible that men could be so cruel. What could she do? Bunny told her that the strike was over, the spring lamb had been slaughtered and eaten, and Verne ought to be willing to cry quits. It would be of no use for him to plead that he couldn’t do anything, that the law must take its course; that was all rubbish, because the district attorney had the right to ask for the dismissal of the cases, and he would surely do it if Verne said the word.
Well, Bunny got under the hide of the old petroleum pachyderm! The way Bunny heard about it, Dad came in in a terrible state, Verne had jumped on him, Verne was mad as the very devil, Bunny sneaking into his home and plotting against his domestic peace! He wanted it understood, by Jees, if Dad couldn’t control his son, Verne would. Bunny wanted to know what Verne meant to do, spank him? Or have him locked up with the others?
Bunny had made up his mind, and stood his ground—he had a perfect right to talk to Annabelle, she was a grown woman, and there was no way Verne could stop him. He was going to do more talking before he got through—he was sorry enough to make his father unhappy, but here was the fact, if that case ever came to trial, he, Bunny Ross, was going to take the stand as a witness for the eight defendants, and not merely a character witness, but one with firsthand knowledge of the facts, he had sat in the Rascum cabin night after night, and heard them discuss the problems of the strike, and their own attitude to it, and he could testify that every man of them had agreed on workers’ solidarity as the way to victory, and acts of violence as a trap the operators would try to lure them into. If there was no other way to get money for the defense of these boys, Bunny would sell the car that Dad had given him—“I suppose Verne won’t have any right to keep me from walking to the university!”
Poor Dad, he couldn’t stand talk
