Oil! · Chapter
XVIII: The Flight explained
Bunny enjoys editing The Young Student with Rachel, while Vee works on a film.
What happens
Bunny enjoys editing The Young Student with Rachel, while Vee works on a film. Dad recovers from illness but is troubled by the oil lease investigation. The family flees to Europe via Canada, where Bunny learns Paul Watkins has been arrested. In London, Vernon Roscoe boasts about new oil deals and the ongoing scandal.
Themes in this chapter
Oil and Capitalism
Dad and Verne's oil empire faces investigation; Verne pursues international oil deals despite scandal.
Corruption and Power
The oil lease scandal involves bribes, secret payments, and political manipulation exposed by the Senate committee.
Idealism vs. Pragmatism
Bunny's radical journalism clashes with Dad's business pragmatism; Rachel moderates Bunny's leftist impulses.
Deception and Truth
The investigation reveals lies and cover-ups, such as the 'six or eight cows' testimony and the fake loan story.
Characters to notice
- Bunny Ross
Editing The Young Student, balancing time with Vee and Rachel, traveling with Dad to Europe.
- Dad Ross
Recovering from illness, anxious about the oil lease investigation, fleeing to Europe.
- Vee Tracy
Working on her film 'The Golden Couch', compromising with Bunny over his time.
- Rachel Menzies
Orthodox Socialist party member, co-editor of The Young Student, managing the paper's content.
- Vernon Roscoe
In London, confident about the investigation, pursuing new oil deals in Romania and Persia.
- Paul Watkins
Arrested as a delegate at a secret Workers' party convention in Canada.
- Eli Watkins
His sermons provide diversion for Dad; subject of rival religious showmen's attacks.
- Aunt Allie
Writing from Europe, enjoying high society, urging Dad and Bunny to visit.
Key passages
“To be one of the editors of a little paper, and be able to say what you thought, and print it week by week and distribute it, with no Dean Squirge to take it away from you, and no police or patriots to raid your office!”
Bunny relishes the freedom of editing his own paper without censorship or harassment.
Highlights Bunny's idealistic joy in radical journalism.
“The savings that intelligent business men effected always made up many times over for what profits the business men took.”
Businessmen justify their profits by claiming they save the public more than they take.
Reflects the class-consciousness and self-justification of the oil men.
“It would blow over and be forgotten in a few months—Verne quoted a chieftain of Tammany Hall who had been up against the same kind of racket, and said, 'Dis is a nine day town. If yez kin stand de gaff fer nine days, ye're all right.'”
Verne believes the scandal will soon be forgotten, citing a Tammany Hall saying about enduring short-lived attacks.
Shows Verne's confidence and cynical view of political investigations.
“He had even told the foreman of his ranch that he had got sixty-eight thousand dollars from Vernon Roscoe, and the foreman had told one of the ranch-hands. Now the senators put the badly rattled foreman on the witness stand, and he had to explain that it was all a misunderstanding—what he had said was not 'sixty-eight thousand dollars,' but 'six or eight cows.'”
A foreman testifies that a reported $68,000 payment was actually a misunderstanding about 'six or eight cows.'
Illustrates the absurd cover-ups in the oil scandal.
