Oil! by Upton Sinclair

The nights were growing cold in Bunny's cantonment, and from Europe the thrilling news continued to pour in, and spread across the front pages of the newspapers, six or eight editions every day. The allied advance was turning into a march, that long talked of march to Berlin! A march also to Vienna and to Sofia and to Constantinople -- for everywhere the central powers were weakening, collapsing, surrendering. President Wilson issued his "fourteen points," on the basis of which the Germans were invited to quit. There were rumors of negotiations -- the German leaders were suggesting a truce! There were two or three days of suspense, and then the answer, there would be no truce, only a surrender; the march to Berlin was on!

And then one day an amazing report; the enemy had capitulated, the surrender had been signed! As a matter of fact, it was a false alarm, due to the American custom of keeping one jump ahead of events. Each paper wants to beat the others, so they get everything ready in advance -- speeches that have not yet been delivered, ceremonies that have not yet taken place. Some nervous reporter let his finger slip on the trigger, and the message came that set all America wild. Such a spectacle had never been witnessed since the world began; every noisemaking instrument conceivable was turned loose, and men, women and children turned out on the streets, and danced and sang and yelled until they were exhausted; pistols were shot off, and autos went flying by with tin-cans bouncing behind; newsboys and stockbrokers wept on one another's shoulders, and elderly unapproachable bank-presidents danced the cancan with typists and telephone girls. A day or two later, when the real news came, they turned out to do it all over again, but never could recapture their first fine careless rapture.