Oil! by Upton Sinclair

Under the arrangements which had kept peace in the oil industry during the war, a government oil board would listen to grievances of the workers, and decide what was fair. But now the war was fading in men's memories, and the operators were restive under this "outside" control. Was it not the fundamental right of every American to run his own business in his own way? Was it not obvious that wartime wages had been high, and that deflation was desirable? Here and there some operator would refuse to obey the orders of the oil board; there would be long arguments, and resorts to the courts, and meantime the workers would be protesting, and threatening, and everyone could see that a crisis was at hand.

In the old days, J. Arnold Ross had been one of the little fellows, and all that Bunny could do was to await events. But now he dwelt among the Olympians, and saw the fates in the making. The Petroleum Operators' Federation, by its executive committee, of which Vernon Roscoe was a member, came to a decision to brush the Federal Oil Board aside, ignore the unions, and announce a new schedule of wages for the industry. A copy of this schedule was in Dad's hands, and it averaged about 10 percent under the present scale.