The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-01-29

a secret convention of the Workers
party, and arrested all the dele
gates. 1t was a highly sensational
event, and the Canadian papers
gave full particulars-they too had
this problem! Their account gave
the names of the criminals who had
been trapped, and one of them was
Paul Watkinsl
VI
Not all the oil money in the
world could make the winter pas
sage to England other than cold
and stormy. Dad proved to be a
poor sailor, and so he was for
lorn object when he got to Vernon
Roscoe's hotel in London. But
Verne cheered him up; yes, truly,
Dad began to revive with the first
thump upon the back and the first
boom of Verne's voice in the hotel
lobby. "By Jees, the old skeezicksi
believe the reds have got his
nerve!"
Nobody had got Verne's nerve,
you bet he was sitting on the top
of the world! That investigation
shucks, that was a circus stunt to
entertain the yokels. 1t 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 gait fer nine
days, ye're all right" No, by Jees
and Verne gave his partner an
other thump-they were getting
the oil out of Sunnyside, and the
money was going into their bank
accounts, and not into anybody's
else, and they were going to have
one hell of a lark spending it.
What was more, they were going
to turn the tables on those blan-
kety-blank red senators-just let
Dad wait a few days, and he'd see
some stuff that would get on the
front pages of the papers, even
here in England
Jim Junior got his due share of
back-slapping. The boy Bolsheviki
must take his old man around and
show him some of the sights of
London; hadn't he learned about
'em in the history books-the
places where men had had their
heads chopped off five hundred
years ago, and such cheerful spec
tacles? After the old man had got
rested up, then Verne would show
him some oil propositions that
would make his eyes pop open.
Verne hadn't been losing any time
not hel He had put five million
into project that was to reopen O
great oil field in Roumania that
had been burned during the Ger
man invasion, and it was a deal
that would beat Sunnyside, and
Verne had got fifty-one per cent
and full control, and was going to
bring over complete American
outfit, and show those gypsies or
whatever they were what a real
oil job looked like. And now he
was fighting with some of the
British oil men over the Persian
situation, and Verne and the state
department between them were
waking old John Bull from long
sweet dream.
1t was a curious situation that
was unveiled to Bunny here. Ver-
non Roscoe was a fugitive from the
oil investigating committee of the
Senate, but at the same time he
was master of the foreign policy
of the United States government
concerning oil, and the ambassadors
abroad and the secretary of state
at home behaved as his office boys.
Of course there were other oil men;
Excelsior Pete and Victor and the
rest of the Big Five all had their
agents, hundreds of them, abroad;
but Verne was so active, and had
so much the best word in Washing
ton, that the rest had come to fol-
low his lead. President Harding
might be dead, but his spirit lived
on, and Verne and his crowd had
bought and paid for it.
Ito be Continued.)