SCENE: A fairly large room in DR. JONATHAN's house in Foxon Falls, which
has been converted into a laboratory. The house antedates the
PINDAR mansion, having been built in the first decade of the
nineteenth century, and though not large, has a certain distinction
and charm. The room has a panelled wainscoting and a carved wooden
mantel, middle left, painted white, like the doors. Into the
fireplace is set a Franklin stove. The windows at the rear have
small panes; the lower sashes are raised; the tops of the hollyhocks
and foxgloves in the garden bed may be seen above the window sills,
and the apple trees beyond. Under the windows is a long table, on
which are chemical apparatus. A white enamelled sink is in the rear
right corner. The walls are whitewashed, the wooden floor bare. A
door, left, in the rear, leads into DR. JONATHAN'S office; another,
middle right, into a little front hall.
TIME: A July morning, 1918.
MINNIE FARRELL, in the white costume worn by nurses and laboratory
workers, is at the bench, pouring liquid into a test tube and
holding its up to the light, when DR. JONATHAN enters from the
right.
DR. JONATHAN. Has anyone been in, Minnie?
MINNIE (turning, with the test tube in her hand). Now, what a question
to ask, Dr. Jonathan! Was there ever a morning or afternoon that
somebody didn't stray in here with their troubles? (Fiercely.) They
don't think a scientist has a real job,--they don't understand, if you
put this across--(she holds up the test tube)--you'll save the lives of
thousands of soldiers, and a few ordinary folks, too, I guess. But you
won't let me tell anyone.
DR. JONATHAN. It will be time enough to tell them when we do put it
across.
MINNIE. But we're going to,--that is, you're going to.
DR. JONATHAN. You're too modest, Minnie.
MINNIE. Me modest! But what makes me sore is that they don't give you
a chance to put this thing across. Dr. Senn's a back number, and if
they're sick they come here and expect you to cure 'em for nothing.
DR. JONATHAN. But they can't complain if I don't cure them.
MINNIE. And half the time they ain't sick at all,--they only imagine it.
DR. JONATHAN. Well, that's interesting too,--part of a doctor's
business. It's pretty hard to tell in these days where the body ends and
the soul begins.
MINNIE. It looks like you're cutting out the minister, too. You'd ought
to be getting his salary.
DR. JONATHAN. Then I'd have to do his job.
MINNIE. I get you--you'd be paid to give 'em all the same brand of dope.
You wouldn't be free.
DR. JONATHAN. To experiment.
MINNIE. You couldn't be a scientist. Say, every time I meet the minister
I want to cry, he says to himself, “She ran away from Jesus and went to
the bad. What right has she got to be happy?” And Mrs. Pindar's just
the same. If you leave the straight and narrow path you can't never get
back--they keep pushing you off.
DR. JONATHAN (who has started to work at the bench). I've always had my
doubts about your sins, Minnie.
MINNIE. Oh, I was a sinner, all right, they'll never get that out of
their craniums. But being a sinner isn't a patch on being a scientist!
It's nearly a year now since you took me in. The time's flown! When
I was in the Pindar Shops, and in the Wire Works at Newcastle I could
always beat the other girls to the Main Street when the whistle blew,
but now I'm sorry when night comes. I can't hardly wait to get back
here--honest to God! Say, Dr. Jonathan, I've found out one thing,--it's
being in the right place that keeps a man or a woman straight. If you're
in the wrong place, all the religion in the world won't help you. If
you're doing work you like, that you've got an interest in, and
that's some use, you don't need religion (she pauses). Why, that's
religion,--it ain't preaching and praying and reciting creeds, it's
doing--it's fun. There's no reason why religion oughtn't to be fun, is
there?
DR. JONATHAN. None at all!
MINNIE. Now, if we could get everybody in the right job, we wouldn't
have any more wars, I guess.
DR. JONATHAN. The millennium always keeps a lap ahead--we never catch up
with it.
MINNIE. Well, I don't want to catch up with it. We wouldn't have
anything more to do. Say, it's nearly eleven o'clock--would you believe
it?--and I've been expecting Mr. Pindar to walk in here with the
newspaper. I forgot he was in Washington.
DR. JONATHAN. He was expected home this morning.
MINNIE. What gets me is the way he hangs around here, too, like
everybody else, and yet I've heard him call you a Socialist, and swear
he hasn't any use for Socialists.
DR. JONATHAN. Perhaps he's trying to find out what a Socialist is.
Nobody seems to know.
MINNIE. He don't know, anyway. If it hadn't been for you, his shops
would have been closed down last winter.
DR. JONATHAN. It looks as if they'd be closed down now, anyway.
MINNIE (concerned, looking up). Is that so? Well, he won't recognize the
union--he doesn't know what century he's living in. But he's human, all
the same, and he's good to the people he's fond of, like my father,--and
he sure loves George. He's got George's letters all wore out, reading
them, to people. (A pause.) He don't know where George is, does he, Dr.
Jonathan?
DR. JONATHAN. Somewhere in France.
MINNIE. We spotted Bert because he's with the Marines, at that place
where they put a crimp in the Huns the other day when they were going to
walk into Paris.
DR. JONATHAN. Chateau-Thierry.
MINNIE. I'll leave it to you. But say, Dr. Jonathan, things don't look
good to me,--I'm scared we won't get enough of our boys over there
before the deal's closed up. I've got so I don't want to look at a
paper.
(A brief silence.)
I never told you George wrote me a couple of letters, did I?
DR. JONATHAN. No, I'm quite sure you didn't.
MINNIE. I never told nobody. His father and mother would be wild if they
knew it. I didn't answer them--I just sent him two post cards with no
writing on except the address--just pictures.
DR. JONATHAN. Pictures?
MINNIE. One of the Pindar Church and the Other of the Pindar Shops. I
guess he'll understand they were from me, all right. You see, when I ran
away from the Pindar Shops and the Pindar Church--I always connect them
together--I was stuck on George. That's why I ran away.
DR. JONATHAN. I see.
MINNIE. Oh, I never let him know. I don't know why I told you--I had to
tell somebody,--and you won't give me away.
DR. JONATHAN. You may count on me.
MINNIE. He didn't care nothing about me, really. But you can't help
liking George. He's human, all right! If he was boss of the Pindar Shops
there wouldn't be any strike.
(A knock at the door, right.)
I wonder who's butting in now!
(She goes to the door and jerks it open.)
(A man's voice, without.) Good morning, Miss Farrell. Is the doctor
in?
MINNIE. This is his busy day.
DR. JONATHAN (going toward the door). Oh, it's you, Hillman. Come in.
MINNIE. I guess I'll go for the mail.
(With a resigned expression she goes oust right as HILLMAN comes in,
followed by RENCH and FERSEN. They are the strike committee.
HILLMAN is a little man, with red hair and a stiff, bristling red
moustache. He holds himself erect, and walks on the balls of his
feet, quietly. RENCH is tall and thin, with a black moustache,
like a seal's. He has a loud, nasal voice, and an assertive manner.
FERSEN is a blond Swede.)
(DR. JONATHAN puts one or two objects in place on the bench. His
manner is casual but cordial, despite the portentous air of the
Committee.)
(The men, their hats in their hands, go toward the bench and inspect
the test tubes and apparatus.)
RENCH (New England twang). Always manage to have something on hand when
you ain't busy with the folks, doctor. It must be interestin' to fool
with these here chemicals.
DR. JONATHAN. It keeps me out of mischief.
HILLMAN. I guess you haven't much time to get into mischief.
FERSEN. We don't like to bother you.
DR. JONATHAN. No bother, Fersen,--sit down. (He draws forward some
chairs, and they sit down.) How is the baby?
FERSEN. Oh, she is fine, now, since we keep her outside in the baby
carriage, like you tell us.
(FERSEN grins, and immediately becomes serious again. A brief
silence.)
HILLMAN (clearing his throat). The fact is, Dr. Jonathan, the boys have
struck,--voted last night to walk out at noon today.
FERSEN. We thought we tell you now. You been such a good friend to us
and our families.
DR. JONATHAN. But isn't this rather sudden, with Mr. Pindar in
Washington?
RENCH. We couldn't wait no longer,--he's been standing us off for more
than a year. When he comes back from Washington there'll be nothing
doing. He's got to recognize the union or lose his contract.
DR. JONATHAN. He may prefer to lose his contract.
RENCH. Well, he can afford to. Then he can go to hell.
HILLMAN. Hold on, Sam, that ain't no way to talk to the doctor!
RENCH. I didn't mean no disrespect to him. He don't go 'round preachin',
like some fellers I could mention, but actions is louder than words.
Ain't that the reason we're here, because he sympathizes with us and
thinks we're entitled to a little more of this freedom that's bein'
handed 'round? We want you to help us, doctor.
DR. JONATHAN. It seems to me you've come a little late, Rench,--after
the event.
HILLMAN. Maybe if you'd said a word, they'd never have voted to strike.
FERSEN. But you never said nothing, Doctor.
DR. JONATHAN. Well, when you get around to admitting doctors to your
labour unions, perhaps they'll talk.
HILLMAN. If all the doctors was like you!
DR. JONATHAN. Give 'em a chance, Hillman.
HILLMAN. We don't have to explain to you why we want the union,--it's
the only way we'll ever get a say about the conditions in which we work
and live, now that the day of individual bargaining is gone by. You
understand. Mr. Pindar raised our wages when we threatened to strike
last fall, but he calculates to drop 'em again when the soldiers come
home.
FERSEN (nodding). Sure thing!
HILLMAN. It's this way, doctor. We notice Mr. Pindar comin' in here to
see you every day or so,--like the rest of Foxon Falls. And we thought
you could make him see this thing straight, if any man could.
DR. JONATHAN. So the shops will be idle.
RENCH. Not a shaft'll turn over till he recognizes the union.
HILLMAN. We don't want to do nothin' to obstruct the war, but we've got
to have our rights.
DR. JONATHAN. Can you get your rights now, without obstructing the war?
RENCH (aggressively). I get what you're driving at, doctor. You're
going to say that we've just reached quantity production on these here
machines, and if labour gets from under now, the Huns win. But tell me
this,--where'll labour be if America wins and our Junkers (he pronounces
the J) come out on top?--as they callate to.
DR. JONATHAN (smiling). When a building with dry rot catches fire,
Rench, can you put limit to how much of it will burn?
RENCH (after a pause). Maybe not. I get you--but--
DR. JONATHAN. No nation, no set of men in any nation can quench that
fire or make the world that is coming out of this war. They may think
they can, but they can't.
HILLMAN. That's so!
DR. JONATHAN. Germany will be beaten, because it is the temper of the
nation, the temper of the times--your temper. You don't want Germany to
win, Rench?
RENCH. No, I guess not.
DR. JONATHAN. And if you don't work here, you'll go off to work
somewhere else.
RENCH. Where they recognize the union.
DR. JONATHAN. A good many of your friends have enlisted, haven't they?
(RENCH nods.) And what do you suppose they are fighting for?
RENCH. For the same thing as we want, a square deal.
DR. JONATHAN. And what do you think George Pindar is fighting for?
RENCH. I ain't got nothing to say against him.
DR. JONATHAN. If you close down the Pindar Shops, won't it mean that a
few more of your friends will lose their lives? These men are fighting
for something they don't yet understand, but when they come back they'll
know more about it. Why not wait until George Pindar comes back?
RENCH. He mayn't never come back.
DR. JONATHAN. Give him the opportunity.
RENCH. I like George,--he's always been friendly--what we call a
common man up here in New England--naturally democratic. But at bottom
employers is all alike. What makes you think he won't take his ideas
about labour from the old man?
DR. JONATHAN. Because he belongs to the generation that fights this war.
HILLMAN (shuffling). It ain't no use, doctor. Unless you can bring Mr.
Pindar 'round, the shops'll close down.
DR. JONATHAN. I can't, but something else can.
HILLMAN. What?
DR. JONATHAN. Circumstances. No man can swim up stream very long in
these days, Hillman. Wait a while, and see.
RENCH (rising). We've voted to put this strike through, and by God,
we'll do it.
FERSEN (rising and shaking hands with DR. JONATHAN). It's fine weather,
doctor.
RENCH (bursting into a laugh). He's like the man who said, when Congress
declared war, “It's a fine day for it!” It's a fine day for a strike!
HILLMAN (who has risen, shaking hands with DR. JONATHAN). But you'll
talk to Mr. Pindar, anyway?
DR. JONATHAN (smiling). Yes, I'll talk with him.
(Enter TIMOTHY FARRELL, right, in working clothes.)
TIMOTHY. Good morning, doctor. (Surveying the committee.) So it's here
ye are, after voting to walk out of the shops just when we're beginning
to turn out the machines for the soldiers!
RENCH. If we'd done right we'd have called the strike a year ago.
TIMOTHY. Fine patriots ye are--as I'm sure the doctor is after telling
you--to let the boys that's gone over there be murdered because ye must
have your union!
HILLMAN. If Mr. Pindar recognizes the union, Timothy, we'll go to work
tomorrow.
TIMOTHY. He recognize the union! He'll recognize the devil first! Even
Dr. Jonathan, with all the persuasion he has, couldn't get Mr. Pindar to
recognize the union. He'll close down the shops, and it's hunting a job
I'll be, and I here going on thirty years.
RENCH. If he closes the shops--what then? The blood of the soldiers'll
be on his head, not ours. If there were fewer scabs in the country--
HILLMAN. Hold on, Sam.
TIMOTHY. A scab, is it? If I was the government do you know what I'd do
with the likes of you--striking in war time? I'd send ye over there to
fight the Huns with your bare fists. I'm a workman meself, but I don't
hold with traitors.
RENCH. Who's a traitor? It's you who are a traitor to your class. If a
union card makes a man a traitor, your own son had one in his pocket the
day he enlisted.
TIMOTHY. A traitor, and he fighting for his country, while you'd be
skulking here to make trouble for it!
(MINNIE appears on the threshold of the door, right. DR. JONATHAN,
who is the first to perceive from her expression that there is
something wrong, takes a step toward her. After a moment's silence
she comes up to TIMOTHY and lays a hand on his arm.)
TIMOTHY (bewildered). What is it, Minnie?
MINNIE. Come home, father.
TIMOTHY. What is it? It's not a message ye have--it's not a message
about Bert?
(MINNIE continues to gaze at him.)
The one I'd be looking for these many days! (He seizes her.) Can't ye
speak, girl? Is the boy dead?
MINNIE. Yes, father.
TIMOTHY (puts his hand to his forehead and lets fall his hat. DR.
JONATHAN picks it up). Me boy! The dirty devils have killed him!
MINNIE. Come, father, we'll go home.
TIMOTHY. Home, is it? It's back to the shops I'm going. (To the
committee) Damn ye--we'll run the shops in spite of ye! Where's me hat?
(DR. JONATHAN hands it to him as the committee file out in silence.)
Come with me as far as the shops, Minnie. Thank you, doctor--(as DR.
JONATHAN gives him the hat)--it's you I'll be wanting to see when I get
me mind again.
(DR. JONATHAN goes with TIMOTHY and MINNIE as far as the door,
right, and then comes back thoughtfully to the bench, takes up a
test tube and holds it to the light. Presently ASHER PINDAR
appears in the doorway, right.)
ASHER. Good morning, Jonathan.
DR. JONATHAN. Good morning, Asher. I didn't know you'd got back from
Washington.
ASHER. I came in on the mail train.
DR. JONATHAN. Have you been to the office?
ASHER. No. I stopped at the house to speak to Augusta, and then--(he
speaks a trifle apologetically)--well, I went for a little walk.
DR. JONATHAN. A walk.
ASHER. I've been turning something over in my mind. And the country
looked so fine and fresh I crossed the covered bridge to the other side
of the river. When George was a child I used to go over there with him
on summer afternoons. He was such a companionable little shaver--he'd
drop his toys when he'd see me coming home from the office. I can see
him now, running along that road over there, stopping to pick funny
little bouquets--the kind a child makes, you know--ox-eyed daisies and
red clover and buttercups all mixed up together, and he'd carry them
home and put them in a glass on the desk in my study.
(A pause.)
It seems like yesterday! It's hard to realize that he's a grown man,
fighting over there in the trenches, and that any moment I may get a
telegram, or be called to the telephone--Have you seen today's paper?
DR. JONATHAN. No.
ASHER. It looks like more bad news,--the Germans have started another
one of those offensives. I was afraid they were getting ready for it.
West of Verdun this time. And George may be in that sector, for all I
know. How is this thing going to end, Jonathan? That damned military
machine of theirs seems invincible--it keeps grinding on. Are we going
to be able to stem the tide, or to help stem it with a lot of raw
youths. They've only had a year's training.
DR. JONATHAN. Germany can't win, Asher.
ASHER. What makes you say that? We started several years too late.
Dr. JONATHAN. And Germany started several centuries too late.
ASHER. My God, I hope you're right. I don't know.
(He walks once or twice up and down the room..)
I've had another letter.
DR. JONATHAN. This morning?
ASHER. No--I got it before I left for Washington. But I didn't bring it
in to you I wanted to think about it.
(He draws the letter, together with a folded paper, from his pocket,
and lays the paper down on the bench. Then he adjusts his glasses
and begins to read.)
“Dear dad,
“The sky is the colour of smeared charcoal. We haven't been in the
trenches long enough to evolve web feet, so mine are resting on a duck
board spread over a quagmire of pea soup. The Heinies are right here,
soaking in another ditch beyond a barbed wire fence, about the distance
of second base from the home plate. Such is modern war!
“But these aren't the things that trouble me. Last night, when I was wet
to the skin and listening to the shells--each singing its own song in
the darkness--I was able to think with astonishing ease better than if
I were sitting at a mahogany desk in a sound proof room! I was thinking
over the talk we had the day I left home,--do you remember it?--about
the real issue of this war. I've thought of it time and again, but I've
never written you about it. Since I have been in France I have had a
liberal education gathered from all sorts and conditions of men. Right
here in the trench near me are a street car conductor, a haberdasher, a
Swedish farm hand, a grocery clerk, a college professor, a Pole from the
Chicago Stock Yards, an Irish American janitor of a New York apartment
house, and Grierson from Cleveland, whose father has an income of
something like a million a year. We have all decided that this is a
war for the under dog, whether he comes from Belgium or Armenia or that
so-called land of Democracy, the United States of America. The hope that
spurs us on and makes us willing to endure these swinish surroundings
and die here in the mud, if need be, is that the world will now be
reorganized on some intelligent basis; that Grierson and I, if we get
back, won't have to rot on a large income and petrified ideas, but will
have some interesting and creative work to do. Economic inequalities
must be reduced, and those who toil must be given a chance to live, not
merely to exist. Their lives must include a little leisure, comfortable
homes, art and beauty and above all an education that none of us,
especially those of us who went to universities, never got,--but which
now should be available for all.
“The issue of this war is industrial democracy, without which political
democracy is a farce. That sentence is Dr. Jonathan's. But when I was
learning how to use the bayonet from a British sergeant in Picardy I
met an English manufacturer from Northumberland. He is temporarily an
officer. I know your opinion of theorists, but this man is working out
the experiment with human chemicals. After all, the Constitution of
the United States, now antiquated and revered, once existed only in the
brains of French theorists! In the beginning was the Word, but the
deed must follow. This Englishman, whose name is Wray, has given me the
little pamphlet he wrote from his experience, and I shall send it to
you.
“Though I am writing this letter in what to me is a solemn and
undoubtedly exalted hour, I am sure that my mind was never clearer
or saner. Dad, I have set my heart on inaugurating an experiment in
industrial democracy in Foxon Falls! I'd like to be able to think--if
anything happened to me--that the Pindar shops were among the first
in America to recognize that we are living in a new era and a changed
world.”
(ASHER walks over to the bench and lays down the open letter on it.)
If anything should happen to that boy, Jonathan, there wouldn't be
anything in life left for me! Industrial democracy! So you put that into
his head! Socialism, I suppose.
DR. JONATHAN. No, experimental science.
ASHER. Call it what you like. What surprises me is, when I look back
over the months you've been here, how well we've got along in spite of
your views.
DR. JONATHAN. Why not say in spite of yours, Asher?
ASHER (smiling involuntarily). Well, it's been a comfort to drop in here
and talk to you, in spite of what you believe. You've got the gift of
sympathy, Jonathan. But I don't approve of you're spending your time in
this sort of work--(he waves a hand toward the bench)--which may never
come to anything, and in doctoring people for nothing and patching up
their troubles. I daresay you enjoy it, but what worries me is how you
are going to live?
DR. JONATHAN. By practising your cardinal virtue, thrift.
ASHER. I've got a proposal to make to you part of a scheme I've been
turning over in my mind for the last six months--and when George's
letter came I decided to put it through. I went to New York and had
Sterry, a corporation lawyer, draw it up. I'm going to prove I'm not a
mossback. It will reorganize the Pindar Shops.
DR. JONATHAN. Well, that's good news.
ASHER. First, with reference to your part in it, I shall establish a
free hospital for my employees, and put you in charge of it, at a salary
of five thousand a year. After all, you're the only Pindar left except
George, and I'm satisfied that as a doctor you're up to the job, since
you've driven Dr. Senn out of business.
DR. JONATHAN. Practical proof, Asher. Fortunately Dr. Senn has enough to
live on.
ASHER. In offering you this position I have only one stipulation to
make--(he clears his throat)--it's about Minnie Farrell. I think the
world of Timothy, I wouldn't willingly hurt his feelings, but I can't
have Minnie with you in the hospital, Jonathan. You deserve a great
deal of credit for what you've done for the girl, you've kept her out of
mischief, but considering her past, her life at Newcastle--well, even if
I approved of having her in the hospital Augusta would never hear of it.
And then she had some sort of an affair with George--I daresay there was
nothing wrong--
DR. JONATHAN. Wrong is a question of code, Asher. We've all had
pasts--What interests me is Minnie's future.
ASHER. Of course you wouldn't decline my offer on Minnie's account.
DR. JONATHAN. On my own account, Asher. We'll say no more about Minnie.
ASHER. You refuse to help me, when I'm starting out on a liberal scheme
which I thought you would be the first to endorse?
DR. JONATHAN. I have not refused to help you,--but you have not told me
the scheme?
ASHER. Well. (He' taps the paper in his hand.) For those employees who
serve me faithfully I have arranged pensions.
DR. JONATHAN. For those, in other words, who refrain from taking their
destinies in their own hands, and who do as you wish.
ASHER. For those who are industrious and make no trouble. And I have
met the objection that they have no share in the enterprise by allowing
them, on favourable terms, to acquire stock in the company.
DR. JONATHAN. I see. You will let them acquire half of the stock, in
order that they may have an equal voice.
ASHER. Equal? It's my company, isn't it?
DR. JONATHAN. At present.
ASHER. I supply the capital. Furthermore, I have arranged for a system
of workmen's committees, which I recognize, and with which I will
continually consult. That's democratic enough--isn't it? If the men have
any grievances, these will be presented in an orderly manner through the
committees.
DR. JONATHAN. And if you find the demands--reasonable, you grant them.
ASHER. Certainly. But one thing I set my face against as a matter of
principle, I won't recognize the unions.
DR. JONATHAN. But--who is to enforce the men's side of this contract?
ASHER. What do you mean?
DR. JONATHAN. What guarantee have they, other than a union organization,
that you will keep faith?
ASHER. My word.
DR. JONATHAN. Oh!
ASHER. Never in my life have I regarded my possessions as my own. I am a
trustee.
DR. JONATHAN. The sole trustee.
ASHER. Under God.
DR. JONATHAN. And you have God's proxy. Well, it seems to me that that
is a very delightful arrangement, Asher--William appears to approve of
it, too.
ASHER. William? William who?
DR. JONATHAN. William Hohenzollern.
ASHER. You compare me to the Kaiser!
DR. JONATHAN. Only in so far as you have in common a certain
benevolence, Asher. Wouldn't your little plan, if your workmen accepted
it, keep you in as a benevolent autocrat?
ASHER. Me? an autocrat?
DR. JONATHAN. You are preparing to give your men more privileges, and
perhaps more money on the condition that they will renounce rights to
which they are entitled as free men. You are ready to grant anything but
a constitution. So is William.
ASHER. Do you seriously suggest that I give labour a voice in my
business?
DR. JONATHAN. Doesn't George suggest it, when he pleads for industrial
democracy? He seems to think that he is ready to give his life for it.
And Bert Farrell has already given his life for it.
ASHER (agitatedly). What? Timothy's boy, Bert? Is he dead? Why didn't
you tell me?
DR. JONATHAN (gently). I've had no chance. Minnie and Timothy were here
just before you came in.
ASHER. Oh God, I'm sorry--I'm sorry for Timothy. It might have
been--I'll go and see Timothy. Where is he?--at his house.
DR. JONATHAN. No, at the shops. He wanted to keep working until they
close down.
ASHER (who has started for the door, right, turns). What do you mean?
(There is a knock at the door.)
DR. JONATHAN. I mean that the moment has come, Asher, to remember
George. That your opportunity is here--heed it.
ASHER. I can't, I won't desert my principles
(The knock is repeated. DR. JONATHAN goes to the door and opens it.
Enter, in the order named, HILLMAN, RENCH and FERSEN.)
HILLMAN. Beg your pardon, Mr. Pindar, we've been waiting for you at the
office, and we heard you was here.
ASHER ( facing them with a defiance almost leonine). Well, what is it?
HILLMAN (glancing at DR. JONATHAN). There's a matter we'd like to talk
over with you, Mr. Pindar, as soon as convenient.
ASHER. This is as convenient as any time, right now.
HILLMAN. The men voted to strike, last night. Maybe Dr. Jonathan has
told you.
ASHER. Voted to strike behind my back while I was in Washington
attending to the nation's business!
RENCH. It ain't as if this was anything new, Mr. Pindar, as if we hadn't
been discussing this here difference for near a year. You've had your
warning right along.
ASHER. Didn't I raise your wages last January?
HILLMAN. Wait a minute, Mr. Pindar. (He looks at DR. JONATHAN.)
It oughtn't to be only what you say--what capital says. Collective
bargaining is only right and fair, now that individual bargaining has
gone by. We want to be able to talk to you as man to man,--that's only
self-respecting on our part. All you've got to do is to say one word,
that you'll recognize the union, and I'll guarantee there won't be any
trouble.
RENCH. If you don't, we walk out at noon.
HILLMAN (with an attempt at conciliation). I know if we could sit down
and talk this thing out with you, Mr. Pindar, you'd see it reasonable.
ASHER. Reasonable? Treasonable, you mean,--to strike when the lives of
hundreds of thousands of your fellow countrymen depend on your labour.
RENCH. We ain't striking--you're striking!
FERSEN (nodding). That's right!
RENCH. We're ready to go back to work this afternoon if you treat us
like Americans. (FERSEN nods.) You say we're obstructing the war by not
giving in,--what's the matter with you giving in? Ain't the employers
just as much traitors as we?
HILLMAN. Hold on, Sam,--we won't get nowhere by calling names. Let's
discuss it cool!
ASHER. I refuse to discuss it.
(He takes the paper out of his docket and holds it up.)
Do you see this paper? It's a plan I had made, of my own free will, for
the betterment and advancement of the working class. It was inspired by
the suggestion of my son, who is now fighting in France. I came back to
Foxon Falls this morning happy in the hope that I was to do something
to encourage what was good in labour--and how have I been met? With
a demand, with a threat. I was a fool to think you could stand decent
treatment!
(He seizes the paper, and tears it in two.)
HILLMAN. Wait a minute, Mr. Pindar. If you won't listen to us, maybe Dr.
Jonathan would say a word for us. He understands how we feel.
ASHER (savagely tearing the paper in two, and then again in four).
That's my answer! I won't have Dr. Pindar or anyone else interfering in
my private affairs.
RENCH. All right--I guess we're wasting time here, boys. We walk out and
stay out. (Threateningly.) Not a shaft'll turn over in them shops until
you recognize the union. And if that's treason, go back to Washington
and tell 'em so. Come on boys!
(He walks out, followed by FERSEN, nodding, and lastly by HILLMAN,
who glances at DR. JONATHAN. ASHER stares hard at them as they
leave. Then an expression of something like agony crosses his
face.)
ASHER. My God, it's come! My shops shut down, for the first time in my
life, and when the government relies on me!
(DR. JONATHAN stoops down and picks up the fragments of the document
from the floor.)
What are you doing?
DR. JONATHAN. Trying to save the pieces, Asher.
ASHER. I've got no use for them now.
DR. JONATHAN. But history may have.
ASHER. History. History will brand these men with shame for all time.
I'll fix 'em! I'll go back to Washington, and if the government has
any backbone, if it's still American, they'll go to work or fight!
(Pointedly.) This is what comes of your Utopian dreams, of your
socialism!
(A POLAK WOMAN is seen standing in the doorway, right.)
WOMAN. Doctor!
DR. JONATHAN. Yes.
WOMAN. My baby is seek--I think maybe you come and see him. Mrs.
Ladislaw she tell me you cure her little boy, and that maybe you come,
if I ask you.
DR. JONATHAN. Yes, I'll come. What is your name?
WOMAN. Sasenoshky.
DR. JONATHAN. Your husband is in the shops?
WOMAN. He was, doctor. Now he is in the American army.
DR. JONATHAN. Sasenoshky--in the American army.
WOMAN (proudly). Yes, he is good American now,--he fight to make them
free in the old country, too.
DR. JONATHAN. Well, we'll have a look at the baby. He may be in the
White House some day--President Sasenoshky! I'll be back, Asher.
(The noon whistle blows.)
ASHER. That's the signal! I'll get along, too.
DR. JONATHAN. Where are you going?
ASHER. I guess it doesn't make much difference where I go.
(He walks out, followed by DR. JONATHAN and the WOMAN. The room is
empty for a moment, and then MINNIE FARRELL enters through the
opposite door, left, from DR. JONATHAN'S office. She gazes around
the room, and then goes resolutely to the bench and takes up several
test tubes in turn, holding theme to the light. Suddenly her eye
falls on GEORGE'S letter, which ASHER has left open on the bench
with the envelope beside it. MINNIE Slowly reaches out and picks it
up, and then holds it to her lips... She still has the letter
in her hand, gazing at it, when AUGUSTA PINDAR enters, right.)
AUGUSTA. Oh, I thought Mr. Pindar was here!
MINNIE. Perhaps he's been here--I don't know. I just came in. (She
hesitates a second, then goes to the bench and lays the letter down.)
AUGUSTA. He must have been here,--he told me he was coming to talk with
Dr. Pindar.
(She approaches the bench and glances at the letter.)
Isn't that a letter from my son?
MINNIE (a little defiantly, yet almost in tears). I guess it is.
AUGUSTA. It was written to you?
MINNIE. No.
AUGUSTA. Then what were you doing with it?
MINNIE. I just--picked it up. You think I was reading it? Well, I
wouldn't.
AUGUSTA. Then how did you know it was written by my son?
(MINNIE is silent.)
You must be familiar with his handwriting. I think I'd better take it.
(She folds it up and puts it in the envelope.) Does George write to you?
MINNIE. I've had letters from him.
AUGUSTA. Since he went to France?
MINNIE. Yes.
AUGUSTA (after a pause). I've never approved of Dr. Findar employing
you here. I warned him against you--I told him that you would betray his
kindness as you betrayed mine, but he wouldn't listen to me. I told him
that a girl who was capable of drawing my son into an intrigue while
she was a member of the church and of my Bible class, a girl who had the
career you had in Newcastle, couldn't become a decent and trustworthy
woman. The very fact that you had the audacity to come back to Foxon
Falls and impose on Dr. Pindar's simplicity, proves it.
MINNIE. You know all about me, Mrs. Pindar.
AUGUSTA. I wasn't born yesterday.
MINNIE. Oh, ladies like you, Christian ladies, are hard! They won't
believe nothing good of anybody--only the bad. You've always been
sheltered, you've always had everything you'd want, and you come and
judge us working girls. You'd drive me out of the only real happiness
I ever had, being here with a man like Dr. Jonathan, doing work it's
a pleasure to do--a pleasure every minute!--work that may do good to
thousands of people, to the soldiers over there--maybe to George, for
all you know! (She burst into tears.) You can't understand--how could
you? After all, you're his mother. I oughtn't to forget it.
AUGUSTA. Yes, I'm his mother. And you? You haven't given up the idea
that he may marry you some day, if you stay here and pretend to have
reformed. You write to him. George may have been foolish, but he isn't
as foolish as that!
MINNIE. He doesn't care about me.
AUGUSTA. I'm glad you realize it. But you mean to stay here in Foxon
Falls, nevertheless. You take advantage of Dr. Pindar, who is easily
imposed upon, as his father was before him. But if I told you that you
might harm Dr. Pindar by staying here, interfere with his career, would
you be willing to leave?
MINNIE. Me? Me doing Dr. Jonathan harm?
AUGUSTA, Yes. I happen to know that he has very little money. He makes
none, he never asks anyone for a bill. He spends what he has on this
kind of thing--research, for the benefit of humanity, as he thinks,--but
very little research work succeeds, and even then it doesn't pay.
MINNIE. He doesn't care about money.
AUGUSTA. Perhaps not. He is one of those impractical persons who have to
be looked out for, if they are fortunate enough to have anyone to look
out for them. Since he is a cousin of my husband, Mr. Pindar considers
him as one of his many responsibilities. Mr. Pindar has always had, in
a practical way, the welfare of his working people at heart, and now he
proposes to establish a free hospital for them and to put Dr. Pindar
in charge of it. This will give him a good living as well as a definite
standing in the community, which he needs also.
MINNIE. He's the biggest man in Foxon Falls today!
AUGUSTA. That is as one thinks. At any rate, he has this opportunity.
Are you going to stand in the way of it?
MINNIE. Me stand in the way of it?
AUGUSTA. If Dr. Pindar accepts the place, you can't go with him,--you
will have to find some other position. Mr. Pindar is firm about that,
and rightly so. But I believe Dr. Pindar would be quite capable of
refusing rather than inconvenience anyone with whom he is connected.
MINNIE. You're right there!
AUGUSTA. He's quixotic.
MINNIE. If that's a compliment, you're right again.
AUGUSTA. It isn't exactly a compliment.
MINNIE. I guess you mean he's queer--but you're wrong--you're wrong!
He's the only man in Foxon Falls who knows what kind of a world we're
going to live in from now on. Why? Because he's a scientist, because
he's trained himself to think straight, because he understands people
like you and people like me. He don't blame us for what we do--he knows
why we do it.
(A pause.)
That's the reason I try not to blame you for being hard--you can't
understand a girl like me. You can't understand George.
AUGUSTA (white). We'll leave my son out of the conversation, if
you please. We were talking of Dr. Pindar. You seem to have some
consideration for him, at least.
MINNIE. I'd go to the electric chair for him!
AUGUSTA. I'm not asking you to do that.
MINNIE. You want me to go away and get another place. I remember a
lesson you gave us one day in Bible class, “Judge not, that you be not
judged,”--that was what you talked about. But you're judging me on what
you think is my record,--and you'd warn people against hiring me. If
everybody was a Christian like that these days, I'd starve or go on the
street.
AUGUSTA. We have to pay for what we do.
MINNIE. And you make it your business to see that we pay.
(A pause.)
Well, I'll go. I didn't know how poor Dr. Jonathan was,--he never said
anything about it to me. I'll disappear.
AUGUSTA. You have some good in you.
MINNIE. Don't begin talking to me about good!
(TIMOTHY FARRELL enters, right.)
TIMOTHY. Good morning, ma'am. (Looking at MINNIE and AUGUSTA). I came to
fetch Minnie to pass an hour with me.
AUGUSTA (agitated and taken aback). Were--were having a little talk.
(She goes up to TIMOTHY.) I'm distressed to hear about Bert!
TIMOTHY. Thank you for your sympathy, ma'am.
(A brief silence. Enter ASHER, right.)
ASHER (surveying the group). You here, Augusta? (He goes up to TIMOTHY
and presses his hand.) I wanted to see you, Timothy,--I understand how
you feel. We both gave our sons in this war. You've lost yours, and I
expect to lose mine.
AUGUSTA. Asher!
TIMOTHY. Don't say that, Mr. Pindar
ASHER. Why not? What right have I to believe, after what has happened in
my shops today, that he'll come back?
TIMOTHY. God forbid that he should be lost, too! There's trouble
enough--sorrow enough--
ASHER. Sorrow enough! But if a man has one friend left, Timothy, it's
something.
TIMOTHY (surprised). Sure, I hope it's a friend I am, sir,--a friend
this thirty years.
ASHER. We're both old fashioned, Timothy,--we can't help that.
TIMOTHY. I'm old fashioned enough to want to be working. And now that
the strike's on, whatever will I do? Well, Bert is after giving his life
for human liberty,--the only thing a great-hearted country like America
would be fighting for. There's some comfort in that! I think of him as
a little boy, like when he'd be carrying me dinner pail to the shops at
noon, runnin' and leppin' and callin' out to me, and he only that high!
ASHER. As a little boy!
TIMOTHY. Yes, sir, it's when I like to think of him best. There's a
great comfort in childher, and when they grow up we lose them anyway.
But it's fair beset I'll be now, with nothing to do but think of him.
ASHER. You can thank these scoundrels who are making this labour trouble
for that.
TIMOTHY. Scoundrels, is it? Scoundrels is a hard word, Mr. Pindar.
ASHER. What else are they? Scoundrels and traitors! Don't tell me that
you've gone over to them, Timothy--that you've deserted me, too! That
you sympathize with these agitators who incite class against class!
TIMOTHY. I've heard some of them saying, sir, that if the unions gain
what they're after, there'll be no classes at all at all. And classes is
what some of us didn't expect to find in this country, but freedom.
ASHER. Freedom! They're headed for anarchy. And they haven't an ounce of
patriotism.
TIMOTHY (meaningly). Don't say that, sir. Me own boy is after dying over
there, and plenty have gone out of your own shops, as ye can see for
yourself every time you pass under the office door with some of the
stars in the flag turning to gold. And those who stays at home and works
through the night is patriots, too. The unions may be no better than
they should be, but the working man isn't wanting anyone to tell him
whether he'd be joining them or not.
ASHER. I never expected to hear you talk like this!
TIMOTHY. Nor I, sir. But it's the sons, Mr. Pindar,--the childher that
changes us. I've been thinking this morning that Bert had a union
card in his pocket when he went away,--and if he died for that kind
of liberty, it's good enough for his old father to live for. I see how
wicked it was to be old fashioned.
ASHER. Wicked?
TIMOTHY. Isn't it the old fashioned nation we're fighting, with its
kings and emperors and generals that would crush the life and freedom
out of them that need life. And why wouldn't the men have the right to
organize, sir, the way that they'd have a word to say about what they'd
be doing?
ASHER. You--you ask me to sacrifice my principles and yield to men who
are deliberately obstructing the war?
TIMOTHY. Often times principles is nothing but pride, sir. And it might
be yourself that's obstructing the war, when with a simple word from you
they'd go on working.
ASHER (agitatedly). I can't, I won't recognize a labour union!
TIMOTHY. Have patience, sir. I know ye've a kind heart, and that ye've
always acted according to your light, the same as me. But there's more
light now, sir,--it's shining through the darkness, brighter than the
flashes of the cannon over there. In the moulding room just now it seems
to break all around me, and me crying like a child because the boy was
gone. There was things I hadn't seen before or if I saw them, it was
only dim-like, to trouble me (ASHER turns away) the same as you are
troubled now. And to think it's me that would pity you, Mr. Pindar! I
says to myself, I'll talk to him. I ain't got no learning, I can't find
the words I'm after--but maybe I can persuade him it ain't the same
world we're living in.
ASHER. I was ready to recognize that. Before they came to me this
morning I had made a plan to reorganize the shops, to grant many
privileges.
TIMOTHY. You'll excuse me, sir, but it's what they don't want,--anyone
to be granting them privileges, but to stand on their own feet, the same
as you. I never rightly understood until just now,--and that because I
was always looking up, while you'd be looking down, and seeing nothing
but the bent backs of them. It's inside we must be looking, sir,--and
God made us all the same, you and me, and Mr. George and my son Bert,
and the Polak and his wife and childher. It's the strike in every one of
us, sir,--and half the time we'd not know why we're striking!
ASHER. You're right there, Timothy
TIMOTHY. But that makes no difference, sir. It's what we can't be
reasoning, but the nature in us all--
(He flings his arm toward the open windows.)
--like the flowers and the trees in the doctor's garden groping to the
light of the sun. Maybe the one'll die for lack of the proper soil, and
many is cruelly trampled on, but the rest'll be growing, and none to
stop 'em.
ASHER (pacing to the end of the room, and turning). No, I won't listen
to it! You--you ask me to yield to them, when you have lost your son,
when they're willing to sacrifice--to murder my son on the field of
battle?
(He pauses and looks toward the doorway, right. DR. JONATHAN
standing there, holding in his hand a yellow envelope. ASHER
starts forward.)
A telegram? For me?
DR. JONATHAN. Yes, Asher.
(After giving it to ASHER, DR. JONATHAN takes his stand beside
MINNIE, who is at the back of the room, near the bench. He lays a
hand on her arm. ASHER tears open the envelope and stares at the
telegram, his hands trembling.)
ASHER (exclaiming, in a half whisper). George!
AUGUSTA. Oh Asher, not--not--!
(She reaches for the telegram. He gives it to her. She reads.)
“Captain George Pindar severely wounded, condition critical.”
TIMOTHY. Please God he'll be spared to ye!
CURTAIN.