Channing Pollock

“ Daniel
There've got to be little men, too, Mr. Goodkind.
[Pg 103]
Goodkind
And they've got to be satisfied with little rewards! We can't all have the same bank-roll any more than we can all have the same health! That's where unions go wrong! When you tell a man he's going to have the same reward, whatever he does—not because he's got ability, but because he's got a union card—down goes the standard, out goes incentive, and to hell goes the whole social structure! ”

“ Daniel
Yes.
Goodkind
They've got a notion that you get rich by riding around in a limousine!
Daniel
Don't you?
Goodkind
Not often! Not unless you think while you ride ... or your father thought for you! Even then, money doesn't stay long in bad company! To hear those fellows you'd think there wasn't any work, except what's done with a pick! The man that really produces is the man with the idea!
Daniel
The man that produces most.
Goodkind
Yes, and he ought to get most!
Daniel
He does!
Goodkind
He always will! Show me a big man and I'll show you somebody who's done a big job! ”

“ Tice followed by Jerry Goodkind. Mrs. Tice has just entered middle-age, and refuses to shut the door behind her. Her wealth, which has given her an air of great authority, has made it possible for her to look a smartly-dressed young matron. The truth is that she is clinging to youth in an ever-lessening hope of "keeping" her husband. Beneath the "air of authority" is something cowed, and worried, and unhappy. Just so, beneath the smiling, careless surface of Jerry lies iron. ”

“ Daniel
There is no peace! There is only fear—and hate—and vanity—and lust, and envy, and greed—of men and nations! There are only people preying on one another, and a hungry horde at the very doors of your church!... ”

“ Daniel
Exactly! We may believe in the brotherhood of man, but we know about germs! We're not sure what is truth, but there's one thing we are sure of, and mean to be sure of, and that's our own comfort! You know that, and I know it, and they know it—but we mustn't say it! All right; in God's name, what are we to say?
Dr. Wadham
[Who has been nervously regarding this raving as confirming the worst fears of Mr. Goodkind] : Precisely. And that brings us to tomorrow's sermon. I understand you intend to talk about the strike. [Dan nods "Yes"] And that's not a very pleasant subject for Christmas. ”

“ After a pause long enough for the audience to take in his surroundings, there is a light tap at the door and, without waiting for a response, Mary Margaret enters. She walks without crutches—quite briskly—but plainly is on some secret business. Daniel is lost in the darkness. A package in her hand, Mary Margaret crosses quickly to the table, and turns on one and then the other of the two lights in the lamp. Instantly, of course, she sees the figure in the chair, and conceals the package beneath her apron.
Mary Margaret
Mr. Gilchrist? [He shows himself] Goo'ness, how you scared me! ”

“ The public has a right to coal, and transportation, and all it needs and pays for! But, above everything else, the workman who works honestly has a right to something more than the barest kind of a bare living ... and it can all be done if you don't sink everybody's rights to accumulate a fortune you don't need and can't use!... All the argument on earth can't make you all right so long as there's a Umanski in the World! ”

“ For the rest, the library is a shallow room, very much like any other library in the home of any other rich and well educated man. It is a little richer and more luxurious than most, perhaps, with—here and there—priceless things from palaces in Venice or art collections in Rome. The obsession of business is suggested by various utilities, transient and otherwise—a row of law books, a small file, and a pile of papers upon the substantial library table. ”

“ Goodkind
It's nothing! It's a scrap of paper until I sign it, and I wouldn't sign it if I had to shut up every mine in West Virginia! Why should I? We've got 'em licked!
Daniel
If you'll only let me explain....
Goodkind
Explain what? They're licked! They sent a delegation up here, and we've won over the delegation! ”

“ Daniel
There is no other happiness. Oh, don't you see, my dear, that's been your great mistake? You're always crying—you and the world—"I want to be happy!" Happiness is service! Happiness is clean-living, and clear-thinking, and self-forgetfulness, and self-respect!
Clare
And love?
Daniel
Love isn't all. Not the love you mean. You said: "Take me, and we'll both forget." Could we have forgotten promises unkept, faith disappointed, aspirations [Pg 145] unrealized? No, my dear, love isn't all; nor even happiness. There's something bigger, and better, and more important, and that something is ... ”

“ Dr. Wadham
That isn't fair! These good people have given——
Daniel
Given—what cost them nothing! Frumpery and trumpery and diamond stars! That's how all of us give—what we don't need; what we don't even want!... You're a good man, Doctor, and, honestly, what would you say tomorrow if your wife told you she'd sold her rings, and given the money to the poor?
[Pg 47]
Dr. Wadham
Why, I——
Daniel
You'd say she was crazy!
Dr. Wadham
But there's no necessity——
Daniel
Oh, yes, there is! There'll be people lying in the parks tonight. What would Mrs. Tice say if I invited them to sleep in her pew? ”

“ Daniel
I agree with you!
Goodkind
I'd hate to figure what walk-outs have cost this country!
Daniel
Yes. I often wonder why it wouldn't be cheaper to keep the men contented.
Goodkind
How're you going to do it? Don't forget there are as many people paid for stirring up strikes as for crushing 'em! Paid well, too! What the laboring man needs is a real interest in his job! ”

“ Doing his job doesn't prevent any man from doing his bit. "From every man according to his ability, to every man according to his needs." And every man who gives his best must find his happiness.
Goodkind
I'm afraid there wouldn't be much progress ... living your way.
Daniel
That's the second time you've spoken of my way. It isn't my way. It's the sum total of all that has been learned and taught. You, and Jerry, and the others have called me eccentric, and a fool, because I'm trying to walk a path trod hard by countless feet. ”

“ Umanski stares in amazement at his temerity. Umanski is a giant Pole or Russian. Whatever flesh he ever had has been starved off; he is all bone and brawn. In his face is something strangely like poetry ... something born of silence and suffering. He is in his best, which does not obliterate the picture of the man in working clothes, his sleeves rolled up over his muscular arms. Hennig is a stocky man of 45—a "grouser." His tone has none of the courage, the dignity, the independence of Umanski's ”

“ Clare
But that's only the beginning. I want good clothes, and furs, and my car, and money to spend when I like. I want my own house, and my own servants, and [Pg 55] a husband who amounts to something. I'm no different from other women of my class.
Daniel
I hoped you were.
Clare
A year or two ago people thought you were going to be a Bishop. Today you've made an enemy of every influential man in the church. All that may be very noble, but I'm not noble, and I don't pretend to be. I don't feel any call to sacrifice myself for others, and I don't think you have any right to ask it! ”

“ Daniel
I'm rather badly in need of money, and my father——
[Pg 122]
Goodkind
Your father understood you well enough to leave you only an income. I foolishly turned over some of the principal, and, in three months, you threw away twenty thousand dollars. You could have had a big salary, and you threw that away. You're an utter damned waster—if you're no worse! ”

“ Francis of Assisi—of Plato, and Zeno, and Lincoln, and Emerson, and Florence Nightingale, and Father Damien, and Octavia Hill, and all the saints and scientists, and poets and philosophers, who have lived and died in complete forgetfulness of self? Were they fools, or were they wise men and women who had found the way to peace and happiness? Were they failures, or were they the great successes of all Time and all Eternity?
[Pg 174]
Goodkind
God knows!
[Jerry enters ... a dying man. He drags his legs with difficulty, and his speech is thick, but he is still cynical and defiant.] ”

“ Her daughter, Daffodil, commonly called "Dilly," perched upon the ladder, is a "flapper." As regards her mind, this means that, at twenty, she is wise and witty, cynical and confident, worldly and material beyond her elders. Physically, she is pretty, and, of course, has not hesitated to help out nature wherever she has thought it advisable. Considering what has been spent on her education, she is surprisingly ignorant and discourteous, particularly to her mother, who bores her dreadfully. ”

“ Goodkind
Tell Riggs—will you?—if any one comes, I'll be ... talking to Jerry. [He puts his hand on her shoulder] And ... buck up! There are people worse off than we are ... and it's a great life if you don't weaken!
[He exits L. Clare goes C. She puts the box, with its contents, on the table, dries her eyes, and is powdering her nose when Daniel Gilchrist opens the door R. He is in business clothes, and starts to retire when he sees Clare. He would a little rather avoid the interview.] ”

“ Benfield cannot trust himself to answer. He jams his hat upon his head, and exits L. Gilchrist is 33. He was a football hero at college, and shows it. He was a gentleman before he went to college, and he has been one ever since, and he shows that, too. What he doesn't show is what one expects in a "reformer"—narrowness, hardness, something forbidding. An ascetic, beyond doubt, self-denial has only made him trim and fit. The goodness that shines in his face is partly good humor. ”

“ Benfield is fifty, and a "rough diamond." He is self-made, and proud of it, though nothing really good—nothing of education, or refinement, or knowledge and appreciation of fine things—has gone into the making. ”

“ Tice
And lured him here by mentioning that Clare Jewett was helping us.
Dilly
Somebody page Mr. Gilchrist!
Mrs. Gilliam
Dilly! What a way of saying that Clare is engaged to the assistant rector!... Dilly's looking well today, isn't she, Mr. Goodkind? So young, and——
Jerry
And fresh.
Dilly
Oh, boy!
Mrs. Tice
Do come and see what I've got for the girls of the Bible Class!
Mrs. Thornbury
Testaments?
Mrs. Tice
That's just it; I haven't! Bibles are so bromidic! I want to give them something they can really use! And it's so hard to think of presents for those girls; they've got everything! ”

“ We'll consider that after the strike's called off.
Umanski
And the twenty-four-hour shift?
Goodkind
We'll consider that, too. Meanwhile—you go back just where you were!
Umanski
Then what good we gain by strike?
Goodkind
Nothing's ever gained by quarreling. You'll find that out some day.
Umanski
Some day something be gain! Some day we gonna win! This—he don't go on always! You see!
[Pg 79]
Jerry
[Insolently] : Are you ready?
Umanski
[As Hennig slips out R., Umanski looks at Jerry with contempt.] You see! [Exits R.]
Stedtman
[Significantly,—in a loud whisper] : We'll be back later. ”

“ I've noticed we're inclined to blame a man for a pug nose ... if ours is Roman. Some day we'll get over the idea that all who differ from us are villains, and that we should hate each other instead of trying to understand each [Pg 150] other. It was on the battlefields that I came to believe a man's life might well be given to teaching and to preaching ... love! [A solid half-brick crashes through a practical pane of glass in the window L. Everybody screams and rises.] ”

“ Goodkind
It's all been done before.
Stedtman
Never no completer! We're workin' the black list and, if a man opens his mouth too wide at a meetin', somebody—he don't know who—tips the gover'ment that he's a "red." We got 'em so they ain't sure of their own brothers. We're postin' bills, in seven languages, saying: "Why should workmen mistrust the company? This is the land of opportunity! ”

“ There ain't no woman safe! He's a damned fake! Beat him up! Kill him!
Joe
That's it! Don't let this big guy buffalo you! Come on! Drive him out! [To Daniel] I said I'd get you, an' I have! [The gang presses closer, but Umanski's menacing bulk still holds them off.]
Mary Margaret
[Kneeling on the platform L.] : Oh, dear God, please listen! [And she begins the Lord's Prayer.]
Pearl
Get the police!
Miss Levinson
[Crying out of the window L.] : Police! Police!
Jimmie
[To Umanski] : Get out of the way ... you!
A Voice
Bust him in the jaw!
Goodkind
[Forcing his way through] : Listen to me! ”

“ Above the struggling mass are seen fists striking down, various improvised weapons in action. A Dockman, who, at Joe's speech, has lifted the bench from behind Daniel, to fell him with it, and whose weapon has been seized, from the rear, by the Henchleys, pommels madly. Above the pandemonium are distinguished voices—Pearl: "Help!" Umanski: "I kill somebody!" Miss Levinson: "Police!" Goodkind: "Let him alone!" Suddenly Umanski throws off his captors, and, attacking the mob from in front, mows his way through, tossing them to left and right. When a way is cleared, he ... ”

“ This room is brilliantly illuminated; one sees the shadow of a man leaning against the glass door. Dilly Gilliam, at the piano, is playing one of the syncopations popular at the time. After a moment, a servant, with a card tray, enters R., crosses and exits [Pg 61] L. An instant later, Goodkind, in evening clothes, enters L. He has a card in his hand. The Servant re-enters, re-crosses, and re-exits, stopping, en route, to switch on the lights. Goodkind looks at the pile on the table, and turns the topmost paper face down. ”

“ Goodkind
Dead?
Umanski
My wife say: "Good! Not such many to feed!"
Jerry
When you worked you had enough to eat, didn't you?
Umanski
Yes. Work twelve hours a day and got enough to [Pg 74] eat—so can work some more. Always work. Get up—work—come back—sleep—get up—work. Never got time to talk to wife—never got time to talk to nobody—never got nowhere. Never save nothing.
Joe
[Whining] : It ain't fair! [Jerry takes out his cigarette case.]
Umanski
That little box—what you pay for him? [Jerry turns front, not deigning to answer] Ah, I know; gold. ”

“ Benfield
You're president of the company.
Goodkind
Yes, but that means digging up money—not coal. I've never set foot in West Virginia in my life; and I don't want to!
Benfield
Yes, but in a serious situation like this—
Goodkind
I sent Jerry. Jerry has a dozen qualifications and no scruples. And I sent Gilchrist.
[Pg 63]
Benfield
Who has scruples and no qualifications.
Goodkind
Thus striking a balance. I mean that! Don't make any mistake about Gilchrist. He's a valuable man. I didn't hire him because I was sorry he got fired out of the church ... and only a little because I knew his father. ”