Winston Churchill

“ GEORGE. Yes, you would,—if our interests conflicted. When I was in the trenches I kept thinking of the quotation Lincoln used, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” We're going to try to perpetuate that house, just as he did.
HILLMAN. Lincoln had common sense.
GEORGE. Another name for intelligence. And what we've got to decide is whether the old house will do—for democracy—industrial democracy? Can we shore up the timbers—or shall we have to begin to build a new house? ”

“ 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! ”

“ I am not afraid of the Junkers here,—I have spirits,—but the Germans at home have no spirits. You think you fight for freedoms, for democracy, but you fight for this! (He waves his hand to indicate the room.) If I had a million dollars, maybe I fight for it, too,—I don't know.
GEORGE. So you think I'm going to fight for this—for money?
PRAG. Are you going to fight for me, for the workmens and their childrens? No, you want to keep your money, to make more of it from your war contracts. It is for the capitalist system you fight. ”

“ 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. ”

“ GEORGE. I don't want to put you in jail, God knows! How would you manage it?
PRAG. Why does not the employer say to his workmens, “This is our war, yours and mines. Here is my contract, here is my profits, we will have no secrets, we will work together and talk together and win the war together to make the world brighter for our childrens.” Und then we workmens say, “Yes, we will work night and day so hard as we can, because we are free mens.” ”

“ GEORGE. I'm sorry. But weren't you getting along all right here, except your wife's illness? I don't want to be impertinent,—I recognize that it's your affair, but I'd like to know why you joined the union.
PRAG. Why is it you join the army? To fight for somethings you would give your life for—not so? Und you are a soldier,—would you run away from your comrades to live safe and happy? No! That is like me. I lose my job, I go away from my wife and childrens, but it is not for me, it is for all, to get better things for all,—freedoms for all. ”

“ 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. ”

“ GEORGE. The issue of the new century
ASHER. You're right, we've got to put these people down. After the war they'll come to heel,—we'll have a cheap labour market then.
DR. JONATHAN. Humanity has always been cheap, but we're spending it rather lavishly just now.
ASHER, You mean that there will be a scarcity of labour? And that they can continue to blackmail us into paying these outrageous wages?
DR. JONATHAN. When you pay a man wages, Asher, you own him,—until he is turned over to somebody else. ”

“ Of the Twentieth Century, industrial democracy is the watchword, even as political democracy was the watchword of the two centuries that preceded it. Economic power is at last realized to be political power. No man owns himself, no woman owns herself if the individual is not economically free. Perhaps the most encouraging omen of the day is the fact that many of our modern employers, and even our modern financiers and bankers seem to be recognizing this truth, to be growing aware of the danger to civilization of its continued suppression. ”

“ 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. ”

“ GEORGE. If they're rough with it, it'll tumble down like a pack of cards—simply because we're asses. Can't we build a house big enough for all—for a hundred million people and their descendants? A house in which, after a while, there will be no capitalists and no exploiters and no wreckers, only workers—each man and woman on the job they were fitted for? It's a man-sized job, but isn't it worth tackling? ”

“ BERT. I didn't want to be exempted, sir. More than four hundred of the boys have gone from the shops, as well as Mr. George here, and I couldn't stand it no longer.
ASHER. What's Mr. George got to do with it? The cases are different.
BERT (stoutly) . I don't see that, Mr. Pindar. Every man, no matter who he is, has to decide a thing like this for himself.
GEORGE. Bert's right, dad.
ASHER. You say he's right, when you know that I need every hand I can get to carry out this contract?
GEORGE. He's going to make a contract, too. He's giving up all he has. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Pindar! And it's proud I am of him, the same as you are of Mr. George, that he'd be fighting for America and liberty.
ASHER. Liberty! License is what we're getting now! The workman thinks he can do as he pleases. And after all I've done for my workmen,—building them a club house with a piano in it, and a library and a billiard table, trying to do my best to make them comfortable and contented. I pay them enough to buy pianos and billiard tables for themselves, and you tell me they want still higher wages. ”

“ ASHER (grimly) . Oh, I can handle them.
GEORGE. I'll bet you can. You're a regular old war horse when you get started. It's your capital, it's your business, you've put it all at the disposal of the government. What right have they to kick up a row now, with this war on? I must say I haven't any sympathy with that.
ASHER (proudly) . I guess you're a real Pindar after all, George.
(Enter an elderly maid, lower right.)
MAID. Timothy Farrell, the foreman's here.
(Enter, lower right, TIMOTHY, a big Irishman of about sixty, in working clothes.) ”

“ GEORGE. They're part of the game—their theories are the basis for an intelligent practice. And what should we be able to do without their figures? Look at what we've worked out in large scale production and distribution in this war! That's a new world problem. Shall we be pioneers here in Foxon Falls in the new experiment?
RENCH. An experiment in human chemicals, as the doctor would say. Pioneers! ”

“ 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. ”

“ GEORGE (laying his hand on ASHER's shoulder) . Something is worrying you, dad. We've always been pretty good pals, haven't we?
ASHER. Yes, ever since you were a little shaver. Well, George, I didn't want to bother you with it—today. It seems there's trouble in the shops,—in our shops, of all places,—it's been going on for some time, grumbling, dissatisfaction, and they're getting higher wages than ever before—ruinous wages. They want me to recognize the union.
GEORGE. Well, that beats me. I thought we were above the labour-trouble line, away up here in New England. ”

“ 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? ”

“ GEORGE. Trust is all right, but you've got to go to it, too, and use your headpieces. We've got to sit down together and educate ourselves, who are now employers and employees, get hold of all the facts, the statistics,—and all the elements, the human nature side of it, from the theorists, the students, whom we've despised. ”

“ We ain't got a chance against the employers without the union.
TIMOTHY. God help me, to think my son would join the union,—and he going to be a soldier!
BERT (glancing at GEORGE) . I guess there'll be other union men in the trenches besides me.
ASHER. Soldier or no soldier, I'll never employ any man again who's joined a union.
GEORGE (perturbed) . Hold on, dad!
ASHER. I mean what I say, I don't care who he is.
BERT (who retains his self-possession) . Excuse me, Mr. Pindar, but I'd like to ask you a question—I've heard the men talking about this in the shops. ”

“ GEORGE. But you're conservatives, you labour union people—the aristocrats of labour, which means that you don't think. What you really object to, when you come down to it, is that men like my father and me, and the bankers,—we're all in the same boat, most of 'us own banks, too,—control the conditions of life for you and men like you. ”

“ GEORGE (halting) . I thought I'd look around and see if I'd forgotten anything, mother.
AUGUSTA. Stay with us,—there's plenty of time.
(TIMOTHY returns through the doorway, upper right, with BERT, but without MINNIE.)
TIMOTHY. It's disappeared entirely she is, ma'am,—here one minute and there the next, the way with young people nowadays. And she's going back to Newcastle this afternoon, to her job at the Wire Works.
AUGUSTA. I must see her before she goes. I feel in a measure responsible for her. You'll tell her? ”

“ GEORGE. Well, you heard Bert just now. I thought he had poor old dad on the hip when he accused the employer of holding up the war, too. But after all, what labour is after is more money, isn't it? and they're taking advantage of a critical situation to get it. And when they get money, most of them blow it in on sprees.
DR. JONATHAN. George, what are you going to France to fight for?
GEORGE. Germany's insulted our flag, murdered our people on the high seas and wants to boss the world. ”

“ Good luck, George!
(She goes to the doorway, upper right, turns, kisses her hand to GEORGE and disappears. He goes to the doorway and gazes after her; presently he raises his hand and waves in answer to another signal, and smiles. He remains there until MINNIE is out of sight, and then is about to come back into the room when a man appears on the sidewalk, seen through the windows. The man is PRAG. He is a gaunt workman, with high cheek bones and a rather fanatical light in his blue eyes. He stands motionless, gazing at the house.) ”

“ Today it is on the knees of the gods whether the insuppressible impulses for human freedom that come roaring up from the subliminal chaos, fanned by hunger and hate, are to thrash themselves out in anarchy and insanity, or to take an ordered, intelligent and conscious course. ”

“ The harm that a bad woman can do, Augusta, is sometimes exceeded only by the harm a good woman can do. You are unfortunately steeped in a religion which lacks the faith in humanity that should be its foundation. The girl has just given you the strongest proof of an inherent goodness, and you choose to call her bad. But if you will not listen to Moses and the prophets, how will you listen to Christ?
AUGUSTA. Jonathan! Where are you going?
DR. JONATHAN. To find Minnie Farrell and bring her back to Foxon Falls. ”

“ 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. ”

“ GEORGE (turning to BERT) . Well, here's wishing you luck, Bert, and hoping we'll meet over there. I know how you feel,—you want to be in it, just as I do.
ASHER (turning) . Perhaps I said more than I meant to, Bert. I've got to turn out these machines in order that our soldiers may have shrapnel to fight with, and what with enlistments and the determination of unscrupulous workmen to take advantage of the situation, I'm pretty hard pressed. I can't very well spare steady young men like you, who have too much sense and too much patriotism to mix yourselves up with trouble makers. ”

“ Every time you ride into it you see a big sign, “Welcome to Newcastle, population one hundred and six thousand, and growing every day. Goodbye, and thank you!”
AUGUSTA (knitting) . You drive about in automobiles!
MINNIE. Oh, sometimes I get a joy ride.
AUGUSTA. It grieves me to hear you talk in this way. I knew you were pleasure loving, I thought I saw certain tendencies in you, yet you seemed to realize the grace of religion when you were in my Bible class. Your brother Jamesy took to drink—
MINNIE. And I took to religion. You meant to be kind, Mrs. Pindar, and I thank you. ”

“ 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? ”

“ But I can see why Bert's going to the war, and why Jamesy took to drink, and why Minnie left Foxon Falls.
GEORGE. The deuce you can!
DR. JONATHAN. And so can you, George. When you get back from France you will know what you have been fighting for.
GEORGE. And what's that?
DR. JONATHAN. Economic freedom, without which political freedom is a farce. Industrial democracy.
GEORGE. Industrial democracy! Well, it wasn't included in my education at Harvard.
DR. JONATHAN. Our education begins, unfortunately, after we leave Harvard,—with Bert and Jamesy and Minnie. And here's Minnie, now! ”

“ GEORGE. And your Confederation, your unions are for the skilled workers, whose conditions aren't so bad,—and they're getting better every time you jack up the wages. You complain that we employers aren't thinking of you, but are you thinking of the millions of the unskilled who live from hand to mouth? ”

“ 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. ”

“ I must get these socks finished for you to take with you, my dear. (To DR. JONATHAN) I can't realize he's going! (To GEORGE) You haven't got all your things in your bag! Where's the life-preserving suit I sent for?
GEORGE (glancing at DR. JONATHAN) . Oh that's gone, mother.
AUGUSTA. He always took cold so easily, and that will keep him warm and dry, if those terrible Germans sink his ship. But your presents, George! (To DR. JONATHAN:) Made for him by sisters of his college friends.
GEORGE (amused but embarrassed) . I can't fit up a section of the trenches as a boudoir. ”

“ 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! ”