GEORGE. It seems to have served its day. Has your union got the plans of a new house ready--consulted an architect?
RENCH. I"m afraid we don"t get you, Captain.
GEORGE. You belong to the American Federation of Labour, don"t you? Has it got a new house ready to move into?
RENCH. Well, I haven"t seen any plans.
GEORGE. If the old structure"s too small, one party or the other will have to be shoved out. The capitalist or the employee. Which will it be?
RENCH (laughing). If it comes to that--
GEORGE (smiling). There"s no question in your mind. But you hadn"t thought about it--your Federation hasn"t thought about it, or doesn"t want to think about it, and your employers don"t want to, either.
HILLMAN (stroking his moustache). That"s so
GEORGE. I"ll tell you who have thought about it--the Bolshevists and the I. W. W. And because they have a programme,--some programme, any programme, they"re more intelligent than we, for the time.
RENCH. Those guys?
GEORGE. Exactly,--those guys. At least they see that the house isn"t fit to live in. They want to pull it down, and go back to living in trees and caves.
HILLMAN. That"s about right.
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.
RENCH. I never heard it put in those words, but by gum, it"s so.
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 old structure"s good enough for you, too. But what will the miserable men, who don"t sit in, be doing while we"re squabbling to see who"ll have the best rooms?
RENCH. Blow the house up, I guess.
GEORGE. If they"re rough with it, it"ll tumble down like a pack of cards--simply because we"re a.s.ses. 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?
RENCH (enthused). It"s sure worth tackling, Captain.
GEORGE. And can"t we begin it, in a modest way, by making a little model of the big house right here in Foxon Falls? Dr. Jonathan will help us.
RENCH. Go to it, Captain. We"ll trust him and you.
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.
RENCH. Well, it"s a fact, I hadn"t thought much of them intellectuals.
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! I kind of like that word. You can put me in the wagon, Captain.
GEORGE. It will be a Conestoga with the curtains rolled up, so that everybody can see in. No secrets. And it will be a wagon with an industrial const.i.tution.
FERSEN. Excuse me, Captain,--but what"s that?
(RENCH laughs.)
GEORGE (smiling). Hasn"t it struck you, Fersen, that unless a man has a voice and an interest in the industry in which he works his voice, and interest in the government for which he votes is a mockery?
(FERSEN nods.)
RENCH. We"ll have to give Larz a little education.
GEORGE. Oh, I guess he"ll make a good industrial citizen. But that"s part of the bargain.
RENCH. That"s fair. Human nature ain"t so rotten, when you give it a chance.
GEORGE. Well, then, are you willing to try it out, on the level?
RENCH. I cal"late we"ll stick, Captain.
HILLMAN. We sure will.
FERSEN. We"ll be pioneers!
GEORGE. That"s good American, Fersen, not to be afraid of an ideal.
Shake! We"ll sit down with it in a day or two.
(They all shake. The members of the committee file out of the room, lower right. GEORGE is left alone for a brief interval, when MINNIE, in the white costume of a nurse, enters, lower right, with a gla.s.s of medicine in her hand.)
MINNIE (halting). You"re all alone? Where"s Dr. Jonathan?
GEORGE. He"s gone off with dad.
MINNIE. It"s nine o"clock.
(She hands him the gla.s.s, he drinks the contents and sets the gla.s.s on the table. Then he takes her hands and draws her to him and kisses her. She submits almost pa.s.sively.)
Why are you doing this, George?
GEORGE. Because I love you, because I need you, because I"m going to marry you.
MINNIE (shaking her head: slowly). No you"re not.
GEORGE. Why not?
MINNIE. You know why not, as well as I do.
(She gazes up at him. He is still holding her in his arms.
Suddenly she kisses him pa.s.sionately, breaks away from him and starts to fly from the room, when she runs into DR. JONATHAN, who is entering, lower right.)
DR. JONATHAN. Where are you going, Minnie?