Brecht Collected Plays: 3: Lindbergh's Flight; The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent; He Said Yes/He Said No; The Decision; The Mother; The Exception & the ... St Joan of the Stockyards (World Classics)
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To make His voice resound in the stockyards.
To the Black Straw Hats:
This campaign of ours
Is undoubtedly the last of its kind. The last attempt
To set Him up again in a crumbling world
Using the lowliest to do so.
They march out to the beating of drums.
d
THE BLACK STRAW HATS WORKED IN THE STOCKYARDS FROM MORNING TO NIGHT, BUT WHEN NIGHT FELL THEY HAD ACCOMPLISHED NEXT TO NOTHING.
Outside the Lennox packing plant.
A WORKER: There’s a big swindle under way in the meat market. It looks like we’ll have to go hungry until the fight is over.
OTHER WORKERS: The light’s on in the offices. They’re counting their profits.
The Black Straw Hats enter. They put up a sign saying: ‘A bed for the night 20 cts. With coffee 30 cts.’
THE BLACK STRAW HATS (singing):
Watchful, be watchful
We’ve seen you, man going down
We’ve heard your appeal for rescue
Seen the girl about to drown.
Stop all these motorcars, hold up that tram
We shall prevent you from sinking, we do give a damn.
Wait until we arrive!
Take courage now, my brothers, we’ll see that you survive!
There’s hope for every sinner
You’ll eat a decent dinner
You have to stay alive.
So never say that nobody can change things
That inequality is ours from birth.
If you’ll agree with us it’s time for action
And all decide to sweep it from the earth
We’ll order the tanks to move up here
And warships will mobilize
And bombers will blacken the skies
So that you, my brother, get a bowl of soup for supper.
And don’t forget that the poor are
The mightiest army of all.
And now we must go forward
And everyone answer our call.
’Tenshun! Fix bay’nets! Beat the drum!
Courage, all those who were sinking! Look this way! Here we come.
While still singing, the Black Straw Hats start handing out their little tract, ‘The War Cry’, spoons and bowls of soup. The workers say ‘Thank you’. Then they listen to Joan’s speech.
JOAN: We are soldiers of God. Because of our hats people call us the Black Straw Hats. Wherever conditions are unsettled and violence threatens, we come marching with our drums and banners, to remind people of God, whom they’ve all forgotten, and lead their souls back to Him. We call ourselves soldiers, because we’re an army, marching as to war against crime and poverty, for those are the powers that are trying to drag us down. (She starts ladling out the soup.) There you are. Get some hot soup inside you. After that things will look entirely different, but kindly spare a thought for the one who provides it. Once you start thinking, you’ll see there’s only one solution: to look up and not down. To put yourself in line for a good berth up top and not down below. To try and be first up top and not down below. Now you see how much reliance can be placed in earthly happiness. None at all. Trouble comes like rain that nobody makes but it comes all the same. See what I mean? Where do your troubles come from?
A SOUP EATER: From Lennox & Co.
JOAN: Maybe Mr Lennox has worse worries than you do right now. What have you got to lose? His losses come to millions!
A WORKER: There’s not much fat in this soup, but there’s plenty of wholesome water, and you’ve got to admit it’s good and hot.
ANOTHER WORKER: Shut up and enjoy the banquet! Listen to the heavenly message or they’ll take your soup away.
JOAN: Quiet! Tell me this, dear friends; why are you poor?
A WORKER: Okay, you tell us.
JOAN: I will: it’s not because you’re not blessed with earthly goods – which don’t come everybody’s way – but because you have no feeling for the higher things. That’s why you’re poor. The earthly joys you chase after, a bit of food, a nice place to live, a movie show – these are crude sensual pleasures. God’s word is a higher, finer, more spiritual joy. I bet you can’t think of anything sweeter than whipped cream. Well, the word of God is even sweeter. Oh, how sweet it is! It’s like milk and honey, and in it ye dwell as in a palace of gold and alabaster. O ye of little faith, the birds under heaven have no ‘Help Wanted’ ads, and the lilies of the field have no jobs, and yet He feeds them because they sing His praise. You all want to get to the top. But what kind of place do you call the top, and how do you expect to get there? All right. We Black Straw Hats have a very practical question to ask you: What does a man need to get to the top?
WORKER: A stiff collar.
JOAN: No, not a stiff collar. Maybe you need a stiff collar to get ahead in the world, but before God you need a lot more, an entirely different kind of halo, and you men haven’t even got a celluloid collar to your name, because you’ve completely neglected the inner life. So how do you expect to get to the top – or what you in your folly call the top? By brute force? As if anything but destruction were ever accomplished by violence. You think you’ll get a paradise on earth by fighting for it. But I say unto you: fighting won’t get you a paradise, it will get you chaos.
A worker runs in.
THE WORKER:
There’s a job open!
At No. 5 Plant, it pays wages, and
It’s calling you!
The place looks like a shithouse.
Run!
Three workers leave their full soup bowls and run away.
JOAN: Hey, you, where are you running so fast? When you’re being told about God! I guess that’s something you don’t care to hear about!
A BLACK STRAW HAT: We’re out of soup.
THE WORKERS:
They’re out of soup.
It was watery, there wasn’t much of it. But it was
Better than nothing.
All turn away and stand up.
JOAN: Stay where you are, it doesn’t matter. The Lord’s soup will never run out.
THE WORKERS:
When will you finally
Open your crawling cellars
You butchers of men?
Groups form.
A MAN:
Now how will I finish paying for the cute little damp little cottage
Where twelve of us live? Seventeen
Installments I’ve paid and now the last is due.
They will throw us out on the street and never again
Will we see the trampled ground with the parched yellow grass on it
And never again will we breathe
The familiar contaminated air.
A SECOND MAN (around whom a group has formed):
Here we stand with hands like shovels
And necks like fork lifts, wanting to sell
Our hands and necks
And no one buys them.
THE WORKERS:
And our tools, a mountain
Of steam hammers and cranes
Locked behind walls!
JOAN:
Hey, what is this? Why, they’re turning their backs!
Fed your bellies, eh? Thanks for coming. Why have you stayed this long?
A WORKER:
For the soup.
JOAN:
We will carry on. Sing!
THE BLACK STRAW HATS (singing):
March straight into the fight
Into the thickest of the fray!
And sing with all our might. It is still night
But bright will be the dawning day
And our Lord Jesus is on his way.
A VOICE (from the rear):
There’s still some jobs open at Mauler’s.
The workers go out except for a few women.
JOAN (gloomily):
Pack up the instruments. Did you see how they all beat it when the soup ran out?
Those people rise no higher than
The rim of a bowl. They
Believe in nothing but what
They hold in their hands – if they believe in hands.
Living from minute to minute insecurely
They cannot rise from the lowest depths
Where only hunger can capture their attention. No
Song can move them, no word
Reaches them down there.
(To the bystanders:) We Black Straw Hats feel as if we had a starving continent to feed with our spoons.
The workers come back. Shouts in the distance.
THE WORKERS (front): What’s that shouting? A gigantic river of humanity from the direction of the packing plants!
VOICE (from the rear):
Mauler and Cridle are closing down too!
The Mauler plants have shut their gates!
THE RETURNING WORKERS:
Running for work we met halfway
A river of desperate men
Who had lost their jobs. They started
Asking us about jobs.
A WORKER (front):
O God! Another column from over there!
Endless! Mauler too
Has closed. Where are we to turn?
THE BLACK STRAW HATS (to Joan): Let’s go. We’re wet and frozen stiff. We’ve got to eat.
JOAN: First I’ve got to find out who’s to blame for all this.
THE BLACK STRAW HATS:
Hold it! Don’t get involved in that! They’ll chew
Your ears off. Their minds are low.
They’re lazy. Lazy and greedy. They haven’t had
One higher impulse since the day they were born!
JOAN: I want to know. (To the workers.) Now tell me. Why are you running around this way? Why are you out of work?
THE WORKERS:
Bloodsucking Mauler is locked in battle
With penny-pinching Lennox. That’s why we’re starving.
JOAN:
Where does this Mauler live?
THE WORKERS:
Where cattle are bought and sold, in
A big building, the Livestock Exchange.
JOAN:
I’m going to see him, because
I’ve got to know.
MARTHA (one of the Black Straw Hats):
Don’t get involved in that! Ask many
Questions and you’ll get many answers.
JOAN:
Never mind. I want to see this Mauler
Who’s at the bottom of so much misery.
THE BLACK STRAW HATS:
In that case, Joan, your future looks black to us.
Don’t get involved in earthly strife.
It will engulf you
Your purity won’t last, and soon
Your bit of warmth will perish in
The all-pervading cold.
Goodness departs from those who leave
The comforting hearth fire.
Striving downward step by step
In search of an answer never to be found
You will vanish in the muck!
For muck is what gets heaped upon those who
Ask incautious questions.
JOAN:
I want to know.
The Black Straw Hats go out.
3
PIERPONT MAULER FEELS THE BREATH OF ANOTHER WORLD.
Outside the Livestock Exchange.
Joan and Martha are waiting down below; above, the meat packers Lennox and Graham in conversation. Lennox is chalky-white. The sound of the Livestock Exchange behind them.
GRAHAM:
Alas, good Lennox, what a bitter blow
Vile Mauler has struck you. Irresistibly
The monster rises, making merchandise
Of nature itself, selling the air we breathe.
That man could sell us the food we ate for dinner
Squeeze rent from houses that caved in long ago
Coin money from rotten meat, and if you stoned him
I’ll wager he would turn your stones to gold.
So consuming is his greed, such second nature
His unnatural passion has become to him
That he himself would not disown it.
You see, he’s soft, he has no love of money, he
Can’t bear the sight of misery, can’t sleep at night.
So go to him, and in a half-choked voice
Say: Mauler, look at me. Mauler, take your
Hands from my throat. Think of your old age.
That’ll stop him. He may even burst into tears.
JOAN (to Martha):
You alone, Martha, have come
Here with me. All the others
Have left me with a warning on their lips
As if I were going to my death – strange warning!
Thank you, Martha.
MARTHA: I too warned you, Joan.
JOAN: And came with me.
MARTHA: But will you recognize him, Joan?
JOAN: Never fear, I’ll recognize him.
Cridle appears above.
CRIDLE:
Well, Lennox, there’s an end to your undercutting.
You’re finished. I’ll shut down and wait for
The market to pick up. I’ll clean up the premises
And oil my knives and put in some of those new
Processing machines that save a pretty penny
In wages. New contraption. Pretty fancy.
The pig rides up on a conveyor belt
Of wire netting to the topmost floor
And there the butchering begins. The pig
Plunges almost unaided, landing on
The knives. Not bad, eh? See, the pig
Butchers itself, converts itself to sausage.
From floor to floor descending, first forsaken by
Its hide, to be fashioned into leather
Then parting with its bristles, used for brushes
And lastly casting off its bones – which give us bone meal –
It’s forced by gravity into the can
That’s waiting down below. Not bad, eh?
GRAHAM:
Not bad. But where’s your outlet for that can?
Accursed times! The market’s ruined, glutted
And business, once so thriving, at a standstill.
Fighting over a constipated market
You drove the prices down by undercutting each other
Like buffaloes which, fighting, trample the grass they’re fighting over.
Mauler comes out with Slift his broker and group of packers.
Behind him two detectives.
THE PACKERS:
The question is who can hold out longest.
MAULER:
Lennox is sunk. (To Lennox:) You’re through. Admit it.
And Cridle, I expect you now to take
Over the plant as we agreed you would
Once Lennox fell.
CRIDLE:
Yes, Lennox is through, but so is the thriving market.
Therefore, dear Mauler, you will have to come
Down on the price of your stock. Ten million is too steep!
MAULER:
What’s that! The price
Is right here in the contract! Lennox, look!
Is this a contract? Does it state a price?
CRIDLE:
Yes, but this contract was drawn up in good times.
Does it say anything about a slump?
What can I do on my own with a packing plant
When nobody’s buying a single can of meat?
Ah, now I know why you couldn’t bear to see
Them kill a steer: because you knew
Its meat could not be sold!
MAULER:
No. ’Twas because the poor beast’s bellowing
Sickened my heart.
GRAHAM:
Oh, great Mauler, now at last I see
The full extent of your greatness. Even your heart
Has foresight!
LENNOX:
Mauler, I’d like just once more . . .
GRAHAM:
Touch him in the heart, Lennox. Touch him in the heart.
’Tis a sensitive garbage pit!
He punches Mauler in the solar plexus.
MAULER: Ouch!
GRAHAM: You see, he has a heart!
MAULER:
That does it, Freddy. Now I’ll fix it
So Cridle doesn’t take a single can
Off your hands. Because you punched me.
GRAHAM:
No, Pierpy, no! That would be mixing
Private affairs with business.
CRIDLE:
Don’t worry, Pierpy. Anything you say.
GRAHAM: I have two thousand workers, Mauler.
CRIDLE: Send them to the movies. But Pierpy, our contract isn’t valid. (He does some figuring in a small notebook.) When you decided to pull out and we drew up this contract, the shares, that we each held a third of, were selling for three ninety. You let me have them for three twenty; that was cheap. Today it’s too much, because the market is glutted and they’re quoted at a hundred. I couldn’t pay you without throwing any of my shares on the market. If I do that, they’ll drop to seventy and I won’t realize enough to pay you. I’ll be through.
MAULER:
If that’s your story, Cridle, I
Had better get my money out of you now
Before you’re through.
Believe me, Cridle, I’m so frightened
I’m breaking out in sweat. Six days is all I
Can give you! No! Where’s my head? Five days
If that’s your situation.
LENNOX: Look at me, Mauler.
MAULER: You tell us, Lennox. Does the contract say anything about a slump?
LENNOX: No.
Lennox goes out.
MAULER (looking after him):
Methinks some trouble is gnawing at his vitals
And I, immersed in business (more’s the pity!)
Let it escape me. Oh beastly business!
It turns my stomach, Cridle.
Cridle goes out. Meanwhile Joan has motioned one of the detectives over to her and said something to him.
THE DETECTIVE: Mr Mauler, there are some people over there who would like a word with you.
MAULER: A shabby bunch? Envious looking? Violent? Tell them I’m busy.
THE DETECTIVE: It’s two members of the Black Straw Hats.
MAULER: What’s that?
THE DETECTIVE: It’s an organisation with numerous branches and a large membership. The lower classes think the world of them and call them the Soldiers of the Lord.
MAULER: I’ve heard of them. ‘Soldiers of the Lord’; that’s an odd name. What do they want of me?
THE DETECTIVE: They say they would like a word with you. Meanwhile the roar of the Livestock Exchange goes on: Steers 43, Hogs 55, Calves 59, etc.