[Instantly upon this the door is opened enough to admit the heads of two wops very similar to POLENSKI.]
FIRST WOP: Parasites!
SECOND WOP: Bloodsuckers!
POLENSKI: Capitalists, parasites, bloodsuckers, bourgeoisie! Do you think we expect any justice out of you? Do you think I come in this room ever dreaming you’d grant our demands? No! We knew you! And if we do assert our rights, what do you do? You set your hellhounds of police on us! Haven’t we been agitatin’ for our rights among you for days? We’ve got our answer from you, but you look out for ours, because as sure as there is a hell waitin’ for all parasites, we’ll send you there, and your factory, too! [Looks up at the clock.] My God, is that clock right? [He runs out at top speed.]
SIMPSON: They don’t seem to know their place!
SHOMBERG: Them fellers think they own the earth.
RILEY: Next, they’ll be thinkin’ they own our factory!
CARTER [solemnly]: Well, sir, I wonder what this country is coming to!
[Here there is a muffled explosion in the sample piano, which rocks with the jar, at the same time emitting a few curls of smoke. General exclamations of horror and fright as all of the committee break for shelter.]
SHOMBERG [his voice rising over the others]: Send for the police!
SALVATORE [shouting]: Wait! We ain’t divided up the money!
NORA: It’s over; it hasn’t done any harm!
FRANKEL [on his hands and knees under the table]: It was in that piano. [NORA goes across to the piano.] Look out, he’s probably got another one in there.
[MIFFLIN helps NORA to take off the front of the piano, which is still mildly smoking; a wreckage of wires is seen.]
MIFFLIN [smiling]: It must have been an accident!
FRANKEL AND MRS. SIMPSON [coming out from under the table]: Accident!
MIFFLIN: Of course it’s unfortunate, because it might be misconstrued.
RILEY: Yes, it might.
MIFFLIN [confidently]: Let me go talk to these new comrades!
RILEY: Comrades? Frankel’s wops? Ha, ha!
SALVATORE: Aw, them ain’t comrades; them’s just Frankel’s hired workers.
MIFFLIN: They are comrades in the best sense of the word. I am in touch with all the groups. A moment’s reasoning from one they know to be sympathetic —
[He goes out into the factory.]
SALVATORE: Hey, let’s get that stuff divided up. I got an engagement.
FRANKEL: Yes; let’s hurry. You can’t tell what they got planted round here.
CARTER [rapping]: The meeting will please come to —
SALVATORE: Here, cut that out! We ain’t got no time to —
SHOMBERG: No. Come to business; come to business!
NORA: The only way, comrades, to know how much we have gained since the last division is to read the bookkeeper’s report.
FRANKEL: Well, for heaven’s sakes, go on — read it!
CARTER: Well, I did want to a long while ago, when we first set down and begun the meeting. I says then, I report on my committee and —
VARIOUS MEMBERS: Oh, for heaven’s sake! Go ahead! Cut it out!
CARTER [picking up the sheets]: On the first page is says Soomary.
RILEY: What’s that mean?
MRS. SIMPSON: Oh, my goodness!
FRANKEL: Git to the figures!
CARTER: Well, here, on one side it says gross receipts —
SHOMBERG [rubbing his hands]: Ah!
CARTER: What?
SIMPSON [shouting]: Read it!
CARTER: Gross receipts $2,162.43. On the other side it says: “Cash paid out $19,461.53.”
[All are puzzled.]
It didn’t sound right to me, even the first time I read it. Looks like he’s got the wrong words, crossed over.
FRANKEL: Why, gross receipts last month was over twenty-four thousand dollars!
SHOMBERG: Yes, and that was a fall off from the month before.
CARTER [rubbing his head]: Well, I don’t pretend to understand it, but he told me all them was mostly payments on old sales anyhow.
RILEY: Read it again, read it again!
SIMPSON: Yes, let’s see if we can’t get what the sense of it is.
CARTER: It says “Gross receipts, $2,162.43” — that’s over here. “Cash paid out, $19,461.53.”
[All seem dazed.]
RILEY: What else you got there?
CARTER: As near as it seems to me, just a lot of items.
SALVATORE: Well, we must have a lot of money in the bank; what’s the matter we draw that out and divide it?
RILEY: Wait a minute! What’s there besides them items?
CARTER: He’s got a note. “Note,” he says; here it is: He says: “Bank notified us this morning we’re overdrawn $59.01.”
RILEY: Overdrawn?
SHOMBERG: Then we got to deposit some to our account. Who’s got charge of the checks that comes in?
NORA: The bookkeeper has charge, but there aren’t any checks.
CARTER: No, they ain’t been any checks comin’ in for some days; a week or so, or two weeks, you might say. We’ve looked everywhere for ’em —
FRANKEL [aghast]: You looked all through them letters?
CARTER: They ain’t none left in ’em that wasn’t took out a good while ago.
SALVATORE: You ain’t looked through the safe, have you?
CARTER: They ain’t a one in it; it’s got me all puzzled up, I tell you.
I was jest waitin’ for the meeting to settle it.
FRANKEL: But heaven’s sakes! There must be checks comin’ in from new sales!
CARTER: It says here sales has fallen off. So fur this month they was only three instruments sold.
SIMPSON: But, my gosh, this is the end of the month!
CARTER: They was two sold in Council Bluffs and one in Detroit.
[General agitation and excitement.]
MRS. SIMPSON [trembling with rage and fear]: You mean to stand there and tell me we ain’t goin’ to git any money to-day, and my flat rent to pay to-morrow?
RILEY: Don’t talk about your flat rent to me, lady! There’s others of us got a few things to pay.
SHOMBERG: But, my golly, when do we git paid?
CARTER: I can’t make out from what he’s got here.
SALVATORE [rapping fiercely on the table]: Hey! I got to have my money!
CARTER: Well, I got to have mine, don’t I?
SIMPSON: Go on. See what else it says.
CARTER: Well, here he’s got this. Here it says: “Bills payable, $17,162.48.”
FRANKEL [leaping up]: Bills payable! My God, no money in bank, and we’re $17,162.48 in debt!
MRS. SIMPSON [shrieking]: Who owes it?
SIMPSON: We do!
SHOMBERG: Who’s goin’ to pay it?
RILEY: Who run us into debt that way?
SALVATORE: That’s the man we’re after!
FRANKEL: Who’s the man responsible for us bein’ $17,162.48 bankrupt?
RILEY [hammering the table]: Who run us into debt over seventeen thousand dollars?
SIMPSON: Well, give him a chance to answer.
CARTER: What do I know about it? That’s what the report says. That’s all I know.
SHOMBERG: Well, somebody’s got us into debt. And who is it?
NORA: It’s all of us! Haven’t we all done this thing together?
FRANKEL: Well, who’s got to pay it?
NORA: We’ve all got to!
SHOMBERG, SALVATORE, FRANKEL, AND MRS. SIMPSON: You expect to git blood out of a stone? What do you take us for? You’re crazy! You helped get us into this! [SHOMBERG and SALVATORE begin shouting at each other.]
SHOMBERG: You pay me back that twenty-five dollars you got from me
Friday!
SALVATORE: How I’m goin’ to pay you twenty-five dollars when I’m seventeen thousand dollars in debt?
SHOMBERG: I’ll have that money!
[He takes a paper weight from desk.]
&
nbsp; SALVATORE: You throw that at me, I’ll give you a little sticker where you won’t like it!
[Puts his hand in the breast of his coat. Murder appears imminent. Sudden and general dispersal from the neighbourhood of the combatants, which brings NORA to GIBSON, unconsciously seeking his protection.]
SHOMBERG: Aw, I didn’t mean anything serious like that. [Puts down the paper weight.] But I’ll get the money.
SALVATORE: You’ll need it — to pay your share what we owe!
MRS. SIMPSON: I’d like to see ’em get one cent out of me!
CARTER: It ain’t just us here of course; they’s a hundred and seventy men outside the debt belongs to as well as us. The whole factory’s got to pay it.
SIMPSON: Great gosh! Do you think we can go out there, when they’re expectin’ a month’s pay, and tell ’em they’re gettin’ only a seventeen-thousand-dollar debt?
FRANKEL: And me, me, me! Look at me! Do you think I can go out and tell them thirty-five bloodhounds I ain’t got no money to even pay their wages?
RILEY [vehemently]: What’s more, you owe thirty-five shares of that debt, Frankel!
ALL [with vindictive satisfaction]: That’s it! Sure he does! He owes thirty-five shares of the debt! That’s right!
FRANKEL: What?
RILEY: You owe thirty-five shares of the seventeen-thousand debt.
FRANKEL: My heavens! Ain’t the meetin’ just settled it I didn’t have no right to them shares and it was all to be divided even?
CARTER: What we got to do, we got to go out there and tell ’em they owe this money.
FRANKEL: I can’t tell mine!
SALVATORE: I know one game little fellow that ain’t goin’ to pay nobody nothin’. Excuse me, gents; they’ll have to find me!
[He goes out hastily by the door that leads to the street.]
CARTER: Well, somebody’s got to go out there and tell ’em.
SIMPSON: Well, I won’t!
MRS. SIMPSON: It’s the chairman’s place.
CARTER: We all got to go!
FRANKEL: Not me!
SIMPSON: Yes, you will! [Takes him by the shoulders.]
RILEY [taking him from SIMPSON]: Put him first!
[They begin to jostle toward the factory door.]
FRANKEL [as they push him he waves a despairing hand at GIBSON]: Mr.
Gibson, that was a fine trick you played on us!
THE COMMITTEE [shouting]: You go on there! Come on! We got to take our medicine!
FRANKEL: Lemme alone! Take your hands off me!
[They jostle out, leaving NORA and GIBSON alone together. NORA has gone to the large table, sitting beside it, with her head far down between her hands. As the noise dies away MIFFLIN comes in from the factory.]
MIFFLIN: What wonderful spirits! Just great, rough boys!
[Smiles as he gets his hat, magazines, newspaper, and umbrella.]
Everything is working out. Some little inevitable friction here, some little setback there. But it all works, it all works to the one great end. I’m sorry I wasn’t present for the end of the meeting to hear what success there was this month, but that’s a detail. The dream has come true. It’s here, and we’re living it! [At the door.] I’ll send you a copy of my next article, Mr. Gibson. [Modestly laughs.] They tell me the series is making a little sensation in its way. Good morning!
[He goes out jauntily. GIBSON has never moved from his chair; he turns his head, still not rising, and looks fixedly at NORA. She slowly lifts her head, meets his eye; her head sinks again. He rises and slowly walks over to her, looking down at her. Then, bending still lower, she begins to cry.]
GIBSON: Well, Nora, what was the matter with it?
NORA [not looking up]: I don’t know. What was?
GIBSON: You needed a manager to do what I had been doing.
NORA: Couldn’t we have learned? Couldn’t one of us?
GIBSON: One of you did — Hill.
NORA: But he left!
GIBSON: Why did Hill leave?
NORA: Other people offered him more money.
GIBSON: Yes; he was the one man that all the rest of you depended on. He was worth more.
NORA: But were you worth all that you took? You took all that the business made.
GIBSON: Yes; and last year it was fifty thousand.
NORA: Were you actually worth that much to it?
GIBSON: Other men in the business think so. [Shows her a letter.] Here’s an offer from the Coles-Hibbard people, out in Cleveland, of that much salary to do for them what I did here.
NORA: It isn’t right; you pay labour only what you have to pay.
GIBSON: The Coles-Hibbard people offer to pay me what they’d have to, and they’re pretty hard-headed men. The whole world pays only what it has to.
NORA: It isn’t right! It isn’t right!
GIBSON: Last winter I saw you in a three-dollar seat listening to Caruso. Have you ever given that much to the organ grinder who comes under these windows?
NORA: Will it always be so?
GIBSON: I don’t know. But it’s so now.
NORA: But will the plan always fail?
GIBSON: I think it will until human beings are as near alike as the ants and bees are. Your system is in full effect with them, but we — we strive; even in this fellowship here of yours the striving began to show.
NORA [looking up at him appealingly]: But are these inequalities right?
GIBSON [gently, rather sadly]: I don’t know. I only know what is.
NORA: Well — I’m whipped.
[Smiles ruefully, away from him; then she turns again to him.]
Are you going to accept that offer?
GIBSON: What do you say?
[Her head droops again. Angry voices are heard, growing louder as they approach. The door is thrown open, and the members of the committee, noisily talking, appear in the doorway.]
FRANKEL: It was a bum deal all through!
SHOMBERG: Shovin’ his run-down factory off onto us!
RILEY [fiercely]: You never give us no deed to this plant, Mr. Gibson!
SIMPSON: They ain’t a court in the land’ll hold us to it!
CARTER: No, sir; and we’ve voted this is your factory, Mr. Gibson! We ain’t responsible!
GIBSON: It is my factory and I’m going to run it! Any man of you not back at work in ten minutes on the old scale of wages will be fired!
[The members whoop with joy. FRANKEL and CARTER both try to shake hands with GIBSON at once.]
CARTER: Well, that’s a relief to me. Thank you, Mr. Gibson!
FRANKEL: That takes a heap off my mind!
RILEY: God bless you, sir!
GIBSON: Never mind that! You go back to work.
[Whooping, the committee, in great spirits and with the greatest friendliness to one another, depart rapidly. Closing the door, GIBSON turns briskly to NORA, and speaks in a businesslike way.]
GIBSON: Nora, will you marry me?
NORA [meekly]: Yes — I will.
GIBSON: Will you marry me to-day?
NORA [with a little more spirit]: Yes, I will!
GIBSON: Will you go with me and marry me right now?
NORA [more loudly and promptly]: Yes, I will!
GIBSON: Well, then —
[He gets his hat and coat, then thinks of something he wants from his desk and goes over to get it. Meantime NORA, not moving so rapidly as GIBSON, but more thoughtfully, goes up to the wall where hang her jacket and hat, takes off her apron, puts on the jacket and hat and goes to the door that leads to the street, where she stands waiting. There is a knock on the factory door, which opens without waiting, and SIMPSON comes in.]
SIMPSON: I don’t want to detain you if you’re goin’ out, Mr. Gibson, but there’s something’s got to be settled. And the men in my department say it’s got to be settled right now. That wage scale says we get time and a half for overtime, and the men in the finishing department, they ain’t gettin’ no time and a half on piecework and we never understood
that agreement you claim we signed with you anyhow. So what we says, if we don’t get double time instead of time and a half for overtime — why, Mr. Gibson, it looks like them men couldn’t hardly be held back. Now what we demand is —
[He is still talking as the final curtain descends upon these three: GIBSON seated at his desk, looking fixedly at SIMPSON, NORA waiting thoughtfully by the door that leads to the street.]
CURTAIN
The Non-Fiction
Tarkington’s long-time home on North Meridian Street, Indianapolis
The Rich Man’s War
Wall Street and War
This war is everybody’s war; we are all in it. It was made by the Government of the United States in behalf of all the people. It was not undertaken for the benefit of any section or class in the nation. It was not begun at the behest of any fragment of the people. The benefit which will be derived from the successful prosecution of this war will not go to any class or group. They will be shared by all the people, but chiefly enjoyed by the poorer classes. The burdens of the war will be borne by all classes, not chiefly by the poorer. In particular it is to be noted that, among business men, the makers of munitions will not profit greatly from the entry of the United States into the war. Rather they will be worse off than before that event.
This war was undertaken to crush finally the menace of Prussian despotism and “to make the world safe for democracy.” The German Empire rests on the might of the Prussian army and that army owes obedience not to the people nor even to Parliament, but to the King alone.
Speaking to the Prussian Parliament some time before the outbreak of the present war, Bethmann-Hollweg declared; “The dearest desire of every Prussian is to see the King’s army remain completely under the control of the King and not to become the army of Parliament.”
Professor Delbruck of the University of Berlin has written thus of the army: “The King is their comrade and they are attached to him as their war lord, and this is the very foundation of our national life. The essence of our monarchy resides in its relations with the army. Whoever knows our officers must know that they would never tolerate the government of a minister of war issuing from Parliament.”
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 542