Knox
(With signs of ardor.) I would come whenever you sent for me, and go wherever you might send me.
Margaret
(Reprovingly.)
Please, please—— It was about that speech. I have been hearing about it from everybody—rumblings and mutterings and dire prophecies. I know how busy you are, and I ought not to have asked you to come. But there was no other way, and I was so anxious.
Knox
(Pleased.) It seems so strange that you, being what you are, affiliated as you are, should be interested in the welfare of the common people.
Margaret
(Judicially.) I do seem like a traitor in my own camp. But as father said a while ago, I, too, have dreamed my dream. I did it as a girl—Plato'sRepublic, Moore'sUtopia—I was steeped in all the dreams of the social dreamers.
(During all that follows of her speech, Knox is keenly interested, his eyes glisten and he hangs on her words.)
And I dreamed that I, too, might do something to bring on the era of universal justice and fair play. In my heart I dedicated myself to the cause of humanity. I made Lincoln my hero-he still is. But I was only a girl, and where was I to find this cause?—how to work for it? I was shut in by a thousand restrictions, hedged in by a thousand conventions. Everybody laughed at me when I expressed the thoughts that burned in me. What could I do? I was only a woman. I had neither vote nor right of utterance. I must remain silent. I must do nothing. Men, in their lordly wisdom, did all. They voted, orated, governed. The place for women was in the home, taking care of some lordly man who did all these lordly things.
Knox
You understand, then, why I am for equal suffrage.
Margaret
But I learned—or thought I learned. Power, I discovered early. My father had power. He was a magnate—I believe that is the correct phrase. Power was what I needed. But how? I was a woman. Again I dreamed my dream—a modified dream. Only by marriage could I win to power. And there you have the clew to me and what I am and have become. I met the man who was to become my husband. He was clean and strong and an athlete, an outdoor man, a wealthy man and a rising politician. Father told me that if I married him he would make him the power of his state, make him governor, send him to the United States Senate. And there you have it all.
Knox
Yes?—— Yes?
Margaret
I married. I found that there were greater forces at work than I had ever dreamed of. They took my husband away from me and molded him into the political lieutenant of my father. And I was without power. I could do nothing for the cause. I was beaten. Then it was that I got a new vision. The future belonged to the children. There I could play my woman's part. I was a mother. Very well. I could do no better than to bring into the world a healthy son and bring him up to manhood healthy and wholesome, clean, noble, and alive. Did I do my part well, through him the results would be achieved. Through him would the work of the world be done in making the world healthier and happier for all the human creatures in it. I played the mother's part. That is why I left the pitiful little charities of the church and devoted myself to settlement work and tenement house reform, established my kindergartens, and worked for the little men and women who come so blindly and to whom the future belongs to make or mar.
Knox
You are magnificent. I know, now, why I come when you bid me come.
Margaret
And then you came. You were magnificent. You were my knight of the windmills, tilting against all power and privilege, striving to wrest the future from the future and realize it here in the present, now. I was sure you would be destroyed. Yet you are still here and fighting valiantly. And that speech of yours to-morrow—
Chalmers
(Who has approached, bearing Dolores Ortega's cup.) Yes, that speech. How do you do, Mr. Knox.
(They shake hands.) A cup of tea, Madge. For Mrs. Ortega. Two lumps, please.
(Margaret prepares the cup of tea.) Everybody is excited over that speech. You are going to give us particular fits, to-morrow, I understand.
Knox
(Smiling.) Really, no more than is deserved.
Chalmers
The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Knox
Precisely.
(Receiving back cup of tea from Margaret.)
Chalmers
Believe me, we are not so black as we're painted. There are two sides to this question. Like you, we do our best to do what is right. And we hope, we still hope, to win you over to our side.
(Knox shakes his head with a quiet smile.)
Margaret
Oh, Tom, be truthful. You don't hope anything of the sort. You know you are hoping to destroy him.
Chalmers
(Smiling grimly.) That is what usually happens to those who are not won over.
(Preparing to depart with cup of tea; speaking to Knox.) You might accomplish much good, were you with us. Against us you accomplish nothing, absolutely nothing.
(Returns to Dolores Ortega.)
Margaret
(Hurriedly.) You see. That is why I was anxious—why I sent for you. Even Tom admits that they who are not won over are destroyed. This speech is a crucial event. You know how rigidly they rule the House and gag men like you. It is they, and they alone, who have given you opportunity for this speech? Why?—Why?
Knox
(Smiling confidently.) I know their little scheme. They have heard my charges. They think I am going to make a firebrand speech, and they are ready to catch me without the proofs. They are ready in every way for me. They are going to laugh me down. The Associated Press, the Washington correspondents—all are ready to manufacture, in every newspaper in the land, the great laugh that will destroy me. But I am fully prepared, I have—
Margaret
The proofs?
Knox
Yes.
Margaret
Now?
Knox
They will be delivered to me to-night—original documents, photographs of documents, affidavits—
Margaret
Tell me nothing. But oh, do be careful! Be careful!
Mrs. Dowsett
(Appealing to Margaret.) Do give me some assistance, Mrs. Chalmers.
(Indicating Sakari.) Mr. Sakari is trying to make me ridiculous.
Margaret
Impossible.
Mrs. Dowsett
But he is. He has had the effrontery—
Chalmers
(Mimicking Mrs. Dowsett.) Effrontery!—O, Sakari!
Sakari
The dear lady is pleased to be facetious.
Mrs. Dowsett
He has had the effrontery to ask me to explain the cause of high prices. Mr. Dowsett says the reason is that the people are living so high.
Sakari
Such a marvelous country. They are poor because they have so much to spend.
Chalmers
Are not high prices due to the increased output of gold?
Mrs. Dowsett
Mr. Sakari suggested that himself, and when I agreed with him he proceeded to demolish it. He has treated me dreadfully.
Rutland
(Clearing his throat and expressing himself with ponderous unction.) You will find the solution in the drink traffic. It is liquor, alcohol, that is undermining our industry, our institutions, our faith in God—everything. Yearly the working people drink greater quantities of alcohol. Naturally, through resulting inefficiency, the cost of production is higher, and therefore prices are higher.
Dowsett
Partly so, partly so. And in line with it, and in addition to it, prices are high because the working class is no longer thrifty. If our working class saved as the French peasant does, we would sell more in the world market and have better times.
Sakari
(Bowing.) As I understand it then, the more thrifty you are the more you save, and the more you save the more you have to sell, the more you sell, the better the times?
Dowsett
Exactly so. Exactly.
Sakari
The less you sell, the harder are the times?
Dowsett
Just so.
Sakari
Then if the people are thrifty, and buy less, times will be harder?
Dowsett
(Perplexed.) Er—it would seem so.
Sakari
Then it would seem that the present bad times are due to the fact that the people are thrifty, rather than not thrifty?
(Dowsett is nonplussed, and Mrs. Dowsett throws up her hands in despair.)
Mrs. Dowsett
(Turning to Knox.) Perhaps you can explain to us, Mr. Knox, the reason for this terrible condition of affairs.
(Starkweather closes note-book on finger and listens.) (Knox smiles, but does not speak.)
Dolores Ortega
Please do, Mr. Knox. I am so dreadfully anxious to know why living is so high now. Only this morning I understand meat went up again.
(Knox hesitates and looks questioningly at Margaret.)
Hubbard
I am sure Mr. Knox can shed new light on this perplexing problem.
Chalmers
Surely you, the whirlwind of oratorical swords in the House, are not timid here—among friends.
Knox
(Sparring.) I had no idea that questions of such nature were topics of conversation at affairs like this.
Starkweather
(Abruptly and imperatively.) What causes the high prices?
Knox
(Equally abrupt and just as positive as the other was imperative.)Theft!
(It is a sort of a bombshell he has exploded, but they receive it politely and smilingly, even though it has shaken them up.)
Dolores Ortega
What a romantic explanation. I suppose everybody who has anything has stolen it.
Knox
Not quite, but almost quite. Take motorcars, for example. This year five hundred million dollars has been spent for motor-cars. It required men toiling in the mines and foundries, women sewing their eyes out in sweat-shops, shop girls slaving for four and five dollars a week, little children working in the factories and cotton-mills—all these it required to produce those five hundred millions spent this year in motor-cars. And all this has been stolen from those who did the work.
Mrs. Starkweather
I always knew those motor-cars were to blame for terrible things.
Dolores Ortega
But Mr. Knox, I have a motor-car.
Knox
Somebody's labor made that car. Was it yours?
Dolores Ortega
Mercy, no! I bought it—— and paid for it.
Knox
Then did you labor at producing something else, and exchange the fruits of that labor for the motor-car?
(A pause.)
You do not answer. Then I am to understand that you have a motor-car which was made by somebody else's labor and for which you gave no labor of your own. This I call theft. You call it property. Yet it is theft.
Starkweather
(Interrupting Dolores Ortega who was just about to speak.)
But surely you have intelligence to see the question in larger ways than stolen motor-cars. I am a man of affairs. I don't steal motor-cars.
Knox
(Smiling.) Not concrete little motor-cars, no. You do things on a large scale.
Starkweather
Steal?
Knox
(Shrugging his shoulders.) If you will have it so.
Starkweather
I am like a certain gentleman from Missouri. You've got to show me.
Knox
And I'm like the man from Texas. It's got to be put in my hand.
Starkweather
I shift my residence at once to Texas. Put it in my hand that I steal on a large scale.
Knox
Very well. You are the great financier, merger, and magnate. Do you mind a few statistics?
Starkweather
Go ahead.
Knox
You exercise a controlling interest in nine billion dollars' worth of railways; in two billion dollars' worth of industrial concerns; in one billion dollars' worth of life insurance groups; in one billion dollars' worth of banking groups; in two billion dollars' worth of trust companies. Mind you, I do not say you own all this, but that you exercise a controlling interest. That is all that is necessary. In short, you exercise a controlling interest in such a proportion of the total investments of the United States, as to set the pace for all the rest. Now to my point. In the last few years seventy billions of dollars have been artificially added to the capitalization of the nation's industries. By that I mean water—pure, unadulterated water. You, the merger, know what water means. I say seventy billions. It doesn't matter if we call it forty billions or eighty billions; the amount, whatever it is, is a huge one. And what does seventy billions of water mean? It means, at five per cent, that three billions and a half must be paid for things this year, and every year, more than things are really worth. The people who labor have to pay this. There is theft for you. There is high prices for you. Who put in the water? Who gets the theft of the water? Have I put it in your hand?
Starkweather
Are there no wages for stewardship?
Knox
Call it any name you please.
Starkweather
Do I not make two dollars where one was before? Do I not make for more happiness than was before I came?
Knox
Is that any more than the duty any man owes to his fellowman?
Starkweather
Oh, you unpractical dreamer. (Returns to his note-book.)
Rutland
(Throwing himself into the breach.) Where do I steal, Mr. Knox?—I who get a mere salary for preaching the Lord's Word.
Knox
Your salary comes out of that water I mentioned. Do you want to know who pays your salary? Not your parishioners. But the little children toiling in the mills, and all the rest—all the slaves on the wheel of labor pay you your salary.
Rutland
I earn it.
Knox
They pay it.
Mrs. Dowsett
Why, I declare, Mr. Knox, you are worse than Mr. Sakari. You are an anarchist.
(She simulates shivering with fear.)
Chalmers
(To Knox.) I suppose that's part of your speech to-morrow.
Dolores Ortega
(Clapping her hands.) A rehearsal! He's trying it out on us!
Sakari
How would you remedy this—er—this theft?
(Starkweather again closes note-book on finger and listens as Knox begins to speak.)
Knox
Very simply. By changing the governmental machinery by which this household of ninety millions of people conducts its affairs.
Sakari
I thought—I was taught so at Yale—that your governmental machinery was excellent, most excellent.
Knox
It is antiquated. It is ready for the scrap-heap. Instead of being our servant, it has mastered us. We are its slaves. All the political brood of grafters and hypocrites have run away with it, and with us as well. In short, from the municipalities up, we are dominated by the grafters. It is a reign of theft.
Hubbard
But any government is representative of its people. No people is worthy of a better government than it possesses. Were it worthier, it would possess a better government.
(Starkweather nods his head approvingly.)
Knox
That is a lie. And I say to you now that the average morality and desire for right conduct of the people of the United States is far higher than that of the government which misrepresents it. The people are essentially worthy of a better government than that which is at present in the hands of the politicians, for the benefit of the politicians and of the interests the politicians represent. I wonder, Mr. Sakari, if you have ever heard the story of the four aces.
Sakari
I cannot say that I have.
Knox
Do you understand the game of poker?
Sakari
(Considering.) Yes, a marvelous game. I have learned it—at Yale. It was very expensive.
Knox
Well, that story reminds me of our grafting politicians. They have no moral compunctions. They look upon theft as right—eminently right. They see nothing wrong in the arrangement that the man who deals the cards should give himself the best in the deck. Never mind what he deals himself, they'll have the deal next and make up for it.
Dolores Ortega
But the story, Mr. Knox. I, too, understand poker.
Knox
It occurred out in Nevada, in a mining camp. A tenderfoot was watching a game of poker, He stood behind the dealer, and he saw the dealer deal himself four aces from the bottom of the deck.
(From now on, he tells the story in the slow, slightly drawling Western fashion.) The tenderfoot went around to the player on the opposite side of the table.
"Say," he says, "I just seen the dealer give himself four aces off the bottom."
The player looked at him a moment, and said, "What of it?"
"Oh, nothing," said the tenderfoot, "only I thought you might want to know. I tell you I seen the dealer give himself four aces off the bottom."
"Look here, Mister," said the player, "you'd better get out of this. You don't understand the game. It's HIS deal, ain't it?"
Margaret
(Arising while they are laughing.) We've talked politics long enough. Dolores, I want you to tell me about your new car.
Knox
(As if suddenly recollecting himself.) And I must be going.
(In a low voice to Margaret.) Do I have to shake hands with all these people?
Margaret
(Shaking her head, speaking low.) Dear delightful Ali Baba.
Knox
(Glumly.) I suppose I've made a fool of myself.
Margaret
(Earnestly.) On the contrary, you were delightful. I am proud of you.
(As Knox shakes hands with Margaret, Sakari arises and comes forward).
Sakari
I, too, must go. I have had a charming half hour, Mrs. Chalmers. But I shall not attempt to thank you.
(He shakes hands with Margaret.)
(Knox and Sakari proceed to make exit to rear.)
(Just as they go out, Servant enters, carrying card-tray, and advances toward Starkweather.)
(Margaret joins Dolores Ortega and Chalmers, seats herself with them, and proceeds to talk motor-cars.)
(Servant has reached Starkweather, who has taken a telegram from tray, opened it, and is reading it.)
Starkweather
Damnation!
Servant
I beg your pardon, sir.
Starkweather
Send Senator Chalmers to me, and Mr. Hubbard.
Servant
Yes, sir.
(Servant crosses to Chalmers and Hubbard, both of whom immediately arise and cross to Starkweather.)
(While this is being done, Margaret reassembles the three broken groups into one, seating herself so that she can watch Starkweather and his group across the stage.)
(Servant lingers to receive a command from Margaret.)
(Chalmers and Hubbard wait a moment, standing, while Starkweather rereads telegram.)
Starkweather
(Standing up.) Dobleman has just forwarded this telegram. It's from New York—from Martinaw. There's been rottenness. My papers and letter-files have been ransacked. It's the confidential stenographer who has been tampered with—you remember that middle-aged, youngish-oldish woman, Tom? That's the one.—Where's that servant?
(Servant is just making exit.) Here! Come here!
(Servant comes over to Starkweather.) Go to the telephone and call up Dobleman. Tell him to come here.
Servant
(Perplexed.) I beg pardon, sir.
Starkweather
(Irritably.) My secretary. At my house. Dobleman. Tell him to come at once.
(Servant makes exit.)
Chalmers
But who can be the principal behind this theft?
(Starkweather shrugs his shoulders.)
Hubbard
A blackmailing device most probably. They will attempt to bleed you—
Chalmers
Unless—
Starkweather
(Impatiently.) Yes?
Chalmers
Unless they are to be used to-morrow in that speech of Knox.
(Comprehension dawns on the faces of the other two men.)
Mrs. Starkweather
(Who has arisen.) Anthony, we must go now. Are you ready? Connie has to dress.
Starkweather
I am not going now. You and Connie take the car.
Mrs. Starkweather
You mustn't forget you are going to that dinner.
Starkweather
(Wearily.) Do I ever forget?
(Servant enters and proceeds toward Starkweather, where he stands waiting while Mrs. Starkweather finishes the next speech. Starkweather listens to her with a patient, stony face.)
Mrs. Starkweather
Oh, these everlasting politics! That is what it has been all afternoon—high prices, graft, and theft; theft, graft, and high prices. It is terrible. When I was a girl we did not talk of such things. Well, come on, Connie.
Mrs. Dowsett
(Rising and glancing at Dowsett.) And we must be going, too.
(During the following scene, which takes place around Starkweather, Margaret is saying good-bye to her departing guests.)
(Mrs. Starkweather and Connie make exit.)
(Dowsett and Mrs. Dowsett make exit.)
(The instant Mrs. Dowsett's remark puts a complete end to Mrs. Starkweather's speech, Starkweather, without answer or noticing his wife, turns and interrogates Servant with a glance.)
Servant
Mr. Dobleman has already left some time to come here, sir.
Starkweather
Show him in as soon as he comes.
Servant
Yes, sir.
(Servant makes exit.)
(Margaret, Dolores Ortega, and Rutland are left in a group together, this time around tea-table, where Margaret serves Rutland another cup of tea. From time to time Margaret glances curiously at the serious group of men across the stage.)
(Starkweather is thinking hard with knitted brows. Hubbard is likewise pondering.)
Chalmers
If I were certain Knox had those papers I would take him by the throat and shake them out of him.
Starkweather
No foolish talk like that, Tom. This is a serious matter.
Hubbard
But Knox has no money. A Starkweather stenographer comes high.
Starkweather
There is more than Knox behind this. (Enter Dobleman, walking quickly and in a state of controlled excitement.)
Dobleman
(To Starkweather.) You received that telegram, sir?
(Starkweather nods.) I got the New York office—Martinaw—right along afterward, by long distance. I thought best to follow and tell you.
Starkweather
What did Martinaw say?
Dobleman
The files seem in perfect order.
Starkweather
Thank God!
(During the following speech of Dobleman, Rutland says good-bye to Margaret and Dolores Ortega and makes exit.)
(Margaret and Dolores Ortega rise a minute afterward and go toward exit, throwing curious glances at the men but not disturbing them.)
(Dolores Ortega makes exit.)
(Margaret pauses in doorway a moment, giving a final anxious glance at the men, and makes exit.)
Dobleman
But they are not. The stenographer, Miss Standish, has confessed. For a long time she has followed the practice of taking two or three letters and documents at a time away from the office. Many have been photographed and returned. But the more important ones were retained and clever copies returned. Martinaw says that Miss Standish herself does not know and cannot tell which of the ones she returned are genuine and which are copies.
Hubbard
Knox never did this.
Starkweather
Did Martinaw say whom Miss Standish was acting for?
Dobleman
Gherst.
(The alarm on the three men's faces is patent.)
Starkweather
Gherst!
(Pauses to think.)
Hubbard
Then it is not so grave after all. A yellow journal sensation is the best Gherst can make of it. And, documents or not, the very medium by which it is made public discredits it.
Starkweather
Trust Gherst for more ability than that. He will certainly exploit them in his newspapers, but not until after Knox has used them in his speech. Oh, the cunning dog! Never could he have chosen a better mode and moment to strike at me, at the Administration, at everything. That is Gherst all over. Playing to the gallery. Inducing Knox to make this spectacular exposure on the floor of the House just at the critical time when so many important bills are pending.
(To Dobleman.)
Did Martinaw give you any idea of the nature of the stolen documents?
Dobleman
(Referring to notes he has brought.) Of course I don't know anything about it, but he spoke of the Goodyear letters—
(Starkweather betrays by his face the gravity of the information.)
the Caledonian letters, all the Black Rider correspondence. He mentioned, too, (Referring to notes.) the Astonbury and Glutz letters. And there were others, many others, not designated.
Starkweather
This is terrible!
(Recollecting himself.)
Thank you, Dobleman. Will you please return to the house at once. Get New York again, and fullest details. I'll follow you shortly. Have you a machine?
Dobleman
A taxi, sir.
Starkweather
All right, and be careful.
(Dobleman makes exit)
Chalmers
I don't know the import of all these letters, but I can guess, and it does seem serious.
Starkweather
(Furiously.) Serious! Let me tell you that there has been no exposure like this in the history of the country. It means hundreds of millions of dollars. It means more—the loss of power. And still more, it means the mob, the great mass of the child-minded people rising up and destroying all that I have labored to do for them. Oh, the fools! The fools!
Hubbard
(Shaking his head ominously.) There is no telling what may happen if Knox makes that speech and delivers the proofs.
Chalmers
It is unfortunate. The people are restless and excited as it is. They are being constantly prodded on by the mouthings of the radical press, of the muck-raking magazines and of the demagogues. The people are like powder awaiting the spark.
Starkweather
This man Knox is no fool, if heisa dreamer. He is a shrewd knave. He is a fighter. He comes from the West—the old pioneer stock. His father drove an ox-team across the Plains to Oregon. He knows how to play his cards, and never could circumstances have placed more advantageous cards in his hands.
Chalmers
And nothing like this has ever touched you before.
Starkweather
I have always stood above the muck and ruck—clear and clean and unassailable. But this—this is too much! It is the spark. There is no forecasting what it may develop into.
Chalmers
A political turnover.
Starkweather
(Nodding savagely.) A new party, a party of demagogues, in power. Government ownership of the railways and telegraphs. A graduated income tax that will mean no less than the confiscation of private capital.
Chalmers
And all that mass of radical legislation—the Child Labor Bill, the new Employers' Liability Act, the government control of the Alaskan coal fields, that interference with Mexico. And that big power corporation you have worked so hard to form.
Starkweather
It must not be. It is an unthinkable calamity. It means that the very process of capitalistic development is hindered, stopped. It means a setback of ten years in the process. It means work, endless work, to overcome the setback. It means not alone the passage of all this radical legislation with the consequent disadvantages, but it means the fingers of the mob clutching at our grip of control. It means anarchy. It means ruin and misery for all the blind fools and led-cattle of the mass who will strike at the very sources of their own existence and comfort.
(Tommy enters from left, evidently playing a game, in the course of which he is running away. By his actions he shows that he is pursued. He intends to cross stage, but is stopped by sight of the men. Unobserved by them, he retraces his steps and crawls under the tea-table.)
Chalmers
Without doubt, Knox is in possession of the letters right now.
Starkweather
There is but one thing to do, and that is—get them back.
(He looks questioningly at the two men.)
(Margaret enters from left, in flushed and happy pursuit of Tommy—for it is a game she is playing with him. She startles at sight of the three men, whom she first sees as she gains the side of the tea-table, where she pauses abruptly, resting one hand on the table.)
Hubbard
I'll undertake it.
Starkweather
There is little time to waste. In twenty hours from now he will be on the floor making his speech. Try mild measures first. Offer him inducements—any inducement. I empower you to act for me. You will find he has a price.
Hubbard
And if not?
Starkweather
Then you must get them at any cost.
Hubbard
(Tentatively.) You mean—?
Starkweather
I mean just that. But no matter what happens, I must never be brought in. Do you understand?
Hubbard
Thoroughly.
Margaret
(Acting her part, and speaking with assumed gayety.) What are you three conspiring about? (All three men are startled.)
Chalmers
We are arranging to boost prices a little higher.
Hubbard
And so be able to accumulate more motorcars.
Starkweather
(Taking no notice of Margaret and starting toward exit to rear.) I must be going. Hubbard, you have your work cut out for you. Tom, I want you to come with me.
Chalmers
(As the three men move toward exit.) Home?
Starkweather
Yes, we have much to do.
Chalmers
Then I'll dress first and follow you.
(Turning to Margaret.) Pick me up on the way to that dinner.
(Margaret nods. Starkweather makes exit without speaking. Hub-bard says good-bye to Margaret and makes exit, followed by Chalmers.)
(Margaret remains standing, one hand resting on table, the other hand to her breast. She is thinking, establishing in her mind the connection between Knox and what she has overheard, and in process of reaching the conclusion that Knox is in danger.)
(Tommy, having vainly waited to be discovered, crawls out dispiritedly, and takes Margaret by the hand. She scarcely notices him.)
Tommy
(Dolefully.) Don't you want to play any more? (Margaret does not reply). I was a good Indian.
Margaret
(Suddenly becoming aware of herself and breaking down. She stoops and clasps Tommy in her arms, crying out, in anxiety and fear, and from love of her boy.) Oh, Tommy! Tommy!
Curtain