Plays
land we walked in and took! Was there ever such a chance to make life
more? Why, the buffalo here before us was more than we if we do nothing
but prosper! God damn us if we sit here rich and fat and forget man's in
the makin'. (_affirming against this_) There will one day be a college
in these cornfields by the Mississippi because long ago a great dream
was fought for in Hungary. And I say to that old dream, Wake up, old
dream! Wake up and fight! You say rich men. (_holding it out, but it is
not taken_) I give you this deed to take to rich men to show them one
man believes enough in this to give the best land he's got. That ought
to make rich men stop and think.
GRANDMOTHER: Stop and think he's a fool.
SILAS: (_to_ FEJEVARY) It's you can make them know he's not a fool. When
you tell this way you can tell it, they'll feel in you what's more than
them. They'll listen.
GRANDMOTHER: I tell you, Silas, folks are too busy.
SILAS: Too busy!' Too busy bein' nothin'? If it's true that we created
ourselves out of the thoughts that came, then thought is not something
_outside_ the business of life. Thought--(_with his gift for wonder_)
why, thought's our chance. I know now. Why I can't forget the Indians.
We killed their joy before we killed them. We made them less, (_to_
FEJEVARY, _and as if sure he is now making it clear_) I got to give it
back--their hill. I give it back to joy--a better joy--joy o'aspiration.
FEJEVARY: (_moved but unconvinced_) But, my friend, there are men who
have no aspiration. That's why, to me, this is as a light shining from
too far.
GRANDMOTHER: (_old things waked in her_) Light shining from far. We used
to do that. We never pulled the curtain. I used to want to--you like to
be to yourself when night conies--but we always left a lighted window
for the traveller who'd lost his way.
FELIX: I should think that would have exposed you to the Indians.
GRANDMOTHER: Yes. (_impatiently_) Well, you can't put out a light just
because it may light the wrong person.
FEJEVARY: No. (_and this is as a light to him. He turns to the hill_)
No.
SILAS: (_with gentleness, and profoundly_) That's it. Look again. Maybe
your eyes are stronger now. Don't you see it? I see that college rising
as from the soil itself, as if it was what come at the last of that
thinking that breathes from the earth. I see it--but I want to know it's
real before I stop knowing. Then maybe I can lie under the same sod with
the red boys and not be ashamed. We're not old! Let's fight! Wake in
other men what you woke in me!
FEJEVARY: And so could I pay my debt to America. (_His hand goes out_.)
SILAS: (_giving him the deed_) And to the dreams of a million years!
(_Standing near the open door, their hands are gripped in compact_.)
CURTAIN
ACT II
SCENE: _A corridor in the library of Morton College, October of the year
1920, upon the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of its founding.
This is an open place in the stacks of books, which are seen at both
sides. There is a reading-table before the big rear window. This window
opens out, but does not extend to the floor; only a part of its height
is seen, indicating a very high window. Outside is seen the top of a
tree. This outer wall of the building is on a slant, so that the
entrance right is near, and the left is front. Right front is a section
of a huge square column. On the rear of this, facing the window, is hung
a picture of SILAS MORTON. Two men are standing before this portrait_.
SENATOR LEWIS _is the Midwestern state senator. He is not of the city
from which Morton College rises, but of a more country community farther
in-state_. FELIX FEJEVARY, _now nearing the age of his father in the
first act, is an American of the more sophisticated type--prosperous,
having the poise of success in affairs and place in society_.
SENATOR: And this was the boy who founded the place, eh? It was his
idea?
FEJEVARY: Yes, and his hill. I was there the afternoon he told my father
there must be a college here. I wasn't any older then than my boy is
now.
(_As if himself surprised by this_.)
SENATOR: Well, he enlisted a good man when he let you in on it. I've
been told the college wouldn't be what it is today but for you, Mr
Fejevary.
FEJEVARY: I have a sentiment about it, and where our sentiment is, there
our work goes also.
SENATOR: Yes. Well, it was those mainsprings of sentiment that won the
war.
(_He is pleased with this_.)
FEJEVARY: (_nodding_) Morton College did her part in winning the war.
SENATOR: I know. A fine showing.
FEJEVARY: And we're holding up our end right along. You'll see the boys
drill this afternoon. It's a great place for them, here on the
hill--shows up from so far around. They're a fine lot of fellows. You
know, I presume, that they went in as strike-breakers during the trouble
down here at the steel works. The plant would have had to close but for
Morton College. That's one reason I venture to propose this thing of a
state appropriation for enlargement. Why don't we sit down a moment?
There's no conflict with the state university--they have their
territory, we have ours. Ours is an important one--industrially
speaking. The state will lose nothing in having a good strong college
here--a one-hundred-per-cent-American college.
SENATOR: I admit I am very favourably impressed.
FEJEVARY: I hope you'll tell your committee so--and let me have a chance
to talk to them.
SENATOR: Let's see, haven't you a pretty radical man here?
FEJEVARY: I wonder if you mean Holden?
SENATOR: Holden's the man. I've read things that make me question his
Americanism.
FEJEVARY: Oh--(_gesture of depreciation_) I don't think he is so much a
radical as a particularly human human-being.
SENATOR: But we don't want radical human beings.
FEJEVARY: He has a genuine sympathy with youth. That's invaluable in a
teacher, you know. And then--he's a scholar.
(_He betrays here his feeling of superiority to his companion, but too
subtly for his companion to get it_.)
SENATOR: Oh--scholar. We can get scholars enough. What we want is
Americans.
FEJEVARY: Americans who are scholars.
SENATOR: You can pick 'em off every bush--pay them a little more than
they're paid in some other cheap John College. Excuse me--I don't mean
this is a cheap John College.
FEJEVARY: Of course not. One couldn't think that of Morton College. But
that--pay them a little more, interests me. That's another reason I want
to talk to your committee on appropriations. We claim to value education
and then we let highly trained, gifted men fall behind the plumber.
SENATOR: Well, that's the plumber's fault. Let the teachers talk to the
plumber.
FEJEVARY: (_with a smile_) No. Better not let them talk to the plumber.
He might tell them what to do about it. In fact, is telling them.
SENATOR: That's ridiculous. They can't serve both God and mammon.
FEJEVARY: Then let God give them mammon. I mean, let the state
appropriate.
SENATOR: Of course this state, Mr Fejevary, appropriates no money for
radicals. Excuse me, but why do you keep this man Holden?
FEJEVARY: In the scholar's world we're known because of him. And really,
Holden's not a radical--in the worst sense. What he doesn't see
is--expediency. Not enough the man of affairs to realize that we can't
always have literally what we have theoretically. He's an idealist.
Something of the--man of vision.
SENATOR: If he had the right vision he'd see that we don't every minute
have literally what we have theoretically because we're fighting to keep
the thing we have. Oh, I sometimes think the man of affairs has the only
vision. Take you, Mr Fejevary--a banker. These teachers--books--books!
(_pushing all books back_) Why, if they had to take for one day the
responsibility that falls on your shoulders--big decisions to make--man
among men--and all the time worries, irritations, particularly now with
labour riding the high horse like a fool! I know something about these
things. I went to the State House because my community persuaded me it
was my duty. But I'm the man of affairs myself.
FEJEVARY: Oh yes, I know. Your company did much to develop that whole
northern part of the state.
SENATOR: I think I may say we did. Well, that's why, after three
sessions, I'm chairman of the appropriations committee. I know how to
use money to promote the state. So--teacher? That would be a perpetual
vacation to me. Now, if you want my advice, Mr Fejevary,--I think your
case before the state would be stronger if you let this fellow Holden
go.
FEJEVARY: I'm going to have a talk with Professor Holden.
SENATOR: Tell him it's for his own good. The idea of a college professor
standing up for conscientious objectors!
FEJEVARY: That doesn't quite state the case. Fred Jordan was one of
Holden's students--a student he valued. He felt Jordan was perfectly
sincere in his objection.
SENATOR: Sincere in his objections! The nerve of him thinking it was his
business to be sincere!
FEJEVARY: He was expelled from college--you may remember; that was how
we felt about it.
SENATOR: I should hope so.
FEJEVARY: Holden fought that, but within the college. What brought him
into the papers was his protest against the way the boy has been treated
in prison.
SENATOR: What's the difference how he's treated? You know how I'd treat
him? (_a movement as though pulling a trigger_) If I didn't know you for
the American you are, I wouldn't understand your speaking so calmly.
FEJEVARY: I'm simply trying to see it all sides around.
SENATOR: Makes me see red.
FEJEVARY: (_with a smile_) But we mustn't meet red with red.
SENATOR: What's Holden fussing about--that they don't give him caviare
on toast?
FEJEVARY: That they didn't give him books. Holden felt it was his
business to fuss about that.
SENATOR: Well, when your own boy 'stead of whining around about his
conscience, stood up and offered his life!
FEJEVARY: Yes. And my nephew gave his life.
SENATOR: That so?
FEJEVARY: Silas Morton's grandson died in France. My sister Madeline
married Ira Morton, son of Silas Morton.
SENATOR: I knew there was a family connection between you and the
Mortons.
FEJEVARY: (_speaking with reserve_) They played together as children and
married as soon as they were grown up.
SENATOR: So this was your sister's boy? (FEJEVARY _nods_) One of the
mothers to give her son!
FEJEVARY: (_speaking of her with effort_) My sister died--long ago.
(_pulled to an old feeling; with an effort releasing himself_) But Ira
is still out at the old place--place the Mortons took up when they
reached the end of their trail--as Uncle Silas used to put it. Why, it's
a hundred years ago that Grandmother Morton began--making cookies here.
She was the first white woman in this country.
SENATOR: Proud woman! To have begun the life of this state! Oh, our
pioneers! If they could only see us now, and know what they did!
(FEJEVARY _is silent; he does not look quite happy_) I suppose Silas
Morton's son is active in the college management.
FEJEVARY: No, Ira is not a social being. Fred's death about finished
him. He had been--strange for years, ever since my sister died--when the
children were little. It was--(_again pulled back to that old feeling_)
under pretty terrible circumstances.
SENATOR: I can see that you thought a great deal of your sister, Mr
Fejevary.
FEJEVARY: Oh, she was beautiful and--(_bitterly_) it shouldn't have gone
like that.
SENATOR: Seems to me I've heard something about Silas Morton's
son--though perhaps it wasn't this one.
FEJEVARY: Ira is the only one living here now; the others have gone
farther west.
SENATOR: Isn't there something about corn?
FEJEVARY: Yes. His corn has several years taken the prize--best in the