Characters-Edward Wills- editor of The People, Oscar Tripp-Associate The Artist Sara Tom Hawe printer The Bay from Georgia, The Man from The THE WOMAN: This is the office Cape. The Woman from Idaho, The Earnest Approach. The Light Touch. The Anarchist, The Philosopher

wonderful place)

The People 7

OSCAR: Um-hum.

THE WOMAN. Un a bated

words.

OSCAR [Rising] Which wa

THE WOMAN: About m

OSCAR. Oh. Those are

lost interest.]

THE WOMAN: Coule

OSCAR: He isn't he

a little later

THE WOMAN: Un

He has just ridde

ORDER Yes. Lo

The office of The People-a desk, a table on which are manuscripts and magazines On the walls are revolutionary posters. Wads of paper are thrown on the floor- the office of a publication, which is radical and poor. The curtain shows Oscar at one end of table writing. There is a door rear, door left. Enter res Tom Howe, a galley-proof in his hand.)

TOM Why are you writing?

OSCAR Jauntily) Because I am a writer.

TOM: But I thought you said there wasn't going to be another issue of The People.

OSCAR [With dignity) I am writing.

TOM: There's a woman here with a suitcase.CAR What's in it

TOM. She wants to see the tr SCAR LAfter writing a minite) All night JE TOM, enter WOMAN with sultone she in middle-aged wears plain clothes not in fashion. Her manner is a linia shrinking and yet as she atonds in the doorway looking about the bare mom, her face to the face of one whe has come a long way and reached a wonderful place)

THE WOMAN This is the office of The People'?

OSCAR Um-hum.

THE WOMAN: (In a bated way I came to see the author of those wonderful words.

OSCAR [Rising Which wonderful words?

THE WOMAN: About moving towards the beautiful distances.

lost interest.)

OSCAR Oh. Those are Mr Wills' wonderful words. (Begins to write as one who has

THE WOMAN: Could I see him?

OSCAR: He isn't here yet. He's just back from California. Won't be at the office till little later.

THE WOMAN: [In a manner of repressed excitement, He has been to California? e has just ridden across this country?

SCAR: Yes. Long trip. He was very cross over the phone, HE WOMAN: [Pained) Oh no. I think you're mistaken,OSCAR: Anything you care to see me about?

THE WOMAN: [After considering) I could see him a little later, couldn't I?

OSCAR: Yes, if it's important. Of

course, he'll be very busy

THE WOMAN: It is important. At least-yes, it is important.

OSCAR Very well then-later in the

morning

THE WOMAN: [Thinking aloud) 1 will stand down on the street and watch the people go by.

OSCAR: What?

THE WOMAN: The people. It's so wonderful to see them-so many of them. D you often just stand and watch them?

OSCAR: No, madam, not often. I am too busy editing a magazine about them.

THE WOMAN: Of course, you are busy. You help edit this magazine? [Looks ab at the posters.)

OSCAR: I am associate editor of 'The People.

THE WOMAN: That's a great thing for you--and you so young. Does Mr Wills write in this room?

OSCAR: That is his desk.

THE WOMAN: [Looking at the desk] It must be a wonderful thing for you to wit in the same room with him.

OSCAR: Well, I don't know; perhaps it is a wonderful thing for him to--1 am Osca Tripp, the poet.

back later. [Picks up suitcase.]

OSCAR: Just

THE WOMAN kind young OSCAR: Tha THE WOM Stands co OSCAR: I Enter TO TOM: If t World'. OSCAR- it did. D will say TOM

OSCA

TOM OSC

(Ent the in. SA

C

THE WOMAN: [Wistfully] It would be beautiful to be a poet. [Pause.] I willcome OSCAR Just leave that if you aren't going to be using it in the meantime THE WOMAN [Putting it down near the door! Oh, thank you I see that you are a kind young man.

OSCAR. That is not the general opinion

THE WOMAN: I wonder why it is that the general opinion is so often wrong? Stands considering it for a moment, then goes out

OSCAR: I don't quite understand that woman

Enter TOM HOWE, printer.]

TOM. If this paper can't go on, I ought to know it. I could get a job in the "Evening World', [Oscar continues writing.] Can it go on?

OSCAR: I don't see how it can, but many a time I haven't seen how it could-and it did. Doubtless it will go on, and will see days so much worse than these that we will say, 'Ah, the good old days of March 1917:

OM: But can it pay salaries?

SCAR: [Shocked] Oh, no, I think not, but we must work because we love our work

OM: We must eat because we love our food.

SCAR: You'll know soon. There's to be a meeting here this morning.

ter SARA TOM goes out. SARA is dressed like a young business woman and has simple direct manner of a woman who is ready to work for a thing she belleves

A: Ed not here yet?

AR: No.

Did he get any money?

R: Doesn't look like it. He was snappish over the phone. Guess he's for

it up this time.

Iron't want to give it up. [She sits at the table and unfolds a manuscript she OSCAR Well, it's not what we want, it's what people want, and there aren't of them who want us.

UGHT

SARA The fault must lie with us

OSCAR I don't think so. The fault lies with the failure to [The THE ARTIST I'll tell you where the fault lies. We should give more space to p and less to stupid reading matter. [Takes a seat at the table ARTIST hos entre

and less we have given too much to reading matter especially to poetry. That's where the fault lies. (Enter EDW matt WILLS, editor.]

ED: I'll tell you where the fault lies. (Points first to the ARTIST, then to OSCAR) Here! Just this! Everybody plugging for his own thing. Nobody caring enough about the thing as a whole.

OSCAR [Rising] I'll tell you where the fault lies. [Points to ED.] Here! This. The Editor-in-chief returning from a long trip and the first golden words that fall fro his lips are words of censure for his faithful subordinates.

SARA. How are you Ed?

ED. Rotten. I hate sleeping cars. I always catch cold.

SARA: Any luck?

ED: [His hand around his ear] What's the word?

[Enter the EARNEST APPROACH.]

EARNEST APPROACH: I have heard that you may have to discontinue.

ED: (Sitting down at his desk, beginning to look through the mail.] It seems we might as well.

EARNEST APPROACH: Now just let me tell you what the trouble has been and how you can remedy it. 'The People' has been afraid of being serious. But you deal w ideas, and you must do it soberly. There is a place for protest, but all this levity-this fooling- a good earnest journal of

[Enter LIGHT TOUCH.]

censure: severe disapproval AC Came see you. Ed, to say I hope the news Im hearing wit

BADE WWL it's an awful pity, but you've been too damın sensus Aghter put's what The People' needs. You're as heavy as mudhya frivolous lines, I was in the building and just ran in to let you have what's the matter with you

we had as many subscribers as we have people to tell us what's the

DLOSOPHER and ANARCHIST, PRINTER follows them in, a page of pt in his hand

ow the Philosopher and Anarchist will tell us what's the matter with us nest Too damn bourgeois! You should print on the cover of every issue with the bourgeoisie!

SOPHER: The trouble with the paper foency

about

start to rise in their chairs. The TER falls back against the wall, then sout of the room.]

Dear God! There are things it to me I cannot bear.

OSOPHER: It should be more essly done, and then it would be perfectly done. You should be definite, and you would have more ateness. You should not know what you want, and then you would find you are after.OSCAR: You talk as if we had not been a success. But just last night I heard of a woman in Bronxville who keeps The People' under her bed so her husband wor know she's reading it.

ANARCHIST: If you had been a success you would have fired that woman with se great a courage that she would proudly prop The People on the pillow!

ARTIST: [Who is sketching the ANARCHIST] It was my pictures got us under the

bed. OSCAR: (Haughtily I was definitely told it was my last. 'Talk with God' put us

under the bed.

ANARCHIST. Can you not see that she puts you under the bed because you yourselves have made concessions to the bourgeoisie?

ARTIST [Who has been sketching the ANARCHIST] It should print more pictures

OSCAR: It must print more poetry. [They glare at one another.]

EARNEST APPROACH: It should be more serious.

LIGHT TOUCH: It should be more frivolous.

[Enter the BOY from Georgia-dressed like a freshman with a good allowance]

THE BOY. Is this the office of 'The People'?

OSCAR. No, this is a lunatic asylum.

THE BOY: [After a bewildered moment] Oh, you're joking. You know [confidentially], I wondered about that-whether you would joke here I thought you would. [Stepping forward.] I came to see the Editor-I want to tell him-

ED. So many people are telling me so many things, could you tell yours a little later?

THE BOY Oh, yes. Of course there must be many important things people have ARNEST APPROACH A more appr

GNT TOUCH A Sighter o

MARLONIST Speaking for the Anarchit

LOSOPHER Speaking for the truth

marimps OSCAR are the MA Pom the Capeως περιο You have come to tell us something about this paper

EMAN: Yes

there are a number ahead of you, will you wat your tum lack of inment) Ell be glad to see you as soon as I can. There in the duttide ce Metioning door rear)

moment the MAN stands there, une ponderous figure, then very slowly goes

OSCAR [Hanging up receiver) Moritz Paper Company Sill got to be paid today

And here [Takes from his drawer a huge packet of bills EARNEST APPROACH

: You could pay your bills if you were not afraid to be serious UGHT TOUCH: You could pay your bills if you were not afraid

to be gay! SARNEST APPROACH, [From the door, very solemnly) A more earnest approach would save "The People

UGHT TOUCH: I lighter touch would turn the trick!

ANARCHIST) [Going over and pounding on Editor's desk) To hell with the

tourgeoisie! Apes!

They are

PHILOSOPHER: Efficiency has put out the spark.

Well, as long as the spark appears to be

good and out, may I in the name of efficiency

ask you who do not belong here to retire, that

we may go ahead with our work?

PHELOSOPHER There would be greater afficiency in our remaining the be form. You have lacked form

ANARCHIST you have lacked couragel

10 would he luminating, Leo, to hear Roads crocodiles, a number of mings you kingdom is large and we have work to do. haven't mentioned yet, but

PHILOSOPHER You lack form in your work. By foof the insignificant think I mean. I mean that particular significance fundamental-

ED We couldn't understand it. Why tell us?

PHILOSOPHER No (Goes to door): You couldn't understand it. [Exit]

en from the ANARCHIST Rest in peace (Gesture of benediction. Then door

Centipedes! (Ext, all laugh)

ED What's the matter with us is our friends.

SARA (Quietly) Well, to be or not to be. I guess it's up to you, Ed.

ED Just what would we be going on for? To make a few more people like the dear ones who have just left us? Seems to me we could best serve society not doing that. Precisely what do we do? --aside from getting under the ber Bronxville. Now and then something particularly rotten is put over and we story that gets a rise out of a few people, but-- we don't change anything

SARA. We had another hope. We were going to express ourselves so simplya so truly that we would be expressing the people.

ED: [Wearily] The People. I looked at them all the way across this continent I got so tired looking at them--on farms, in towns, in cities. They're like toy you wind up and they'll run awhile. They don't want to be expressed. It woul topple them over. The longer I looked the more ridiculous it seemed to me we should be giving our lives to-- [picks up the magazine and reads) The P -A Journal of the Social Revolution: Certainly we'd better cut the sub-title social revolution is dead.ould

ST: Takes up magazine) Instead of a sub-title we could have a design. Much etten [Glares at Oscar, then begins to draw

many times

This is a long way from what you felt a year ago, Ed. You had a vision then you can't keep vision in this office. It's easy enough to have a tedavision about the human race when none of it is around. The trouble about doing Jything for your fellow man is that you have to do it with a few of them. Oh, of ause that isn't fair. We care. I'll say that for us. Even Oscar cares, or he wouldn't the way he has. But what with anything, and God knows it beautiful of doesn't seem to be making anything very us. There's something rather pathetic about us.

and

SCAR: Or is it merely ridiculous?

MRA Let me read you something, Ed. (Takes up magazine, reads very simply. We ze living now. We shall not be living long. No one can tell us we shall live again. This is our little while. This is our chance. And we take it like a child who comes om a dark room to which he must return--comes for one sunny afternoon to Lovely hillside, and finding a hole, crawls in there till after the sun is set. I want nat child to know the sun is shining upon flowers in the grass. I want him to now it before he has to go back to the room that is dark. I wish I had pipes to call him to the hilltop of beautiful distances. I myself could see further if he were seeing at all. Perhaps I can call you; you who have dreamed and dreaming inow and knowing care. Move! Move from the things that hold you. If you move, others will move. Come! Now. Before the sun goes down! [Very quietly.] You wrote that, Ed.

ID: Yes, I wrote it; and do you want to know why I wrote it? I wrote it because I was Sore at Oscar and wanted to write something to make him feel ashamed of himself.

While Sara is reading, the WOMAN has appeared at the door, has moved a few steps into the room as if drawn by the words she is hearing. Behind her are the BOY from Georgia, and the MAN from the Cape.]

THE WOMAN: [Moving forward] I don't believe that's true! I don't believe that's True! Maybe you think that's why you wrote it, but it's not the reason. You wrote it because it's the living truth, and it moved in you and you had to say it

THE WOMAN, I am one of the people. I have lived a long way off. I heard that call and-I had to come

THE BOY (Blithely! I've come too. I'm from Georgia. I read it, and I didn't want to stay at school any longer. I said, I want something different and bigger- something more like this. I heard about your not being able to sell your paper on the newsstands just because lots of people don't want anything different and bigger, and I said to myself T'll sell the paper! I'll go and sell it on the streets And I got so excited about it that I didn't even wait for the dance. There was a dance that night, and I had my girl too.

THE WOMAN: He didn't even wait for the dance.

OSCAR: The idealists are calling upon the intellectuals, and calling them.

ED: [To the MAN] And what did you leave, my friend?

THE MAN: [Heavily] My oyster bed. I'm from the Cape. I had a chance to go in on an oyster bed. I read what you wrote a woman who had stopped in an automobile left it, and I said to myself, I'm nothing but an oyster myself. Guess come to life!

ED, But what did you come here for?

THE MAN: Well-for the rest of it.

ED: The rest of what?

THE MAN: The rest of what you've got

THE BOY Yes--that's it; we've come for the rest of what you've got

OSCAR This is awkward for Ed.

THE WOMAN: Give it to us.

ED, What?

THE WOMAN: The rest of it.

ED (An instant's pause] I haven't got anything more to give.

THE BOY But you made us think you had. You led us to believe you had.LOME WOMAN And you have. If you hadn't more to give you couldn't have given

1

SCAR Very awkwant

and

WOMAN You said-1 call to you. You who have dreamed, and dreaming now and knowing care Well three of us are here. From the South and the East and the West we've come because you made us want something we didn't have. made us want it so much we had to move the way we thought was toward it before the sun goes down.

THE BOY We thought people here had life-something different and bigger.

OSCAR Perhaps we'd better go. Poor Ed

I wish you'd shut up. Oscar

THE WOMAN: I know you will give it to us

Give what to you?

THE WOMAN What you have for the people. (OSCAR coughs) What you made us inow we need.

OSCAR You shouldn't have called personally. You should have sent in your needs by mail.

ED: Oscar, try and act as if you had a soul.

THE WOMAN: I think he really has. [A look at OSCAR-then, warmly] At least he has a heart. It's only that he feels he must be witty. But you you're not going to let us just go away again, are you? He gave up his oyster bed, and this boy didn't even wait for the dance, and me-I gave up my tombstone.

ED Your-?

THE WOMAN: Yes-tombstone. It had always been a saying in our family- He

won't even have a stone to mark his grave! They said it so much and so solemnly that I thought it meant something. I sew-plain sewing, but I've often said to myself- Well, at least I'll have a stone to mark my grave! And then, there was a man who had been making speeches to the miners-I live in a town in Idaho- and he had your magazine, and he left it in the store, and the storekeeper said to me, when I went there for thread- 'Here, you wish you would take it away, because if some folks in town see it, they'll think I'm not all should be. He meant the cover

ARTIST [Brightening) That was my cover.

THE WOMAN (After a smile at the ARTIST] So I took it home, and when my work was done that night, I read your wonderful words. They're like a spring-if you've lived in a dry country you'll know what I mean. And they made me know that my tombstone was as dead as well, [with a little laugh] as dead as a tombstone. So, I had to have something to take its place.

SARA: (Rising and going to the WOMAN] Talk to him. Tell him about it. Come Oscar!

BOY FROM GEORGIA: As long as there seems to be so much uncertainty about this, perhaps I'd better telegraph father You see, the folks don't know where Jan I just came

THE WOMAN: He didn't even stay for the dance.

BOY FROM GEORGIA: I'll be glad to sell the papers. [Seeing a pile of them on the table.] Here, shall I take these?- and I'll stop people on the street and tell why I'm selling them.

OSCAR: No, you can't do that. You'd be arrested.

THE WOMAN: Let him sell them. What's the difference about the law, if you have the right idea?

OSCAR. The right idea has given us trouble enough already.

THE MAN: There's something sure about an oyster bed.

OSCAR: You come with me and have a drink. Something sure about that too.

THE WOMAN: He could have had a drink at home.

SIRA TO ARTIST] Coming, Joe? To the BOY It was corking of you to want to help We must talk about- All go out except the WOMAN and the EDITOR A Pausei

THE WOMAN I am sorry for you.

Why?

HE WOMAN: Feeling her way and sadly) Because you have the brain to say spose things, and not the spirit to believe them. I couldn't say them, and yet I've get something you haven't got. [With more sureness Becauthenti you said was true

10 Will you sit down?

THE WOMAN: No-I'll go. [Stands there uncertainly] I don't know why I should be disappointed. I suppose it's not fair to ask you to be as big as the truth you saw why should I expect you would be?

I'm sorry. I suppose now you'll regret your tombstone.

THE WOMAN: No-it was wonderful to ride across this country and see all the

people. The train moving along seemed to make something move in me. I had thoughts not like any thoughts I'd ever had before your words like a spring breaking through the dry country of my mind. I thought of how you call your paper 'A Journal of The Social Revolution,' and I said to myself- This is the Social Revolution! Knowing that your tombstone doesn't matter! Seeing that's the Social Revolution.

ED: Seeing-?

THE WOMAN: [As if it is passing before her] A plain, dark trees off at the edge, against the trees a little house and a big barn. A flat piece of land fenced in. Stubble, furrows. Horses waiting to get in at barn; cows standing around a pump.Atle yard a water tank, one straight stret of a litligiven up. The seemed dead. The trees like--hopes that have been seemed dead, the last I noticed them first because of my thole stone, but I got hills they come store people the people who sig in the thought of the places where they are now. There's something the standing around the pump. So still, so patient, it-kind of hurts. And their plessures a flat field fenced in. Your great words carried me to other great words I thought of Lincoln, and what he said of a few of the dead. I said it over and over said things and didn't know the meaning of them 'till after I had said them. I said. The truth the truth-the truth that opens from our lives as water opens from the rocks. Then I knew what that truth was. [Pause, with an intensity peculiarly simple) Let us here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. I mean--all fr them. (A gesture, wide, loving.) Let life become what it may become! --so beautiful that everything that is back of us is worth everything it cost. graveyards-00 them--like the

[Enter TOM, Printer.]

TOM: I've got-- [Feeling something strange.] Sorry to butt in, but I can still get that job on 'The Evening World'. If this paper is going to stop, I've got to know it.

ED. Stop! This paper can't stop!

TOM: Can't stop! Last I heard, it couldn't do anything else.

ED: That was--long ago.

TOM: On--you've got something to go on with?

ED: Yes, something to go on with.

TOM: I see. [Looks at WOMAN, as if he didn't see, glances at her suitcase.] I'm glad But--I've got to be sure. This--is the truth?

ED: The truth. The truth that opens from our lives as water opens from the rocks. [TOM backs up.]

THE WOMAN: [Turning a shining face to the printer] Nobody really needs a tombstone.