In Public Life, if I had chosen that, And after six years' work that you approved, If one day I had come----
'Father, I can't go on; my way is blocked And all my hopes are falling to the ground.' There's nothing, not one thing you wouldn't have done. Or if I had a building half way up, My masterpiece, a mighty capitol That finished would be known throughout the land, And I had met with interference, men Who had no vision--you know what I mean-- And I had come to you, 'Father, I'm thwarted,' O I can see with one sweep of your hand How you would clear the skies.
Listen to me! For probably in all my life I'll never Speak to you as I'm speaking now, my father.
In these six years for one cause or another There've been three strikes that have cost the Company thousands In money, to say nothing of those things That all the money in the world can't buy. Now let me ask, my father, if this loss, Instead of springing from these strikes, had come Through breakdowns of the machinery, or in the camps Through failure to get the timber out in time, Wouldn't you have dismissed the man in charge? Then why do you let Jergens run the mill? Hasn't he failed, and miserably, with the men?
(_George Egerton walks away and stands by the pine trees, picking off and biting the needles_)
Is it because the earnings have increased? Think what it's cost you, father. In every mill Jergens has touched he's left a cursing there That's all come back on us. Why, my father, Our name's become a by-word through the State, 'As hard as Egerton.' And when I think Of what might be, the good-will and the peace, The happiness! There's not the least excuse For this cut in wages, father, and you know it.
You can't help but know it. You've the books; You know what you've been making. But that aside: To come to what I would say: You've won this strike. You have the men in your power and you can say, 'Go back,' and they'll go back. But you won't do it.
Will you, when you know you're wrong? When you know you're losing friends who love what's right? Think of the sentiment against you, father. No, father, you don't know what's going on.
If you knew how they live And the hard time they have to get along. It isn't fair, my father, it isn't fair.