(_Patten and Maury rise and walk aside and whisper together_)
And they all know Whatever be the outcome of this strike The effect of it will reach them all at last. If you men win, mill-workers everywhere Will take new heart and stand for better things. But if the Company wins, others will say-- And with no little weight--'We cannot pay The present scale of wages and compete With Egerton and Company.' So it will go Until the farthest mill in all this land Puts in its hand and takes a ten per cent Out of the wages of its workingmen. And there's no power on earth that can prevent it.
(_Willie Maury rises and joins his father and Patten_)
But even were this not true, were places open, The same conditions would confront you there As now confront you here. At any time Those who employ you have you in their power And can reduce your wages when they choose, Lay on you what conditions they see fit, And you must either yield or be turned forth To wander on again. I do not know Whether you men have families or not, But others have, and their cause is your own. You cannot wander on for evermore, Picking up here and there a chance day's work And hoping that to-morrow things will change, For changes do not come except through men.
And so I do not see just what it is You hope to gain by leaving Foreston. You cannot spend your lives on highways, friends. Where will you go? Have you some place in mind?
It's none of your damn business where we go. We don't wear no man's collar.
Nor Egerton's, nor no man's on this earth.
I beg your pardon, friends, I did not mean----
We're twenty-one years old and we're free men.
I did not mean you had no right to go. You have.
You can't get men And want to scare us back, that's what you want, Talkin' as how the mills will shut us out.
I have no wish to scare you back, my friend.
Come up to shake hands, eh, and say, Good-bye?
If it's my rent you're after, if it's that, I think you might at least let that much go For what my boy did, findin' of the log.
Friends, you misunderstand me if you think That I am here to speak for any man, Or round you up, or lift one hand to stay Your coming or your going. You are free And can do what you please.
I do not know, I do not know what I can say to you. I understand just how you----