Part 4

To ask upon what terms you will accept surrender.

GRANT

(_Presents a slip of paper._)

They are simple. I hope you will not find them ungenerous.

LEE

(_Having read them._)

You are magnanimous, sir. May I make one submission?

GRANT

It would be a privilege if I could consider it.

LEE

You allow our officers to keep their horses. That is gracious. Our cavalry troopers’ horses are also their own.

GRANT

I understand. They will be needed for the plowing. Of course, the officers of the Confederacy will also retain their side arms.

LEE

I thank you. It will do much toward conciliating our people. I accept your terms.

[_He offers his sword._]

GRANT

No, no! I should have included that. It has but one rightful place.

[_They salute and each returns to his army._]

LEE

(_Speaking the close of Lee’s final orders._)

Valor and devotion can accomplish nothing that will compensate for the loss that must attend the continuance of the conflict. You may take with you the satisfaction of duty faithfully performed, and I earnestly pray that a merciful God will extend to you his blessing and protection.

GRANT

(_Speaking the close of Grant’s last message._)

All that it was possible for men to do in battle they have done. Let us hope for perpetual peace and harmony with that enemy whose manhood, however mistaken the cause, drew forth such Herculean deeds of valor.

[_The bloody light fades and the two armies spread out into the crowds which now slowly close in._]

LINCOLN

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right; let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

[_The darkness has gradually closed in upon the scene except for Freedom’s face._

_A great toll of the kettledrums and a voice of a man that cries out desperately in the darkness._]

THE VOICE

Sic semper tyrannis!

[_The answer is a wail of women._]

A SECOND VOICE

(_Again a man’s; more calm and tragic._)

Now he belongs to the ages.

[_Again the wail of women._]

FREEDOM

O Lincoln! Lincoln! Lincoln!

[_With this, a shaft of light strikes the stair and shows Freedom bending over a bier upon which Lincoln lies dead._

_A great cry of mourning rises from the crowd, both men and women._

_The Choir comments, speaking Walt Whitman’s verse and noble words._]

THE CHOIR

This dust was once the man, Gentle, plain, just and resolute, under whose cautious hand, Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age, Was saved the Union of these States.

[_Gradually, during these lines, a cold light has spread over the mourning multitude. Every vestige of war is gone. The people stand with drooping heads facing the stair, every hand holding a spray of lilac. The freed negroes kneel about the lower steps. A funeral march, gentle as a song of spring, begins. Men lift up the bier and carry it up the steps to the second landing. Freedom leads the cortege; the girls come after. The crowd closes in. At the second landing, the bier is set down and all the people go past it, filing out into the darkness which closes in again upon either side. In the meanwhile, over the music, Freedom and the two Spokesmen speak from Walt Whitman’s great song of mourning._]

FREEDOM

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d, And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night, I mourned and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring. O powerful western fallen star! O shades of night--O moody, tearful night! O great star disappear’d--O the black murk that hides the star! O cruel hands that hold me powerless--O helpless soul of me! O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul.

THE FIRST SPOKESMAN

Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities, Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep’d from the ground, spotting the gray debris, Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the endless grass, Passing the yellow spear’d wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprisen. Passing the apple tree blows of white and pink in the orchards, Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave, Night and day journeys a coffin.

THE SECOND SPOKESMAN

Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land, With the pomp of the inloop’d flags, with the cities draped in black, With the show of the states themselves as of crape-veil’d women standing, With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night, With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and unbared heads.... Here, coffin that slowly passes, I give you my sprig of lilac.

FOUR VOICES

From the deep secluded recesses, From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still, Came the carol of a bird.

FREEDOM

Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later, delicate death.

Prais’d be the fathomless universe, For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, And for love, sweet love--but praise! praise! praise! For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.

THE FIRST SPOKESMAN

The night in silence under many a star, The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know, And the soul turning to thee, O base and well-veil’d death, And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.

THE SECOND SPOKESMAN

Over the tree tops I float thee a song, Over the rising and sinking waves and the myriad fields and the prairies wide, Over the dense pack’d cities all and the teeming wharves and ways, I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, O death.

FOUR VOICES

Loud in the pines and cedars dim, Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume, And I with my comrades there in the night.

FREEDOM

Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well, For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands--and this for his dear sake, Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul, There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.

THE CHOIR AND ALL THE PEOPLE

(_Very softly._)

That government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

[_The light goes again. The crowd goes off. The bier is carried away under cover of the darkness and to the far sound of the negroes who sing the same song which first we heard from them._]

_Part Four_

“_Our Own Day_”

[_The Chronicler rises in light._]

THE CHRONICLER

Death that takes Lincoln spares him the disillusion and the time of waste that comes after him. The face of Freedom is covered and she turns her gaze away from the land.

THE CHOIR

(_Fortissimo_)

Allons! Through struggles and wars! The goal that was named cannot be countermanded.

FOUR VOICES

We found our own, O my Soul, in the calm and cool of the daybreak.

[_The beginnings of light upon the scene show Freedom weeping upon her balustrade, alone on the stair between the two halves of the Choir._

_In the distance the Chorus begins to sing that great chantey of American labor, “I’ve been working on the Railroad.”_

_At the back of the stage, just below the beginning of the stair, is a pathway of light into which, from either side of the scene, come single lines of men who bear upon their shoulders rails and ties. Across the stage they build the transcontinental railroad, forming sculptural and beautiful groups as they bend over the joints of the rails and swing their sledges. When the task is completed, the headlights of engines shine along the lines._

_Whereupon two wedges of laborers emerge from the sides of the scene, lower down on the incline of the stage and stand in pools of flame. That on the right is the group of steel workers. That on the left is the group of coal miners._

_Whereupon, still lower down stage, two other wedges emerge, similarly dressed and lighted. They are the groups of farmers and of builders. Whereupon the forestage is filled with women and children of a most sorrowful and wretched aspect and with little old men, poorly dressed and meek of manner._

_All of this movement has been executed to the great march of labor which is built upon the theme of “I’ve been working on the Railroad.” The band has taken it up from the Chorus and woven it into a minor dirge and into bizarre dissonances and elaborated it with syncopations and new themes played upon strange instruments and sung by the voices of the Chorus so that the whole thing is at once triumphal and macabre. It rises to magnificent climaxes and subsides again so that the speakers, the crowds, the Choir and the Spokesmen may be clearly audible._

_At the same time the Spokesmen and the Choir speak antiphonally against the action and complete the prophecy of Walt Whitman._]

EIGHT VOICES

The shapes arise!

THE FIRST SPOKESMAN

Shapes of factories, arsenals, foundries, markets!

THE SECOND SPOKESMAN

Shapes of the two threaded tracks of railroads!

THE FIRST SPOKESMAN

Shapes of the sleepers of bridges, vast frameworks, girders, arches!

THE SECOND SPOKESMAN

Shapes of the fleets of barges, tows, lake and canal craft, river craft!

THE FIRST SPOKESMAN

Shipyards and drydocks along the eastern and western seas and in many a bay and by-place!

THE SECOND SPOKESMAN

The ships themselves on their ways, the tiers of scaffolds, the workmen.

THE FIRST SPOKESMAN

The shape of the family home, the home of the friendly parents and children.

FULL CHOIR

The shapes arise!

FOUR VOICES

Shapes of Democracy, total, result of centuries!

EIGHT VOICES

Shapes ever projecting other shapes!

TWELVE VOICES

Shapes of turbulent manly cities!

TWENTY VOICES

Shapes of friends and home givers to the whole earth!

FULL CHOIR

Shapes bracing the earth and braced with the whole earth!

FOUR VOICES

In the labor of engines and trades and the labor of fields I find the developments And find the eternal meanings....

THE RAILROAD BUILDERS

O Freedom, in your name, We have built a railroad across a continent And linked the east and the west with strips of steel; We have worked, Freedom, for the empire which is yours, For that which is not yours is nothing.

[_Freedom lifts her head and listens._]

THE STEEL WORKERS

Steel! Steel! Steel! Flame and smoke and blood! We have pounded with our fists, Freedom, And forged with our hearts, And our bodies have fed the furnaces, That your empire, Freedom, might endure in steel Over the land and upon the seas.

[_Freedom listens still but gives no sign._]

THE COAL MINERS

Though we died in the depths of the earth, we have given coal, Freedom, in your name. Though we had many masters, we owned no rule but yours, For that is vain which is not done for Freedom.

THE FARMERS

In your name, Freedom, We have cleared forests and made deserts bloom And covered the states with corn and wheat and herds, And suffered droughts and storms, Freedom, That yours might be a great empire.

THE BUILDERS

Freedom, we have built the fences of your farmers and the roofs of your cities, We have made machines of your empire, Freedom, and we have built our lives into its structure, For you, Freedom, only for you.

THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN

We have given, Freedom, in your hands, our youth and our health and our beauty In the fields, and the factories of your empire, Freedom, we have given all that we had to give, Holding always to our faith in you.

THE MEEK MEN

Durably, without complaint, day after day, We have filled the little tasks of your empire, Freedom, Performed little duties and earned little wages, Without complaining, without understanding, Save that we worked in your name.

THE WHOLE CROWD

Reward us, Freedom!

THE CHOIR

Workmen and Workwomen! I do not affirm that what you see beyond is futile ... I do not say leading you, thought great are not great ... But I say that none lead to greater than these lead to.

THE WHOLE CROWD

Reward us, Freedom!

[_With one accord the whole crowd turns and lifts its hands to Freedom. A sudden hush comes and the light on the crowd begins to pale._]

FOUR VOICES

We found our own, O my Soul, in the calm and cool of the daybreak.

THE CHRONICLER

The word is Roosevelt’s.

[_The crowd turns towards the audience and listens as the Spokesmen speak words of Roosevelt’s._]

THE FIRST SPOKESMAN

No nation great as ours can escape the penalty of greatness. Ours is a government of liberty by, through and under the law.

THE SECOND SPOKESMAN

No man is above it and no man is below it.

EIGHT VOICES

We found our own, O my Soul, in the calm and cool of the daybreak.

THE CHRONICLER

The word is Wilson’s.

THE FIRST SPOKESMAN

There has been something crude and heartless and unfeeling in our haste to succeed and be great.

THE SECOND SPOKESMAN

The great government we loved has too often been made use of for private and selfish purposes and those who used it had forgotten the people.

[_Through all this the music has progressed sometimes tempestuously, sometimes lyrically. Now it becomes swiftly and terribly sinister and, behind Freedom, where she sits immobile upon her throne, flashes of light, bloody and flaming, run along the balustrade of the uppermost level and the eyes of the people are turned fearfully upwards. Freedom does not move._]

THE CHRONICLER

The world is filled with dread and a great war wages but still Freedom holds aloof from her people, for this war is not waged in her name until the prophet, speaking, gives it meaning.

THE FULL CHOIR

Allons, through struggles and wars! The goal that was named cannot be countermanded.

THE CHRONICLER

Again, the word is Wilson’s.

[_Freedom rises._

_The lurid terrace shifts and swarms with figures seen through smoke. Now a new army of olive drab bursts up over the crest and the next lines are shouted by the Choir over a wild pantomime of battle._]

FIRST SPOKESMAN AND EIGHT VOICES

We are glad now to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples.

THE SECOND SPOKESMAN AND SIXTEEN VOICES

The world must be made safe for democracy.

FREEDOM AND FOUR VOICES

To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day is come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured.

THE WHOLE CHOIR

God helping her, she can do no other!

[_A great frenzy of enthusiasm takes the crowd and the music lifts itself into a supreme climax. But Freedom’s two arms go up for silence and the four Voices are heard again, the words of Carl Sandburg._]

EIGHT VOICES

(_Intoning upon a high wild note._)

Smash down the cities, Knock the walls to pieces. Break the factories and cathedrals, warehouses and homes Into loose piles of stone and lumber and black burnt wood: You are the soldiers and we command you.

[_The light dies upon the uppermost terrace and increases upon the crowd._]

FOUR OTHER VOICES

Build up the cities. Set up the walls again. Put together once more the factories and cathedrals, warehouses and homes Into buildings for life and labor; You are the workmen and citizens all: We command you.

[_Again Freedom’s face falls. She comes disconsolately down the stair._]

THE PEOPLE

Ah!

FOUR OTHER VOICES

(_Again from Sandburg._)

Make us one new dream, us who forgot, Out of the storm let us have one star.

[_She stops and looks mournfully down upon them, all the people, and shakes her head._

_Whereupon, the music going mad again, the people begin all to move and shift about in little, futile designs and, at the same time, on Freedom’s left, a cone of men shoot acrobatically up. There are not more than a dozen figures in it. They wear hot purples and outrageous masks and speak in unison._]

THE CONE

You people, What are you to Freedom? What is Freedom to you? You have no rights, but only duties. Produce! Faster and faster. Harder and harder. It doesn’t matter How tired you are. Produce, do you hear?

[_Whereupon a second cone shoots up on Freedom’s right. It is exactly like the first except that the men in it are dressed in dirty red and orange._]

THE SECOND CONE

You people! Stand up for your rights! To hell with your duties! Do you want Freedom? Well, then, organize! Wealth is labor! Property is labor! Capital is labor! Organize!

[_Whereupon a third cone shoots up at Freedom’s very feet, a cone all of black with senatorial hats topping the masked faces._]

THE THIRD CONE

You people! Forget about freedom! Government’s government. Republican. Democrat. Right or wrong, My country still! The Constitution, Wonderful instrument! Land of the Free And the home of the Brave! Politics. Politics. Don’t forget Washington, Lincoln or Hamilton. What did they tell you? Worship the government.

[_The three cones disappear as magically as they appeared and, in their place about Freedom’s feet, is a fan of scarlet figures._]

THE FAN

You masses! You masses! You masses! Do you know your power? Do you know your meaning? Do you know what you can do? We’re Freedom. We’re Russia! We’re God! Awake masses! You are the state! You are the world! You are the universe! Take what is yours.

[_All this while the people, to swifter and swifter music, always more and more macabre and dissonant, have moved ever and ever more swiftly. Now the music comes back to a horrible parody of “I’ve been working on the Railroad” and the movement takes shape in designs and formal groups, large and small. And the men who made up three cones and the fan surge over the stair and drag Freedom down so that she is lost in the whirling mob. And the light, broken and colorful, dies to gloom and the movement is a movement of patterns and the music drowns all, singing and instrumental. Then, just at the front of the stage, just above the throne of the Chronicler, a single ray of white light breaks upon Freedom again and, along the upper level, the light once more lifts, and as Freedom begins to speak, it seems to be daybreak._]

FREEDOM

Lost! Lost! Lost!

[_The desperate cry pierces all the tumult and brings complete silence upon the scene._]

O People, my People, my People, Where are your wits and your hearts and your souls? What have you done with the destiny I left you? Fools! Fools! Fools!

[_A stricken sigh goes up from the people and those about Freedom fall upon their knees._]

Man does not seek the dream that is not his, Nor dream the search to which he was not destined, Nor hope for that which he does not believe. Who would be free is free; Who would be otherwise is otherwise. Ever man is himself man’s enemy; Ever man’s fear to be himself shall be Between man and man’s liberty.

[_A murmur goes up from the people. She looks sorrowfully and majestically over them._]

Soldiers of Freedom! Comrades of Freedom! Brothers of Freedom! Children of Freedom! Not slaves, but men! Not sheep, but men! Not masses, but men!

I cannot set you free who were born free. Nor strike your shackles off who were born slaves. Be to yourselves yourselves, the rest is glory.

[_A louder murmur and many of the crowd lift their hands to her._]

Workmen and workwomen! Children and aged! You were born of the past! You are pledged to the future.

[_She goes a little up among the kneeling crowd._]

Soldiers of Freedom, Comrades of Freedom, Brothers of Freedom, You! You! And You! I lead again! I live again! I love! Who dares to follow now! Who comes beside me, bravely and alone, Not one of masses, but as man alone? What, none? Are you all masses, then?

[_Some of them come eagerly up to her._]

You, have you faith? You, are you honest? You, is your spirit strong? You, can you face the sun? Why then, come on! Come on! On! On! I lead--Come on! Come on!

[_She plunges up the slope toward the light, her own refulgence illuminating those who come immediately after her. The music reaches its wildest and highest point as the crowds falling in widely behind her, begins to ascend the slope. Freedom is seen to pause and wave the crowd on and a great cone of humanity moves up the stair. Then the music stops upon a tremendous major resolution and Freedom is standing at the top of the stair at last and all the people, their arms reached upwards to her, are spread out below and the light is blinding. The music gives way to a rolling of drums and from the hills come crazy voices invoked by the wild cries and the wilder arms of Freedom most transfigured, most blazing of all._]

FREEDOM

Soldiers of Freedom out of the past of the race, huzza!

A VOICE

(_Screaming wildly._)

Don’t shoot till you see the whites of their eyes!

FREEDOM

Again!

ANOTHER VOICE

(_Wilder and from a different position._)

If they mean to have a war let it begin here!

FREEDOM

Again!

ANOTHER VOICE

Trust in God and keep your powder dry!

ANOTHER VOICE

We have not yet begun to fight!

[_Now rockets are bursting in the air, gorgeous beautiful rockets._]

FREEDOM

Brothers of Freedom, out of the past of the race, your songs!

SEVERAL VOICES

(_Singing wildly._)

Yankee Doodle came to town, Riding on a pony, Stuck a feather in his hat And called it macaroni! Yankee Doodle....

OTHER VOICES

I’ll fight it out on this line if it takes all summer! Give me liberty or give me death! Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable! Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute! A war to end war! Don’t give up the ship! Lafayette, here we are! Too proud to fight! In the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!

OTHER VOICES

John Brown’s body lies a moulding in the grave, John Brown’s body lies a moulding in the grave, John Brown’s body lies a moulding in the grave, But his soul goes marching on! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory....

OTHER VOICES

Way down south in the land of cotton, Cinnamon seed and sandy bottom, Look away, look away, look away, look away! That’s the land where I was born in....

OTHER VOICES

Over there! Over there! Over there! Over there! Over there! The Yanks are coming....

[_By this the light has gone from the people and shines only upon Freedom who turns and holds her hands out over all the multitude. A terrific flight of rockets bursts with a terrific explosion. Then there is absolute silence._]

FREEDOM

(_Coming through the crowds, back down the stair._)

Children of Freedom, Out of the mind of God, Hear ye the truth-- Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees!... Can ye grow grapes from thorns or figs from thistles? What man, by taking thought, can add a cubit to his stature? Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees! To him that hath shall be given. From him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.... Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.... Seek and ye shall find....