GIBSON:  All right!  I’m going to do something you don’t expect, and I want you to know I mean it.  But before I do it I want to tell you something.  Probably you won’t understand it, but for a long time I had a pride in this factory.  Building up The Gibson Upright was really the pride of my life.  To do that I knew I had to have a loyal staff of workmen, and for that reason if no other I have given you shorter hours and more pay than the men get in any other factory of this kind that I know of.  I’ve done everything that can be done to make the shops healthy and light and clean.  I certainly haven’t been unfriendly to you personally.  Any man in the factory was free to come in that door to talk to me any time he wanted to.  I’ve done my best and we’ve been called the model factory.  I’ve done my best but—­it isn’t enough.  It never has been enough.  And I’ve been told it never will be enough [with a glance at NORA] until the wage system has been abolished—­until capital has been abolished and the parasite destroyed!  I say I took a pride in the factory for years!  Now I am no longer able to.  I can’t take a pride in a squabble, and that’s all this factory has come to be.  And I’ll tell you frankly—­you men feel you’d like to get rid of me; well, I want to get rid of you.  And I intend to!

SHOMBERG [fiercely]:  You goin’ to close this factory down?

GIBSON:  No; I’m going to give it to you!

SEVERAL WORKMEN:  What!

GIBSON [emphatically]:  I’m going to give it to you!  I turn it over to you, here and now.  This property is mine, but the use of it is yours.  Don’t you understand?  You’ve said yourselves my word is as good as my bond.  Well, the factory is yours.  I’m going to get away from it.  You take it and run it.

     [He gets his hat and coat.]

SIMPSON:  What in thunder does he mean?

SALVATORE:  Say, what’s the game?

GIBSON:  There it is!  Take it and run it yourselves, for yourselves.  It belongs to every workman in the factory on equal shares. [Throws keys on table.] There are the keys of the safe, and the combination’s in the top drawer of that desk.  It’s all yours as it stands, down to the very correspondence on that table, without any let, hindrance, or interference from me.

FRANKEL [hoarsely]:  Say!  He means it!

SALVATORE:  All the money ours?

GIBSON:  The money for every piano you make and sell is yours—­every cent of it.

MIFFLIN [rising transfigured]:  Gentlemen, a glorious time has come!  This is an example to every employer of labour in our land.  I thank that power which destined all men to be equal both in service and reward that I should have chanced to be present to see such a splendid band of forward-looking fellows—­of brothers, of comrades—­come into their own!  Let us hope that this great moment but marks the beginning of an epoch when every capitalist and manufacturer shall see the light as Mr. Gibson has just done.