MIFFLIN [beaming and nodding]:  Well, why not, Mr. Gibson?

GIBSON:  What?

NORA:  Why shouldn’t they?

GIBSON:  Why shouldn’t they?  But what’s their limit?

NORA [oratorically]:  When the workman shall own his tools!

MIFFLIN:  Of course that means all the tools, Mr. Gibson.  You may not know our phrase:  “The workman shall own his tools.”  It means not only the carpenter’s bench, the plane and the saw, the adze and the auger, but the shop itself.  It means that the workmen shall own the factory.  It means the elimination of everything and everyone who stands between him and the purchaser, to take toll and unearned profit from the worker, who is really the sole producer of wealth.

NORA:  It means the elimination of capital and the capitalist!

MIFFLIN:  It means that not only should the worker own tools and factory but should sit here in the persons of his chosen and elected fellow workers, as arbiter of his own destiny.

GIBSON:  That is to say, it means the elimination of me.

MIFFLIN [jovially]:  Precisely!  Precisely!

GIBSON [as another workingman strides into the room]:  What do you want, Shomberg?

SHOMBERG:  Them new windows in the assembling room—­they’re no good.

GIBSON:  We’ve just spent twelve hundred dollars fixing them as you said you wanted them.  What’s the matter with them?

SHOMBERG:  They don’t give no light.

MIFFLIN:  None at all?

SHOMBERG:  It’s right next to none at all!  The men are goin’ to lay off if they got to work in that room.  They’re goin’ out anyway at twelve o’clock.

FRANKEL:  Now look here, Mr. Gibson, if I was running this factory—­

GIBSON:  You’re not, Frankel!

SHOMBERG:  Well, why can’t you listen to him?  Don’t we even get no hearing?  I guess if I was running this factory once, the first thing I’d do I’d anyhow try to listen what the troubles is and make my men contented.

GIBSON:  What would you do if you were running the factory, Carter?  You haven’t said.

CARTER:  I ain’t had the chance to say.  Now what I’d do, first I’d settle all the grievances so there wouldn’t be no more complaints.

GIBSON:  Well, here’s one coming I might leave to you on that basis.

     [Enter SIMPSON, an elderly worker in overalls and jumper;
     and SALVATORE, a New Yorkized Italian type, a formerly
     lighted cigarette dangling from his lips.]

SALVATORE:  Our department’s goin’ to walk out at twelve, noon, Mr. Gibson.  We ain’t satisfied.

GIBSON:  Why not?

SALVATORE:  Well, we ain’t satisfied, Mr. Gibson; we ain’t satisfied at all.

GIBSON:  You got every demand answered yesterday, Salvatore.

SALVATORE:  Oh, I ain’t talkin’ about no demands.  If all them other departments walks out we’re going to stand by ’em!  We got plenty to do with our time.  Workin’ all the time ain’t so enjoyable.