George.  Then—­you think this isn’t a free country.

Prag.  When.  I sail up the harbour at New York twenty years ago and see that Liberty shining in the sun, I think so, yes.  But now I know, for the workmens, she is like the Iron Woman of Nuremberg, with her spikes when she holds you in her arms.  You call me a traitor, yes, when I say that.

George.  No—­I want to understand.

Prag.  I am born in Bavaria, but I am as good an American as any,—­better than you, because I know what I fight for, what I suffer for.  I am not afraid of the Junkers here,—­I have spirits,—­but the Germans at home have no spirits.  You think you fight for freedoms, for democracy, but you fight for this! (He waves his hand to indicate the room.) If I had a million dollars, maybe I fight for it, too,—­I don’t know.

George.  So you think I’m going to fight for this—­for money?

Prag.  Are you going to fight for me, for the workmens and their childrens?  No, you want to keep your money, to make more of it from your war contracts.  It is for the capitalist system you fight.

George.  Come, now, capital has some rights.

Prag.  I know this, that capital is power.  What is the workmen’s vote against it? against your newspapers and your system?  America, she will not be free until your money power is broken.  You don’t like kings and emperors, no,—­you say to us workmens, you are not patriots, you are traitors if you do not work and fight to win this war for democracy against kings.  Are we fools that we should worry about kings?  Kings will fall of themselves.  Now you can put me in jail.

George.  I don’t want to put you in jail, God knows!  How would you manage it?

Prag.  Why does not the employer say to his workmens, “This is our war, yours and mines.  Here is my contract, here is my profits, we will have no secrets, we will work together and talk together and win the war together to make the world brighter for our childrens.”  Und then we workmens say, “Yes, we will work night and day so hard as we can, because we are free mens.”

   (A fanatical gleams comes into his eyes.)

But your employer, he don’t say that,—­no.  He says, “This is my contract, this is my shop, and if you join the unions to get your freedoms you cannot work with me, you are traitors!”

   (He rises to a frenzy of exaltation.)

After this there will be another war, and the capitalists will be swept away like the kings!

   (He pauses; George is silent.)

Und now I go away, and maybe my wife she die before I get to the shipyard at Newcastle.

   (He goes slowly out, upper right, and George does not attempt to
   stay him.  Enter Asher, lower right.)

Asher.  I’ve just called up the Department in Washington and given them a piece of my mind—­told ’em they’d have to conscript labour.  Damn these unions, making all this trouble, and especially today, when you’re going off.  I haven’t had a chance to talk to you.  Well, you know that I’m proud of you, my boy.  Your grandfather went off to the Civil War when he was just about your age.