Plays Part 33

SENATOR: Well, he enlisted a good man when he let you in on it. I've been told the college wouldn't be what it is today but for you, Mr Fejevary.

FEJEVARY: I have a sentiment about it, and where our sentiment is, there our work goes also.

SENATOR: Yes. Well, it was those mainsprings of sentiment that won the war.

(He is pleased with this.)

FEJEVARY: (nodding) Morton College did her part in winning the war.

SENATOR: I know. A fine showing.

FEJEVARY: And we're holding up our end right along. You'll see the boys drill this afternoon. It's a great place for them, here on the hill-shows up from so far around. They're a fine lot of fellows. You know, I presume, that they went in as strike-breakers during the trouble down here at the steel works. The plant would have had to close but for Morton College. That's one reason I venture to propose this thing of a state appropriation for enlargement. Why don't we sit down a moment? There's no conflict with the state university-they have their territory, we have ours. Ours is an important one-industrially speaking. The state will lose nothing in having a good strong college here-a one-hundred-per-cent-American college.

SENATOR: I admit I am very favourably impressed.

FEJEVARY: I hope you'll tell your committee so-and let me have a chance to talk to them.

SENATOR: Let's see, haven't you a pretty radical man here?

FEJEVARY: I wonder if you mean Holden?

SENATOR: Holden's the man. I've read things that make me question his Americanism.

FEJEVARY: Oh-(gesture of depreciation) I don't think he is so much a radical as a particularly human human-being.

SENATOR: But we don't want radical human beings.

FEJEVARY: He has a genuine sympathy with youth. That's invaluable in a teacher, you know. And then-he's a scholar.

(He betrays here his feeling of superiority to his companion, but too subtly for his companion to get it.)

SENATOR: Oh-scholar. We can get scholars enough. What we want is Americans.

FEJEVARY: Americans who are scholars.

SENATOR: You can pick 'em off every bush-pay them a little more than they're paid in some other cheap John College. Excuse me-I don't mean this is a cheap John College.

FEJEVARY: Of course not. One couldn't think that of Morton College. But that-pay them a little more, interests me. That's another reason I want to talk to your committee on appropriations. We claim to value education and then we let highly trained, gifted men fall behind the plumber.

SENATOR: Well, that's the plumber's fault. Let the teachers talk to the plumber.

FEJEVARY: (with a smile) No. Better not let them talk to the plumber. He might tell them what to do about it. In fact, is telling them.

SENATOR: That's ridiculous. They can't serve both G.o.d and mammon.

FEJEVARY: Then let G.o.d give them mammon. I mean, let the state appropriate.

SENATOR: Of course this state, Mr Fejevary, appropriates no money for radicals. Excuse me, but why do you keep this man Holden?

FEJEVARY: In the scholar's world we're known because of him. And really, Holden's not a radical-in the worst sense. What he doesn't see is-expediency. Not enough the man of affairs to realize that we can't always have literally what we have theoretically. He's an idealist. Something of the-man of vision.

SENATOR: If he had the right vision he'd see that we don't every minute have literally what we have theoretically because we're fighting to keep the thing we have. Oh, I sometimes think the man of affairs has the only vision. Take you, Mr Fejevary-a banker. These teachers-books-books! (pushing all books back) Why, if they had to take for one day the responsibility that falls on your shoulders-big decisions to make-man among men-and all the time worries, irritations, particularly now with labour riding the high horse like a fool! I know something about these things. I went to the State House because my community persuaded me it was my duty. But I'm the man of affairs myself.

FEJEVARY: Oh yes, I know. Your company did much to develop that whole northern part of the state.

SENATOR: I think I may say we did. Well, that's why, after three sessions, I'm chairman of the appropriations committee. I know how to use money to promote the state. So-teacher? That would be a perpetual vacation to me. Now, if you want my advice, Mr Fejevary,-I think your case before the state would be stronger if you let this fellow Holden go.

FEJEVARY: I'm going to have a talk with Professor Holden.

SENATOR: Tell him it's for his own good. The idea of a college professor standing up for conscientious objectors!

FEJEVARY: That doesn't quite state the case. Fred Jordan was one of Holden's students-a student he valued. He felt Jordan was perfectly sincere in his objection.

SENATOR: Sincere in his objections! The nerve of him thinking it was his business to be sincere!

FEJEVARY: He was expelled from college-you may remember; that was how we felt about it.

SENATOR: I should hope so.

FEJEVARY: Holden fought that, but within the college. What brought him into the papers was his protest against the way the boy has been treated in prison.

SENATOR: What's the difference how he's treated? You know how I'd treat him? (a movement as though pulling a trigger) If I didn't know you for the American you are, I wouldn't understand your speaking so calmly.

FEJEVARY: I'm simply trying to see it all sides around.

SENATOR: Makes me see red.

FEJEVARY: (with a smile) But we mustn't meet red with red.

SENATOR: What's Holden fussing about-that they don't give him caviare on toast?

FEJEVARY: That they didn't give him books. Holden felt it was his business to fuss about that.

SENATOR: Well, when your own boy 'stead of whining around about his conscience, stood up and offered his life!

FEJEVARY: Yes. And my nephew gave his life.

SENATOR: That so?

FEJEVARY: Silas Morton's grandson died in France. My sister Madeline married Ira Morton, son of Silas Morton.

SENATOR: I knew there was a family connection between you and the Mortons.

FEJEVARY: (speaking with reserve) They played together as children and married as soon as they were grown up.

SENATOR: So this was your sister's boy? (FEJEVARY nods) One of the mothers to give her son!

FEJEVARY: (speaking of her with effort) My sister died-long ago. (pulled to an old feeling; with an effort releasing himself) But Ira is still out at the old place-place the Mortons took up when they reached the end of their trail-as Uncle Silas used to put it. Why, it's a hundred years ago that Grandmother Morton began-making cookies here. She was the first white woman in this country.