Prince Hagen Part 12

EST. I live here.

HAGEN. Your name?

EST. Estelle Isman.

HAGEN. [In a transport of amazement.] Estelle Isman! You are Gerald's sister!

EST. Yes.

HAGEN. By the G.o.ds!

EST. [Terrified.] You know my brother!

HAGEN. Yes.

EST. You... Steve O'Hagen!

HAGEN. [Gravely.] I am Prince Hagen

EST. Prince Hagen!

HAGEN. A foreign n.o.bleman.

EST. What... what do you mean? You were on the Bowery!

HAGEN. I came to this country to study its inst.i.tutions. I wished to know them for myself... therefore I went into politics. Don't you see?

EST! [Dazed.] I see!

HAGEN. Now I am on the point of giving up the game and telling the story of my experiences.

EST. What are you doing here... in this house?

HAGEN. I came for you.

EST. [Stares at him.] How dare you?

HAGEN. I would dare anything for you! [They gaze at each other.] Don't you understand?

EST. [Vehemently.] No! No! I am afraid of you! You have no business to be here!

HAGEN. [Taking a step towards her.] Listen...

EST. No! I will not hear you! You cannot come here!

[Stares at him, then abruptly exit, centre.]

HAGEN. [Laughs.] Humph! [Hearing voices.] Who is this?

RUTH. [Off right.] I don't agree with you.

IS. Nor I, either, Plimpton. [Enters with PLIMPTON and RUTHERFORD; sees HAGEN.] Oh... I beg your pardon.

HAGEN. I am waiting for your son, Sir.

IS. I see. Won't you be seated?

HAGEN. I thank you. [Sits at ease in chair.]

PLIM. My point is, it's as Lord Alderdyce says... we have no hereditary aristocracy in this country, no traditions of authority.. . nothing to hold the mob in check.

IS. There is the const.i.tution.

PLIM. They may over-ride it.

IS. There are the courts.

PLIM. They may defy the courts.

RUTH. Oh, Plimpton, that's absurd!

PLIM. Nothing of the kind, Rutherford! Suppose they were to elect to office some wild and reckless demagog... take, for instance, that ruffian you were telling us about... down there on the Bowery... [HAGEN starts, and listens] and he were to defy the law and the courts? He is preaching just that to the mob... striving to rouse the elemental wild beast in them! And some day they will pour out into this avenue...

RUTH. [Vehemently.] Very well, Plimpton! Let them come! Have we not the militia and the regulars? We could sweep the avenue with one machine gun...

PLIM. But suppose the troops would not fire?

RUTH. But that is impossible!

PLIM. Nothing of the kind, Rutherford! No, no... we must go back of all that! It is in the hearts of the people that we must erect our defenses.

It is the spirit of this G.o.dless and skeptical age that is undermining order. We must teach the people the truths of religion. We must inculcate lessons of sobriety and thrift, of reverence for const.i.tuted authority. We must set our faces against these new preachers of license and infidelity... we must go back to the old-time faith... to love, and charity, and self-sacrifice...

HAGEN. [Interrupting.] That's it! You've got it there!

IS. [Amazed.] Why...

PLIM. Sir?

HAGEN. You've said it! Set the parsons after them! Teach them heaven!

Set them to singing about harps and golden crowns, and milk and honey flowing! Then you can shut them up in slums and starve them, and they won't know the difference. Teach them non-resistance and self-renunciation! You've got the phrases all pat... handed out from heaven direct! Take no thought saying what ye shall eat! Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth! Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's!

IS. Why... this is preposterous!

PLIM. This is blasphemy!

HAGEN. You're Plimpton... Plimpton, the coal baron, I take it. I know you by your pictures. You shut up little children by tens of thousands to toil for you in the bowels of the earth. You crush your rivals, and form a trust, and screw up prices to freeze the poor in winter! And you... [to RUTHERFORD] you're Rutherford, the steel king, I take it.

You have slaves working twelve hours a day and seven days a week in your mills. And you mangle them in hideous accidents, and then cheat their widows of their rights... and then you build churches, and set your parsons to preach to them about love and self-sacrifice! To teach them charity, while you crucify justice! To trick them with visions of an imaginary paradise, while you pick their pockets upon earth! To put arms in their hands, and send them to shoot their brothers, in the name of the Prince of Peace!

RUTH. This is outrageous!