"Lexington": A Pageant-Drama of the American Freedom
Date: 2021-04-10T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Lexington; Battle of; Mass.; 1775 -- Drama; Pageants -- Massachusetts -- Lexington; United States -- History -- Drama

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Title: "Lexington": A Pageant-Drama of the American Freedom

Author: Sidney Coe Howard

Release date: April 10, 2021 [eBook #65048]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "LEXINGTON": A PAGEANT-DRAMA OF THE AMERICAN FREEDOM ***

LEXINGTON
BIRTHPLACE OF AMERICAN LIBERTY

Second Presentation
of the
Historical Pageant Drama
“Lexington”
Commemorating the 150th Anniversary
of the
Battle of Lexington

Enacted Every Ten Years
by the
Citizens of Lexington
Massachusetts

AMPHITHEATRE
Every Evening, Week of June 15th
1925

Copyright, 1924
The Lexington Historical Society
All rights reserved

Printed in U. S. A.

The production staged
and under the personal
direction of

Samuel J. Hume

Special Nights

June 15—President’s Night
In Honor of the President of the United States.

June 16—Governors’ Night
In Honor of the Governors of the Thirteen Original States.

June 17—Bunker Hill Night
In Memory of the Patriots who fought at Bunker Hill.

June 18—College Night
In Honor of the visiting Alumni of the New England Colleges.

June 19—Historical Night
In Honor of the Historical Societies of America.

June 20—Military Night
In Memory of the sons of Lexington who have fallen in the service of their country.

1775 “Pageant of Lexington” 1925

INC.

Edward C. Stone, President
Waldo F. Glidden, Vice-President
Edward W. Kimball, Vice-President
Edwin B. Worthen, Treasurer
Daniel B. Lewis, Auditor

Fletcher W. Taft
Director of Publicity

Willard D. Brown
Chairman of Construction

Sheldon A. Robinson
Chairman, Grounds Committee

David Hennessy
Superintendent Amphitheatre

“Lexington”

Citizens’ Committee of One Hundred

Edwin B. Worthen, Chairman | Frederick L. Emery
Harry M. Aldrich | Richard Engstrom
William H. Ballard | Robert J. Fawcett
S. Lewis Barbour | Harry F. Fay
Dr. William L. Barnes | Robert W. Fernald
Edwin A. Bayley | Edwin F. Fobes
Hallie C. Blake | Frederick R. Galloupe
Arthur L. Blodgett | George H. Gibson
George E. Briggs | George L. Gilmore
Fred K. Brown | Waldo F. Glidden
Leroy S. Brown | C. Edward Glynn
Willard D. Brown | Wm. Roger Greeley
Albert H. Burnham | Charles Elliott Hadley
John Calder | George D. Harrington
Lyon Carter | Alton H. Hathaway
William E. Chamberlain | J. Willard Hayden, Jr.
Calvin W. Childs | David Hennessy
Edmund S. Childs | Willard C. Hill
Robert P. Clapp | Charles E. Holt
Joseph H. Cody | Robert H. Holt
Theodore A. Custance | Randall B. Houghton
Francis S. Dane | William Hunt
Charles B. Davis | J. Chester Hutchinson
Edward W. Kimball | Clarence Shannon
Harold B. Lamont | Frank R. Shepard
Daniel B. Lewis | William H. Shurtleff
Harry W. Litchfield | Franklin P. Simonds
Arthur N. Maddison | Clarence E. Sprague
Edward H. Mara | Lester E. Smith
Hugh D. McLellan | James Stuart Smith
Edward P. Merriam | James W. Smith
Charles H. Miles | William L. Smith
Fred W. Miller | Edwin C. Stevens
Fred H. Moulton | Edward C. Stone
John E. A. Mulliken | Albert B. Tenney
Hermann Dudley Murphy | Rockwell C. Tenney
George W. Norton | Dr. J. Odin Tilton
Charles P. Nunn | John F. Turner
Timothy H. O’Connor | Dr. Winsor M. Tyler
Alfred Pierce | Dr. Henry C. Valentine
Frank D. Pierce | Henry L. Wadsworth
Dr. Fred S. Piper | James J. Walsh
Elwyn G. Preston | Hollis Webster
William W. Reed | Herbert L. Wellington
Walter W. Rowse | Harry A. Wheeler
Robert L. Ryder | Harvey C. Wheeler
Edward H. Sargent | Harvey F. Winlock
Edward D. Sawyer | Edward Wood
O. Gilbert Seeley | Frederick O. Woodruff
Julius Seltzer | Sydney R. Wrightington

Executive Committee

Robert P. Clapp, Chairman
J. Willard Hayden, Jr., Executive Director
Hallie C. Blake | Edward P. Merriam
George E. Briggs | Charles W. Ryder
Sydney R. Wrightington

Finance Committee

Edward P. Merriam, Chairman
Lyon Carter | H. B. Lamont
Richard Engstrom | Arthur N. Maddison
George L. Gilmore | Fred H. Moulton
Alton H. Hathaway | Elwyn G. Preston
J. Chester Hutchinson | F. R. Shepard
James Stuart Smith

Advisory Committee

Hallie C. Blake, Chairman
Theodore A. Custance | Charles H. Miles
Frederick L. Emery | Edward H. Sargent
W. Roger Greeley | William L. Smith
Willard C. Hill | Edwin C. Stevens
Robert H. Holt | Harry A. Wheeler

Committee on Book

James P. Munroe, Chairman
Miss Maud E. Adlington | Dr. Fred S. Piper
Miss Marian P. Kirkland | Hollis Webster

Committee on Production

Waldo F. Glidden, Chairman

American Legion—Stanley Hill Post No. 38

Eugene J. Viano      Charles M. Blake

American Legion—Auxiliary No. 38

Mrs. Clayton G. Locke      Miss Lillian Viano

Board of Trade

C. E. Hadley      W. E. Mulliken

Buckman Tavern Community Association

Mrs. S. Randolph Kelley      Mrs. E. W. Kimball

Catholic Club (Ladies’)

Mrs. Nancy M. Sealey      Miss Julia O’Leary

Catholic Club (Men’s)

Geo. H. Gibson      John J. Garrity

Catholic Daughters of America

Mrs. Helen R. Fitzgerald      Mrs. Mary F. Buckley

Daughters of American Revolution—Lexington Chapter

Miss Amy E. Taylor      Mrs. Edward L. Child      Mrs. Alice Fay Stickel

East Lexington Civic Association

Edgar Harrod      Albert Ross

First Parish Men’s Club (Unitarian)

Louis L. Crone      Ralph H. Elvedt

Follen Church Men’s Club—East Lexington

Jos. W. Cotton      James M. Nickerson

Girl Scouts Drum Corps

Miss Hazel Whiting      Mrs. Dorothy G. Hall

Grand Army of the Republic—Geo. G. Meade Post No. 119

John N. Morse      Everett S. Locke

Hancock Church Men’s Club

Henry L. Wadsworth      William H. Shurtleff

Hancock School

Miss Harriet S. French      Miss Margaret Noyes

Knights of Columbus—Lexington Council No. 94

James J. McKearney      John J. McCormack

Lafayette Club

Miss Mary Manley      Miss Anne Moakley

Lend-A-Hand (Senior)

Mrs. A. B. Tenney      Mrs. Clarence E. Sprague

Lexington Boy Scouts

Philip E. Perry      Peter Robertson

Lexington Council of Girl Scouts

Mrs. Everett S. Emery      Mrs. J. Chester Hutchinson

Lexington Drum Corps

Chester Doe      Dana Greeley

Lexington Golf Club

Edmund S. Childs      Robert Whitney

Lexington Grange No. 233

Lawrence G. Mitchell      Matthew Stevenson

Lexington Historical Society

Mrs. William Hunt      Mrs. Hermann Dudley Murphy

Lexington Home and School Association

Mrs. Walter C. Ballard      Miss Grace P. French

Lexington Minute Men

Ezra F. Breed      Bion C. Merry

Lexington Public Health Association

Miss Ellen Tower      S. Lewis Barbour

Lexington Teachers’ Club

Miss Anne L. Forsyth      Miss Bertha V. Hayward

Liberty Heights Improvement Association

G. W. Nary      James Guthrie

Lieut. Col. John W. Hudson Auxiliary No. 11

Mrs. E. Esther Burnham      Miss Ethel L. Burk

Men’s Club—Church of our Redeemer

J. Fox      Capt. Wm. Young

Old Belfry Club

Jasper A. Lane      Mrs. Harold B. Lamont

Order of Eastern Star

Mrs. Guyetta G. Broderic      Mrs. Helen H. Smith

Outlook Club

Miss Marguerite Nichols      Miss Clara Wadleigh

Parker School

Miss Sadie I. Burgess      Miss Ruth Morrison

School Department—Lexington

Miss Mary C. Lusk      Miss Anne L. Forsyth

Simon W. Robinson Lodge, A. F. & A. M.

George E. Smith      Robert M. Stone

Sons of Veterans—Lieut. Col. John W. Hudson Camp No. 105

Geo. E. Foster      Alfred Haynes

Unity Lend-A-Hand

Mrs. Lyon Carter      Mrs. Robert W. Fernald

Unitarian Laymen’s League

Arthur B. Howe      Robert S. Sturtevant

Women’s Relief Corps No. 97

Mrs. Edward L. Child      Mrs. Robert W. Britton

“Lexington”

A Pageant Drama of the American Freedom

Founded upon Great Sayings
To be Acted in Dumb Show

COMPILED AND, IN PART, WRITTEN BY
Sidney Howard

For the Celebration of the
One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary
of the Battle of Lexington
April 19th, 1775

Stage Manager
Waldo F. Glidden

Musical Director
Charles Repper

Director of Chorus
Clarence E. Briggs

To My Wife

“The world will little note
nor long remember what
we say here, but it can
never forget what they
did here—”

A. Lincoln

Foreword

THE aim of this play is to represent the impulse and the progress of civil liberty in this country since the commencement of the War for Independence. The intention is never literal. In spite of a certain actuality in the presentation of the incidents of “The Glorious Morning” at Lexington, the play must always be considered and produced as an abstraction of the events with which it is concerned.

The events themselves are marked by the great sayings of our prophets of liberty and of sundry other minds of genius, all quite arbitrarily selected. Great sayings, through their immense significance to the popular imagination, become symbols of the periods which occasioned them. Great activities may, in the same sense, be looked upon as abstractions of the periods and movements which required them and made them possible.

The great activities of the story of American civil liberty are here treated in a kind of processional dumb show which amplifies the quotations placed in the mouths of the two Spokesmen, the Choir of speakers and the characters in the play. When the dumb show is not executed in procession, it devolves upon groups which act collectively as a single individual and, on certain occasions, speak in unison.

Comment upon the action is supplied by a few lines which have been written for the roles of the Chronicler and Freedom and for the Chorus of singers.

The play demands an almost continual musical accompaniment. This should be composed upon the foundation of period songs, particularly those which are indicated in the text. Also, the various speeches of the Spokesmen will be enhanced if the composer musically emphasizes their rhythms with some sort of accompaniment. In the opinion of the author, the score will be most effectively scored for brass and wind instruments. The chorus must be a male chorus. The play will suffer, always, for the introduction of any woman’s voice except as indicated in the text.

The action is continuous; its changes of locale and atmosphere being indicated only by shifting emphases in the lighting.

The acting presents no difficulty beyond that of securing actors with good voices who have troubled to learn how to speak the English language.

Characters in the Play

The Chronicler.

The Two Spokesmen.

Freedom.

Parson Clark of Lexington.

Captain John Parker of the Lexington Company.

Sergeant Munroe of the Lexington Company.

William Diamond of the Lexington Company (drummer).

Jonathan Harrington of the Lexington Company (fifer).

Major Pitcairn.

Two British Lieutenants.

John Munroe of the Lexington Company.

Ebenezer Munroe of the Lexington Company.

George Washington.

Edmund Pendleton.

Patrick Henry.

The President of Congress.

General Howe.

Major Andre.

Alexander Hamilton.

John Brown.

Abraham Lincoln.

General Grant.

General Lee.

Groups in the Play

The Citizens of Lexington. (Men, women and children.)

The Lexington Company. (Men.)

Two Regiments of British Infantry. (Men.)

The Continental Army. (Men.)

The People of the United States. (Men, women and children.)

The Citizens of Philadelphia. (Men and women.)

The Pioneers. (Men, women and children.)

The Slaves. (Men.)

The Executioners of John Brown. (Men.)

The Army of the Union. (Men.)

The Army of the Confederacy. (Men.)

The Railroad Builders. (Men.)

The Steel Workers. (Men.)

The Coal Miners. (Men.)

The Farmers. (Men.)

The Builders. (Men.)

The Factory Hands. (Women and children.)

The Meek Men. (Men.)

Wealth. (Men.)

Labor. (Men.)

Government. (Men.)

Unrest. (Men.)

The Past. (Men.)

A Choir of Speakers.

A Chorus of Singers.

Buglers and Drummers.

“Lexington”

Think of the place in which the play is to be produced, just as it has been adapted from the natural forest. Think of the curving sleeve of water which lies along the lowermost edge of the scene, of the rising slopes and levels which surmount one another so spaciously, of the trees which close in back and sides.

Then, into the face of the slope immediately above the water’s edge and directly in the center, set a simple low throne and put a conventional lectern before it. Flank this with two lower seats, even more simple. Build this whole group as gracefully and as lightly as the best taste of the best Georgian period dictates and paint it the purest white.

This done, go to the extreme limits of the front of the scene and, just at the edge of the trees, erect two pedestals. These, in height, must a little more than top a man’s stature. In style and decoration they are as chaste as the central group. Probably they are finished with an exquisite cornice and adorned with garlands in low relief, just brushed with gold. Upon each one of them set a solid, simple throne, quite like the one you have already put in the center.

The Chronicler sits on the central throne. He is already in his place when the doors of the auditorium are opened to admit the first spectator. So are the two Drummers who occupy the low seats on either side of him. So are the two Spokesmen who sit atop the two pedestals.

For the Chronicler’s role an actor of fine Anglo-Saxon type must be engaged, one able to speak English with beautiful and natural precision. The same is true of the roles of the two Spokesmen.

The Chronicler wears buff breeches, a white shirt and a blue coat which hangs nobly from his shoulders and spreads over the arms of his seat. His hair, of a natural brown, is pulled back from his brow and tied with a black velvet ribbon. The lectern before him supports a great book. At the commencement of the play he opens this book and, at the end, he closes it. From time to time, during the action, he writes in it, using a large and snowy-white quill pen.

The Drummers who sit on either side of him are dressed in scarlet and as alike as two peas, in costume, make up and cut of hair. Neither one of them has ever any occasion to speak. Each one of them must devote his attention wholly to playing upon a great kettledrum which will be provided for this purpose. The two drums are tuned a diminished third apart.

The two Spokesmen will wear the scarlet robes and white wigs of British justices. They never move during the entire play.

All of these five persons, it must be repeated, will be in their places when the auditorium opens. None of them can be allowed to move until the auditorium has emptied. They must think of themselves as parts of the fixed scene.

Behind them, the slope flattens slightly and this area will, hereinafter, be described as the “Forestage.” Behind that, again, comes a second, slighter rise and that is succeeded by a much more considerable level place. This second level will hereinafter be spoken of as the “Stage.”

The stage is set to represent the Common of Lexington in the year 1775. The road from Cambridge and Boston enters at the back center and divides, passing the Meeting House on either side. The Meeting House is erected, full size, just at the back of the stage and directly in the center, thus masking this road. A little down on the right (in these stage directions right and left refer to the hands of the audience) stands the Old Belfry. Further over to the right, half buried in the trees, are the old horse sheds. Further down stage on the right stands the Marrett-Munroe House, also half buried in foliage, and the Concord Road leaves the Common as far down stage on the right as the planting permits. On the left, just a little below the position occupied on the right by the horse sheds, stands the Buckman Tavern. Then, all the way down stage left stands the Parsonage of the Rev. Jonas Clark. This should be set a little apart from the Common to suggest its remoteness. A road leads past this in the direction of Bedford.

These entrances will hereinafter be referred to as the Boston, Concord and Bedford Roads respectively. Other village paths may be supposed to lead on to the Common at any convenient points.

When the first member of the audience enters, it is twilight. He finds the life of the village going on with full realism of detail except that it is in no wise audible. He is looking at a soundless vision of the eighteenth day of April, one hundred and fifty years ago. Villagers are chatting about the doorway of the Buckman Tavern. They come in and go out. They wear long coats and smoke long pipes and drink long drinks. Some of them discuss a newspaper excitedly. What they are saying cannot be heard, for they play entirely in dumb show. A century and a half is too great a time to be bridged easily by sound.

Silent as the rest a boy guards a flock of a few sheep in the center of the Common. Young girls, going about pleasure or business and quite free from any preoccupation with the serious matters which engross the tavern’s patrons, stop to chat with him.

Presently a young farmer drives his cows in from pasture. Presently other farmers return from the fields, carrying the crude agricultural implements of their day. Presently another farmer drives his emptied truck wagon home from market.

Presently a traveler on a jaded mare comes up the Boston Road and halts by the Buckman Tavern. The citizens gather about him greedily. Greedy, it would seem, for news. And he gives them news before he has finished his ale and ridden on down the Bedford Road.

As the play’s commencement draws near, an old man comes out of the Meeting House. The children, playing about the Belfry, run into him and he admonishes them. Then he rings the bell. At first one cannot be quite sure of the bell. Then the spell becomes stronger and it does clang dimly through.

Part One

“The Glorious Morning”

[The Chronicler opens his book and begins to write.

In the far distance, a bugler blows “Assembly.”

For the first time, the Chronicler lifts his head and looks at the audience.

Just a little nearer than the bugle some horns play “Yankee Doodle.”

In the darkling tavern faint voices of men take up the chorus.

A very little light shines upon the Chronicler’s figure. He rises and lifts his right hand.

The Drummers play a long roll.

Then the Chronicler speaks.]

The Chronicler

(Directly into the audience.)

In the Book of American Freedom it has been written that the Town of Lexington, in the County of Middlesex, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, shall be designated as “The Birthplace of American Liberty.” This, says the book, is a fitting designation because the events which had their scene in Lexington on the glorious morning of the nineteenth of April one hundred and fifty years ago this year did forever mark and set aside the town to be a symbol of liberty to all free nations and all free peoples.

[The Drummers play another roll on their drums and the Chronicler sits.

Off stage, to a noble tune which gradually increases in volume, the Chorus sings two verses from Drayton’s “To the Virginian Voyage.”]

The Chorus

You brave, heroic minds,
Worthy your country’s name,
That honor still pursue;
Go and subdue!
Whilst loitering hinds
Lurk here at home with shame.

And in regions far,
Such heroes bring ye forth
As those from whom we came;
And plant our name
Under that star
Not known unto our north.

[As the singing diminishes, the light grows upon the thrones of the two Spokesmen and they begin. They speak eagerly, almost in a monotone, following no rhythm but the inevitable throb of Carlyle’s prose. The bell, too, follows this throb, sounding ever louder and more insistently through their words.]

The First Spokesman

The world is all so changed; so much that seemed vigorous has sunk decrepit, so much that was not is beginning to be!

The Second Spokesman

(Swinging antiphonally into tone and tempo.)

Borne over the Atlantic what sounds are these; muffled-ominous, new in our centuries?

The First Spokesman

Boston Harbor is black with unexpected Tea!

The Second Spokesman

Behold a Pennsylvanian Congress gather!

The First Spokesman

And ere long, on Bunker Hill....

The Second Spokesman

Democracy....

The First Spokesman

Announcing in rifle-volleys, death winged....

The Second Spokesman

Under her Star Banner....

The First Spokesman

To the tune of Yankee-Doodle-Doo....

The Second Spokesman

That she is born....

The First Spokesman

And whirlwind-like....

The Second Spokesman

Will envelope the whole world!

[The drums roll out. The lights die down on the Spokesmen. In the meanwhile, answering the summons of the bell ringer, the people of Lexington have come out of street and tavern in the twilight and gathered about the Meeting House steps.

Jonas Clark has gone to them to stand upon the steps facing them. He is now in his forty-fifth year, a vigorous, lean, eager man with a spirit of gripping and convincing sincerity.

At the conclusion of the words of the Spokesmen, all of the villagers are gathered together about their pastor, save one girl. She is distinguished from her sisters of the village, less by her dress (which is commonplace enough) than by a strange and wild loveliness and by a deep absorption in her own thoughts. She is tall and very beautiful and a prophetic intensity possesses her.

Led by their pastor, the people about the Meeting House lift their voices in the fifty-ninth Psalm.]

Parson Clark

Deliver me from mine enemies, O my God: set me on high from those that rise up against me. Deliver me from the workers of iniquity, and save me from the blood-thirsty men.

The People

For, lo, they lie in wait for my soul; the mighty gather themselves together against me: not for my transgression, nor for my sin, O Lord; they run and prepare themselves without my fault.

Parson Clark

For the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips, let them even be taken in their pride, and for cursing and lying which they speak.

The People

Yea, I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning, for thou hast been my high tower, and a refuge in the day of my distress.

Parson Clark

Unto thee, O my Strength, will I sing praises, for God is my high tower, the God of my mercy.

[Then the people fall silent and do not move. But the great words that they have spoken together have very deeply stirred this single girl who has stood apart and listened. With the last word of the Psalm, she seems of a sudden to grow taller. A smile like light itself spreads over her face. Light seems to grow out of her. She lifts her two arms in a wild abandonment to exaltation and cries out.]

The Girl

Ah!

[The Chronicler looks up in amazement at this sudden shout.

The girl takes a few tense steps down toward him and the light about her grows ever in whiteness.]

The Girl

Write more, write more, you Chronicler!
Write how the roots
Stir in the ground!
Write how the sap
Stirs in the trees!
Write how the thaw
Gives breath of life!
And write how God
Peers through the firmament
Upon the continents; for this day is glory!

The Chronicler

Who are you, Girl?

The Girl

Men call me different names. God calls me Freedom!

[Upon this, a gigantic roll of the drums. The girl, Freedom, turns her back slowly upon the audience as Parson Clark begins to address his congregation. She goes up, tensely and superbly, face to face with him.]

Parson Clark

It has come now to our turn, Americans, to see what we can do. The indignant spirit of self-government which inspired our ancestors is now pronounced by the Lords and Commons of England to be a spirit of rebellion. The colonies hesitate not a moment, but unite and greatly dare to be free. God who sitteth upon the throne of his holiness, the governor among nations, will know our cause and uphold our right to freedom. Let us pray.

[The people kneel. Only the girl, Freedom, stands upright. The Parson prays, the people repeating his prayer with him in unison. She walks rigidly up the slope to the edge of the crowd to the Parson’s side. At the end of the prayer she is standing beside him. This is the prayer:]

Omnes

O Lord, when dangers surround us and oppressors threaten our rights and enemies invade our homes, we, thy people, look to thee, O Lord, for our refuge and, committing our cause to thy wisdom and justice, we do humbly expect, O Lord, that light will arise in darkness, that the power of the oppressor may be broken, that our enemies will not prevail against us, that our God will maintain our right. Amen.

[As Freedom entered the crowd, the light about her seemed to invest it with a very wonderful splendor. During the prayer, however, and at the end, only Freedom and the Parson are visible. Then the light goes entirely, the hymn dies out and the crowd disperses in the darkness.

Then the light glows upon the two Spokesmen and they begin to speak again. This time dim music accompanies their words ... spoken once to the House of Commons by Edmund Burke.]

The First Spokesman

A government against which a claim of freedom is tantamount to high treason is a government to which submission is equivalent to slavery.

The Second Spokesman

The people of the colonies are the descendants of Englishmen and therefore love liberty according to English ideas and on English principles.

The First Spokesman

Men may be as sorely touched and as deeply grieved in their privileges as in their purses; men may lose little in property by the act which takes away all their freedom.

The Second Spokesman

To prove that Americans ought not to be free we are obliged to depreciate the value of freedom itself.

The First Spokesman

“An Englishman is the unfittest person on earth to argue another Englishman into slavery.”

The Second Spokesman

“A great empire and little minds go ill together.”

The First Spokesman

“We stand where we have an immense view of what is and what is past.”

The Second Spokesman

“Clouds, indeed, and darkness rest upon the future.”

[The music ends in another roll of drums. The Chronicler rises.]

The Chronicler

The alarm is toward. The night of watching commences.

[He sits again. The Belfry tolls midnight. Through the darkness a voice is heard calling the roll of the Lexington Company. It is Sergeant William Munroe.]

Munroe

(Each man answering “Here!” as his name is pronounced.)

Isaac Blodgett ... Ebenezer Bowman ... Francis Bowman ... John Bridge ... Joseph Bridge ... James Brown ... John Brown ... Solomon Brown ... John Buckman ... Eli Burdoo ...

[The light of very early morning shows the Company drawn up diagonally across the scene in attitudes of attention. Captain John Parker stands in thought a little apart. Parson Clark looks down upon the people from the Meeting House. The men and women of the town hover on the outskirts of the scene.

The kettledrums drown the Sergeant’s voice. Music bursts forth, a crashing theme which can be divided by the demands of the subsequent dialogue and by rolling of the kettledrums.

The greatest possible amount of light blazes upon the Meeting House door. Thence, like a comet, Freedom comes. She is robed now in a cloak of flame and a scarlet cap of liberty crowns her. Perhaps the drums continue, perhaps the theme of triumph modulates softly beneath her shouted words.]

Freedom

Huzza!

The Minute Men

(Statues, all.)

Huzza!

Freedom

Answer, Mankind!

A Vast Shout Out of the Depths of the Hills

Huzza!

Freedom

Soldiers of Liberty,
Make your arms strong!
Make your hearts stout!
Make your souls great!

The Minute Men

(As before.)

Huzza!

The Shout from the Hills

(As before.)

Huzza!

Freedom

Soldiers of Liberty,
I am your dream,
I am your cause,
I am your destiny!

The Minute Men

(As before.)

Huzza!

The Shout from the Hills

(As before.)

Huzza!

Freedom

Breathe with my breath!
Strike with my sword!
Bleed with my blood!
Be life!
Be love!
Be sacrifice!
Be death!

The Minute Men

(As before.)

Huzza!

The Shout from the Hills

(As before.)

Huzza!

Freedom

I bid you stand!
I bid you strike!
I bid you die!
Take me!
Believe me!
Obey me!
Adore me!
I am come to lead you,
Soldiers of Liberty!
I am come to lead you forever.

[A tremendous huzza and the music blares forth and there is darkness again save for the lights in the houses, and upon the Chronicler. The music subsides to hesitant themes and into a lyric eloquence of dawn and cool breezes and the early light which presently steals across the tree tops. The Chronicler rises.]

The Chronicler

You will see now, in one incalculable and everlasting instant, the nativity of a nation. The night of watching passes and the day dawns that is glory.

[He sits. The light spreads over the scene and shows the people and the Company. Freedom has vanished.

Captain Parker arouses himself at once.]

Parker

Those of you who are equipped, stand fast. Those of you who lack equipment, go into the Meeting House and supply yourselves. Then come back to your places.

[There is some business of inspecting equipments. Each man looks into his powder horn and some of them try the triggers of their muskets.

The light increases a little. The music becomes more excited.]

Parker

William Diamond, let me hear your drum. Jonathan Harrington, where is your fife?

[Drum and fife break loose.]

A Minute Man

This is folly and we so few!

Parker

Folly or sense, I will shoot the first man who runs.

Munroe

Fall in!

[The Company comes to attention in absolute silence. The line extends almost across the stage. The backs of the Minute Men cut the scene diagonally. Parker stands down stage at the lower or right end of the line. Parker and the Parson are always visible to the audience. A silence is broken only by drum taps; and by the footfalls (off stage) of marching men.

Clark lifts his hands to heaven a moment in silent prayer.]

Parker

(To the Minute Men in a voice of thunder.)

Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless you’re fired upon. But if they mean to have a war, let it begin here!

[The rising sun blazes upon the British redcoats as they appear on both sides of the Meeting House. First the scarlet figure of Major Pitcairn, riding his horse, then the British column, four abreast, with the lieutenant of each platoon marching in his place.

Pitcairn sees the unwavering line of Minute Men and pulls his horse up sharp.]

Pitcairn

Halt!

[The Britishers halt, the order being repeated down the column. For an instant there is no motion of any kind. No sound except an occasional throb of a kettledrum, defying rhythm now as the shots will do in a moment.

Pitcairn comes a few steps forward. He looks at the colonists. He laughs bitterly.]

Pitcairn

Throw down your arms, you damned rebels!

[No one moves.]

D’ye hear me?

[Slowly Parker turns and looks upon his little, feeble line of men. Then he looks again at the Britishers. Then we see him realize the futility of his attempt.

Very reluctantly the line of Minute Men sways and loosens. It does not quite break. Its manœuver is rather that of retiring. Then a few draw angrily back and a few more stand defiantly. Jonas Parker throws his hat at his feet.]

Jonas Parker

Here I stand, so help me God!

[An angry murmur of resentment rises from the Minute Men. Parker is spellbound. Pitcairn turns to his first platoon lieutenant.]

Pitcairn

Surround and disarm these rebels.

[The lieutenant gives the proper commands to bring the first British platoon down stage and into line. The second, under command of its own lieutenant, follows and the British Company stands, so, drawn up in company front facing the retreating Minute Men.]

The First Lieutenant

Damn ’em, Major, we’ll get at ’em....

[He gives the order by which the first platoon should deploy as skirmishers for the business of disarming the colonists. The platoon breaks with another cheer, but before its men have taken two steps, one of the Minute Men, a figure lost in the shadow and the crowd, has fired his musket at Major Pitcairn.

The British stop in amazement.

Immediately John and Ebenezer Munroe lift their muskets.]

John Munroe

I’ll give ’em the guts of my gun!

[They fire almost together, wounding the Major’s horse.

Seeing the Major’s horse plunge, the first lieutenant cries:]

The First Lieutenant

The Major’s hit.... Fire, damn you, fire!

[The first platoon fires—too high, it would seem, for no Minute Men fall. But the Minute Men fire back, Lieutenant Tidd, Ebenezer Locke, Nathan Munroe, Jonas Parker and Benjamin Sampson.

Parker stands frozen.

Pitcairn tries to control his horse.]

The Second Lieutenant

Fire, by God, fire!

[The second platoon fires.

Then everything happens at once. The music crashes out a theme which terminates in a high tremolo. Pitcairn is seen to signal cease firing with his sword. The Minute Men break, all but Jonathan Parker who has been wounded by the volley of the second platoon and sinks to his knees trying to reload his gun. Jonathan Harrington, wounded, runs down stage left where his wife is cowering in the corner and there dies in her arms. Two of the Minute Men overpower Parker and drag him off. Robert Munroe, wounded, falls and dies beside the horse sheds. Solomon Brown, firing from the Buckman Tavern, is silenced by a volley fired toward the tavern and continues shooting from the trees. The three escape fighting from the Meeting House. The British clear the Common, bayonetting Jonas Parker as they go.

Then it is over.]

Pitcairn

We shall have further to go than Concord before this morning’s work is finished. Fall in!

[The music strikes into a dissonant march as the Britishers fall in.

Pitcairn rides up the Concord Road. The lieutenants lead the platoon after him. The march comes to its end as the last Britisher disappears. The scene is left to a dying away of the march in the minor resolution and to Parson Clark and the seven dead.

Parson Clark comes two or three paces forward.]

Clark

“Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mispeh and Shen, where the battle was fought, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying: ‘Hitherto hath the Lord helped us!’”

[In frightened little groups, the people come back and gather about their dead.]

Lexington has been allotted by providence to meet the first blow, to offer the first sacrifice. Thus far hath the Lord helped us.

[Parker comes forward quickly, but Clark stops him, lifting his hands to the heavens and crying out:]

“Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory!”

[Parker bows his head.]

As to what is still before us, we do not anxiously inquire nor proudly prophesy. Our cause is just.

Parker

They must come back from Concord.

Clark

That is true. Carry the dead into God’s house. Blessed be the name of the Lord!

[He has shouted this last. The people begin to pick up the dead and to carry them toward the Meeting House whither Parker and Clark walk together. The music strikes into a march, as solemn and grand as any march can be and the Chorus sings:]

The Chorus

O Lord, who wert our free-born fathers’ Guide,
Judge us for our unalterable intent;
Govern us, God, with Thy still government,
Telling our fathers how their sons have died.

[Before the singing is done, all of the people have vanished within the Meeting House. When the stage is emptied, the Chronicler rises.]

The Chronicler

The instant is delivered into time.

[He sits and Minute Men come up the Bedford Road. They are armed. They cross the stage in groups of three to twelve and go out by the Concord Road. The music quickens once more. The light is the most brilliant of full afternoon.

People come out of the houses and the paths and peer excitedly up the Concord Road. Scattered shots begin to be audible from that direction. The knots of people point in triumphant excitement up the road. Suddenly they withdraw, scattering in excited confusion. Shouts and shots sound nearer and closer together. Then the British, routed and retreating from Concord, surge through the Common and out behind the Meeting House and there are shots, too, from there. The huzzas of the colonists all but drown the shouts and musketry. About the Meeting House a cloud rises that may be dust but is presently seen to be steam. The stage darkens. Only the wild music and the shoutings continue and, in the midst of the steam curtain, Freedom, more gorgeous than ever, shouts louder than the rest, her arms madly lifted to heaven. The steam is many colored, then it dies to the single figure. Then it is darkness and the music falls with it. Then the steam is gone and the Meeting House with it and the Buckman Tavern and all other evidences of Lexington Common are gone and in their place is a new scene altogether.]

Part Two

“Political Freedom”

[It is a long garden stair which we are shown, a stair suggested by some of the planting we have already seen but which begins its Georgian graciousness just where the Meeting House stood a moment since. It rises in shallow steps broken by broad levels, three of them, if possible, and on each of the levels, a bench, very simple and dignified. These levels will hereinafter be referred to as the first, second and third landings. The third is a long terrace, lined, in its central portion, by a chaste and lovely balustrade which extends to a planting of delicately trimmed shrubbery. The whole scene has the look of some exquisite New England garden of the eighteenth century.

The musical accompaniment of this revelation is serenity itself. Freedom stands on the lowermost step of the stair. She wears more than ever gorgeous raiment. She stands there as though she paused in her ascent to look back into the audience. On either side of the stair, the Choir of speakers is banked, thirty-two in all, dressed pictorially, yet not so brightly as to distract the eye from the action of the play.]

Freedom

Revolt is the way of Freedom,
And the progress of Freedom is Change.

(Then a wild cry.)

Bloodily! Bloodily!
Revolt! Revolt! Revolt!

(Then more calmly.)

Look that you curb us not,
My men and I;
For present liberties enslave tomorrow,
And present triumphs shackle future years.
We see no limit set upon our purpose
Short of the Godhead ... so, restrain us not.
Be it here sworn:
These dead of Lexington
Have not vainly died,
These living
Have not vainly dreamed.

[She goes on up the stair.]

The Choir

(Almost a whisper.)

These dead....

The Chorus

(Off stage, an echo of the burial song.)

God, tell our fathers how their sons have died!

The Chronicler

The story of the American Freedom is begun.

[The singing subsides and Freedom turns again, lifting her right arm in a supreme gesture of command. Thereupon light blazes over the first Spokesman and the clarion words of Patrick Henry break from his lips.]

The First Spokesman

Appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts! There is no peace! Our brethren are already in the field!

[Another gesture from Freedom and the second Spokesman is illuminated to shout, as his antiphonal response, the words of Tom Paine.]

The Second Spokesman

Oh, ye that love mankind, stand forth! Oh, ye that dare oppose the tyranny and the tyrant, stand forth!

The First Spokesman

Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!

The Second Spokesman

Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. England hath given her warning to depart. Oh, receive the fugitive and prepare, in time, an asylum for mankind!

[Freedom’s two arms go wildly up.]

A Great Shout from the Hills

Give me liberty or give me death!

Freedom

Who shall be master of this high event,
And take revolt beneath his government?

The Choir

Washington! Washington! Washington!

Freedom

An hour, a destiny,
And the need of man
For leadership, these three
God answers perfectly;
And, in the tumult and the darkness, lo,
A hero comes
So solemnly,
And the shoutings die and the drums
Are still and the van
Of battle takes its leader so,
And the race, its guardian,
And none has been more greatly strong than he
In resolution and humility.

The Choir

(Almost in a whisper.)

Washington!

[Three men have ridden into the scene. They are Patrick Henry, Edmund Pendleton and George Washington. There to meet them come the President of the Continental Congress and Members of Congress. Washington dismounts and advances until the President and he stand face to face.]

The President of Congress

(Very solemnly.)

We, reposing special trust and confidence in your patriotism, valor, conduct and fidelity, do, by these presents, constitute and appoint you to be general and commander-in-chief of the army of the United Colonies and of all the forces now raised or to be raised by them for the defense of American Liberty.

[He presents the sword of office to Washington who stands looking very seriously at it.]

Washington

I beg it may be remembered that I this day declare with utmost sincerity I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with. But, as it has been a kind of destiny that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that my undertaking it is designed to answer some good purpose.

[He accepts the sword. A great sigh comes like a hope from all around.

A roll of snare drums far away and the groupings shift so that Washington and Freedom stand alone together and the others draw aside. Drum rhythms succeed one another until they resolve into two themes. The one, played by the kettledrums, follows the syncopation of the Spokesmen’s words. The other, played by the snare drums, marks the time of a march. To this accompaniment, the Continental Army comes upon the scene. First, the farmers who have left their ploughs to join Warren for Bunker Hill. Then the tatterdemalion army of which Washington took command for the siege of Boston. Then the mob takes on form and appearance and order such as it must have had to accomplish Burgoyne’s defeat, and the retreat through Jersey. At the same time the Choir has begun to intone the Declaration of Independence. The two Spokesmen listen and take up their shouted responses. And the intoning runs rhythmically, following the accents of the kettledrums which, in their turn, follow the accents of Jefferson’s prose.]

Four Voices from the Choir

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another....

Eight Voices from the Choir

(Upon a higher note.)

And to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them....

Four Voices from the Choir

(Upon the same note as before.)

They should declare the causes which impel them to the separation....

The First Spokesman

We hold these truths to be self-evident....

Freedom

All men are created free and equal....

The Second Spokesman

Endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights....

Freedom with Four Voices

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness....

The First Spokesman

To secure these rights governments are instituted among men....

The Second Spokesman

Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed....

Four Voices from the Choir

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends....

Eight Voices from the Choir

(Upon a higher note.)

It is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it....

Twelve Voices from the Choir

(Upon a still higher note.)

And to institute new government to provide new guards for their future security.

The First Spokesman and Four Voices

We, therefore....

The Second Spokesman and Four Voices

The representatives of the United States of America....

The First Spokesman and Four Voices

(Upon a higher note.)

In general congress assembled....

The Second Spokesman and Four Voices

(Upon the same note.)

Appealing to the supreme judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions....

Freedom and Four Voices

Do, in the name and authority of the good people of these colonies....

(Four more Voices.)

Solemnly publish and declare....

(Full Choir crescendo.)

That these United States are and of right ought to be free and independent states....

[The army is assembled and cheers its chief with three mighty huzzas which are part of a triumphant burst of melody. Washington stands immobile and Freedom, likewise, above and behind him. The music dies into mourning. The light dies except upon Washington and the central and most ragged group which, in varied attitudes of weariness, sinks to the ground about him. The light is dismal.]

The Chronicler

(Rising and speaking to the audience.)

The soul of an event is the vision which God sets before its hero; its life hangs upon the faith men bring to it. The heroes of God’s choosing make Him manifest to man; but the faith of man is a wretched thing. Now this event fares mournfully, for the army of revolt is more cruelly driven by the doubts and jealousies of man than by the winds and snows of winter, and the meaning of Freedom is forgotten in the fact of hardship. Within himself and his great enterprise the chieftain stands steadfast, concerned only with the omen and the pity of the time.

[Men’s voices sing again, weakly. The song is the hymn of Washington’s soldiers which they sang about the campfires of Valley Forge. The soldiers move about, warming their bodies wretchedly at imaginary campfires.]

Chorus

Lessons of war from him we take
And manly weapons learn to wield;
Strong bows of steel with ease we break,
Forced by our stronger arms to yield.
’Tis God that still supports our right,
His just revenge our foes pursues;
’Tis He, that, with resistless might,
Fierce nations to His power subdues.

[Washington, as the chorus dies, moves at last and begins to speak, and his men crouch about his feet as in the dim light of campfires.]

Washington

What is to become of the army this winter? We are barefoot and naked. Soldiers are not made of sticks and stones to occupy a cold, bleak hill and sleep under frost and snow without clothes or blankets. Unless some great and capital change takes place, this army must inevitably starve, dissolve or disperse. From my soul I pity these miseries which it is not in my power to relieve or prevent.

[The light fades except upon Washington and Freedom.]

Freedom

I have cried out your name to the broad heavens,
I have given your courage to the stars to shout.
Be of good cheer, my leader,
The strong and the young have heard and will give answer,
The day is not yet lost.

[Washington looks hopefully into her beautiful, pitiful face as she bends over him. The light leaves them and the Chronicler rises.]

The Chronicler

How differently fare the enemies of Freedom! In Philadelphia where the British are, is a time of plenty and of high festival.

[There is music, suddenly and very bright and as the light floods the scene, two British soldiers have run in with regimental colors which conceal Freedom and Washington and the stair from our view. Then a gay crowd troops on to the stage and a double column of grenadiers in scarlet coats. The soldiers quickly form the three sides of a rectangle and General Howe and Major Andre ride into their midst. Ladies are there, richly clad and elaborately coiffured. Musicians are there with huge bass viols and sundry eccentric instruments of the period. When all the crowd are assembled, General Howe and Major Andre ride down to the water’s edge to welcome two barges. In one of them is the English Queen of Beauty and, in the other, the American Queen of Beauty. Each of the queens is attended by a bevy of damsels in Turkish costumes. General Howe leads the English Queen to her throne. Major Andre performs the same function for the American Queen. The damsels follow them and the barges are pulled away out of sight.

Immediately the two queens have been enthroned, twelve knights ride into the scene, dressed in eighteenth century adaptations of the habiliments of chivalry. They divide into two parties, the Knights of the Blended Rose and the Knights of the Burning Mountain. Each party salutes its queen and the mock tournament is played out, terminating in an exchange of pistol fire without casualties. Then the horses are led off and the knights and the ladies all join in a brilliant, stately dance which ends in a picture centering in the two queens, each one of whom has removed a slipper from which her particular knight is drinking wine.

Then the rout is scattered by the sound of cannon and all the gay folk run screaming and darkness gathers except for a single ray of light which strikes across the stage. Into this a horseman gallops frantically.]

The Horseman

(Shouting.)

Yorktown! Yorktown is taken!

[At the same time, Freedom and Washington and his army have been revealed. Cannon boom and flash over their joyous faces and the army breaks into frenzied cheering. The Chronicler leaps to his feet.]

The Chronicler

Yorktown! The first goal is won!

[Light spreads once more over the scene and, to the old English tune of “The World is Upside Down,” Cornwallis’ army marches out of Yorktown and surrenders. Freedom dominates the whole scene in her exultation. “The World is Upside Down” becomes a triumphal march and all the multitude of the people prance into the scene. Then dissonance creeps into the music and discord into the movement of the crowd. The Chronicler rises.]

The Chronicler

Chaos succeeds revolt and triumph gives way to greed and hatred and what was harmony in war becomes jealousy and faction, for the faith of the people is dead and the united colonies break asunder, each one for itself.

[Loyalists are singled out, perhaps, and stoned and jostled from the scene. Cheers become snarls. The multitude separates into small units, thirteen of them. These seem to wrangle among themselves, then, like so many socks, to turn inside out so that each menaces the other. The light over the multitude is murky. The music subsides to a low, ominous sound.

All this time Washington has stood imperturbably upon the stair, looking grimly down with the eloquence and understanding of a great fatalism. Freedom, however, is amazed. She wrings her hands in despair. She cries out in anguish.]

Freedom

Sowing salvation, do I reap
Havoc for harvest?

The Chronicler

Upon the human tempest descends, once more, the calm of leadership. A marvelous boy emerges. The word is Hamilton’s.

Freedom

Ah!

[She watches anxiously as Hamilton steps out of the gloom and comes up into the light about herself and Washington. Hope revives in her. She reaches her arms out toward him. Light shines upon the Spokesmen.]

Hamilton

The business of America’s happiness is yet to be done.

(The crowd snarls more loudly than ever.)

There is something noble and magnificent in the perspective of a great Federal Republic.... There is something proportionally diminutive and contemptible in the prospect of petty states with the appearance only of union.

The First Spokesman

(To Freedom, speaking Hamilton’s words.)

Happy America, if those to whom thou hast entrusted the guardianship of thy infancy know how to provide for thy future repose!

[From the people, a mocking laugh.]

The Second Spokesman

(Also speaking Hamilton’s words.)

Miserable and undone if their negligence or ignorance permits the spirit of discord to erect her banner on the ruins of your tranquillity!

[Again the laughter of the people.

Washington looks toward Hamilton who comes up nearer his chief. Freedom blesses him. The crowd shake their fists at him and turn away their faces. The laughter develops into a horrible jeer. Then Freedom speaks and the groups gather more closely together. But from each one of them, during her words, certain individuals detach themselves and move hesitantly until they stand about Hamilton’s feet.]

Freedom

Will you hear me, People?
I understand you, People, as none other can,
I serve you, People, as none other can;
I tell you, here is your proving time.
I bid you cast envy out from your hearts.
For none will work you injustice, now, save only yourselves,
And no folly will lead you astray now, but your own folly,
Therefore, bestir you, People!
You may not deny your leaders or your cause or me!
You cannot, People, for we are your life!

Hamilton

(To Freedom.)

Tell them this Convention shall never rise until the Constitution is adopted!

Freedom

Marvelous Boy,
Do you speak, now.

Hamilton

(Swinging to the people.)

Here, my countrymen, let us make a firm stand for our safety, our tranquillity, our dignity, our reputation. It belongs to us to vindicate the honor of the human race. Union will enable us to do it.... The necessity of a constitution is imminent. A nation without a national government is an awful spectacle. Why, then, do you hesitate? The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of the consent of the people. The stream of national power ought to flow immediately from that pure original fountain of all legitimate authority. Let the thirteen states, bound together in an indissoluble union, concur in erecting one great American system, consecrated to the steady administration of the laws, dedicated to the protection of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, of anarchy, able to dictate the terms of connection between the old world and the new!

[Gradually as he spoke, the groups have merged, slowly and diffidently, but surely. At the end they stand all together about his feet, looking up into his face. And the music crashes superbly out and light blazes upon the Spokesmen. And, as they begin to speak, the crowd joins hands and lifts linked arms high, as if to take an oath.]

The First Spokesman and Four Voices

We, the people of the United States....

The Second Spokesman and Eight Voices

In order to form a more perfect union...

The First Spokesman and Twelve Voices

Establish justice...

The Second Spokesman and Sixteen Voices

Ensure domestic tranquillity...

The First Spokesman and Twenty Voices

Provide for the common defense...

The Second Spokesman and Twenty-Four Voices

Promote the general welfare...

The First Spokesman and Twenty-Eight Voices

And secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity...

The Second Spokesman and Full Choir

Do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

[The triumphant music again and a shout of joy from all the people and Freedom lifts grateful hands to heaven.]

Four Voices of the Choir

(Intoning upon a high note.)

No law respecting an established religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievance.

The Full Choir

(Sotto voce upon a higher note.)

Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!

Freedom

We here highly resolve that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

[Then the music bursts forth again and the first president is inaugurated. The scene is best described in the words of Lear’s diary. “All the churches in the city were opened and prayers offered up to the Great Ruler of the Universe for the preservation of the President. The troops of the city paraded.... The procession moved forward, the troops marching in front with all the ensigns of military parade. Next came the committees and heads of departments in their carriages, the foreign ministers and a long train of citizens.... About two hundred yards before we reached the hall we descended from our carriages and passed through the troops who were drawn up on either side, into the hall and the Senate Chamber where we found the Vice-President and the House of Representatives assembled. They received the President in a most respectful manner and the Vice-President conducted him to a balcony. The oath was administered in public by Chancellor Livingstone who proclaimed him President of the United States.”]

Washington

My station is new. I walk on untrodden ground. With God’s help, I readily engage with you in the task of making a nation happy.

The People

God save our Washington! Long live our beloved President!

[The celebration of Washington’s inauguration is then enacted with a torchlight procession, lanterns and transparencies and the frantic joy of the crowd and much singing of “Yankee Doodle.”

The scene darkens with the dying of the jubilation.

The Chronicler rises.]

The Chronicler

The eight years of administration pass. The faith of the people again grows cold. New voices speak flattery and falsehood and sow the seed of disaster to come. But the leaders are steadfast, always, and, even in farewell, the end of their leadership is wisdom.

[The only light, now, shines upon the group of Freedom, Washington and Hamilton. The people stand, in the shadow, absolutely still and unresponsive.]

Washington

The time has come for me to return to retirement. Choice and prudence invite me to quit the scene. But a solicitude for your welfare which cannot end but with my life prompts me to offer to your solemn contemplation some sentiments which appear to me all important to the permanency of your felicity as a people.

Freedom

This is the warning word.

Washington

The power and right to establish government presuppose the duty to obey government. Providence connects the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue. Avoid the necessity of overgrown military establishments! Be warned against the baneful effects of the spirit of party! Promote institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. It is folly for one nation to look for disinterested favors from another. It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.

The Chronicler

The counsel is spoken. The farewell remains.

Washington

I shall carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view my errors with indulgence and that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.

[There is an instant of silence. Then Freedom puts her hands on the shoulders of Washington and Hamilton and looks into their eyes and the distant Chorus sings.]

The Chorus

And in regions far
Such heroes bring ye forth
As those from whom we came
And plant our name
Under that star
Not known unto our north.

Freedom

(Speaking above the Chorus.)

Ever and ever more,
Under the western stars,
Over the western lands,
My leaders,
Your names,
Your words,
Your dreams!

[She turns with the two men and goes a few steps with them into the darkness above them. Then they go up and she is last seen looking after them. Darkness takes the entire scene.]

The Chorus

And in regions far,
Such heroes bring ye forth,
As those from whom we came....

Part Three

“Social Freedom”

The Chronicler

The nation being established conceives the empire. The race, born of the romance of empire and nourished upon the adventure of freedom, turns to the wilderness.

The Choir

Pioneers! O Pioneers!

The Chronicler

Beyond these eastern mountains, the adventure of freedom is resumed, and the romance of empire lives anew!

The Choir

Pioneers! O Pioneers!

[Freedom turns at the shout and the music begins a soft, wild march theme. Suddenly possessed again, Freedom evokes the Western migration. As she begins to speak the first of it begins: a few timorous stragglers who appear from the trees at the left of the stage and peer up at her. Her gestures sweep them across the scene and they come, stopping here and there to build their camp fires. At the end of her harangue, five or six groups have spaced themselves along the line of the forestage, and from each group and its camp fire rises a thin column of smoke so that the varied and splendid processional of adventure which is to come will be seen behind this delicate colonnade.]

Freedom

Out of the east,
Into the west,
A vision of empire, my people,
A vision of rivers and prairies,
Of western mountains and a western ocean.
And of a wider Freedom!
New cities sleep unborn
On the shores of the lakes and the rivers,
Cities to be erected
In a loftier image of Freedom,
Cities, whence new generations,
Forgetful of all save courage,
Shall in their turn set out
Into further western regions,
Building cities and cities,
Building always for Freedom,
Building, renewing, creating....
Westward, westward, and westward,
Over the walls of the mountains,
Over the blight of the desert,
To the urgent, star-scattered horizon,
Where the stars and the sun and the moon
Rise into the wind and the heavens,
Out of the western ocean,
Out of the west and the east,
People, my people, set forward,
For Freedom! For Freedom! For Freedom!

The Choir

(Shouting.)

Pioneers! O Pioneers!

[With this, the musical accompaniment to Freedom’s words resolves itself into a triumphal march and the full bulk of the procession appears crossing from left to right of the stage. First are small wagons, so light you might almost carry them, as Birkbeck said of them, “yet strong enough to bear a good load of bedding, utensils and provisions and a swarm of young citizens.” Others have two horses and, sometimes, a cow or so. Other wagons are covered with canvas and blankets. There are Conestoga wagons and prairie schooners with herds of stock and sheep and the crowd of emigrants is gaily dressed as any gang of gipsies, red-shirted men, blue and yellow-skirted women, bright clothes for the children and bright blankets. And a great light grows up on the right of the stage into which this procession moves and all the while the circuit riders and hunters scatter through the crowd on their respective, mimed businesses. At the same time, shouting over the music, the two Spokesmen and the Choir have maintained a steady crescendo comment from the “Pioneers, O Pioneers!” of Walt Whitman.]

The First Spokesman

(With the end of Freedom’s speech.)

Come, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
Have you your pistols, have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers!

The Choir

O Pioneers!

The Second Spokesman

Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson wearied over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal and the burden and the lesson,
Pioneers!

The Choir

O Pioneers!

The First Spokesman

All the past we leave behind,
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers!

The Choir

O Pioneers!

The Second Spokesman

We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,
Pioneers!

The Choir

O Pioneers!

The First Spokesman

We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing the deep mines within,
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers!

The Choir

O Pioneers!

The Second Spokesman

All the pulses of the world,
Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,
Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us,
Pioneers!

The Choir

O Pioneers!

The First Spokesman

Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? Did we stop discouraged, nodding on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious,
Pioneers!

The Choir

O Pioneers!

Freedom

Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the daybreak call—hark! how loud I hear it wind,
Swift! to the head of the army!—swift! spring to your places,
Pioneers!

The Choir

O Pioneers!

[At the final shout of the Choir, the western light turns suddenly bloody and the procession hurries off into murk and portent. At the same time a new light breaks over the forestage upon a sinister line of men which has come in between the thrones of the two Spokesmen.

These men are negroes, naked, save for loin cloths and girdles, twenty-one in number, and all singers. The hands of each one are chained to the girdle of the one behind and they move up the slope toward Freedom in a slow, melancholy “V.”

As they move, they sing. Their song should, indeed, have scattered the echoes of the farewell acclamation of the pioneers. The strain of it is despair that takes refuge in worship. It is one of the old spirituals, “Go Down Moses.” They move, singing, up to Freedom and she comes sorrowfully down to meet them and the Chronicler rises.

As the negroes finish their song, they kneel at Freedom’s feet and she bends over them.]

Freedom

While you suffer, I am nothing.

The Chronicler

The trial of the race comes with the attainment of its empire.
In the west the factions meet already and the issue is the slave.

Freedom

God alone knows the end
Yet God understands!

[The Chronicler sits and a blare of madness comes upon the music and a new group is upon the forestage. The center of this is an old man, white bearded, with a bloody head and a halter about his neck. Other figures stand about a gibbet. The music subsides softly into “John Brown’s Body” and continues to weave variations upon this until the final moment when the chorus of Union Soldiers takes it up. In the meanwhile, this old man, John Brown, speaks.]

John Brown

I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this land will never be purged away but with blood. For God has given the strength of the hills to Freedom. No man sent me here. I acknowledge no master in human form. I pity the poor in bondage that have none to help them. That is why I am here. You may dispose of me very easily. I am nearly disposed of now. But this negro question is still to be settled. The end of that is not yet. I am ready. Do not keep me waiting. In no other possible way could I be used to so much advantage to the cause of God and of humanity.

[He moves toward the gibbet and the scene goes into darkness with the pounding of a drum.]

Four Voices

A house divided against itself cannot stand.

[A pause and the drum again, tapped twice.]

Eight Voices

(Upon a higher note.)

This government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.

[Then light upon Freedom.]

Freedom

(The light only upon her face.)

The day attends the sun and the event
Attends the purpose of a steadfast mind.
Always in all upheaval man must find
The purpose of a master’s government.

Now in the darkling of calamity,
The purpose and the character of one
Called to a generation’s mastery
Come as the sun,

Come and are known and spend
Their powers hardily,
And, in the end,
Leave to the issue clarity again,
And wisdom to the memories of men.

[The light spreading about her discloses the figure of Abraham Lincoln standing at her feet. People gather at the sides of the stage.]

The Choir

Lincoln ... Lincoln ... Lincoln....

Lincoln

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.

The People

(Crescendo.)

Lincoln ... Lincoln ... Lincoln....

[Freedom bends her head upon Lincoln. The negroes look up to him. The people come a little closer, moving restlessly among themselves with disturbed, though soundless, gestures.]

Lincoln

I would save the Union.... If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could, at the same time, save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could, at the same time, destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.

[Suddenly, as Lincoln’s voice concludes, the people divide impetuously, and draw back, in two great bodies, to either side of the stage.

A cannon crashes out and all the people are aghast.

Darkness obscures the two multitudes and the Spokesmen, in the light, strike antiphonally into the beautiful words which Mr. John Drinkwater wrote for the characters in his play, “Robert E. Lee.”]

The First Spokesman

The strain comes and men’s wits break under it and fighting is the only way out.

The Second Spokesman

War is the anger of bewildered peoples in front of questions that they can’t answer.

The First Spokesman

The quarrel is so little beside the desolation that is coming.

The Second Spokesman

One year ... two ... three ... perhaps four! Then there will be just graves and a story and America.

[Suddenly a pool of bloody light explodes upon the right of the stage and shows a knoll of gray uniforms about the flag of the Confederacy and the men in the light burst into the wild abandon of “Dixie.”

Then another pool of bloody light shows blue uniforms and the men and all the Chorus behind sing “John Brown’s Body” again, full voice.

Then the light upon Lincoln is white and includes the group of slaves and the figure of Freedom.]

Lincoln

All persons held as slaves are and, henceforward, shall be free. And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

[His hands bless the negroes and all the people look gratefully up to him and the armies turn their heads toward him.

Two figures detach themselves from the two armies. One is Grant. The other is Lee. They walk toward each other and the armies fall back in great weariness. When they meet, the two generals speak.]

Grant

Sir, you have given me occasion to be proud of my opponent.

Lee

I have not spared my strength. I acknowledge its defeat.

Grant

You have come—

Lee

To ask upon what terms you will accept surrender.

Grant

(Presents a slip of paper.)

They are simple. I hope you will not find them ungenerous.

Lee

(Having read them.)

You are magnanimous, sir. May I make one submission?

Grant

It would be a privilege if I could consider it.

Lee

You allow our officers to keep their horses. That is gracious. Our cavalry troopers’ horses are also their own.

Grant

I understand. They will be needed for the plowing. Of course, the officers of the Confederacy will also retain their side arms.

Lee

I thank you. It will do much toward conciliating our people. I accept your terms.

[He offers his sword.]

Grant

No, no! I should have included that. It has but one rightful place.

[They salute and each returns to his army.]

Lee

(Speaking the close of Lee’s final orders.)

Valor and devotion can accomplish nothing that will compensate for the loss that must attend the continuance of the conflict. You may take with you the satisfaction of duty faithfully performed, and I earnestly pray that a merciful God will extend to you his blessing and protection.

Grant

(Speaking the close of Grant’s last message.)

All that it was possible for men to do in battle they have done. Let us hope for perpetual peace and harmony with that enemy whose manhood, however mistaken the cause, drew forth such Herculean deeds of valor.

[The bloody light fades and the two armies spread out into the crowds which now slowly close in.]

Lincoln

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right; let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

[The darkness has gradually closed in upon the scene except for Freedom’s face.

A great toll of the kettledrums and a voice of a man that cries out desperately in the darkness.]

The Voice

Sic semper tyrannis!

[The answer is a wail of women.]

A Second Voice

(Again a man’s; more calm and tragic.)

Now he belongs to the ages.

[Again the wail of women.]

Freedom

O Lincoln! Lincoln! Lincoln!

[With this, a shaft of light strikes the stair and shows Freedom bending over a bier upon which Lincoln lies dead.

A great cry of mourning rises from the crowd, both men and women.

The Choir comments, speaking Walt Whitman’s verse and noble words.]

The Choir

This dust was once the man,
Gentle, plain, just and resolute, under whose cautious hand,
Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age,
Was saved the Union of these States.

[Gradually, during these lines, a cold light has spread over the mourning multitude. Every vestige of war is gone. The people stand with drooping heads facing the stair, every hand holding a spray of lilac. The freed negroes kneel about the lower steps. A funeral march, gentle as a song of spring, begins. Men lift up the bier and carry it up the steps to the second landing. Freedom leads the cortege; the girls come after. The crowd closes in. At the second landing, the bier is set down and all the people go past it, filing out into the darkness which closes in again upon either side. In the meanwhile, over the music, Freedom and the two Spokesmen speak from Walt Whitman’s great song of mourning.]

Freedom

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourned and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
O powerful western fallen star!
O shades of night—O moody, tearful night!
O great star disappear’d—O the black murk that hides the star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless—O helpless soul of me!
O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul.

The First Spokesman

Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,
Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep’d from the ground, spotting the gray debris,
Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the endless grass,
Passing the yellow spear’d wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprisen.
Passing the apple tree blows of white and pink in the orchards,
Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave,
Night and day journeys a coffin.

The Second Spokesman

Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land,
With the pomp of the inloop’d flags, with the cities draped in black,
With the show of the states themselves as of crape-veil’d women standing,
With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night,
With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and unbared heads....
Here, coffin that slowly passes,
I give you my sprig of lilac.

Four Voices

From the deep secluded recesses,
From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still,
Came the carol of a bird.

Freedom

Come lovely and soothing death,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later, delicate death.

Prais’d be the fathomless universe,
For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,
And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise! praise!
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.

The First Spokesman

The night in silence under many a star,
The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,
And the soul turning to thee, O base and well-veil’d death,
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.

The Second Spokesman

Over the tree tops I float thee a song,
Over the rising and sinking waves and the myriad fields and the prairies wide,
Over the dense pack’d cities all and the teeming wharves and ways,
I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, O death.

Four Voices

Loud in the pines and cedars dim,
Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume,
And I with my comrades there in the night.

Freedom

Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well,
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this for his dear sake,
Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.

The Choir and All the People

(Very softly.)

That government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

[The light goes again. The crowd goes off. The bier is carried away under cover of the darkness and to the far sound of the negroes who sing the same song which first we heard from them.]

Part Four

“Our Own Day”

[The Chronicler rises in light.]

The Chronicler

Death that takes Lincoln spares him the disillusion and the time of waste that comes after him. The face of Freedom is covered and she turns her gaze away from the land.

The Choir

(Fortissimo)

Allons! Through struggles and wars!
The goal that was named cannot be countermanded.

Four Voices

We found our own, O my Soul, in the calm and cool of the daybreak.

[The beginnings of light upon the scene show Freedom weeping upon her balustrade, alone on the stair between the two halves of the Choir.

In the distance the Chorus begins to sing that great chantey of American labor, “I’ve been working on the Railroad.”

At the back of the stage, just below the beginning of the stair, is a pathway of light into which, from either side of the scene, come single lines of men who bear upon their shoulders rails and ties. Across the stage they build the transcontinental railroad, forming sculptural and beautiful groups as they bend over the joints of the rails and swing their sledges. When the task is completed, the headlights of engines shine along the lines.

Whereupon two wedges of laborers emerge from the sides of the scene, lower down on the incline of the stage and stand in pools of flame. That on the right is the group of steel workers. That on the left is the group of coal miners.

Whereupon, still lower down stage, two other wedges emerge, similarly dressed and lighted. They are the groups of farmers and of builders. Whereupon the forestage is filled with women and children of a most sorrowful and wretched aspect and with little old men, poorly dressed and meek of manner.

All of this movement has been executed to the great march of labor which is built upon the theme of “I’ve been working on the Railroad.” The band has taken it up from the Chorus and woven it into a minor dirge and into bizarre dissonances and elaborated it with syncopations and new themes played upon strange instruments and sung by the voices of the Chorus so that the whole thing is at once triumphal and macabre. It rises to magnificent climaxes and subsides again so that the speakers, the crowds, the Choir and the Spokesmen may be clearly audible.

At the same time the Spokesmen and the Choir speak antiphonally against the action and complete the prophecy of Walt Whitman.]

Eight Voices

The shapes arise!

The First Spokesman

Shapes of factories, arsenals, foundries, markets!

The Second Spokesman

Shapes of the two threaded tracks of railroads!

The First Spokesman

Shapes of the sleepers of bridges, vast frameworks, girders, arches!

The Second Spokesman

Shapes of the fleets of barges, tows, lake and canal craft, river craft!

The First Spokesman

Shipyards and drydocks along the eastern and western seas and in many a bay and by-place!

The Second Spokesman

The ships themselves on their ways, the tiers of scaffolds, the workmen.

The First Spokesman

The shape of the family home, the home of the friendly parents and children.

Full Choir

The shapes arise!

Four Voices

Shapes of Democracy, total, result of centuries!

Eight Voices

Shapes ever projecting other shapes!

Twelve Voices

Shapes of turbulent manly cities!

Twenty Voices

Shapes of friends and home givers to the whole earth!

Full Choir

Shapes bracing the earth and braced with the whole earth!

Four Voices

In the labor of engines and trades and the labor of fields I find the developments
And find the eternal meanings....

The Railroad Builders

O Freedom, in your name,
We have built a railroad across a continent
And linked the east and the west with strips of steel;
We have worked, Freedom, for the empire which is yours,
For that which is not yours is nothing.

[Freedom lifts her head and listens.]

The Steel Workers

Steel! Steel! Steel!
Flame and smoke and blood!
We have pounded with our fists, Freedom,
And forged with our hearts,
And our bodies have fed the furnaces,
That your empire, Freedom, might endure in steel
Over the land and upon the seas.

[Freedom listens still but gives no sign.]

The Coal Miners

Though we died in the depths of the earth, we have given coal, Freedom, in your name.
Though we had many masters, we owned no rule but yours,
For that is vain which is not done for Freedom.

The Farmers

In your name, Freedom,
We have cleared forests and made deserts bloom
And covered the states with corn and wheat and herds,
And suffered droughts and storms, Freedom,
That yours might be a great empire.

The Builders

Freedom, we have built the fences of your farmers and the roofs of your cities,
We have made machines of your empire, Freedom, and we have built our lives into its structure,
For you, Freedom, only for you.

The Women and Children

We have given, Freedom, in your hands, our youth and our health and our beauty
In the fields, and the factories of your empire, Freedom, we have given all that we had to give,
Holding always to our faith in you.

The Meek Men

Durably, without complaint, day after day,
We have filled the little tasks of your empire, Freedom,
Performed little duties and earned little wages,
Without complaining, without understanding,
Save that we worked in your name.

The Whole Crowd

Reward us, Freedom!

The Choir

Workmen and Workwomen!
I do not affirm that what you see beyond is futile ...
I do not say leading you, thought great are not great ...
But I say that none lead to greater than these lead to.

The Whole Crowd

Reward us, Freedom!

[With one accord the whole crowd turns and lifts its hands to Freedom. A sudden hush comes and the light on the crowd begins to pale.]

Four Voices

We found our own, O my Soul, in the calm and cool of the daybreak.

The Chronicler

The word is Roosevelt’s.

[The crowd turns towards the audience and listens as the Spokesmen speak words of Roosevelt’s.]

The First Spokesman

No nation great as ours can escape the penalty of greatness. Ours is a government of liberty by, through and under the law.

The Second Spokesman

No man is above it and no man is below it.

Eight Voices

We found our own, O my Soul, in the calm and cool of the daybreak.

The Chronicler

The word is Wilson’s.

The First Spokesman

There has been something crude and heartless and unfeeling in our haste to succeed and be great.

The Second Spokesman

The great government we loved has too often been made use of for private and selfish purposes and those who used it had forgotten the people.

[Through all this the music has progressed sometimes tempestuously, sometimes lyrically. Now it becomes swiftly and terribly sinister and, behind Freedom, where she sits immobile upon her throne, flashes of light, bloody and flaming, run along the balustrade of the uppermost level and the eyes of the people are turned fearfully upwards. Freedom does not move.]

The Chronicler

The world is filled with dread and a great war wages but still Freedom holds aloof from her people, for this war is not waged in her name until the prophet, speaking, gives it meaning.

The Full Choir

Allons, through struggles and wars!
The goal that was named cannot be countermanded.

The Chronicler

Again, the word is Wilson’s.

[Freedom rises.

The lurid terrace shifts and swarms with figures seen through smoke. Now a new army of olive drab bursts up over the crest and the next lines are shouted by the Choir over a wild pantomime of battle.]

First Spokesman and Eight Voices

We are glad now to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples.

The Second Spokesman and Sixteen Voices

The world must be made safe for democracy.

Freedom and Four Voices

To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day is come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured.

The Whole Choir

God helping her, she can do no other!

[A great frenzy of enthusiasm takes the crowd and the music lifts itself into a supreme climax. But Freedom’s two arms go up for silence and the four Voices are heard again, the words of Carl Sandburg.]

Eight Voices

(Intoning upon a high wild note.)

Smash down the cities,
Knock the walls to pieces.
Break the factories and cathedrals, warehouses and homes
Into loose piles of stone and lumber and black burnt wood:
You are the soldiers and we command you.

[The light dies upon the uppermost terrace and increases upon the crowd.]

Four Other Voices

Build up the cities.
Set up the walls again.
Put together once more the factories and cathedrals, warehouses and homes
Into buildings for life and labor;
You are the workmen and citizens all: We command you.

[Again Freedom’s face falls. She comes disconsolately down the stair.]

The People

Ah!

Four Other Voices

(Again from Sandburg.)

Make us one new dream, us who forgot,
Out of the storm let us have one star.

[She stops and looks mournfully down upon them, all the people, and shakes her head.

Whereupon, the music going mad again, the people begin all to move and shift about in little, futile designs and, at the same time, on Freedom’s left, a cone of men shoot acrobatically up. There are not more than a dozen figures in it. They wear hot purples and outrageous masks and speak in unison.]

The Cone

You people,
What are you to Freedom?
What is Freedom to you?
You have no rights, but only duties.
Produce!
Faster and faster.
Harder and harder.
It doesn’t matter
How tired you are.
Produce, do you hear?

[Whereupon a second cone shoots up on Freedom’s right. It is exactly like the first except that the men in it are dressed in dirty red and orange.]

The Second Cone

You people!
Stand up for your rights!
To hell with your duties!
Do you want Freedom?
Well, then, organize!
Wealth is labor!
Property is labor!
Capital is labor!
Organize!

[Whereupon a third cone shoots up at Freedom’s very feet, a cone all of black with senatorial hats topping the masked faces.]

The Third Cone

You people!
Forget about freedom!
Government’s government.
Republican. Democrat.
Right or wrong,
My country still!
The Constitution,
Wonderful instrument!
Land of the Free
And the home of the Brave!
Politics. Politics.
Don’t forget Washington,
Lincoln or Hamilton.
What did they tell you?
Worship the government.

[The three cones disappear as magically as they appeared and, in their place about Freedom’s feet, is a fan of scarlet figures.]

The Fan

You masses! You masses! You masses!
Do you know your power?
Do you know your meaning?
Do you know what you can do?
We’re Freedom.
We’re Russia!
We’re God!
Awake masses!
You are the state!
You are the world!
You are the universe!
Take what is yours.

[All this while the people, to swifter and swifter music, always more and more macabre and dissonant, have moved ever and ever more swiftly. Now the music comes back to a horrible parody of “I’ve been working on the Railroad” and the movement takes shape in designs and formal groups, large and small. And the men who made up three cones and the fan surge over the stair and drag Freedom down so that she is lost in the whirling mob. And the light, broken and colorful, dies to gloom and the movement is a movement of patterns and the music drowns all, singing and instrumental. Then, just at the front of the stage, just above the throne of the Chronicler, a single ray of white light breaks upon Freedom again and, along the upper level, the light once more lifts, and as Freedom begins to speak, it seems to be daybreak.]

Freedom

Lost! Lost! Lost!

[The desperate cry pierces all the tumult and brings complete silence upon the scene.]

O People, my People, my People,
Where are your wits and your hearts and your souls?
What have you done with the destiny I left you?
Fools! Fools! Fools!

[A stricken sigh goes up from the people and those about Freedom fall upon their knees.]

Man does not seek the dream that is not his,
Nor dream the search to which he was not destined,
Nor hope for that which he does not believe.
Who would be free is free;
Who would be otherwise is otherwise.
Ever man is himself man’s enemy;
Ever man’s fear to be himself shall be
Between man and man’s liberty.

[A murmur goes up from the people. She looks sorrowfully and majestically over them.]

Soldiers of Freedom!
Comrades of Freedom!
Brothers of Freedom!
Children of Freedom!
Not slaves, but men!
Not sheep, but men!
Not masses, but men!
I cannot set you free who were born free.
Nor strike your shackles off who were born slaves.
Be to yourselves yourselves, the rest is glory.

[A louder murmur and many of the crowd lift their hands to her.]

Workmen and workwomen!
Children and aged!
You were born of the past!
You are pledged to the future.

[She goes a little up among the kneeling crowd.]

Soldiers of Freedom,
Comrades of Freedom,
Brothers of Freedom,
You! You! And You!
I lead again! I live again! I love!
Who dares to follow now!
Who comes beside me, bravely and alone,
Not one of masses, but as man alone?
What, none?
Are you all masses, then?

[Some of them come eagerly up to her.]

You, have you faith?
You, are you honest?
You, is your spirit strong?
You, can you face the sun?
Why then, come on!
Come on! On! On!
I lead—Come on! Come on!

[She plunges up the slope toward the light, her own refulgence illuminating those who come immediately after her. The music reaches its wildest and highest point as the crowds falling in widely behind her, begins to ascend the slope. Freedom is seen to pause and wave the crowd on and a great cone of humanity moves up the stair. Then the music stops upon a tremendous major resolution and Freedom is standing at the top of the stair at last and all the people, their arms reached upwards to her, are spread out below and the light is blinding. The music gives way to a rolling of drums and from the hills come crazy voices invoked by the wild cries and the wilder arms of Freedom most transfigured, most blazing of all.]

Freedom

Soldiers of Freedom out of the past of the race, huzza!

A Voice

(Screaming wildly.)

Don’t shoot till you see the whites of their eyes!

Freedom

Again!

Another Voice

(Wilder and from a different position.)

If they mean to have a war let it begin here!

Freedom

Again!

Another Voice

Trust in God and keep your powder dry!

Another Voice

We have not yet begun to fight!

[Now rockets are bursting in the air, gorgeous beautiful rockets.]

Freedom

Brothers of Freedom, out of the past of the race, your songs!

Several Voices

(Singing wildly.)

Yankee Doodle came to town,
Riding on a pony,
Stuck a feather in his hat
And called it macaroni!
Yankee Doodle....

Other Voices

I’ll fight it out on this line if it takes all summer! Give me liberty or give me death! Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable! Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute! A war to end war! Don’t give up the ship! Lafayette, here we are! Too proud to fight! In the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!

Other Voices

John Brown’s body lies a moulding in the grave,
John Brown’s body lies a moulding in the grave,
John Brown’s body lies a moulding in the grave,
But his soul goes marching on!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory....

Other Voices

Way down south in the land of cotton,
Cinnamon seed and sandy bottom,
Look away, look away, look away, look away!
That’s the land where I was born in....

Other Voices

Over there! Over there! Over there! Over there! Over there! The Yanks are coming....

[By this the light has gone from the people and shines only upon Freedom who turns and holds her hands out over all the multitude. A terrific flight of rockets bursts with a terrific explosion. Then there is absolute silence.]

Freedom

(Coming through the crowds, back down the stair.)

Children of Freedom,
Out of the mind of God,
Hear ye the truth—
Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees!...
Can ye grow grapes from thorns or figs from thistles?
What man, by taking thought, can add a cubit to his stature?
Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees!
To him that hath shall be given. From him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath....
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth....
Seek and ye shall find....

[With each line of the words of Jesus she has come a little further down the stair. At the last, she stands above the Chronicler’s throne and, on either side of her, two youths kneel, who have followed her down from the Choir. When she has come to the bottom of the slope and when the darkness has taken all else but her figure, she turns her back upon the audience and her hands go out as though she evoked one further image out of the past. We see it, as light scatters the darkness above her—the Common of Lexington in the cold dawn of the Glorious Morning and the line of Minute Men drawn up across it. The Chronicler rises.]

The Chronicler

One hundred and fifty years ago there was fought upon this place a battle. Out of that battle came a nation and a nation’s race and a race’s vision of freedom.

[Then the four boys from the Choir speak together as the light goes.]

The Four Boys

The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of Freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

[The darkness is now complete. The Chronicler has closed his book. In the hills, a bugle blows taps. The play is finished.]

THE citizens of Lexington, the Birthplace of American Liberty, realizing they are custodians of America’s greatest shrine, extend a welcome to EVERYONE, not only on the 19th of April and Pageant Week, June 15th to 20th, 1925, BUT EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR, to visit our battlefield, the historic buildings, and at all times to feel at home. This historic spot belongs to the Nation, and we want all Americans to feel they are part owners so that on leaving the town they may have a better realization of the struggles made by our forefathers and become better and more patriotic citizens.

Publications for Sale by the
Lexington Historical Society

“The Battle of April 19, 1775, in Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Arlington, Cambridge, Somerville and Charlestown.” New Edition, 1922. By Frank Warren Coburn. Illustrated. 200 pp. Price $1.75.

“The Battle on Lexington Common, April 19, 1775,” a paper read before the Lexington Historical Society, December 12, 1916, by Frank Warren Coburn. Illustrated. Published in 1918. 60 pp. Price $2.50.

“Lexington, the Birthplace of American Liberty.” A hand-book. By Fred S. Piper. 1923. 62 pp. Price $0.50, postage 10 cents.

Hudson’s “History of Lexington.” Revised Edition. In two volumes. 1913. Vol. I, History; 583 pp. Vol. II, Genealogies; 897 pp. Withdrawn.

“Guide Book to Hancock-Clark House.” A descriptive catalogue of the historical collection of the Lexington Historical Society on exhibition in the house where Hancock and Adams were sleeping when aroused by Paul Revere. Illustrated. 24 pp. Price $0.20.

“Epitaphs in the Old Burying Grounds, Lexington.” By Francis Brown, M.D. With map. 8vo. About 200 pp. Price $1.00.

“Proceedings of the Lexington Historical Society.” Historical and Memorial papers read before the Society. Illustrated. Vols. I, II, III, IV. 8vo. About 250 pp. each. Price $1.00 per volume. Vol. I out of print.

Note that Vol. II, out of print for many years, can now be supplied.

“A Sketch of the Munroe Clan.” 1900. By James Phinney Munroe. Paper. 75 pp. Price $0.50. Out of print.

“Lexington, Mass., Record of Births, Marriages and Deaths” to January 1, 1898. Cloth. 484 pp. Sent on receipt of 25 cents postage.

“Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Incorporation of the Town of Lexington.” 1913. Proceedings and Addresses. Paper. 37 pp. Price $0.20.

“Lexington Historical Society. A sketch of its origin and achievements.” 1886-1912. By Fred S. Piper. Paper. 10 pp. Price $0.10.

“The Rev. Jonas Clark, Minister and Patriot in Lexington for 50 Years.” 1755-1805. By Rev. Charles F. Carter. 1912. 10 pp. Price $0.10.

“Munroe Tavern—the Custodian’s Story.” 1925. 31 pp. Price $0.35.

18 Postal Card Views of Historic Lexington, 8 of which are copyrighted including the Hancock-Clark House, Buckman Tavern, Munroe Tavern, Minuteman Statue, interiors, etc. Price $0.03 each, $0.45 the set.

Photographs. The Lexington Historical Society has an extensive collection of photographs of Historic Lexington. Printed on heavy paper (usually 7½ × 9). Price $1.25 each, postage paid.

Other volumes and Lantern Slides in preparation.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

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Table of Contents

- “Lexington”
- To My Wife
- Foreword
- Characters in the Play
- Groups in the Play
- “Lexington”
- Part One
- Part Two
- Part Three
- Part Four

- Publications for Sale by the Lexington Historical Society

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE