The Americans Part 47

That has a meaning in it.

EGERTON.

That's what I said; That has the least relation to the land.

RALPH ARDSLEY.

This snow you'll see will bring them to their senses.

GOVERNOR BRADDOCK.

Suppose you'd made your fortune out of copper?

FIRST STAFF MEMBER.

Yes, we all build our houses out of timber.

SECOND STAFF MEMBER.

Or cotton?

GUESTS.

Ha, ha, ha!

RALPH ARDSLEY.

Or oil?

SEVERAL.

Yes.

RALPH ARDSLEY.

How would you spiritualize the oil business?

EGERTON.

Ardsley here wants to quote me in his paper.

GENERAL CHADBOURNE.

The Lumber King upon the late decision.

EGERTON.

It's Art, not rebates, that I'm speaking of.

Couldn't I show my derricks on the walls?

And back there red-skins striking fire from flint?

Then our forefathers with their tallow-dips Watching the easy drills slip up and down?

The tanks here--Ah, you laugh, you dilettanti.

I'll tell you gentlemen what the trouble is: You're frightened by our natural resources, And you despise the life of your own land, The crude, tremendous life we're living here.

The force is too much for you. You want polish.

O I can prove it to you.

RALPH ARDSLEY.

Now you'll get it.

EGERTON.

Yes, Braddock, there's that Capitol Commission.

I'd be ashamed.

GOVERNOR BRADDOCK.

I knew 'twould come.

EGERTON.

And we Breathing the electric air of this great West, As rich in life as timber, herds and hops, Wheat fields and mines, and all these things to be Raised and translated by the brains of men.

Think of a State dotted with lumber camps And buzzing day and night with saws and saws, And as far as the North Pole from old world customs, Wearing a capitol with Grecian columns With an old Roman Justice on her comb!

You'd scorn to come here in a gaberdine Made by some dago in the days of Pompey.

And yet you dress the State up in these things.

No independence.

RALPH ARDSLEY.

Governor?

FIRST STAFF MEMBER.

Call the troops!

EGERTON.

I'd rather cut the timber of this land And coin its spirit in a thing like this Than be a Roman Caesar.

RALPH ARDSLEY.

Hip hurrah!

That's what I call a fellow countryman.

BISHOP HARDBROOKE.

You see we're all Americans down here.

SECOND STAFF MEMBER.