ONATHAN. Because he belongs to the generation that fights this war.

HILLMAN (shuffling). It ain't no use, doctor. Unless you can bring Mr.
Pindar 'round, the shops'll close down.

DR. JONATHAN. I can't, but something else can.

HILLMAN. What?

DR. JONATHAN. Circumstances. No man can swim up stream very long in
these days, Hillman. Wait a while, and see.

RENCH (rising). We've voted to put this strike through, and by God,
we'll do it.

FERSEN (rising and shaking hands with DR. JONATHAN). It's fine weather,
doctor.

RENCH (bursting into a laugh). He's like the man who said, when Congress
declared war, "It's a fine day for it!" It's a fine day for a strike!

HILLMAN (who has risen, shaking hands with DR. JONATHAN). But you'll
talk to Mr. Pindar, anyway?

DR. JONATHAN (smiling). Yes, I'll talk with him.

(Enter TIMOTHY FARRELL, right, in working clothes.)

TIMOTHY. Good morning, doctor. (Surveying the committee.) So it's here
ye are, after voting to walk out of the shops just when we're beginning
to turn out the machines for the soldiers!

RENCH. If we'd done right we'd have called the strike a year ago.

TIMOTHY. Fine patriots ye are--as I'm sure the doctor is after telling
you--to let the boys that's gone over there be murdered because ye must
have your union!

HILLMAN. If Mr. Pindar recognizes the union, Timothy, we'll go to work
tomorrow.

TIMOTHY. He recognize the union! He'll recognize the devil first! Even
Dr. Jonathan, with all the persuasion he has, couldn't get Mr. Pindar to
recognize the union. He'll close down the shops, and it's hunting a job
I'll be, and I here going on thirty years.

RENCH. If he closes the shops--what then? The blood of the soldiers'll
be on his head, not ours. If there were fewer scabs in the country--

HILLMAN. Hold on, Sam.

TIMOTHY. A scab, is it? If I was the government do you know what I'd do
with the likes of you--striking in war time? I'd send ye over there to
fight the Huns with your bare fists. I'm a workman meself, but I don't
hold with traitors.

RENCH. Who's a traitor? It's you who are a traitor to your class. If a
union card makes a man a traitor, your own son had one in his pocket the
day he enlisted.

TIMOTHY. A traitor, and he fighting for his country, while you'd be
skulking here to make trouble for it!

(MINNIE appears on the threshold of the door, right. DR. JONATHAN,
who is the first to perceive from her expression that there is
s