. The hope that
spurs us on and makes us willing to endure these swinish surroundings
and die here in the mud, if need be, is that the world will now be
reorganized on some intelligent basis; that Grierson and I, if we get
back, won't have to rot on a large income and petrified ideas, but will
have some interesting and creative work to do. Economic inequalities
must be reduced, and those who toil must be given a chance to live, not
merely to exist. Their lives must include a little leisure, comfortable
homes, art and beauty and above all an education that none of us,
especially those of us who went to universities, never got,--but which
now should be available for all.

"The issue of this war is industrial democracy, without which political
democracy is a farce. That sentence is Dr. Jonathan's. But when I was
learning how to use the bayonet from a British sergeant in Picardy I
met an English manufacturer from Northumberland. He is temporarily an
officer. I know your opinion of theorists, but this man is working out
the experiment with human chemicals. After all, the Constitution of
the United States, now antiquated and revered, once existed only in the
brains of French theorists! In the beginning was the Word, but the
deed must follow. This Englishman, whose name is Wray, has given me the
little pamphlet he wrote from his experience, and I shall send it to
you.

"Though I am writing this letter in what to me is a solemn and
undoubtedly exalted hour, I am sure that my mind was never clearer
or saner. Dad, I have set my heart on inaugurating an experiment in
industrial democracy in Foxon Falls! I'd like to be able to think--if
anything happened to me--that the Pindar shops were among the first
in America to recognize that we are living in a new era and a changed
world."

(ASHER walks over to the bench and lays down the open letter on it.)

If anything should happen to that boy, Jonathan, there wouldn't be
anything in life left for me! Industrial democracy! So you put that into
his head! Socialism, I suppose.

DR. JONATHAN. No, experimental science.

ASHER. Call it what you like. What surprises me is, when I look back
over the months you've been here, how well we've got along in spite of
your views.

DR. JONATHAN. Why not say in spite of yours, Asher?

ASHER (smiling involuntarily). Well, it's been a comfort to drop in here
and talk to you, in spite of what you believe. You've got the gift of
sympathy, Jonath