thank my God that I found you
buzzards out in time. I'll fling your names across the Senate
tonight--yours, Conroy, and yours, Grosvenor, and yours, Taney, and
yours, Pollen, and yours, Maynard! By Heaven, the country shall hear
them from end to end. And there'll be less talk of war then! You and
your kind are stirring up the millions to dream of war, to shout about
defending our national honor--What honor is there in murder?--stirring
their blood with the fifes and drums of your rhetoric! Through your
newspapers, you are turning the thoughts of our children to war, our
children who should be to us the symbol of a nobler, purer future
rising out of the sordid wreckage of the present--you make them drunk
with your cant about national glory--_glory!_--until their innocent
faces glow feverishly up to you, hungry for battle. You will not rest
until you hear the terrible savage cry from their lips--War, war! You
shall not hear it if I can prevent it! I am going to the Senate now. In
fifteen minutes your names shall be a byword and a hissing among the
nations. The best you can do is to take your vile guns and turn them on
yourselves!

[_A great shout is heard outside. Then the fifes and drums again. The_
PAGE _enters excitedly._

PAGE

Message for Senator Taney.

TANEY

Here, quick.

[_He takes the paper._

Gentlemen, listen to this from the Iberian Foreign Office to the
Associated Press: "The King sent for the Ambassador of the Republic this
afternoon and outlined a plan that would satisfy the royal government.
The Ambassador regretted that he was unable to consider any compromise.
The King replied that he could have nothing further to say in the
matter."

[GROSVENOR _and the others jump to their feet with excited
exclamations._

HARRADAN

[_Quickly._

The thing's not true. There's a mistake somewhere. It doesn't fit in
with what went before.

MAYNARD

Fit in? Who cares? It's a challenge! They've insulted us!

GROSVENOR

They've challenged our national honor!

CONROY

Now, by God, they can pay!

HARRADAN

[_Rushing to the telephone._

Give me the Department of State.

[_There are more shouts outside and more bands. Suddenly the door,
left, is burst open by a crowd of men, some in dress clothes, some in
uniform, shouting "War!"_

TANEY

For God's sake, what's up?

AN OFFICER

[_Delightedly._

We're off!

GROSVENOR

What d'ye mean?

A CIVILIAN

They've