The Gibson Upright written by Booth Tarkington
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The
Gibson Upright
By
BOOTH TARKINGTON
and
HARRY LEON WILSON
1919
THE STAGE PRODUCTION OF THIS PLAY IS BY STUART WALKER
THE GIBSON UPRIGHT
CAST OF CHARACTERS
ANDREW GIBSON, a piano factory owner
NORA GORODNA, a piano tester and socialist labor organizer
MR. MIFFLIN, a socialist journalist
CARTER, an elderly factory worker
FRANKEL, a young Jewish factory worker
SHOMBERG, a factory worker
SIMPSON, an elderly factory worker
SALVATORE, an Italian factory worker
RILEY, a truck driver
ELLA, Mr. Gibson's housemaid
MRS. SIMPSON, wife of Simpson
MRS. COMMISKEY, wife of a worker (offstage voice)
POLENSKI, a worker
FIRST WOP and SECOND WOP, workers
ACT I
ANDREW GIBSON'S _office in his piano factory where he
manufactures "The Gibson Upright." A very plain interior;
pleasant to the eye, yet distinctly an office in a factory, and
without luxuries; altogether utilitarian.
Against the wall on our right is a roll-top desk, open, very
neat, and in the centre of the writing pad a fresh rose stands
in a glass of water. Near by is a long, plain table and upon it
a very neat arrangement of correspondence and a couple of
ledgers.
Against the walls are a dozen plain cane-seated chairs. Near
the centre of the room is a sample of the Gibson upright piano
in light wood. There is a large safe, showing the word
"Gibson," and there are filing cases. In the rear wall there is
a door with the upper half of opaque glass, which shows "Mr.
Gibson" in reverse; and near this door is a water filter upon a
stand. In the wall upon our left is a plain wooden door. The
rear door opens into the factory; the other into a hall that
leads to the street.
Upon the walls are several posters, one showing "The Gibson
Upright"--a happy family, including children and a grandparent,
exclaiming with joy at sight of this instrument. Another shows
a concert singer singing widely beside "The Gibson Upright,"
with an accompanist seated. Another shows a semi-colossal
millionaire, and a workingman of similar size in paper cap and
apron, shaking hands across "The Gibson Upright," and, printed:
"$188.00--The Price for the Millionaire, the Same for Plain
John Smith--$188.00." This poster and the others all show the
slogan: "How Cheap, BUT How Good!"
Nothing is new in this room, but everything is clean and
accurately in order. The arrangement is symmetrical.
As the curtain rises_ NORA GORODNA _is seen at work on the
sample "Gibson Upright." The front is not removed; but through
the top of the piano she is adjusting something with a small
wrench._ NORA _is a fine-looking young woman, not over
twenty-six; she wears a plain smock over a dark dress. As she
is a piano tester in the factory she is dressed neither so
roughly as a working woman nor perhaps so fashionably as a
stenographer. She is serious and somewhat preoccupied. From
somewhere come the sounds of several pianos being tuned. After
a moment_ NORA _goes thoughtfully to the desk and looks at the
rose in the glass; then lifts the glass as if to inhale the
odour of the rose, but abruptly alters her decision and sets
the glass down without doing so. She returns quickly and
decisively to her work at the piano, as if she had made a
determination.
A bell at the door on our left rings._ NORA _goes to the door
and opens it._
NORA: Good morning, Mr. Mifflin.
MIFFLIN [_entering_]: Good morning, Miss Gorodna.
[MIFFLIN _is a beaming man of forty, with gold-rimmed
eyeglasses and a somewhat grizzled beard which has been, a week
or so ago, a neatly trimmed Vandyke. He wears a "cutaway suit,"
not much pressed, not new; a derby hat, a standing collar, and
a "four-in-hand" dark tie; hard, round cuffs, not link cuffs.
He carries a folded umbrella, not a fashionable one; wears no
gloves; and has two or three old magazines and a newspaper
under his arm._]
MIFFLIN: I believe I'm here just to the hour, Miss Gorodna.
NORA: Mr. Gibson has been very nice about it. He told me he would give
you the interview for your article. He's in the factory--trying to
settle some things he _can't_ settle. I'll let him know you're here.
[_She goes out by the door into the factory._ MIFFLIN, _smiling
with benevolent anticipation, places his umbrella and hat on a
chair, then takes his fountain pen and a pencil from his
pocket, smilingly decides to use the pencil, sharpens it
without going to a wastebasket over by the desk; then beamingly
looks about the room. He is about to strike a chord on the
piano, seems alarmed by the idea, moves away from it, dusts the
lapel of his coat, adjusts his collar, studies the posters,
shakes his head over them as if they were not to his taste,
goes to the desk, and after studying it smiles at the rose and
gives it a kittenish peck with his forefinger._ NORA _comes
back and_ MIFFLIN _turns to her with his benevolent smile._]
NORA [_going back to her work at the piano_]: He'll be right here.
[GIBSON _appears in the open doorway, speaking with crisp
determination to someone not seen._]
GIBSON: That's my last word on it; that's in accordance with the
agreement you signed two weeks ago.
A HARSH VOICE: We don't care nothin' about no agreement!
GIBSON: That's all!
[_He comes in. He is a man of thirty-something; well but not
clubbishly dressed; an intelligent, thoughtful face; a man of
affairs. Just now he is exercising some self-control over
irritations which have become habitual, but he is not
uncordial, merely quiet, during his greeting of_ MIFFLIN.]
NORA: This is Mr. Mifflin, Mr. Gibson.
GIBSON: How do you do, Mr. Mifflin.
MIFFLIN [_heartily, as they shake hands_]: I am very glad to meet you,
Mr. Gibson! I hope you don't mind my not writing to you myself for this
interview.
GIBSON: Not at all!
MIFFLIN [_taking a chair_]: I heard Miss Gorodna speak at a meeting two
nights ago--
GIBSON: Yes?
MIFFLIN: And learning that she was one of your employees I asked her to
speak to you about it for me.
GIBSON: I see.
MIFFLIN: Now, in the first place, Mr. Gibson--
[_There is a telephone on_ GIBSON'S _desk; its bell rings._]
GIBSON: Excuse me a moment!
[_At the telephone_]: Hello!... Yes--Gibson.... Oh, hello, McCombs!...
Yes. I want you to buy it.... I want you to buy all of that grade wire
you can lay your hands on. Get it now and go quick. All you can get; I
don't care if it's a three years' supply. There'll be a shortage within
a month.... No; I don't want any more of the celluloid mixture.... No, I
don't want it. They can't make a figure good enough. I've got my own
formula for keys and we're going to make our own mixture.... I'm going
to have my own plant for it right here. I can make it just under fifty
per cent, better than I can buy it.... Wait a minute! I want you to get
hold of that lot of felt over in Newark; the syndicate's after it, but I
want you to beat them to it. Don't go to Johnson. You go to
Hendricks--he's Johnson's brother-in-law. You tell him as my purchasing
agent you've come to finish the talk I had with him the other night.
You'll find that does it.... All right. Wait! Call me up to-morrow
afternoon; I'm on the track of a stock of that brass we've been using.
We may get three-eighths of a cent off on it. I'll know by that time.
All right!... All right! [_Then he hangs up the receiver and turns to_
MIFFLIN.] Where do you propose to publish this interview, Mr. Mifflin?
MIFFLIN [_cheerily_]: Oh, I shall select one of the popular magazines in
sympathy with my point of view in these matters. You probably know my
articles. Numbers of them have been translated. One called "Cooeperation
and Brotherhood" has been printed in thirteen languages and dialects,
including the Scandinavian. But I expect this to be my star article.
GIBSON: Why?
MIFFLIN: Because your factory here is so often called a model factory.
"_The_ model factory!" [_He repeats the phrase with unction._]
GIBSON [_wearily_]: Yes, model because it has the most labour trouble!
MIFFLIN [_enthusiastically_]: That is the real reason why it will be my
star article. As you may know from my other articles this problem is
where I am in my element.
GIBSON: Yes; I understood so from Miss Gorodna.
[_Giving him an inimical glance,_ NORA _closes the top of
piano, and moves to go._ GIBSON _checks her with a slight
gesture._]
GIBSON: Would you mind staying, Miss Gorodna? Miss Gorodna knows more
about one side of this factory than I do, I'm afraid, Mr. Mifflin. We
may need her for reference, especially as she seems to be the ringleader
of the insurgents.
MIFFLIN [_with jovial reproach_]: Now, now! Before we come to that, Mr.
Gibson, suppose we get at the origin of this interesting product. [_He
waves to the sample piano._] Let's see! I understand it was never your
own creation, Mr. Gibson; that you inherited this factory from your
father.
GIBSON: Oh, no, I didn't.
NORA [_challenging_]: _What!_ [_She checks herself._] I beg your pardon!
GIBSON: The piano factory I inherited from my father was about one third
this size.
MIFFLIN [_genially; always genial_]: Nevertheless, you inherited it. We
know that everything grows with the times, naturally. Let us simply
state that it was a capitalistic family inheritance.
NORA [_under her breath but emphatically_]: Yes!
MIFFLIN: Up to the time of your inheriting it, you, I suppose, had led
the usual life of pleasure of the wealthy young man?
GIBSON: I'd been through school and college and through every department
of the factory. That wasn't hard; it was a pretty run-down factory, Mr.
Mifflin.
MIFFLIN: And then at your father's death the lives and fortunes, souls
and bodies of all these workmen passed into your hands?
GIBSON: Not quite that; there were only forty-one workmen, and nineteen
of them didn't stay when father died. They got other jobs before I could
stop them.
MIFFLIN: And how many men have you now?
GIBSON: I believe there are one hundred and seventy-five on the pay roll
now.
MIFFLIN: One hundred and seventy-five [_with gusto_] labourers!
GIBSON: Some of them are; some of them are orators.
MIFFLIN [_jovially_]: Ah, I'm afraid that's hard on Miss Gorodna.
GIBSON [_quietly_]: She's both.
MIFFLIN: I understand you are _not_ fighting the labour unions?
GIBSON: No. The workmen themselves declined to unionize the factory.
MIFFLIN: Mr. Gibson, when your father began manufacturing "The Gibson
Upright"--
GIBSON: He didn't. He made a very fine piano--and only a few of them. It
was "The Gibson Upright" that saved the factory. You see, with this
model we began to get on a quantity-production basis. That's why the
business has grown and is growing.
MIFFLIN: You mean that "The Gibson Upright" is the reason for the
present great prosperity of this plant?
GIBSON: Yes.
MIFFLIN: Now be careful, Mr. Gibson; I'm going to ask a trap question.
[_Wagging his pencil at him._] What is the reason for "The Gibson
Upright?"
GIBSON: Do you mean who designed it?
MIFFLIN: Oh, no, no, no! I mean who _makes_ them? If someone asked you
if you're the man that makes "The Gibson Upright" wouldn't you say
"Yes?"
GIBSON: Certainly!
MIFFLIN [_triumphantly_]: Ah, there you fell into the trap!
GIBSON: What's the matter?
NORA [_with controlled agitation_]: It's the same old matter, Mr.
Gibson. It's those men out there that make the piano.
GIBSON [_a little sadly_]: Do they?
NORA: With their _hands_, Mr. Gibson!
GIBSON: Is there anything more, Mr. Mifflin?
MIFFLIN: You couldn't possibly imagine how much you've given me, Mr.
Gibson, in these few little answers. It is precisely what I want to get
at--the point of view! The point of view is all that is separating the
classes from the masses to-day. And I think I have yours already. Now I
want to go to the masses if you will permit me.
GIBSON: Then you might as well stay here.
MIFFLIN: Ah, but I want to hear the workers talk!
GIBSON: Well, this is the best place for that! Some of them are waiting
now just outside the door. I'll let you hear them.
[_Goes to the factory door and opens it; two workingmen come
in. One is elderly, with gray moustache and beard--_CARTER.
_The other,_ FRANKEL, _is a Hebraic type, eager and nervous;
younger._]
GIBSON: What do you and Frankel want, Carter?
CARTER [_moving his jaw from side to side, affecting to chew to gain
confidence_]: Well, Mr. Gibson, to come down to plain words--there ain't
no two best ways o' beatin' about the bush.
GIBSON: I know that.
CARTER: The question is just up to where there ain't no two best ways
out of it. The men in our department is going to walk out to the last
one, and if there was any way o' stoppin' it by argument I'd tell you.
We're goin' out at twelve o'clock noon to-day, the whole forty-eight of
us.
GIBSON: Why?
FRANKEL: "_Why_," Mr. Gibson! Did you want to know _why_?
GIBSON: Yes, I do. You men signed an agreement with me just eleven days
ago--
FRANKEL [_hotly protesting_]: But we never understood it when we signed
it. How'd we know what we was signing?
GIBSON: Can't you read, Frankel?
FRANKEL: What's reading got to do with it, when it reads all one way?
GIBSON: Didn't you understand it, Carter?
CARTER: Well--I can't say I did.
GIBSON: _Why_ can't you say it? It was plain black and white.
CARTER: Well, I was kind o' foggy about the overtime.
GIBSON: The agreement was that you were to have time and a half for
overtime. What was foggy about that?
CARTER: Well, I don't say you didn't give us what we was askin' right
_then_; but things have changed since then.
GIBSON: What's changed in eleven days?
FRANKEL [_hotly_]: What's changed? How about them men in the finishin'
department that do piecework?
GIBSON: Well, what's changed about them?
FRANKEL: Well, something _is_ goin' to change over there.
GIBSON: We're talking about your department not understanding the
agreement. What's the finishing department got to do with that?
FRANKEL: Well, they're kickin', too, you bet!
GIBSON: I'm dealing with your kick now.
CARTER: Well, o' course we got to stand with them; if they do piecework
overtime they don't get no more for it.
GIBSON: I'll deal with them separately.
FRANKEL: My goodness, Mr. Gibson, you got to deal with us, too! Not a
one of us understood what our last agreement with you was. It's just
agreements and agreements and agreements--you might think we was living
just on agreements! By rights we ought to have double time instead of
time and a half!
GIBSON: Time and a half eleven days ago; now you strike for double time!
Where does this thing stop? You want double time for overtime; your
working day has been reduced; it won't be long till you want that cut
down again.
FRANKEL: Sure! We want it cut down right now!
CARTER: Yes, Mr. Gibson; that was another point they told us to bring up
before we walk out.
GIBSON [_with growing exasperation_]: I suppose you want a six-hour day
so you'll have more overtime to double on me! Then you'll want a
four-hour day, won't you?
MIFFLIN [_beaming and nodding_]: Well, why not, Mr. Gibson?
GIBSON: What?
NORA: Why shouldn't they?
GIBSON: Why shouldn't they? But what's their limit?
NORA [_oratorically_]: When the workman shall own his tools!
MIFFLIN: Of course that means _all_ the tools, Mr. Gibson. You may not
know our phrase: "The workman shall own his tools." It means not only
the carpenter's bench, the plane and the saw, the adze and the auger,
but the shop itself. It means that the workmen shall own the factory. It
means the elimination of everything and everyone who stands between him
and the purchaser, to take toll and unearned profit from the worker, who
is really the sole producer of wealth.
NORA: It means the elimination of capital and the capitalist!
MIFFLIN: It means that not only should the worker own tools and factory
but should sit here in the persons of his chosen and elected fellow
workers, as arbiter of his own destiny.
GIBSON: That is to say, it means the elimination of me.
MIFFLIN [_jovially_]: Precisely! Precisely!
GIBSON [_as another workingman strides into the room_]: What do you
want, Shomberg?
SHOMBERG: Them new windows in the assembling room--they're no good.
GIBSON: We've just spent twelve hundred dollars fixing them as you said
you wanted them. What's the matter with them?
SHOMBERG: They don't give no light.
MIFFLIN: None at all?
SHOMBERG: It's right next to none at all! The men are goin' to lay off
if they got to work in that room. They're goin' out anyway at twelve
o'clock.
FRANKEL: Now look here, Mr. Gibson, if I was running this factory--
GIBSON: You're not, Frankel!
SHOMBERG: Well, why can't you listen to him? Don't we even get no
hearing? I guess if I was running this factory once, the first thing I'd
do I'd anyhow try to listen what the troubles is and make my men
contented.
GIBSON: What would you do if you were running the factory, Carter? You
haven't said.
CARTER: I ain't had the chance to say. Now what I'd do, first I'd settle
all the grievances so there wouldn't be no more complaints.
GIBSON: Well, here's one coming I might leave to you on that basis.
[_Enter_ SIMPSON, _an elderly worker in overalls and jumper;
and_ SALVATORE, _a New Yorkized Italian type, a formerly
lighted cigarette dangling from his lips._]
SALVATORE: Our department's goin' to walk out at twelve, noon, Mr.
Gibson. We ain't satisfied.
GIBSON: Why not?
SALVATORE: Well, we ain't satisfied, Mr. Gibson; we ain't satisfied at
all.
GIBSON: You got every demand answered yesterday, Salvatore.
SALVATORE: Oh, I ain't talkin' about no demands. If all them other
departments walks out we're going to stand by 'em! We got plenty to do
with our time. Workin' all the time ain't so enjoyable.
GIBSON: So you people are going out again, are you?
SIMPSON: I guess it's a general strike, Mr. Gibson. I'm afraid if you
don't give the boys satisfactory answers the place will close down at
noon.
GIBSON: Have satisfactory answers ever satisfied you?
SALVATORE: Ain't we got no right to stand up for our rights?
FRANKEL: Don't you get all you can from _us_? Well, you bet your life
we're goin' to keep on gettin' all we can from _you_!
GIBSON: Then life isn't worth anything to either of us--if it's all
fight! Is that to go on forever?
NORA: No, Mr. Gibson; it's to go on until the abolition of the wage
system!
MIFFLIN: Good!
NORA: The struggle with capitalism will continue till the workers take
possession of the machinery of production. It is theirs by right; the
wealth they produce is morally their own. The parasites who now consume
that wealth must be destroyed.
[_Great approval from workmen; almost a cheer._ MIFFLIN
_chuckles and noiselessly claps his hands._]
GIBSON: I'm the parasite!
SHOMBERG: Well, do we get any answer?
GIBSON: Does any one of you men here think he could answer all of these
demands satisfactorily?
SALVATORE: Sure! [_All acquiesce: "Sure, sure!"_]
FRANKEL: You can't put us off any longer with just no little bunch of
funny talk!
GIBSON: I'll have an answer for you in fifteen minutes. [_Turns to his
desk._] That's all.
SHOMBERG: Better have it before twelve o'clock.
CARTER [_as they go_]: Do what you kin, Mr. Gibson. All the departments
is worked up pretty unusual.
GIBSON [_wearily dropping back into his chair_]: Oh, no, Carter; pretty
usual; that's the trouble.
MIFFLIN: A splendid manifestation of spirit, Mr. Gibson! I'll just take
advantage of the--
[GIBSON _waves his hand, assenting._ MIFFLIN _overtakes the
group at door, puts his hands on the shoulders of two of the
workers; and goes out with them talking eagerly._ NORA
_follows._ GIBSON _sighs heavily; the telephone bell rings. He
takes up the receiver._]
GIBSON: Who is it?... Wait a minute! [_He takes a pad and writes_]:
"Central Associated Lumber Companies." ... Wait a minute. [_Looks at a
slip in a pigeonhole of his desk._] Oh, yes, you called me yesterday....
This is Mr. Ragsdale?... No, no, Mr. Ragsdale, I don't think I'm going
to do any business with you. You asked me forty-eight dollars a thousand
on 200,000 feet.... No, your coming down half a dollar a thousand won't
do it.... I say seventeen cents won't do it.... Hold the wire a minute.
[_Looks for letter in pigeonhole, but finds it in his inside pockets.
Then he holds it open, looking at it beside the telephone as he
speaks._] Hello!... No; I was right; there's nothing doing, Mr.
Ragsdale, I know where I can get that 200,000 feet at forty-five
dollars.... I say I know where I can get that lumber at forty-five
dollars.... No; I can get it. There won't be any use for you to call up
again.... Good-bye!
[_He paces the floor again thoughtfully, then abruptly goes to
the factory door; opens it and calls._]
GIBSON: Miss Gorodna!
[NORA _appears in the doorway. She looks at him with
disapproving inquiry; then walks in and closes the door. He
goes to his desk and touches the rose._]
GIBSON: Why didn't you take it this morning? That poor little rosebed in
my yard at home; it's just begun to brighten up. I suppose it thought it
was going to send you a June rose every day, as it did last June. You
don't want it?
NORA [_gently, but not abating her attitude_]: No, thank you!
GIBSON: [_dropping the rose upon his blotting pad, not into the glass
again_]: This is the fourth that's had to wither disappointed.
NORA [_in a low voice_]: Then hadn't you better let the others live?
GIBSON: I'd like to live a little myself, Nora. Life doesn't seem much
worth living for me as it is, and if your theories are making you detest
me I think I'm about through.
NORA: It's what you stand for that my theories make me detest--since you
used the word.
GIBSON: Well, what is it that I stand for?
NORA: Class and class hatred.
GIBSON: Which class is the hatred coming from?
NORA: From both!
GIBSON: Just in this room right now it seems to be all on one side. And
lately it has seemed to me to be more and more not so much class as
personal; because really, Nora, I haven't yet been able to understand
how a girl with your mind can believe that you and I belong to different
classes.
NORA: You don't! So long as capital exists you and I are in warring
classes, Mr. Gibson.
GIBSON: What are they?
NORA: Capitalist and proletariat. You can't get out of your class and I
don't want to get out of mine.
GIBSON: Nora, the law of the United States doesn't recognize any
classes--and I don't know why you and I should. We both like Montaigne
and Debussy. You've even condescended to laugh with me at times about
something funny in the shop. Of course not lately; but you used to. In
everything worth anything aren't we really in the same class?
NORA: We are not. We never shall be--and we never were! Even before we
were born we weren't! You came into this life with a silver spoon. I was
born in a tenement room where five other people lived. My father was a
man with a great brain. He never got out of the tenements in his life;
he was crushed and kept under; yet he was a well-read man and a
magnificent talker; he could talk Marx and Tolstoi supremely. Yet he
never even had time to learn English.
GIBSON: I wish you could have heard what _my_ father talked for English!
Half the time I couldn't understand him myself. He was Scotch.
NORA: Your father wasn't crushed under the capitalistic system as mine
was. My father was an intellectual.
GIBSON: Mine was a worker. They both landed at Castle Garden, didn't
they?
NORA: What of that? Mine remained a thinker and a revolutionist; yours
became a capitalist.
GIBSON: No; he got a job--in a piano factory.
NORA: Yes, and took advantage of the capitalistic system to own the
factory.
GIBSON: Before he did own it he worked fourteen hours a day for twelve
years. That's why he owned it.
NORA: How many hours a day do you work, Mr. Gibson?
GIBSON: I _have_ worked twenty-four; sometimes fourteen, sometimes two;
usually six.
NORA: In other words, when you want to work.
GIBSON: I've learned to do things my father never learned to do, and it
commands a higher return.
NORA: You _take_ a higher return!
GIBSON: You mean I don't deserve it?
NORA: Can it be possible that you think you deserve as much as any of
these _workers_? You don't so much as touch one of these pianos that
bring you your return. I do! I work on them with my hands. Do you think
you deserve as much as I?
GIBSON: No; I don't go so far as that.
NORA: Don't talk to me as a woman! My work is pleasant enough now; but
what work did I have to do before I got this far? I worked sixteen hours
a day, and when I was only a child at that! Twelve hours I was sewing,
and four I studied. If my father hadn't known music and taught me a
little your capitalistic system would have me sewing twelve hours a day
still!