How very different everything
Seems now. Give up the struggle, friends.
Your wealth is gone. You’ll have to face it: gone.
But not because we are no longer blessed
With earthly goods – which are not within the reach
Of all – but only because we have no feeling
For higher things. That’s why we are poor!
MEYERS:
Who are these New York friends of yours?
MAULER:
Horgan and Blackwell. Sell . . .
GRAHAM:
That sounds like Wall Street.
A whispering spreads among those present.
MAULER:
The inner man, neglected and repressed . . .
THE PACKERS AND STOCKBREEDERS:
Exalted Mauler, kindly condescend
To step down from your lofty meditations
And think of us! Consider the chaos
That threatens to engulf the world.
You’re needed, man. It’s time that you resumed
The burden of responsibility!
MAULER:
I don’t want to.
Alone I wouldn’t dare. My ears still ring with
The grumbling in the stockyards and the rat-
Tat-tat of the machine guns. I would need
The backing of some lofty moral
Authority. I’d want our programme to be
Acknowledged as vital to the public welfare.
Then I might do it.
(To Snyder:) Are there many of these gospel mills?
SNYDER: Yes.
MAULER: And how are they doing?
SNYDER: Not very well.
MAULER:
Many and not doing well.
Suppose we were to invest big money in
You Black Straw Hats. Then, well supplied with soup
And music and appropriate
Bible quotations, lodgings too perhaps
In urgent cases, do you suppose that you
Could spread the gospel far and wide
That we were upright men, striving for the best
In evil times? For only by extreme
Measures, that may seem harsh, because they
Hit some people – quite a few, to tell the truth
Pretty near everyone in fact –
Can we now save this system of
Buying and selling, which is the only system
We have, though, true, it has its darker side.
SNYDER: For pretty near everyone. I see. We would.
MAULER (to the packers):
And I will merge your packing plants
Into one vast conglomerate and
Acquire half the stock.
THE PACKERS: What a brain!
MAULER (to the stockbreeders):
Listen, my friends!
They whisper to each other.
The difficulties that have weighed upon us
Are clearing. Poverty and hunger, crime
And violence, all have one cause, and this
One cause is being obviated.
There was too much meat. This year the market
Was glutted and the price of livestock
Fell through the floor. But now, to hike it up
And keep it up, we packers and we breeders have
Resolved by one accord to impose a limit
On hitherto unbridled livestock production
And to forestall the glutting of the market
By wiping out the present oversupply.
In a word, by burning a third of all our livestock.
ALL: How stunningly simple!
SNYDER (speaks up):
If all this livestock is indeed so worthless
That you consider burning it, then why
Couldn’t you give it to those people
Standing out there? They’d make good use of it.
MAULER (smiles):
Dear Mr Snyder, you have failed to grasp
The essence of the problem. All those people
Standing out there are customers!
To the others:
It’s almost unbelievable.
Prolonged smiles on all their faces.
They may seem worthless, superfluous
Even bothersome, but it cannot
Escape close scrutiny that they are customers
Though many will not understand, it is
Essential to lock out a third of all the work force
For labour too has glutted the market and must be
Curtailed!
ALL: The only way!
MAULER:
And wages cut!
ALL: Columbus’s egg!
MAULER:
Our overriding purpose
In this dark time of cruel confusion
Of dehumanized humanity
When in our cities the unrest never ceases
(For once again Chicago is shaken by rumours of an impending general strike)
Is to prevent the brute force of the short-sighted people
From smashing their tools and destroying their livelihood
And to bring back peace and order. To this end we mean to
Encourage the order-fostering work of you Black Straw Hats by
Generous endowments.
Of course we’d be happier if your ranks once more included
People like that girl Joan, whose very looks
Inspire trust.
A BROKER (rushes in): Good news! The general strike has been crushed. The criminal desecrators of law and order have been thrown into jail.
SLIFT:
Breathe easy now, the market will recover
Once more the dreaded crisis has passed over
We’ve done the heavy task we had to do
Our calculations have again proved true
And things are running as we like them to.
Organ.
MAULER:
Fling open now your doors
To them that labour and are heavy laden
Fill the pot with soup and strike up music
And we ourselves will sit on your front benches
And get converted.
SNYDER:
Open the doors.
The doors are opened.
THE BLACK STRAW HATS (look toward the doors and sing):
Spread the net, for they are sure to come!
They’ve lost their lodgings and the night is wet.
God sets the cold upon them
God sets the rain upon them
Therefore they’re sure to come, so spread the net.
Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!
Welcome to our place!
Bar the doors, let nobody escape
They’re on their way, they’re on their way
If there’s no job they can find
If they’re deaf and if they’re blind
This is where they’ll come, don’t let them go astray.
Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!
Welcome to our place!
Pull ’em in as fast as they can come
Hat and head and shoe and foot and scab and sore.
If their last reserves are spent
And they’ve come here to lament!
Pull ’em in and hold ’em. Lock and bar the door.
Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!
Welcome to our place!
Here we are! They’re coming. They are coming!
Misery drives them to our mission house like beasts at bay!
Look, they are coming, they’re coming!
Look, they are coming, they’re coming!
(Here they can’t escape. For here we stay!)
Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!
Welcome to our place!
11
a
Stockyards. Outside Graham’s warehouse.
The yards are almost deserted. Only isolated groups of workers pass by.
JOAN (comes along and asks): Have three men been here asking for a lette
r?
Shouts in the rear, spreading toward the front. Then, guarded by soldiers, five men enter: the two from union headquarters and the three from the power station. Suddenly one of the men from the union headquarters stops walking and talks to the soldiers.
THE LABOUR LEADER: If you’re taking us to jail, there’s something you ought to know. We did what we did because we want to help people like you.
A SOLDIER: If you want to help us, get a move on.
THE LABOUR LEADER: What’s the hurry?
THE SOLDIER: You scared?
THE LABOUR LEADER: Yes. But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want you to stop a second so I can tell you why you arrested us, because you don’t know.
THE SOLDIERS (laughing): All right. Why did we arrest you?
THE LABOUR LEADER: Penniless yourselves, you help the wealthy, because you haven’t yet glimpsed the possibility of helping the penniless.
THE SOLDIER: Okay. So let’s get a move on.
THE LABOUR LEADER: Hold it! I haven’t finished what I’ve got to say. But in this city the employed are already helping the unemployed. So the possibility is coming closer. Make good use of it.
THE SOLDIER: I suppose you’d like us to let you go?
THE LABOUR LEADER: Don’t you understand? I’m only trying to tell you guys that your time is almost up.
THE SOLDIERS: Can we go on now?
THE LABOUR LEADER: Yes, now we can go on.
They go on. Joan stops and looks after the arrested men. Then she hears two men talking near her.
FIRST: Who are those men?
SECOND:
None of those men
Thought only of himself.
Never resting, they ran themselves ragged
For the sake of other people’s bread.
FIRST: Why never resting?
SECOND:
The unjust man walks the streets openly
The just man hides.
FIRST: What will become of them?
SECOND:
Although they
Work for little pay and are useful to many
Not one of them lives out his natural life span
Eats his bread, dies with a full belly and
Is buried with honours. All
End before their time. They are
Struck down, trampled and buried in shame.
FIRST: Why do we never hear about them?
SECOND:
When you read in the papers that some criminals have been shot or
Thrown into jail, it’s them.
FIRST: Will it always be like this?
SECOND:
No.
When Joan turns, the reporters speak to her.
THE REPORTERS: Isn’t that Our Lady of the Stockyards? Hi there! Things have gone bad. The general strike has been called off. The packing plants are opening, but only for two-thirds of the work force at two-thirds of their old wages. But meat’s going up.
JOAN: Have the workers accepted?
REPORTERS: Sure. Only a fraction knew that a general strike was planned, and the police drove that fraction away with their guns and nightsticks.
Joan collapses.
b
Outside the Graham warehouse.
A group of workers with lanterns.
A WORKER: This is where she must be. She came over from there, and she was here when she shouted to our people that the municipal power plants were going on strike. With all that snow coming down she probably didn’t see the soldiers. One of them knocked her down with his rifle butt. I saw her clear as day for a second. There she is! There ought to be more like her. No, that’s not her! She was an old working woman. This one’s not one of ours. Let her lie, the soldiers’ll pick her up when they get here.
12
DEATH AND CANONIZATION OF ST JOAN OF THE STOCKYARDS
The Black Straw Hat mission is richly furnished. Grouped in tiers stand the Black Straw Hats with new flags, the packers, the stockbreeders, and the wholesalers.
SNYDER:
So at last we have succeeded
God once more is on his legs
To the heights we have acceded
We have mingled with the dregs.
Folks, take pleasure in what we did
On the crest and in the trough.
Finally we have succeeded
Finally we’ve pulled it off.
A crowd of poor people come in, in the lead Joan supported by two policemen.
THE POLICEMEN:
Here is a homeless woman.
We found her lying
Unconscious in the stockyards.
This, it seems, was her last
Steady address.
JOAN: (holds up the letter as if to deliver it):
Never will the man who has gone under
Receive my letter.
My whole life told me to perform
This one small service in a good cause
And I did not perform it!
While the poor sit down on the benches to await their soup, Slift goes into a huddle with the packers and Snyder.
SLIFT: That’s our Joan. Just when we needed her most. She rates a big promotion, because of the way she helped us through these difficult weeks with her kindly social work in the stockyards, her eloquence on behalf of the poor, and even her attacks on us. Our St Joan of the Stockyards, that’s what she’ll be. We’ll publicize her as a saint and put her on a pedestal. The very fact that we’re the ones who publicize her will prove to the world that with us humanity comes first.
MAULER:
May her simple childlike soul
Shine among us, bright and whole.
Likewise may her glorious
Voice speak out for you and me.
Castigating infamy
Let it speak for all of us.
SNYDER:
Arise, Joan of the Stockyards
Advocate of the poor
Consoler of the lowest depths!
JOAN:
What a wind in the depths! What cries are
You muffling, O snow?
Eat your soup, you!
Don’t waste the last drop of warmth, you
Skunks! Eat your soup!
If only I had lived
As placidly as a cow
But delivered the letter that was entrusted to me!
THE BLACK STRAW HATS (turning toward her):
Undecided see her sway
By the sudden light distracted.
It was human how you acted!
Human how you lost your way!
JOAN (while the girls dress her once more in the uniform of the Black Straw Hats):
The factories are humming again, I can hear them.
Another chance to shut them down has
Been missed.
Once again
The world is back on its old course, unchanged.
When there was a chance to change it
I wasn’t there; when unimportant as I am
My help was needed, I was
Absent.
MAULER:
Man with his high-flown intention
Jibs at living in the dark
And his arrogant ascension
Up from monotonous
Everyday rottenness
To unattainable
Regions unnameable
Tends to overshoot the mark.
JOAN:
I spoke in all the marketplaces
Countless were my dreams, but I
Brought injury to the injured and
Was useful to the injurers.
THE BLACK STRAW HATS:
Where there’s spirit without matter
All our projects fall down dead
And we never get ahead.
THE PACKERS:
All the same there’s nothing better
Than when cash and spirit wed.
JOAN:
One thing I’ve learned, and dying
I will tell you:
It makes no sense t
o say there’s something deep inside you that
Won’t come out! Can you think of anything
That has no consequences?
I, for instance, have done nothing.
For nothing, however good it looks, should be termed good unless it
Really helps, and nothing counted honourable but what
Irrevocably changes the world, which is in need of change.
I was just what the oppressors wanted!
Oh inconsequential goodness! Oh negligible virtue!
I changed nothing.
Soon to vanish fruitlessly from this world
I say to you:
Take care that when you leave the world
You have not merely been good, but are leaving
A better world!
GRAHAM: We’d best be careful and only let the sensible parts of her speeches go through. Don’t forget, she has been in the stockyards.
JOAN:
For there is a gulf between top and bottom, wider
Than between the high Himalaya and the sea
And what goes on at the top
Is not known at the bottom
Nor on top what goes on at the bottom.
And top and bottom have two languages
And two standards of measurement.
Both bear human faces
But have ceased to know each other.
THE PACKERS AND STOCKBREEDERS (very loudly, drowning out Joan’s voice):
Any structure that goes up
Needs a bottom and a top
Consequently every man
Has to stay where he began
Till Kingdom come
Doing what he’s always done.
Interfere with rules like these
And you’ll wreck our harmonies:
Bigger wheels need smaller cogs
(Sometimes known as underdogs).
So be careful how you call
Those un-deferential
Ever essential
Quite indefensible
Yet indispensable
Throwouts from the deepest pit of all!
JOAN:
Those at the bottom are kept at the bottom
So that those on top may stay on top.
And the baseness of those on top is beyond measure.
And even if they got better, it wouldn’t
Help, for the system they have
Created is flawless:
Exploitation and disorder, bestial and therefore
Incomprehensible.
THE BLACK STRAW HATS (to Joan):
Hold your tongue. Be good! Be wise!
THE PACKERS:
Those who hover in mid-air
Never will get anywhere.
Step on others if you’d rise
Then you’ll have support enough.
Reaching up means treading down.
MAULER:
Those who act, alas, can wound.
THE BLACK STRAW HATS:
Look out for your bloody shoe –
Brecht Collected Plays: 3: Lindbergh's Flight; The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent; He Said Yes/He Said No; The Decision; The Mother; The Exception & the ... St Joan of the Stockyards (World Classics) Page 30
