(Reads from the pamphlet again, with bitter emphasis on every syllable.) Fifty-seven thousand eight hundred and ninety-six dollars and forty-one cents!
(Explosively.) Your witness!
(Radical slinks over to the far post and leans against it to watch contemptuously.)
YOUNG ENG. (Softly, kindly) John.
JOHN. (Suspiciously, hostilely) Yessir?
YOUNG ENG. John, tell me - when you had this large income, before the star arose, did you by any chance have a twenty-eight-inch television set.
JOHN. (Puzzled) No, sir.
YOUNG ENG. Or a laundry console or a radar stove or an electronic dust precipitator?
JOHN. No, sir, I didn't. Them things were for the rich folks.
YOUNG ENG. And tell me, John, when you had all that money, did you have a social insurance package that paid all of your medical bills, all of your dentist bills, and provided for food, housing, clothes, and pocket money in your old age?
JOHN. No, sir. There wasn't no such thing then, in those days.
YOUNG ENG. But you have them now, now that the (sarcastically) black star has risen, haven't you?
JOHN. Yessir, that's right, I do. But -
YOUNG ENG. John, you've heard of Julius Caesar? Good, you have. John, do you suppose that Caesar, with all his power and wealth, with the world at his feet, do you suppose he had what you, Mr. Averageman, have today?
JOHN. (Surprised) Come to think of it, he didn't. Huh! What do you know?
RADICAL. (Furiously) I object! What has Caesar got to do with it?
YOUNG ENG. Your honor, the point I was trying to make was that John, here, since the star in question has risen, has become far richer than the wildest dreams of Caesar or Napoleon or Henry VIII! Or any emperor in history! Thirty dollars, John - yes, that is how much money you make. But, not with all his gold and armies could Charlemagne have gotten one single electric lamp or vacuum tube! He would have given anything to get the security and health package you have, John. But could he get it? No!
JOHN. Well, for heaven's sakes! But -
YOUNG ENG. (Anticipates John's objection.) But the engineers and managers have forgotten Mr. Averageman?
JOHN. Yessir, that's what I was going to say.
YOUNG ENG. John, do you know that no manager or engineer would have a job if it weren't for you? How could we forget you for even a minute, when every minute of our lives is spent trying to give you what you want! Do you know who my boss is, John?
JOHN. Don't believe I ever met the gentleman.
YOUNG ENG. (Smiling) Oh, I think maybe you have. He's you, John! If I can't give you what you want, I'm through. We're all through, and down comes the star.
JOHN. (Blushing) Gosh, I never looked at it quite that way before, sir. (Laughs modestly.) But I guess that's right, isn't it? What do you know about that? But -
YOUNG ENG. But I make too much money? Fifty-seven thousand dollars? Is that what worries you?
JOHN. Yessir, that's a lot of money.
YOUNG ENG. John, before the star arose, the payroll for producing what I produce for you, for my boss, Mr. Averageman, ran to more than fifty-seven thousand dollars a week. Not a year, mind you, but a week! It looks to me, John, like you, the consumer, are the big winner, not me.
JOHN. (Whistles low, under his breath.) Is that a fact! (Points suddenly at radical, who is very restive.) But, he said -
YOUNG ENG. We've answered everything he's said, John. And I'd like to add one little thought. He'd like to take advantage of your good nature. He wants power, and he doesn't care about anything else. He'd like to make you swallow his half-truths, John, and get you to help him pull down the star, and put himself in power, and the whole world back in the Dark Ages!
JOHN. (Glowering.) Oh, he would, would he?
(Radical looks worried, then frightened and chagrined, and suddenly makes dash for trap door in stage. John is right after him, and trap door closes. Stage lights fade, and blue feature spot comes up on young engineer, who moves directly to center of stage. Band starts "Battle Hymn of the Republic" softly, almost imperceptibly.)
YOUNG ENG. (Reflectively, soberly, conversationally) Yes, there are those who've clamored so loudly against our star that some have been convinced it is tarnished. And if that star were to come down, it would be partly our fault. Yes, ours! Every minute of the day we should be pointing out how beautiful it is, and why it is beautiful. We hold our peace too much.
(Points at star. Infrared beam hits it, making it glow beautifully.) Under it, we've become rich beyond the wildest dreams of the past!Civilization has reached the dizziest heights of all time!
(Music swells a little in volume.) Thirty-one point seven times as many television sets as all the rest of the world put together!
(Music gets louder still.) Ninety-three per cent of all the world's electrostatic dust precipitators! Seventy-seven per cent of all the world's automobiles! Ninety-eight per cent of its helicopters! Eighty-one point nine per cent of its refrigerators!
(Music gets louder still.) Seventy-one point three per cent of the world's generating capacity! Eighty-five per cent of its industrial control vacuum tubes! Sixty-nine per cent of its fractional horsepower motors! Ninety-eight point three per cent of . . .
(Music crescendos, drowning him out.)
Fade feature spot. Launch rockets from shore.)
The young engineer is gone, and so are the trappings of the court. The old man is at the top of his ladder, alone with his stars, as he was at the beginning.
He holds out the star bearing the image of the Oak, smiles, hooks it onto the wire, and sends it out, where it glows in infrared.
OLD MAN. Yes, out it goes again, brighter than all the rest. (He reaches under his robe, and comes out with a powerful flashlight, whose beam he aims directly upward.) And when I come back to examine the stars for stains in another century, will it gleam as it does now? Or? (Looks meaningfully at the foot of the ladder.) Well, what determines whether it will be tarnished or not? (Looks at the audience.) It depends on - (Suddenly brings down the flashlight, so its beam strikes face after face after face in the audience.) You! And You! And You! etc.
(Fire rockets. Hit "Stars and Stripes Forever" hard.)