The Machine | Page 9

hold of you.
ANNIE. [Stares, as if coming out of a trance.] Why didn't you help me before?
JULIA. Come, dear . . . come.
ANNIE. It's too late . . . too late! Oh . . . I can't forget about it!
JULIA. Yes, dear. I know . . .
ANNIE. [Seeing the others.] Who? . . .
JULIA. They are all friends; they will help you. Come, dear . . . lie down again.
ANNIE. Oh, what shall I do?
[Is led off, sobbing.]
JULIA. It will be all right, dear.
[Exit; a pause.]
HEGAN. What does this mean?
JACK. [Promptly and ruthlessly.] It means that you have been seeing the white- slave traffic in action.
HEGAN. I don't understand.
JACK. [Quietly, but with suppressed passion.] Tens of thousands of girl slaves are needed for the markets of our great cities . . . for the lumber camps of the North, the mining camps of the West, the ditches of Panama. And every four or five years the supply must be renewed, and so the business of gathering these girl- slaves from our slums is one of the great industries of the city. This girl, Annie Rogers, a decent girl from the North of Ireland, was lured into a dance hall and drugged, and then taken to a brothel and locked in a third-story room. They took her clothing away from her, but she broke down her door at night and fled to the street in her wrapper and flung herself into Miss Patterson's arms. Two men were pursuing her . . . they tried to carry her off. Miss Patterson called a policeman . . . but he said the girl was insane. Only by making a disturbance and drawing a crowd was my friend able to save her. And now, we have been the rounds . . . from the sergeant at the station, and the police captain, to the Chief of Police and the Mayor himself; we have been to the Tammany leader of the district . . . the real boss of the neighborhood . . . and there is no justice to be had anywhere for Annie Rogers!
HEGAN. Impossible!
JACK. You have my word for it, sir. And the reason for it is that this hideous traffic is one of the main cogs in our political machine. The pimps and the panders, the cadets and maquereaux . . . they vote the ticket of the organization; they contribute to the campaign funds; they serve as colonizers and repeaters at the polls. The tribute that they pay amounts to millions; and it is shared from the lowest to the highest in the organization . . . from the ward man on the street and the police captain, up to the inner circle of the chiefs of Tammany Hall . . . yes, even to your friend, Mr. Robert Grimes, himself! A thousand times, sir, has the truth about this monstrous infamy been put before the people of your city; and that they have not long ago risen in their wrath and driven its agents from their midst is due to but one single fact . . . that this infamous organization of crime and graft is backed at each election time by the millions of the great public service corporations. It is they . . .
MONTAGUE. [Interfering.] Bullen!
JACK. Let me go on! It is they, sir, who finance the thugs and repeaters who desecrate our polls. It is they who suborn our press and blind the eyes of our people. It is they who are responsible for this traffic in the flesh of our women. It is they who have to answer for the tottering reason of that poor peasant girl in the next room!
LAURA. [Has been listening to this speech, white with horror; as the indictment proceeds, she covers her face with her hands; at this point she breaks into uncontrollable weeping.] Oh! I can't stand it!
HEGAN. [Springing to her side.] My dear!
LAURA. [Clasping him.] Father! Father!
HEGAN. My child! I have begged you not to come to these places! Why should you see such things?
LAURA. [Wildly.] Why should I not see them, so long as they exist?
HEGAN. [Angrily.] I won't have it. This is the end of it! I mean what I say! Come home with me! . . . Come home at once!
LAURA. With Grimes? I won't meet that man!
HEGAN. Very well, then. You need not meet him. I'll call a cab, and take you myself. Where are your things?
LAURA. [Looking to the left.] In that room.
HEGAN. Come, then.
[Takes her off.]
JACK. [Turns to MONTAGUE, and to JULIA, who appears in doorway at right.] We gave it to them straight that time, all right!
[CURTAIN]

ACT II
Library of "The Towers," HEGAN's Long Island country place. A spacious room, furnished luxuriously, but with good taste. A large table, with lamp and