How did you lose your job?
PRAG. The foreman come to me last night and says, "Prag I hear you
belong to the union. You gets out."
GEORGE (after a moment's hesitation). But--there are plenty of other
jobs these days. You can go down to the coast and get more than five
dollars a day at a shipyard.
PRAG. It is easy, yes, when you have a little home bought already, and
mortgaged, and childrens who go to school here, and a wife a long time
sick.
GEORGE. I'm sorry. But weren't you getting along all right here, except
your wife's illness? I don't want to be impertinent,--I recognize that
it's your affair, but I'd like to know why you joined the union.
PRAG. Why is it you join the army? To fight for somethings you would
give your life for--not so? Und you are a soldier,--would you run away
from your comrades to live safe and happy? No! That is like me. I lose
my job, I go away from my wife and childrens, but it is not for me, it is
for all, to get better things for all,--freedoms for all.
GEORGE. Then--you think this isn't a free country.
PRAG. When. I sail up the harbour at New York twenty years ago and see
that Liberty shining in the sun, I think so, yes. But now I know, for
the workmens, she is like the Iron Woman of Nuremberg, with her spikes
when she holds you in her arms.
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