TUMULTY (struggling in the narrow path between wrong and right). But what else, Governor, is your remedy? We had to go to war; we were left with no choice in the matter.
EX-PRES. No, we had no choice. And what others had any choice?— what people, I mean? But that is what everyone—once we were at war— refused to remember. And so we cried "Lusitania!" against thousands of men who had no choice in the matter at all. Remedy? There's only one. Somehow we must get men to believe that Christ wasn't a mad idealist when He preached His Sermon on the Mount; that what He showed for the world's salvation then was not a sign only, but the very Instrument itself. We've got to make men see that there's something in human nature waiting to respond to a new law. There are two things breeding in the world—love and hatred; breeding the one against the other. And there's fear making hatred breed fast, and there's fear making love breed slow. Even as things now are, it has managed—it has just managed to keep pace; but only just. If men were not afraid—Love would win.
That, I've come to see, is the simple remedy; but it's going to be the hardest thing to teach—because all the world is so much afraid.
(And then, the worn, haggard man, having thus talked himself out, there enters by the benign intervention of Providence a Gracious Presence, more confident than he in her own ruling power. She moves quietly toward them, and her voice, when she speaks, is corrective of a situation she does not approve!)
THE PRESENCE. Mr. Tumulty … my dear.
(Resting her hands on the back of the Ex-President's chair, she surveys them benevolently but critically. Then her attention is directed to the covered cup standing on its tray!)
Have you taken your——
EX-PRES. My medicine? Yes. Your orders came through, and have been obeyed.
THE PRESENCE. It wasn't medicine. I made it myself.
EX-PRES. Then I beg its pardon—and yours.