Then one day we will stop giving you men. Look at mother. Four sons torn from her in one month, and none of you ever asked her if she wanted war. You keep us here helpless. We don't want dreadnoughts and armies and fighting, we women. You tear our husbands, our sons, from us,—you never ask us to help you find a better way,—and haven't we anything to say?
Hertz:
No. War is man's business.
Hedwig:
Who gives you the men? We women. We bear and rear and agonize. Well, if we are fit for that, we are fit to have a voice in the fate of the men we bear. If we can bring forth the men for the nation, we can sit with you in your councils and shape the destiny of the nation, and say whether it is to war or peace we give the sons we bear.
Hertz: [Chuckling.]
Sit in the councils? That would be a joke. I see. Mother, she's a little—[Touches his forehead suggestively.] Sit in the councils with the men and shape the destiny of the nation! Ha! ha!
Hedwig:
Laugh, Herr Captain, but the day will come; and then there will be no more war. No, you will not always keep us here, dumb, silent drudges. We will find a way.
Hertz: [Turning to the mother.]