“Social Freedom”
The Chronicler
The nation being established conceives the empire. The race, born of the romance of empire and nourished upon the adventure of freedom, turns to the wilderness.
The Choir
Pioneers! O Pioneers!
The Chronicler
Beyond these eastern mountains, the adventure of freedom is resumed, and the romance of empire lives anew!
The Choir
Pioneers! O Pioneers!
[Freedom turns at the shout and the music begins a soft, wild march theme. Suddenly possessed again, Freedom evokes the Western migration. As she begins to speak the first of it begins: a few timorous stragglers who appear from the trees at the left of the stage and peer up at her. Her gestures sweep them across the scene and they come, stopping here and there to build their camp fires. At the end of her harangue, five or six groups have spaced themselves along the line of the forestage, and from each group and its camp fire rises a thin column of smoke so that the varied and splendid processional of adventure which is to come will be seen behind this delicate colonnade.]