You people!
Stand up for your rights!
To hell with your duties!
Do you want Freedom?
Well, then, organize!
Wealth is labor!
Property is labor!
Capital is labor!
Organize!
[Whereupon a third cone shoots up at Freedom’s very feet, a cone all of black with senatorial hats topping the masked faces.]
The Third Cone
You people!
Forget about freedom!
Government’s government.
Republican. Democrat.
Right or wrong,
My country still!
The Constitution,
Wonderful instrument!
Land of the Free
And the home of the Brave!
Politics. Politics.
Don’t forget Washington,
Lincoln or Hamilton.
What did they tell you?
Worship the government.
[The three cones disappear as magically as they appeared and, in their place about Freedom’s feet, is a fan of scarlet figures.]
The Fan
You masses! You masses! You masses!
Do you know your power?
Do you know your meaning?
Do you know what you can do?
We’re Freedom.
We’re Russia!
We’re God!
Awake masses!
You are the state!
You are the world!
You are the universe!
Take what is yours.
[All this while the people, to swifter and swifter music, always more and more macabre and dissonant, have moved ever and ever more swiftly. Now the music comes back to a horrible parody of “I’ve been working on the Railroad” and the movement takes shape in designs and formal groups, large and small. And the men who made up three cones and the fan surge over the stair and drag Freedom down so that she is lost in the whirling mob. And the light, broken and colorful, dies to gloom and the movement is a movement of patterns and the music drowns all, singing and instrumental. Then, just at the front of the stage, just above the throne of the Chronicler, a single ray of white light breaks upon Freedom again and, along the upper level, the light once more lifts, and as Freedom begins to speak, it seems to be daybreak.]
Freedom
Lost! Lost! Lost!