Miner's Chant/Graduation Day

I'll email the organized document with color-coding and appropriate columns to you as well, but here is the txt version of the script.


The Miner’s Chant

(4 miners are spread throughout the area, high and low on both walls. Scene begins in blackout, then one light is turned on for each stanza read)

I. Trapper/Ventilation Boy
Away down in that hole,
With a light we only see
Dampness with coal and slate,
Its fall may be my fate.

II. Nipper/Errand Boy
Away down in that hole,
Day by day we dig and slave,
Our strength and body and our heart
Must be strong and must be brave.

III. Spragger/Wood Framing
Away down in that hole,
Dark, oh dark as it can be.
We pound and pound and dig
With all our strength and might.

IV. A Hewer/Digger
Away down in that hole,
Our companion is the mule,
The poor beast stays in
there all his life,
He’s one of our only tools.

(a clamor of noise across from I.)

I. Trapper/Ventilation Boy
Away down in that hole,
A slide and then a groan,
One more life I’ve been told,
I heard that miner moan.

II. Nipper/Errand Boy
Away down in that hole,
We take our buddy home,
The voice of his crying wife,
My God, another life.

III. Spragger/Wood Framing
Away down in that hole,
Oh God, pity another soul,
We buried him on the hill.
Farewell, his voice is still.

IV. A Hewer/Digger
We tramp back home alone,
To comfort wife and family,
Our hearts are sad with grief to bear,
We’re the only ones to care.

Graduation Day

John D. Rockefeller Jr. –

There are certain things even in this machine age, which mass production and standardization are the watchwords, so important that they demand personal attention and must be carried upon the shoulders of those to whom they are entrusted.

The business of being a father is surely one of these things. Many try to transfer it to men like those on my right, (motions to miner below)

But even they cannot relieve us of this responsibility and privilege. Just as the child instinctively looks to his father for food, so he turns first to him for companionship.

If, on the other hand, they find us so much occupied with our business or our pleasure that we have no time for them and their interests, their youthful longing for the companionship of their fathers is quickly chilled and their affection and confidence promptly transferred to less worthy companions.


end another day, IV. Hewer/Digger returns to his company home

IV. – Hey hun
E – My god Richard, it’s past 9 already
IV. – I know, I know
E – I just don’t understand how they
can get away with these kinds of…
IV. – Yeah. I know.
E – But how can they expect you to…

IV. – Jesus Mary, I know! I get it! And there’s nothing I can do about it. We just got here for Christ sakes; I’m not gonna ruffle some feathers and get canned. We’d be worse off than we already are!

E – But you’re never here! You leave before dawn, and return long after your son has gone to bed.
IV. - And you think I want it that way?
(turns away)

E – You said this would be a great opportunity, you said that they needed workers real bad, but that’s all you do now, is work sun up to sun down.

(pause)
E – He took his first steps today.

(pause)
IV. – I gotta get some sleep. It’s gonna be a long day tomorrow.
John D. Rockefeller Jr. –

When this Government places in the cabinet men like Commissioner of Labor Wilson, who was for many years Secretary of the United Mine Workers of America, which has been one of the unions that permitted more disorder and bloodshed than any class of labor organizations in this country, we are not skating on thin ice,

we are on top of a volcano.

(clang beat begins and lasts for 1 minute as a freestyle buildup)

(1 beat)

(2 beats)

(3 beats)

(…)

(8 beats)

IV. – STRIKE!

(all beats stop)

I.
Armed miners reported rushing in to exterminate the guardsmen

II.
Fighting rages 14 hours and hills are swept by machine guns

III.
Tent colony burned


→


Western News Report

Denver, April 24 –
Thirteen dead, scores injured, the Ludlow strikers tent colony burned and hundreds of women and children homeless, was the result up to midnight was one of the bloodiest battles in labor warfare ever waged in the west.

Four hundred striking miners were entrenched in the hills of Ludlow this morning awaiting daylight to wipe out 177 members of the State National Guard with whom they fought for 14 hours yesterday.

The known dead are Private A. Martin of Company A, and Louis Tikas, leader of the strikers at Ludlow.

More information soon to follow.