Freak Out Frisbee
Characters:
-Narrator: invisible observer.
-Susan B. Anthony: women’s rights lobbyist
-John D. Rockefeller: monopolizing millionaire.
-Eugene Debs: a Socialist/Organized labor activist.
-Woodrow Wilson: the President of the United States.
-Lincoln Steffens: a Progressivist
-Ida Tarbell: a muckraker journalist.
-Mitchell A. Palmer: Attorney General to President Wilson.
Two benches stand beneath several trees in a park across from the U.S. Capitol building, the sun is shining brightly in a cloudless sky. Woodrow Wilson sits on one of them, hunched behind his newspaper, occasionally fiddling with his glasses. Once in a while the rustling of a bush, or a distant shouting of voices will disturb him. He glares at the a headline, “Iraq War II: Not Really Over, by Ida Tarbell.”
Narrator: Irritated, our former President mutters about his days in office and shakes the newspaper, until he is rudely disturbed….
A Frisbee whizzes across the park, and happens to hit him in the head, hard.
Wilson: Ouch.
He looks around and sees two women running towards him, obviously the Frisbee’s possessors. The halt as they see who it is.
Narrator: It is Susan B. Anthony and Ida Tarbell.
Wilson: I believe this is yours, Anthony? Holds it up.
Anthony: Shakes her head dismissively. No thank you, I do not need handouts from the man who refused to amend the Constitution and give women the right to vote.
Wilson: shocked. But we did make an amendment-
Anthony: plugs ears. Arresting suffragist protesters in front of the White House, I was horrified.
Wilson: The nineteenth amendment in fact, now take the Frisbee.
Tarbell: It’s not as if he’s evil like Rockefeller-
Oil tycoon Rockefeller happens to walk by the scene and stops when he overhears the conversation.
Rockefeller: I resent that Ms. Tarbell, especially since you’re the one who wrote articles in Mc Clure’s Magazine and BOOKS about how “evil” my company is
Tarbell: Well it was a monopoly and unfair to its workers, Standard Oil-
They start incoherently yelling at one another, Susan B. Anthony still has her ears plugged.
Wilson: rolls his eyes and covers his ears. All I wanted was to read the paper.
Rockefeller: PROGRESSIVIST! MUCKRAKER!
Tarbell: INDUSTRIALIST! MONOPOLIZER!
Wilson: WILL SOMEONE PLEASE SHUT THEM UP?
Three men hear the racket from a block away, and rush to the scene. Two of them are Lincoln Steffens and Eugene Debs. They seem disappointed and watch the argument. The third man is Mitchell A. Palmer, Wilson’s Attorney General. He is aggrieved at seeing the situation the ex-President is in.
Palmer: pushes Tarbell and Rockefeller apart. Mr. President, are you all right?
Wilson: Not really, I think I almost had another stroke.
Debs: I suppose this isn’t some sort of labor protest?
Steffens: No, although there is enough political people here for me to be suspicious.
Debs: Especially with monopolizing owner of Standard Oil… eyes Rockefeller
Palmer: Well there’s enough communists around these here for me to be suspicious. Eyes Eugene Debs.
Debs: I am not a Communist, Mr. Palmer! I specifically refused to join the American Communist Party when they invited me to. I started the Socialist Party and other things like the American Railway Union and the International Workers of the World.
Palmer: Uh huh, I’ll be watching you Debs.
Steffens: Not so fast Mr. Attorney General. You did enough damage in 1919 by leading raids on leftist organizations, which only helped to spur American fear of Communists and the Red Scare.
Debs: And the International Workers of the World just “happened” to be one of them. Lincoln, perhaps you should write another book.
Steffens: I agree, the first one “The Shame of the Cities” helped to curb urban corruption. Maybe one about political stupidity and presidential aimers like Palmer here who wanted to run for President in 1920 can stop them.
Palmer: huffs Doubt it.
Wilson: Debs, don’t get Steffens started. You already gave me enough trouble by protesting American drafting for World War One. Why do you think you were in jail for three years?
Debs: I stand by what I did.
Palmer: Sorry Mr. President. Can we leave Mr. Wilson out of the picture? During his administration, they passed the sixteenth amendment giving Congress the power to impose an income tax, the seventeenth amendment that requires the direct election of Senators, the eighteenth amendment that banned the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, and the nineteenth amendment giving women the right to vote.
Anthony: Well it sure took long enough! Finally she grabs the Frisbee and stomps away.
Tarbell: Wait Susan! Hurries after her
Narrator: Rockefeller just notices Lincoln Steffens, and glares at him, recognizing who he is.
Rockefeller: Wait a minute; you’re a muckraker too!
Steffens: shifts his eyes nervously. He he, isn’t that so? I have to go now. Hurries after Tarbell.
Narrator: Palmer and Rockefeller now look at each other.
Rockefeller: I know you. You helped put down one of that scalawag labor activist Eugene Deb’s associations.
Debs: Uh hello, I’m right here.
Rockefeller: YOU! Workers should have no rights, monopolies should exist to control wages and have no competition.
Debs: Its people like you who had children getting their fingers cut off by machines during thirteen-hour workdays in the early 20th century.
Rockefeller: Why you-
Palmer: Communist!
Narrator: All three men suddenly run away, Eugene Debs is pursued by Mitchell Palmer and John D. Rockefeller. In the distance we hear, “ ‘There won’t be a President Harding to excuse you this time!”
Wilson: grumbles Especially if I have anything to say about it. Folds up newspaper agitatedly.I can’t read anymore.
Narrator: The former President adjusts his glasses, then walks away, leaving the bench behind where a very strange scene just took place.
