"Then all this strike is a matter of red badges without eagles and
everything else will go on as usual?"
"By no means. These men are striking against the descending authority
from the Royal House. They not only refuse to wear the eagle until their
grievance is adjusted but they will refuse to accept further education,
for that is a thing that descends from above. If you will go now to the
picture halls, where the other shift should be, you will find the halls
all empty. The men refuse to go to the moving pictures."
That night we "listened in." A bull-throated fellow, whom I learned was
the Talking Delegate, addressed the Emperor, and much to my surprise I
thought I heard the Emperor's own voice in reply, stating that he was
ready to hear their grievance.
Then the bull voice of the Talking Delegate gave the reason for the
strike: "The Director of the Works, speaking for your Majesty, has
granted us a part time vacation, and shortened our hours from six to
four. We thank you for this honour but we have decided we do not like
it. We do not know what to do during those extra two hours. We had our
games and amusements but we had our regular hours for them. If we play
longer we become tired of play. If we sleep longer we cannot sleep as
well. Moreover we are losing our appetite and some of us are afraid to
eat all our portions for fear we will become fat. So we have decided
that we do not like a four-hour day and we have therefore taken the
eagles off our flags and will refuse to replace them or to go to the
educational pictures until our hours are restored to the six-hour day
that we have always had."
And now the Emperor's voice replied that he would take the matter under
consideration and report his decision in three days and, that meanwhile
he knew he could trust them to conduct themselves as good socialists who
were on strike, and hence needed no king.
The next day the psychologist brought a representative of the
Information Staff to my office and together we wrote the reply that the
Emperor was to make. It would be necessary to concede them the full six
hours and introduce the system of complicating the labour operations to
make more work. Much chagrined, I gave in, and called in the motion
study engineers and set them to the task. Meanwhile the Royal Voice was
sent for and coached in the Emperor's reply to the striking workmen, and
a picture film of the Emperor, timed to fit the length of the speech,
was ordered from stock.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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