LETTER VII
IN WHICH I AM PAID COMPLIMENTS
Dear Mom:
You should of been in the Elite Beauty Parlors this a. m. to see what happened when I walked in with my new costume. I have got to wear it to work you see because I never know when Mr. Edgerton will give me a ring on the phone. You would of thought the girls had never seen no real swell clothes in their lives before they just let out one yell, and then of course they wanted the whole story when and where and how and especially how much. And when I wouldnt tell them I was a cat and Hattie Schoenstein—she has had a mad on me ever since I told her that the French way of her name would be Hotaire—well she says, “How much did you pay the gentleman for that?”
I says, “I paid him some valuable ideas,” and of course they all thought that was the funniest joke they ever heard for how could the poor sillies imagine that I was being consulted about what the greatest Man in the whole world was to say twiced a week to the newspaper reporters of the whole world? If I had of told them that they would of busted with laughing.
But say Mom it is sure wonderful to be dressed right up to the minute you may say what you please but there aint any feeling like it. Already today three gentlemen have asked me will I go out to dinner with them and I have had to tell them that I have a steady which is the easiest way of getting out of it as I have to be here whenever Mr. Edgerton needs me.
Well I have got the afternoon paper, and I see the Spokesman has not said what I advised Him to say about the Reds. What He did say was so much wiser I could never of thought of it myself and it made me have a great reverence for Him. He says that the Roossians should be allowed to buyour tractors because we have got to preserve freedom of trade because that is the great principle upon which American prosperity is based. And of course I can see that for if I had of went into that Bon Ton Store with Mr. Edgerton and the clerk had of told me that they wouldnt sell me no suit because maybe they didnt like the looks of me or something why where would I of been then? And so the Spokesman said we would not stop the people that come over here from Roossia to buy things but only them that had come to teach us ideas that was dangerous.
I will tell you something funny that will show you what a wonderful thing it is that the Spokesman is doing in educating all the people in ideas that is safe. I got some of the girls to talking about international affairs this morning because you see I want to find out what it is that the plain people think so that I can tell Mr. Edgerton and he can tell the Spokesman. I asked them about this business about letting the Roossians come over here to buy things and they all got mad and they says no we don’t want none of them dirty Bolshivikis over here they has went and nationalized all the women in Roossia and we dont want none of that in America.
“Then you dont believe in freedom of trade?” I says and Florabelle McGinnis she flares up, “I believe in every girl having a right to choose her own feller,” she says, “and if that aint freedom of trade then what is?”
Well when I come home from lunch I had the paper with that interview that the Spokesman had give and I hands it to Florabelle and I says, “See here, the Spokesman has been talking about what you said.” And so she read it and a little later I hears her talking with Ada Huggins and she says, “Well if them Roossians has got the money and its good money why let them come in I say and buy what they want because after all freedom of trade is the great principle upon which American prosperity is based.” Just like that she said it Mom as if it was her own idea but she had just took it up because she seen it in the paper the poor silly. But you can see how very important it is that I should study these questions and get them right so that I can know what to tell Mr. Edgerton to tell the Spokesman to tell the Floradumbelles.
Another idea was in that interview and a very important and wise idea as I can see. The Spokesman says there is another great principle upon which American prosperity is based and that is freedom of opinion; everybody has got theright to say what they think and so we will have a chance to find out what ideas is the best. I read that to some of the girls so as to see what they would say and Hotaire—she is always looking to say something different from me, so as to put me into a hole—she says, “Well, if he thinks that, why is he scared to let them Roossians come in and say their ideas?”
And did you ever hear anything so silly as that letting them Bolshivikis come in and shoot off their faces! “Well but why not?” she says persistent like.
I says, “Why you poor simp dont you know them fellers brings in a lot of money to try to tear down our government?”
“Well,” she says, “and can they do it?”
And I says, “No of course they cant do it.”
And then says she, “Then why do we have to be so scared of them?”
“Scared?” I says. “Who’s talking about being scared?”
“Well then,” she keeps on, “why not let them shoot their faces off?”
“But you simp,” I says, “them fellers would come in here and buy printing presses and stir up our foreign labor.”
And she says, “Well if their money is good to buy tractors why shouldnt it be good to buy presses?”
And so I gets hot under the collar and I says, “You talk like you was one of them Bolshivikis yourself,” I says, “and you had ought to be shut up and not allowed to talk no such rotten ideas.”
“Oh so that’s all you believe in free speech!” she says.
And just then the Madame comes along and she sees we are having a row and she gives a “Shush!” and looks a few daggers at us as she goes to welcome a customer. And that is the way it goes with we girls we are just supposed to sit here and shine people’s fingers and never open our mouths at all. We have got no more rights than if we was so many polishing machines and I tell you Mom I sometimes think it is more than I can stand. Some day when the Madame gets off one of her shushes at me I’m going to bust loose and tell her what I think of her and her ideas that she can dictate to free Americans the way we talk and the way we dress and the way we do our hair.
If that ever happens I’m telling you that Lafferty lady will get the jolt of her sweet life because I have been talking to the other girls and they all feel like I do and I’ll betif I was to give a little time to it I could get them all to stand together and win some rights for ourselves. Gee Mom if I could only get a few dollars ahead some time so that I could have a little nerve! But it’s the same with all of we girls our last nickle is gone before the end of the week. We had ought to have somebody to stake us so that we could afford to strike and not be starved into giving up! But of course there aint anybody interested in helping poor working girls to get their rights.
P. S. Well I have just come back from having dinner with Mr. Edgerton. We went to a pretty swell place because he says I am looking so nice now that no other sort of place would do for me. And he says I dont never need to worry about what it costs because my ideas is worth it to him he has never saw the Spokesman so pleased as with the ideas I have give to Him lately; he says the Spokesman almost smiled He was so pleased and once He made a remark that He didnt have to make and that is something that does not happen once in a month.
Of course I wanted to know so I says, “What was the remark?”
And he says, “Why, he says, ‘I went to church yesterday.’” And Mr. Edgerton of course wanted to be polite so he says, “Who preached?” And the Spokesman says, “Dr. Wringum.” And Mr. Edgerton says, “Was it a good sermon?” And the Spokesman says, “Yes.” And Mr. Edgerton says, “What did he preach about?” And the Spokesman says, “Sin.” And Mr. Edgerton says, “What did he say about it?” And the Spokesman says, “He didnt approve of it.” And Mr. Edgerton says to me, “That was the end of the conversation.”
Mr. Edgerton laughed like he thought there was something funny about that but I didnt see nothing funny and I says, “Well, but that is right ain’t it? You wouldnt of expected a preacher would of approved of sin?”
And then Mr. Edgerton looks at me like he was studying my face and he says, “It is wonderful how exactly your mind is like the Spokesman’s.” And of course that was a tremendous compliment and I felt all flustered and says, “Just how is that?” and he says, “You have a serious mind,” he says. “You have never wasted your time on foolishness.”
“No,” I says, “that aint quite so but when it comes to serious things like teaching the whole American peopleabout sin,” I says, “nobody would want to make a joke about that.”
And he says, “There is some evil people that might, but you wouldn’t, and that is why you understand the mind of the Spokesman and He almost always likes your ideas when I tell them to Him.” So Mom you can imagine how near to Heaven I felt.
Well then we talked about what the Spokesman had said about freedom of trade and of speech and Mr. Edgerton says that one of them Bolshiviki fellers has just sent the Spokesman a telegram saying that since He has come to believe in free speech wont He please let out some of the fellers that is in jail for practicing it. So there it is you see just like I said to Hotaire, how dangerous them fellers is. I says something that Pop had wrote me, “Liberty dont mean license.” But Mr. Edgerton says that is an old one too it seems that all Pop’s ideas is old.
So I says right out of my own ideas I says, “Well I’ll say this that if a government aint got the right to protect itself, then what is it for?” And Mr. Edgerton went up into the air again and he says that is one of the proofs that I have got a mind just like the Spokesman, I would sure see that in His answer to the Bolshiviki feller only of course He wont answer the feller.
Well there we was chatting away as happy as you please and having such a good dinner too when all of a sudden I notices there is a feller sitting at the next table all by himself and he dont seem to have a thing to do but listen to what we are saying. I gets him out of the corner of my eye and then I writes a note on the menu and shoves it over to Mr. Edgerton, “We are being listened to.” So then he begins to talk about the unusual severe winter we have been having and by and by he gets a chance to look at the other feller who is attending to what is in his own plate real hard. And after that we dont talk no more international affairs.
Well when we get up to go we have hardly got out of the door before I see the other feller getting up and when we are walking down the street there he is following us. So we stop to look in a shop-window and I see him stop too and I says to Mr. Edgerton, “We are being shadowed. I must get on a street-car right quick and you get on another going the other way and we will see what happens.”
So we shook hands and I run and caught a car going my way home and that is all I know about it for I didnt see the feller on my car. But oh Mom do you suppose that Mr.Edgerton’s wife can of heard how he is taking out a manicurist to dinner? Or do you suppose it can be some of them Bolshivikis that is trying to undermine the government by keeping me from helping the Spokesman keep close to the great heart of the plain people?
Your scared
Mame.