Light wines don't harm an awful lot of people, for the same reason that there ain't much pneumonia caused by people getting damp from using finger-bowls.
Light wines don't harm an awful lot of people, for the same reason that there ain't much pneumonia caused by people getting damp from using finger-bowls.
"Yes, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, the day after the prohibition amendment was adopted by the House of Representatives, "there's a lot of people going around taking credit for this here prohibition which in reality is living examples of the terrible effects not drinking schnapps has on the human race—suppose any one wanted to argue that way—whereas if you was to put the people wise which is actually responsible for the country going dry, y'understand, they would be too indignant to call you a liar before they could hit you with anything that lay most handy behind the bar from an ice-pick to an empty bottle, understand me."
"I always had an idea myself that what was responsible for prohibition, Abe, was that the people is sore at booze," Morris Perlmutter retorted.
"Sure, I know," Abe said. "But the peoplewould be just so sore at candy if the fellers which runs candy-stores acted the way saloon-keepers does, which you take a feller like this here Huyler, or one of the Smiths in the cough-drop business, and we would say his name is Harris Fine, y'understand, and instead of attending to the store and poisining people mit candy, he goes to work to get up the Harris Fine Association and gives all the eighteen-dollar-a-week policemen in the neighborhood to understand that it's equivalent to ten dollars in their pockets if they wouldn't take it so particular when members of the Harris Fine Association commits a little thing like murder or something,verstehst du mich, why the people in the same block which wasn't members of the Harris Fine Association would begin to think that candy was getting to have a bad influence on the neighborhood, y'understand. Then if Harris Fine was to run for alderman and all the loafers of the eighth ward or whatever ward he was alderman of was to meet in the back room of his candy-store, Mawruss, the respectableLeutewhich couldn't go past Harris Fine's candy-store without hearing somebody talking rotten language would go home and say that it was a shame and a disgrace that the eighth ward should got to have candy-stores in it. Afterward when he has been an alderman for some time, Mawruss, and Harris Fine begins to make a fortune out of the garbage-removal contracts by not removing garbage, y'understand, and also as a side line to candy and ice-cream soda, does an elegant business in asphalt-paving whichcontains one-tenth of one per cent. asphalt, y'understand, the bad reputation which candy has got it in the eighth ward is going to spread throughout the city, Mawruss, and finally, when the candy feller starts in to make contracts for state roads, candy gets a black eye in the state also, and it's only a question of time before the candy-dealer would go to Washington and put over a rotten deal on the national government, understand me, and then people like you and me which never touches so much as a little piece of peanut-brittle, Mawruss, starts right in and hollers for the national prohibition of all kinds of candy from gum-drops to mixed chocolates and bum-bums at a dollar and a half a pound."
"You may be right, Abe," Morris said, "but when it comes right down to Bright's disease and charoses of the liver, y'understand, politics 'ain't got nothing to do with it, because it doesn't make no difference to whisky whether a feller voted for WilsonoderHughes. It would just as lieve ruin the health and prospects of a Republican as a Democrat."
"Whisky might," Abe admitted, "but how about beer and light wines, Mawruss, which you know as well as I do, Mawruss, a loafer must got to drink an awful lot of beer before he gets drunk."
"Well, that's what makes the brewery business good, Abe," Morris said.
"But don't you think in a great number of cases, Mawruss, beer is drunk to squench thirst?" Abe asked.
"That's the way it's drunk in a great number of cases—twenty-four bottles to the case," Morris said; "but if the same people was to drink water the way they drink beer, Abe, instead of thirst you would think it was goldfish that troubled them, which I can get as thirsty as the next one, Abe, but I can usually manage to squench it without making an aquarium out of myself exactly."
"Aberwhat about light wines?" Abe inquired. "They don't harm an awful lot of people, Mawruss."
"They don't harm an awful lot of people for the same reason that there ain't much pneumonia caused by people getting damp from using finger-bowls, Abe," Morris said, "because so far as I could see the American people feels the same way about light wines as they do about finger-bowls. They could use 'em and they could let 'em alone, and they feel a whole lot more comfortable when they're letting 'em alone than when they're using 'em."
"Well, I'll tell you, Mawruss," Abe said, "I think a great many people which is prejudiced against light wines on account of heartburn is laying it to the wine instead of the seventy-five-cent Italian table-d'hôte dinner which goes with it."
"Yes, and it's just as likely to be the cocktail which went before it as the glass of brandy which came after it, and that's the trouble with beer and light wine, Abe," Morris declared. "They usually ain't the only numbers on the program,and the feller which starts in on beer and light wines, Abe, soon gets such a big repertoire of drinks that he's performing on the bottle day and night, y'understand, which saloon-keepers knows better than anybody else, Abe, because if you would ask a saloon-keeperodera bartender to have something, y'understand, it's a hundred-to-one proposition that he takes a cigar and not a glass beer."
"Sure, I know," Abe agreed. "But once a bartender draws a glass beer, before he could use it again, he's got to mark off so much for deteriorating that it's practically a total loss, whereas he could always put a cigar back in the case and sell it to somebody else for full price in the usual course of business."
"Well, that's what makes the saloon business a swindle and not a business, Abe," Morris said. "Just imagine, Abe, if you and me, as women's outer-garment manufacturers, was to lay in a line of ready-made men's overcoats in the expectation that after a customer has bought from us a big order he is going to blow me to a forty regular and you to a forty-four stout which we would put right back in stock as soon as his back is turned."
"But even if the liquor business would be a dirty business, Mawruss," Abe said, "you've got to consider that there's a whole lot of people which is making a living out of it, like bartenders and fellers working in distilleries, and if they get thrown out of work, y'understand, their wives and children is going to be just as hungry as ifthe fellers lost their jobs in a respectable business like pants or plumbers' supplies."
"Say," Morris exclaimed, "if you're going to have sympathy for people which would get thrown out of jobs by prohibition, Abe, don't use it all up on bartenders and fellers working in distilleries, because there's a whole lot of other crooks whose families are going to be short of spending-money when liquor-selling stops. Take them boys which is running poker-rooms, faro-games, and roulette-wheels, and alcohol is just as necessary to their operation as ether is to a stomach specialist's, because the human bank-roll is the same as the human appendix, Abe: the success of removing it entirely depends on the giving of the anesthetic. Then there is the lawyers—criminal, accident, and divorce—and it don't make no difference how their clients fell or what they fell from—positions in banks, moving street-cars, or as nice a little woman as any one could wish for, y'understand—schnapps done it, Abe, and when schnapps goes, Abe, the practice of them lawyers goes with it."
"Well, they still got their diplomas, Mawruss," Abe said. "And even though schnapps is prohibited, Mawruss, there will be enough people left with the real-estate habit to give them shysters a living, anyhow, but you take them fellers which has got millions of dollars invested in machinery for the manufacture of headache medicine, Mawruss, and before they will be able to figure out how they can use their plants for the manufacture of war supplies they're going to betheir own best customers, which little did them fellers think when they put on their bottles,
* * * KEEP IN A DRY PLACE WELL CORKED * * *
that people was going to take them so seriously as to put 'em right out of business, y'understand."
"But there's also a large number of people which is going to lose their jobs on account of this here prohibition, Abe, and if they get the sympathy of these American sitsons which is laying awake nights worrying about how the Czar is getting along, Abe, it would be big already. I am talking about the temperance lecturers," Morris declared, "which if it wouldn't be for them fellers pretty near convincing everybody that no one could be happy and sober at the same time, Abe, it's my idee that we would of had this here prohibitionsohonlong since ago already, because those temperance lecturers got their arguments against drinking schnapps so mixed up with Sunday baseball, playing billiards, and going to theayters, picture-galleries, and libraries on Sunday, Abe, that some people which visits New York from small towns in the Middle West still hesitates about going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for fear of getting a hobnailed liver or something."
"At that, Mawruss, this here prohibition is going to hurt some businesses like the jewelry business," Abe said, "which not counting the millions of carats that fellers has bought to square themselves for coming home at all hours of the night, y'understand, there's many a bar pin which would still be in stock if the customer hadn't nerved himself to buying it with a couple of cocktails, understand me. Automobiles is the same way, Mawruss, and if the engineering department of the big automobile concerns is now busy on the problem of making alcohol a substitute for gasolene, Mawruss, you can bet your life that the sales department is just as busy trying to find out something which will be a substitute for alcohol, because when a feller has made up his mind to buy a five-passenger touring-car, Mawruss, there ain't many automobile salesmen which could wish a seven-passenger limousine on him by working him with a couple of cups coffee, y'understand."
"Then there is the show business," Morris observed, "and while I don't mean to say that this here prohibition is going to have any effect on them miserable plays where the girl saves the family at eight-forty-five by marrying the millionaire and discovers at ten-forty-five that she loves him just as much as if he hadn't any rating, so that the show can get out at eleven-five, y'understand, but when enough states has adopted the prohibition amendment to pull it into effect, Abe, the Midnight Follies as a business proposition will be in a class with bar fixtures and mass-kerseno cherries."
"Well, so far as I'm concerned, any show that starts in at twelve o'clock would always have to get along withoutmytrade, prohibition or no prohibition," Abe commented, "even though Icould enjoy it on nothing stronger than malted milk."
"Which you couldn't," Morris added, "and there's why the Midnight Follies wouldn't last, because not only is this here prohibition going to kill schnapps, Abe, but it is also going to drive off the market for all articles the demand for which contains more than one per cent. alcohol."
"And believe me, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "no decent, respectable man is going to miss such articles, neither."
POTASH AND PERLMUTTER ON PEACE WITH VICTORY AND WITHOUT BROKERS, EITHER
"An offer is anyhow an offer, even if it is turned down, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, the day after Germany proposed terms of peace, "which that time I sold Harris Immerglick them lots in Brownsville, Mawruss, the first proposition he made me I pretty near threw him down the freight-elevator shaft, and when we finally closed the deal I couldn't tell exactly how much I made on them lots—figuring what I paid in taxes and assessments while I owned 'em, but it must have been, anyhow, five hundred dollars, Mawruss, from the way Immerglick gives me such a cutthroat looks whenever he sees me nowadays."
"Everybody ain't so easy as Harris Immerglick," Morris Perlmutter commented.
"Maybe not," Abe admitted. "But Harris Immerglick didn't want them lots not nearly as bad as the Kaiser wants peace, Mawruss, so while the parties to the proposed contract seems to be at present too wide apart to make a deal likely, Mawruss, at the same time I look to see the Kaiser offer a few concessions."
"Perhaps you're right, Abe," Morris said, "but while the Kaiser may have control of enough property so as to throw in a little here and a little there, y'understand, in the end it will be the boot money which will count, Abe, and before this deal is closed, Abe, you could bet your life that not only would the parties of the first part got to give up Belgium, Servia, Rumania, Poland, and Alsace-Lorraine, but they would also got to pay billions and billions of dollars in cash or certified check upon the delivery of the deed and passing of title under the said contract, and don't you forget it. So if some of them railroad presidents which is now drawing a hundred thousand a year salary, Abe, has got any hopes that President Wilson would hold up taking over the railroads pending negotiations for peace, y'understand, they must be blessed with sanguinary dispositions, Abe, because it's going to take a long time yet the Kaiser would concede enough to justify the Allies in so much as hesitating on even a single pair of soldiers' pants."
"Say, if anybody thinks the government would let go the railroads when we make peace with Germany, Mawruss, he don't know no more about railroads as he does about governments," Abe declared, "because this war which the government has got with the railroads, meat-packers, oil trusts, and coal-mine owners wouldn't end when we've licked Germany any more than it begun when Von Tirpitz started his submarine campaign. Yes, Mawruss, if we wouldn't leave offfighting Germany till it's agreed that no fellers like Von Tirpitz, Von Buelow, Von Bethmann-Hollweg, and all them other Vons can use German subjects and German property for their own personal purposes, why it's a hundred-to-one proposition that we ain't going to leave off fighting the railroads till it's agreed that them Von Tirpitzes, Von Buelows, and Von Hindenbergs of the American railroads couldn't use the transportation business of this country for stock-gambling purpose as though the railroads was gold and silver mining prospects somewhere out in Nevada and didn't have a thing to do with the food and coal supply of the nation."
"Wait a moment," Morris said, "and I'll ask Jake, the shipping-clerk, to bring you in a button-box. We 'ain't got no soap-boxes."
"That ain't no soap-box stuff, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "If the government should do the same thing to the meat-packers as they did to the railroads, Mawruss, the arguments of them soap-box orators wouldn't have a soap-box to stand on."
"Well, if the government thinks it is necessary in order to carry on the war, Abe," Morris said, "it will grab the meat business like it has taken over the railroads, but we've got enough to do to supply our soldiers with ammunition without we would spend any time stopping the ammunition of them soap-box fellers."
"Of course I may be wrong, Mawruss," Abe admitted, "but the way I look at it, the war ain'tan excuse for not cleaning up at home. On the contrary, Mawruss, I think it is an opportunity for cleaning up, and when I see in the papers where people writes to the editors that the prohibitionists, the women suffragists, and the union laborers should ought to be ashamed of themselves for putting up arguments when the country is so busy over the war, I couldn't help thinking that there must be people over in Germany which is writing to theTageszeitungand theFreie Pressethat the German Social Democrats and Liberals should ought to be ashamed of themselves for putting up arguments about the Kaiser giving them popular government when Germany is so busy over the war. In other words, it's a stand-off, Mawruss, with the exception that the Kaiser 'ain't made no speeches so far that Germany would never make peace with America till the millions of American women which 'ain't got the vote has some say as to how the war should be carried on and what the terms of peace should be."
"Do you mean to say that women not having the vote puts our government in the same class with Germany?" Morris demanded.
"I mean to say that the proposition of German men having the vote sounds just so foolish to the Kaiser as the proposition of American women having the vote does to this here Eli U. Root," Abe retorted, "and while there is only one Kaiser in Germany, Mawruss, we've got an awful lot of Roots in America, so until Congress gives women the vote, Mawruss, the Kaiser will continue tohave an elegant come-back at President Wilson for that proclamation of his."
"Well, I'll tell you, Abe," Morris said, "I read this here proclamation of Mr. Wilson's when it was published in the papers, and while I admit that it didn't leave so big an impression on me as if it would of been a murder or a divorce case, y'understand, yet as I recollect it, Abe, there was enough room in it, so that if the German terms of peace was sufficiently liberal, y'understand, the German popular government needn't got to be so awful popular but what it could get by, understand me."
"That's my idee, too," Abe declared, "and while I ain't so keen like this here Lord Handsdown or Landsdown, or whatever the feller's name is, that we should jump right in and ask the Kaiser if that's the best he could do and how long would he give us to think it over, y'understand, yet you've got to remember that we've all had experiences with fellers like Harris Immerglick, Mawruss, and if the Allies would go at this thing in a business-like way, y'understand, it might be a case of going ahead with our business, which is war, and at the same time keeping an eye on the brokers in the transaction."
"I don't want to wake you up when you've got such pleasant dreams, Abe," Morris interrupted, "but the Allies is going to need all the eyes they've got during the next year or so, and a few binoculars and periscopes wouldn't go so bad, neither."
"All right," Abe said, "then don't keep an eye on the brokers, but just the same we could affordto let the matter rest, because you know what brokers are, Mawruss: when it comes to putting through a swap, the principals could be a couple of hard-boiled eggs that would sooner make a present of their properties to the first-mortgagees than accept the original terms offered, y'understand, but the brokers never give up hope."
"What are you talking about—brokers?" Morris exclaimed. "There ain't no brokers in a peace transaction."
"Ain't there?" Abe retorted. "Well, if this here Czernin ain't the broker representing Austria and Germany, what is he? I can see the feller right now, the way he walks into Trotzky & Lenine's office with one of them real-estater smiles that looks as genwine as a twenty-dollar fur-lined overcoat.
"'Wie gehts, Mr. Trotzky!' he says, like it's some one he used to every afternoon drink coffee together ten years ago and has been wondering ever since what's become of him that he 'ain't seen him so long. Only in this case it happens to be Lenine he's talking to.
"'Mr. Trotzky ain't in. This is his partner, Mr. Lenine,' Lenine says.
"'Not Barnett Lenine used to was November & Lenine in the neckwear business?' Czernin says.
"'No,' Lenine says, and although Czernin tries to look like he expected as much, it kind of takes the zip out of him, anyhow.
"'Let's see,' he says, 'this must be Chatskel Lenine, married a daughter of old man Josephthaland has got a sister living in Toledo, Ohio, by the name Rifkin. The husband runs a clothing-store corner of Tenth and Main, ain't it?'
"This time he's got him cornered, and Lenine has to admit it, so Czernin shakes hands with him and gives him the I.O.M.A. grip, with just a suggestion of the Knights of Phthias and Free Sons of Courland.
"'My name is Czernin—Sig Czernin,' he says. 'I see you don't remember me. I met you at the house of a party by the name Linkheimer or Linkman, I forget which, but the brother, Harris Linkheimer—I remember now, itwasLinkheimer—went to the Saint Louis Exposition and was never heard of afterward.'
"'Mytzuris!' Lenine says, but this don't feaze Czernin.
"'You see,' he says, 'I never forget a face.'
"'And you 'ain't got such a bad memory for names, neither,' Lenine tells him.
"'That ain't neither here nor there,' Czernin says, 'because if your name would be O'Brien or something Swedish, even, I got here a proposition, Mr. Lenine, which it's a pleasure to me that I got the opportunity of offering it to you, and even if I do say so myself, y'understand, such a gilt-edged proposition like this here ain't in the market every day.'
"And that's the way Czernin sprung them peace propositions on Lenine & Trotzky, and it don't make no difference that in this particular instance it's practically a case of Lenine & Trotzky accepting whatever proposition the Kaiser wants to put to them, y'understand, when it comes to dickering with the Allies which can afford to act so independent to the Kaiser that if Czernin is lucky he won't get thrown down-stairs more than a couple of times, y'understand. He will come right back with the names and family histories of a few more common acquaintances and a couple of more concessions on the part of Germany, time after time, until it'll begin to look like peace is in sight."
"I wish you was right, Abe," Morris said, "but I think you will find that this here peace contract will be in charge of the diplomats and not the real-estaters."
"Well, what's the difference?" Abe asked.
"Probably there ain't any," Morris admitted, "because their methods is practically the same, which when countries goes to war on account of treaties they claim the other country broke, y'understand, it's usually just so much the fault of the diplomats which got 'em to sign the treaties originally, as when business men get into a lawsuit over a real-estate contract, it is the fault of the real-estate brokers in the transaction. So therefore, Abe, unless we want to make a peace treaty with Germany which would sooner or later end up in another war, y'understand, the best thing for America to do is to depend for peace not on brokersoderdiplomats, but on airyoplanes and guns with the right kind of soldiers to work 'em. Furthermore, after we've got the Germans back ofthe Rhine will be plenty of time to talk about entering into peace contracts with the Kaiser, because then there will be nothing left for theRosherto dicker about, and all we will have to do in the way of diplomacy will be to say, 'Sign here,' and he'll sign there."
POTASH AND PERLMUTTER ON KEEPING IT DARK
"I got a circular letter from this here Garfield where he says we should keep the temperature of our rooms down to sixty-eight degrees," Abe Potash remarked during the recent below-zero spell in New York.
"What do you mean—down to sixty-eight degrees?" Morris Perlmutter said. "If a feller which lives in a New York City apartment-house nowadays could get the temperature of his rooms as high as down to forty-eight degrees, y'understand, it's only because some of the tenants 'ain't come across with the janitor's present yet and he still has hopes. Yes, Abe, a circular like that might do some good in PasadenaoderPallum Beach, y'understand, but it's wasted here in New York."
"There's bound to be a whole lot of waste in them don't-waste-nothing circulars," Abe commented, "because plenty of people is getting letters from the Food Conservation Commission to go slow on sugar which 'ain't risked taking even a two-grain saccharin tablet in years already, andthe chances is that there has been tons and tons of circulars sent out to other people which on account of their liversoderreligions wouldn't on any account eat the articles of food which the circulars begs them on no account to eat, y'understand."
"And next year them circulars will be still less necessary because enough people is going to get rheumatism from living in cold rooms to cut down the consumption of red meats over fifty per cent.," Morris observed.
"Well, something has got to be done to make people go slow on using up coal, Mawruss," Abe said, "which the way it is now, Mawruss, twice as much coal is burned in one night to manufacture electricity for a sky sign saying that 'Toasted Sawdust Is the Perfect Breakfast Food' on account it is made only from the best grades of Tennessee yellow pine, y'understand, as would run an airyoplane-factory for a week, understand me, and children is fooling away their time in the streets because if coal is used to heat the school buildings, y'understand, there wouldn't be enough left for the really important things like lighting up the fronts of vaudeville theayters with the names of actors or telling lies about the mileage of automobile tires by means of a couple of million electric lights every night from sunset to sunrise, understand me."
"Still there's a good deal to be said on the other side, Abe," Morris retorted, "which if the new coal regulations is going to make an end of the skysigns, it will cut off practically all the reading that most New-Yorkers do outside of the newspapers, y'understand. Then again there's a whole lot of people aside from stockholders in electric-lighting companies which used to make a good living out of them sky signs. For instance, what's going to become of the fellers that manufactured them and the firm of certified public accountantsnebichwhich lost the job of adding up the figures on the meters, because while anySchlemielwith a good imagination would be trusted to read the ordinary meter, Abe, the job of figuring the damages on a sky sign which is eating up a couple of million kilowatt-years every twenty minutes is something else again."
"And yet, Mawruss, while I 'ain't got such a soft heart that I could even have sympathy for an electric-lighting company, understand me, still I am sorry to see them sky signs go," Abe said, "because lots of fellers from the small towns, members of rotary clubs and the like, used to get a great deal of pleasure from seeing a kitten made out of three hundred thousand electric bulbs playing with a spool of silk made out of five hundred and fifty thousand bulbs, and there was something very fascinating about watching that automobile tire which used to light up and go out every once in a while somewheres around the upper end of Times Square."
"Sure, I know," Morris said. "But if you was spending your good money for such an advertised tire, Abe, it wouldn't be very fascinating to watchit blow out every once in a while on account the manufacturer had to skimp the rubber in order to pay the electric-light bills, Abe, and if any of them members of rotary clubs is in the dry-goods business and has to pay fancy prices for spool silk, Abe, they areosergoing to thank the salesmen for the good time they put in while in New York rubbering at his firm's sky sign, because you know as well as I do, Abe, when it comes right down to it, nothing costs a customer so much as free entertainment."
"Of course, Mawruss," Abe said, "the idee of them electric sky signs is not to entertain, but to advertise, and as an advertising man told me the other day, Mawruss, the advertised article is just as low in price as the same article would be if unadvertised, the reason being that the advertised article's output is greater and that he wanted me to advertise in theDaily Cloak and Suit Record."
"Well, certainly, if the output is greater the cost of production is or should ought to be less," Morris observed, "so I think the feller was right at that, Abe."
"That's what I told him," Abe continued, "but I also said that if I would put for fifty cents a day an advertisement in the paper, y'understand, my partner would never let me hear the end of it."
"Isthatso!" Morris exclaimed. "Since when did I kick that we shouldn't do no advertising?"
"Never mind," Abe retorted. "I heard youspeak often about advertising the same like you done just now about sky signs, which it is already a back-number idee that advertising raised the price of goods to the customer and—"
"Listen!" Morris interrupted. "If I would got it such a back-number idees like you, Abe, I would put myself into a home for chronic Freemasons or something, which I always was in favor of advertising, except that I believe there is advertising andadvertising, Abe, and when an advertisement only makes you think of what it costs, instead of what it advertises, like sky signs, y'understand, to me it ain't an advertisement at all. It's just a warning."
"Did I say it wasn't?" Abe asked. "The way you talk, Mawruss, you would think I was in favor of electric signs, whereas I believe that in times like these a very little publicity goes an awful long ways, Mawruss, which if them Congressmen down in Washington was requested by the Coal Commission to keep it a trifle dark and not use up so much candle-power in advertising the mistakes that has been made by some fellers now working for the government which 'ain't had as much experience in covering up their tracks as, we would say, for example, a Congressman, Mawruss, that wouldn't do no harm, neither."
"It ain't a question of covering tracks, Abe," Morris declared, "because them business men which is now working for the government are perfectly honest, although they do make mistakes in their jobs and get rattled easy on the witness-stand, which if such fellerswasdishonest, Abe, even a Congressman would know enough not to advertise it."
"As a matter of fact, Mawruss," Abe declared, "them Congressmen ain't calculating to advertise anybody or anything but themselves. Yes, Mawruss, the way some United States Senators acts you would think they was trying to get a national reputation as first-class, cracker-jack, A-number-one police-court lawyers, and the expert manner in which they can confuse and worry a high-grade Diston who is sacrificing his time and money to help out the government and make him appear a crook, y'understand, must be a source of great satisfaction to the folks back home—in Germany.
"And it certainly ain't helping to win the war any, Mawruss, which most people would get the idee from reading the accounts of it in the newspapers that Mr. Hoover was tried by the United States Senate and found guilty of boosting the price of sugar in the first degree."
"Well, in that case, Abe," Morris suggested, "even if we are a little short of fuel it would of been better for the sugar situation, and maybe also the wool uniforms also, if, instead of getting publicity through investigations, y'understand, the United States Senate would fix up an electric sign for the front of the Capitol at Washington and make Senator Reed the top-liner in big letters like Eva Tanguay or Mr. Louis Mann, because here in America we've got incandescent bulbs to burn,Abe, but we have only one Hoover, and we should ought to take care of him."
"Understand me, Mawruss," Abe declared, emphatically, "it ain't that I object to a certain amount of light being thrown on the mistakes that is made in running the war, if it wasn't that they keep everything so dark about the progress that is also made—the submarines we are sinking, the number of soldiers we've got it in France, and what them boys is doing over there, and while I know there's good reasons for it, maybe it's like this here Broadway proposition—it pays to keep it dark, but it might pay better to keep it light, which I understand that all the lighting company saves in coal by cutting out the sky signs is less than thirty tons a night."
"Thirty tons a night would warm a whole lot of people, Abe," Morris said.
"Sure, I know," Abe agreed. "But even at ten dollars a ton, Mawruss, it would be only a saving of three hundred dollars, which I bet yer some restaurants on Broadway has lost that much money apiece since the lighting orders went into effect."
"That may be," Morris admitted, "but what the Coal Commission is trying to save ain't money, Abe. It's coal. And that is one of the points about this war that people 'ain't exactly realized yet. Money ain't what it once used to was before this war, Abe. You can still make it, lose it, spend it, and save it, but you couldn't sweeten your coffee with it or heat your house with it tillthere's sugar and coal enough to go around. Also it's only a question of time when money won't get you to Pallum Beach in the winter or Maine in the summer unless the government official in charge of the railroads thinks it is necessary, and also if this war only goes on long enough and wool gets any scarcer, Abe, money won't buy you a new pair of pants even until you can put up a good enough argument with it to convince a government pants inspector that it's a case of either buying a new pair of pants or a frock-coat to make the old ones decent, understand me."
"But the papers has said right straight along that money would win this war, Mawruss," Abe said.
"Yes, and it could lose it, too, according to the way it is spent," Morris continued, "and particularly right now when money can still buy things which the government needs for the soldiers, y'understand, money is a dangerous article in the hands of some people who think that the feller which don't feel the high price of sugar is more privileged to eat it than the feller which could barely afford it."
"Even so," Abe remarked, "it seems to me that not spending money must be an easy way to be patriotic."
"And some fellers is just natural-born patriots that way," Morris added, "and if they ain't, y'understand, the war is going to make them. It's going to give the rich man the same chance to be a good sitson as the poor man, and it's madea fine start by taking the lights off of Broadway so that you couldn't tell it from a respectable street, like Lexington Avenue."
"Couldn't a street be lighted up and still be respectable?" Abe asked.
"Yes, and a rich man could spend his money foolishly and also be respectable," Morris agreed, "but not in war-times."
POTASH AND PERLMUTTER ON THE PEACE PROGRAM, INCLUDING THE ADDED EXTRA FEATURE AND THE SUPPER TURN
"It seems that this here Luxberg, the German representative in Argentine which sent themspurlos versenktletters, has been crazy for years, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, one morning in January.
"Yes?" Morris Perlmutter said. "And when did they findthatout, Abe?"
"It's an old story, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Everybody knew it in Berlin, only they never happened to think of it until we discovered those letters in the private mail of the Swedish minister."
"And what do they lay the Swedish minister's behavior to, Abe?" Morris inquired. "Stomach trouble?"
"Thatthey didn't say," Abe continued. "But I guess they figure that Sweden should think up her own alibis."
"Well, it's a hopeful sign when the Germans realize that them Luxberg letters sound like the idees of a crazy man, Abe," Morris said, "althoughcompared to Zimmermann's break about handing Mexico a couple of our Southern states if she went to war with us, y'understand, Luxberg's letters ain't someshuggah, neither. So it seems to me, Abe, that Germany would be doing well to say that Luxberg was drunk when he wrote them letters, because later when it comes to explaining the hundreds of rotten acts that Germans has done in this war, Abe, Germany is going to have to think up a lot of excuses, and she may as well keep the insanity defense for somebody who would really need it, like the Kaiser."
"Don't worry about the Kaiser, Mawruss," Abe said. "For years already that feller has been getting up such strong evidence for an insanity defense, in the way of speeches to soldiers, y'understand, that he could feel absolutely safe in not only doing what hehasbeen doing, but also what Doctor Waite and Harry Thaw did, too, because all that the counsel for the defense would got to do is to read the Kaiser's remarks at Koenigsburg, for instance, and five minutes after the jury had returned a verdict without leaving their seats, y'understand, the Kaiser would be on his way up to the Matteawan Asylum for the Criminal Insane."
"There ain't much danger of that, anyway," Morris declared, "because I read them fourteen propositions of Mr. Wilson's peace program, and so far as any mention is made of punishing the guilty parties, Abe, you might suppose theLusitaniahad never been sunk at all, which it may be dumbness on my part, Abe, but the wayit looks to me is that if them fourteen propositions is fourteen net, and not ten, five, and two and one-half off for cash, understand me, we have got to give Germany such a big licking before she accepts them that we might just so well give her a bigger one and add propositions from fifteen to twenty inclusive, of which proposition sixteen would contain the same demands as proposition fifteen, except that the person upon whom the sentence was to be carried out would be the Crown Prince instead of the Kaiser, but no flowers in either case, understand me, and if twenty propositions wasn't enough to take care of all the responsible parties we could add as many more propositions as necessary."
jury"And five minutes after the jury had returned a verdict would be on his way up to the Matteawan Asylum for the Criminal Insane."
"And five minutes after the jury had returned a verdict would be on his way up to the Matteawan Asylum for the Criminal Insane."
"What you are trying to fix up, Mawruss, ain't a program, but a catalogue, Mawruss," Abe commented, "which if we want to get a performance of Mr. Wilson's program, y'understand, and they're going to have a lot of trouble putting that number over with a satisfactory sea, on account they would either have to paint a sea, dig a sea, or have some sort of a sea effect, because Poland is like Iowa, Mawruss—the only time you could get a glimpse of the sea there is when they run off one of them Annette Kellermann filums in a moving-picture theayter."
"That only goes to show what you know from Poland," Morris retorted, "because in seventeen ninety-three a lot of the sea-front of Prussia belonged to Poland."
"Yes, and in seventeen ninety-three a lot of thesea-front of Texas belonged to Mexico," Abe continued. "So I guess Mr. Wilson must have some sea in mind which ain't barred by the statute of limitations; but that ain't here nor there, because getting a sea to Poland ain't the biggest difficulty in carrying out the peace program. Take, for instance, number six on the program, which is a proposed turn or act by all the Allies, entitled, 'Welcoming Russia into the Society of Free Nations.' The directions is that the performers should give Russland all sorts of assistance of every kind that she may need, and also to behave kindly to her, y'understand, and no sooner does Mr. Wilson come out with this, so to speak sob scenario, understand me, than Trotzky & Lenine get right back at him with a counter-proposition, so I guess that the present number six will be taken out of the program, and another number substituted for it, like this:
VIExtra Added Feature, the Popular Russian Dramatic Starsin Rôles that Suit Them to PerfectionLeon Trotzky & Lenine BarneyIn 'Nix on the Bonds,' a Playlet with a Punch.Suspense, Surprise, Finish, and All the Fixings that Make aSnappy Dramatic Entertainment in Tabloid Form."
"The mistake that Mr. Wilson made in number six on the program was that he took it for granted when the Allies welcomed Russland into theSociety of Free Nations, Russia would behave like a new member should ought to behave, instead of which Russia started right in by giving a bad check for her initiation fees and first annual dues," Morris said. "She has also got out of the United States railroad supplies, munitions, and food, y'understand, and after giving bonds in payment, Abe, she turns right round and refuses to make good on 'em and at the same time practically says, 'What are you going to do about it?' and all this is right on top of Mr. Wilson saying, 'The treatment accorded to Russia by her sister nations,' y'understand, 'in the months to come,'verstehst du mich, 'will be the acid test of their good-will,' understand me, 'and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.'"
"Well, I'll tell you," Abe remarked, "the English which I learned it at night school, Mawruss, was more or less a popular-price line of language, and when Mr. Wilson comes across every once in a while with one of them exclusive models in the way of speeches, using principally high-grade words in imported designs, understand me, I ain't no more equipped to handle his stuff than a manufacturer of fly-papers is to make flying-machines,butas an ignorant business man, Mawruss, which you would be the last person to admit that I ain't, Mawruss, it seems to me that the acid test of our good-will is not going to be the way we treat Russland, but the way Russia treats us; and, in fact, Mawruss, Russia already poured a little acid on us long before this. But now when sherenigs on her bonds and practically gives us a whole bathful of acid, Mawruss, for my part the treatment needn't go on for months to come. I am satisfied with the acid test so far as it's gonethismonth, Mawruss, because it don't make no difference what kind of acid you use, Mawruss, a dead beat is a dead beat, understand me, and for a dead beat nobody has got any sympathy—either intelligent or unselfish, or unintelligent and selfish. Am I right or wrong, Mawruss?"
"I wouldn't worry my head over that if I was you, Abe," Morris said, "because, as you said just now, Russland will attend to that number on the program for herself. But what is troubling me is number one, which provides that peace shall be made openly, and at the same time does away with the possibility that some afternoon when you and me gets out of here, after making up our minds that the war would last for ten years yet, we would buy a Sporting Extra with Final Wall Street Complete, and see the whole front page filled up mit the word PEACE in letters a foot high, understand me, which it has always been in the back of my head that the next time Colonel House would slip off to Europe no one would know anything about till the treaty of peace comes back signed 'Woodrow Wilson, per E.M.H.' But if the first number on the program goes through as planned, Abe, and we have open covenants of peace openly arrived at, y'understand, why, then, that will be something else again."
"You bet your life it would be something else again," Abe agreed, fervently, "and what is more, Mawruss, not only would them covenants of peace be open, but they would remain open for a long time, because there's a whole lot of Senators, Congressmen, ex-Senators, ex-Congressmen, and ex-Presidents which is laying for the opportunity when peace is proposed, so that they can discuss the peace terms with one another, openly, frankly, and in the public view, as Mr. Wilson would say. Yes, Mawruss, there's several political orators in and out of Congress which has got the word 'traitor' in their system and has got to get it out again in reference to somebody—preferably a member of the Cabinet—before peace negotiations is closed, and there is also such indigestible words like 'pusillanimous,' which gives certain ex-Presidents a feeling of fullness around the throat, and a couple of Senators will need time to find out just what the other Senators wants to do about them peace terms so that they can differ with them; and looking at it one way and another, Mawruss, if Senator Wadsworth and Senator McKellar thinks it is taking a long time to get ready for war, they should wait till we get ready for peace, Mawruss, and if they don't want to be afterward holding investigations as to why the throat specialists wasn't mobilized on time, Mawruss, they should start right in and mobilize the throat specialists, and also it wouldn't do any harm to find out the available stock of cough-drops is in the hands of the dealers, so thatthe lung power of the nation can go forth to holler for peace equipped to the last menthol lozenge."
"In a way, that ain't no joke, neither, Abe," Morris said. "There is people that Mr. Wilson didn't include in his war program which is going to do their utmost to horn in on his peace program at the very best spot in the bill. Take Mr. Roosevelt, and his friends will no doubt insist that Mr. Wilson does a supper turn while Mr. Roosevelt goes on somewheres around nine forty-five, because to-day yet they're talking about making the Presidency of the United States a coalition affair, in which Wilson, Roosevelt, and Taft would be equal partners with the same drawing account and everything."
"And where does Mr. Wilson get off in this coalition business?" Abe inquired. "Ain't two undivided one-thirds of the Presidency of the United States for the unexpired portion of his term worth nothing to Mr. Wilson, even at short rates, Mawruss?"
"Well," Morris replied, "I suppose Roosevelt and Taft would throw in their experience as Presidents."
"Say!" Abe exclaimed. "There ain't a week goes by nowadays but what Mr. Wilson gets more experience as President than Taft and Roosevelt did in both their terms put together, so I don't think you need waste no more breath about it, Mawruss. When the people last time elected a President of the United States they chose Mr.Wilson as an individual, not as a co-partner, and you could take it from me, Mawruss, it don't make no difference whether it would be a peace program or a war program which Mr. Wilson is fixing up, the name of the chief performer on it was settled by the people a year ago last November!"
POTASH AND PERLMUTTER ON THE NEW NATIONAL HOLIDAYS
"Yes, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, after Mr. Garfield had announced the five-day shut-down, "one of the hardest things that a patriotic sitson is called on to do nowadays is to have faith in those fellers which is running the Fuel Commission, the Food Commission, and all the other commissions that they ain't such big fools as you would think for."
"Well, you don't think this here Garfield would close up the country for five days unless it would be necessary, ain't it?" Morris Perlmutter retorted.
"Certainly I don't," Abe agreed. "But what is troubling me is that he ain't said as yet for why it is necessary, Mawruss."
"Maybe he 'ain't figured it out yet," Morris suggested. "And even if he didn't, Abe, it stands to reason that if the country don't burn no coal for five days, at the end of five days they would still got the coal they didn't burn, provided they had got any coal at all to start with."
"But as I understand it, Mawruss," Abe said,"not burning coal 'ain't got nothing at all to do mit Mr. Garfield's order that we shouldn't burn no coal. It seems from what ex-President Taft says and also from what a professor by the name of JinksoderJenks says, Mawruss, Mr. Garfield done it because the people 'ain't begun to realize that we are at war, Mawruss."
"You mean to say thatagainthe people don't begin to realize we are at war?" Morris exclaimed. "It couldn't be possible, Abe. Here we have had two Liberty Loan campaigns, a military draft which took in every little cross-road village in the country, a war-tax bill that hits everybody and everything, and people like Mr. Taft and Professor Jinks saying day in and day out that the people 'ain't begun to realize we are at war, y'understand, and yet you try to tell me that the people has slipped right back into not beginning to realize we are at war, Abe."
"I don't try to tell you nothing," Abe said. "For my part I think it's time that somebody put them wise, Mawruss."
"What do you mean—put them wise?" Morris demanded. "The people knows that—"
"Who is saying anything about the people?" Abe interrupted. "I am talking about Mr. Taft and this here Professor Jinks, Mawruss. Them fellers has got ideas from spring and summer designs of nineteen seventeen. What we are looking for from the big men of the country is new ideas for the late summer of nineteen eighteen and fall and winter seasons of nineteen eighteen,nineteen nineteen, and this here people-'ain't-begun-to-realize talk was already a back-number line of conversation in June, nineteen seventeen."
"But what them fellers is driving into, Abe," Morris observed, "is that it's going to help the war along if the people of America should be made to suffer along with the people of France and England. They figure that it ain't going to do us Americans a bit of harm to know how them Frenchers feel,nebich, with the Germans holding on to their coal-supply, Abe."
"Well, we could get the same effect by going round in athaletic underwear and no overcoats, Mawruss," Abe retorted, "so if that's what Mr. Taft claims Mr. Garfield shut off the coal for, Mawruss, he is beating around the wrong bushes."
"And he ain't the only one, neither, Abe," Morris said. "From the way other people is talking, Abe, you would think that in order to get into this warright, y'understand, we should ought to go to work and blow up a few dozen American cathedrals, send up airyoplanes over New York, and drop a couple gross bombs on the business section of the town, poison the water-supply, cut off the milk for the babies, and do everything else that them miserable Germans did to France and England, not to say also Russia, y'understand. This will cause us to become so sore, understand me, that everybody of fighting age will want to fight, and the rest of us will be willing to work in the munition-factories and spend all our time and money to end a war where American cathedralsis being blown up, airyoplanes is bombing New York, and babies is suffering for want of milk, Abe."
"You mean that Professor Jinks is willing to have us believe that Mr. Garfield is shutting off the coal, not because it's necessary, but because it's the equivalence of us bombing our own cities and making ourselves feel sore?" Abe asked. "Mr. Garfield?"
"Ordinary people which ain't professors and ex-Presidents might figure that way," Morris continued, "but it seems that the theory is we are going to feel sore at Germany, Abe."
"Well," Abe commented, "I am perfectly willing to feel sore at Germany for the things she has done in this war, Mawruss, and I am so sore at Germany, anyway, that I am also willing to feel sore at her for the things which she 'ain't done also, Mawruss, but so far as Mr. Garfield is concerned, y'understand, I prefer to think that he's a hard-working feller which could once in a while make a mistake, understand me, and that if he cuts off the coal, it's on account he thinks it's necessary to save the coal. Because if I thought the way Professor Jinks thinks, Mawruss, and I should meet Mr. Garfield face to face somewheres, understand me, the least they could send me up for would be using rotten language tending to cause a breach of the peace, y'understand."
"Sure I know, Abe," Morris agreed. "But the chances is that Mr. Taft and Professor Jinks may have a private idee that when Mr. Garfield shutdown on the coal he could of saved coal in some other way, and so in order that he shouldn't get stumped for explanations afterward, y'understand, they are taking this way of giving him what they think is a good pointer in that line, understand me, because if you read the papers this morning, Abe, there must be thousands of prominent sitsons which claims to be patriotic, y'understand, and from what them fellers said about Mr. Garfield, Abe, it was plain to me that the stuff they was holding back from saying about him was pretty near giving them apoplexy, y'understand."
"Well, when it comes to cussing out the Fuel Administrator, Mawruss," Abe said, "them prominent sitsons wouldn't have nothing on the unprominent sitsons which is going to lose five days' pay now and one day's pay a week for ten weeks later. Yes, Mawruss, what them poor people is going to call Mr. Garfield during the five days they will lay off is going to pretty near warm up their cold homes even if it ain't going to provide food for their families, Mawruss. Furthermore, Mawruss, five continuous days is going to give them an opportunity to do a lot more real, hard thinking than they could do if they would have, we would say, for example, only one hour a day lay-off every other day over a period of a hundred days, Mawruss, and if at the end of them five days, Mawruss, they are going to take as much interest in the problems of this war as they are in the problem of how they are going to catch up with what they owe for five days' food and rent,Mawruss, I miss my guess, because Mr. Taft and Professor Jinks may think that them fellers is going to spend their five days' lockout in looking up war maps and sticking little colored flags in the positions now held by the French and German troops or in reading up the life of General Pershing andMy Three Years in Germanyby Ambassador Gerard, Mawruss,but I don't."
"And yet, Abe, admitting all you say is true, y'understand, what reason do you got for supposing that before Mr. Garfield shut off the coal he didn't also consider all these things, when they even occurred to a feller like you?" Morris asked.
"What do you mean—a feller like me?" Abe demanded. "Thousands of people the country over is saying the selfsame thing."
"I know they are," Morris said. "And why you and they should think that what occurred to thousands of people the country over shouldn't also occur to Mr. Garfield, Abe, is beyond me. Now I don't know no more about this coal proposition than you do, Abe, but I am willing to take a chance that when a big man like Garfield, backed up by President Wilson, does a crazy thing like this, y'understand, he must have had an awful good reason for it, no matter how good the reasons were against it."
"Did I say he didn't?" Abe said.
"Then why knock the feller?" Morris asked.
"Say, looky here, Mawruss," Abe retorted, "are we living in Germany or America? An idee! On twenty-four hours' notice the governmentshuts off the coal-supply of the country and you expect that all that the people would say is, 'Omane! Solo!' ('Amen! Selah!')."
"Well, that's the way a government does business—on short notice, Abe, which if Mr. Garfield would be one of them take-it-on-the-other-hand fellers who considers the matter from every angle before he decides, y'understand, while he would have still got a couple of thousand angles to consider the matter from, Abe, the country would have been tied up into such knots over the coal-and-freight situation that it would have required not five days, but five hundred days, to untangle it, y'understand," Morris said.
"But it seems to me, Mawruss, that Mr. Garfield could have spent, say, twenty-five minutes longer on that order of his, so that a manufacturer could tell from reading it over a few dozen times, with the assistance of a first-class, cracker-jack, A-number-one criminal lawyer, just what it was he couldn't do without making himself liable to a fine of five thousand dollars and one year imprisonment, y'understand," Abe said. "In fact, Mawruss, if the average manufacturer is going to try to understand that order before he does anything about it he'll have to shut down for five days while he is working to puzzle it out, and then he will keep his place closed down for five days longer while he is resting up from brain fag, understand me. Take, for instance, a department store which sells liquors and groceries, has a doctor in charge of the rest-room, and runs a publiclunch-room in the basement, y'understand, and if the proprietor decided to make a test case of it by hiring John B. Stanchfield and keeping open on Monday, Mawruss, once Mr. Garfield got on the witness-stand and started to explain just what the exemptions exempted, y'understand, it would be years and years before he ever had a chance to see the old college again."
"But Mr. Garfield wrote that order to save coal, not arguments, Abe," Morris said. "He expected that the business men of the country would do the sensible thing next Monday by staying home and playing pinochle or poker, and those fellers which don't know enough about cards to evenkibbitzethe game, y'understand, could go into another room and start in on their income-tax blanks, which, when it comes to figuring out what is capital and what is income in the excess-profits returns, Abe, there is many a business man which would not only put in all his Mondays between now and the first of March trying to straighten it out, y'understand, but would also be asking for further extensions of time to finish it up along about the fifteenth of April."
"And that's the way it goes, Mawruss," Abe commented, with a sigh. "It use to was in the old days that all a feller had to know to go into the clothing business was clothing, y'understand, but nowadays a manufacturer of clothing or any other merchandise must also got to be a certified public accountant, an expert of high-grade words from the English language, a liar, a detective, andshould also be able to take the stand on his own behalf in such a level-head way that the assistant district attorney couldn't get him rattled on cross-examination."
"Well, my advice to these test-case fellers, Abe," Morris concluded, "is this: Be patriotic now. Don't wait till you're indicted."
MR. WILSON: THAT'S ALL