said. "You would think, to hear the way the newspapers talk about him,
that the very least he had done was to mix arsenic with the gum which
they put on the backs of stamps, whereas, so far as I could see, the
poor feller is only trying to do his duty and keep down the wages of
telephone operators, which I don't know how strong telephone operators
is with the rest of the country, but compared with the hit that they
make with me, Mawruss, Mr. Burleson would be a general favorite,
y'understand."
"He was already in bad before them telephone girls struck on him, Abe,"
Morris said, "and for the very reason, as you say, that he has always
done his duty as he seen it, which the trouble with them fellers that do
their duty as they see it is that nobody else could see it, Abe. It is
also the case that them people which do their duty as they see it
usually has rotten eyesight, Abe, and when it comes right down to it,
Abe, there is even some people which claims that Mr. Wilson should also
consult an oculist to find out if he don't need to have his glasses
changed. In fact, there's a couple of fellers by the name Orlando and
Sonnino which seems to think that Mr. Wilson is practically blind so far
as Fiume is concerned."
"You mean to say they 'ain't settled that Fiume thing yet, Mawruss?" Abe
asked.
"They did and they didn't," Morris said. "Mr. Wilson give out a long
statement about it in which he thought he settled it, Abe, and the
Italian peace delegates said they would go home and leave the Peace
Conference flat, y'understand, and thought they settled it, but the way
it looks now, Abe, if the Peace Conference stays in session till they do
settle it, when Mr. Wilson comes back and explains the Peace Treaty to
Congress, he will speak with such a strong French accent that only the
members from Louisiana will be able to understand a word he says."
"But why does Mr. Wilson say that Italy shouldn't have Fiume?" Abe
inquired.
"Because it doesn't square up with his fourteen points," Morris replied,
"and seemingly he don't want to stretch a point."
"Well, if he did, Mawruss, it wouldn't be the first time," Abe declared,
"because if you recollect them fourteen points, which is more than most
people could, Mawruss, point number one said that there should be open
covenants of peace openly arrived at, Mawruss, and also something about
such terms being discussed openly, frankly, and in the public view,
Mawruss, and the way Mr. Wilson has stretched that point, Mawruss, it'll
never look like the same point again."
"Say!" Morris interrupted. "As a keep-it-dark proposition, Abe, Mr.
Wilson 'ain't got nothing on this here Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and the
firm of Orlando & Sonnino, to say nothing of the Japanese delegates,
which I suppose you heard about them secret treaties, Abe."
"I never heard tell of them," Abe replied.
"Neither did Mr. Wilson until the other day, which the way it happened
was this," Morris continued: "Orlando & Sonnino was talking the whole
thing over in a friendly way with Lloyd George and Mr. Wilson, and Mr.
Wilson says that when it come right down to it Italy's claims to Trieste
wasn't what would be called in the language of diplomacy exactly kosher,
neither, and Sonnino says: 'Is that so? Well, how about our treaty?' And
although Orlando kicked his partner under the table and Lloyd George
give him one of them what-are-you-trying-to-do-spoil-everything looks,
Mr. Wilson caught on right away. 'What treaty?' he asked, and Lloyd
George says: 'Why, you know what treaty. I was sitting right here when
Clemenceau told you all about it,' and it appears that all the time Mr.
Wilson was kidding himself along that if he compromised by letting Italy
have Trieste, she would pass up Fiume, Abe, it seems she had a secret
agreement with France and England that she was to have Trieste, anyway."
"No wonder Mr. Wilson feels sore," Abe remarked.
"Wait, that ain't all," Morris said. "Now it appears that Japan has also
a secret treaty with France and England to get a slice of China which
formerly belonged to Germany, y'understand, and Mr. Wilson is beginning
to experience what it is like when you sit in a poker game all evening
and don't find out till the last round is on that everybody else around
the table is playing for the house."
"They could all be playing honest at that, Mawruss," Abe suggested.
"Sure they could, with the exception of having a couple of secret
treaties or so," Morris agreed, "but at the same time, Abe, I wouldn't
be a bit surprised if since the discovery of these here secret treaties,
Mr. Wilson has waked up more than once somewheres around three A.M. and
asked himself did he or did he not need a mandatory, y'understand, and
also wondered what the folks back home is thinking--particularly a few
Senators like Lodge and Johnson."
"I don't agree with you, Mawruss," Abe declared. "I think that Mr.
Wilson will get the better end of the deal, because from what has
happened in this war, Mawruss, diplomacy is one of them games where the
feller which don't know how to play it has got a big advantage over the
feller that does. So, therefore, while the old-time experienced
diplomatist is saying it never has been done that way and therefore
couldn't be done, Mawruss, a new beginner like Mr. Wilson has already
gone to work and done it, which I bet yer right now, Mawruss, that if
Mr. Wilson don't want Italy to have Fiume she won't get it, and the same
thing goes for Japan also, Mawruss--secret treaty or no secret treaty."
"Still, there's a whole lot of people in America which would like to see
Italy get Fiume, Abe," Morris said.
"There was a whole lot of people, Mawruss," Abe said, "but this
secret-treaty business has killed it, which if Italy wanted to be fair
about it, why didn't she come right out before the armistice even and
say, 'Look-a-here, we got a secret treaty and we may as well tell you so
right from the start'?"
"Then the secret treaty wouldn't been no more secret, Abe," Morris said.
"She would have been doing the manly thing, anyway," Abe said.
"I know she would," Morris admitted, "but that's the difference between
the old-fashioned Italian diplomacy and the new-fashioned American
diplomacy. The Italians believe that there should be secret covenants of
peace secretly arrived at, and we believe that there should be open
covenants of peace openly arrived at."
"There is also the difference, Mawruss, that the Italians stick to their
beliefs," Abe concluded, "and we don't."
XIV
THE FIRST DAY OF MAY
"I see where in Genoa they already changed the name of a street which
only last week they called Wilson Avenue, Mawruss," Abe Potash said one
morning after the rupture with Orlando.
"Well, that's the trouble with calling articles after the latest popular
success, Abe," Morris said. "It don't make no difference if it's streets
or cigars, the first thing you know the people gets a grouch on the
original of the brand and the manufacturer has got to tear up a few
thousand Flor de President Wilson labels and go back to calling it the
Regalia de Ginsburg Brothers, or whatever the name was."
"But in Genoa they didn't go back to the name of the old street,
Mawruss," Abe said. "They renamed it Fiume Street."
"And it wouldn't surprise me in the least if a few Burleson streets was
changed to Second Class Avenue, Abe," Morris declared, "on account this
is a time of great ups and downs in the reputations of politicians, not
to say statesmen, Abe, which six months from now nobody would be able to
say offhand whether the name was Bela Hanson or Old Kun except the
immediate family in Budapest or Seattle, as the case may be."
"In a way, Mawruss, the reputations of politicians, not to say
statesmen, can get to be, so to speak, a nuisance to their
fellow-countrymen," Abe observed, "which it happens once in a while that
some politicians and statesmen gets to having such a high regard for
their reputations, Mawruss, they would sooner injure their country than
their reputation. Italian statesmen, French statesmen, English
statesmen, and even, you might say, American statesmen goes about their
work with one eye on the job in hand and the other eye on a possible
statue or so at the junction of Main Street and Railroad Avenue in their
native town, y'understand, with a subscription on the pedestal:
"'HARRIS J. SONNINO
Erected by His Fellow-Townsmen of East Rome, August 1, 1919.'"
"Such an ambition, anyhow, makes the statesmen try to do the right
thing," Morris observed.
"And it also occasionally makes him do the obstinate thing, Mawruss,"
Abe continued. "In fact, Mawruss, sometimes I couldn't help wishing that
it was the custom to have corporations and not men as ambassadors and
presidents, because it would be such a simple matter when the
Republicans nominated the Chicago Title Guarantee, Security and Mortgage
Company for President and the Democrats nominated the Algonquin Trust
Company, of Pottstown, for the voters of the country to compare the
statement of assets of each company and judge which was the most
reliable, y'understand. Also, Mawruss, if the Algonquin Trust Company
was now President of the United States, understand me, and somebody was
to say they didn't like the way the President was running things at the
Peace Conference, y'understand, nobody would have the nerve to arrest
him for criticizing a great and good corporation like the Algonquin
Trust Company. Furthermore, Mawruss, if Italy had been represented at
this here Peace Conference not by Sonnino, but by the Milan Trust
Company, which no doubt acts as executor, guardian or trustee like any
other trust company, and therefore why not as ambassador, understand me,
there never would have been no scrap about Fiume arising from the fact
that the Milan Trust Company could never go home and face the people of
Italy without Fiume, and also nobody would have considered that Mr.
Wilson's statement was a direct slap in the face of the Milan Trust
Company, Mawruss."
"Listen, Abe," Morris protested, "if you are trying to invent this
_schmooes_ about corporations just so you could knock Mr. Wilson,
y'understand, such a scheme wouldn't deceive a child even."
"I wouldn't knock President Wilson for anything, Mawruss," Abe retorted.
"I _couldn't_ knock him, because when I think of Mr. Wilson I see
before my eyes a good-looking gentleman with a pleasant smile on his
face, y'understand, and not very far away stands Mrs. Wilson, which, if
Mr. Wilson didn't put over even one fourteenth of his fourteen points,
Mawruss, his visit to Europe with Mrs. Wilson wouldn't be wasted,
Mawruss, because it would have given them people over in the old country
a chance to see what an American lady is and should ought to be,
y'understand. But on the other hand, Mawruss, if the Democrats _had_
elected the Algonquin Trust Company as President of the United States at
the last election, y'understand, whenever I would think of the President
of the United States I would see before my eyes a twenty-five-story
fire-proof building with all the rents raised one hundred and fifty per
cent. since last January, understand me, and I could go to work and
knock with a clear conscience."
"But why should you want to knock the President of the United States?"
Morris demanded.
"Ain't I telling you that I don't want to knock him?" Abe declared. "All
I am saying is that, if such a thing was possible, it would be a whole
lot better to have a corporation as President of the United States
instead of an individual, Mawruss, because corporations don't get sick,
corporations don't get insulted, a corporation _oser_ cares whether it
gets cheered or hooted, and finally, Mawruss, a corporation couldn't
ride around Italy in an open carriage with the King of Italy and give
the Italian people the impression that all they had to do was to ask
for Fiume and it was theirs."
"And another thing about a corporation, Abe, is that it ain't a
copartnership where one partner could get every day a headache from
listening to the other partner talking a lot of nonsense, Abe," Morris
declared, "which you must got to remember that, beginning the first of
May, if you would go to a soda-fountain and say, 'Give me something for
a headache,' they would give you a United States Internal Revenue stamp
for which you would got to pay two cents before they would even take the
cork out of the bromo-asperin bottle."
"What's the difference whether they tax a headache coming or going,
Mawruss?" Abe commented.
"A whole lot of difference," Morris said. "In the first place, the taxes
which the country used to collect in one week from people when they were
catching headaches would be more than equivalence to the taxes which the
country is going to the taxes which the country is going to collect from
people curing headaches during the next ten years. Also, Abe, nobody
thought it was a hardship to pay taxes on a coming headache, whereas
there will be a terrible howl go up over the tax on the same article in
the opposite direction."
"At that, I think these here May 1st taxes is going to have a good
effect on the American people, Mawruss," Abe said, "because there's
nothing like taxes to make a man wake up and take an interest in the
way the government is being run."
"A man would got to be an awful sound sleeper in that respect if he
wasn't roused up a little by the income tax which he has been paying for
the past four or five years, Abe," Morris said.
"That's only once a year, Mawruss," Abe said, "but these here May 1st
taxes is going to keep him awake three hundred and sixty-five days out
of the year. People which thought you was a tightwad if you happened to
mention that six hundred million dollars of the country's money was used
up in experimenting with aeroplanes, is now going to shriek in agony
every time they buy a three-dollar-and-a-quarter shirt that it's a shame
and a disgrace the way every little secretary in the President's Cabinet
is gallivanting half over Europe on the people's money, and they'd
probably be just as hard if the shirt only cost two dollars and a
quarter, excepting that the luxury tax of ten per cent. is only
collected from the purchasers of men's shirts of the value of three
dollars and upwards on amounts in excess of three dollars each. Also,
Mawruss, people which has just paid eight dollars for a bathrobe on
which the tax would be ten per cent. of fifty cents, or five cents cash,
y'understand, is going to say: 'Couldn't that feller travel to and from
Europe in one state-room the same like anybody else? Must he got to have
a whole steamboat?' and they will start right in to estimate that the
cost of keeping a steamboat the size of the _George Washington_ in
commission is forty-five thousand six hundred and twenty-two dollars and
thirty-eight cents per diem, and is it any wonder you've got to pay a
one-cent tax on every orange phosphate, understand me."
"Some people is willing to get in a knock at Mr. Wilson without even so
much as an orange-phosphate tax for an excuse, Abe," Morris said,
significantly.
"I know they are," Abe replied, innocently, "and as for
Postmaster-General Burleson, seemingly he couldn't suit nobody no matter
what he does. Take, for instance, them fourteen bombs which was mailed
in New York the other day, Mawruss, and if it wouldn't be that
Postmaster-General Burleson has probably given strict orders that no
mail should be forwarded which was short even a half-a-cent
postage-stamp even, the chances is that every one of them fourteen bombs
would have been delivered and exploded by now. But suppose that, instead
of Postmaster-General Burleson, we would have had as Postmaster-General
some good-natured feller which when his New York representatives called
him up and told him they were holding fourteen packages there for
additional postage, would have said: 'Oh, let 'em go. We couldn't afford
to be small about a little thing like additional postage.' And what
would have happened? Why, the fourteen judges, mayors, and assorted
Senators and district attorneys to which them packages was addressed
would have been lucky if they escaped with nothing worse than singed
eyebrows, Mawruss. And to-day yet, Mawruss, them fellers which has got
only Postmaster-General Burleson to thank that they can still riffle a
deck of cards, understand me, is probably going around beefing about the
terrible delay in the delivery of mail under the administration of
Postmaster-General Burleson."
"And do you think that the police will ever find out who sent them
bombs, Abe?" Morris asked.
"Probably not," Abe replied, "but they will probably find some man or
men who would have _liked_ to have sent them and would have been _glad_
to have sent them, and as nobody is going to miss such fellers, Mawruss,
it probably won't make much difference in the long run if any such case
of mistaken identity ain't discovered until the sentence is carried out,
y'understand."
"I see that it says in the paper where the anarchists which sent them
bombs was celebrating the first day of May, which is the anarchists'
Fourth of July, Abe," Morris observed, "which, considering all the
trouble that takes place in Europe with general strikes and riots on the
first of May, Abe, it's a wonder to me that the constitution of the
League of Nations didn't contain an article providing that in the
interests of international peace, y'understand, the month of May should
hereafter contain thirty days instead of thirty-one, commencing with the
second day of May, and leave them anarchists up against it for a day to
celebrate."
"The first of May is the socialists' Fourth of July, not the
anarchists'," Abe said, "which, while it is possible that these here
anarchists sent them bombs around the first of May out of compliment to
their friends the socialists, Mawruss, an anarchist don't attach no
particular sentiment to the day when a bomb explodes, just so long as it
does enough damage, Mawruss."
"Just the same, I am in favor of doing away with the first of May,"
Morris insisted, "and if it ain't practical to abolish the date, Abe,
let 'em anyhow cut out the celebration. Them general strikes causes a
whole lot of trouble."
"They do if you take them seriously," Abe agreed, "because in this
country, at least, Mawruss, only a few people takes part in the May
first general strike. This year we only had two of our work-people away
on account of the general strike, and one of them now claims he stayed
home on account of injuring his hand in one of our buttonhole-machines,
which I have got proof to show, Mawruss, that when the police threw him
out of the hall where the meeting was taking place he landed on his
wrist."
"He should have landed on his neck," Morris observed, "because if them
socialists get hurt by their nonsense it's their own fault, Abe. They go
to work and announce a general strike, and naturally the authorities
takes them seriously and gets ready for trouble with a lot of policemen,
which you know as well as I do, Abe, when the police gets ready for
trouble they usually find it, even if they have to make it themselves.
The consequence is, Abe, that a fractured skull has become practically
the occupational disease of being a socialist, just the same as
phosphorus-poisoning attacked people which worked in match-factories in
the old days before the Swedish manufacturers invented matches which
strike only on the box one time out of fifty if the weather conditions
is just right."
"Sure, I know," Abe observed, "but people worked in match-factories
because they couldn't make a living in any other way, Mawruss, whereas
nobody compels any one to be a socialist if he don't want to, Mawruss,
and what enjoyment them socialists get out of it I don't know."
"It gives them, for one thing, the privilege of wearing a red necktie,"
Morris suggested.
"And that don't make them a first-class risk for accident insurance,"
Abe concluded, "around the first of May, anyhow."
XV
THE PEACE TREATY AS GOOD READING
"At last the wind-up of this here Peace Conference seems to be in sight,
Mawruss," Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, the day
after the Treaty of Peace was handed to the German plenipotentiaries.
"As short a time ago since as last week it begun to look like our
American delegates was going to stay in Paris for the rest of their
lives, which, according to the tables of mortality prepared by some of
our leading life-insurance companies, based on the average ages of all
five of them delegates, would be anyhow until August 1, 1919."
"Well, they seem to have done a pretty good job, Abe," Morris observed.
"I read over the accounts of the Treaty of Peace, Abe, and what them
Germans has got to do outside of restoring the skull of the Sultan
Okwawa under Section Eight of the treaty would keep her busy for fifty
years yet."
"And who is this here Sultan Okwawa?" Abe inquired.
"I don't know," Morris replied, "but, considering the number of skulls
which needs restoring on account of what the Germans done during the
past five years, Abe, and also considering the fact that this is the
only skull mentioned by name in the Peace Treaty, he must of had some
pretty influential friends at the Peace Conference. Also, I see that the
Germans is also to give back the papers belonging to M. Reuher which
they took in 1871, and, although Section Eight don't say nothing about
it, I presume that if the papers are returned the finder can keep the
money which was in the wallet at the time it was lost."
"Do you mean to tell me that this here Peace Treaty has got such small
particulars like that in it?" Abe demanded.
"It don't seem to have overlooked anything, Abe," Morris went on,
"which, when you consider that Mr. Wilson started in--in a small
way--with only fourteen points, it's already wonderful how that man
worked his way up. There must be several hundred thousand points in that
Peace Treaty, including such points like the Sultan's skull and this
here Reuher's papers, which Mr. Wilson never even dreamed of when he sat
down that day in January, 1918, and thought out the original fourteen."
[Illustration: "which when you consider that Mr. Wilson started in--in a
small way"]
"He probably considered that if we ever licked Germany sufficient to
make her accept as much as thirty-three and a third per cent. of them
fourteen points that we would be doing well already," Abe remarked.
"And so did everybody else," Morris agreed. "And now they would got to
accept a Treaty of Peace which loads up Germany with practically every
punishment that this here Peace Conference could think of except
Prohibition."
"I must read that treaty sometime," Abe said. "It sounds like it would
be quite amusing already."
"Amusing ain't no name for it," Morris said. "The way the American
people is going to enjoy reading that Treaty of Peace, Abe, would put
Mr. Wilson not only in the class of favorite American Presidents along
with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, but also would give him an
insured position as one of America's favorite authors along with Harry
Bell Wright and Bradstreet. A good American could pass a very profitable
month or so skimming it over, Abe, which it consists of fifteen
sections, of which only the head-lines fills three full pages of the
morning papers."
"Well, how long do you think it would take them German delegates to read
it, Mawruss?" Abe inquired.
"They ain't going to read it," Morris said. "They're only going to sign
it, and it ain't a bad idea, neither, because if they did read it, Abe,
some of them Germans would drop dead along about the second section,
which describes how much of Germany is left after France, Poland,
Denmark, and Belgium gets through helping themselves."
"Might they would expire while they was reading the first section,
maybe," Abe suggested.
"The first section 'ain't got nothing to do with Germany," Morris
explained. "The first section consists of the constitution of the League
of Nations."
"Is that the same constitution of the League of Nations which them
United States Senators raised such a round robin about?" Abe asked.