"To Senator Reed, anything that's found alive in a stable is a horse,
Abe; in fact, coming from Missouri, as Senator Reed does, considering
the size of the colored population of that state, Senator Reed probably
considers himself a colored man, because Senator Reed is perfectly
honest in his opinions, Abe. When he argues that Cuba is a colored
nation, he believes it, so, therefore, when he argues himself into being
a colored man, he probably believes that he ain't quite so dark a
colored man as Senator Vardaman, who comes from Mississippi, Abe, but
only a light colored man, which is of course all nonsense, like Senator
Reed's arguments. Senator Vardaman is a white man and Senator Reed is a
white man and they are both of them as white as, but no whiter than, the
President of Cuba and several million Brazilian gentlemen. But with
Senator Reed it's a case of any argument is a good argument, so long as
it is an argument against the League of Nations."
"But as I understand it Senator Vardaman ain't in the Senate no more,"
Abe said. "He got defeated last election."
"And the way he is heading, Abe," Morris said, "Senator Reed will join
him next election, because, while nine times out of ten, when it comes
to re-election, a United States Senator has got things pretty well
sewed-up, _so_ sewed-up he couldn't have them, that he could make such
foolish speeches on such an important matter. Furthermore, it don't
make no difference how wise or how foolish the speeches which Senators
makes against the League of Nations might be, Abe, it is going to go
through, _anyhow_."
"What makes you think that?" Abe asked.
"Because I see where the National Democratic Committee met in Chicago
the other day, and the chairman by the name Cummings threatened that if
the Senate don't approve the League of Nations Covenant, Mr. Wilson
would run for President again," Morris said.
"What do you mean--threatened?" Abe demanded. "You talk like Mr. Wilson
running for President again was something to be scared about."
"I don't talk that way, but Mr. Cummings does," Morris said. "In fact,
the Democratic National Committee, on the head of what Mr. Cummings
said, passed a resolution that they were in favor of the prompt
ratification by the Senate of the Treaty of Peace, including the League
of Nations, so it would appear that the Democratic National Committee
ain't so tickled about Mr. Wilson running again, neither."
"Well, if Mr. Wilson don't run again for President on the Democratic
ticket, Mawruss, who will?" Abe inquired.
"I don't know, and, furthermore, I think that the Democratic National
Committee is temporarily in the same condition about that proposition as
Hawker and Grieve was about that cross-Atlantic proposition--also
temporarily," Morris concluded, "I mean, up in the air."
XIX
THE LEAK AND OTHER MYSTERIES
"Outside of one poor night watchman _nebich_," Abe Potash said to his
partner, Morris Perlmutter, "the only people which has really and truly
suffered from the goings-on of them anarchists is the insurance
companies, Mawruss."
"In a case like that, Abe, the insurance companies ain't liable under
their policies," Morris said, "and they wouldn't got to pay no losses
for the damage when them bombs done it to them buildings."
"Who said anything about the insurance companies paying losses?" Abe
asked. "I am talking about the insurance companies paying lawyer bills,
Mawruss, which I never read any of that part of my insurance policies
that is printed in only such letters as could have been designed in the
first place by them fellers you read about who go blind from engraving
the whole of the Constitution of the United States on a ten-cent piece,
y'understand, but I have no doubt, Mawruss, that it wouldn't make no
difference if the loss was caused by anything so legitimate as throwing
a lighted cigarette in a waste-paper basket, understand me, the only
reason why an insurance company pays any losses at all is that they
figure it's cheaper to let the policyholder have the money than the
bunch of murderers they got representing them as their general counsel."
"No doubt you're right," Morris agreed, "but in these here bomb outrages
Abe, the way the police 'ain't been able to get a clue to so much as a
suspicious red necktie, y'understand, it looks as though this
bomb-exploding was going to be such a regular amusement with anarchists
as pinochle-playing is with clothing salesmen, understand me, so the
insurance companies would got to make a stand, otherwise they would be
paying for new stoops for the houses of anybody and everybody who ever
said an unkind word in public about Lenine and Trotzky."
"It seems to me that the police ain't so smart like they once used to
be, Mawruss," Abe remarked.
"No, nor never was," Morris said. "In fact, Abe, from the number of
crimes which has got into the let-bygones-be-bygones stage with the
police lately, clues ain't of no more use to them fellers at all. What
them detectives need is that the criminal should leave behind him at the
scene of the crime a line of snappy, up-to-date advertising containing
his name, address, and telephone number, otherwise they seem to think
they have the excuse that they couldn't be expected to perform miracles,
and let it go at that."
"I see where right here in New York, Mayor Hylan puts the whole thing up
to the newspapers," Abe observed. "He wrote to a friend the other day
one of them strictly confidential letters with an agreement on the side
to ring up the reporters as soon as it was delivered, y'understand, in
which he said the reason why so many crimes was going undiscovered by
the police was that the newspapers was unprincipled enough to print that
a lot of crimes was going undetected by the police, understand me, and
the consequence was that criminals read it and, relying on the fact that
the police wouldn't catch them if they committed crimes, they went to
work and committed crimes."
"And I suppose them criminals' confidence in the police wasn't
misplaced, neither," Morris suggested.
"Not so far as I've heard," Abe said, "but even if the newspapers
wouldn't of printed the information, Mawruss, why should Mayor Hylan
assume that burglars don't write each other letters occasionally, or,
anyhow, once in a while meet at lunch and talk over business matters?"
"Well, I've noticed that Mayor Hylan, Mayor Thompson, and a lot of other
Mayors, Senators, and people which is all the time getting into the
public eye in the same sense as cinders and small insects, Abe, always
blames the newspapers for everything that goes wrong," Morris remarked,
"because such people is always doing and saying things that when it gets
into the newspaper sounds pretty rotten even to themselves, understand
me, so therefore they begin to think that the newspaper is doing it
deliberately, and consequently they get a grouch on against all
newspapers."
"Sure, I know, Mawruss, but that don't excuse the police for not finding
out who sent them bombs through the mails in the first place," Abe said.
"It is now beginning to look, Mawruss, that the American police has
begun to act philosophically about crooks, the way the American public
has always done, and they shrug their shoulders and say, 'What are you
going to do with a bunch of crooks like that?'"
"Well, in a way you can't blame the police for not catching them
bomb-throwers, Abe," Morris said. "They've been so busy arresting people
for violations of the automobile and traffic laws that they 'ain't
hardly got time for nothing else, so you see what a pipe it is for
criminals, Abe. All they have got to do is to keep out of automobiles
and stick to street cars, and they can rob, murder, and explode bombs,
and the police would never trouble them at all."
"But considering the number of people which gets arrested every day for
things like having in their possession a bottle of schnapps, Mawruss, or
smoking paper cigarettes in the second degree, or against the peace and
dignity of the people of the State of Kansas or Virginia, and the
statue in such case made and provided leaving a bottle of near-beer
uncorked on the window-sill until it worked itself into a condition of
being fermented or intoxicating liquor under section six sub-section (b)
of the said act, y'understand, it is surprising to me that the police
didn't by accident gather in anyhow _one_ of them anarchists, Mawruss,"
Abe said, "because, after all, Mawruss, it can't be that only
respectable people violate all them prohibition, anti-cigarette, and
anti-speeding laws, and that, outside of dropping bombs, anarchists is
otherwise law-abiding."
"At the same time, Abe, I couldn't help feeling sorry for a policeman
who would arrest an anarchist by accident, especially if he didn't carry
any accident insurance, because the only way to avoid accidents in
arresting anarchists is to take a good aim at a safe distance, and let
somebody else search the body for packages," Morris declared.
"To tell you the truth, Mawruss, I think the reason why them anarchists
which explode bombs is never discovered, y'understand, ain't up to the
police at all, but to the contractor which cleans up the scene of the
explosion," Abe said. "If he would only instruct his workmen to sift the
rubbish before they cart it away, they might anyhow find a collar-button
or something, because next to windows, Mawruss, the most breakage caused
by anarchistic bomb explosions is to anarchists."
"Still, there must be a lot of comparatively uninjured anarchists
hanging around--anarchists with only a thumb or so missing which the
police would be able to find if they really and truly used a little
gumption, Abe," Morris said. "Also if they would keep their ears open,
there must be lots of noises which now passes for gas-range trouble and
which if investigated while the experimenter was still in the dancing
and hand-flipping stage of agony, Abe, might bring to light some of the
leading spirits in the chemical branch of the American anarchists. Then
of course there is the other noises which sounds like gas-range
troubles, and which on investigation proves to be speeches, Abe, and
while it is probably true that you can't kill ideas by putting the
people which owns up to them in jail, Abe, I for one am willing to take
a chance and see how it comes out, because, after all, it ain't ideas
which makes and explodes bombs, but the people which holds such ideas."
"Also, Mawruss," Abe said, "it is the people which holds such ideas that
says you can't kill ideas by putting the people what holds them into
jail, but just so soon as them people gets arrested, not only do they
claim that they never held such ideas, but they deny that there even
existed such ideas, and then the noise of the denials they are making is
drowned out by the noise of the bombs which is being exploded according
to the ideas they claim they don't hold, and that's the way it goes,
Mawruss. The chances is that the mystery of who exploded them bombs will
remain a mystery along with the mystery of how the Peace Treaty come
into the possession of them New York interests in the form of a volume
of three hundred and twenty pages, as Senator Lodge says it did."
"To me that ain't no mystery at all, Abe," Morris said. "The chances is
that them New York interests, whatever they may be, Abe--and I got my
suspicions, Abe--simply seen it in the Saturday edition of one of them
New York papers which makes a specialty of book-advertising, an
advertisement reading:
"THE PEACE TERMS"
READ ABOUT THEM
in this stirring, heart-touching romance. Get it, begin it; you'll read
every word and wish there was more.
Would it be worth while to risk the happiness of all future time for the
sake of four years of forbidden pleasure? With the frankness
characteristic of him, William W. Wilson in his latest work tells what
happens--economically and spiritually--to the nation who tried it.
"THE PEACE TERMS"
BY
WILLIAM W. WILSON
Author of _A Thousand Snappy Substitutes for May I Not_, etc.
30 Illustrations, 320 pages. $1.50 net.
AT ALL BOOK-STORES
so the New York interests give the office-boy three dollars and says to
him he should go 'round to the news-stands in the nearest subway station
and buy a couple of them books, y'understand, and for the remainder of
the afternoon, y'understand, the members of the New York interests which
'ain't got their feet up on the desk reading them books, is asking the
members which has if they 'ain't got nothing better to do with their
time than to put it in reading a lot of nonsense like that, understand
me."
"But who do you think published it, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "It is already over a month since the first
edition of that Peace Treaty was handed to the German delegates, and
what is a little thing like a copyright to them crooks when it comes to
making a profit of ten cents a volume? I bet yer that Europe is already
flooded with pirated editions of that Peace Treaty retailing at
anywheres from twenty-five cents up, and yet them highwaymen claims that
it is unacceptable to them. As a matter of fact, the German business man
'ain't found anything nearly so acceptable in a merchandising way since
the time they began to imitate Gillette safety razors and Kodak cameras.
They'll probably make enough of the Park Row and Ann Street peddling
rights alone to pay the first instalment of the reparation indemnity,
Abe."
"I see where Austria also finds the terms of the Peace Treaty which was
handed to her unacceptable, Mawruss," Abe remarked.
"Well, for that matter, Abe, there probably ain't a petitentiary in this
or any other country which ain't filled with crooks who finds the terms
of their punishment unacceptable," Morris said, "but I never heard it
advanced as an argument why the sentence should ought to be upset on
appeal, Abe. Also, Abe, Germany and Austria is in just so good a
position to accept or not accept their punishment as any other
defendant would be after he has had his pedigree taken and is handcuffed
to the deputy-sheriff with the Black Maria backed up against the curb,
y'understand."
"Well, I suppose I must of lost thousands of dollars serving on juries
in my time, Mawruss," Abe said, "and I would of lost thousands more if
every prisoner would of behaved the way Germany and Austria has since
the judge asked them if they had anything to say why sentence should
ought to be passed on them. Evidently they must of thought it was up to
them to make regular after-dinner speeches, leaving out only the
once-there-was-an-Irishman story."
"And even that 'ain't been left out," Morris said, "which I see that the
United States Senate has passed a resolution that they are in favor the
Peace Conference should hear what the delegates from the new Irish
Republic has got to say."
"Is Ireland a republic now?" Abe asked.
"It's anyhow as much of a republic as the Rhenish Republic is a republic
or the Kingdom of the Hadjes is a kingdom," Morris continued, "which the
American delegates let them Hadjes have their say, Abe, and if the
Hadj-American vote figured very strong in the last presidential election
or the Hadj-American subscribers to the Victory Loan represented as much
as .000000001 per cent. of the total amount raised, the newspapers kept
it pretty quiet, Abe. So, therefore, Abe, leaving out of the question
altogether that a very big percentage of the highest grade citizens
which we've got in this country is Irish by ancestry and brains, Abe,
why shouldn't the Irish have their say before the Peace Conference?"
"For one thing," Abe said, "the delegates to the Peace Conference is
already pretty well acquainted with what them Irishmen would tell them,
unless them delegates is deaf, dumb, and blind."
"That's all right, Abe, but a good argument was never the worse for
being repeated," Morris concluded, "in especially when it comes from
people which has given us not only good arguments during the past four
years, but service, blood, and money. Am I right or wrong?"
XX
JULY THE FIRST AND AFTER
"It's already surprising what people will eat if they couldn't get
anything else," Abe Potash commented one morning in June.
"Not nearly so surprising as what they would drink in the same
circumstances," Morris Perlmutter remarked.
"Well, I don't know," Abe continued. "Here it stands in the newspapers
where a professor says that for the information of them men which would
sooner eat grasshoppers as starve, Mawruss, they taste very much like
shrimps if you know how shrimps taste, which I am thankful to say that I
don't, Mawruss, because I never yet had the nerve to eat shrimps on
account of them looking too much like grasshoppers."
"That's nothing," Morris declared. "In Porto Rico, where they have had
prohibition now for some time already, the authorities has just found
out that the people has been drinking so much hair tonic as
ersat-schnapps, Abe, that the insides of the stomach of a Porto-Rican
looks like the outside of the President of the new Polish Republic, if
you know what I mean."
"Well, if the prohibition law is going to be enforced so as to
confiscate the schnapps which is now being stored away by the people who
have had an insurance actuary figure out their expectancy of life at ten
drinks a day for 13.31416 years, Mawruss, or all the cellar will hold,
y'understand," Abe said, "it won't be much later than July 2d before
somebody discovers that there's quite a kick to furniture polish or
6-in-1, Mawruss, and in fact I expect to see after July 1st, 1919, that
there would be what looks like stove polish, shoe polish,
automobile-body polish, and silver polish retailing at from one dollar
to a dollar and a half per hip-pocket-size bottle, which after being
strained through blotting-paper, y'understand, would net the purchaser
three drinks of the worst whisky that ever got sold on Chatham Square
for five cents a glass."
"And I suppose that pretty soon they will be passing a law forbidding
the manufacture of stove polish and directing that the labels on the
bottles shall contain the statement:
"Stove Polish by Volume 2, Seventy-five per cent. And in a thimbleful of
what ain't stove polish in that stove polish, Abe, there wouldn't be no
more harm than two or three quarts of so much nitroglycerin,
y'understand," Morris said. "Also on Saturday nights you will see the
poor women _nebich_ hanging around the swinging doors of paint and color
stores right up to closing-time to see is their husbands inside, while
the single men will stagger from house-furnishing store to
house-furnishing store--or the Poor Men's Clubs, as they call them
places where stove and silver polish is sold."
"But joking to one side, Mawruss, you don't suppose that the Polaks and
the Huns and all them foreigners is going to leave off drinking schnapps
just because of a little thing like a prohibition amendment to the
Constitution of the United States, do you?" Abe said.
"Why do you limit yourself to Polaks and Huns, Abe?" Morris asked.
"Believe me, there is fellers whose forefathers was old established
American citizens before Henry Clay started his cigar business,
y'understand, and when them boys gets a craving for schnapps after July
1st, they would _oser_ go to the nearest Carnegie Library and read over
the Prohibition Amendment to the Constitution till that gnawing feeling
at the pit of the stomach had passed away, understand me. At least, Abe,
that is what I think is going to happen, and from the number of people
which is giving out prophecies to the newspapers about what is going to
happen, and from the way they differ from each other as to what is going
to happen--not only about prohibition, but about conditions in Europe,
the Next War, the Kaiser's future, and the next presidential campaign,
y'understand, it seems to me that anybody could prophesy anything about
_everything_ and get away with it."
"They could anyhow get away with it till it does happen," Abe commented.
"Sure I know, but generally it don't happen," Morris said. "Take for
instance where Mr. Vanderlip is going round telling about the terrible
things which is going to happen in Europe unless something which Mr.
Vanderlip suggests is done, and take also for instance where Mr. Davison
is going round telling about the terrible things which is going to
happen in Europe unless something which Mr. _Davison_ suggests is done,
y'understand, and while I don't know nothing about Europe, understand
me, I know something about Mr. Vanderlip, which is that he just lost his
jobs as director of the War Savings Stamp Campaign and president of the
National City Bank, and you know as well as I do, Abe, when a man has
just lost his job things are apt to look pretty black to him, not only
in Europe, understand me, but in Asia, Africa, and America, and
sometimes Australia and New Zealand, also."
"Well, how about Mr. Davison?" Abe asked.
"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said, "Mr. Davison is a banker and I am a
garment manufacturer, y'understand, and with me it's like this:
Conditions in the garment trade is never altogether satisfactory to me,
Abe. As a garment manufacturer, I can always see where things is going
to the devil in this country or any other country where I would be doing
business unless something is done, y'understand, and if anybody would
ask me what _ought_ to be done, the chances is that I would suggest
something to be done which wouldn't make it exactly rotten for the
garment trade, if you know what I mean."
"Mr. Vanderlip and Mr. Davison did good work during the war for a
dollar a year, Mawruss," Abe said, "and no one should speak nothing but
good of them."
"Did I say they shouldn't?" Morris retorted. "All I am driving into is
this, Abe; we've got a lot of big business men which during the war for
a dollar a year give up their time to advising the United States what it
should do, y'understand, who are now starting in to advise the world
what it should do and waiving the dollar, Abe, and if there is anything
which is calculated to make a man unpopular, Abe, it is giving free
advice, so therefore I would advise all them dollar-a-year men to--"
"And is any one paying you to give such advice?" Abe asked.
"Furthermore, Mawruss, nobody asks you for your advice, whereas with
people like Mr. Vanderlip, Mr. Davison, the Crown Prince, Samuel
Gompers, and Mary Pickford, y'understand, they couldn't stick their head
outside the door without a newspaper reporter is standing there and
starts right in to ask them their opinion about the things which they
are supposed to know."
"And what is the Crown Prince supposed to know?" Morris asked.
"Not much that Mary Pickford don't about things in general," Abe said,
"and a good deal less than she does about moving pictures, but otherwise
I should put them about on a par, except that Mary Pickford has got a
brighter future, Mawruss, which I see that one of these here newspaper
fellers got an interview with the Crown Prince which 'ain't been denied
as yet. It took place in an island in Holland where the Crown Prince is
living in retirement with a private chef, a private secretary, a couple
of private valets, his personal physician, and the nine or ten other
personal attendants that a Hohenzollern cuts himself down to while he is
roughing it in Holland, Mawruss. When the newspaper feller spoke to him
he was wearing the uniform of a colonel in the Eighth Pomeranian Crown
Prince's Own Regiment, which is now known as the William J. Noske
Association, of black tulle over a midnight-blue satin underdress--the
whole thing embroidered in gray silk braid and blue beads. A very
delicate piece of rose point-lace was arranged as a fichu, Mawruss, and
over it he wore a Lavin cape of black silk jersey with a monkey-fur
collar and slashed pockets. It would appear from the article which the
newspaper feller wrote that the Crown Prince didn't seem to be
especially talkative."
"In these here interviews which newspaper fellers gets in Europe, Abe,"
Morris commented, "the party interviewed never does seem to be
talkative. In fact, he hardly figures at all, because such articles
usually consist of fifty per cent. what a lot of difficulties the
correspondent was smart enough to overcome in getting the interview,
twenty-five per cent. description, twenty-two and a quarter what the
correspondent said to the party interviewed, and not more than two and
three-quarters per cent. interview."
"Whatever way it was, Mawruss, the Crown Prince didn't exactly unbosom
himself to this here reporter, but he said enough to show that he wasn't
far behind Mr. Vanderlip when it comes to taking a dark view of things
as a result of losing his job, Mawruss," Abe continued.
"Probably he took even a darker view of it than Mr. Vanderlip," Morris
suggested, "because there are lots of openings for bank president, but
if you are out of a job as a crown prince, what is it, in particular if
your reference ain't good?"