There is some of them peace fellers which ain't so much scared as
they are contrary.
"People 'ain't begun to realize yet what this war really and truly
means, Mawruss," Abe Potash said as he finished reading an interview
with ex-Ambassador Gerard, in which the ex-ambassador said that people
had not yet begun to realize what the war really meant.
"Maybe they don't," Morris Perlmutter agreed, "but for every feller
which 'ain't begun to realize what this war really and truly means, Abe,
there is a hundred other fellers which 'ain't begun to realize what a
number of people there is which goes round saying that people 'ain't
begun to realize what this war really and truly means, y'understand.
Also, Abe, the same people is going round begging people which is just
as patriotic as they are that they should brace up and be patriotic,
y'understand, and they are pulling pledges to hold up the hands of the
President on other people who has got similar pledges in their breast
pockets and pretty near beats 'em to it, understand me, and that's the
way it goes."
"Well, if one time out of a hundred they strike somebody who really and
truly don't realize what the war means, like you, Mawruss," Abe began,
"why, then, their time ain't entirely wasted, neither."
"I realize just so much as you do what this war means, Abe," Morris
retorted.
"Maybe you do," Abe admitted, "but you don't talk like you did, Mawruss,
otherwise you would know that if out of a hundred Americans only
ninety-nine of 'em pledges themselves to hold up the hands of the
President, y'understand, and the balance of one claims that we are in
this war just to save our investments in Franco-American bonds and that
Mr. Wilson is every bit as bad as the Kaiser except that he's
clean-shaved, y'understand, then them ninety-nine fellers with the
pledges in their breast pockets should ought to convert the balance of
one. Because, Mawruss, a nation which is ninety-nine per cent. patriotic
is like a fish which is ninety-nine per cent. fresh--all you can notice
is the one per cent. which smells bad."
"I am just so much in favor of the country being one hundred per cent.
American as you are, Abe," Morris said, "but what I claim is that we
should go about it _right_."
"If you mean we shouldn't argue with them one-per-centers, but send them
right back to that part of the old country which they come from
originally, Mawruss," Abe continued, "why, I am agreeable that they
should be shipped right away, F.O.B., N.Y., all deliveries subject to
delay and liability being limited to fifty dollars personal baggage in
case they should, please Gawd, fail to arrive in Europe."
"Sure I know," Morris agreed. "But pretty near all them one-per-centers
was born and raised in the United States or in Saint Louis, Wisconsin,
and Cincinnati. You take this here _Burgermeister_ of Chicago, for
instance, and the chances is that all he knows about the old country is
what he learned on a couple of visits to Milwaukee, y'understand. So how
could you export a feller like that?"
"I don't want to export him, Mawruss. All I would like to see is that
they should put an embargo on him," Abe said, "and on his friends, them
peace fellers, too."
"Well, I'll tell you," Morris commented, "about them peace fellers, you
couldn't blame 'em exactly, because you know how it is with some people:
they 'ain't got no control over their feelings, and if they're scared to
death, y'understand, they couldn't help showing it, which my poor
grandmother, _olav hasholom_, wouldn't allow me to keep so much as a
pea-shooter in the house, on account, she says, if the good Lord wills
it, even a broomstick could give fire."
"And yet, Mawruss, if burglars would of broke into her home, I bet you
she would grabbed the nearest flat-iron and went for 'em with it," Abe
said, "so don't insult your grandmother _selig_ by comparing her with
them peace fellers which they _oser_ care how many burglars is johnnying
the front door just so long as they could hide under the bed."
"At the same time, Abe, there is some of them peace fellers which ain't
so much scared as they are contrary, y'understand," Morris said. "Take
this here LaFollette, Abe, and that feller's motto is, 'My country--I
think she's always wrong--but right or wrong--that's my opinion and I
stick to it.' All a United States Senator has got to do is to look like
he is preparing to say something, y'understand, and before he can get
out so much as 'Brother President and fellow-members of this
organization,' LaFollette jumps up and says, 'I'm sorry, but I disagree
with you.'"
"That must make him pretty popular in the Senate," Abe remarked.
"Popular's no name for it," Morris continued. "There ain't a United
States Senator which wouldn't stand willing to dig down and pay for a
set of engrossed resolutions out of his own pocket, just so long as
Senator LaFollette would resign or something."
"But Senator LaFollette ain't one of them peace fellers, Mawruss," Abe
said.
"Sure, I know," Morris replied. "All he wants is to run the war
according to Cushing's _Manual_. If he had his way we wouldn't be able
to give an order for so much as one-twelfth dozen guns, y'understand,
without it come up in the form of a motion that it is regularly moved
and seconded that the Secretary of War be and he is hereby authorized to
order the same and all those in favor will signify the same by saying
aye, y'understand, and even then, Abe, him and Senator Vardaman would
call for a show of hands under Section Twelve, Subsection D, of the
by-laws."
"Then I suppose if a few thousand American soldiers gets killed on
account they 'ain't got the right kind of guns, Mawruss, we could lay it
to Section Twelve, Subsection D, of the by-laws," Abe suggested.
"And you could give some of them Senators credit for an assist, Abe,
because you take a Senator like that, Abe, and when he holds up the
ammunition supply with a two-hour speech, y'understand, he _oser_
worries his head how many American soldiers is going to be killed by the
Germans in France six months later, just so long as his own name is
spelled right by the newspapers in New York City next morning."
"It would help a whole lot, Mawruss," Abe said, "if Senators and
Congressmen was numbered the same like automobiles, y'understand,
because who is going to waste his breath arguing that the Senate should
pass a law which it's a pipe the Senate ain't going to pass, on account
that nobody is in favor of it except himself and a couple of other
Senators temporarily absent on the road, making Fargo, Minneapolis,
Chicago, and points east as traveling peace conventioners,
y'understand, when he knows that next morning the only notice the New
York newspapers will take of his _Geschrei_ will be, Among those who
spoke in the Senate yesterday was:
D 105-666 WIS
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2016 PA.
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COMMERCIAL
01-232 N.Y.
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"Well, there's plenty of people which thinks when Governor Lauben
wouldn't let them peace fellers run off their convention, y'understand,
that it was unconstitutional," Morris said.
"Sure, I know," Abe said. "They're the same people which thinks that
anything what helps us and hinders Germany is unconstitutional,
including the Constitution. You take them socialist orators, which the
only use they've got for soap is the boxes the soap comes in,
y'understand, and to hear them talk you would think that the Kaiser sunk
the _Lusitania_ pursuant to Article Sixty-one, Section Two, of the
Constitution of the United States, Mawruss, whereas when President
Wilson sends a message to Congress asking them when they are going to
get busy on the war taxes and what do they think this is, anyway--a
_Kaffeklatsch_, y'understand--it is all kinds of violations of Articles
Sixteen, Thirty-two, O.K. and C.O.D. of the Constitution and that the
American people is a lot of weak-livered curs to stand for it, outside
of being weak-livered curs, anyway."
"You mean to say we allow these here fellers to get up on soap-boxes and
say such things like that?" Morris exclaimed.
"We've _got_ to allow them," Abe replied. "The Constitution protects
them."
"What do you mean--the Constitution protects them?" Morris said. "Here a
couple of weeks ago a judge in North Carolina gives out a decision that
the Constitution don't protect little children eleven years old from
being made to work in factories, y'understand, and now you are trying to
tell me that the same Constitution does protect these here loafers! What
kind of a Constitution have we got, anyway?"
"I don't know, Mawruss, but there's this much about it, anyhow--a lawyer
could get more money out of just one board of directors which wants to
go ahead and put through the deal if under the Constitution of the
United States nobody could do 'em nothing, y'understand, than he could
out of all the children which gets injured working in all the
cotton-mills south of Mason and Hamlin's line, understand me. So you
see, Mawruss, the Constitution not only protects these here soap-box
orators, but it also gives 'em something to talk about because when they
want to knock the United States and boost Germany, all they need to say
is that you've got to hand it to the Germans; if they kill little
children, they're, anyhow, foreign children and not German children."
"I suppose a lot of them soap-box orators gets paid by the German
government for boosting the Germans the way you just done it, Abe,"
Morris commented, "which I see that this here Ridder of the _New Yorker
Staats-Zeitung_ gives it out that any one what accuses him that he is
getting paid by the German government for boosting the Kaiser in his
paper would got to stand a suit for liable, because he is too patriotic
an American sitson to print articles boosting the Kaiser except as a
matter of friendship and free of charge--outside of what he can make by
syndicating them to other German newspapers."
"But do them other German newspapers get paid by the German government
for reprinting Mr. Ridder's articles?" Abe asked.
"_That_ Mr. Ridder don't say," Morris replied.
"Well," Abe continued, "_somebody_ should ought to appreciate the way
them German newspapers love the Kaiser, even if it's only a United
States District Attorney, Mawruss, because you take it if the shoe
pinched on the other foot, and a feller by the name Jefferson W. Rider
was running an American newspaper in Berlin, Germany, by the name, we
would say, for example, the _Berlin_, _Germany_, _Star-Gazette_, which
is heart and soul for Germany and at the same time prints articles by
American military experts showing how Germany couldn't win the war, not
in a million years, and the sooner the German soldiers realize it the
quicker they wouldn't get killed for such a hopeless _Geschaft_,
y'understand. Also, nobody has a greater admiration for the Kaiser than
the _Berlin_, _Germany_, _Star-Gazette_, understand me, but that if the
Kaiser thinks President Wilson is a tyrant, y'understand, then all the
_Star-Gazette_ has got to say is, some day when the Kaiser is fixing the
ends of his mustache in front of the glass mit candlegrease or whatever
such _Chamorrim_ uses on their mustaches to make themselves look like
kaisers, y'understand, that the Kaiser should take another look in the
mirror and he would see there such a cutthroat tyrant which President
Wilson never dreamed of being in Princeton University to the
shipping-clerk, even. Also this here _Berlin_, _Germany_, _Star-Gazette_
says that Germany is the land of bluff and that--"
"One moment," Morris Perlmutter interrupted. "What are you trying to
tell me--that such a newspaper would be allowed to exist in Berlin,
Germany?"
"I am only giving you a hypo-critical case, Mawruss," Abe continued,
"where I am trying to explain to you that if this was Germany it
wouldn't be necessary for Mr. Ridder to sue anybody for liable. All he
would have to do when they ask him if he's got anything to say why
sentence should not be passed, y'understand, is to tell the judge what
was his trade before he became an editor, understand me, and they would
put him to work at it for the remainder of the war."
"He wouldn't get off so easy as that, even," Morris commented. "Why,
what do you suppose they would do to the editor of this here, for
example, _Star-Gazette_ if he was to just so much as hint that the Crown
Prince couldn't be such a terrible good judge of French chateau
furniture, y'understand, on account he had slipped over on the Berlin
antique dealers a lot of reproductions which they had every right to
believe was genwine old stuff, as it had been rescued from the flames,
packed, and shipped under the Crown Prince's personal supervision? I bet
you, Abe, if the paper was on the streets at three-thirty and the sun
rose at three-thirty-five, y'understand, the authorities wouldn't wait
that long. They'd shoot him at three-thirty-two."
"I know it," Abe agreed. "You see, Mawruss, an editor, a soap-boxer, a
cotton-mill owner, or a stock-waterer might get away with it in this
country under the Constitution, but over on the other side they wouldn't
know what he was talking about at all, because in Germany, Mawruss, a
constitution means only one thing. It's something that can be ruined by
drinking too much beer, and you don't have to hire no lawyer for
_that_."