WILL RETURN
JANUARY 2, 1919
and anybody else would do the same, Abe, I don't care if he would be as
patriotic as Senator LaFollette himself even."
"But that ain't the only idees for financing the war which Congress has
got it, Mawruss," Abe said. "On everything which a feller buys, from
pinochle decks to headache medicine, he will have to put a stamp. There
will be extra stamps on all kinds of checks from bank checks and poker
checks to bar checks and hat checks. There will be red stamps, blue
stamps, and stamps in all pastel shades, and when they run out of colors
they'll print 'em in black and white and issue them to the public in
flavors like wintergreen, peppermint, spearmint, and clove for bar-check
stamps and strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate nut Sunday for
theayter-ticket stamps."
"For my part they could flavor 'em with _gefullte Miltz mit Knockerl_,
because I got through buying orchestra seats when they begun to tax you
two dollars and fifty cents for them, Abe, which if the government
really and truly wants to raise money by taxing the public, why do they
fool away their time asking suggestions from such new beginners like
LaFollette and Chump Clark, when right here in New York there is fellers
in the restaurant business, the theayter business, and running hat-check
stands which has made taxing the public a life study already. For
instance, if I would be the government and I wanted to tax theayter
tickets, instead of monkeying around with stamps for twenty or thirty
cents, y'understand, I would put a head waiter by the box-office window,
and when the public is through paying for their tickets he gives them
one look, y'understand, and they just naturally hand him a dollar."
"What I couldn't understand is why should the government pick on people
which goes to theayter for amusement," Abe said. "Ain't it enough that
in order to hold my trade I've got to sit for three hours listening to a
lot of nonsense when I could hardly keep my eyes open, but I must also
get writer's cramp in my tongue from licking stamps yet just to oblige
the United States government and a customer from the Middle West, which
it's a gamble whether he wouldn't return the goods on me even if he does
give me the order."
"That's what it is to have fellers working as Congressmen which 'ain't
had no other business experience," Morris declared. "If LaFollette and
this here Clark knew what they was about, Abe, they would make it a law
that the _customer_ should buy the stamps, and not alone for theayters,
but for meals also. You take some of these out-of-town buyers which
you've practically got to ruin their digestions before they would so
much as look at your line, y'understand, and if they would got to paste
a fifty-cent stamp on every broiled lobster they order up on you it
would go a long way toward taking care of the uniform bills for the
first draft."
"And they should also got to stand for the tax on gasolene also," Abe
added. "If you treat one of them grafters to so much as a two-quart
automobile ride, you've already sacrificed half your profit on a couple
of garments, even if he does pay for the stamps."
"Cigars is another thing the government could of got a lot of money out
of," Morris said.
"What do you mean--_could_ of got?" Abe exclaimed. "They _do_ get a lot
of money out of cigars. You take the average cigar to-day which costs
sixty dollars a thousand to put on the market, Mawruss, and each cigar
stands the manufacturer in as follows:
Advertising $.01
Printing and lithographing .0015
Manufacturing and boxing .01
Swiss chard .005
War tax .02
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