Some people wouldn't care what they said, just so long as they could
give the impression that they was regular sharks when it come to
music, but what kind of impression they gave when it come to
patriotism and common sense, such people don't give a nickel.
"It seems that this here Doctor Muck wouldn't play the national anthem,
Mawruss, because he found it was inartistic," Abe Potash said as he
turned to the editorial page of his daily paper.
"Well, how did he find the national currency, Abe?" Morris Perlmutter
inquired. "Also inartistic?"
"He didn't say," Abe replied. "But a statement was given out by Major
Higginson that--"
"Who's Major Higginson?" Morris asked.
"He's the feller that owns the Boston Symphony Orchestra which this here
Doctor Muck is the conductor of it," Abe replied.
"That must be an elegant orchestra, Abe," Morris commented. "A major is
running it and a doctor is conducting it. I suppose they've got working
for them as fiddlers a lot of attorneys and counselors at law, and the
chances is that if a feller was to come there looking for a job
operating a trombone on account he had had experience as a practical
tromboner with the New York Philharmonics, y'understand, they would
probably turn him down unless he could show a diploma from a recognized
school of pharmacy."
"For all I know, they might insist on having a certified public
accountant, Mawruss," Abe said, "but he would have to be a shark on the
trombone, anyway, because I understand this here Doctor Muck and Major
Higginson run a high-class orchestra."
"Well, it only goes to show that you don't got to got a whole lot of
common sense to run a high-grade orchestra, Abe," Morris retorted,
"which if I would be a German doctor stranded in Boston, y'understand,
and I had to _Gott soll huten_ conduct an orchestra for a living, I
would consider to myself that there ain't many Americans in or out of
the medical profession conducting orchestras over in Germany just now
which is refusing to play '_Die Wacht am Rhein_' or '_Heil im der
Siegerkranz_' on artistic grounds and getting away with it. Furthermore,
Abe, Doctor Muck should ought to figure that no matter if he was running
the highest-grade orchestra in existence or anyhow in the state of
Massachusetts, y'understand, and if nobody pays for a ticket to hear it,
what _is_ it? Am I right or wrong?"
"He probably thought there was enough Americans crazy about music to
make his orchestra pay even if he did insult them, Mawruss," Abe said,
"because you know as well as I do, Mawruss, there was a lot of sympathy
shown by Americans to them German singers which got fired at the
Metropolitan Opera House for insulting Americans or being pro-German. It
seems that one of them made up a funny song about the sinking of the
_Lusitania_, and some of the Americans which heard him sing it said that
the tone production was wonderful, and that such a really remarkable
breath control, y'understand, they hadn't heard it since Adelina Patti
in her palmiest days, and I bet yer if Doctor Muck was to take that song
and set it to music so as the Boston Symphony Orchestra could play it
them same people and plenty like them would say that the wood wind was
this, the strings was that, and something about the coda and the
obbligato, y'understand. In fact, Mawruss, they wouldn't care what they
said, just so long as they could give the impression that they was
regular sharks when it come to music, but what kind of impression they
gave when it come to patriotism and common sense, such people seemingly
don't give a nickel.
"Why, you take this here lady singer at the Metropolitan Opera House,"
Abe continued, "which her husband was agent for the Krupp Manufacturing
Company, and when she got fired, y'understand, it looked like some of
these here breath-control and tone-production experts was going to hold
a meeting and regularly move and second that a copy of the said
resolutions suitably engrossed be transmitted to her, care of Krupp
Manufacturing Company, Twenty forty-two, four six, and eight Buelow
Boulevard, Essen, on account she had been working for the Metropolitan
Opera House for pretty near twenty years, which the way some of them
singers goes on singing year after year at the Metropolitan Opera House,
Mawruss, sometimes you couldn't tell whether the Metropolitan Opera
House was an opera-house or a home, y'understand."
"That's neither here nor there, Abe," Morris said. "There ain't no
reason to my mind why the Metropolitan Opera House shouldn't ought to
hire ladies whose husbands is working for American concerns or is out of
a job, y'understand, and also it wouldn't be a bad idea to see that some
of them barytones and bassos which was formerly sending home every week
from two to five hundred dollars apiece to the old folks in
Charlottenburg and Wilmersdorf, y'understand, give up their places to a
few native-born fellers who contributed to the first and second Liberty
Loans, understand me, and ain't supporting a relation in the world."
"But the point which them coda and obbligato fans make is that if a
feller like this here Captain Kreisler of the Austrian army is the best
fiddler in existence, y'understand, it's up to us Americans to pay two
dollars and fifty cents a throw, not including war tax, to hear him
fiddle, and that we shouldn't ought to got no _Rishus_ against him even
if he would be only over here on a leave of absence dating from January
first, nineteen fifteen, up to and including seven hundred and fifty
thousand dollars," Abe said, "because it is claimed that the best
fiddlers in the world and the best conductors in the world don't belong
to any country. They are international."
"Maybe they are, Abe," Morris agreed, "but the money which they earn
belongs to the country in which they spend it, understand me, which my
idea is that these are war-times, and if the ordinary people is willing
to take their wheat bread with a little potato flour in it, them
big-league music fans should ought to be willing to take their
fiddle-playing with a few sour notes in it, so if the best fiddler in
the world is an Austrian who spends his money at home, y'understand,
they should ought to be contented with the next best one, and if he is
also an Austrian or a German let them work on right straight down the
line till they find one who ain't, because trading with the enemy is
trading with the enemy, whether you are trading with a German fiddler or
a German fish-dealer, and if you are going to hand over money to Germany
it don't make much difference if you do it in the name of art or in the
name of fish."
"Well, you couldn't exactly feel the same way about an artist with his
art as you could about a fish-dealer with his fish," Abe protested.
"I didn't say you could," Morris said. "I've got every respect for this
here Kreisler as a feller which plays something elegant on the fiddle,
but at the same time he has had himself extensively advertised with
pictures the same like King C. Gillette and William L. Douglas, and
that's probably what made him, Abe, because it's pretty safe to say that
if you could by any possibility induce and persuade them people which is
hollering about art being international and Kreisler being the best
fiddler in existence, y'understand, to go and hear Kreisler at a concert
where under the name of Harris Fine and wearing false whiskers he was
playing a program consisting principally of Rabinowitz's Concerto in G,
Opus number Two fifty-six B, y'understand, they would come away saying
it was awful rotten even for an amateur and that you should ought to
hear Kreisler play Rabinowitz's Concerto in G, Opus number Two fifty-six
B, and then you would know how that feller Harris Fine murdered it. So
that's why I say, Abe, that advertised art comes under the head of
merchandise, and I ain't so sure that the artist who advertises ain't
just as much of a business man as we would say, for example, a
fish-dealer."
"Well, there's one thing about this here trouble with the Boston
Symphony Orchestra, Mawruss," Abe said: "it has put Boston on the map
for a few days, which the way New York people is acting about electing a
mayor in New York City, y'understand, you would think that New York,
England, France, and Italy was fighting Germany and Austria, and that if
the mayor of New York said so, the war would go on or stop, as the case
might be, and otherwise not."
"You couldn't blame New York at that," Morris said. "People out in
Seattle which has never been no nearer New York as Fall City, Wash., or
Snoqualmie, goes round singing 'Take Me Back to New York Town' _oder_
'Give My Regards to Broadway,' and young ladies living in Saint Louis,
which is a good-sized city, y'understand, reads in a magazine printed in
Chicago--_also_ a good-sized city--story after story which has got to do
with a wealthy New York clubman, or a poor New York working-girl, or a
beautiful New York actress, while the advertising section has got
pictures by the hundreds of automobiles, ready-made clothing, vacuum
cleaners, beds and bedding, health underwear, and cash-registers, and
all of them are fixed up with the Grand Central Depot across the street
or the Public Library showing through a window or, anyhow, the Flatiron
Building and Madison Square Garden not half a column away, y'understand.
Also there is a New York store in every village and a New York letter in
every newspaper, and one way or another you would think that the whole
United States was trying to prove to New York that it was as important
as New York has for a long time already suspected."
"Well, ain't it?" Abe asked.
"It couldn't be," Morris replied. "Take, for instance, this here
election for mayor, and the way the New York papers talked about it you
would think the Kaiser says to Hindenberg: 'Listen, Max, don't ship no
more soldiers nowheres till we hear how things are breaking for
Hillkowitz in New York,' or maybe he said Mitchel or Hylan--you couldn't
tell, and Hindenberg says, 'But I understand Mitchel is pretty strong up
in the Twenty-third Assembly District in certain parts of the Bronix, so
I think, Chief, it might be a good idea to have a couple of dozen
divisions of artillery sent to Dvinsk and Riga.' But the Kaiser says:
'Now do as I tell you, Max. I got a wireless from Mexico that Hillkowitz
will carry three hundred and nine out of four hundred and thirteen
election districts in the Borough of Richmond alone.' And Hindenberg
says: 'Where did they get _that_ dope? I tell you they don't know
nothing but Hylan down on Staten Island, and if you take _my_ advice,
Chief, you'll 'phone Ludendorff to hold the Siegfried line, the
Lohengrin line, the Trovatore line, the Travvyayter line, the Bohemian
Girl line, and all the other lines from Aida to Zampa, because in my
opinion Mitchel has a walk-over.'"
"That's where they both made a mistake," Abe commented, "because it was
a landslide for Hylan."
"_Yow_ they was mistaken," Morris said. "Do you suppose for one moment
that the Kaiser had got so much as an inkling that they were going to
elect a mayor in New York? _Oser!_ And with this here Hindenberg, you
could tell from the feller's face that for all he understands about the
English language, Abe, the word _mayor_ don't exist at all. As for the
way they choose a mayor in America, that _grobe Kerl_ couldn't tell you
whether they _elect_ a mayor, _appoint_ a mayor, or _cut_ for a
mayor--aces low. And that's the way it goes in New York, Abe. They think
that the whole of Europe is watching with palpitations of the heart to
see who is going to be elected mayor of New York, and they never stop to
figure that there ain't six persons out of the six millions in New York
which could tell you the name of the mayor of London, Paris, Berlin,
Vienna, St. Petersburg, or, for that matter, Yonkers or Jersey City."
"From the mayor which they finally chose in New York, Mawruss," Abe
commented, "a feller needn't got to be so terribly ignorant as all that
to suppose that not only did the people of New York, instead of voting
for mayor, _cut_ for him, aces low, y'understand, but that they also
turned up the ace."
"They turned up what they wanted to turn up, Abe," Morris said, "which
the way the people of New York City elects Tammany Hall every few years,
Abe, it makes you think that everybody should have a vote, except
convicts, idiots, minors, Indians not taxed, and people that live in New
York City."
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