One lump, or two, please?
"Ain't it terrible the way you couldn't buy no sugar in New York,
nowadays, Mawruss?" Abe Potash said, one morning in November.
"Let the people _not_ eat sugar," Morris Perlmutter declared. "These are
war-times, Abe."
"Suppose they are war-times," Abe retorted, "must everybody act like
they had diabetes? Sugar is just so much a food as butter and milk and
_gefullte Rinderbrust_."
"I know it is," Morris agreed, "but most people eat it because it's
sweet, and they like it."
"Then it's your idea that on account of the war people should eat only
them foods which they don't like?" Abe inquired.
"That ain't _my_ idea, Abe," Morris protested; "I got it from reading
letters to the editors written by Pro Bono Publicos and other fellers
which is taking advantage of the only opportunity they will ever have to
figure in the newspapers outside of the births, marriages, and deaths,
y'understand. Them fellers all insist that until the war is over
everything in the way of sweetening should be left out of American life,
and some of 'em even go so far as to claim that we should ought to swear
off pepper and salt also. Their idea is that until we lick the Germans
the American people should leave off going to the theayter, riding in
automobiles, playing golluf, baseball, and auction pinochle, and reading
magazines and story-books, y'understand. In fact, they say that the
American people should devote themselves to their business, but what
business the fellers which is in the show business, the automobile
business, and the magazine-publishing business should devote themselves
to don't seem to of occurred to these here Pro Bono Publicos at all."
"I guess them newspaper-letter writers which is trying to beat out their
own funeral notices must of got their dope from this here Frank J.
Vanderlip," Abe commented, "which I read it somewheres that he comes out
with a brogan that a dollar spent for unnecessary things is an
unpatriotic dollar."
"Sure, I know," Morris said, "but he left it to the spender's judgment
as to what was necessary and what was unnecessary, Abe, which even
President Wilson himself finds it necessary once in a while to go to a
theayter in order to forget the way them Pro Bono Publicos is nagging at
him, morning, noon, and night."
"But the country must got to get very busy if we expect to win,
Mawruss," Abe said, "and them Pro Bonos thinks it's up to them to make
the people realize what a serious proposition we've got on our hands."
"That's all right, too," Morris agreed, "but it would be a whole lot
more serious if the people become _Meshuggah_ from melancholia before we
got half-way through with the war. Even when times is prosperous only a
very few of the _Leute_ takes more amusement than is necessary for 'em,
Abe, and that's why I say that this here Frank J. Vanderlip knew what he
was talking about when he didn't say what things was unnecessary. For
instance, Abe, if a Pro Bono Publico, on account of the war, cuts out
taking a summer vacation for a couple of hundred dollars, and in
consequence gets a breakdown from overwork and has to spend five hundred
dollars for doctor bills, all you've got to do is to strike a balance
and you can see for yourself that he has spent three hundred unnecessary
unpatriotic dollars."
"Well, doctors has got to have money to buy Liberty Bonds with the same
like anybody else, Mawruss," Abe commented.
"I know they have," Morris agreed, "and that's why I say the great
mistake which these here Pro Bonos makes is that the war is going to be
fought only with the money which is saved, whereas if them boys had any
experience collecting for an orphan asylum or a hospital, Abe, they
would know that it ain't the tight-wads which come across. Yes, Abe, you
could take it from me, the very people which is cutting out theayters,
automobile rides, and auction pinochle for the duration of the war would
think twice before they invest the money they save that way in anything
which don't bear interest at the rate of six per cent. per annum."
"You may be right, Mawruss," Abe said, "but arguments about how to
finance the war is like double-faced twelve-inch phonograph records.
There's a good deal to be said on both sides, which it looks like a dead
open-and-shut proposition to me that people couldn't buy no Liberty
Bonds with the money they spend for theayter tickets."
"But the feller which runs the theayter could, and he must also got to
pay the government a tax on the money which he gets that way," Morris
retorted.
"But how about the money which the theayter-owner must got to pay in
wages to actors, play-writers, ushers, and the _Rosher_ which sells
tickets in the box-office?" Abe argued.
"Well, how are all them loafers going to buy Liberty Bonds if they
wouldn't get their money that way?" Morris asked. "So you see how it is,
Abe: the feller which saves all his money for the duration of the war
ain't such a big _Tzaddik_ as you would think, because even if he
invests the whole thing in Liberty Bonds, which he ain't likely to do,
all he gets for his money is Liberty Bonds, and at the same time he is
helping to ruin a lot of business men and throw their employees out of
their jobs, and incidentally he is also doing the best he knows how to
make the whole country sick and tired of the war. _Aber_ you take one of
them fellers which goes once in a while to the theayter for the duration
of the war, y'understand, and indirectly he is handing the government
just so much money as the tight-wad, the only difference being that the
government ain't paying him no interest on it, and he is also helping to
keep the show business going and to pay the wages of the actors and all
them other low-lives which makes a living out of the show business."
"Sure, I know," Abe said. "But how is the government going to get men
for the ammunition-factories if they are busy making automobiles for
joy-riding _oder_ fooling away their time as actors, Mawruss?"
"That is up to the government and not to the Pro Bono Publicos," Morris
declared, "which if the theayters has got to be closed, Abe, I would a
whole lot sooner have it done by the government as by a bunch of Pro
Bono Publicos, which not only never goes to the theayter _anyway_, but
also gets more pleasure from seeing their foolishness printed in the
newspaper than you or I would from seeing the Follies of nineteen
seventeen to nineteen fifty inclusive."
"Well, I'll tell you, Mawruss," Abe said, "admitting that all which you
say is true, y'understand, I seen a whole lot of fellers which is
working as actors during the past few years, Mawruss, and with the
exception of six, may be, it would _oser_ do the show business any harm
_if_ them fellers was to become operators on pants, let alone
ammunition. It's the same way with the automobile business also. If
seventy-five per cent. of the people which runs automobiles was
compelled to give them up to-morrow, Mawruss, the thing they would miss
most of all would be the bills from the repair-shop robbers. So that's
the way it goes, Mawruss. It don't make no difference what a Pro Bono
Publico writes to the newspaper, y'understand, he couldn't do a
hundredth part as much to make people cut out going to the theayter for
the duration of the war as the feller in the show business does when he
puts on a rotten show. Also Mr. Vanderlip has got a good line of talk
about Americans acting economical, y'understand, but he's practically
encouraging the people that they should throw away their money left and
right on automobiles, compared to some of them automobile-manufacturers
which depends upon their repair departments for their profits."
"I understand that right now, Abe, the automobile business is falling
off something terrible," Morris continued, "and the show business also."
"Sure it is," Abe said, "because so soon as the government put taxes on
theayter tickets and automobiles, Mawruss, the people was bound to
figure it out that it was bad enough they should got to pay taxes on
their assets without being soaked ten per cent. on their liabilities
also. And if I would be a Pro Bono Publico which, _Gott sei dank_, I
couldn't write good enough English to break into the newspapers,
Mawruss, the argument I would make is that people should leave off being
suckers for the duration of the war, and the whole matter of spending
money foolishly on theayter tickets and automobiles would adjust itself
without any assistance from the government, y'understand."
"Well, everything else failing, them automobile-dealers and
theayter-owners could get up a war bazaar for themselves," Morris
suggested, "which I seen it the other day in the papers where they run
off a war bazaar in New York and raised over seventy thousand dollars
for some fellers in the advertising business."
"Has the advertising business also been affected by the war?" Abe asked.
"The business of _some_ advertising agents has," replied Morris, "which
it seems that the standard rates for advertising agents who solicited
advertisements for war-bazaar programs was any sum realized by the
bazaar over and above one-tenth of one per cent. of the net proceeds,
which the advertising men agreed should be devoted to wounded American
soldiers or starving Belgiums, according to the name of the bazaar."
"Maybe them advertising agents earned their money at that, Mawruss," Abe
said, "which the average advertising solicitor would need to do a whole
lot of talking before he could convince me that an advertisement in a
war-bazaar program has got any draught to speak about, because you take
a feller in the pants business, y'understand, and if he would get an
order for one-twelfth dozen pants out of all the advertisements which he
would stick in war-bazaar programs from the beginning of the war up to
the time when running a war bazaar first offense is going to be the
equivalence of not less than from five to ten years, understand me, it
would be big already."
"At the same time," Morris protested, "if people is foolish enough to
blow in their money advertising by war-bazaar programs, Abe, it don't
seem unreasonable to me that the advertising agents and the starving
Belgiums should go fifty-fifty on the proceeds, and the way it looks
now, Abe, the New York grand jury is going to agree with me after they
get through investigating the bills for advertising in connection with
the army and navy bazaars."
"Sure, I know," Abe agreed. "But why should the grand jury investigate
only the advertising? Why don't a grand-juryman for once in his life do
a little something to earn his salary and investigate what becomes of
the articles which young ladies sells chances on at war bazaars? It
would also be a slight satisfaction for them easy marks which
contributes merchandise to a war bazaar if the grand jury could send out
tracers after the goods which remained in stock when the bazaar was
officially declared closed by the parties named in the indictment."
"What do you think--a New York grand jury has got nothing else to
investigate for the rest of the twentieth century except one war
bazaar?" Morris inquired. "The way you talk you would think that they
had nothing better to do with their time than the people which goes to
war bazaars, which the reason why them advertising men went wrong was
that they were practically encouraged to run crooked war bazaars by the
hundreds of thousands of people who wouldn't loosen up for charity
unless they could get something for their money besides the good they
are doing."
"Well, that only goes to show how one minute you argue one way, and the
next you say something entirely different again," Abe said.
"Is that so?" Morris exclaimed. "Well, so far as I could see, Abe, you
ain't on a strict diet, neither, when it comes to eating your own
words."
"Maybe I ain't," Abe admitted, "but it seems to me that people might
just so well pass on their money to the Red Cross through war bazaars as
pass it on to the government through buying theayter tickets the way you
argued a few minutes since."
"The Red Cross is one thing and the government another," Morris
retorted. "If people spend money at a war bazaar maybe one per cent. of
it reaches the Red Cross and maybe it don't, whereas if they spend at a
theayter, the government gets ten per cent. net, and the transaction
'ain't got to be audited by the grand jury, neither."
"Then you ain't in favor that people should give their money to the Red
Cross?" Abe said.
"_Gott soll huten!_" Morris cried. "People should give all they could to
the Red Cross and the government also, but while they are doing it,
Abe, it ain't no more necessary that they should encourage a crooked
advertising agent as that they should ruin a hard-working feller in the
show business. Am I right or wrong?"