"When does the Shipping Commission expect to begin shipments on those
ships?" Abe Potash asked, as he laid down the morning paper a few days
after Thanksgiving.
"I don't know," Morris Perlmutter replied. "The way the newspapers was
talking last April, Abe, it looked like by the first of September our
production would be so far ahead of our orders for ships that President
Wilson would have to organize a special department to handle the
cancellations, y'understand, but from what I could see now, Abe, by next
spring the nearest them Shipping Commission fellers will have come to
deliveries on ships is that this here Hurley will be getting writer's
cramp from signing letters to the attorneys for the people which ordered
ships that in reply to your favor of the tenth inst. would say that we
expect to ship the ships not later than July first at the latest, and
oblige."
"But I thought that even before we went to war with Germany, Mawruss, a
couple of inventors made it an invention of a ship which could be built
of yellow pine in ninety days net."
"Sure, I know," Morris said. "But the Shipping Commission couldn't make
up their minds whether them yellow-pine ships would be any good even
after they _were_ built, on account some professional experts claimed
that yellow pine shrinks in water to the extent of .00031416 milliegrams
to the kilowatt-hour, or .000000001 per cent., and other professional
experts said, '_Yow_ .00031416 milliegrams!' and that .00000031416 would
be big already, and that also what them first experts didn't know from
the shrinkage of yellow pine, understand me."
"Well, why didn't the Shipping Commission build a sample ship from
yellow pine?" Abe suggested. "It's already nine months since the war
started, and by this time such a ship could have been in the water long
enough for them Shipping Commission fellers to judge which experts was
right."
"And suppose she did shrink a little," Morris said, "she could have been
anyhow disposed of '_as is_' to somebody who didn't take it so
particular to the fraction of an inch how much yellow pine he gets in a
yellow-pine ship."
"I give you right, Mawruss," Abe agreed, "but then, you see, an idee
like that would never occur to a professional expert, Mawruss, because
it has the one big objection that it might prove the other experts was
right when they didn't agree with him, which that is the trouble with
professional experts. The important thing to them ain't so much the
articles on which they experts, as what big experts they are on such
articles.
"Take this here Lewis machine-gun, Mawruss," Abe continued, "and when
Colonel Lewis puts it up to the army experts, y'understand, naturally
them experts says, 'Well, if we are such big experts on machine-guns, we
should ought to know a whole lot more about machine-guns as Colonel
Lewis, and what does that _Schlemiel_ know about machine-guns,
_anyway_?' so they sent Colonel Lewis a notice that they would not be
responsible for goods left over thirty days, and the consequence was
Colonel Lewis sold his machine-gun to the English army."
"And he didn't have to be such a cracker-jack high-grade A-number-one
salesman to do that, neither," Morris commented, "because if his only
talking point to the English experts was that the American experts had
turned down his gun, y'understand, the English experts would give him a
big order without even asking him to unpack his samples."
"Sure, I know," Abe said. "But if Colonel Lewis would of had the
interests of America at heart, Mawruss, he should ought to have offered
his machine-gun to the English experts first, understand me, and after
he had got out of the observation ward, which the English experts would
just naturally send him to as a dangerous American crank with a foolish
idea for a machine-gun, y'understand, the American experts would have
taken his entire output at his own terms."
[Illustration: "'Well, if we are such big experts on machine-guns, we
should ought to know a whole lot more about machine-guns as Colonel
Lewis, and what does that _Schlemiel_ know about machine-guns,
_anyway_?'"]
"After all, you can't kick about such mistakes being made, because
that's the trouble about being a new beginner in any business," Morris
said. "It don't make no difference whether it would be war or pants,
Abe, you start out with one big liability, and that is the advice
proposition. Twice as many new beginners goes under from accepting what
they thought was good advice as from accepting what they thought was
good accounts, Abe, and them fellers on the Shipping Commission deserves
a great deal of credit that they already made such fine progress. You
can just imagine what this here Hurley which he used to was in the
railroad business must be up against from his friends which has been in
the ship-building business for years already. The chance is that every
time Mr. Hurley goes out on the street one of them old ship-building
friends comes up to him with that good-advice expression on his face and
says: '_Nu_, Hurley. How are they coming?' which it don't make a bit of
difference to such a feller whether Mr. Hurley would say, '_So, so_,'
'_Pretty good_,' or '_Rotten_,' y'understand, he might just as well save
his breath, on account the good-advice feller is going to get it off his
chest, anyhow.
"'You're lucky at that,' the good-advice feller says, 'because I just
met your assistant designer, Jake Rashkin, and he tells me you are
getting out a line of whalebacks in pastel shades.'
"'Well, why not?' Hurley says.
"'Why not!' the friend exclaims. 'You mean to tell me that you don't
know even that much about the ship-building business, that you would
actually go to work and make up for the fall trade a line of whalebacks
in pastel shades? Honestly, Hurley, I must say I am surprised at you.'
And for the next twenty minutes he gives Hurley the names and dates of
six voluntary bankrupts, all of whom started in the ship-building
business by making up a line of whalebacks in pastel shades, together
with the details of just what them fellers is doing for a living to-day
from selling cigars on commission downwards.
"Naturally, Hurley hustles right back to the shop and tells the foreman
that if they 'ain't already started on that last batch of whalebacks in
pastel shades, not to mind, and he spends the rest of the afternoon
getting his operators busy on a couple of hundred oil-burning boats in
solid colors, like reds, greens, and blues. The consequence is that the
next day at lunch another old friend comes up to him, which used to was
in the ship-building business when the record from New York to Liverpool
was nineteen days ten hours and forty-five minutes, y'understand, and
says: '_Nu_, Hurley. How is the busy little ship-builder to-day?'
"'Pretty good,' Hurley says. 'I'm just getting to work on a big line of
oil-burners in solid colors, like reds, greens, and blues.'
"'No!' the old ship-builder says.
"'Sure!' Hurley tells him, and after they have said 'No!' and 'Sure!' a
couple of dozen times it appears that if a new beginner in the
ship-building business lays in a stock of plain-colored oil-burning
boats he might just so well kiss himself good-by with his ship-building
business and be done with it. Also it seems that the only line of goods
for a new beginner in the ship-building business to specialize in is
whalebacks in pastel shades, Abe, and that's the way it goes."
"At that we're a whole lot better off as England was when she started in
as a new beginner in the war business," Abe commented. "Mr. Hurley was,
anyhow, in the railroad business when he took over the ship-building
job, and we've got other men which were high-grade dry-goods and
hardware men before they threw up their business to help the government
branch out into the war business, y'understand, but if we would got to
depend on somebody who was trying to run a shipyard with the experience
he had got from being national lawn-tennis champion for the years
nineteen hundred to nineteen sixteen inclusive, or if President Wilson
had the idee that for a man to be the right man in the right place,
y'understand, he should ought to have the gumption and business ability
which a feller naturally picks up in the course of being an earl or a
duke, understand me, the best we could hope for would be a fleet of six
rebuilt tugboats by the fall of nineteen fifty."
"It wasn't England's fault that she made such a mistake, Abe," Morris
said. "Up to the time Germany started this war it used to was considered
that if nations did got to go to war, y'understand, the best way to go
about it was to put it in charge of a good sport like a tennis champion
would naturally have to be, and as for the earls and the dukes, the
theory on which them fellers fooled away their time was that they was
just resting up between wars, Abe, because they was, anyhow, gentlemen,
and it was England's idea that all a soldier had to be was a gentleman.
But nowadays that's already a thing of the past. The way Germany fixed
things with her long-distance cannons, her liquid fire, gas, and
Zeppelins, a soldier don't have to be so much of a gentleman as an
inventor, a chemist, an engineer, and a general all-around hustler."
"In fact, Mawruss," Abe said, "a German soldier don't need to be a
gentleman at all, because when it comes to stealing chateau furniture,
destroying cathedrals, burning houses, and chopping down fruit-trees,
any experience as a gentleman wouldn't be much of a help to a German
soldier."
"That's what I am telling you, Abe," Morris declared. "Germany has made
war a business, y'understand, and she figures that a gentleman in the
war business is like a gentleman in the pants business. He ain't going
to make any more or better pants by being a gentleman, y'understand, and
if we are going to win this war, Abe, we should ought to stop beefing
about German soldiers not being gentlemen, and take into consideration
the fact that while German engineers, chemists, inventors, and
submarine-builders may not know whether you play lawn tennis with a cue,
mallet, or a full deck of fifty-two cards including the joker, Abe, you
can bet your life that they know an awful lot about engineering,
chemistry, and building submarines, and they don't need no so-called
experts to help them, neither."
"And you can also bet your life, Mawruss, that no German would have
turned down Colonel Lewis's machine-guns," Abe said, "the way them
experts of ours did."
"Well, what is an expert to do, Abe?" Morris asked. "If he goes to work
and recommends the government to give an inventor an order for his
invention, he's taking a big chance that the invention wouldn't work,
and you know as well as I do, Abe, most American experts play in
terrible hard luck. You take these here military experts which gives
expert opinions in the newspapers about what is going to happen next on
the Balkan front, y'understand, and a feller could make quite a
reputation as a military expert by simply coppering their predictions."
"Well, them military experts which writes in the newspapers ain't really
experts at all, Mawruss," Abe said. "They're just crickets, like them
musical crickets which knows everything there is to know about, we would
say, for example, playing on the fiddle excepting how to play on the
fiddle."
"_Aber_ what is the difference between a professional expert and a
professional cricket, _anyway_?" Morris asked.
"A professional expert is a feller which thinks he knows all about a
business because he tried for years and he never could make a success of
it," Abe replied, "whereas a professional cricket is a feller which
thinks he knows all about a business because he tried for years and he
could never even break into it."
"And how could you expect to get from people like that an opinion which
ain't on the bias?" Morris concluded.