"I got a circular letter from this here Garfield where he says we should
keep the temperature of our rooms down to sixty-eight degrees," Abe
Potash remarked during the recent below-zero spell in New York.
"What do you mean--down to sixty-eight degrees?" Morris Perlmutter said.
"If a feller which lives in a New York City apartment-house nowadays
could get the temperature of his rooms as high as down to forty-eight
degrees, y'understand, it's only because some of the tenants 'ain't come
across with the janitor's present yet and he still has hopes. Yes, Abe,
a circular like that might do some good in Pasadena _oder_ Pallum Beach,
y'understand, but it's wasted here in New York."
"There's bound to be a whole lot of waste in them don't-waste-nothing
circulars," Abe commented, "because plenty of people is getting letters
from the Food Conservation Commission to go slow on sugar which 'ain't
risked taking even a two-grain saccharin tablet in years already, and
the chances is that there has been tons and tons of circulars sent out
to other people which on account of their livers _oder_ religions
wouldn't on any account eat the articles of food which the circulars
begs them on no account to eat, y'understand."
"And next year them circulars will be still less necessary because
enough people is going to get rheumatism from living in cold rooms to
cut down the consumption of red meats over fifty per cent.," Morris
observed.
"Well, something has got to be done to make people go slow on using up
coal, Mawruss," Abe said, "which the way it is now, Mawruss, twice as
much coal is burned in one night to manufacture electricity for a sky
sign saying that 'Toasted Sawdust Is the Perfect Breakfast Food' on
account it is made only from the best grades of Tennessee yellow pine,
y'understand, as would run an airyoplane-factory for a week, understand
me, and children is fooling away their time in the streets because if
coal is used to heat the school buildings, y'understand, there wouldn't
be enough left for the really important things like lighting up the
fronts of vaudeville theayters with the names of actors or telling lies
about the mileage of automobile tires by means of a couple of million
electric lights every night from sunset to sunrise, understand me."
"Still there's a good deal to be said on the other side, Abe," Morris
retorted, "which if the new coal regulations is going to make an end of
the sky signs, it will cut off practically all the reading that most
New-Yorkers do outside of the newspapers, y'understand. Then again
there's a whole lot of people aside from stockholders in
electric-lighting companies which used to make a good living out of them
sky signs. For instance, what's going to become of the fellers that
manufactured them and the firm of certified public accountants _nebich_
which lost the job of adding up the figures on the meters, because while
any _Schlemiel_ with a good imagination would be trusted to read the
ordinary meter, Abe, the job of figuring the damages on a sky sign which
is eating up a couple of million kilowatt-years every twenty minutes is
something else again."
"And yet, Mawruss, while I 'ain't got such a soft heart that I could
even have sympathy for an electric-lighting company, understand me,
still I am sorry to see them sky signs go," Abe said, "because lots of
fellers from the small towns, members of rotary clubs and the like, used
to get a great deal of pleasure from seeing a kitten made out of three
hundred thousand electric bulbs playing with a spool of silk made out of
five hundred and fifty thousand bulbs, and there was something very
fascinating about watching that automobile tire which used to light up
and go out every once in a while somewheres around the upper end of
Times Square."
"Sure, I know," Morris said. "But if you was spending your good money
for such an advertised tire, Abe, it wouldn't be very fascinating to
watch it blow out every once in a while on account the manufacturer had
to skimp the rubber in order to pay the electric-light bills, Abe, and
if any of them members of rotary clubs is in the dry-goods business and
has to pay fancy prices for spool silk, Abe, they are _oser_ going to
thank the salesmen for the good time they put in while in New York
rubbering at his firm's sky sign, because you know as well as I do, Abe,
when it comes right down to it, nothing costs a customer so much as free
entertainment."
"Of course, Mawruss," Abe said, "the idee of them electric sky signs is
not to entertain, but to advertise, and as an advertising man told me
the other day, Mawruss, the advertised article is just as low in price
as the same article would be if unadvertised, the reason being that the
advertised article's output is greater and that he wanted me to
advertise in the _Daily Cloak and Suit Record_."
"Well, certainly, if the output is greater the cost of production is or
should ought to be less," Morris observed, "so I think the feller was
right at that, Abe."
"That's what I told him," Abe continued, "but I also said that if I
would put for fifty cents a day an advertisement in the paper,
y'understand, my partner would never let me hear the end of it."
"Is _that_ so!" Morris exclaimed. "Since when did I kick that we
shouldn't do no advertising?"
"Never mind," Abe retorted. "I heard you speak often about advertising
the same like you done just now about sky signs, which it is already a
back-number idee that advertising raised the price of goods to the
customer and--"
"Listen!" Morris interrupted. "If I would got it such a back-number
idees like you, Abe, I would put myself into a home for chronic
Freemasons or something, which I always was in favor of advertising,
except that I believe there is advertising and _advertising_, Abe, and
when an advertisement only makes you think of what it costs, instead of
what it advertises, like sky signs, y'understand, to me it ain't an
advertisement at all. It's just a warning."
"Did I say it wasn't?" Abe asked. "The way you talk, Mawruss, you would
think I was in favor of electric signs, whereas I believe that in times
like these a very little publicity goes an awful long ways, Mawruss,
which if them Congressmen down in Washington was requested by the Coal
Commission to keep it a trifle dark and not use up so much candle-power
in advertising the mistakes that has been made by some fellers now
working for the government which 'ain't had as much experience in
covering up their tracks as, we would say, for example, a Congressman,
Mawruss, that wouldn't do no harm, neither."
"It ain't a question of covering tracks, Abe," Morris declared, "because
them business men which is now working for the government are perfectly
honest, although they do make mistakes in their jobs and get rattled
easy on the witness-stand, which if such fellers _was_ dishonest, Abe,
even a Congressman would know enough not to advertise it."
"As a matter of fact, Mawruss," Abe declared, "them Congressmen ain't
calculating to advertise anybody or anything but themselves. Yes,
Mawruss, the way some United States Senators acts you would think they
was trying to get a national reputation as first-class, cracker-jack,
A-number-one police-court lawyers, and the expert manner in which they
can confuse and worry a high-grade Diston who is sacrificing his time
and money to help out the government and make him appear a crook,
y'understand, must be a source of great satisfaction to the folks back
home--in Germany.
"And it certainly ain't helping to win the war any, Mawruss, which most
people would get the idee from reading the accounts of it in the
newspapers that Mr. Hoover was tried by the United States Senate and
found guilty of boosting the price of sugar in the first degree."
"Well, in that case, Abe," Morris suggested, "even if we are a little
short of fuel it would of been better for the sugar situation, and maybe
also the wool uniforms also, if, instead of getting publicity through
investigations, y'understand, the United States Senate would fix up an
electric sign for the front of the Capitol at Washington and make
Senator Reed the top-liner in big letters like Eva Tanguay or Mr. Louis
Mann, because here in America we've got incandescent bulbs to burn,
Abe, but we have only one Hoover, and we should ought to take care of
him."
"Understand me, Mawruss," Abe declared, emphatically, "it ain't that I
object to a certain amount of light being thrown on the mistakes that is
made in running the war, if it wasn't that they keep everything so dark
about the progress that is also made--the submarines we are sinking, the
number of soldiers we've got it in France, and what them boys is doing
over there, and while I know there's good reasons for it, maybe it's
like this here Broadway proposition--it pays to keep it dark, but it
might pay better to keep it light, which I understand that all the
lighting company saves in coal by cutting out the sky signs is less than
thirty tons a night."
"Thirty tons a night would warm a whole lot of people, Abe," Morris
said.
"Sure, I know," Abe agreed. "But even at ten dollars a ton, Mawruss, it
would be only a saving of three hundred dollars, which I bet yer some
restaurants on Broadway has lost that much money apiece since the
lighting orders went into effect."
"That may be," Morris admitted, "but what the Coal Commission is trying
to save ain't money, Abe. It's coal. And that is one of the points about
this war that people 'ain't exactly realized yet. Money ain't what it
once used to was before this war, Abe. You can still make it, lose it,
spend it, and save it, but you couldn't sweeten your coffee with it or
heat your house with it till there's sugar and coal enough to go
around. Also it's only a question of time when money won't get you to
Pallum Beach in the winter or Maine in the summer unless the government
official in charge of the railroads thinks it is necessary, and also if
this war only goes on long enough and wool gets any scarcer, Abe, money
won't buy you a new pair of pants even until you can put up a good
enough argument with it to convince a government pants inspector that
it's a case of either buying a new pair of pants or a frock-coat to make
the old ones decent, understand me."
"But the papers has said right straight along that money would win this
war, Mawruss," Abe said.
"Yes, and it could lose it, too, according to the way it is spent,"
Morris continued, "and particularly right now when money can still buy
things which the government needs for the soldiers, y'understand, money
is a dangerous article in the hands of some people who think that the
feller which don't feel the high price of sugar is more privileged to
eat it than the feller which could barely afford it."
"Even so," Abe remarked, "it seems to me that not spending money must be
an easy way to be patriotic."
"And some fellers is just natural-born patriots that way," Morris added,
"and if they ain't, y'understand, the war is going to make them. It's
going to give the rich man the same chance to be a good sitson as the
poor man, and it's made a fine start by taking the lights off of
Broadway so that you couldn't tell it from a respectable street, like
Lexington Avenue."
"Couldn't a street be lighted up and still be respectable?" Abe asked.
"Yes, and a rich man could spend his money foolishly and also be
respectable," Morris agreed, "but not in war-times."