"It ain't a bad scheme at that, Mawruss," Abe Potash said as he laid
down the paper which contained an editorial on daylight-saving. "The
idee is to get a law passed by the legislature setting the clock ahead
one hour in summer-time and get the advantage of the sun rising earlier
and setting later so that you don't have to use so much electric light
and gas, y'understand, because it's an old saying and a true one,
Mawruss, that the sunshine's free for everybody."
"Except the feller in the raincoat business," Morris Perlmutter added.
"Also, Mawruss," Abe continued, evading the interruption, "there's a
whole lot of people which 'ain't got enough will power to get up until
their folks knock at the door and say it is half past seven and are they
going to lay in bed all day, y'understand, which in reality when the
clocks are set ahead, Mawruss, it would be only half past six."
"But don't you suppose that lazy people read the newspapers the same
like anybody else, Abe?" Morris asked. "Them fellers would know just as
good as the people which is trying to wake them up that it is only half
past six under Section Two A of Chapter Five Fourteen of the Laws of
Nineteen Eighteen entitled 'An Act to Save Daylight in the State of New
York for Cities of the First, Second, and Third Classes,' y'understand,
and they will turn right over and go on sleeping until eight o'clock,
old style, which is two hours after the sun is scheduled to rise in the
almanacs published by Kidney Remedy companies from information furnished
by the United States government in Washington."
"Of course, Mawruss, I ain't such a big philosopher like you,
y'understand," Abe said, "but so far as I could see it ain't going to do
a bit of harm if you could get down-town one hour earlier in the
summer-time, even though it is going to take an act of the legislature
to do it."
"And it would also be a good thing if the legislature would pass an act
making a half an hour for lunch thirty minutes long instead of ninety
minutes, the way some people has got into the habit of figuring it,
Abe," Morris retorted, "but, anyhow, that ain't here nor there. This is
a republic, Abe, and if the people wants to kid themselves by putting
the clock ahead instead of getting up earlier, Mawruss, the government
could easy oblige them, y'understand, but not even the Kaiser and all
his generals could make a law that would change the sun from being right
straight overhead at twelve o'clock noon, Abe."
"Don't worry about the sun, Mawruss," Abe said. "The sun would stay on
the job, war-times or no war-times. Nobody is trying to make laws to kid
the sun into getting to work any earlier, Mawruss, but even with this
war as an argument, there's a whole lot of people which would be foolish
enough to claim pay for a time and a half for the first hour they worked
if you was to alter your office hours so that they had to come down-town
at seven instead of eight, although you did let them go home an hour
earlier in the afternoon."
"Maybe they would," Morris said, "but it seems to me, Abe, that a great
deal of time and money is wasted by legislatures making laws for
unreasonable people. For instance, if you change the clocks to save time
where are you going to stop? The next thing you know the legislature
would be trying to save coal by changing the thermometer in winter so
that the freezing-point from December first to March first would be
forty-five degrees Fahrenheit, and then when people living in houses
situated in cities of the first, second, and third classes kept their
houses up to a sixty-eight-degree new style, which was fifty-five
degrees old style, they would be feeling perfectly comfortable under the
statue in such case made and provided. Also legislatures would be making
laws for the period of the sugar shortage, changing the dials on spring
scales by bringing the pounds closer together, so that a pound of sugar
would contain sixteen ounces new style, being equivalent to twelve
ounces old style."
"It ain't a bad idea at that, Mawruss," Abe said.
"It wouldn't be if the same law provided for changing the size of
teaspoons and cups, Abe," Morris said, "and even then there is no way of
trusting a bowl of sugar to a sugar hog in the hopes that he wouldn't
help himself to four or five spoonfuls, new style, being the equivalent
of the three spoonfuls such a _Chozzer_ used to be put into his coffee
before the passage of the sugar-spoon law, supposing there was such a
law."
"Sure, I know," Abe said. "But daylight is different from sugar. The
idea is that people should use more of it, Mawruss."
"I am willing," Morris said; "but so far as I could see, there ain't
going to be no more daylight after the law goes into effect than there
was before, and as for setting the clock one hour ahead, anybody could
do that for himself without the legislature passing a law about it."
"Say!" Abe protested. "Legislators don't get paid piece-work. They draw
an annual salary, Mawruss; so if they went to pass a law about it, let
them do a little something to earn their wages, Mawruss."
"Don't worry about them fellers not earning their wages, Abe," Morris
said. "Legislators is like actors, so long as they got their names in
the papers they don't care how hard they work, which if you was to allow
them fellers to regulate the hours of daylight by legislation, Abe, so
as to encourage lazy people to get up earlier, Abe, the first thing you
know, so as to encourage aviators to fly higher, they would be passing
an act suspending the laws of gravity for the period of the war."
"Well, I believe in that, too, Mawruss," Abe said. "Time enough we
should have laws of gravity when we need them, but what is the use going
round with a long face before we actually have something to pull a long
face over? Am I right or wrong, Mawruss?"
"Tell me, Abe," Morris asked, "what do you think the laws of gravity is,
anyhow? No Sunday baseball or something?"
"Well, ain't it?" Abe demanded.
"So that's your idee of the laws of gravity," Morris exclaimed.
"Say!" Abe retorted. "When I got a partner which is a combination of
John G. Stanchfield, Judge Brandeis, and the feller what wrote
_Hamafteach_, I should worry if I don't know every law in the law-books;
so go ahead, Mawruss, I'm listening. What _is_ the laws of gravity?"
"The laws of gravity is this," Morris explained. "If you would throw a
ball up in the air, why does it come down?"
"Because I couldn't perform miracles exactly," Abe replied, promptly.
"Neither could the legislature and also President Wilson," Morris said,
"because even though you would understand the laws of gravity, which you
don't, the baseball comes down according to the laws of gravity, and
even though Mr. Wilson does understand the laws of supply and demand,
y'understand, if he gets busy and sets a low price on coal, potatoes,
wheat, or anything else that people is working to produce for a living
and not for the exercise there is in it, y'understand, such people would
leave off producing it and go into some other line where the prices
ain't regulated."
"They would be suckers if they didn't," Abe commented.
"And the consequence would be that sooner or later, on account of such
low prices, y'understand, everybody would have the price, but nobody
would have the coal," Morris said, "and that is what is called the law
of supply and demand. It ain't a law which was passed by any
legislature, Abe. It's a law which made itself, like the law that if you
eat too much you'll get stomach trouble, and if you spend too much
you'll go broke, and you couldn't sidestep any of them self-made laws by
consulting those high-grade crooks which used to specialize in getting
million-dollar fees out of finding loopholes in the Interstate Commerce
law and the Anti-trust laws, because there's no loopholes in the law of
supply and demand."
"Might there ain't no loopholes in the law of supply and demand, maybe,"
Abe said; "but when Mr. Wilson gave the order to his Coal Administrator
to lower the price of coal it's my idee that he was trying to punch a
few loopholes in the law of The Public Be Damned, which while it was
never passed by no legislature, Mawruss, it ain't self-made, neither,
y'understand, but was made by the producer to do away with this here law
of gravity, because under the law of The Public Be Damned prices goes up
and they never come down, but they keep on going up and up according to
that other law, the law of the Sky's the Limit, which no doubt a big
philosopher like you, Mawruss, has heard about already."
"In the company of igneramuses, Abe," Morris said, "a feller could easy
get a reputation for being a big philosopher, and not know such an awful
lot at that."
"I give you right, Mawruss," Abe agreed, heartily; "but even admitting
that you don't know an awful lot, Mawruss, there's something in what you
say about this here law of supply and demand."
"Well, now that you indorse it, Abe, that makes it, anyhow, an
argument," Morris commented.
"But it looks to me like one of them arguments that is pulled by the
supply end to put something over on the demand end," Abe continued,
"because President Wilson knows just so much about the law of supply and
demand as the coal operators does, Mawruss, and when he fixed the price
of coal you could bet your life, Mawruss, he made it an even break for
the supply people as well as for the demand people."
"And what has all this got to do with setting the clock ahead one hour
in summer, Abe, which was what you was talking about in the first
place?" Morris demanded.
"Nothing, except that setting the clock ahead so as to save bills for
gas and electric light and limiting the price of coal so as the public
couldn't be gouged by the coal operators, so far as I could see, is two
dead open and shut propositions, Mawruss," Abe said, "which of course I
admit that I'm an ignorant man and don't know no more laws than a
police-court lawyer, y'understand, but at the same time, Mawruss, I must
got to say the way it looks to me it ain't the ignorant men which is
blocking the speed of this war. For instance, who is it when Mr. Hoover
wants to have millions of bushels wheat by using whole-wheat bread that
says whole-wheat bread irritates the lining from the elementry canal?
The ignorant man? _Oser!_ He don't know the elementry canal from the
Panama Canal, and if he did he couldn't tell you whether elementry
canals came lined with Skinner's satin or mohair or just plain unlined
with the seams felled. Then, again, who is it that when _any_ order is
made by the government which is meant to help along the war takes it
like a personal insult direct from Mr. Wilson? The ignorant man? No,
Mawruss, it's the feller which thinks that what's the use of having an
education if you couldn't seize every opportunity of putting up an
argument and using all the long words you've got in your system."
"All right, Abe," Morris said. "I'm converted. Rather as sit here and
waste the whole morning I'm content that you should pass a law saving
daylight if you want to."
[Illustration: "For instance, who is it that says whole-wheat bread
irritates the lining from the elementry canal? The ignorant man?
_Oser!_"]
"Don't do me no favors, Mawruss," Abe commented.
"And while you're about it, Abe," Morris concluded, "if you couldn't
save it otherwise, have the legislature pass another law that people
should save something else for the duration of the war which they
ordinarily couldn't live without."
"What's that?" Abe asked.
"Breath," Morris said.