[Illustration]
THE SPOKESMAN’S
SECRETARY
_Being the Letters of Mame to Mom_
_By_
UPTON SINCLAIR
[Illustration]
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA
COPYRIGHT, 1926
BY
UPTON SINCLAIR
CONTENTS
LETTER PAGE
I. In Which I Join the Higher-Ups 5
II. In Which I Go Behind the Scenes 9
III. In Which I Ring the Bell 13
IV. In Which I Guess a Riddle 18
V. In Which I Listen to Gossip 22
VI. In Which I Put on the Glad Rags 27
VII. In Which I Am Paid Compliments 32
VIII. In Which I Peek Into a Palace 37
IX. In Which I Don’t Get Wet 41
X. In Which I Take a Flop 46
XI. In Which I Play a Big Scene 51
XII. In Which I Miss Half a Dinner 57
XIII. In Which I Miss Another Half Dinner 62
XIV. In Which I Go on a Strike 67
XV. In Which I Lose My Lover 72
XVI. In Which I Am Made a Grammarian 77
XVII. In Which I Become a Syker 82
XVIII. In Which I Stick to the Job 88
LETTER I
IN WHICH I JOIN THE HIGHER-UPS
DEAR MOM:
You been complaining there ain’t enough news in my letters, well you
sure will get a load of it this trip of the postman. Your Mame has
been cast for little Cinderella in the big political show and the
fairy-coach is waiting at the door.
This is how it come about, the place was busy and every girl had
a customer but Florabelle and me, when a gentleman comes in, a
top-notcher I can see and takes us in with a glance. He don’t need but
one because Florabelle makes up her complexion in a dark room and ain’t
got the sense to look it over by daylight. So he comes to my table and
sits and says, “Go to it, lady.”
He has got good hands not soft nor flabby like many of the big fellows,
but you can see he ain’t had to skin them with hard work. I starts to
washing them and gets a look out of the corner of my eye and I see he’s
somewhere in the forties and a bit of grey in his hair. His cuffs is
new and clean and everything quiet and exactly right.
I says, “Fine weather we’re having,” and he makes the shortest kind
of a noise that means yes and I see he’s thinking about something and
would rather not be bothered--but what did he come into a manicure
parlor for? So I looks sympathetic and says in a spiritual voice,
“There’s sure a lot of troubles in the world ain’t there?”
They always shows their surprise in their fingers. He says, “How did
you find that out?” Says I, “I got my own but you needn’t worry my
business is to listen to the gentlemen’s.”
“Is that a part of the job?” says he and I tells him it’s the principal
part. “They want to tell their troubles to some other woman;” and I
looks up, and there is wrinkles of fun in the corner of his eyes.
But they don’t last long he looks serious again and says, “It may be
some other woman could give me a little advice just now.” I says, “She
can if she’s the right woman.” But still he’s kind of hesitating to
take the plunge so I give him another push. “Is it some mystery of the
female soul you can’t make out?”
“It is just that,” he says; and I asks, “She can’t make up her mind
that she loves you?” He laughs and says, “No, it ain’t anything like
that, you been reading novels. I am a married man and got three
children growing up,” he says. “Ah, me!” says I. “You should hear some
of the stories about married gentlemen!”
I looks at him again and see he’s what they call a go-getter. First I
think maybe he’s the secretary of the Hardware Dealers’ Association
that’s in town but then I guess he’s a lawyer come to lobby here in
our national capital. So I rubs away at his nails and says, “Is it the
wife?” He thinks for a minute and then all of a sudden it busts out,
“My God!” And then he waits again and says kind of solemn-like, “Tell
me this do all women have to go crazy?”
I make a guess at his age and I says, “How old is your wife--if you
know?” “She’s forty-two,” says he. “Oh, yes,” says I; and then, “She
can’t make up her mind what she wants, and she can’t sit still in one
room--”
“Good God,” says he, “it is worse than that, she is got the angina
pectoris.”
“Oh, poor soul!” I says. I hadn’t never heard of it but it sounded
serious.
“But it’s different from any sort of angina pectoris you ever heard
of,” he goes on. “It’s a travelling angina pectoris. One week it’s in
the shoulders and the next week it’s gone to the stomach and the week
after that it’s in the knee.”
“I suppose you’ve took her to the doctors?” says I.
“Doctors?” says he. “I’ve worn out four sets of tires taking her to
doctors. The ordinary doctors won’t do at all it has got to be a
specialist of the knee, or the stomach or what you will. And he tells
her there ain’t anything there but then she thinks maybe he didn’t look
careful enough or maybe I called him on the phone and told him to spare
her nervous system so she has to go to another one without telling
me--but he always tells me with a bill!”
He says it without any smile and he sits there in the bottomest pit
of the dumps so I says, “I suppose you know what is the matter with
the poor soul at her time.” “They tell me it’s the change of life,” he
says; and I says; “Some ladies in my profession have got a different
name they call it the change of wife.”
Then again I feels the start in his fingers and I know he’s looking at
my head bowed over his nails. “Is that an old gag,” says he, “or do you
make them?”
“You just seen it come out of the mint?” says I.
“Well,” says he, “I’m sorry I don’t own a gold-mine.”
Says I, “There is a plenty of gold-diggers in the manicure profession,
and you might of had some of them trimming your cuticle right now if
you had of went to some other table. But I am one that makes it plain
to a customer that he is the butter.”
“Butter?” says he, and I give him a flash out of the corner of my
eye. “Nine hours every day I earns my daily bread in the Elite Beauty
Parlors; and then if in the evening some gentleman invites me to
dinner, he’s the butter.” So then I seen that we was friends, and I
knew I would like that dairy.
But still he was kind of shy and it wasn’t till I was done that he
come right down to it, he was lonesome and would like to have me go
to dinner with him the next evening but the trouble was he couldn’t
afford to go to no swell place on account of having so many people in
this town that knew him. But I tells him that two is a company for me
and we’ll go to any quiet place that he likes. “You got to be extra
careful,” I says, “because Washington is an awful place for gossip.”
“Yes,” says he, “and the truth is I hold an especially prominent
position. And so--you see--”
“Yes, I see perfectly,” I says, “I know a gentleman when I meet one and
I hope I know how to be a lady. You may count on me to play the game
square.”
But even that don’t satisfy him he kind of hems around and he says,
“You must understand, I am in a position where you will be sure to find
out who I am right away.”
“I see,” says I, “and so you’ll have to give me your real name? You may
trust me, Mr.--er--”
“Er-Edgerton,” says he, not more than one-third sure that he wants to.
“Mr. Edgerton,” says I and he see’s I’m thinking it over. “No,” he
says, “you never heard it before, it ain’t a name that is advertised on
toilet soap, nor on the silver screen. In fact I think just now it’s
the least advertised name in the whole U. S. A.”
“In the secret service?” says I for I admit I was intreeged though I
ain’t sure how to spell it. “The most secret of all services,” says he.
“I’m the Secretary to the Spokesman.”
And there is where your Mame proved herself the prize dumbbell. “The
Spokesman?” says I. “Who is he?”
He laughs as if I had said something specially funny. “What do you read
in the newspapers?”
“Well,” says I, “I read the divorce news of course because that is what
the customers want to talk about. And I read the murders because I
like them. And I read Mme. Prinker’s beauty hints, and how to grow lean
by rolling.”
“But you don’t read what the Spokesman has to say?”
“No,” says I. “What paper does he write for?”
He laughs again, like that was an awful boner. “It’s on the front
page of all the papers,” he says. “But you haven’t missed much. The
Spokesman is a Man who lives in a great white house and He is a Strong
Silent Man and it appears that all Strong Silent Men have to talk a
great deal and this One has got no idea what to say. So I am the man
who tells Him what to say. And twice every week the reporters for all
the newspapers of the whole world gather in a room and listen to Him
say what I have told Him to say and a couple of thousand newspapers
all over the world pay a couple of hundred thousand dollars to have
it telegraphed to them and they print it and I don’t know how many
hundreds of millions of people read it and they all have to think that
it is the Spokesman who spoke it, so you see how important it is that I
should keep hid.”
Well, Mom, by that time I seen what had come to me, and I sat hardly
able to lift my eyelids, to say nothing of my tongue.
“I have got to have a session the day after tomorrow,” the gentleman
goes on, “and I have no idea what I am going to say. How can I pay any
compliments to American institutions that I haven’t paid them twenty
times before? So I’ll give you an address of a little Greek restaurant
that I know and if you’ll meet me there at seven-thirty tomorrow
evening you may be able to give me a few ideas of what the whole world
would like to have said to it the next morning.”
And so then he went out, Mom; and here is your baby Mame sitting in her
six by eight bedroom with the smoke of her pork-chop still in the air
writing to ask you if you have any ideas of what to tell the world for
God’s sake send them quick for I have got my foot on the ladder and
it’s the high altitudes for me. And Mom you dunno how grateful I am to
you for the wise training you give me, I felt his eyes running over me
but I never trembled for I had remembered what you taught me, always
to keep my dressing table by the window and put it on by daylight and
never to use no peroxide at all unless I was going to use it every
night.
Your loving
MAME.
LETTER II
IN WHICH I GO BEHIND THE SCENES
DEAR MOM:
The first thing I got to explain is that I have changed my name again.
The fashions in names changes very fast and you think you have got
a good one but you find it is a flop. But I never was altogether
pleased with Ysabel and have decided to make it Rosabelle. I think it
is much prettier because when you say Rosabelle Riggs both the words
begins with the same letter and a gentleman told me that is called
illiteration and a name is much sweller when it is illiterate; all
the movie stars are doing it they say you can’t get into the movies
at all unless you have got an illiterate name. The new girl at our
place is named Mary May Marie, and that is nice too only you have to
say the last name French fashion, “if you don’t,” I says to her, “it
sounds like a hint to the gentlemen.” It is getting to be swell to have
French names. Ada Huggins has changed hers to Adaire and then Hattie
Schoenstein she says, “What shall I make mine?” and I says, “Why not
try Hotaire?” and that is how I get into trouble being too bright
altogether.
I want you to please explain to Pop, so that he will not have his
feelings hurt that I do not like the good old-fashioned honest label
of Mame that he gave me. This is not an old-fashioned beauty parlor
that I work in and you can’t expect to know what is considered shiek
if you spend your whole life in the gas-house district of Camden New
Jersey. And I know Mom how you gave up a glorious stage career for
your little ones, and this little one is much obliged but I got my own
career to make now and I sure don’t want no enemy to paste the label of
Mame onto me. But of course I’m always the same to the home folks your
affectionately.
* * * * *
P. S. Well, I have just got back from dinner with my new gentleman
friend. I will not say much for a Greek restaurant. It seems that the
way you tell Greek cooking is that everything is swimming in the juices
of baby lamb only when it gets a little cold it seems like what we at
home used to call mutton suet. Mr. Edgerton explains that the Greeks
is a pastoral people they have only sheeps and goats. But I would of
thought they would of learned the uses of beefsteak when they come to
the good old U. S. A. But I suppose they have got to be different as
that is called “local color” when you go out slumming or dining with a
gentleman friend.
But oh Mom the conversation was the most intellectual that I ever
listened to and I am so excited I can hardly make my letters good. It
was just like going to Hollywood and being took in behind the scenes
where you could watch Mary Pickford putting on her make-up. You that
has been a stage queen can understand how it is everything is so
different behind the scenes you would hardly know that it is the same
show at all. I always thought I was the little wise girl and nobody
could put nothing over on me but now I am behind the scenes of the
political show and oh my God to think that I was ever one of the boobs
that sat out in front of the curtain and laughed and cried over them
old old gags!
First Mr. Edgerton put me wise to the leading gentleman that is called
the Spokesman. Mr. Edgerton has to spend a lot of time with Him every
day, teaching Him His role, and he told me all about it, and it was
just like I was there in the great white house where He acts.
It seems that this Spokesman was born and raised in the State of
Florida and that is a very cold state with a great lot of mountains
that is covered with snow most of the time. It is very rocky ground
and hard to raise anything on and so the people in Florida has got to
work hard for a living all the time and they are very saving and apt
to be stingy for which Mr. Edgerton says you can’t blame them seeing
how nature has been a step-mother to them all. So this Spokesman’s one
idea is to save pennies and when He was the governor of this State of
Florida He used to live in one hotel room and when the bankers and the
big business men thought that was not dignified enough and He wanted to
show them that He could be as swell as they was He took two hotel rooms.
The Spokesman is a little Man, kind of stoop-shouldered and pinched-up
like and He is very much worried because He is not imposing looking
like He had ought to be to fit into that big white house that He has
got to act in. Him and Mr. Edgerton had many consultations about it and
Mr. Edgerton told Him to face it out and make a joke of it and tell His
visitors that He was like a singed cat a lot better than He looks. At
first that hurt His feelings but He must of thought it over and decided
it was His best bet and now He says it to His visitors. His face is
kind of wizened and some nasty woman said that He had been weaned on
a pickle but Mr. Edgerton ain’t ever advised Him to say that to His
visitors.
Well now He is the Spokesman and He has got the job of telling the
American people what to do and what to think. And it seems a queer job
for Him Mr. Edgerton says because if He had His own way He would sit
for hours and never say nothing. He will listen to all Mr. Edgerton
says for Him to say and then bid him good bye and never say if He
is going to say it or not but He aways says it provided it’s two
things--first it must be complimentary to American institutions and
second it must have to do with saving money.
Mr. Edgerton explained to me about what is called the “policy” of the
Spokesman and I don’t see how I could ever of been happy to be so
ignorant as I used to be. I just never knew nothing Mom I would hear
Pop talking about these things, and it would go right over my head but
now I’m going to learn all about it. It seems that the way money is
wasted is that the government takes it for taxes and pays it to a lot
of office holders that sits with their feet on the top of their desks.
So the Spokesman is going to stop the taxes and let the rich people
keep their money then He says they will start factories to make things
and there will be plenty of wages for the working people and everybody
will be happy. I never would of thought of it myself but I seen it
right away and how stupid I was when I felt mean about people that had
a lot of money and spent it on what I thought was foolishness like
monkey dinners and shampain baths and such. I see now that no matter
how foolish it is it all makes work for working people and so it is all
economy like the Spokesman wants it to be.
I asked Mr. Edgerton if that was one of the ideas he had taught to the
Spokesman but he said no he hadn’t needed to do it because when you
are in the business of running for offices it is a thing you come to
understand for yourself no matter how dumb you may be that you have
got to take care of the rich people because they have got to put up
their money for campaign funds for you so that you can pay wages for
workingmen that makes red fire and sky-rockets and campaign banners and
processions and other things that educates the voters about not taxing
the rich.
And Mr. Edgerton says that the Spokesman went out and hired the biggest
banker in the whole country to help Him teach the people about this
policy of His. And I said gee how could He of got up nerve to pay such
a big man what He would of had to pay? But Mr. Edgerton explained that
He didn’t have to pay the big banker nothing extra because the banker
had been paying pretty close to a million dollars in taxes every year
himself and naturally it was worth something to him to get a chanst to
dump a load like that off of his own shoulders. And that is easy to see
too and I begin to see it wouldn’t be so hard to run a government as I
thought it would be because everybody would be looking to get something
and so they would all be ready to work for the government cheap. And
Mr. Edgerton says that is just how it goes because a lot of them worked
for the government all through the war for a dollar a year and they was
the most expensive men the government ever had let inside the ropes.
And Mr. Edgerton says that the way I understand everything shows that I
have a natural talent for political life.
He told me the name of this big banker that has been hired to take the
taxes off of himself. I remember it was Lemon or Melon or something
else to eat. Mr. Edgerton said I could remember it easy by the fact
that they cut him every day in Wall Street and I said “I don’t see why
they should cut him when he is doing their work for them as well as for
himself.” And Mr. Edgerton thought that was very funny so I see there
was some catch in it so I talked about something else as quick as I
could.
But Mr. Edgerton says I can be very useful to him if I will and he
showed me how. He says that he has been to college and has read a lot
of high-brow things and that has spoiled him some for the job he has
to do. He says he wants to keep close to the heart of the plain people
to know how they feel and think and I can tell him. I had a wonderful
spiel fixed up, about how I was the daughter of an old Virginia family
that had been ruined in the civil war; but when I heard what he said I
decided I had better forget my spiel so I confessed that my Pop was a
gas-house worker in Camden New Jersey and he said that was fine that
was exactly what he wanted. And so I told him the real truth about my
name being Mame and so you can forget what I wrote you in the beginning
of this letter which was wrote yesterday but I will send it to you all
the same because it is wrote and you can see how I have growed under
the influence of Mr. Edgerton.
And he says to me, “What do you think about the international
situation?” And gee I was scared out of my wits I wanted to say, “Ask
me something easy!” But I am going to learn to play my part among
these higher-ups and so I says, “I haven’t thought so much about it of
late.” And he says, “It is changing so fast, you have got to think all
of the time.”
And there I sat racking my wooden brains to think of anything I had
ever heard Pop say. And at last I thought of something and so I looked
real wise and I says, “It seems to me the American people has got so
used to having a good time they take it for granted. So the use of the
international situation is to show them what real troubles is and make
them grateful for their favors.” And Mr. Edgerton looks at me and his
eyes lights up and he says. “That’s it exactly! That’s the text for my
tomorrow morning’s interview!”
And then of course I was very much excited and I says, “You mean the
Spokesman ain’t never said that before?” And he says, “Well, if He has,
it’s been so long ago that He’s forgot it. But that sentiment is right
out of the heart of the plain people it has the true salt of homeliness
that I’m looking for and torture my poor head trying to invent.”
And so now, Mom, you can imagine how excited I am. The Spokesman is
to give that interview tomorrow morning at ten o’clock to all the
reporters of all the newspapers in the whole world and it will be in
the second edition of the afternoon papers that gets out all over the
whole world just a little before noon and make believe I won’t pounce
on a newsboy when I go out to get my glass of malted milk at the corner
drug-store! Oh Mom you can’t imagine the thrills of being a really
influential person like
Your devoted
MAME.
LETTER III
IN WHICH I RING THE BELL
DEAR MOM:
Well, I suppose you seen my ideas in the papers. I have never had
anything so wonderful happen to me in my whole life. There it was every
bit of it and all fixed up in such fine language as I could never of
thought of and sounding so very very wise. And to think that this
greatest Man in the whole world has said it, and every newspaper in
the whole world almost has published it on the front page. Why Mom He
didn’t say hardly anything else at all. He made his whole interview out
of that idea I have give to His secretary. Me poor little Mamie Riggs,
manicurist in the Elite Beauty Parlors with just one copper cent in her
pocket this night!
That is a fact! I spent three cents for that afternoon paper so I
didn’t have the price of my usual malted milk for lunch and had to
take a glass of plain milk and a doughnut. But I didn’t mind that, I
went back to the shop feeling so smart the girls all seen there was
something and they wanted to know, “What is it, Mame, you got a new
beau?” That’s all they ever think about of course.
I says, “No it ain’t that it’s something more great.” But I didn’t dare
give them no hint because it’s what Mr. Edgerton calls a state secret.
So Ada Higgins she wants you to call her Adaire now and did you ever
hear of anything so silly, being ashamed of her origin and trying to
put on side she says, “I know, it’s that swell gent that was here a few
days ago. What’s his line Mame?”
And just then the phone rung and it was Mr. Edgerton calling and he
wants me to have dinner with him again and of course then all the girls
is buzzing like a lot of bees they never heard of such a thing as my
not telling they always tell about their affairs because after all what
have they got to talk about between customers with the pitiful narrow
lives they live and no great ideas about world events and no way of
getting behind the scenes of the political show and seeing how the
actors is made up.
Well he says for me to meet him at a Chinese restaurant this time.
It is over in Z street and a long ways and gee it is drizzling and I
shall have wet feet when I get there. But I dassn’t try to borrow a
nickle from my landlady because my rent was due four days ago and I
am side-stepping because I just had to get a new scarf to hide my old
dress. It is all very well for Mr. Edgerton to talk about wanting to
keep close to the plain people, and the rough honesty of them and all
that, but no man wants to go out to dinner with a slouch you know that
Mom and it ain’t going to happen while I’m the lady. So now I’m off
and tell Pop to send me some of his ideas about politics as quick as a
postage stamp will bring them.
* * * * *
P. S. Well it was my first dinner a la Chink and we had chop suey and
it is made out of chicken and something else that should be called
guey instead of suey. But it is hot and very filling and that is the
principal thing when you are trying to pull through and go straight on
eighteen-fifty per and rents what they is in the city of Washington, D.
C. Mr. Edgerton brought me home in a taxi and now I have got my feet
in bed and I couldn’t go to sleep anyhow till they get warm, so I will
tell you what happened.
Well of course we talked international affairs since that is the most
interesting thing in the world, and what everybody talks here in high
society. Mr. Edgerton says that when he told the Spokesman the great
idea that I had give to him, He grunted, and that is eloquence from
Him. And He told Mr. Edgerton to have it wrote out for Him and He
even added a couple of sentences of His own because some of it was so
important that He wanted to say it twiced.
And of course I had to be modest so I says, “I really didn’t think it
was so remarkable as that, it is what anyone would say.”
And Mr. Edgerton says, “That’s it exactly. What I have to do is to find
out what anyone would say and say it for them.”
“But why,” I says--“when they can just as good say it for themselves?”
So he explained that people likes to have things said for them it is
less trouble and it pleases them to hear their own ideas, “it is like
looking at themselves in a mirror, if you understand what I mean,” says
he and I says that most any woman would understand that.
And Mr. Edgerton says that the Spokesman likes to say things like
the sort that I say, because it saves Him having to talk about other
things that ain’t so easy for Him to think about. The reporters asks
Him questions and He don’t know what to answer and then there is always
people trying to get Him to do this and that and to say yes or no and
He don’t like to say either nor to do neither. The Spokesman’s other
name is Cautious, and He never does nothing He don’t have to and He
seldom does. He says that most problems solve themselves if you let
them alone.
Says I, “What that generally means is that somebody else solves them.”
And Mr. Edgerton laughs and says, “Well, yes, but then if they solve
them wrong it ain’t your funeral.”
And he showed me how it goes. There will be two big fellows fighting
over some juicy bit of graft and they come to Washington and pull all
the strings they know of each of them trying to get the Spokesman to
give it to his gang. And the Spokesman listens polite to both of them
and tells both of them He’ll do the best he can and then He don’t do
nothing and both of them hates Him like poison and calls Him all the
names they can think of. But bye and bye they get tired of quarreling
and patch up some sort of agreement to divide the graft and then they
go off and think it over and say to themselves by golly that Guy is a
slick one, He knows how to take care of Himself and that’s the Sort we
need to run the country.
Well just about that time a couple comes into the Chink restaurant a
pair of swell lookers and I see they knows Mr. Edgerton. The gentleman
gives him a bow and the lady too but then she gets a glimpse of me and
she freezes up like she was hit by an artic cyclone and she goes by
with her nose high up like an aeroplane. And I see that Mr. Edgerton
is a bit flustered and don’t know what to talk about next and I says,
“It seems your lady friend don’t like the way I look perhaps she thinks
my hair is too decorative or some thing.” And he smiles, kind of
sickish like and I says, “Let me tell you how it is if you want to have
anything pretty in the gas-house district of Camden New Jersey, you
have got to carry it along with you.” And he says, “Yes, I suppose so.”
I see he is badly rattled so I says, “I want you to know that I know
exactly how it is and you don’t have to try to fool me or yourself.
Everything is pure and sweet between us like we was the two babes
in the woods but I know too you ain’t going to get Washington smart
society to believe it. And I can guess how it’ll be if anybody tips off
Mrs. Edgerton to the fact that her husband is doing research work among
the plain people. By the way how’s the poor soul getting along?”
“Well,” he says, “just now the angina pectoris has moved on to one of
her toes.”
“Well,” says I, “at least it’s getting as far away from her mind as it
can and maybe it’ll move out altogether. But what I started to say is
this if you think you better not see me any more--”
“No, no!” he says real anxious. “No, Miss Riggs, please don’t desert me
in this crisis.”
“Crisis?” I says.
“Yes,” says he. “You see, the Elks’ convention is coming to our
national capital next week and the Spokesman has got to deliver a full
hour’s speech to them and you just can’t imagine how I shall be put
to it to invent something different to say. Only think of it I’ve got
to work up some new compliment to pay to the Constitution! And every
Fourth of July for a hundred and fifty years some twenty thousand
orators have been warming up this old soup and putting in new flavors.
Miss Riggs the great heart of the plain people has got to save me! You
must tell me what to say--you and none other!”
So there I am up against it again and I wishing I could get home so as
to see if a letter has come from Pop. “America,” I says, “is a great
country.”
“Yes, I know,” he says, “but why? And how? What makes it that way?
What--”
“Hold on,” I says, “one question at a time. It is very simple you get
yourself mixed up by thinking too hard. Anybody can see that what makes
America a great country is because there is so much of it. Ain’t that
so?”
“Yes,” he says but kind of doubtful.
“And because there is so many people in it. Ain’t that so?”
“I suppose so,” he says but still like he didn’t.
“You take these here Elks that is coming to Washington,” I says.
“Everybody knows the Elks is a great order and why? Because there is
so many of them and they’ve got a pile of money and they come here and
spend it and raise a hurrah and they own the town. Ain’t that so?”
Yes of course he can’t deny that is so. But still there is something
eating him. “Surely Miss Riggs there must be something else--some
ideas--”
“Ideas?” I says. “Don’t you worry about ideas the people will tend to
that, there is enough of them. If there is one person and he has got an
idea,” I says, “that is something but when there is a hundred million
has got it, that’s a hundred million times as much and if you don’t
think that’s so you just go and ask Kayser Bill,” I says.
And say, Mom, it was like a light begun to shine in his eyes. “Miss
Riggs,” he says, “do the people really believe that?”
“Of course they believe it,” I says. “Who’s going to stop them?”
And Mom, I thought he was going to reach across the table and grab my
hand in spite of his lady friend across the way shooting eye-daggers
at him. “Miss Riggs,” he says, “you have saved me! You have restored
my faith in the sublime principles of democracy! You have given me the
theme of an immortal address a real piece of Elkoquence if you will
pardon the pun. Upon these wings the Spokesman will soar to heights
never before attained even by Him!”
And Mom, he is so pleased, he invites me to go home in a taxi; and how
can I tell him that my feet is wet and froze, and I would of rather of
walked?
Your happy
MAME.
LETTER IV
IN WHICH I GUESS A RIDDLE
DEAR MOM:
Well the Elks is come to town and they own it just like I said they
would. My it is wonderful to see so many fine redblooded gentlemen on
the streets all looking like their pockets couldn’t hold their money.
For the manicure business it is heaven there just ain’t enough lady
operators to go round a couple of gents is waiting their turn at each
chair and a girl can have all the dinners and other dates she can take
care of. But I have turned them all down their compliments don’t go
with me at all because of this work that I have got to do with Mr.
Edgerton that is so very important as you will understand. It seems
hard to believe that such a chanced could happen to a girl out of the
gas-house district of Camden New Jersey but it really is true, and
Mr. Edgerton says I can do just as much guiding the destinies of the
American people as I want to.
I suppose you read the great address which the Spokesman delivered to
the Elks’ convention and you seen every word I had said to Mr. Edgerton
for the Spokesman to say. Of course Mr. Edgerton fixed it up again so
that it sounded fine and Elkoquent--he keeps calling it that, it is a
sort of joke on account of having been said to the Elks. It sure did
thrill me to read it and I was more prouder than ever to live in such a
rich country with so much wonderful prosperity all around me.
I must say there is times when I wish I could have just a little more
of it for myself. It is kind of hard on a girl that has been brought
up right and is trying to earn everything not just her clothes. Right
now I have got to put another darn in my best pair of skin-colored
stockings and it will be very disfiguring right where the gentlemen
look at them most. But I could not keep my landlady waiting no longer,
and I have cut down on my meals all I dare I can’t afford to be too
starved when I go out with Mr. Edgerton because it ain’t refined to hog
your dinner.
Well Mom this noon going out for my lunch I run into what I think is
his wife--anyhow I hope it is because I would be sorry to think there
was a third lady in this case. She was in a car with him, one of these
kind that is called coops like glass show cases rolling round on big
rubber tires. They had just drawed up by the curb and she was getting
out.
I have told him that I will play the game so of course I didn’t give
no sign that I had ever saw him before. But I got a good look at her
and she is sure something elegant you can bet there ain’t any holes in
her silk stockings nor in the squirrel-skin coat that she had on. She
is a large soft lady and they went into an office building so I guess
he was taking her to another of them fancy-priced specialists to see
if they can find that angina pectoris. I went off thinking what would
of happened to me if I would of took the notion that I had the angina
pectoris. Would all them specialists be hunting it or would I just come
home and get Pop to show me the trap-door where you crawl into the
gas-tank? But I realize that I can’t have everything in this world--I
can’t have electric coops and squirrel-skin coats and at the same time
know the great heart of the plain people and be able to teach the
Spokesman how to talk to them.
* * * * *
P. S. Well I had another call from Mr. Edgerton and we went out to
dinner again and it is his wife like I guessed and he says the corn
specialists says it is not angina pectoris of the toe, but only
her tight slippers. And he started to apologize because he didn’t
speak to me but I told him to quit his kidding and let us talk about
international affairs. So we went to another restaurant it was a cheap
hash-house this time where you get a coarse dinner for sixty cents and
Mr. Edgerton apologized for it but it was the only kind of a place
where he would be sure not to meet no friends. We had a little booth
where we could sit and talk and Mr. Edgerton tipped the waiter some and
we sat there a couple of hours and he brought us some coffee a couple
of times and something else that was supposed to be coffee because it
was in coffee-cups but seeing ain’t always believing.
Well the international situation is like this just now. All them Dago
nations over in Europe wanted a lot of money from us so they could
buy the guns and things while they was canning Kayser Bill. They come
over here and borrowed billions and billions of dollars and now of
course the Kayser is chopping firewood in Holland and we got the job
of collecting the money and we don’t know how to start. They are an
unprincipled lot these fellers in Europe says Mr. Edgerton.
“Yes, I know,” I says. “I read all about them. The papers call them
Bolshivikis.”
“No,” says Mr. Edgerton, “I don’t mean that crowd they are
revolutionists and they say they won’t pay. What I mean are the French
and Eyetalians and Poles and all them--they say they’re willing to pay
of course but then they don’t.”
“But then,” says I, “what is the difference whether you say you will or
say you won’t if you don’t?”
“Oh, there’s a lot of difference,” he explains. “If you say you will
then you’re recognized.”
“What difference does that make?” I says.
“If you are recognized,” says he, “then you can borrow as much more as
you want.”
“My God,” I says, “I wished somebody would recognize me!” And then
I felt kind of mean, for fear he’d think I meant about him not
recognizing me on the street!
He goes on to tell me that the Spokesman is worried all the time about
these debts He lies awake at night and thinks about them it’s the only
question He can’t seem to leave alone to settle itself. The reason for
that is because He was born and raised in that cold and rocky state--by
the way I made a mistake because I said the name of that state was
Florida but I was a dumb-bell because Florida is another place. I
know now because today there was a feller come in to try to sell us
some lots there it seems there is a boom and he had some extra-fine
land-front lots that could be had this week only; he explained that
they are called land-front lots because they are in the bay but they
front on the land and they will be on the land when the bottom of the
bay has been moved underneath them.
But the Spokesman was raised in a state that is rocky and cold, I have
forget it again but I think maybe it is North Carolina because it is
far up North. And you see the worst a man can do in that state is
not to pay his debts and collecting debts is the one thing that the
Spokesman can be sure of knowing how, He has done it all His life. But
He never had so big a debt to collect in his home state in fact Mr.
Edgerton says there has never been such a big debt in the world. He
says that the Statesman has nightmares about it and imagines that the
debt has broke loose and is rolling down over Him like it was one of
them mountains of North Carolina. He wakes up all in a sweat and He
sends for Mr. Edgerton in a hurry and insists He has got to know how He
can collect more money than there is in the world.
That sounds like a joke but it’s really so because it is supposed to be
paid in gold and it is twiced as much gold as there is. Mr. Edgerton
says there is a professor in Germany that is trying to find out how to
make more but he has not got it paying yet and besides they couldn’t
get it away from the professor without another war and that would
mean we would have to lend more money again. But something has got to
be done, else the Spokesman won’t ever be able to get a good night’s
sleep, and it is undermining His health something fierce.
So you see Mom there was another job loaded onto my poor shoulders that
was never trained to carry such loads. But I told you I was going to
see it through and I sat there and thought real hard and I says, “Them
Dagoes got goods from us with that money, didn’t they?” And he says
they did, so I says, “Then the way to pay the debts is for them to send
us back some goods, whatever kind they can make that we need.”
But he says, “No, Miss Riggs that would never do at all,” he says, “and
the reason is that we have got factories over here to make all the
goods for ourselves.”
“Well,” says I, “but we can have twiced as many goods.”
“No,” he says, “our people haven’t got the money to buy so much, and so
it would shut our factories down, and all our people that works in the
factories would starve.”
Well Mom it shows you how dumb and ignorant us poor working people is.
I would never of thought of that would you? But it is plain as day--why
we have even got what is called tariff laws to tax the things that is
brought into the country so as to keep them Dagoes from dumping their
cheap goods off on us and putting all our working people out of their
jobs.
I seen then why the Spokesman was so unhappy because if we couldn’t
take money and we couldn’t take goods what could we do about the debts?
If they wasn’t paid at all you can see what a bad example it would be
for nobody would want to play the business game at all if they would
never get paid their money if they made too much.
Well I must say I was scared because if all these greatest minds in
the world hadn’t been able to guess the answer what chanced was there
for poor little Mamie Riggs of the Elite Beauty Parlors? But I thought
and thought and Mr. Edgerton set and watched me with an anxious look
knowing how much there was at stake. And at last--will you believe it
Mom?--I got it! Yes I did and all the world is going to know it in a
day or two. That is, of course they aint going to know that I got it
but they will be told the answer by the Spokesman in the big white
house where He lives and tells them answers.
Says I, “Mr. Edgerton, them Dagoes has got a lot of pictures and
cathedrals and things over there ain’t they?”
“Yes,” he says, “they have that.”
“And people travel over there to see them all the time dont they?”
“Oh yes.”
“And it’s what they call culture?”
“Yes of course the very fanciest there is.”
“Well,” I says, “there’s nothing in the world too good for us so let’s
us go over there and get their culture in exchange for the debts. We
can build a lot of fine steamships, and send a million or two of our
people over, and the Dagoes can put them up at good hotels and feed
them and wait on them and show them round and explain things to them.
And for them that don’t care for art and high-brow things, there’ll be
girl-shows and stuff that will surely be better than paying bootleggers
for what they give us in these here coffee-cups.”
Well Mom that broke up our party. Mr. Edgerton was so excited that he
got up and rushed right off to tell the Spokesman. He left me to walk
home alone in the cold and it was only then that I begun to think about
one thing I had forgot and that is who is to get the chanced to collect
them debts in Europe? I would sure like a trip to Paris myself and I
know my folks could stand a lot more culture than they’ll ever pick up
in the gas-house district of Camden New Jersey. But I guess Mom we had
better not be greedy I’ve a notion it will be with the trips to Europe
like it is with the electric coops and the squirrel-skin coats--the
people that gets them will be them that has already got more than they
can use.
Your dutiful
MAME.
LETTER V
IN WHICH I LISTEN TO GOSSIP
DEAR MOM:
Well, I have had my first failure in my new job of telling the
Spokesman what to say to the American people. I went out to-day and
bought the afternoon paper and He hadn’t said a word of what I had
told Mr. Edgerton to tell Him to say. He had talked about the money
them Dago nations owes us but all He said was that the debts was a
sacred obligation and the American people would exact a settlement.
But Mom you can see that aint saying nothing when there aint enough
money in the whole world to pay them and we couldn’t let them send us
goods without ruining all our industries. How can they pay except like
I said by our sending over tourists for them to feed? I am greatly
disappointed in the Spokesman.
Tell Pop I got his letter and I thank him for all the ideas on politics
he has sent. Some of them seems to me very good and I shall be pleased
to make use of them. Mr. Edgerton says it is the opinions of the
plain people that he wants, and I am sure Pop is plain enough to suit
anybody. Tell him that I don’t wonder he can’t hardly believe this good
fortune that is come to me. But it is God’s truth just as I have wrote
it.
And you can tell Pop he dont need to worry about his baby girl,
because I am taking the best of care of myself. Mr. Edgerton aint
tried to get fresh and I dont think he is that sort at all. He never
says nothing about how I have such nice long brown lashes over my
china-blue eyes. I dont think he even saw that darn I had put in my
stocking though I forgot and put my foot up on a chair right where he
could see. The truth is I think he loves his wife: only he dont know
quite what to make of her just now and he’s lonesome for a little
female cheerfulness. If he buys me a dinner it aint going to break
him and he’s getting his money’s worth and more being educated about
how the plain people feels about politics and international affairs.
And besides, Mom, dont forget that I have got a feller by the name
of Walter that I am someday going to marry even if he is only a poor
shipping-clerk in Camden and that ought to be enough for my Pop to fret
over.
* * * * *
P. S. Well, I have just got home from another dinner and Mr. Edgerton
has told me how I come to lose out with the Spokesman. He wouldnt have
nothing to do with my ideas for the debt settlement because He says it
aint a way to collect the money but only to spend it and the Spokesman
dont believe in spending no money that you dont have to. He says most
of the plain people dont care nothing about art and they wouldnt
approve of people gadding about Europe and as for drinking their wines
the Spokesman jumps a yard any time anybody tries to get him to say
anything about prohibition one way or the other excepting only that
laws is laws and all good Americans should obey them.
Mr. Edgerton says that if I am going to be useful to him I have got
to learn the rules of this game and one of them is that the Spokesman
will never take sides in no dispute. It is His business to be popular
and you can never get Him to say nothing that is going to get a lot of
people down on Him. Ever since He has been in politics which is since
he was a boy He has spent all his time dodging the tricks of people
that was trying to get Him to put His foot into something and He has
got to be the most cautious Side-stepper they have ever had in the game.
Well Mom we got to gossiping about how things is there in the great
white house where the Spokesman lives and gee it is comical it is so
much like the Elite Beauty Parlors with everybody watching everybody
else and pulling and hauling and intreeging against them. The Spokesman
you see is just like a King; and all of the courtiers wants to keep his
favor and if He gives three minutes more of His time to one of them the
other one retires into the corner and has a fit of the weeps or else he
goes off and tries to find something bad about the first one, that he
can have his great aunt whisper to the Spokesman’s second cousin.
Mr. Edgerton says that this great man got into office by a fluke
because he wasnt never meant to get in but only to be Vice-Spokesman to
keep him on the shelf. The Vice-Spokesman it seems dont have nothing
to say or if he does nobody listens to him. But now He’s got in, and
He’s brought a little bunch of people along that used to be his angels
back in the State of North Carolina or wherever it is up in the icy
North where he comes from. These are rich men that used to pay the
fare of this Spokesman when he was a little Feller, and was a sort of
Office-boy for them in politics, to run the state like they wanted it.
But now He is got to be the greatest Man in the whole world and gee
they cant quite bring themselves to believe it and they dont know quite
how to take it. They cant get used to the idea of taking orders from
what used to be their Office-boy and the Spokesman He cant get used to
giving no orders because of course He always feels respectful to these
gentlemen because they have got so much money and always have paid His
way. And at the same time they are scared to death for fear He might
get the big head and take the notion to be the Boss. And each of them
hates all the others like poison because each of them is trying to
shove the others away from the Spokesman’s elbow.
So that is how it goes, and Mr. Edgerton says I am not to get
discouraged if I dont always have my way about what the Spokesman says.
I can be sure that I will win out in the end because I represent the
plain people and they have got the votes and everybody knows they are
the real boss. And Mr. Edgerton says that just now what the Spokesman
is worried about is what to do about the Reds that seem to be making an
awful lot of fuss and what would I think he had ought to tell the world
about it?
And gee Mom you can imagine how fine that was because it was one of the
things that Pop has wrote to me about. So I says, “Them fellers had
everyone ought to be sent to jail.”
“Yes,” says Mr. Edgerton, “but the trouble is that dont seem to work
out right because then they have a trial and it puts their ideas on the
front page of the papers instead of the ideas of the Spokesman. It’s
kind of provoking but it works just the opposite of how it had ought
to.”
“Well,” says I, “This much is plain if them fellers dont like the way
this country is run they had ought to get out of it.”
“Yes,” says Mr. Edgerton, “I have said that and we sent a couple of
hundred of them off to Roossia a few years ago. But you see there is an
awful lot of them and you’ve no idea what it costs or how it hurts the
Spokesman to have to pay travelling expenses for a lot of Bolshivikis.”
“Well,” says I, “if I had my way I’d cut their journey short they
should be sent to sea in ships of stone with sails of lead.”
Mom you must tell Pop not to send me no old ones because that sounded
fine to me but it seems that it is a wheeze in fact Mr. Edgerton was
the man that had wrote it several years back he explained. “You see,”
he said, “before I come to the Spokesman I was shirt-stuffer for a big
admiral and that was the sentence that made his reputation.”
“A shirt-stuffer?” says I.
Says he, “That is what we call ourselves us fellows that make the big
stuffed shirts that the public admires.” It didnt seem to me that was
a very respectful way to talk about an admiral but I didnt say nothing
because I was trying to remember the rest of what Pop had wrote.