Chapter 10

"And what has all this got to do with Americanization work, Abe?" Morris inquired. "I always thought that Americanization was taking the greenhorns which comes to this country from Europe, and teaching them how to think and act like Americans."

"That comes afterward, Mawruss," Abe said, "because it seems that ever since this here European War, Mawruss, Americanization needs to begin at home, Mawruss, and that the first ones to be Americanized should ought to be Americans. There is, for instance, Mr. O. G. Villard, who was born and raised in this country, Mawruss, which he comes out with a statement the other day that them loafers of the Munich soviet who killed all them professors and ladies a couple of weeks ago, compared very favorably with the legislatures of the states of New York and Pennsylvania, Mawruss. Now when you consider that them two legislatures is part of our government, Mawruss, the way it looks to me is that if a foreigner had said such a thing he would have been Americanized without the option of a fine by the nearest city magistrate."

"At the same time, Abe," Morris said, "when you read in the papers about the New York State Senator Thompson and the goings-on up in Albany, Abe, it looks like Americanization should ought to be done at the source, y'understand, and then it wouldn't be necessary to Americanize Mr. Villard at all."

"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe agreed, "but what I am driving into is that Americanization for Americans must appeal very strongly to colored Americans, especially the Americanization of those Americans who believe that the colored man should ought to be put in his place and don't hesitate about designating the place as the end of a rope without the trouble and expense of a jury trial, y'understand."

"I would even get a little more personal as that, Abe," Morris declared. "I would even say that there should ought to be classes in Americanization for those Americans who believe that the religion and race origin of certain other Americans makes them eligible to give their children's lives to the country and their money to Red Cross and other War Drives--but that it don't make them eligible to stay at first-class summer hotels or play golluf by first-class country clubs."

"Say," Abe broke in, "there is need of more important Americanization among Americans than that, Mawruss. There should ought to be Americanization of Americans who think it is American for landlords to ask for raises of their rent and un-American for workmen to ask for raises of their wages. In fact, this whole Americanization movement should ought to be centered on Americanizing out of Americans any habits, customs, or schemes they try to put across which is apt to make Polish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Jewish-Americans or Assorted Foreign-Americans say to one another, 'Well, if that's the way Americans behave, give me back my hyphen and let me go home.'"

"Well, after all, Abe, it's a mighty small bunch of Americans which ain't Americanized yet," Morris observed.

"I know it," Abe said, "and it's their smallness which makes me sore, Mawruss, because no matter how small they are by number, or nature, Mawruss, they are the ones that the Turks pulled on us when we protested about them poor Armenians _nebich_. Also, Mawruss, if Mr. Wilson should protest that the new Polish Republic ain't treating our people as equals, y'understand, the new Polish Republic could come right back with: 'Neither is any number of summer hotels we could name in the Adirondacks Mountains of your own United States.' Also, if the Peace Delegates from this country gives a hint to the Greeks that there is colonies of Bulgarians living in Greece for years already which wants to be Greeks and should ought to have the same voting rights as Greeks, y'understand, all Venezuela or whatever the Greek secretary of state has got to say is, 'Well, we hold that these people 'ain't got a right to vote under a law called the Grandfather Law, which we copied from similar laws passed in the states of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi--in your own United States,' and them poor old Peace Delegates of ours wouldn't have a word to say."

"At that, Abe, I think all them disagreeable things in this country is going to be changed by the war," Morris suggested.

"Perhaps, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "but considering what changes have taken place because of this war, it's wonderful how little changed things really are."

XVII

MR. WILSON'S FAVOR OF THE 20TH ULTO. AND CONTENTS NOTED

"Yes, Mawruss," Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, one morning recently, "a feller which has got to write to the newspaper to say that he didn't say what the newspaper said he said when it reported his speech, y'understand, has usually made a pretty rotten speech in the first place, and in the second place when he tries to explain what it really was that he did say, Mawruss, it practically always sounds worse than what the newspaper said he said."

"But what did he say and who said it, Abe?" Morris inquired.

"Ambassador Morgenstimmung or Morgenstern, I couldn't remember which, Mawruss," Abe replied, "and although he 'ain't wrote to the newspapers yet to deny that he said it, Mawruss, it is only a question of time when he would do so, because he either said one thing or the other, but he couldn't say both."

"Listen, Abe, if you think that unless you break it to me gradually what this here Morgenstern said, it would be too much of a shock to me," Morris announced, "let me tell you that it is a matter of indifference to me _what_ he said."

"So it is to 'most everybody else except the immediate family, Mawruss," Abe continued, "but not to keep you in suspense, Mawruss, what this Ambassador Morgenstern said was in a speech to the American soldiers in Coblenz where he told them that there was going to be another big war in which America would got to fight during the next fifteen or twenty years, and also that he had every confidence in the League of Nations."

"Well, there's a whole lot of United States Senators which has got the same kind of confidence in the League of Nations, Abe," Morris declared. "In fact, some of them is confident that the League of Nations will bring about a war for us in even less than fifteen years."

"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "the word _confidence_ has got a whole lot of different meanings, Mawruss, and it's quite possible that this here Ambassador Morgenstern used the word with reference to the League of Nations in its Chatham Square or green-goods meaning, because otherwise how could the League of Nations cause another war in less than fifteen years, unless, of course, the feller which prophesied it was a Republican Senator, which Mr. Morgenstern is not."

"To tell you the truth, Abe," Morris said, "I have heard and read so many different things about this here League of Nations that it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the final edition of it provided that any nation which didn't go to war at least once every three years with some other nation or nations, y'understand, should be expelled from the League of Nations with costs, y'understand, and in fact, Abe, it is my opinion that when some one makes a speech about this here League of Nations nowadays, he might just so well write a letter to himself denying that he said what the newspaper said he said, and let it go at that, because it's a hundred to one that he was the only person who didn't skip it when it was printed in its original garbled condition."

"At that, Mawruss, you are going to be really and truly surprised to find out what that League of Nations covenant means when it comes up to be argued about by the United States Senate," Abe observed, "because a great many of them Senators is high-grade, crackerjack, A-number-one lawyers on the side, Mawruss, and formerly used to make their livings by showing that the contract which the plaintiff made with the defendant meant just the opposite to what the plaintiff or defendant meant it to mean--or _vice versa_, according to which end of the lawsuit such a Senator was arguing on, Mawruss, so you can imagine what is going to happen to that League of Nations covenant. Take a level-headed lawyer like Senator Hiram S. Johnson of California, Mawruss, which he 'ain't got the least disposition to believe that the League of Nations covenant means what President Wilson says it means, understand me, and when he gets through showing what he thinks it means, and Senator Borah gets through showing what _he_ thinks it means, and Senator Reed gets through thinking what HE thinks it means, understand me, that League of Nations covenant will have as many different meanings as the contested last will and testament of a childless millionaire who has married a telephone operator on his death-bed to spite his grandnieces and nephews, Mawruss."

"Congress will have a lot of other matters to settle before that League of Nations comes up, Abe," Morris said, "which I was reading the other day the message which President Wilson wrote from Paris, and he certainly laid out a lot of work for them to do till he gets back."

"You mean that letter of May 20th where he says: 'Dear Gents: Sorry not to be with you and I have been out of touch with things over in America so long that you will know a whole lot better than I do what is needed in the way of laws,' Mawruss, and then goes to work and tells them what is needed to the extent of half a newspaperful?" Abe asked.

"I couldn't remember the exact words," Morris replied.

"Well, I've been expecting every day to see in the newspapers that he got an answer from the round robins reading: 'Dear Sir: Yours of the 20th inst. to hand and contents noted and in reply would say we wouldn't positively do nothing of the kind, and in case you are not back with samples on or before ten days from date, we will take such steps as we may think proper to protect our interests in the matter and oblige,'" Abe said, "because if you will remember, Mawruss, them round robins wanted Mr. Wilson to let the Senate go on making laws while he was away, and the President says, 'You couldn't make no laws till I get back,' and then when them round robins asked him when he would be back, he said, 'I'll be back when I am back,' and now he ain't back, and he has got to ask them round robins to go to work with the other Senators and Congressmen and make the laws which they wanted to make in the first place, Mawruss."

"Then it is going to be some time before he gets back if any such a deadlock like that happened, Abe," Morris said, "because I see where it says in the papers that Mr. Wilson won't come back until he has signed the treaties of peace with Germany and Austria, and France and England won't agree to finish up the treaties for Mr. Wilson's signature until they know that the United States Senate will ratify them and the United States Senate won't ratify them until they are finished up and submitted to them signed by Mr. Wilson, and then I didn't read no more about it, Abe, because I begun to get dizzy."

"I very often get that way myself nowadays when I am reading in the newspapers, Mawruss," Abe said, "in particular when they print them full texts, like the full text of the League of Nations Covenant or the full text of the President's message. Former times when the papers had in 'em straight murders and bank robberies from the inside or out, Mawruss, and you sat opposite somebody in the Subway who had to move his lips while he was reading, you took it for granted that he was an ignoramus which had to hear them simple words pronounced, even if it was by his own lips, before he could understand them, Mawruss, but you take this here letter of the 20th inst., Mawruss, and when you read where President Wilson says with reference to telephone and telegraph rates, Mawruss, 'there are many confusions and inconsistencies of rates. The scientific means by which communication by such instrumentalities could missing be rendered more thorough and satisfactory has not been made full use of,' understand me, you could move your lips, your scalp, Heaven and Earth, Mawruss, and still you couldn't tell what Mr. Wilson was driving into."

"Well, I glanced over that Message myself, Abe," Morris said, "and the capital I's was sticking up all through it like toothpicks on the cashier's desk of an armchair lunch-room, Abe. In just a few lines, Abe, Mr. Wilson says, 'I hesitate, I feel, I am conscious, I trust, I may, I shall, I dare say, I hope and I shall,' and when he started to say something about Woman Suffrage, he undoubtedly begun with 'May I not,' but evidently when he showed the first draft to Colonel House or somebody, they said, 'Why do you always say, _May I not_'? and after discussing such substitutes as '_Doch allow me_,' 'If you 'ain't got no objections,' and 'You would excuse me if I would take the liberty,' Abe, they decided to use, 'Will you not permit me,' so, therefore, that part of the President's message which talks about Woman Suffrage says, 'Will you not permit me to speak once more and very earnestly of the proposed amendment to the Constitution and so forth,' and that, to my mind, is what give President Wilson the idea that it might be a good thing to let the manufacture and sale of wine and beer continue after June 30th, which he probably argued, 'If I have such a tough time shaking off the _May-I-not_ habit, how about them poor fellers which has got the liquor habit?'"

"Maybe he figured that way and maybe he didn't, Mawruss," Abe said, "but if any one feels that he ought to stock up with a few bottles of wine for _kiddush_ or _habdolah_ purposes on or after June 30, 1919, Mawruss, he oughtn't to be misled by anything President Wilson said in his letter of the 20th ulto., Mawruss, because when it comes to extending the life of the beer and wine industry after June 30th, Mawruss, them Senators and Representatives is more likely to take suggestions from the President of the Anti-Saloon League than from the President of the United States."

"And I don't know but what they are right at that, Abe," Morris said, "because this here Prohibition is strictly a matter of what the majority thinks, Abe."

"But from the howl that has been going up, Mawruss," Abe protested, "it looks to me like the majority of people wants the sale of schnapps to continue."

"I didn't say it was a question of what they want, Abe," Morris declared, "I said it was a question of what the majority thinks, and the majority of people thinks that while they can drink schnapps and they can let it alone, Abe, the majority of people also think that the majority of the people who drink schnapps would be a whole lot better off without it. So that's the way it stands, Abe. Nobody wants to leave off buying liquor, but nobody wants to take the responsibility of letting the sale of liquor continue."

"Also, Mawruss, I've been reading a good many articles in the magazines about this here Prohibition lately," Abe declared, "and in every case the writer shows how disinterested he is, y'understand, by stating right at the start that so far as he is concerned, they could leave off selling liquor to-morrow and he would be perfectly satisfied."

"And he is going to have to be, Abe," Morris said, "because that way of looking at the liquor question is what has brought about Prohibition. Practically everybody who drinks schnapps and enjoys it, Abe, is afraid that everybody else who drinks schnapps and _enjoys_ it is going to think that he drinks schnapps and enjoys it, so he goes to work and pulls this phony unselfish stuff about, 'So-far-as-I-am-concerned, it don't make no difference how soon the country goes Prohibition,' and the result is that the country is going Prohibition, and nobody even now has got nerve enough to admit that it's going to cut him out of a great many good times in the future."

"Well, there's one thing about it, Mawruss," Abe declared, "it's going to make near-by foreign countries, no matter what the climate may be, great summer and winter resorts for these fellers who don't care how soon Prohibition goes into effect and who will continue not to care until 1 A.M. on July 1, 1919. Yes, Mawruss, this here Prohibition is going to give a wonderful boost to the business of building bridges across the Rio Grande River and to running lines of steamers between the United States and them foreign countries near by where the inhabitants have got it figured out that if you drink and enjoy it, you might just as well admit it before it's too late to keep the government from not taking a joke, if you know what I mean."

"Sure I know what you mean," Morris said, "and it has always seemed to me, Abe, that even the Scotch whisky business ain't going to be affected so adversely by this here Prohibition, neither, except that the merchandise is going to reach its ultimate hobnail liver _via_ Mexico and Cuba instead of New York and Chicago, and furthermore, Abe, there will be a great demand for sleepers on them northbound trains from Mexico, and the berths will only have to be made up once on leaving the Mexican frontier. However, the diners won't do much of a business on them trains, but they will certainly have to carry extra-large ice-water tanks."

"And while I don't wish them drink-and-leave-it-alone fellers no particular harm, Mawruss," Abe declared, vehemently, "some time when they are traveling on one of them oasis-bound limiteds, Mawruss, it would serve them right if it run off the rails or something and shook 'em up just enough to make them realize the inconvenience their own foolishness has brought on them."

"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "I didn't know you was taking this Prohibition affair so much to heart, Abe."

"What do you mean--take it so much to heart?" Abe protested. "I take a glass of schnapps once in a while, Mawruss, but so far as I am concerned this here Prohibition can come into effect this afternoon yet, and it wouldn't affect me none."

"I am the same way, Abe. I can drink and I can leave it alone," Morris said. "Or, anyhow, I _think_ I can."

XVIII

BEING UP IN THE AIR, AS APPLIED TO TRANSATLANTIC FLIGHTS, CROWN JEWELS, AND LEAGUE OF NATIONS SPEECHES

"The way I feel about it is this, Mawruss," Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter: "It don't make no difference if them two boys failed in their intentions, y'understand, they succeeded in making millions and millions of people in Paris, Winnipeg, New York, and who knows where not, stop hating each other for anyhow a few hours, and instead they smiled and shook hands and allowed themselves a recess in their regular work of winning strikes, losing strikes, shooting, starving, and cheating each other and their countries, while they all joined in being glad that Mrs. Hawker and the baby had got the popper back home with them and that Grieve was safe with his family or anyhow as safe as a young feller can be who is liable to quit his home at any moment and do the same wonderful, foolish thing all over again."

"It's too bad that all them strikers and Bolsheviks which is acting as senselessly as children, couldn't also act as sensibly as children, Abe," Morris Perlmutter observed, "and stop crying long enough to forget what they were crying about, y'understand, but they won't. They are bound and determined to eat the goose which lays the golden eggs, Abe, and the end is going to be that they will find out it ain't a goose at all, but that instead of killing a goose that's fit for food they have only smashed an incubator that's fit for nothing but laying more eggs, and that's the way it goes."

"Well, it's certainly wonderful how popular them two young fellers become in the course of a few days, Mawruss," Abe declared. "Which makes you think, Mawruss, if such a thing happens to two unknown young men like Hawker and Grieve, there is big possibilities in this cross-the-ocean flight for fellers which was once highly thought of and which nowadays nobody gives a nickel about. Take, for instance, them two William J. fellers, Bryan and McAdoo, which only a short time since people was reading about it in the papers, Mawruss, and what them fellers should ought to do is to hire a good, undependable airyoplane, y'understand, and take the first boat for Trespassing, or whatever the place is. Then all they have to do is to make a good start, and get afterwards rescued by a tramp steamer, and right away they become general favorites again. Or the kaiser and the crown prince might try it, Mawruss. There must be plenty of airyoplanes laying around Germany nowadays which could be picked up for a song, and when word come that it had fallen into the Atlantic Ocean with them two birds aboard somewhere around one thousand five hundred miles from sixty degrees forty-three minutes, y'understand, it might make the Hohenzollerns so popular that there would be a counter-revolution or something."

"But suppose they would overdo the thing and not get rescued," Morris suggested.

"Well, that would make them popular with _me_, anyhow," Abe said, "and there is probably millions of people like me in that respects, Mawruss. Still, joking to one side, Mawruss, there is some things which you couldn't joke about like what this young feller Read did, which is working for the United States navy, Mawruss. There was a young feller what took his life in his hands, Mawruss, and yet from the maps which the newspapers printed, you would think it was already a dead open-and-shut proposition that if the airyoplane was to break down anywheres between Trespassing and Europe, Mawruss, there would be waiting United States navy ships like taxi-cabs around the Hotel Knickerbocker, waiting to pick up this here Read before he even so much as got his feet wet, understand me. Yes, Mawruss, right across the whole page of the newspaper was strung the _Winthrop_, the _Farragut_, the _Cushing_, and other fellers' names up to the number of fourteen destroyers, and the way it looked on that map, there was a solid line of boats waiting to receive any falling airyoplane all the way from one side of the ocean to the other, whereas you know as well as I do, Mawruss, you can as much make both ends meet on the Atlantic Ocean with fourteen ships as a shipping-clerk with ten children can in New York City on a salary of eighteen dollars a week."

"I understand them ships was only fifty miles apart," Morris observed.

"Sure, I know," Abe agreed, "but if that airyoplane was to drop anywheres between the second and the forty-ninth mile, Mawruss, them ships might just as well have been stationed on the North River between Seventy-second and One Hundred and Thirtieth streets, Mawruss, for all the good it would have done this young feller Read. Also, Mawruss, if they would have had so many destroyers on the Atlantic Ocean that they would have run out of regular navy names for them and had to resort to the business directory so as to include the Acker, the Merrall, the Condit, the Rogers, the Peet, the Browning, the King, the Marshall, and the Field, in that collection of ships, Mawruss, that wouldn't of made this here Read's life a first-class insurable risk, neither."

"And being picked up by a destroyer ain't such a wonderful _Capora_, neither, y'understand," Morris said, "which they tell me that on one of them destroyers an admiral even couldn't last out as far as the Battery even without anyhow getting pale. Also, Abe, I couldn't see that it proved anything when this here Read had the good luck to arrive at Lisbon, except that he was a brave young feller and seemingly didn't care how much his family worried about him."