Chapter 3

"Also New Rochelle, Mount Vernon, and The Bronx," Abe added; "and if she wants to get nasty, Mawruss, she could claim all the territory east of Third Avenue, from Ninetieth Street up to the Harlem River, too. Furthermore, Mawruss, there is neighborhoods south of Washington Square where not only the majority of the people speaks Italian, but the minority speaks it also. So you see how complicated things becomes when a new beginner like me starts in to talk foreign politics."

"For that matter, all us Americans is new beginners on foreign politics, from Mr. Wilson down, Abe," Morris said. "And that is why Mr. Wilson done a wise thing when he visited Italy the other day, and took a lot of American newspaper fellers with him, because, between you and me, Abe, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if some of them reporters went down there under the impression that the only thing which distinguished Ragusa from Ravioli or Spalato from Spaghetti was the difference in the shape of the noodles, but that otherwise they was cooked the same, with chicken livers and tomato sauce, which you know how it is in America: ninety per cent. of the people gets their education from reading in newspapers, and the consequence is that if the American newspaper reporters has a sort of hazy idea that Sonnino is either an item on the bill of fare, to be passed up on account of having garlic in it, or else a tenor which the Metropolitan Opera House ain't given a contract to as yet, y'understand, then the American public has got the same sort of hazy idea. So Mr. Wilson done the right thing traveling to Italy, even if he did have an uncomfortable journey."

"What do you mean--an uncomfortable journey?" Abe demanded. "Why, I understand he traveled on the King of Italy's royal train!"

"Sure, I know," Morris agreed; "but when a king is sleeping on a royal train in Europe, Abe, he can be pretty near as comfortable as a traveling-salesman sitting up all night on a day-coach in America, and if he spends two nights on such a royal train, the way President Wilson did in going from Paris to Rome, which is about as far as from New York to Chicago, y'understand, it wouldn't make no difference how many people is waiting at the station to holler 'Long live the King!' understand me, he is going to feel half dead, anyway."

"And yet there is people which claims that Mr. Wilson don't give a whoop whether he makes himself popular or not," Abe commented, "which before I could lay awake two nights on a train, I wouldn't care if every newspaper reporter in the United States never got no nearer to Italy than a fifty-cent _table d'hôte_, including wine."

"Maybe you would care if you was going to Italy to make speeches the way Mr. Wilson did," Morris said. "Which if the King of Italy was to go to America and make speeches in Italian at the Capitol in Washington, it would be just as well if he would bring along an audience of a few dozen Italians with him, and not depend on enough barbers, shoe-blacks, and vegetable-stand keepers horning in on the proceedings to give the Congressmen and Senators a hint as to where the applause should come in. In fact, I was speaking to one of them newspaper fellers which went to Italy, Abe, and he says that he listened carefully to all the speeches which was made in Italian, Mawruss, and that once he thought he heard the word Chianti mentioned, but he couldn't say for certain. He told me, however, that the correspondent of _The New York Evening Post_ also claims that he heard Orlando, the Prime Minister, in a speech delivered in Rome, use the words Il Trovatore, but that otherwise the whole thing was like having the misfortune to see somebody give an imitation of Eddie Foy when you've escaped seeing Eddie Foy in the first place, so you can imagine what chance Mr. Wilson would have stood with them Italians if the American correspondents hadn't been along to start the cries of 'Bravo!' in the right spot.

"So you see, Abe, it's a good thing for them newspaper men to see what kind of people the Italians is in their own country," Morris continued, "because if this here League of Nations idea is going to be put over by Mr. Wilson, Americans should ought to know from the start that Italy is a Big League nation and its batting average in this war is just as good as the other Big League nations."

"Did any one say it wasn't?" Abe demanded.

"I know they didn't," Morris said. "But just the same, Abe, there's a whole lot of people in America which judges the Italians by the way they behave in the ice business and 'Cavalleria Rusticana,' and also a feller can get a very unfavorable opinion of Italians by being shaved in one of them ten-cent palace barber shops, understand me, so even if them newspaper men couldn't appreciate the performance without a libretto, y'understand, they could anyhow see for themselves that the Italians in Italy is doctors and lawyers, clothing-dealers and bankers, just the same like the Americans are in America, and if they can pass the word back home, with a few details of how it feels to be a foreigner in a foreign country, that wouldn't do no harm, neither."

"That is something which an American newspaper correspondent wouldn't touch on at all," Abe said, "because I bet that every last one of them has already sent back to America an article about this trip to Italy, which, when the readers of his newspaper looks at it, Mawruss, not only would they think that he understood Sonnino's speech from start to finish, y'understand, but also that every time the newspaper feller is in Rome, which the article would lead one to believe has been on an average of once a week for the past ten years, Mawruss, him and Sonnino drink coffee together."

"Ain't he taking a big chance when he writes a thing like that?" Morris commented.

"Yow! A chance!" Abe exclaimed. "Why, to read the things that a few of these here Washington correspondents used to write when they was in America yet, you would think every one of them was pestered to death with telephone messages from the White House where Mr. Tumulty says if the newspaper feller has got a little spare time that evening the President would consider it a big favor if he would step around to the White House, as Mr. Wilson would like to ask him an advice about a diplomatic note which has just been received from Lord George in regards to the Freedom of the Seas or something."

"But don't you suppose the newspaper which a nervy individual like that is working for would fire him on the spot?" Morris observed.

"Not at all," Abe said, "because the newspaper-owner likes people to get the idea that the newspaper has got such an important feller for a Washington correspondent, just as much as the correspondent does himself, Mawruss, so you can imagine the bluff some of them fellers is going to throw now that they really got something interesting to write about like this here Peace Conference. If Mr. Wilson gains all his fourteen points, y'understand, the special Paris correspondent of the Bridgetown, Pa., _Daily Register_ is going to write home, 'And he could have gained fifteen if he would only have listened to me.' Also, Mawruss, during the next three months, if the Peace Conference lasts that long, the readers of the Cyprus, N. J., _Evening Chronicle_ is going to get the idea that President Wilson, Clemenceau, Lord George, and a feller by the name of Delos M. Jones, who is writing Peace Conference articles for the Cyprus, N. J., _Evening Chronicle_, are in secret conference together every day, including Sundays, from 10 A.M. to midnight, fixing up the boundaries between Rumania and Servia."

"Well, them boys has got to produce something to make their bosses back in America continue paying salary and traveling expenses," Morris said, "because from what this here newspaper correspondent tells me, if he didn't get his imagination working, all he could write for his paper would be descriptions of Paris scenery, including the outside of the buildings where on the insides, with the doors locked and the curtains pulled, Mr. Wilson and the American Peace Commissioners is openly and notoriously carrying on open and notorious peace conversations with the other allied Peace Commissioners, and for all the newspaper correspondents know to the contrary, Abe, the only point on which them Peace Commission fellers ain't breaking up the furniture over is that when they come out, y'understand, it is agreed that the newspaper correspondents will be told that everything is proceeding satisfactorily."

"But I thought Mr. Wilson promised before he left America that the old secret diplomacy would be a thing of the past," Abe said.

"So he did," Morris agreed, "and by what I gather from this here newspaper man he kept his promise, too, and we now have got a new diplomacy, compared to which the fellers who were working under the rules of the old secret diplomacy bladded everything they knew."

"But I distinctly read it in the papers the other day that every morning at half past ten, Mawruss, Mr. Lansing meets the newspaper correspondents and lets them know what's been going on," Abe said.

"He meets them," Morris replied, "but so far as letting them know what has been going on is concerned, all he says that everything is proceeding satisfactorily and is there any gentleman there which would like to ask him any questions, which naturally any newspaper correspondent who could ask Mr. Lansing such questions as would make Mr. Lansing give out any information he didn't want to give out, wouldn't be wasting his time working as a newspaper correspondent, Abe, but would be considering offers from the law firm of Hughes, Brandeis, Stanchfield, Hughes & Stanchfield to come in as a full partner and take exclusive charge of the cross-examination of busted railroad presidents."

"Maybe the reason why Mr. Lansing don't tell them newspaper correspondents nothing is that he ain't got nothing to tell them," Abe suggested.

"Well, then, if I would be him, Abe, I would make up something," Morris said, "because if he don't they will, or anyhow some of them will, and there is going to be a lot of stuff printed in American papers where the correspondent says he learns from high authority that things ain't going so good in the Peace Conference as Mr. Wilson would like, because Mr. Wilson is the doctor in the case, and you know how it is when somebody is too sick to be seen and the doctor is worried, Abe, he sends down word by the nurse that everything is proceeding satisfactorily, and the visitor goes away trying to remember did he or did he not throw away that fifty-cent black four-in-hand tie he wore to the last funeral he went to."

"I got a whole lot of confidence in Mr. Wilson as the doctor for this here war-sickness which Europe is suffering from, Mawruss," Abe said.

"So have I," Morris said: "but you've got to remember that there's a whole lot of those doctors on the case, Abe--some of them quack doctors, too, and, when the doctors disagree, who is to decide?"

"I don't know," Abe said; "but I think I know who would like to."

"Who?" Morris asked.

"Some of these here Washington newspaper correspondents you was talking about," Abe concluded.

V

THIS HERE PEACE CONFERENCE--IT NEEDS PUBLICITY

"Well, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, as he and his partner, Morris Perlmutter, sat at breakfast in their Paris hotel one Sunday morning, "I see that the Peace Conference had a meeting the other day where it was regularly moved and seconded that there should be a League of Nations, and, in spite of what them Republican Senators back home predicted, Mawruss, when Chairman Clemenceau said, 'Contrary minded,' you could of heard a pin drop."

"Sure you could," Morris Perlmutter agreed, "because the way this here Peace Conference is being run, Abe, when Mr. Clemenceau says: 'All those in favor would please say _Aye_,' he ain't _asking_ them, he's TELLING them, which I was speaking to the newspaper feller last night, Abe, and he says that, compared to the delegates at this here Peace Convention, y'understand, the delegates of a New York County Democratic Convention are free to act as they please. In fact, Abe, as I understand it, at the sewed-up political conventions which they hold it in America, the bosses do occasionally let a delegate get up and say a few words which ain't on the program exactly, but at this here Peace Convention a delegate who tries to get off a speech which 'ain't first been submitted in writing ten days in advance should ought to go into training for it by picking quarrels with waiters in all-night restaurants.

"Take this here meeting which they held it on Saturday, Abe," Morris continued, "and it was terrible the way Chairman Clemenceau jumps, for instance, on a feller from Belgium by the name M. Hyman."

"That ain't the same M. Hyman which used to was M. Hyman & Co. in the coat-pad business?" Abe inquired.

"This here M. Hyman used to was a Belgium minister in London," Morris went on, "which he got up and objected to the way the five big nations--America, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan--was, so to speak, hogging the convention."

"Well, I think the Reverend Hyman was right, at that," Abe said, "which I just finished reading Mr. Wilson's speech at that meeting, Mawruss, in which he said that no longer should the select classes govern the rest of mankind, y'understand, and after the American, French, British, Italian, and Japanese delegates gets through applauding what Mr. Wilson says, they select themselves to run the rest of the nations in the League of Nations. Naturally an ex-minister like the Reverend Hyman is going to say, 'Why don't you practise what you preach?'"

"And if he wouldn't of been an ex-minister, Abe," Morris said, "the chances is that Chairman Clemenceau would of whispered a few words into the cauliflower ear of one of the sergeants-at-arms, and when the session closed, y'understand, the hat-check boy would have had one hat left over with the initials M. H. in it which Mr. Hyman didn't have time to claim before he hit the car tracks, y'understand, and I wouldn't blame Chairman Clemenceau, neither, because, if this here Peace Conference is going to end this side of nineteen-fifty, it's got to be speeded up some."

"Nobody says it 'ain't," Abe agreed, "but this here M. Hyman is a Belgium and he's got a right to be heard."

"He _would_ have if everybody didn't admit that Belgium shall be protected in every which way, Abe," Morris agreed, "but there is also a lot of small nations which has got delegates at the Peace Convention, like Cuba, y'understand, and some of them South American republics, and, once you begin with them fellers, where are you going to leave off? Take, for instance, the Committee on Reparation, which has got charge of deciding how much money Germany ought to pay for losses suffered by the countries which made war on her, y'understand, and there wasn't one of them Spanish-American republics which didn't want to get appointed on that committee, because, when the Reparation Committee gets to work, practically all of them republics is going to come along with claims for smoke damages, bills for labor in connection with ripping out the fixtures of confiscated German steamers, loss of services of the Presidents of such republics by reason of tonsillitis from talking about how bravely they would have fought if they had raised an army and navy which they didn't, y'understand, and any other claims against Germany which they think they might have had a chance to get by with."

"Well, of course there is bound to be a lot of them small republics which is going to make a play for a little easy money, Mawruss," Abe said, "but the indications is that when the proofs of claims is filed by the alleged creditors, y'understand, there would be a couple of them comma hounds on the Reparation Committee which would reject such claims on the grounds of misplaced semicolons alone. Then six months hafterwards, when the representative of one of them republics goes over to what used to was the office of the Peace Conference with a revised proof of claim, which he has just received by return mail, understand me, he would find the premises temporarily occupied by one of them crooked special-sale trunk concerns, and that's all there would _be_ to it."

"Then you think that this here Peace Conference would only last six months, Abe?" Morris asked.

"Sure I do," Abe replied, "and less, even, because right now already the interest is beginning to die out, which it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest, Mawruss, if in three weeks or so, when Mr. Wilson is temporarily out of the cast on account of going home to America to sign the new tax bill, y'understand, the attendance of the delegates would begin to fall off so bad, understand me, that the Peace Conference managers would got to spend a lot of money for putting in advertisements that George Clemenceau presents:

"'THE INTERNATIONAL PEACE CONFERENCE

The Unparalleled Success of Two Hemispheres

'Enthralling' _Tribune_ 'Punch with a Kick in It' _Sun_ 'Vigor and Suspense' _World_ 'Wins Audience' _Globe_ 'Gripping' _Mail_ 'Ausgezeichnet' _Tageblatt_

QUAI D'ORSAY

Now.

Matinees, Saturday, 2:30.'"

"And even then they wouldn't get an audience, Abe," Morris said, "because those kind of advertisements don't fool nobody but the suckers which pays for them, Abe."

"Maybe not," Abe agreed, "but if the delegates stays away, Mawruss, the Peace Conference could always get an audience by letting in the newspaper correspondents, which I don't care if in addition to Mr. Lord George and Colonel House they would got performing at this here Peace Conference Douglas Fairbanks and Caruso, it wouldn't be a success as a show, _anyhow_, because no theayter could get any audiences if they would make it a policy to bar out the newspaper crickets."

"Well, I'll tell you," Morris began. "Nobody likes to read in newspapers more than I do, Abe. They help to pass away many unpleasant minutes in the Subway when a feller would otherwise be figuring on if God forbid the brakes shouldn't hold what is going to become of his wife and children, y'understand; but, at the same time, from the way this here newspaper feller which hogs our cigars is talking, Abe, I gather that the big majority of newspaper reporters now in Paris has got the idea that this here Peace Conference is being held mainly to give newspaper reporters a chance to write home a lot of snappy articles about peace conferences, past and present. Although, of course, there is certain more or less liberal-minded newspaper men which think that if, incidentally, Mr. Wilson puts over the League of Nations and the Freedom of the Seas, why, they 'ain't got no serious objections, just so long as it don't involve talking the matter over privately without a couple of hundred newspaper reporters present."

"Sure, I know," Abe said; "but if them newspaper fellers has got such an idee, Mawruss, it is Mr. Wilson's own fault, because ever since we got into the war, y'understand, Mr. Wilson has been talking about open covenants of peace openly arrived at, and even before we went into the war he got off the words 'pitiful publicity,' and also it was him and not the newspaper men which first give the readers of newspapers to understand that the old secret diplomacy was a thing of the past, Mawruss, so the consequences was that, when Mr. Wilson come over here, the owners of newspapers sent to Paris everybody that was working for them--from dramatic crickets to baseball experts--just so long as they could write the English language, y'understand, because them newspaper-owners figured that, according to Mr. Wilson's own suggestions, this here Peace Conference was not only going to be a wide-open affair, openly arrived at, y'understand, but also pitifully public, whereas not only it ain't wide open, Mawruss, but it is about as pitifully public as a conference between the members of the financial committee of Tammany Hall on the day before Election. Also, Mawruss, a newspaper reporter could arrive at that Peace Conference openly or he could arrive at it disguised with false whiskers till his own wife wouldn't know him from a Jugo-Slob delegate, y'understand, and he couldn't get past the elevator-starter even."

"That was when the conference opened," Morris said; "but I understand they are now letting them into the next room and giving them once in a while a look through the door during the supper turns when the Polack and Servian delegates is performing."

"And that ain't going to do them a whole lot of good, neither," Abe declared, "because this here newspaper feller told me last night, when he was smoking my last cigar, that he has been mailing back an article a day to America ever since the President arrived here and there ain't not one of them which has got there yet."

"And I was reading in the America edition of the Paris edition of the London edition of the Manchester, England, _Daily News_ that the newspaper correspondents couldn't only send back a couple of hundred words or so by telegraph, Abe," Morris said, "which the way it looks to me, Abe, if some news don't find its way back to America pretty quick about this here Peace Conference and Mr. Wilson, y'understand, people back home in Washington is going to say to each other, 'I wonder whatever become of this here--now--Wilson?' and the friend is going to say, '_What_ Wilson?' And the other feller would then say, 'Why, this here Woodruff Wilson.' And then the friend would say, 'Oh, HIM! Didn't he move away to Paris or something?' And the other feller would then say, 'I see where Benny Leonard put up a wonderful fight in Madison Square Garden yesterday,' and that's all there would be to THAT conversation."

"Maybe it is because of this, and not because of signing the new tax bill, that the President is going home in a few days for a short stay in America," Abe suggested.

"Sure, I know," Morris agreed; "but what good is them short visits going to do him, because I ain't such an optician like you are, Abe. I believe that this here Peace Conference is going to last a whole lot longer than six months, Abe, and, if Mr. Wilson keeps on going home and coming back, maybe the first time he goes back he would get some little newspaper publicity out of it, and the second time also, perhaps, but on the third when he returns from France only the Democratic newspapers would give him more as half a column about it, and later on, when he lands from his third to tenth trips, inclusive, all the notice the papers would take from it would be that in the ship's news on the ninth page there would be a few lines saying that among those returning on the S.S. _George Washington_ was J. L. Abrahams, and so on through the B's, C's, and D's right straight down to the W's, which you would got to read over several times before you would discover the President tucked away as W. Wilson between two fellers named Max Wangenheim and Abraham Welinsky."

"There is something in what you say, Mawruss," Abe admitted; "but, at the same time, a big man like Mr. Wilson ain't looking to get no newspaper notoriety. He is working to become famous."

"Sure, I know," Morris said; "but the only difference between notoriety and fame is that with notoriety you get the publicity now, whereas with fame you get the publicity fifty years from now, and the publicity which Mr. Wilson is going to get fifty years from now ain't going to help him a whole lot in the next presidential campaign."