Chapter 5

"Excuse me," Morris interrupted, "but I thought you was talking about how to punish the Kaiser, ain't it, which, while I admit you got some pretty good ideas on the subject, Abe, still at the same time there is plenty of ways that the Kaiser could get punished in America without going to the trouble and expense of arresting him first, Abe. There is a whole lot of experiences which the American people pays to go through just once, y'understand, which if the Kaiser could be persuaded to take them all on, one after the other, Abe, his worst enemies would got to pity him. Supposing, for instance, he would start off with one of them electric vibrating face massages, Abe, and if he comes through it alive, y'understand, he would then be hustled off to one of these here strong-arm bunkopathic physicians, which charges five dollars for the first visit and never has to quote rates for the second or third visits, because once is plenty, y'understand."

"But I thought the idea was not to let anybody have any sympathy for the Kaiser, Mawruss," Abe broke in.

"Plenty of fellers I know goes to these here near-doctors," Morris declared, "and nobody has got any sympathy for them, neither. Also, Abe, I 'ain't got no sympathy for anybody who goes to these here restaurants where they run off a cabarattel review, Abe, and yet it's a terrible punishment at that, so there's another tip for you if you want any more ideas for making the Kaiser suffer."

"Say, when it comes right down to it, Mawruss, and if you don't want to show the feller no mercy at all, y'understand," Abe said, "what's the matter with making him see some of them war plays they was putting on in New York last winter?"

"Why only _war_ plays?" Morris asked. "I sat through a couple musical shows last winter without the option of a fine, y'understand, and it would be a good thing if the Kaiser could see performances like that--just to make him realize that in losing his throne, y'understand, he has no longer got the power to order the actors shot, together with the composer and the man that wrote the jokes."

"But the biggest punishment of all you 'ain't even hinted at yet," Abe said, "and it's a punishment which thousands of Americans is getting right now without no sympathy from nobody, which its name is:

"'Form 1040. United States Internal Revenue Service

INDIVIDUAL INCOME TAX RETURN

For Net Incomes of More than $5,000

FOR CALENDAR YEAR, 1918.'

Also, Mawruss, when you consider what the Kaiser done, Mawruss, I ask you is it too much that the Committee on Fixing Responsibility should order him starved to death or talked to death or any other slow and painful death, because such a fate is going to be a happy one compared with the thousands of decent, respectable American business men which is headed straight for an insane-asylum, trying to fill out

"'(a) Totals taxable at 1918 rates (see instructions page 2 under C).

(b) Totals taxable at 1917 rates (see instructions, included in K (a) page 2).

(c) Amount of stock dividends (column 4) taxable at 1916 rates (enter as 20).'"

"Well, after all, Abe," Morris said, "there's one worser punishment you could hand out the Kaiser than filling out this here income tax."

"What's that?" Abe inquired.

"Paying it," Morris said.

VIII

IT ENTERS ON ITS NO-GOLD-CASKET PHASE

"When a feller gets his name in the papers as often as Mr. Wilson, Mawruss, it don't take long for them highwaymen to get on to him," Abe Potash remarked, shortly after Mr. Wilson's return to Paris.

"What highwaymen?" Morris inquired.

"Them presidents of orphan-asylums and homes," Abe said, "and in a way it serves Mr. Wilson right, Mawruss, because, instead of keeping it to himself that he got stuck over four thousand dollars for tips alone while he was in France, y'understand, as soon as he arrived in Boston he goes to work and blabs the whole thing to newspaper reporters, and you could take it from me, Mawruss, that for the next six months Mr. Wilson would be flooded with letters from Associations for the Relief of Indignant Armenians, Homes for Chronic Freemasons, and who knows what else. So therefore you take this here Carter H. Glass, Mawruss, and he naturally comes to the conclusion that Mr. Wilson is an easy mark, because--"

"Excuse me, Abe," Morris interrupted, coldly, "but who do you think this here Carter H. Glass is, anyway?"

"I don't know," Abe went on, "but whoever he is he probably figured that if he was going to get turned down he would anyhow get turned down big, because it says here in the paper that he cables Mr. Wilson he should please let him have three million dollars for this here Bureau for Paying Allowances to the Relations of Soldiers and--"

"Listen, Abe," Morris said, "if you wouldn't know who Carter H. Glass is after paying twelve per cent. on all you made over four thousand dollars last year, y'understand, nothing that I could say would ever learn you, so therefore I 'ain't got no expectations that you are going to remember it when I tell you that this here Carter H. Glass is Secretary of the Treasurer, and when he cabled Mr. Wilson for three million dollars, it ain't so hopeless like it sounds. Also, Abe, while Mr. Wilson gives it out to the papers that he got stung four thousand dollars for tips, it also appears in the papers that he came home with a few gold caskets and things, not to mention one piece of tapestry which the French government presented him with, valued at two hundred thousand dollars alone, y'understand, and if that kind of publicity is going to give Mr. Wilson a reputation as an easy giver-up, Abe, all I can say is that the collectors for orphan-asylums and homes don't read the papers no more carefully than you do, Abe."

"But why should the Secretary of the United States Treasury got to touch Mr. Wilson for?" Abe demanded. "Every day the people of the United States is paying into the United States Treasury millions and millions dollars income-tax money and all the President owns is a few gold caskets which he got presented with, and maybe a little tapestry, y'understand. What's the matter with that feller Carter H. Glass? Is he afraid he is going to run short if he spends a couple million dollars or so? Has he lost his nerve or something?"

"Well, I'll tell you, Abe," Morris began. "The Secretary of the Treasury 'ain't got such a cinch like some people think, y'understand. If the Bureau for Paying Allowances to the Relations of Soldiers send over and asks the Secretary of the Treasury to be so good and let 'em have for a few days three million dollars, understand me, you would naturally think that it is one of them dead open-and-shut, why-certainly propositions. The impression you have is that the Secretary grabs ahold of the 'phone and says to the head of stock to look on the third shelf from the elevator shaft is there any more of them million-dollar bills with the picture of Rutherford B. Hayes on 'em left, and if not, to send Jake up with three hundred of them three-by-seven-inch ten-thousand-dollar bills, and that's all there is to it. But as a matter of fact he doesn't do nothing of the kind, because nobody could get any money out of the Secretary of the Treasury except by an act of Congress."

"Well, it's nothing against Mr. Glass that he is such a tight-wad, Mawruss, because that's the kind of man to have as Secretary of the Treasurer, Mawruss, which supposing they had one of them easy-come, easy-go fellers for Secretary of the Treasurer, Mawruss--somebody who would fall for every hard-luck story he hears, y'understand, and how long is it going to be before the police is asking him what did he done with it all?" Abe said. "So, for my part, Mawruss, they could abuse Mr. Glass all they want to, y'understand, but I would be just as well satisfied, so far as my income taxes is concerned, if the only way you could get money out of him was by a miracle instead of an act of Congress. Am I right or wrong?"

"Do me the favor, Abe," Morris said, "and don't talk a lot of nonsense about a subject about which you don't know nothing about, because when I say that nobody could get money out of Carter H. Glass except by an act of Congress, y'understand, I ain't talking poetical in a manner of speaking. They must actually got to got and act of Congress before anybody could get any money out of the Secretary of the Treasury, no matter if Mr. Glass would be the most generous feller in existence, which, for all I know, he _might_ be. So, therefore, Abe, when Congress adjourned without passing the acts which was necessary in order that the Secretary of the Treasury should pay the railroads seven hundred and fifty million dollars to keep 'em going, y'understand, not to mention such chicken-feed like three million dollars for this here Soldiers' Relations Bureau and the like, it leaves the country practically broke with seven or eight billion dollars in the bank. _Now_ do you understand what I am driving into?"

"I think I do," Abe said, "but explain it to me just as if I didn't, because what is a mystery to me is, why did Congress adjourn without passing them acts, Mawruss?"

"They did it to put Mr. Wilson in bad on account he went to Europe without calling an extra session," Morris said.

"I thought Congress got paid by the year and not by the session," Abe remarked.

"So they do," Morris continued, "but they said they wanted to stay in session while Mr. Wilson was in Europe to _help_ him, and Mr. Wilson thought they wanted to stay in session while he was in Europe to knock him, and he said: 'Watch! I'll fix them fellers,' and _they_ said: 'Watch! _We'll_ fix that feller.' And between the two of them, the railroads is left dry and high, the War Risks Bureau claims that they could only keep going for a week or so, the Soldiers' Relations people is sending out J O S signals, and that's the way it goes."

"And who do you think is right, Mawruss?" Abe asked. "Mr. Wilson or Congress?"

"Well, I ain't exactly prepared to say, y'understand," Morris replied, "but it's a question in my mind whether or not there ain't just so much need for a Peace Conference in Washington as there is in Paris, and if so, Abe, whether Mr. Wilson ain't at the wrong Peace Conference."

"So far as that goes, Mawruss," Abe said, "he might just so well be in Washington as in Paris, because the tapestry and gold-casket period of this here Conference is already a thing of the past, which I see that Mr. Wilson ain't even staying with the Murats no longer."

"Naturally," Morris said, "after the way this here Murat went around talking about the League of Nations."

"Why, I thought he was in favor of it!" Abe said.

"He was in favor of it," Morris said, "up to the time Mr. Wilson and Lord George had the conference with the Jugo-Slobs where they laid out the frontiers by making the ink-bottle represent Bessarabia and the mucilage-bottle Macedonia. When Murat saw the library carpet the next morning, he began to say that, after all, why shouldn't France control her own foreign policy."

"I don't blame him," Abe commented.

"Later on the Polish National Committee called on Mr. Wilson and was shown into the parlor before the butler had a chance to put the slip covers on the furniture," Morris continued, "and that very evening Murat went around saying that if France was going to have to police the corridor through West Prussia to Dantzig, he was against articles fourteen to twenty, both inclusive, of the League constitution, and where could he find a good dry-cleaner."

"That don't surprise me, neither," Abe remarked.

"But it wasn't till the President's body-guard of secret-service men had an all-night stud-poker session in the yellow guest-room that he actually made speeches against the League of Nations," Morris went on, "and at that, the room will never look the same again."

"I wonder if there ain't some kind of property-damage insurance that he could have took out against a thing happening like that?" Abe speculated.

"I don't know," Morris said, "but if there is, you can bet your life that this here Mrs. Bischoffsheim, where the President is staying now, has got it."

"And she is going to need it, Mawruss," Abe said, "because what the best home-trained men do with cigarettes and fountain-pens, when their minds are occupied with business matters, ain't calculated to improve the appearance of a bar-room, neither."

"Say!" Morris commented. "The President _oser_ cares what his address is in Paris, but I'll bet you he is doing a lot of thinking as to what it is going to be in Washington after March 4, 1921."

"It ain't a question of who is going to move _out_ of the White House, Mawruss," Abe said. "What people in America is wondering is, Who is going to move _in_, which right now there is a couple of generals, five or six Senators, and a banker or so which is figuring on not renewing the leases of their apartments beyond March 3, 1921, in case they should be obliged to go to Washington for four years, or maybe eight."

"Lots of things can happen before the next presidential election," Morris said.

"That's what these Senators and generals thinks," Abe agreed, "and in the mean time, Mawruss, nobody has got to press them a whole lot to speak at dinners and conventions, which I see that a general made a speech at a meeting in memory of Grover Cleveland the other day where he didn't refer once to Mr. Wilson, but said that Mr. Cleveland wasn't an expert at verbal messages and believed in the Monroe Doctrine."

"Well, suppose the general did say that," Morris said. "What of it?"

"Nothing of it," Abe replied; "but on the other hand, if this here general had gone a bit farther, understand me, and said that Grover Cleveland never refused to meet Judge Cohalan at the Metropolitan Opera House and as a general rule didn't act cold toward a Sinn Fein committee, Mawruss, you would got to admit that such remarks is anyhow suspicious, ain't it?"

"All it is suspicious of to me, Abe," Morris said, "is that if such a general has got ambitions to be President, y'understand, he ain't going the right way about it, because fashions in opinions changes like fashions in garments, Abe. At this day and date nobody could tell no more about what the people of the United States is going to think in the fall of 1920 as what they are going to wear in the fall of 1920, which it would of been a whole lot better for the general's prospects if he would of said that Grover Cleveland was just as expert at verbal messages as another great American and believed just as strongly in a League of Nations. In fact, Abe, if there was, Heaven forbid, a chance of me being nominated for President in 1920, I would lay pipes for claiming that it was me that suggested the whole idea of the League of Nations to President Wilson in the first place. Am I right or wrong?"

"You're right about the Heaven forbid part, anyway," Abe commented.

"Because," Morris continued, as though he had not heard the interruption, "what between the people who are willing to take President Wilson's word for it and the people who ain't willing to take a United States Senator's word for anything, y'understand, this here League of Nations looks like a pretty safe proposition for any politician to tie up to, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if even some of them Senators which signed the round robin would be claiming just before the 1920 National Conventions that they was never what you might call actually against a League of Nations except, as one might say, in a manner of speaking, if you know what I mean. Also, Abe, these here Senators which is now acting like they would have sworn a solemn oath, in addition to the usual amount of swearing about such things, that they would never ratify this here League of Nations, y'understand, are already beginning to say that they wouldn't ratify it anyhow in its present form, understand me, and before they got through, Abe, you could take it from me, that when it finally comes up for ratification them same Senators is going to go over it again carefully and find that it has been amended by inserting two commas in Article two and a semicolon in Article twenty-five, and a glad shout of 'Oh, well, this is something else again!' will go up, understand me, and after they vote to unanimously ratify it they will be telling each other that all you have to do is to make a firm stand against Mr. Wilson and he will back right down."

"The way it looks to me, Mawruss," Abe commented, "the back-down is on the other foot."

"It's fifty-fifty, Abe, because, when the President gets his back up, the Senate starts to back down," Morris concluded, "and _vice versa_."

IX

WORRYING SHOULD BEGIN AT HOME, AIN'T IT?

"I see where the Italian delegates to the Peace Conference says that if Italy don't get Fiume, Mawruss, there would be a revolution in Italy," Abe Potash remarked to his partner, Morris Perlmutter.

"Any excuse is better than none," Morris Perlmutter commented, "which it is very clear to me, Abe, that with the example of Poland in front of them, the Italians being also a musical people and seeing that Poland has got it a first-class A-number-one pianist like Paderewski for a President, y'understand, they are taking the opportunity of Fiume to put in Caruso or Scotti or one of them fellers as President."

"They would got to offer their Presidents an awful big salary if they expect to compete with the Metropolitan Opera House, Mawruss," Abe said.

"If Poland could do it, Abe, why couldn't Italy?" Morris said. "Which Paderewski didn't have to tune pianos on the side to make a living over here, neither, Abe, and, besides, Abe, if they would let Caruso have a free hand in the formation of his Cabinet, he would probably get a good barytone for Secretary of State, a basso for Secretary of Commerce and Labor, De Luca for Secretary of the Treasury, Martinelli for Secretary of War, and draw on the Chicago Opera Company for Secretaries of the Navy, the Interior, and Agriculture. After that, Abe, all the Italian government would got to do would be to move the capital to Milan and hold open sessions of the Cabinet at the Scala with a full orchestra, and they could take in from ten to twenty thousand dollars at the door, daily, in particular if they was to advertise that Caruso would positively appear at every session of the Cabinet, y'understand."

"But, joking to one side, Mawruss," Abe declared, "while personally I got to admit that up to a short time ago, for all I knew about Fiume, y'understand, if somebody would of said to me suddenly, 'Fiume,' I would have said, 'Fiume yourself, you dirty loafer!' and the chances is there would have been a fight then and there, understand me. Still, I couldn't help thinking that as between old friends like the Italians and perfect strangers like the Jugo-Slobs, y'understand, Italy should ought to have Fiume and anything else she wants within reason and even a couple of places not within reason, if she wants them that bad."

"In deciding these things, Abe," Morris said, "Mr. Wilson couldn't consider prejudice."

"No?" Abe retorted. "Well, could he consider who discovered America? A Jugo-Slob, I suppose, what? But never mind going so far back as Christopher Columbus, Mawruss. Take our best workmen right in our own shop, Mawruss--them Tonies and them Roccos with all the time a pleasant smile no matter how hard we work them, and what are they? Jugo-Slobs or Italians? Take it in the city of New York alone, and do we get there half a million Jugo-Slobs or half a million Italians? I am asking you? Also, Mawruss, I suppose the American people is crazy to see Jugo-Slob opera, with wonderful Jugo-Slob singers and composed by Jugo-Slob composers, ain't it? Furthermore, Mawruss, when you want to give your wife a treat, you take her out and blow her to a good Jugo-Slob _table d'hôte_, one dollar and a half including wine--what?"

"Listen, Abe," Morris protested, "I didn't say a word that Italy shouldn't have Fiume."

"I know you didn't," Abe said, "but there's a whole lot of people which does, Mawruss, and how they expect to use it for an argument to get the millions of Italians in America to subscribe to the next Victory Loan, Mawruss, may be perfectly clear to them, Mawruss, but _I_ couldn't see it and I doubt if them millions of Italians will be able to see it, neither."

"Probably you ain't wrong exactly," Morris said, "but whichever way Mr. Wilson thinks is the best for the good of Europe, Abe, that's the way he would decide it about Fiume."

"Well, I'll tell you, Mawruss," Abe observed, "while I consider that Europe, excepting the coffee they give you for breakfast, is a high-grade continent, taking it by and large, still at the same time I ain't so fanatical about it that if I would be President Wilson, I wouldn't once in a while give America a look-in also. Furthermore, Mawruss, admitting that Mr. Wilson is acting wonderful in the way he is unselfish about America, y'understand, and that he would probably go down in history as a great and good man, y'understand, he should ought to watch out that he don't act _too_ unselfish about America, Mawruss, otherwise he would be going down as a great and good man in French and English history and not in American history."

"There is even some people which figures that he would be a great man in the history of the world even," Morris interrupted.

"Sure, I know," Abe said, "and that's the trouble with a whole lot of people these days, Mawruss. They are figuring on world propositions, and what goes on in the next block don't interest them at all. Worrying should begin at home, Mawruss, whereas with them world thinkers they couldn't get really and truly anxious about the way things is going anywheres nearer to the Woolworth Building than the Nevski Prospekt. 'Ain't you ashamed of yourselves to be kicking about not having a job,' they says to the returning American soldiers, 'when thousands of muzhiks in Ukrania is idle.' And they go to work and collect dollar after dollar for milk to feed Czecho-Slovak babies, with sixty cents after sixty cents overhead on the collection, y'understand, while right here in New York City families with an income of eighteen dollars a week has got to pay twenty cents a quart for grade B milk when the milk-wagon drivers ain't on strike."

"People has become European-Americans from reading too much newspapers nowadays, Abe," Morris said, "which in these times of one newspaper trying to show the others how much more money it is spending for foreign cables, y'understand, if you want to see who is murdered in your own town, understand me, you are liable to find a couple of lines about it 'most any part of the paper except in the first four pages, and the consequences is that people gets the impression from reading the papers that a strike in Berlin is ever so much more important than a strike in Hoboken for the simple reason that as the Berlin strike cost the newspaper proprietor several hundred dollars for cables, he put it on the front page, whereas the strike in Hoboken only cost him seven cents car fare for the reporter each way, and therefore it gets slipped in on the eleventh page with over it the head-line: 'PLAN AMERICAN ORCHESTRA. Chicago's New Philharmonic Is Headed by Mrs. J. Ogden Armour,' the orchestra story with the strike head-line having failed to get into the paper at all."