Chapter 6

"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "people which reads the newspapers don't take the same amount of interests in strikes like they once used to did before the United States government organized them Conciliation and Arbitration Boards, which nowadays strikes is long, dull affairs consisting of the first strike, the arbitration, the decision, the second strike, the arbitration, the decision, the third strike, and so on for several months, because that's the trouble with arbitration, Mawruss: everybody is willing to arbitrate and nobody is willing to be decided against."

"Also strikes is becoming too common, Abe," Morris said. "Everybody is going on strike nowadays, from milk-wagon drivers to the United States Senate, and although the last strike only _begun_ as a strike and ended up as a lock-out, y'understand, still the example wasn't good to the country, which if the strike fever is going to spread as high up as the United States Senate, Abe, where is it going to stop? The first thing you know, the members of the Metropolitan Club will be going on strike for a minimum of six hundred sturgeon eggs in a ten-dollar portion of fresh Astrakhan caviar, and the Amalgamated Bank Presidents of America, New York Local No. 1, will be walking out in a body for a minimum wage of fifty thousand dollars a year, with a maximum working year of four months."

"But even when strikes had no foreign competition in the newspapers, Mawruss," Abe said, "the interest in them soon died out, which very few people outside the parties concerned ever finds out when a strike ends or who wins, and you might even say gives a nickel one way or the other, Mawruss."

"It ain't only strikes which affects people like that, Abe," Morris commented. "Long-drawn-out murder trials and graft investigations also suffers that way, which I bet yer the American newspaper-reading people will soon get on to the fact that the newspapers is playing up to their cable tolls, y'understand, and everybody will be starting in to read the paper at the fourth or fifth page."

"Still, I think that considerable interest was revived in the League of Nations and the Peace Conference by the argument that Senator Lodge put up last week in Lowell, Massachusetts," Abe said.

"It wasn't _in_ Lowell, but _with_ Lowell," Morris corrected.

"In or with," Abe said, "it caused a whole lot of comment in the newspapers, and the people which bought the next morning them papers that printed the whole affair in full, Mawruss, skipped as much as two or three pages about it."

"Well, they didn't miss much, Abe," Morris said, "because it didn't come up to the advertisement."

"What do you mean--the advertisement?" Abe inquired.

"Why, for days already, the newspapers come out with a notice that Senator Lodge would argue with this here Lowell, which he is a college president and not a town, Abe, the argument to take place in a big hall in Boston, and the application for tickets was something tremendous, Abe, because you know how arguments about the League of Nations is, Abe. Sometimes the parties only use language and sometimes the smaller one of the two goes to a hospital, understand me. But, however, in this case it must be that the friends of Senator Lodge must have went to him and said: 'What do you want to get into an argument with Lowell for? Treat him with contempt. What do you care _what_ he says about you? You are _doch_ a United States Senator, ain't it?' And the friends of this here Lowell also must have went to him and said: 'Listen, Lowell, don't make a show of yourself. If Lodge wants to behave himself that way, all right; he's only a United States Senator, but you are anyhow president of Harvard College, and you can't afford to _act_ that way.' 'Act _what_ way?' Lowell probably said. 'Do you think I am going to sit down and let him walk all over Wilson, which Wilson and me was presidents of colleges together for years already?'"

"And besides a college president don't make such big money that he could afford to sneeze at his share of the gate receipts, neither," Abe commented.

"Be that as it may," Morris said, "they probably figured that it was too late to call the thing off, but their friends must have got them together and talked Lodge over into behaving like a gentleman, because he practically agreed to everything that Lowell said and, so to speak, 'threw' the whole debate right at the outset, which, reading the reports in the newspapers next morning, Abe, it is a wonder to me that the referee or the umpire didn't stop it before it had gone the first five minutes, even."

"Well, if people is foolish enough to bet on such things, Mawruss," Abe commented, "they deserve to lose, ain't it?"

"So the consequences is that some people is now saying that Senator Lodge backed down because he didn't have a leg to stand on," Morris continued, "while them people which probably made a little easy money on Lowell is saying, '_Yow!_ backed down!' and that Lowell is a crackerjack, A-number-one arguer, and won the argument on his merits, y'understand."

"The whole thing should ought to be investigated by the Massachusetts Boxing Commission in order to see that them kind of disgraceful exhibitions shouldn't occur again," Abe said, "otherwise this here James Butler which is president of Columbia College will fix up an argument with another United States Senator, and whoever is now president of Princeton College will arrange a frame-up with a Governor of a state or somebody, and the first thing you know, Mawruss, college presidents will be getting such a reputation as public speakers that the next Republican National Convention will be again unloading a college president on us as President of the United States."

"Say," Morris protested, "if all college presidents would make as good a President as Mr. Wilson done, Abe, I am content that we should have such a president for President."

"President Wilson done all right, Mawruss," Abe declared. "He done a whole lot to add a touch of refinement to what otherwise would of been a very rough war, understand me. He's got the respect and admiration of the whole world, Mawruss, and I ain't going to say _but_ neither, but would say _however_. Mawruss, for the next ten years or so the United States of America ain't going to be as quiet as a college exactly. Maybe the presidents of colleges will continue to deal with college professors and college students which couldn't talk back, Mawruss, but the next President of the United States will have to stand an awful lot of back-talk from a whole lot of people about taxes, business conditions, railroads, and so forth, and instead of coming right back with a snappy remark originally made by some big Roman philosopher and letting it go at that, Mawruss, he would got to come right back with a plan devised by some big Pittsburgh business man and act on it, too."

"There's something in what you say, Abe," Morris admitted.

"So, therefore, if we've got to drag a college president for President, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "let's hope he would be anyhow president of a business college."

X

THE NEW HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY

"I see where a feller by the name Rubin or Robin or something like that, which was working as a traveling-salesman for the Red Cross in Russia, got examined by Congress the other day," Abe Potash said one morning in March, "and in the course of explaining how he come to spend all that money for traveling expenses or something, he says that the Bolsheviki in Russia is a very much misunderstood people."

"Sure, I know," Morris said; "it is always the case, Abe, that when somebody does something which could only be explained on the grounds that he would sooner be in jail than _out_, he goes to work and claims that nobody understands him."

"But Rubin claims that the reason Bolshevism sprung in the first place was that the Bolsheviki was tired of the war," Abe continued, "whereas the Allies thought they were quitters."

"What do you mean--whereas?" Morris asked.

"Wait, that ain't the only 'whereas,'" Abe said. "Rubin also said that the Allies thinks the Bolsheviki is a bunch of organized murderers, _whereas_ the Allies don't understand that the only people murdered by them Bolsheviki was the property-owners which objects to their property being taken, and that as a matter of fact them poor Bolsheviki are simply _obliged_ to take the property, there being no other alternative except working for a living."

"_Nebich!_" Morris exclaimed, "and did he say anything else about them Bolsheviki that we should ought to break our hearts over, Abe?"

"Rubin didn't, but there is some of these here liberal-minded papers which seems to think that what this here Rubin says is not only a big boost for the Bolsheviki, but that it should ought to be a lesson to us not to pass laws in this country to prevent the Bolsheviki from operating over here."

"But we already got laws over here to take care of people which would sooner commit murder than work, Abe," Morris said, "and as for being liberal-minded about the Bolsheviki, Abe, I am content that after they are sentenced they should have all the privilege that the other convicts have, and that's as far as I would go."

"Well, you couldn't claim credit for being very funny that way, Mawruss. You've got practically all the unliberal-minded people in the United States siding with you," Abe declared, "because, being liberal-minded is a matter of being able to see only the unpopular side of every question. It is the liberal-minded people which thinks there is something to be said in favor of the Germans and says it, y'understand. It is the liberal-minded people which is always willing to try anything that don't seem reasonable to practically everybody."

"And I suppose them liberal-minded people would even approve of Germany trying to get out of paying an indemnity by pulling off one of them street affairs with shooting which passes for Bolshevik revolution," Morris said, "but the backing of such liberal-minded Americans wouldn't help the Germans none, because there would be a whole lot of husky parties in khaki going into Germany and acting in such an unliberal-minded way that the Germans would wish they would have paid the indemnity voluntarily on the instalment plan rather as have it collected all in one sum by levy and sale under an execution."

"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "it is always the case that when the creditors begin to scrap among themselves, y'understand, the fraudulent bankrupt stands a good chance to get away with the concealed assets, ain't it, and in particular in this case where there is so many liberal-minded people around which don't want to be too hard on Germany, _anyway_."

"I bet yer," Morris said, fervently; "and while this here Peace Conference is killing a whole lot of time deliberating how to make this the last war, y'understand, they will wake up some fine morning to find out that they have really made it the last war but one. Furthermore, Abe, this next-to-the-last war wouldn't be a marker to the war we are going to have in collecting indemnities from Bolsheviki, because when it comes to atrocities, Abe, a Bolshevik government could make the old German government look like the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, y'understand."

"Might the Peace Conference would hurry up, maybe," Abe suggested.

"They've got to hurry up if they don't want to be shifted from a Peace Conference to a Council of War," Morris said. "Look what has already happened in Hungary."

"And yet, Mawruss, you would think that with a nation like the Hungarians, which is used to eating in Hungarian restaurants, y'understand, a little thing like starvation wouldn't worry them at all," Abe said, "so therefore I couldn't understand why the Hungarians should have gone Bolshevik from want of food, as the papers says they did."

"_My_ paper didn't say it," Morris commented, "and if it did, I wouldn't believe it, anyway, because the most you could claim for Bolshevism as a cure for starvation is that it keeps the patient so busy worrying about his other troubles that he forgets how hungry he is. Furthermore, Abe, the way it looks to me, this here Bolshevik revolution in Hungary ain't even what the Poor Food Law would call a Bolshevik Type revolution, because it is my idea that Lenine and Trotzky could read the papers the same like anybody else. So, therefore, when they seen it that all the American newspaper correspondents was sending out word that the Peace Conference should ought to hurry up its work because of the spread of Bolshevism, y'understand, and that the delegates should ought to go easy on Germany because, if they didn't, Germany would probably go Bolshevik, y'understand, this here Trotzky, which once used to work on a New York newspaper but lived it down by changing his name from Bronstein to Trotzky, understand me, at once gets up a line of snappy advertisements headed:

"'WHY BOLSHEVISM?'

to the effect that a Revolution a Day Drives Indemnities Away and for particulars to write to Trotzky & Lenine, Department M, Petrograd Land Title and Trust Building, Petrograd. And, of course, Hungary fell for it."

"So you think that this here Hungarian revolution is a fake?" Abe asked.

"It ain't a fake, it's a business," Morris replied, "which I bet yer that right now Messrs. Ebert, Scheidemann & Co. is writing Trotzky & Lenine they should please quote prices on Bolshevist uprisings as per Hungarian sample, F.O.B. Berlin, and also that it wouldn't be only a matter of a few days when knocking Germany would be a capital offense in Petrograd, upon the grounds that the customer is always right."

"But I understand that in Budapest the working-men is seizing the factories and running them themselves," Abe said.

"There's always bound to be a certain number of people which couldn't take a job," Morris commented.

"There's no joke about it," Abe declared, "which I see in the paper this morning that the new Hungarian Soviet government has directed the presidents of banks to put their business in the hands of the clerks and that the landlords has got to let the janitors manage the apartment-houses."

"The landlords has got to do that in America, whether the government tells 'em to or not, Abe," Morris said, "and as for the bank presidents, Abe, they might just as well go out and look for another job to-day as to wait till next week when them committees of factory-workers will start in to make overdrafts at the point of a revolver."

"Things must be terribly mixed up in Hungary, according to the papers," Abe observed.

"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said, "in some countries a Bolshevik government could be quite disturbing, but take Hungarian cooking, for instance, and it wouldn't really make a whole lot of difference if _gulyas_ or paprika chicken was cooked by one chef or a committee of scullions, Abe, it would be just so miscellaneous and nobody could tell from eating it what had been put into it, y'understand. Also, Abe, take these here gipsy Hungarian bands, and while there would probably be a terrible conglomeration of noises if a committee of players was to start in to conduct the Boston Symphonies or the New York Philharmonics, y'understand, a committee of gipsy musicians couldn't make a _czardas_ sound worser than it does, no matter how they disagree as to the way it should ought to be played."

"For that matter, there's a lot of things produced in Germany which a Soviet government couldn't spoil, neither, Mawruss," Abe said, "like music by this here Nathan Strauss, the composer, or _Koenigsburger Klops_, now called Liberty Roast, which I see by last Sunday's paper that the Kaiser has been talking again."

"And what's that got to do with Germany going Bolshevik?" Morris asked.

"Nothing, except that it partially accounts for it," Abe replied, "which a newspaper feller by the name of Begbie called on the Kaiser in Holland, and he says the Kaiser couldn't see it at all."

"See what?" Morris asked.

"Why, he couldn't see what people is making such a fuss about," Abe said. "He says that, so far as starting this here war is concerned, he didn't _say_ nothing, he didn't _do_ nothing, and all he knows about it is that he lays the whole thing to the Freemasons."

"You mean the F. A. M.?" Morris asked.

"What other Freemasons is there?" Abe said.

"You're sure he didn't say the Knights of Pythias or the I. O. O. F., because, while I don't belong to the Masons myself, Abe, Rosie's sister's husband's brother by the name Harris November has been a thirty-sixth degree Mason for years already," Morris declared, "and I'll swear that if a gabby feller like him would have known that the Masons had anything to do with bringing on the war, Abe, he would of spilled it already long since ago."

"Well, of course, I don't know nothing about what Harris November said or what he didn't say, Mawruss, but that's what the Kaiser said," Abe continued, "and he also had a good deal to say about Queen Victorine of England what a wonderful woman she was, _olav hasholom_, and how she told him many times he should look out for that low-life of a son of hers by the name Edwin."

"But I always thought this here Edwin was such a decent, respectable feller," Morris interrupted.

"That's what everybody else thought," Abe went on, "but the Kaiser says that many times the old lady says to him he shouldn't have nothing to do with Edwin. 'Believe me,' she said, according to the Kaiser, 'he wouldn't do you no good intellectually, morally, or socially,' and so for that reason the Kaiser wouldn't join the Entente with England, France, and Russia."

"Because this here Edwin was at the bottom of it?" Morris inquired.

"That's what the Kaiser _said_," Abe replied.

"Maybe he also caught the poor Czar _selig_ eating with his knife or something," Morris suggested.

"That he didn't say, neither," Abe answered, "but he might just so well have said it, for all it would go down with me, Mawruss, because we all know how kings sow their rolled oats, Mawruss, and any king which wouldn't associate with any other king on the grounds of running around the streets till all hours of the night or gambling, y'understand, if that ain't a case of a pot calling a kettle, I don't know what is."

"And I suppose he topped off them lies by getting religious, ain't it?" Morris remarked.

"Naturally," Abe said. "And in particular he got very sore at the Freemasons on account of them being atheists."

"That's the first time I hear that about the Freemasons," Morris observed. "I think, myself, that he was getting them mixed up with the Elks."

"The Elks ain't atheists," Abe said.

"I know they ain't, but at the same time they ain't religious fanatics exactly," Morris said, "which to a particular feller like the Kaiser would be quite enough, Abe."

"Also, Mawruss," Abe went on, "he claims that the Freemasons is all Bolshevists, and in fact, from the way he carried on about the Freemasons, you would think he was crazy on the subject."

"Maybe they once turned him down or something," Morris commented, "which when I was treasurer of Friendship Lodge, 129, I. O. M. A., before we quit giving sick benefits, Abe, we turned down a feller by the name Turkeltaub on account of varicose veins, and the way he went around calling us all kinds of highwaymen you wouldn't believe at all."

"But the newspaper feller that interviewed him says that the Kaiser seems to be in pretty good health, Mawruss," Abe declared.

"That don't make him a good risk, neither," Morris retorted. "I suppose the interviewer didn't say how his appetite was."

"What's his appetite got to do with it?" Abe asked.

"Because, in speaking of murderers just before they go to the chair, Abe," Morris concluded, "the newspaper always say, 'The condemned man ate hearty.'"

XI

IT IS STILL UP IN THE AIR, BUT YOU CAN'T SAY THE SAME FOR TRANSATLANTIC VOYAGES

"I am surprised to see that an old-established and well-settled government like Mexico should got a revolution on his hands, Mawruss," Abe Potash declared as he skimmed the head-lines in the morning papers.

"What makes you think that Mexico is an old-established and well-settled government, Abe?" Morris Perlmutter asked.

"Germany and Hungary do," Abe replied, "which up to the time this here General Blanquet lands the other day in Mexico, people was beginning to say that why couldn't Germany have one last revolution and stick to it and look at Mexico the way she settled down, not having had a single revolution to speak of since January fifteenth, nineteen-nineteen."

"Well, I think the reason why the Mexicans 'ain't had a revolution in so long isn't because they didn't want to, Abe," Morris said, "but because it has taken them all that time to learn the technical terms. You see, a really and truly up-to-date revolution couldn't be run off nowadays, Abe, unless it is one of them Bolshevik Type revolutions, and in order to get the right kind of newspaper publicity for it the management has got to know enough Russian not to say _soviet_ when they mean _mir_. Also I bet yer when it comes to a zemstvo, the Mexicans don't know even now whether you dance it to a guitar and cascanet accompaniment or eat it with garlic and chili sauce."

"A feller could make quite some money nowadays from teaching Russian by mail to revolutionary socialists," Abe commented.

"That ain't necessary in this country, Abe," Morris said, "because the Bolshevik government in Russia has sent over here a feller by the name of Martens to give a course in Bolshevism to American working-men."

"And did our government let him land?" Abe asked.

"Seemingly they did," Morris replied, "which is pretty liberal of our government when you consider that right now we got American soldiers in Russia which is fighting Bolshevism."

"It's even more than liberal, it's crazy," Abe said, "because while I believe in free speech, y'understand, Bolshevik speeches ain't free by a whole lot. Over in Hungary they became payable in thirty, sixty, and ninety days and the only people which ain't ruined by them is the makers and indorsers."

"You are right about the makers, Abe," Morris commented. "For the most part they are a bunch of no-account foreigners which all they risk by making such speeches is hoarseness, y'understand, but some of the indorsers of such speeches comes from the best American families, and if the time ever comes when there _should_ be a little temporary Bolshevik trouble by foreigners in this country who have been encouraged by the liberal attitude of the government to think that the worst which could happen to them would be ten dollars or ten days, y'understand, them indorsers would got to pay the same like any other decent, respectable people which ain't Bolsheviks. Take, for example, in Hungary and the protelariats is making the middle class give up their bath-rooms to the working-people every Saturday night."

"But the protelariats in New York has all got bath-rooms in their tenement-houses, Mawruss," Abe protested.

"I know they have, but they'll probably figure that why should they trouble themselves to empty the coal out of their bath-tubs, which is what them protelariats now use bath-tubs for, Abe, just to save the middle class the inconvenience of changing their bath night from Saturday to Friday," Morris said, "but at the same time, Abe, it don't look to me that a country which has got the modern convenience of America is going to go Bolshevik for the next few hundred years, anyway, because it is my idee that what makes a people become Bolsheviks is the lack of good plumbing and savings-bank accounts, and rather as have the privacy of their bath-rooms and their savings-bank accounts invaded, the big majority of the American people would declare the United States of America an obsolete monarchy with Ivan D. Ivanovitch, alias John D. Rockafeller, Jr., as the first Czar, understand me."