Part 5

"Even so, Mawruss, he won't be changing his mind, and I don't know but what he'll be acting wise, too," Abe said, "because when a politician gets a reputation for carrying a certain line of stable opinions his customers naturally expects that he is going to continue to carry 'em, and when he drops that line and lays in a stock of new stuff in the way of political ideas, y'understand, his customers leave him and he's got to build up his trade over again; and that's no way for a feller to get into the steam-yacht class--I don't care if he would be a politician or a garment-manufacturer."

"Well, of course, if a feller's opinions is his living, you couldn't blame him for not changing 'em," Morris said, "_aber_ this here Root is already retired from business, and the chances is that, the way he's got his money invested, it wouldn't make no difference _how_ liberal-minded he was, the corporations would have to pay the coupons, anyway."

"I know they would," Abe agreed, "but you take some of these Senators and Congressmen which they started out before we was at war with Germany to show an attractive line of pro-German ideas--that is to say, attractive to their regular customers out in Wisconsin and Saint Louis, understand me, and people don't figure that them poor fellers has got mortgages falling due on 'em next year and boys to put through college. For all people knows, Mawruss, this here McLemon which used to make a speciality of speeches warning Americans off of ocean steamships was supporting half his wife's family and widowed sister that way. The chances is that he sees now what a rotten line of argument that was, and he would like to switch over and display some snappy nineteen-seventeen-model speeches about the freedom of the seas for American sitsons, understand me, but you know yourself how it is when your wife has got a large family, Mawruss: if one of her sisters ain't having an emergency operation on you, it's a case of doing something quick to keep her youngest brother out of jail, and either way you are stuck a couple of hundred dollars, so you couldn't blame a Congressman who refuses to change his mind and risk losing his territory, even if all the rest of the country _is_ calling him a regular Benedictine Arnold, y'understand."

"Well, sooner or later some of these big _Machers_ has got to change their minds, otherwise the war will never be over," Morris said. "The Kaiser has said over and over again that, once having put on her shiny armor, y'understand, the Fatherland would never let the sword out of its hand till England was finally crushed and _Gott mit uns_, and Lord George and Lord Northcliff has said the same thing about Germany excepting _Gott mit uns_. Also France in this great hour would never lay down the sword, and _we_ would never lay down the sword. Furthermore to hear Austria talk, and Kerensky, Venizelos, and the King of Rumania, there would be such a continuous demand for swords that it would pay Charles N. Schwab and this here Judge Gary to organize the Consolidated Sword Company or the United States Sword Corporation with a plant covering sixteen acres and an issue of one hundred million dollars preferred stock and two hundred and fifty million dollars common stock and let the cannon and torpedo business go."

"Sure, I know," Abe said. "But when the Kaiser says that Germany would never stop fighting till her enemies is in the dust, speaking of Germany as a she-Fatherland, or till its enemies is in the dust, speaking of Germany as an it-Fatherland, Mawruss, if you was a mind-reader, Mawruss, you would see 'way back in the rear of his brain one of them railroad time-table signs: _(GG) Will stop daily after January first, nineteen-nineteen_."

"I hope you are right, Abe," Morris commented, "but I see where this here Lord Northcliff says that the war is really just beginning, and so far as I can discover that goes without foot-notes or notices that care is taken to have same correct, but the company will not be responsible for delays or for errors in the printing, y'understand."

"Well, I'll tell you," Abe said, "I don't know nothing about this here Lord Northcliff. I admit also that I don't know what his standing as a lord is or when he joined. In fact, I don't even know what a lord has to pay for initiation fees and annual dues, let alone what sick benefit he draws and what they pay to the widow in case a lord dies, understand me, but I don't care if this here Northcliff, instead of a lord, was an Elk or an Odd Fellow, y'understand, he can't tell when this war is going to end no more than I can."

"But I understand this here Northcliff is an awful smart feller, Abe," Morris said. "He owns already a couple dozen newspapers in the old country, and if he wouldn't have the right dope on this here war, I don't know who would."

"Say!" Abe protested. "Nobody could get the right dope about this war out of any newspaper, even if he owned it, Mawruss, because you know as well as I do, Mawruss, if the City Edition says the Germans is starving, y'understand, and couldn't last through the winter, understand me, that ain't no guarantee that they wouldn't be getting plenty of food in the Home Edition and starving again in the Five-star Final Sporting Extra with Complete Wall Street, Mawruss, so the way I figure it is that this here Northcliff has got the idea that if he tells us the war is only beginning we are going to brace up, and if he says the chances is the war would last twenty years yet and that half the world would be down and out with starvation and sickness before it is finished up, y'understand, we are going to say: 'This is _great_. We must get in on this.'"

"Maybe that's the way they get results in the newspaper business, Abe," Morris remarked, "but in the garment business, if I am trying to turn out a big order, y'understand, I tell the operators that the quicker they get through the sooner they will be finished, y'understand, and I make a point of saying that they are practically on the home stretcher even if they are just beginning."

"That ain't such a bad plan, neither," Abe admitted, "but there should ought to be some way to strike an average between your ideas for hurrying up and this you-would-be-all-right-if-blood-poisoning-don't-set-in encouragement of Lord Northcliff's, Mawruss, so that we wouldn't think we'd got too easy a job, but at the same time we wouldn't feel like throwing away the sponge, neither."

"I think he means well, _anyhow_," Morris said, "which he is trying to tell us that we shouldn't think we've got such a cinch as all that; because you know it used to was before this war started, Abe. Every once in a while at a lodge meeting some Grand Army man, who was also, we would say, for example, in the pants business, would get up and make a speech that if this great and glorious land of ours was to be threatened with an invasion by any foreign king or potentate, y'understand, an army of a million soldiers would spring up overnight, and all his lodge brothers would say ain't it wonderful how an old man like that stays as bright as a dollar, y'understand. _But_, just let the same feller get up and make a speech that if the pants business was to be threatened with a strike by any foreign or domestic walking-delegate, understand me, an army of a million pants-operators would spring up overnight, y'understand, and before he had a chance to sit down even them same lodge brothers would have rung for a Bellevue ambulance and passed resolutions of sympathy for his family. And yet, Abe, a learner on pants becomes an expert in six days, whereas it takes six months at the very least to train a soldier."

"That's why Lord Northcliff is making all them discouraging speeches," Abe said. "He's a business man, Mawruss, and he appreciates that we are up against a tough business proposition."

"But what I don't understand is: where does Lord Northcliff come in to be neglecting his newspapers the way he does?" Morris said. "Is he an ambassador or something?"

"Well, for that matter," Abe retorted, "where does Colonel House come in to be neglecting the cloth-sponging business or whatever business the Colonel is in? It's a stand-off, Mawruss. While Lord Northcliff is colonelhousing over here, Colonel House is lordnorthcliffing over in England, and just exactly what that _is_, Mawruss, I don't know, but I got a strong suspicion that the main point about their being where they are is that they ain't where the people are which sent them there, if you understand what I mean."

"And I bet they both feel flattered at that," Morris concluded.

IX

POTASH AND PERLMUTTER ON NATIONAL MUSIC AND NATIONAL CURRENCY

Some people wouldn't care what they said, just so long as they could give the impression that they was regular sharks when it come to music, but what kind of impression they gave when it come to patriotism and common sense, such people don't give a nickel.

"It seems that this here Doctor Muck wouldn't play the national anthem, Mawruss, because he found it was inartistic," Abe Potash said as he turned to the editorial page of his daily paper.

"Well, how did he find the national currency, Abe?" Morris Perlmutter inquired. "Also inartistic?"

"He didn't say," Abe replied. "But a statement was given out by Major Higginson that--"

"Who's Major Higginson?" Morris asked.

"He's the feller that owns the Boston Symphony Orchestra which this here Doctor Muck is the conductor of it," Abe replied.

"That must be an elegant orchestra, Abe," Morris commented. "A major is running it and a doctor is conducting it. I suppose they've got working for them as fiddlers a lot of attorneys and counselors at law, and the chances is that if a feller was to come there looking for a job operating a trombone on account he had had experience as a practical tromboner with the New York Philharmonics, y'understand, they would probably turn him down unless he could show a diploma from a recognized school of pharmacy."

"For all I know, they might insist on having a certified public accountant, Mawruss," Abe said, "but he would have to be a shark on the trombone, anyway, because I understand this here Doctor Muck and Major Higginson run a high-class orchestra."

"Well, it only goes to show that you don't got to got a whole lot of common sense to run a high-grade orchestra, Abe," Morris retorted, "which if I would be a German doctor stranded in Boston, y'understand, and I had to _Gott soll huten_ conduct an orchestra for a living, I would consider to myself that there ain't many Americans in or out of the medical profession conducting orchestras over in Germany just now which is refusing to play '_Die Wacht am Rhein_' or '_Heil im der Siegerkranz_' on artistic grounds and getting away with it. Furthermore, Abe, Doctor Muck should ought to figure that no matter if he was running the highest-grade orchestra in existence or anyhow in the state of Massachusetts, y'understand, and if nobody pays for a ticket to hear it, what _is_ it? Am I right or wrong?"

"He probably thought there was enough Americans crazy about music to make his orchestra pay even if he did insult them, Mawruss," Abe said, "because you know as well as I do, Mawruss, there was a lot of sympathy shown by Americans to them German singers which got fired at the Metropolitan Opera House for insulting Americans or being pro-German. It seems that one of them made up a funny song about the sinking of the _Lusitania_, and some of the Americans which heard him sing it said that the tone production was wonderful, and that such a really remarkable breath control, y'understand, they hadn't heard it since Adelina Patti in her palmiest days, and I bet yer if Doctor Muck was to take that song and set it to music so as the Boston Symphony Orchestra could play it them same people and plenty like them would say that the wood wind was this, the strings was that, and something about the coda and the obbligato, y'understand. In fact, Mawruss, they wouldn't care what they said, just so long as they could give the impression that they was regular sharks when it come to music, but what kind of impression they gave when it come to patriotism and common sense, such people seemingly don't give a nickel.

"Why, you take this here lady singer at the Metropolitan Opera House," Abe continued, "which her husband was agent for the Krupp Manufacturing Company, and when she got fired, y'understand, it looked like some of these here breath-control and tone-production experts was going to hold a meeting and regularly move and second that a copy of the said resolutions suitably engrossed be transmitted to her, care of Krupp Manufacturing Company, Twenty forty-two, four six, and eight Buelow Boulevard, Essen, on account she had been working for the Metropolitan Opera House for pretty near twenty years, which the way some of them singers goes on singing year after year at the Metropolitan Opera House, Mawruss, sometimes you couldn't tell whether the Metropolitan Opera House was an opera-house or a home, y'understand."

"That's neither here nor there, Abe," Morris said. "There ain't no reason to my mind why the Metropolitan Opera House shouldn't ought to hire ladies whose husbands is working for American concerns or is out of a job, y'understand, and also it wouldn't be a bad idea to see that some of them barytones and bassos which was formerly sending home every week from two to five hundred dollars apiece to the old folks in Charlottenburg and Wilmersdorf, y'understand, give up their places to a few native-born fellers who contributed to the first and second Liberty Loans, understand me, and ain't supporting a relation in the world."

"But the point which them coda and obbligato fans make is that if a feller like this here Captain Kreisler of the Austrian army is the best fiddler in existence, y'understand, it's up to us Americans to pay two dollars and fifty cents a throw, not including war tax, to hear him fiddle, and that we shouldn't ought to got no _Rishus_ against him even if he would be only over here on a leave of absence dating from January first, nineteen fifteen, up to and including seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars," Abe said, "because it is claimed that the best fiddlers in the world and the best conductors in the world don't belong to any country. They are international."

"Maybe they are, Abe," Morris agreed, "but the money which they earn belongs to the country in which they spend it, understand me, which my idea is that these are war-times, and if the ordinary people is willing to take their wheat bread with a little potato flour in it, them big-league music fans should ought to be willing to take their fiddle-playing with a few sour notes in it, so if the best fiddler in the world is an Austrian who spends his money at home, y'understand, they should ought to be contented with the next best one, and if he is also an Austrian or a German let them work on right straight down the line till they find one who ain't, because trading with the enemy is trading with the enemy, whether you are trading with a German fiddler or a German fish-dealer, and if you are going to hand over money to Germany it don't make much difference if you do it in the name of art or in the name of fish."

"Well, you couldn't exactly feel the same way about an artist with his art as you could about a fish-dealer with his fish," Abe protested.

"I didn't say you could," Morris said. "I've got every respect for this here Kreisler as a feller which plays something elegant on the fiddle, but at the same time he has had himself extensively advertised with pictures the same like King C. Gillette and William L. Douglas, and that's probably what made him, Abe, because it's pretty safe to say that if you could by any possibility induce and persuade them people which is hollering about art being international and Kreisler being the best fiddler in existence, y'understand, to go and hear Kreisler at a concert where under the name of Harris Fine and wearing false whiskers he was playing a program consisting principally of Rabinowitz's Concerto in G, Opus number Two fifty-six B, y'understand, they would come away saying it was awful rotten even for an amateur and that you should ought to hear Kreisler play Rabinowitz's Concerto in G, Opus number Two fifty-six B, and then you would know how that feller Harris Fine murdered it. So that's why I say, Abe, that advertised art comes under the head of merchandise, and I ain't so sure that the artist who advertises ain't just as much of a business man as we would say, for example, a fish-dealer."

"Well, there's one thing about this here trouble with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Mawruss," Abe said: "it has put Boston on the map for a few days, which the way New York people is acting about electing a mayor in New York City, y'understand, you would think that New York, England, France, and Italy was fighting Germany and Austria, and that if the mayor of New York said so, the war would go on or stop, as the case might be, and otherwise not."

"You couldn't blame New York at that," Morris said. "People out in Seattle which has never been no nearer New York as Fall City, Wash., or Snoqualmie, goes round singing 'Take Me Back to New York Town' _oder_ 'Give My Regards to Broadway,' and young ladies living in Saint Louis, which is a good-sized city, y'understand, reads in a magazine printed in Chicago--_also_ a good-sized city--story after story which has got to do with a wealthy New York clubman, or a poor New York working-girl, or a beautiful New York actress, while the advertising section has got pictures by the hundreds of automobiles, ready-made clothing, vacuum cleaners, beds and bedding, health underwear, and cash-registers, and all of them are fixed up with the Grand Central Depot across the street or the Public Library showing through a window or, anyhow, the Flatiron Building and Madison Square Garden not half a column away, y'understand. Also there is a New York store in every village and a New York letter in every newspaper, and one way or another you would think that the whole United States was trying to prove to New York that it was as important as New York has for a long time already suspected."

"Well, ain't it?" Abe asked.

"It couldn't be," Morris replied. "Take, for instance, this here election for mayor, and the way the New York papers talked about it you would think the Kaiser says to Hindenberg: 'Listen, Max, don't ship no more soldiers nowheres till we hear how things are breaking for Hillkowitz in New York,' or maybe he said Mitchel or Hylan--you couldn't tell, and Hindenberg says, 'But I understand Mitchel is pretty strong up in the Twenty-third Assembly District in certain parts of the Bronix, so I think, Chief, it might be a good idea to have a couple of dozen divisions of artillery sent to Dvinsk and Riga.' But the Kaiser says: 'Now do as I tell you, Max. I got a wireless from Mexico that Hillkowitz will carry three hundred and nine out of four hundred and thirteen election districts in the Borough of Richmond alone.' And Hindenberg says: 'Where did they get _that_ dope? I tell you they don't know nothing but Hylan down on Staten Island, and if you take _my_ advice, Chief, you'll 'phone Ludendorff to hold the Siegfried line, the Lohengrin line, the Trovatore line, the Travvyayter line, the Bohemian Girl line, and all the other lines from Aida to Zampa, because in my opinion Mitchel has a walk-over.'"

"That's where they both made a mistake," Abe commented, "because it was a landslide for Hylan."

"_Yow_ they was mistaken," Morris said. "Do you suppose for one moment that the Kaiser had got so much as an inkling that they were going to elect a mayor in New York? _Oser!_ And with this here Hindenberg, you could tell from the feller's face that for all he understands about the English language, Abe, the word _mayor_ don't exist at all. As for the way they choose a mayor in America, that _grobe Kerl_ couldn't tell you whether they _elect_ a mayor, _appoint_ a mayor, or _cut_ for a mayor--aces low. And that's the way it goes in New York, Abe. They think that the whole of Europe is watching with palpitations of the heart to see who is going to be elected mayor of New York, and they never stop to figure that there ain't six persons out of the six millions in New York which could tell you the name of the mayor of London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, St. Petersburg, or, for that matter, Yonkers or Jersey City."

"From the mayor which they finally chose in New York, Mawruss," Abe commented, "a feller needn't got to be so terribly ignorant as all that to suppose that not only did the people of New York, instead of voting for mayor, _cut_ for him, aces low, y'understand, but that they also turned up the ace."

"They turned up what they wanted to turn up, Abe," Morris said, "which the way the people of New York City elects Tammany Hall every few years, Abe, it makes you think that everybody should have a vote, except convicts, idiots, minors, Indians not taxed, and people that live in New York City."

X

POTASH AND PERLMUTTER ON REVOLUTIONIZING THE REVOLUTION BUSINESS

If Kerensky would have had experience as a traveling salesman it wouldn't hurt him to be spending his entire time commuting between Moscow and Petersburg.

"What they want to do in Russland," Abe Potash declared, one morning in November, "is to have one last revolution, and stick _to_ it."

"It ain't Russia which is having them revolutions," Morris Perlmutter observed. "It's the Russian revolutionists. Them boys have been standing around doing nothing for years, Abe, in fact ever since nineteen five, and now that they got a job they figure that why should they finish it up, because revolutionists' work is piece-work, and just so soon as a revolution is over, as a general thing, the revolutionists gets laid off--up against a wall at sunrise."

"Well, them boys is certainly nursing their job this time, Mawruss," Abe continued. "The way them fellers is acting up over there it wouldn't surprise me a bit if most of the Russian merchants would move to Mexico, so as they could carry on their business in peace and quietness, y'understand. What the idea of all these here revolutions is I don't know. They've got the Czar living in a cold-water walk-up, and you could go the length and breadth of Russia with a ballet-dancer as a decoy without running across so much as one grand duke peeking through the window-blinds, y'understand. So what more do them Russians want?"

"For one thing," Morris explained, "the peasants insists that all the land in Russland should be divided up between them."

"What for?" Abe asked.

"They probably see a chance to get a little real estate free of charge," Morris replied.

"_Aber_ what good would that do them?" Abe said. "Because in a country where revolutions is liable to happen every day in the week except Saturdays from nine to twelve-thirty, y'understand, there ain't much market for real estate, and, besides, Mawruss, if them poor peasants only knew what a dawg's life it is in the real-estate business, understand me, even when times is good, they would of got such _Rachmonos_ for the Czar with his twenty-two million five hundred and forty-three thousand two hundred and twenty-nine versts of unimproved property, that instead of getting up a revolution, they would of got up a meeting and passed resolutions of sympathy."