Читать книгу Worrying Won't Win - Glass Montague - Страница 2

There is some of them peace fellers which ain't so much scared as they are contrary.

"People 'ain't begun to realize yet what this war really and truly means, Mawruss," Abe Potash said as he finished reading an interview with ex-Ambassador Gerard, in which the ex-ambassador said that people had not yet begun to realize what the war really meant.

"Maybe they don't," Morris Perlmutter agreed, "but for every feller which 'ain't begun to realize what this war really and truly means, Abe, there is a hundred other fellers which 'ain't begun to realize what a number of people there is which goes round saying that people 'ain't begun to realize what this war really and truly means, y'understand. Also, Abe, the same people is going round begging people which is just as patriotic as they are that they should brace up and be patriotic, y'understand, and they are pulling pledges to hold up the hands of the President on other people who has got similar pledges in their breast pockets and pretty near beats 'em to it, understand me, and that's the way it goes."

"Well, if one time out of a hundred they strike somebody who really and truly don't realize what the war means, like you, Mawruss," Abe began, "why, then, their time ain't entirely wasted, neither."

"I realize just so much as you do what this war means, Abe," Morris retorted.

"Maybe you do," Abe admitted, "but you don't talk like you did, Mawruss, otherwise you would know that if out of a hundred Americans only ninety-nine of 'em pledges themselves to hold up the hands of the President, y'understand, and the balance of one claims that we are in this war just to save our investments in Franco-American bonds and that Mr. Wilson is every bit as bad as the Kaiser except that he's clean-shaved, y'understand, then them ninety-nine fellers with the pledges in their breast pockets should ought to convert the balance of one. Because, Mawruss, a nation which is ninety-nine per cent. patriotic is like a fish which is ninety-nine per cent. fresh – all you can notice is the one per cent. which smells bad."

"I am just so much in favor of the country being one hundred per cent. American as you are, Abe," Morris said, "but what I claim is that we should go about it right."

"If you mean we shouldn't argue with them one-per-centers, but send them right back to that part of the old country which they come from originally, Mawruss," Abe continued, "why, I am agreeable that they should be shipped right away, F.O.B., N.Y., all deliveries subject to delay and liability being limited to fifty dollars personal baggage in case they should, please Gawd, fail to arrive in Europe."

"Sure I know," Morris agreed. "But pretty near all them one-per-centers was born and raised in the United States or in Saint Louis, Wisconsin, and Cincinnati. You take this here Burgermeister of Chicago, for instance, and the chances is that all he knows about the old country is what he learned on a couple of visits to Milwaukee, y'understand. So how could you export a feller like that?"

"I don't want to export him, Mawruss. All I would like to see is that they should put an embargo on him," Abe said, "and on his friends, them peace fellers, too."

"Well, I'll tell you," Morris commented, "about them peace fellers, you couldn't blame 'em exactly, because you know how it is with some people: they 'ain't got no control over their feelings, and if they're scared to death, y'understand, they couldn't help showing it, which my poor grandmother, olav hasholom, wouldn't allow me to keep so much as a pea-shooter in the house, on account, she says, if the good Lord wills it, even a broomstick could give fire."

"And yet, Mawruss, if burglars would of broke into her home, I bet you she would grabbed the nearest flat-iron and went for 'em with it," Abe said, "so don't insult your grandmother selig by comparing her with them peace fellers which they oser care how many burglars is johnnying the front door just so long as they could hide under the bed."

"At the same time, Abe, there is some of them peace fellers which ain't so much scared as they are contrary, y'understand," Morris said. "Take this here LaFollette, Abe, and that feller's motto is, 'My country – I think she's always wrong – but right or wrong – that's my opinion and I stick to it.' All a United States Senator has got to do is to look like he is preparing to say something, y'understand, and before he can get out so much as 'Brother President and fellow-members of this organization,' LaFollette jumps up and says, 'I'm sorry, but I disagree with you.'"

"That must make him pretty popular in the Senate," Abe remarked.

"Popular's no name for it," Morris continued. "There ain't a United States Senator which wouldn't stand willing to dig down and pay for a set of engrossed resolutions out of his own pocket, just so long as Senator LaFollette would resign or something."

"But Senator LaFollette ain't one of them peace fellers, Mawruss," Abe said.

"Sure, I know," Morris replied. "All he wants is to run the war according to Cushing's Manual. If he had his way we wouldn't be able to give an order for so much as one-twelfth dozen guns, y'understand, without it come up in the form of a motion that it is regularly moved and seconded that the Secretary of War be and he is hereby authorized to order the same and all those in favor will signify the same by saying aye, y'understand, and even then, Abe, him and Senator Vardaman would call for a show of hands under Section Twelve, Subsection D, of the by-laws."

"Then I suppose if a few thousand American soldiers gets killed on account they 'ain't got the right kind of guns, Mawruss, we could lay it to Section Twelve, Subsection D, of the by-laws," Abe suggested.

"And you could give some of them Senators credit for an assist, Abe, because you take a Senator like that, Abe, and when he holds up the ammunition supply with a two-hour speech, y'understand, he oser worries his head how many American soldiers is going to be killed by the Germans in France six months later, just so long as his own name is spelled right by the newspapers in New York City next morning."

"It would help a whole lot, Mawruss," Abe said, "if Senators and Congressmen was numbered the same like automobiles, y'understand, because who is going to waste his breath arguing that the Senate should pass a law which it's a pipe the Senate ain't going to pass, on account that nobody is in favor of it except himself and a couple of other Senators temporarily absent on the road, making Fargo, Minneapolis, Chicago, and points east as traveling peace conventioners, y'understand, when he knows that next morning the only notice the New York newspapers will take of his Geschrei will be, Among those who spoke in the Senate yesterday was:

"Well, there's plenty of people which thinks when Governor Lauben wouldn't let them peace fellers run off their convention, y'understand, that it was unconstitutional," Morris said.

"Sure, I know," Abe said. "They're the same people which thinks that anything what helps us and hinders Germany is unconstitutional, including the Constitution. You take them socialist orators, which the only use they've got for soap is the boxes the soap comes in, y'understand, and to hear them talk you would think that the Kaiser sunk the Lusitania pursuant to Article Sixty-one, Section Two, of the Constitution of the United States, Mawruss, whereas when President Wilson sends a message to Congress asking them when they are going to get busy on the war taxes and what do they think this is, anyway – a Kaffeklatsch, y'understand – it is all kinds of violations of Articles Sixteen, Thirty-two, O.K. and C.O.D. of the Constitution and that the American people is a lot of weak-livered curs to stand for it, outside of being weak-livered curs, anyway."

"You mean to say we allow these here fellers to get up on soap-boxes and say such things like that?" Morris exclaimed.

"We've got to allow them," Abe replied. "The Constitution protects them."

"What do you mean – the Constitution protects them?" Morris said. "Here a couple of weeks ago a judge in North Carolina gives out a decision that the Constitution don't protect little children eleven years old from being made to work in factories, y'understand, and now you are trying to tell me that the same Constitution does protect these here loafers! What kind of a Constitution have we got, anyway?"

"I don't know, Mawruss, but there's this much about it, anyhow – a lawyer could get more money out of just one board of directors which wants to go ahead and put through the deal if under the Constitution of the United States nobody could do 'em nothing, y'understand, than he could out of all the children which gets injured working in all the cotton-mills south of Mason and Hamlin's line, understand me. So you see, Mawruss, the Constitution not only protects these here soap-box orators, but it also gives 'em something to talk about because when they want to knock the United States and boost Germany, all they need to say is that you've got to hand it to the Germans; if they kill little children, they're, anyhow, foreign children and not German children."

"I suppose a lot of them soap-box orators gets paid by the German government for boosting the Germans the way you just done it, Abe," Morris commented, "which I see that this here Ridder of the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung gives it out that any one what accuses him that he is getting paid by the German government for boosting the Kaiser in his paper would got to stand a suit for liable, because he is too patriotic an American sitson to print articles boosting the Kaiser except as a matter of friendship and free of charge – outside of what he can make by syndicating them to other German newspapers."

"But do them other German newspapers get paid by the German government for reprinting Mr. Ridder's articles?" Abe asked.

"That Mr. Ridder don't say," Morris replied.

"Well," Abe continued, "somebody should ought to appreciate the way them German newspapers love the Kaiser, even if it's only a United States District Attorney, Mawruss, because you take it if the shoe pinched on the other foot, and a feller by the name Jefferson W. Rider was running an American newspaper in Berlin, Germany, by the name, we would say, for example, the Berlin, Germany, Star-Gazette, which is heart and soul for Germany and at the same time prints articles by American military experts showing how Germany couldn't win the war, not in a million years, and the sooner the German soldiers realize it the quicker they wouldn't get killed for such a hopeless Geschaft, y'understand. Also, nobody has a greater admiration for the Kaiser than the Berlin, Germany, Star-Gazette, understand me, but that if the Kaiser thinks President Wilson is a tyrant, y'understand, then all the Star-Gazette has got to say is, some day when the Kaiser is fixing the ends of his mustache in front of the glass mit candlegrease or whatever such Chamorrim uses on their mustaches to make themselves look like kaisers, y'understand, that the Kaiser should take another look in the mirror and he would see there such a cutthroat tyrant which President Wilson never dreamed of being in Princeton University to the shipping-clerk, even. Also this here Berlin, Germany, Star-Gazette says that Germany is the land of bluff and that – "

"One moment," Morris Perlmutter interrupted. "What are you trying to tell me – that such a newspaper would be allowed to exist in Berlin, Germany?"

"I am only giving you a hypo-critical case, Mawruss," Abe continued, "where I am trying to explain to you that if this was Germany it wouldn't be necessary for Mr. Ridder to sue anybody for liable. All he would have to do when they ask him if he's got anything to say why sentence should not be passed, y'understand, is to tell the judge what was his trade before he became an editor, understand me, and they would put him to work at it for the remainder of the war."

"He wouldn't get off so easy as that, even," Morris commented. "Why, what do you suppose they would do to the editor of this here, for example, Star-Gazette if he was to just so much as hint that the Crown Prince couldn't be such a terrible good judge of French château furniture, y'understand, on account he had slipped over on the Berlin antique dealers a lot of reproductions which they had every right to believe was genwine old stuff, as it had been rescued from the flames, packed, and shipped under the Crown Prince's personal supervision? I bet you, Abe, if the paper was on the streets at three-thirty and the sun rose at three-thirty-five, y'understand, the authorities wouldn't wait that long. They'd shoot him at three-thirty-two."

"I know it," Abe agreed. "You see, Mawruss, an editor, a soap-boxer, a cotton-mill owner, or a stock-waterer might get away with it in this country under the Constitution, but over on the other side they wouldn't know what he was talking about at all, because in Germany, Mawruss, a constitution means only one thing. It's something that can be ruined by drinking too much beer, and you don't have to hire no lawyer for that."