_ CHAPTER XXI. WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS, ECONOMICALLY AND THEATRICALLY
"I see where a minister said the other day he couldn't understand why it was that fellers in the theayter business goes to work and puts on the kind of shows which they do put on, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, a few days after the ministerial controversy over a certain phase of the Broadway drama.
"Maybe they got hopes that quite a number of people would pay money to see such shows, Abe," Morris suggested, "because so far as I could tell from the few fellers in the theayter business whose acquaintance I couldn't avoid making, Abe, they are business men the same like other business men, y'understand, and what they are trying to do is to suit the tastes of their customers."
"But what them ministers claims is that them customers shouldn't ought to have such tastes," Abe said.
"That is up to the ministers and not the fellers in the theayter business," Morris said. "Theayter managers ain't equipped in the head to give people lectures on how terrible it is that people should like to see the plays they like to see, because as a general thing a feller in the theayter business is the same as a feller in the garment business or grocery business--he didn't have to pass no examination to go into such a business, and what a theayter feller don't know about delivering sermons, Abe, if a minister would know it about the show business, y'understand, instead of drawing down three thousand a year telling people to do what they don't want to do, understand me, he would be looking round for a nice, fully rented, sixteen-story apartment-house in which to invest the profits from a show by the name, we would say, for example, 'Early to Bed.'"
"But the trouble with the theayter fellers is that they think any show which a lot of people would pay money to see, Mawruss, is a good show," Abe declared.
"Why shouldn't the managers think that?" Morris asked. "If the ministers had the people trained right, any show which a lot of people would pay money to see should
ought to be a good show."
"You think the ministers could train people to like a good show!" Abe exclaimed. "It's human nature for people to like the kind of show they do like, Mawruss, and how could ministers, even if they would be the biggest
tzadeekim in the world, change human nature?"
"That's what I am trying to tell you, Abe," Morris said. "The theayter managers simply supply a demand which already exists, Abe, and they are as much to blame for the conditions which creates that demand as you could blame a manufacturer of heavy-weight underwear for cold winter weather."
"But why should the theayter manager try to supply an unhealthy demand, Mawruss?" Abe asked.
"The demand for heavy winter underwear is also unhealthy, Abe," Morris said. "In America, where the houses is heated, heavy underwear would give you a cold, whereas in Norway and Sweden the demand for heavy underwear is healthy because Norway and Sweden houses is like Norway and Sweden plays, Abe, they are constructed differently from the American fashion. They are built solid, but there ain't no light and heat in them, and yet, Abe, the highbrows which is kicking about the American style of plays is crazy about these here Norway and Sweden plays and want American theayter managers to put on plays like them. In other words, Abe, they are arguing in favor of the manufacture and sale of heavy winter underwear for an exclusively B. V. D. trade, and so, therefore, such high-brows could be ministers or they could be dramatic crickets, Abe, but they might just so well save their breath with such arguments, because the customer buys what he
wants to buy, and what the customer
wants to buy the manufacturer manufactures, and that's all there is
to it."
"And now that you have settled this here question of them 'Early to Bed' plays, Mawruss," Abe said, "would you kindly tell me what the idea of them Germans was in sinking all them white-elephant war-ships which everybody with any sense wished was at the bottom of the ocean,
anyway, y'understand?"
"Well, I'll tell you, Abe," Morris began. "Them Germans being German, y'understand, and having signed an armistice where they agreed to take them war-ships to an Allied port and
keep them there, y'understand, just couldn't resist breaking their word and sinking them war-ships."
"But don't you think, Mawruss, that when the Allies allowed the Germans to sign such an armistice they was awful careless," Abe said, "because if they wanted them war-ships to stay afloat, Mawruss, all they had to do was to make the Germans sign an agreement not to take them war-ships to Allied ports and sink them there, and the thing was done."
"How do you know that the Allies didn't get them Germans to agree the way they did, so as to get rid of all them war-ships without the trouble and expense of blowing them up?" Morris asked.
"I don't know it," Abe admitted, "but even to-day yet, Mawruss, them Allied diplomatists is acting like they thought deep down in their hearts that there was a little honor--a little truth--left in them Germans somewhere, Mawruss, so the chance is that when that armistice was signed, the Allies thought that at last the Germans was going to stand by a signed agreement. However, it seems to me, Mawruss, that there should ought to be an end to this here better-luck-next-time attitude towards the Germans' idea of honor on the part of the Allies."
"Well, what are you going to do with such people, Abe?" Morris asked.
"To me it's a business proposition, Mawruss," Abe said, "and the way I feel about this here Peace Treaty is that it is nothing but composition notes, signed by the Germans without indorsement by anybody. Now you know as well as I do, Mawruss, if a bankrupt owes you money and he has got
some assets, you ain't going to take composition notes for the entire amount of debts and let the bankrupt keep the remains of his assets, because composition notes without indorsements don't deceive nobody, Mawruss. If I get from a bankrupt unindorsed composition notes, I simply put them away in my safe and forget about them, which if a bankrupt ever paid his unindorsed composition notes he would be adding murder to his other crimes on account the holders of such composition notes would drop dead from astonishment."
"The death-rate from such a cause among business men ain't high, Abe," Morris commented.
"If I was an accident-insurance company's actuary, I would take a chance and leave such a cause of death out of my calculations," Abe agreed. "It never happens, and so, therefore, Mawruss, if Germany lives up to the terms of the Peace Treaty it would only be because the German signature is guaranteed by the indorsement of a large Allied Army of Occupation, and, therefore, if we've got to do it first as last, why monkey around with a new German Cabinet? Why not close up the Peace Conference
sine die, tell Germany her composition notes ain't acceptable, y'understand, and proceed to make a levy and sale with the combined armies of the Allies as deputy-sheriffs, Mawruss, because not only are the Germans bankrupts, but they are fraudulent bankrupts, and on fraudulent bankrupts nobody should have no mercy at all?"
"But don't you think it might be just as well to give the Germans a few days' grace and see how this here new Cabinet goes to work?" Morris suggested.
"You don't have to know how it works, Mawruss," Abe replied. "All you have to do is to know how it was formed and you can guess how it would work, which I bet yer that Erzberger got together with von Brockdorff-Rantzau and they combed over the list of candidates to get just the right kind of people for a German Cabinet, because the ordinary tests which they use in England, France, or America, Mawruss, don't apply to Germany. You've got to be awful careful in forming a German Cabinet, Mawruss, otherwise you are liable to have slipped in on you just one decent, respectable man with an idea of keeping his word and doing the right thing, Mawruss, and by a little carelessness like that, understand me, the whole Cabinet is ruined. However, Mawruss, you could take it from me that a couple of experienced Cabinet-formers like this here Erzberger and von Brockdorff-Rantzau didn't fall down on their job, and I bet yer that every member of the new Cabinet is keeping up the best traditions of the good old German spirit, which is to be able to look the whole world straight in the eye and lie like the devil, y'understand."
"Then you think this Cabinet wouldn't act no different to the other Cabinets?" Morris said.
"Not if the Allies don't act different," Abe said, "and where the Allies made their first big mistake was the opening session at Versailles, when the usher or the janitor or whoever had charge of such things didn't take von Brockdorff-Rantzau by the back of his neck and yank him to his feet after he started to talk without rising from his chair, because the Germans is very quick to take a tip that way, Mawruss. Whatever they put over once, they think they could put over again, and since that time all arguments the Germans has made about the Peace Treaty have been, so to speak, delivered by the German people and the German Cabinet, not only seated, y'understand, but also with the feet cocked up on the desk, the hat on, and in the corner of the mouth a typical German cigar which is made up of equal parts hay and scrap rubber blended with the
Vossicher Zeitung and beet-tops and smells accordingly."
"Well, it is one of the good qualities of the American people that before they get good and sore, as they have a right to do, Abe, they will put up with a whole lot of bad manners from people that they deal with," Morris said. "Take, for instance, these here foreign-born Reds which they held a meeting in Madison Square Garden the other evening, and if they said in any other country about the government what they said in Madison Square Garden, y'understand, the owner of Madison Square Garden would of pocketed thousands of dollars for the moving-picture rights of the bayoneting alone. But we don't do business that way. There ain't no satisfaction in bayoneting a lot of people for being fresh and not knowing how to behave. Fining them and putting them in prison is also no relief to our feeling, neither. What we really itch to do, Abe, is to act the way a man would act if he gives somebody food and shelter in his home, and, as soon as such a
schnorrer feels refreshed by what he has eaten and the good bed he has slept in, he turns on his host and, after insulting the members of the household, tries to wreck the furniture and set the house on fire. Such a feller you would first kick as many times as you had the strength; you would then duck him in the nearest body of water, provided it was muddy enough, and after he had come up for the third time you would fish him out and ride him on a rail to the town limits and there you would advise him never to show his face around them parts again."
"But as I understand this here Red meeting, Mawruss," Abe said, "it was something more as not knowing how to behave. Practically every speaker told the audience that they should rise up against the government."
"Sure I know, Abe," Morris agreed, "but the audience was composed of people who had already made up their minds that they should rise up against the government, and there is only one thing which prevents them from rising up--they 'ain't got the nerve. Furthermore, them speakers could go on advising till they got clergyman's sore throat from the violent language they was using, and that audience could sit there being advised till the management of Madison Square Garden dispossessed the meeting for non-payment of rent, y'understand, and still that audience wouldn't have the nerve. Them Reds are a lot of rabbits, Abe. They could rise up in Russia and Hungary against a lot of rabbits, y'understand, but over here the most them rabbits has got the courage to do is to plant a few bombs, of which one or two has been ungrateful enough to bite the hand that threw them, understand me, but as soon as them Red rabbits discovers that the percentage of mortality among bomb-throwers is equal to the death-rate from some such rare disease as sleeping-sickness or beriberi, Abe, they wouldn't even have the nerve to throw bombs."
"Still, I think the District Attorney should ought to do something about that Madison Square meeting, Mawruss," Abe said, "because even if Madison Square Garden would have been only one-tenth filled, considering the high price of rails in the present steel-market and the distance of Madison Square from muddy water, Mawruss, it would be anyhow unpractical to duck or ride on rails the number of Reds which attended that meeting, even supposing enough respectable people could be found who would take the trouble."
"As a matter of fact, Abe," Morris said, "it don't even pay to encourage them speech-making Reds by thinking they are important enough to be ducked in muddy water. After all, most of them are still young and sooner or later they would got to go to work, and once a man goes to work in this country it is only a matter of time when he gets up into the capitalistic class."
"There is also another thing to be considered about these here Reds, Mawruss," Abe said. "As Reds, they couldn't be taken altogether seriously, because Reds would be Reds only up to a certain point. After that they're Yellow." _