_ CHAPTER XXV. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? THIS INCLUDES LIBELED MILLIONAIRES, ENFORCED PROHIBITION, AND SHANTUNG
"Well I'll tell you, Mawruss," Abe Potash said, recently, "I doubt very much if I would be able to say offhand who Arnold Benedict was if I would be asked such a question by a smart lawyer in a court-room full of reporters, which, if they hadn't happened to be there at that particular moment, would of probably gone to their graves without even the faintest suspicion that you didn't spell
ignorant idealist with two l's, y'understand."
"Still, Abe, you've got to admit that plaintiff in a libel suit don't deserve much sympathy if he don't post himself before going on the stand as to the meaning of the libel, so as to anyhow be able to say that it
was a libel and not a compliment, understand me," Morris said.
"He took his lawyers' word for it that it was a libel, Mawruss," Abe said, "and, anyhow, Mawruss, nobody has got a right to call anybody an ignorant philantropist even, no matter how ignorant such a philantropist might be about what the word philantropist would mean."
"And do you
know what it means?" Morris asked.
"A philantropist is a feller who gives big sums of moneys to orphan-asylums, hospitals, and colleges, and if he could afford it he's a philantropist, Mawruss, and if he couldn't, then he's a sucker, and that is what is called a philantropist," Abe said, "which, if I didn't know what it meant, Mawruss, I ain't such an ignorant idealist that I would use such a word in front of you and expect you not to try to trip me up on it."
"I see you've also been looking up what ignorant idealist means," Morris observed.
"And I ain't very peculiar that way, neither, Mawruss," Abe admitted, "because I bet yer that in the last two days at least five million people has been looking up in the dictionary what that word idealist means and not knowing even
then what it means, y'understand, and still that 'ain't prevented them from knocking Mr. Ford, Mawruss."
"But the fact remains, Abe, that them five million people ain't suing nobody for calling them ignorant idealists," Morris interrupted.
"Also, Mawruss, they ain't running one of the largest industrial plants in the country on a profit-sharing basis with several thousand employees," Abe declared, "which there is a whole lot of big manufacturers in this country who could go on the stand at a moment's notice and pass a cross-examination with a hundred-per-cent. mark on all them words which you read in them medical journals you pick up from the doctor's desk in his private office when he excuses himself for a minute to answer the 'phone and which you put down so quick and pretend you 'ain't been reading when he comes back again, if you know what I mean. And furthermore, if these same big manufacturers was elected to the United States Senate to-morrow they could make a speech against doing away with child labor in words of six syllables, y'understand, and would probably make such a speech, because the trouble with most big manufacturers is not that they are ignorant, understand me, but that they ain't idealists, Mawruss."
"Just the same, Abe, a man should ought to know what he don't know and side-step it," Morris said.
"But the way it is in this country, Mawruss, a multimillionaire can't side-step it. The newspapers won't let him, because if he gets a reputation for having made fifty million dollars in the safety-pin business, we would say, for example, and news gets so scarce in the newspapers that somebody starts a discussion about which is the biggest musician, Kreisler
oder Zimbalist, y'understand, right away the editor sends out reporters to interview the most prominent men in the country as to what their opinion is in the matter, and naturally one of the first men such a reporter would call on is Harris J. Rosenbaum, the Safety-pin King. Now, what is Rosenbaum going to do under the circumstances? Is he going to admit to the reporter that up to date he has been so busy in his safety-pin plant that he 'ain't had time to post himself as to whether Kreisler and Zimbalist is performers on the trombone
oder the mouth-organ?
Oser! He finds out from the reporter that these two fellers has got a piece-work wage-scale for playing on the fiddle of five dollars a note, net cash, and he says that both of them is wonderful fiddlers, y'understand, but that to his mind Kreisler plays with more of the artistic temperature than Zimbalist, or if he doesn't actually say so, y'understand, the reporter goes back to his newspaper and
says he said so, and the consequence is that when in next Sunday's paper Rosenbaum reads,
KREISLER GREATER ARTIST
SAYS SAFETY-PIN KING,
he not only begins to believe that he did say it, but also that it's funny how a man can go on for years being an expert on fiddle-playing and only find it out by accident, as it were."
"And I suppose that a few months later, on the strength of what he
don't know about fiddle-playing, Abe," Morris remarked, "Harris J. Rosenbaum, the Safety-pin King, is running for United States Senator and comes pretty near getting elected, too."
"There don't seem to be no reason why he wouldn't be," Abe declared, "because just so long as United States Senators is selected by election and not by a competitive examination, Mawruss, there will always be a certain percentage of Harris J. Rosenbaums in the United States Senate, which you can't keep millionaires out of public office, if they want to fool away their time in such things, and after all, Mawruss, it ain't having brains which makes a man a millionaire, it's having a million dollars."
"Then you don't blame Mr. Ford for the way he has behaved himself, Abe?" Morris asked.
"Not in the least," Abe said. "Millionaires behave the way their fellow-countrymen encourages them to behave, Mawruss, which to my mind, Mawruss, the only way to learn a millionaire like Mr. Ford his place is not to notice him and, in particular, not to pay no attention to anything he says, and such a millionaire would quick subside and devote himself to the manufacture of safety-pins or the best four-cylinder car for the money in the world, as the case may be, which I see in the paper that the refusal of the United States Senate to confirm the Treaty of Peace looks quite certain to them people to whom the winning of the Willard-Dempsey fight by Jeff Willard looked quite certain, Mawruss."
"Well, to my mind, Abe, them round-robins is right to look into the Treaty and the League of Nations covenant before they confirm them," Morris said. "Also, Abe, you couldn't blame them Senators for getting indignant about the Shantung settlement."
"Personally I couldn't blame them and I couldn't praise them, Mawruss, because, like a hundred million other people in this country, not being in the silk business, Mawruss, I never had the opportunity to find out nothing about even where Shantung was on the map till they printed such a map in the papers last week, and if you've got to go and look it up on a map first to find out whether you should ought to be indignant or not, Mawruss, you couldn't get exactly red in the face over Japan taking Shantung, unless you are a Senator from the Pacific coast, where people have got such a wonderful color in their cheeks that Easterners think it's the climate, when, as a matter of fact, it is thinking about Japanese unrestricted immigration that does it."
"But the Senators represents the people which elects them, Abe," Morris said, "and if it don't take much to make a Californian indignant about any little thing he suspects Japan is doing, y'understand, then Senator Hiram Johnson has got a right to go 'round looking permanently purple over this here Shantung affair. As for the other Senators, Abe, the theory on which they talk each other deaf, dumb, and blind is that they are doing a job which it is impossible for the hundred million people of this country to do for themselves. They are saving their constituents the trouble of leaving their homes and spending a lot of time on government-controlled railroads, going to and from Washington to make their own laws, y'understand. That is what representative government is, Abe, and if the people of this country couldn't get indignant over what ain't right in this here Treaty of Peace and League of Nations without working up such indignation by several days' careful investigation of the reasons for getting indignant, then it is up to the United States Senate to get indignant for them, even if the individual Senators has got to sit up with wet towels 'round their heads and strong black coffee stewing on the gas-stove, so as not to fall asleep over the job of letting their feelings get the better of their judgment in working up a six-hour speech which will give the country the impression that it just came pouring out on the spur of the moment as a consequence of the Senators' red-hot indignation about this here Shantung."
"It's too bad that the House of Representatives couldn't be mind-readers like the Senate, Mawruss, and get off indignant speeches about what is making certain sections of the country so indignant, Mawruss, that if their Congressmen is going to really and truly represent them, there would be a regular epidemic of apoplexy in Washington," Abe said, "which I am talking about the enforcement of prohibition, Mawruss."
"For myself, Abe, I couldn't understand why it should be necessary to pass a law to enforce a law," Morris remarked, "because, if that is the case, what is going to be the end? After they pass this here law to enforce the prohibition law, are they going to pass another law to enforce the law to enforce prohibition, or do they expect that this here enforcement law will enforce itself, and if so, then why couldn't the prohibition law be enforced without a law to enforce it?"
"To tell you the truth, Mawruss, a dyed-in-wool Dry could be as hopeful as a man could possibly be on soft drinks, and in his heart of hearts he must got to know that if Congress would sit from now till the arrival of
Elia Hanov'e and did nothing all that time but pass an endless chain of enforcement laws, prohibition will never be enforced except in the proportion of 2.75 enforcement to 97.25 violation, anyhow in those parts of the country where the hyphen Americans live and like their beverages with a hyphen in it, because, Mawruss, where a hundred per cent. of the population of a certain district has been drinking beer and light wines since 12 A.M. on Rosh Hashonah in the year one up to and including twelve midnight on June 30, 1919, y'understand, and seeing no harm in it, understand me, not only would an act of Congress fail to change the hearts and conscience of such people, but there could be an earthquake, a cyclone, and anything else which a confirmed Dry would call a judgment on them people, and still they wouldn't see no harm in it."
"Then what is the country going to do to enforce the prohibition law?" Morris asked.
"I don't know," Abe said; "but one thing is certain, you can't change people's habits on and after a certain hour on a certain date by putting a law into effect on such date. You might just so well expect that, if the Senate should confirm the provision handing over Shantung to the Japanese, all the Chinamen in Shantung is immediately going to open stores for the sale of imitation expensive vases and fake silk embroidery, start factories for the manufacture of phony Swedish safety-matches, and do all the other things which Japanese do so successfully that any reputable business man is willing to take a chance on getting indignant about Shantung without even asking his stenographer to look it up for him."
"But I thought you thought that prohibition would be a good thing, Abe?" Morris said.
"I do," Abe said. "I think brown stewed fish, sweet and sour, the way my Rosie cooks it, is a good thing, but at the same time, Mawruss, I realize that my taste in this respect is supported only by what you might call a very limited public sentiment, consisting of Rosie and me, y'understand, and the rest of the household couldn't stand to eat it at all. So, therefore, when we have sweet and sour fish we cook for the rest of the family eggs or meat, and in that way we have happiness in the home. Now a country is a home for the people in it, ain't it, and the main thing is that they should stick together and be happy, and how could they be happy if even the great majority of the people tells the rest what they should and shouldn't eat or drink?"
"But you admit that
schnapps is harmful, don't you?" Morris insisted.
"And I also admit that sweet and sour fish ain't exactly a health food, Mawruss," Abe said. "In fact, you wouldn't believe what a lot of bicarbonate of soda Rosie and me uses up between us after we eat that fish; but even so, Mawruss, after you have said all you could say against that fish, the fact remains that Rosie and me, we like it."
"Well, even if the people do like booze, and it does them harm, I say they shouldn't have it," Morris said.
"I agree with you down to the ground, Mawruss," Abe said. "And I don't care if it is booze or sweet and sour, you are still right; but if sweet and sour fish was prohibited, although the fish and the onions and the sugar and the vinegar which you make it out of
wasn't, y'understand, and in spite of the law, Rosie and me liked it and wanted to continue to eat it, the question then is and the question is going to continue to be:
"HOW ARE YOU GOING TO STOP IT?" _