Worrying Won't Win Part 7

"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 tromb.o.n.e.r 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-cla.s.s 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 Ma.s.sachusetts, y'understand, and if n.o.body 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 ba.s.sos 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 princ.i.p.ally 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 a.s.sembly 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 Ada 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 Sat.u.r.days 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 pa.s.sed resolutions of sympathy."

"The chances is they would of done it, anyway, if it wouldn't been for this here Kerensky," Morris declared. "What that feller don't know about running a revolution, Abe, if Carranza, Villa, and Huerta would have known it, they would have had two years ago already a chain of five-and-ten-cent revolutions doing a good business all the way from the Rio Grande to Cape Horn. Yes, Abe, compared with a boss revolutionist like Kerensky, y'understand, these here Mexican revolutionists is just, so to speak, _learners_ on revolutionists."

"Then if that's the case, Mawruss, how does it come that one after another, Korniloff, Lenine, and Trotzky, practically puts this here Kerensky out of business as a revolutionist?" Abe asked.

"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said. "A feller which is running a revolution in Russland has not only got to got nerve, y'understand, but he's also got to be able to stand very long hours. Also it is necessary for him to do a whole lot of traveling, because no sooner does such a feller set up his government in Petersburg, y'understand, than the Petersburg Local Number One of the Amalgamated Workingmen's and Soldiers' Union is liable to chase him and his government all the way to Moscow, y'understand, and hardly does he get busy in Moscow, understand me, than he gets in bad with the Moscow Local Number One of the same union, and so on vice versa. In fact, in a couple of weeks he's liable to be vice-versad that way a half a dozen times, which if Kerensky would have had experience as a traveling salesman, Abe, it wouldn't hurt him to be practically spending his entire time commuting between Moscow and Petersburg, but before this here Kerensky became a revolutionist he used to was in the law business, and besides he enjoys very poor health and is liable to die any moment."

"What's the matter with him?" Abe asked.

"I understand he's got kidney trouble," Morris replied.

"Well, if that feller would get an opportunity to die of kidney trouble, Mawruss, he should ought to take advantage of it," Abe commented, "because if you was to look up in the files of the Petersburg Department of Health what is the figures on the cause of death in the case of revolutionists, Mawruss, you would probably find something like this:

Explosions 91.31416% Gun-shot wounds, including revolvers, air-rifles, machine-guns, cannons, armored tanks, torpedoes, and uncla.s.sified 8.99999 Knife wounds, including razors, cold chisels, pickaxes, and cloth and gra.s.s cutting apparatus 0.563 Natural causes, including hardening of the arteries a trace."

"What do you mean--natural causes?" Morris said. "When a revolutionist dies a natural death, it's a pure accident."