The Hohenzollerns in America Part 11

II-SAMPLE OF SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE

New York (through London via Holland and coming out at Madrid). Mr. O. Howe Lurid, our special correspondent, writing from "Somewhere near Somewhere" and describing the terrific operations of which he has just been an eyewitness, says:

"From the crest where I stood, the whole landscape about me was illuminated with the fierce glare of the bursting sh.e.l.ls, while the ground on which I stood quivered with the thunderous detonation of the artillery.

"Nothing in the imagination of a Dante could have equalled the lurid and pyrogriffic grandeur of the scene. Streams of fire rose into the sky, falling in bifurcated crystallations in all directions. Disregarding all personal danger, I opened one eye and looked at it.

"I found myself now to be the very centre of the awful conflict. While not stating that the whole bombardment was directed at me personally, I am pretty sure that it was."

I admit that there was a time, at the very beginning of the war, when I liked this kind of thing served up with my bacon and eggs every morning, in the days when a man could eat bacon and eggs without being labelled a pro-German. Later on I came to prefer the simple statements as to the same scene and event, given out by Sir Douglas Haig and General Pers.h.i.+ng-after this fas.h.i.+on:

"Last night at ten-thirty P.M. our men noticed signs of a light bombardment apparently coming from the German lines."

III-THE TECHNICAL WAR DESPATCHES

The best of these, as I remember them, used to come from the Italian front and were done after this fas.h.i.+on:-

"Tintino, near Trombono. Friday, April 3. The Germans, as I foresaw last month they would, have crossed the Piave in considerable force. Their position, as I said it would be, is now very strong. The mountains bordering the valley run-just as I foresaw they would-from northwest to southeast. The country in front is, as I antic.i.p.ated, flat. Venice is, as I a.s.sured my readers it would be, about thirty miles distant from the Piave, which falls, as I expected it would, into the Adriatic."

IV-THE WAR PROPHECIES

Startling Prophecy in Paris. All Paris is wildly excited over the extraordinary prophecy of Madame Cleo de Clichy that the war will be over in four weeks. Madame Cleo, who is now as widely known as a diseuse, a liseuse, a friseuse and a clairvoyante, leaped into sudden prominence last November by her startling announcement that the seven letters in the Kaiser's name W i l h e l m represented the seven great beasts of the apocalypse; in the next month she electrified all Paris by her disclosure that the four letters of the word C z a r-by subst.i.tuting the figure 1 for C, 9 for Z, 1 for A, and 7 for R produce the date 1917, and indicated a revolution in Russia. The salon of Madame Cleo is besieged by eager crowds night and day. She may prophesy again at any minute.

Startling Forecast. A Russian peasant, living in Semipalatinsk, has foretold that the war will end in August. The wildest excitement prevails not only in Semipalatinsk but in the whole of it.

Extraordinary Prophecy. Rumb.u.mbabad, India. April 1. The whole neighbourhood has been thrown into a turmoil by the prophecy of Ram Slim, a Yogi of this district, who has foretold that the war will be at an end in September. People are pouring into Rumb.u.mbabad in ox-carts from all directions. Business in Rumb.u.mbabad is at a standstill.

Excitement in Midgeville, Ohio. William Bessemer Jones, a retired farmer of Cuyahoga, Ohio, has foretold that the war will end in October. People are flocking into Midgeville in lumber wagons from all parts of the country. Jones, who bases his prophecy on the Bible, had hitherto been thought to be half-witted. This is now recognised to have been a wrong estimate of his powers. Business in Midgeville is at a standstill.

Dog's Foot. Wyoming. April 1. An Indian of the Cheyenne tribe has foretold that the war will end in December. Business among the Indians is at a standstill.

V-DIPLOMATIC REVELATIONS

These were sent out in a.s.sortments, and labelled Vienna, via London, through Stockholm. After reading them with feverish eagerness for nearly four years, I decided that they somehow lack definiteness. Here is the way they ran:

"Special Correspondence. I learn from a very high authority, whose name I am not at liberty to mention, (speaking to me at a place which I am not allowed to indicate and in a language which I am forbidden to use)-that Austria-Hungary is about to take a diplomatic step of the highest importance. What this step is, I am forbidden to say. But the consequences of it-which unfortunately I am pledged not to disclose-will be such as to effect results which I am not free to enumerate."

VI-A NEW GERMAN PEACE FORMULA

Dr. Hertling, the Imperial Chancellor, speaking through his hat in the Reichstag, said that he wished to state in the clearest language of which he was capable that the German peace plan would not only provide the fullest self determination of all ethnographic categories, but would predicate the political self consciousness (politisches Selbstbewusztsein) of each geographical and entomological unit, subject only to the necessary rectilinear guarantees for the seismographic action of the German empire. The entire Reichstag, especially the professorial section of it, broke into unrestrained applause. It is felt that the new formula is the equivalent of a German Magna Carta-or as near to it as they can get.

VII-THE FINANCIAL NEWS

The war finance, as I remember it, always supplied items of the most absorbing interest. I do not mean to say that I was an authority on finance or held any official position in regard to it. But I watched it. I followed it in the newspapers. When the war began I knew nothing about it. But I picked up a little bit here and a little bit there until presently I felt that I had a grasp on it not easily shaken off.

It was a simple matter, anyway. Take the case of the rouble. It rose and it fell. But the reason was always perfectly obvious. The Russian news ran, as I got it in my newspapers, like this:-

"M. Touchusoff, the new financial secretary of the Soviet, has declared that Russia will repay her utmost liabilities. Roubles rose."

"M. Touchusoff, the late financial secretary of the Soviet, was thrown into the Neva last evening. Roubles fell."

"M. Gorky, speaking in London last night, said that Russia was a great country. Roubles rose."

"A Dutch correspondent, who has just beat his way out of Russia, reports that nothing will induce him to go back.

Roubles fell."

"Mr. Arthur Balfour, speaking in the House of Commons last night, paid a glowing tribute to the memory of Peter the Great. Roubles rose."

"The local Bolsheviki of New York City at the Pan-Russian Congress held in Murphy's Rooms, Fourth Avenue, voted unanimously in favor of a Free Russia. Roubles never budged."

With these examples in view, anybody, I think, could grasp the central principles of Russian finance. All that one needed to know was what M. Touchusoff and such people were going to say, and who would be thrown into the Neva, and the rise and fall of the rouble could be foreseen to a kopeck. In speculation by shrewd people with proper judgment as to when to buy and when to sell the rouble, large fortunes could be made, or even lost, in a day.

But after all the Russian finance was simple. That of our German enemies was much more complicated and yet infinitely more successful. That at least I gathered from the little news items in regard to German finance that used to reach us in cables that were headed Via Timbuctoo and ran thus:-

"The fourth Imperial War Loan of four billion marks, to be known as the Kaiser's War Loan, was oversubscribed to-day in five minutes. Investors thronged the banks, with tears in their eyes, bringing with them everything that they had. The bank managers, themselves stained with tears, took everything that was offered. Each investor received a b.u.t.ton proudly displayed by the too-happy-for-words out-of-the-bank-hustling recipient."

6.-Some Just Complaints About the War

No patriotic man would have cared to lift up his voice against the Government in war time. Personally, I should not want to give utterance even now to anything in the way of criticism. But the complaints which were presented below came to me, unsought and unsolicited, and represented such a variety of sources and such just and unselfish points of view that I think it proper, for the sake of history, to offer them to the public.

I give them, just as they reached me, without modifications of any sort.

The just complaint of Mr. Threadler, my tailor, as expressed while measuring me for my Win-the-War autumn suit.

"Complaint, sir? Oh, no, we have no complaint to make in our line of business, none whatever (forty-two, Mr. Jephson). It would hardly become us to complain (side pockets, Mr. Jephson). But we think, perhaps, it is rather a mistake for the Government (thirty-three on the leg) to encourage the idea of economy in dress. Our att.i.tude is that the well dressed man (a little fuller in the chest? Yes, a little fuller in the chest, please, Mr. Jephson) is better able to serve his country than the man who goes about in an old suit. The motto of our trade is Thrift with Taste. It was made up in our spring convention of five hundred members, in a four day sitting. We feel it to be (twenty-eight) very appropriate. Our feeling is that a gentleman wearing one of our thrift worsteds under one of our Win-the-War light overcoats (Mr. Jephson, please show that new Win-the-War overcoating) is really helping to keep things going. We like to reflect, sir (nothing in s.h.i.+rtings, today?) that we're doing our bit, too, in presenting to the enemy an undisturbed nation of well dressed men. Nothing else, sir? The week after next? Ah! If we can, sir! but we're greatly rushed with our new and patriotic Thrift orders. Good morning, sir."

The just complaint of Madame Pavalucini, the celebrated contralto. As interviewed incidentally in the palm-room of The Slitz Hotel, over a cup of tea (one dollar), French Win-the-War pastry (one fifty) and Help-the-Navy cigarettes (fifty).

"I would not want to creetecize ze gouvermen' ah! non! That would be what you call a skonk treeck, hein?" (Madame Pavalucini comes from Missouri, and dares not talk any other kind of English than this, while on tour, with any strangers listening.) "But, I ask myself, ees it not just a leetle wrong to discourage and tax ze poor artistes? We are doing our beet, hein? We seeng, we recite! I seeng so many beautiful sings to ze soldiers; sings about love, and youth, and pa.s.sion, and spring and kisses. And the men are carried off their feet. They rise. They rush to the war. I have seen them, in my patriotic concerts where I accept nothing but my expenses and my fee and give all that is beyond to the war. Only last night one arose, right in the front rank-the fauteuils d'orchestre, I do not know how you call them in English. 'Let me out of zis,' he scream, 'me for the war! Me for the trenches!' Was it not magnifique-what you call splendide, hein?

"And then ze gouvermen' come and tell me I must pay zem ten thousan' dollars, when I make only seexty thousan' dollars at ze opera! Anozzer skonk treeck, hein?"

The just complaint of Mr. Grunch, income tax payer, as imparted to me over his own port wine, after dinner.

"No, I shouldn't want to complain: I mean, in any way that would reach the outside,-reach it, that is, in connection with my name. Though I think that the thing ought to be said by SOMEBODY. I think you might say it. (Let me pour you out another gla.s.s of this Conquistador: yes, it's the old '87: but I suppose we'll never get any more of it on this side: they say that the rich Spaniards are making so much money they're buying up every cask of it and it will never be exported again. Just another ill.u.s.tration of the way that the war hits everybody alike.) But, as I was saying, I think if YOU were to raise a complaint about the income tax, you'd find the whole country-I mean all the men with incomes-behind you. I don't suppose they'd want you to mention their names. But they'd be BEHIND you, see? They'd all be there. (Will you try one of these Googoolias? They're the very best, but I guess we'll never see them again. They say the rich Cubans are buying them up. So the war hits us there, too.) As I see it, the income tax is the greatest mistake the government ever made. It hits the wrong man. It falls on the man with an income and lets the other man escape. The way I look at it, and the way all the men that will be behind you look at it, is that if a man sticks tight to it and goes on earning all the income he can, he's doing his bit, in his own way, to win the war. All we ask is to be let alone (don't put that in your notes as from me, but you can say it), let us alone to go on quietly piling up income till we get the Germans licked. But if you start to take away our income, you discourage us, you knock all the patriotism out of us. To my mind, a man's income and his patriotism are the same thing. But, of course, don't say that I said that."

The just complaint of my barber, as expressed in the pauses of his operations.

"I'm not saying nothing against the Government (any facial ma.s.sage this morning?). I guess they know their own business, or they'd ought to, anyway. But I kick at all this talk against the barber business in war time (will I singe them ends a bit?). The papers are full of it, all the time. I don't see much else in them. Last week I saw where a feller said that all the barber shops ought to be closed up (bay rum?) till the war was over. Say, I'd like to have him right here in this chair with a razor at his throat, the way I have you! As I see it, the barber business is the most necessary business in the whole war. A man'll get along without everything else, just about, but he can't get along without a shave, can he?-or not without losing all the pep and self-respect that keeps him going. They say them fellers over in France has to shave every morning by military order: if they didn't the Germans would have 'em beat. I say the barber is doing his bit as much as any man. I was to Was.h.i.+ngton four months last winter, and I done all the work of three senators and two congressmen (will I clip that neck?) and I done the work of a United States Admiral every Sat.u.r.day night. If that ain't war work, show me what is. But I don't kick, I just go along. If a man appreciates what I do, and likes to pay a little extra for it, why so much the better, but if he's low enough to get out of this chair you're in and walk off without giving a cent more than he has to, why let him go. But, sometimes, when I get thinking about all this outcry about barber's work in war time, I feel like following the man to the door and slitting his throat for him... Thank you, sir; thank you, sir. Good morning. Next!"

The just complaint of Mr. Singlestone;-formerly Mr.

Einstein, Theatre Proprietor.

"I would be the last man, the very last, to say one word against the Government. I think they are doing fine. I think the boys in the trenches are doing fine. I think the nation is doing fine. But, if there's just one thing where they're wrong, it's in the matter of the theatres. I think it would be much better for the Government not to attempt to cut down or regulate theatres in any way. The theatre is the people's recreation. It builds them up. It's all part of a great machine to win the war. I like to stand in the box office and see the money come in and feel that the theatre is doing its bit. But, mind you, I think the President is doing fine. So, all I say is, I think the theatres ought to be allowed to do fine, too."

The just complaint of Mr. Silas Heck, farmer, as interviewed by me, incognito, at the counter of the Gold Dollar Saloon.

"Yes, sir, I say the Government's in the wrong, and I don't care who hears me. (Say, is that feller in the slick overcoat listening? Let's move along a little further.) They're right to carry on the war for all the nation is worth. That's sound and I'm with 'em. But they ought not to take the farmer offen his farm. There I'm agin them. The farmer is the one man necessary for the country. They say they want bacon for the Allies. Well, the way I look at it is, if you want bacon, you need hogs. And if there are no men left in the country like me, what'll you do for hogs!

"Thanks, was you paying for that? I guess we won't have another, eh? Two of them things might be bad for a feller."

So, when I used to listen to the complaints of this sort that rose on every side, I was glad that I was not President of the United States.