Love.Matria^e^and Othet Perils Book. 6L CopghtN^-j'^^ Z CQEffilGHT DEPOSm UNCLE HENRY UNCLE HENRY ANONYMOUS REYNOLDS PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC. NEW YORK Copyright 1922 By P. F. Collier & Son Company Copyright 1922 By Reynolds Publishing Company, Inc. MANUFACTURED IN U. S. A. SEP 28 '22 ©CI.A683407 TO THE READER rpRUTH is not a thing to be handled in anger. It -*- has too keen a cutting edge. We want to get rid of the lies in our national life: the hypocrisies, the buncombe, the sham and shoddy ; but we want to do it in a way that won't hurt the patient. (Doctors to the contrary, no operation is a success unless the patient survives it.) Uncle Henry fills the bill as an almost ideal operating surgeon. He knows, and knov/s from the inside. There are few things he hasn't been at some time in his life, and very little that he hasn't seen. He has watched men and policies come and go, fashions change, and the flivver crowd out the sur- rey and the hack. What he has lost in illusions he has gained in humor and human understanding. As he talks along on marriage, politics, entangling alliances or home brew, we think you will see him for what he is: a man old enough to be past preju- dices, partisanship, and bigotry, young enough for tremendous interests and enthusiasms and wise enough to know that you can't get at people's minds by making them mad. 3 TO THE READER You are bound to laugh with Uncle Henry even when you don't agree with him, for this shrewd observer and good-natured humorist, with his hatred of bunk, love of laughter and intense interest in life and living, comes close to being the true American spirit. INTRODUCTION AS a general proposition, I think a preface to a '■book, next to buttons on a man's coat sleeve, is the most unnecessary thing in the world. It is as though a waiter delayed the patron's meal by de- scribing to him the merits of the meal forthcoming, instead of bringing the stuff along and letting the customer decide for himself. Moreover, in this special instance the good wine of Uncle Henry's sound ironies needs no bush from me or anyone else. All the same, and to the con- trary notwithstanding, I welcome the opportunity in this special instance of writing a brief but sincere foreword of the first volume of his assembled utterances. Since he made his bow to the American public from the pages of Collier's some months ago. Uncle Henry has been my friend. I meet him weekly and weekly I applaud what he says and the fashion in which he says it. He yokes a vigorous Americanism with a genial and penetrating humor. He slams at shams and he punctures bubbles. Even as you laugh with him, you are impressed by a profound con- viction that he goes down to the very sills of things 5 6 INTRODUCTION and makes fundamentals attractive for purposes of contemplation, because he has the knack of making them amusing. One of the keenest weapons the human family knows is genial satire. More evils have been tickled to death with a feather of wit than ever were bludgeoned into the past tense by heavy argument or the crass blows of ponderous oratory. An edi- torial may merely bruise the surface of bunkum, while a shrewdly barbed paragraph lets the corrup- tion out. Uncle Henry is one of our master satirists — a wizard at launching the indirect attack. In this volume he has flanked and enfiladed the bogusness of so many present-day issues, problems and nota- bles that one hesitates to pick a particular chapter as being better than the rest. One finds a way out of the dilemma by heartily commending the entire table of contents. September, 1922. ^ CONTENTS PAGE To THE Reader 3 Introduction 5 Love, Marriage and Other Perils 9 The Irreconcilables 17 Catch-as-Catch-Can Healing 25 Passing of the Old Guard 35 The Poor Little Rich Man 43 The Yellow Peril 53 Dehoovering Herbert 63 Millionaires' Sons 73 The Trouble with Congress 83 Knee-Length Dramas 93 The Harding Honeymoon 103 Overmanufacture in Judges 113 To Booze or Not to Booze 121 Pants Across the Sea 131 Freedom's Shriek 139 The Newberry Case 149 The Nude in Literature 157 Bull-Jawed Brutes 165 Dumdums and Diaries 173 The Four-Power Pact 183 Mr. Ruth and Mr. Dempsey 193 Humanizing Science 201 7 CONTENTS PAGE The Yellow Kids 209 The Missouri Spree 217 Freedom's Faults 225 America's Famous Mud Baths 233 Fishes and Fishing 241 Our International Policy 249 LOVE, MARRIAGE AND OTHER PERILS FOR some time the conversation had been de- voted to "flappers," and the Cub Reporter took no pains to conceal his serious concern for the future of the race. "If ever I have children," he announced heavily, "I'll—" " — have 'em," completed Uncle Henry. "Jes' that an' nothin' more. You can't lead their lives for 'em. In my time I've seen a lot of fathers give anxious an' authoritative thought to safeguardin' their off- spring an', aside from eatin' an artichoke, I don't know of any activity that gets less results in propor- tion to the energy expended. "I reckon I knew one of the country's very first stirpiculturists. He lived in the little Missouri town where I grew to what we called manhood, although Kansas always challenged the description, an' you wouldn't want to see a more perfect blend of South an' West. Kentucky gave him oratory, Missouri furnished stamina, an' death was the only thing that ever scored a successful interruption on him. 9 10 UNCLE HENRY "One day the news was brought to Colonel John that his son Juley had been ruthlessly deprived of liberty by the town marshal an' was at that very moment languishing for chicken stealin* in the local bastile. With one bound he gained the middle of the street, an' let out a bellow that stunned all ani- mal life for a radius of five miles. " Tollow the Roman father!' "Word flew that the Colonel was on one of his rampages, an' the whole town fell in behind him, marchin' in silence until we reached the public square an' grouped in front of the calaboose. Labo- riously liftin' himself up on the end gate of a wagon, the Colonel begged everybody to draw close while he tore away life's decent concealments, an' laid before 'em a bleedin' heart. "From infancy, as he explained, the great Julius Caesar had been his idol, an' even as a boy he had vowed that if ever Providence should bless him with a son, that son should be given the name of the great Roman whose genius, like the lightnin', blasted even as it illumined. In tones that made the turtle dove sound rough an' peevish, he de- scribed the dawn of love, an' it was as good as a clarinet solo to hear him tell of that night of nights when the Wild Rose of the Western prairies placed her little hand in his — ^tremulous as a breeze-blown blossom — an' spoke the words that raised him so LOVE, MARRIAGE AND OTHER PERILS 11 high even Jupiter had to move over an' make room for him. "Their married life flowed as a brook that winds its way through Hyblean meadows, an' every dawn was announced by the crash of celestial music. Came a day when the wife of his bosom bent low, the mystery of existence in her love-lit eyes, an' whispered those tremendous words that ring on man's ears like all the bells of heaven. Soul on fire, the Colonel straightway set himself to the task of preparation. "In a room that faced the south, a golden goblet that cupped the sun, an' caught every wind that blew from far citron groves, he hung pictures of Julius Caesar — all that he could find. Crossin' the Rubicon, conquerin' Gaul, master of Egypt an' Cleo- patra's lord, drivin' his legions through Britain's savage forest, refusin' the crown on the Lupercal, an' finally receivin' his death blow from the daggers of envious Casca an' ungrateful Brutus. An' as the Pearl of Price reclined upon her couch of royal purple, the Colonel read to her from the various lives of Julius Csesar that he had been years accumulatin'. "Came the mornin' when the wail of the new-born rang through the house — at once the faintest an' most far-reaching cry in all this world — an' women came to him, hands raised, cryin' : *Lo, a man child has been born!' In due course this man child was 12 UNCLE HENRY borne to the altar, given the name of JuHus Csesar, an' not a step of those baby feet but followed the path of the mighty Roman. "* An' with what result?' "The Colonel's voice blared like a thousand trum- pets as he leveled the hand of doom at the calaboose where Juley's anguished face peeked through the bars. *A mean, dirty, rabbit-faced, double- jointed, egg-sucking chicken thief!' "No, Jimmie," continued Uncle Henry, "this here stirpiculture sounds good in theory, but it kind of leaves the track when you give it a practice spin. Most of human failures comes from tryin' to live other people's lives for 'em. It's like these high explosives. You can't ever tell when the darned stuff is goin' off. Any father that lives his own life properly will find that he's got his hands full, an' when you come down to it, an example is worth a hundred exhortations. "There's another small fault of yours that I don't mind correctin' while I'm at it. Two treatments the same price as one. Every now an' then I hear you makin' a noise like a Man that Knows Women. My dear boy. Nature has been makin' fools for a good many centuries. Why attempt to improve on her handiwork? In my youth I girled around with the town's prize lady killer — wavy hair, limpid eyes, classic features, a demon on the mandolin an' with LOVE, MARRIAGE AND OTHER PERILS 13 a tenor voice that could suck poison out of anything from 'Juanita' to The Spanish Cavalier.* There was a couple of peaches we went with regular, an*, honest, I always thought both of *em were crazy over Norbert. The way they carried on about him to his face used to make me think that he ought to take out first papers in Turkey or some place where two wives are conventional. Well, sir, one night after a particularly fulsome bunch of adulation, I caught one of the girls winkin* at the other, an' it said : *0h, the poor boob !* as plain as though she'd shouted it. "That wink, Jimmie, was like the flash of lightnin' that shows the pit at your feet. To this very day I never talk to women that I don't turn quick every now an' then to see if they're laughin'. From the dawn of time women have lived an' kept their health by virtue of protective concealments, an' while we've given them a more even break these last few years, you can't throw off ancient habits in a minute. I've been married now for forty years, an' I wouldn't bet a German mark on what my wife was thinkin' at any given moment. "About all I do know is that we're not near as important in the scheme of things as we think we are. Even at your weddin' about all your advan- tage over the potted plants is that the florist doesn't take you away after the ceremony. An' when a baby 14 UNCLE HENRY comes your only chance is to have rugs in the house that will furnish you with a little protective colorin'. After my first, I always stayed in the cellar when an addition blessed the family. Of course the nurses an* all the gathered women friends kept right on with their contempt for me, but it was some comfort not to have 'em lookin' it. "Women don't even dress for us. All their prinkin' and preenin' is for each other. Sometimes I think it's jes' the competitive instinct that makes 'em marry us. If it wasn't for the abnormal vanity of the male, I hate to think what would happen to us. But old Nature's always on the job, generally puttin' things where they're most needed. Notice how fish, bein' a brain food, are located most largely right off the New England coast. "I suppose, of course, you've given a lot of thought to the things you want in a wife? O youth! O spring of the year! When I was your age I had a list of exalted feminine qualities worked out myself — a regular doctor's prescription that I ran around with, waitin' to have filled. Funny thing, the girl I married didn't have a single darned one of 'em. Somehow the list got lost. It's jes' as well. Even if you get a girl that checked up on every item, it wouldn't make any difference. The things we like in a sweetheart are never liked in a wife. Women are the same way. The minute they feel the ring LOVE, MARRIAGE AND OTHER PERILS 15 on the finger they begin lookin' you over with a view to extensive alteration. Yessir, marriage may be a divine institution, but it never fails to operate along the lines of an improvement society. Did you ever see a man who could dance with his wife? Cer- tainly not! She's too busy with constructive criti- cism. It's like that in everything. "But don't understand me as sayin' a word against marriage. It's a great institution. Hard to live with, of course, but a good deal harder to live v^ith- out. To my mind, most of the trouble comes from people lookin' at it the wrong way. Marriage isn't a week-end party, a ride on a roller coaster, or an adventure in jazz. It's a job. The biggest job that any man or woman ever tackled. You've got to work at it, jes' like you work at everything else, if you want 100 per cent results. Half the time an' thought most folks devote to things a million times less important would make a success of the unions that are now in the divorce courts. A failure in matrimony ought to be considered as reprehensible a thing as failure in business. "You'll start out on the Romeo an' Juliet basis, of course. You're the romantic type. That's all right enough, but you can't raise babies on a balcony. It will all depend upon whether you've got sense enough to climb down quietly an' carefully, or whether you'll wait until life pushes you off. It's that awful bump 16 UNCLE HENRY that busts most marriages. Maybe your Juliet will have the sense. It's about the only hope for most men, as a plain matter of truth." "When I marry," said the Cub Reporter in accents of grim finality, "I mean to be the master in my own home." "A wise woman," said Uncle Henry gently, "will always let you think so." %t THE IRREGONCILABLES AS a usual thing, the presiding genius of the cigar -^A. stand was a carnivorous reader who took his fiction raw, but this particular morning found him deep in the editorial page of the New York "Times." For a brief space the movement of his ears was rhythmic, and then mental mastication commenced to get slower and more labored until at last the paper dropped from his nerveless hands. "Say,'' he muttered heavily, "every time they men- tion Borah and Hiram Johnson and Medill McCor^ mick and that bunch, they call 'em 'irreconcilables.* Just what is that, anyway?" "You're certainly lucky, my boy," beamed Uncle Henry, who had been watching the short cut to cul- ture with some interest. "I'm about the one person in the United States you could ask that question with any hope of a Christian answer. An Irreconcilable, Barney, is a senator who has jes' come from hearin' Washington deliver his Farewell Address. The emo- tion of the moment is still strong upon him, an' his voice is choked with it, though not as much as you could wish. What he wants America to do is to hold fast to her isolation, standin' jealously aloof from 17 18 UNCLE HENRY the rest of the world until she gets her strength an' is able to hold her own against predatory nations like Belgium, Holland, Norway, an' Costa Rica. All this talk about enterin' a league of nations drives him plum frantic. Never, as long as his larynx holds out, shall the United States be ruled from Geneva. He had a watch from there once, an' it never did keep time. "I'm a bit surprised at your question, though, for you can tell an Irreconcilable as far as you see him. He wears buckskins an' a cap made out of the whole coon, an' is rarely seen without Old Betsy, his trusty smooth-bore rifle. When Congress convenes he goes out of the woodlot, saddles his horse an' rides 'cross country to Washington, watchin' the trail for bear signs an' ever on his guard against the pesky red- skins. He sleeps with one eye open, an' all his mouth, an' his cry is something like that of the hoot owl. "Nothing deceives him, not even his eyes. He sees railroad trains, automobiles, skyscrapers, Ziegfeld's Follies, ocean steamers, an' electric lights, an' every now an' then he meets an item in the papers that mentions America's population as 113,000,000, but none of it fools him. He knows that it's all jes' an optical delusion. The roar of airplanes is merely distant thunder; he laughs at the mad notion of layin' a cable across the Atlantic, an' when anybody THE IRRECONCILABLES 19 mentions radio he backs away quickly, with some soothin' remark that they'll be all right after a night's good sleep. "As far as your true Irreconcilable is concerned, Barney, America stands to-day jes' as Washington left it. They can print all the geographies they want, but he knows that these United States are bounded on the east by the uncharted waters of the Atlantic ; on the north by the trackless wastes of Canada, whose virgin forests echo to the cries of wild beasts an' even wilder men ; on the south by Mexico's deso- late wastes, peopled only by wanderin', savage tribes, while on the west rage the wdld waves of the Pacific, unplowed since the days when Spanish adventurers dared all in their mad quest of gold. "It isn't that he's cowardly, but jes' cautious. America is goin' to be all right when she gets her full grovd:h, but that's a long time off, an' he feels we can't be too careful in the meantime. Worryin' over Europe keeps him up nights, for he knows George III has never forgiven Bunker Hill, an' real- izes that England's seeming friendship is merely the crouch of a tiger about to spring. Napoleon's fair words ring false to his keen ear, for is it reasonable to presume that the despot of France will not turn his bloody gaze upon the United States after he's through conquerin' the Old World? An' what of Austria, where the subtle Metternich sits like a 20 UNCLE HENRY spider in his web an' plots schemes for the aggran- dizement of his Hapsburg masters? An' does any- one imagine for a minute that miHtaristic Switzer- land does not rebel against her narrow confines, an' isn't waitin' impatiently for a chance to seize America, with her wealth of fertile valleys, her great forests, her majestic mountains, an' more navigable streams than anyone would believe until he'd looked over a copy of a Rivers an' Harbors bill ? "He's glad it takes a sailin' vessel thirty days to cross the Atlantic, for he knows that our detached an' distant situation is the only thing that saves us from bein' conquered an' enslaved by some rapacious European power. "Kings, even when he holds 'em, fill him with fear, an' when he retires to his shuck mattress at night, the last thing he does is to take the tallow dip an' look to see if there's any European monarchs under the bed. The Chinese are the only people he really admires. He can't speak too enthusiasti- cally of their Great Wall, an' he's still hopeful that the United States will have the intelhgence to build one jes' hke it. "No entanglin' alliances for him. Politically he's a widower. As long as he lives an' keeps his voice, he's goin' to see that nobody but true-blue Americans get the chance to give this country the worst of it. Better than anyone he knows what Washington THE IRRECONCILABLES 21 meant when he warned against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, for once upon a time he too bought a rug from an Armenian peddler. *'Not only are foreigners not to be trusted, but they are far below us mentally. He's met lots of 'em, an' though he talks to 'em loud enough to leave him hoarse for a week, he's never yet been able to make even one of 'em understand plain English. All in all, Barney, he's a real American — the true spirit of '76 — none of your 2.75 content, but full 100 per cent. Good on the fife, a demon with the drum, an' wearin' out a brand-new flag every day. "Never think that the Irreconcilables haven't got their hands full. I saw Bill Borah an' Hi Johnson an' Bob La Follette up the Capitol the other day, an' you could see the strain's beginnin' to tell on 'em. It's our infernal length of coast Hne that makes it so difficult. After workin' in the Senate all day, it's no easy job doin' night patrol from Maine to Florida, with side jumps to the Great Lakes an' the Pacific. On every headland they've got great piles of drift- wood all ready to light the minute a hostile fleet appears in the offing, an' horses are kept saddled so that outlyin' farmhouses can be warned. They had a bad scare the other night up at Niagara Falls. La Follette was on-^uard, an' along in the early mornin' he saw a covey of boats push off from the Canadian shore. With oarlocks muffled, an' not even a lantern 22 UNCLE HENRY showin', the strange an' sinister bevy of small craft crept nearer an' nearer. Although it was plain to be seen that they outnumbered him fifty to one, Bob bravely drew a copy of his last speech an' dashed down to the water's edge. " 'British?' he demanded sharply. "*No,' came back a whisper. 'Only Scotch an' Irish.' "It's not only foreign malice that Bill an' Hi an' Bob have to contend with, but domestic dissension as well. Business men an' farmers keep talkin' about the paralysis of industry an' agriculture, all the time insistin' that things are not goin' to pick up until the purchasin' power of the world is restored. Mutterin' continually about exchange an' export, an' how our entire production is based on sellin' 25 per cent of it abroad. Sometimes I think Hi Johnson is right in wantin' to shoot 'em for traitors at sun- rise, but Borah still believes that they can be won back to patriotism by argument. As he points out, what if all the copper mines are shut down? We don't need any more pennies, anyway. An' why should there be all this worry over unsold com when the Iowa experiments have proved that it is almost equal to anthracite as a fuel? When it comes to complainin' about the collapse in wodl, however, he's plum' contemptuous, statin' quite frankly that he doesn't believe this country ever did produce any, THE IRRECONCILABLES 23 because he's been buyin' all-wool suits for thirty- years an' hasn't ever found a thread of wool in 'em yet. Then the laborin' people are constantly kickin' about unemployment, not seemin' to be satisfied by his explanation that all work an' no play makes Jack a dull boy. "The worst of it all, though, is the sick fear of treason in their own ranks. They're not quite sure about Warren, for he's got a sort of idea that the league can be Americanized by namin' it the Happy Family or the Yearly Luncheon Club. An' Charlie Hughes has 'em scared almost to death. That's the worst of whiskers. You never can tell what's goin' on behind 'em. Of course, they keep pretty close watch on him, but they caught him in a bathin ' suit the other night, an' while they can't prove it abso- lutely, they're certain in their own minds that he met Lloyd George off Sandy Hook. An' only last week they found Herb Hoover tryin' to crawl over the French ambassador's back fence, a nail hap- penin' to interfere. Actually, they don't know who to trust. "Frankly, Barney, I'm sorry for 'em. Compared to their fiery torments, the Boy on the Burnin' Deck went to glory in a refrigerator. I wouldn't blame 'em a bit if they shook the dust of this ungrateful, country off their feet, an' went to make a new life in Mexico or Tibet or some other country intelligent 24 UNCLE HENRY enough to live by itself. About the only ray of hope they have is Colonel George Harvey. Even if America v^on't turn against the v^orld, they're con- fident George can turn the v^orld against America." "I'm against having anything to do v^ith Europe," declared Barney, "an' if you ask me, I'll say men like Johnson an' Moses an' McCormick are the bone an' sinew of America." "Well," said Uncle Henry cautiously, "I don't know about the sinew." GATGH-AS-GATGH-GAN HEALING "TTTHERE'S Barney?" asked the Cub Reporter, VV looking across the lobby to where a stranger presided over the cigar stand. "At home in bed," answered Uncle Henry, putting down his paper. "He got cured yesterday by one of these here chiropractors. The family's worried, but they think rest an' quiet will pull him through." "What do you know about that!" The rising young journalist shook his head as he slumped into one of the hotel's big leather chairs. "Well, how those birds get away with it is a wonder to me." "Perfectly simple," said Uncle Henry philosophi- cally. "They've got sense enough to keep on cater- ing to one of the strongest passions of the human race, that's all. Love cools, friends fail, an' tastes change, but ill health, my boy, is something that's with you from birth to death, absorbin' at the outset an' growin' in interest from year to year. You're young now, an' you think you know what pleasure is, but just wait until you've passed the careless twenties, an' you'll find out that life holds no joy like a good reliable ailment, especially when it's more or less imaginary. 25 26 UNCLE HENRY "In the big towns you don't get the full thrill of the chase, but in smaller places it's the national game. Take Missouri where I grew up, livin' on roots an' herbs till twenty-one, when acorns were allowed. Our little town had no theatre, the only book was Hostetter's Almanac, an' the prevalent religion didn't allow us cards, music, or dancin', so you can see that one's health was the only possible entertainment. Laugh all you want to, but you'd be surprised at the amount of excitement to be gotten out of it. There was Old Man Bassett, for instance. As a boy he'd received a lot of benefit from some medicine that came in a square bottle, but, unfortunately, the darned label got washed off, an' in huntin' for some more he had nothin' to guide him but the shape. For forty years he sampled every square bottle that came to town, takin' 'em as they came an' dodgin' nothin'. Don't talk to me about Columbus, Peary, Daniel Boone, or Buffalo Bill! For sheer courage, thrillin' experience, an' hairbreadth escapes, none of 'em had anything on Old Man Bassett as he threaded his perilous way along the drug-store shelves, never knowin' but what the next swallow would be his last. "Every public-spirited physician was in on the game. When I walked into Doc Mallon's office, an' commenced givin' a brief synopsis of my interior, I had the same keen pleasure as though I was CATCH-AS-CATCH-CAN HEALING 27 p— — — — — — — ■ ———————1^.^—1 pickin' up Treasure Island* for the first time. But don't get the idea that his part of the performance ended with intelligent listenin'. No, sir! When you stopped for breath or stumbled over a comma, Doc was right there with intelligent understandin'. No matter how bad off I thought myself, he could always make it a little bit worse, though never fail- in' to end with the assurance that I had come to him jes' in time. Lookin' back, I reckon the most of 'em gave us bread pills when it wasn't a case for calomel or quinine, but they never let us know it. When we went out of their offices, it was with the conviction that, while other people might have more ailments, we were in a class by ourselves when it came to the terrible an' mysterious. "All of a sudden this Golden Age came to an end. The doctors, rushin' in with loud cries, dragged all sorts of organs out of concealment an' commenced to make 'em the subject of excited conversation. The stomach particularly. Everything was blamed on it. Doc Mallon was bit by the madness the same as the rest. I'd been in Washington for a session of Congress, an' on my second day back home I thought I'd run in on Doc an' give myself a nice emotional half hour. Before I'd gotten more than skin-deep he stopped me with a bark like a dog's. " *Overeatin' !' he said. 'Exercise your muscles instead of your teeth. That's all.' " 28 UNCLE HENRY "An' then he spilled a lot of stuff about calories an* proteins an' vitamines, an' added up a column of figures to get a total that represented my per- centage per meal, or something like that. *Go 'way from me!' I said to him when indignation left off chokin'. Tayin' for three meals a day is bad enough without havin' my dinner cooked in an addin' ma- chine an' served by an expert accountant. No, sir!' "As it was with me, so it was with everybody else who found their pleasures in prescriptions. We didn't know what to do. There w^e were with symp- toms pilin' up on us an' no place to go. An' then, when everything was most stale, flat, an' unprofit- able, along came a large, portly gentleman with as fine a pair of dark bay whiskers as you'd find in a day's travel. Dr. Bahama was his name, an' he lost no time in restorin' human ills to their proper place in the Hst of human excitements. Nobody could fool him by any talk about teeth, nor was he deceived by any outward show of health. In great thunderin* tones he brought the message of disease to us, an' made us personally acquainted with every great affliction from bubonic plague to Asiatic cholera. *'Goin' home from the op'ry house that very first night, Jim Peavey, the undertaker, proposed to one of the Ramsey girls on the strength of his prospects. "But Doc Bahama was there with the remedy as well as the revelation. As a result of years of study CATCH-AS-CATCH-CAN HEALING 29 an' research, he'd stumbled upon the great truth that all the ills the human flesh is heir to are divided up between two colors. In his office, therefore, he had two windows — one painted red an' green glass in the other — an' at the bottom of each window was a shinin' copper plate. With one glance of his eagle eye the good old doc would decide the color of your trouble, an' then you'd strip to the buff an' get on the plate in front of the red window or the green window, as the case might be. After wavin' his hands all over to gather strength an' healin' from the air. Doc would slam both palms hard on the shoulder blades, an' start a quick down- ward rubbin' — long, powerful strokes that sent all your disease into frenzied retreat through the stomach an' legs, past the knee caps an' ankles, an' out the feet into the copper plates, never to return. "Within a week the whole town was in a quiver of excitement. If the doc had lasted, I reckon he'd have rinsed out the entire population, but he drank considerable, an' when pink elephants began comin' in through his green window he felt that the place was becomin' too crowded. "It's the same way to-day. We're in the doldrums. When I was out back home last Christmas, Old Man Lyons told me it was next to impossible to get a medicine that would 'take holt.' Worst of all, when 80 UNCLE HENRY the regular docs tired of cook books, what did they do but go an' take up dream books. "The minute I saw 'em goin' crazy over this psychoanalysis I feared the worst, for we're still a virile people. After I've set in a doctor's office for an hour, readin' the annual report of the County Medical Society for 1904, I ain't in no humor to be told my rheumatism comes from havin' seen the snowstorm in *Hazel Kirke' fifty-two years ago. Nothing was more inevitable than that a school of healiri' like the chiropractors would spring up. It's got the punch, my boy. A wallop in both hands. A red-blooded system for red-blooded people; healin' under the rules of catch-as-catch-can. "Between you an' me/' said Uncle Henry, sink- ing his voice to a confidential whisper, "an' not wantin' it to go any further, I had an experience with 'em myself. One mornin' not long back I got to readin' some of their advertisin', an' before I knew it I had the darn'dest pain in my back you ever felt. The more I read the worse I got until finally my whole spine was involved, an' if I'd taken the pamphlet with me I'll bet I'd have died on the car. "By the time I reached that there chiropractor I could feel pieces of vertebrae clinkin' against my knee caps. Well, sir, the doc shook his head the minute he saw me, an' even before I opened my mouth told me I'd got to him jes' in time. CATCH-AS-CATCH-CAN HEALING 31 "'What do you think's the matter?' I asked him, tryin' hard to keep up a brave front. " *We chiropractors don't have to think/ he said with a pityin' smile. *We know. It's your spine/ he said, sinkin' his finger into my back up to the very knuckle. *It's a wonder you ain't dead.' " What do you mean ?' I exclaimed, scared right away, for the old spinal column, as a matter of fact, hadn't been added up for years. " *Why,' he said, *every single one of your verte- brates is out of place. Darned if your back don't feel like a roller coaster. An' your neck !' he said, givin' it a sudden twist that made every cord hum like a jew's-harp. *If you came down here in a street car, it's funny you didn't fall to pieces. Reckon you've been goin' to some of the old-fashioned pill doctors, haven't you?' he murmured, givin' my head a last idle spin that lost me both collar buttons. *How them fellers have the nerve to take money is more'n I can see. Well, it's goin* to take all I've got,' he said, rollin' up his sleeves an' spittin' on his hands, *but I'm game if you are. Peel off the top clothes.' " 'Don't you believe in diagnosis at all ?' I asked him while I was unlacin' my shoes. " *No, indeed,' he said. *A medicine like that would kill you in your present condition. Climb up on the table there,' he said, *an' lay face down.' 32 UNCLE HENRY "I did so, an* with one leap he straddled a leg an' was hammerin' away at my foot. Before I could ask him what in thunder he was doin' he'd dropped everything an' was fairly sweatin' explanations. "Y'see, he'd been a blacksmith up to the last six weeks, an' habit was still strong in him. Between apologies he pulled the table apart until there was nothin' to support my stomach but the batter cakes I'd had for breakfast, an' then there was a moment of silence, followed by a kind of puffin' an' blowin*. Squintin' around out of the corner of my eye, I saw the chiropractor leap from a chair to the top of the bookcase, an' then make another jump to the chandelier. "As long as I live I'll never forget the look in his eyes. I couldn't move. It was as if I'd been para- lyzed. For a full minute he hung from that chan- delier, swingin' backward an' forward until he'd obtained a terrible momentum, an' then he let go an' launched himself right at me. I tried to dodge — to scream out — ^then something hit me square in the center of the back, an' I knew no more. I returned to consciousness to find a terrible pain in my back and a hand in my mouth. " The way that snap sounded,' the chiropractor was murmurin', *made me think the trouble might be in your throat. Ever have anything the matter with your bronnicals?' U. H.— 1 CATCH-AS-CATCH-CAN HEALING 33 "Well, it's been years since I carried a gun, an' the only thing in the office that offered itself at all was a big glass paper weight clear across the room. Jes' as I was gatherin' every ounce of energy to make a spring for it he let my throat alone an* grabbed up one of my hands. " 'Too bad/ he says, shakin* his head sadly. 'I thought you had it when I first seen you.' "^Had what?' says I. " Tuberculosis,' says he. 'Look at the color of that nail ! An' the width of it ! But consumption's my specialty, friend, so don't be worried.' "I wasn't, for the finger he had hold of was one that had gotten in the way of a foul tip fifty years before. Well, I had an awful time gettin' home, but aside from two weeks in bed, an' havin' to lie to my wife — she wouldn't have understood — ^there wasn't anything much the matter with me. "An' I'll say the cure was permanent. Whenever I see one of these chiropractic advertisements now I make a rush for the cellar, put on a chest pro- tector, grab the ax, an' refuse to let anybody come nearer than the top step. No, siree! Nobody's ever goin' to macadamize my back for me again, not if I know it. "Lord knows what's goin' to come of it all. One thing sure, the regular schools can't stand up against it seein' as how this here chiropractic U. H.— 2 34 UNCLE HENRY doesn't call for long study an* preparation. All you've got to have is $68.98, or thereabouts, an' an address where the mail carrier can easily find you. There's none of the grind an' worry that keeps so many ambitious young Americans out of regular schools. An' the diplomas are beautiful! Even if you can't read what's on 'em, the picture tells its own story an' is an ornament to any office. "No question either about the change it's goin' to work in the racial type. Lord, but I'd like to come back here in a hundred years an' see what people look like. For a while, what with every Sunday paper addin' a magazine section, it looked as if we were goin' to get more an' more mental until there was nothin' left of us but a great shinin' forehead restin' shakily on a gumdropsical chest an' a pair of property legs. But chiropractic's saved us ! It's the old virile note that's bein' sounded again, my boy. "The mollycoddle days are over. Inside of this century I'll bet you'll find Americans classed among the fur-bearin' animals, an' livin' in trees when they're not tearin' them up by the roots to beat off a doctor." "What did you say the course cost?" asked the Cub Reporter, a dreamy look in his eye. PASSING OF THE OLD GUARD ^''PVON'T talk to me about conservation/' ex- ■^-^ claimed Uncle Henry. "We Americans are the most wasteful people that ever squandered the natural resources of a country. Before you know it, there won't be any wild life left at all." "What's the matter now?" asked the Cub Reporter. "Oh, these election results in Indiana an' Penn- sylvania. Elder statesmen of the Grand Old Party defeated by rank outsiders like Beveridge an' Pinchot an' Frazier. First it was the buffalo that went. We never stayed our ruthless hands until all of 'em had been killed off. Then we cleaned the forests an' streams of every single livin' thing. Bear, deer, antelope, otter, wild pigeons — a continuous slaugh- ter! An' now it's the Old Guard. There are no females of the species any more an' one by one the great herd bulls are bein' brought down. Poor old New! The least Beveridge can do is to have him stuffed an' presented to the Indiana Histor- ical Society. A magnificent specimen, measurin' eighteen feet from hip to hip. "Up to twenty years ago there were hundreds of thousands of Old Guards, pawin' the ground 35 36 UNCLE HENRY wherever you looked, an* fillin' the air with joyous bellowin*. All through the McKinley Administra- tion there was a closed season on 'em, an' the great corporations took a keen scientific interest in their protection an' improvement. They let the tariff grow high in those days, never cuttin' it, an' there the Old Guards had their wallows, comin' to immense size an' incredible sleekness. Taft was jes' as kind, an' many a time, when the winters were hard, he'd bring herd after herd right into the White House grounds an' feed 'em with his own hands. "About that time was when you first heard of Gif- ford Pinchot. One day he let fly right into the bunch, badly cripplin' an old ballinger that was standin' shoulder deep in a crib, an' throwin' an awful scare into the rest. Nobody wanted anything done to him — ^you know yourself how it is when a youngster first gets hold of a .22 — ^but Taft went wild, an' it was only by the hardest work that friends got Giff's sentence commuted to a life term in Pennsylvania. "Aside from accidents like that, everything was lovely until 1912, when Roosevelt discovered the beauties an' values of the moose. He demanded all the grazin' grounds for 'em. Old Guards were a pest. They ate the seed corn. Away with 'em! Lord, what a slaughter it was! Out West there wasn't a home that didn't have a hide nailed to the PASSING OF THE OLD GUARD 37 fence, an' it got so after a while they didn't even stop to skin 'em, jes' left 'em where they lay. "The frenzy passed, of course, an' in 1916 Teddy himself led a movement to restore the breed. They tried crossin' 'em with Progressives an' got some- thing they called Standpattives, but it didn't work very well. Then Harding got to be President, an' the first thing he did was to comb the country for every survivin' Old Guard he could find, an' give 'em stall room in Washington. But now the hunt is on again. It's the old blood lust of 1912. The guns are out, an' only in the high peaks is there safety. "In Connecticut the Humane Society is concealin' Brandegee in the hills, carryin' him food at night. The Smithsonian Institute has asked Congress to save Lodge an' Smoot for historical purposes, an' Johns Hopkins is after Fordney. Curtis knows every prairie-dog hole in Kansas, an' there's a chance for him. Truman Newberry depends en- tirely on protective coloring, an' is hidin' out in the mint. Between you an* me, however, I don't think one will be saved. When Americans get up their huntin' fever, it's hard to stop 'em. "I suppose you might call it inevitable, but still it's sad, for when they pass somethin' mighty fine an' noble will have gone out of our life. Where's our stability goin' to come from? You hear a lot nowadays about standin' for things, but this new 38 UNCLE HENRY generation doesn't know what standin' really means. Gibraltar might get tired an' move around a bit, an' the Rockies commence to fidget an' squirm, but the Old Guard never knew what it was to change a position. In the days of Aldrich, you couldn't tell the Senate from Arizona's famous petrified forest. Visitors used to chip pieces off of 'em, an' they'd never bat an eye. "An' what a passion for service! Look at all the years they attended to politics for us! Day after day, night after night, they sat in stuffy back rooms, pickin* out the candidates most calculated to do the people good. Why, their patient care made election days more like a happy game than anjrthing else. For all the mental effort required, we might as well have been playin' blind man's buff or pin the tail on the donkey. An' leavin' all the cheerin' to us while they did the onerous, thankless drudgery of countin'. "It makes my heart bleed when I think of how we're requitin' their selfless devotion. Not only did they do all the thinkin' for us, but we didn't even have to go to the polls if our arches bothered us. At all times they stood ready to supply somebody to vote for you. When I think of those days it makes me laugh to hear Conan Doyle acclaimed as a discov- erer. Why, the Old Guard had established connec- tions with the next world before Sherlock Holmes PASSING OF THE OLD GUARD 39 was born. With my own eyes I've seen *em vote a whole graveyard. "Almost every paper an' magazine I pick up has a whole lot to say explainin' the Indiana, North Dakota, an' Pennsylvania results. Some think it's because Beveridge is an author. Well, there's no doubt that Indiana is crazy over literature. They tell me there isn't a home in the State that hasn't got a book, an' sometimes two if you count the tele-^ phone company's authoritative work. They have a way of plantin' poets an' novelists by the dark of the moon that seems to get results. New himself was worried over Beveridge's writin' an' started a 'Don't waste paper' campaign, but, as for me, I don't think literature had anything to do with it. "Here's the real reason as I see it. It was an outraged people's revolt against fifty-seven years of deception. Some way or other, the Republican voters got on to the fact that Abraham Lincoln was dead. Nobody knows who let the cat out of the bag. Harding swears it wasn't him, an' Daugherty has a good alibi. He's been busy these last few years perfectin' the Morse code. Borah would be sus- pected instantly if everybody didn't know that he had been in Russia an' Ireland this whole session of Congress. "It was practically the same thing that brought on the Democratic Old Guard's attack of catalepsy, 40 UNCLE HENRY only they were clever enough to keep the secret more than a hundred years. What happened in 1920 was that some Southern senator — whether he got liquor or religion isn't quite clear — spilled the beans an' let it leak out that Thomas Jefferson was no longer an active candidate. No question about the shock bein' profound. I don't think Missouri ever will be the same, for out there they hadn't even heard of his illness. "Of course there are a lot of other causes con- nected with the Old Guard defeats. Women, for one thing. The minute they came into politics I knew we were headed hell bent for trouble. It isn't that they don't want to do the right thing, but they jes' haven't got the savvy. I remember a franchise election we had once, an' the water company had the bright idea of hirin' all the women at $10 a day to act as canvassers or something like that. Well, when election came, darned if every female didn't vote in favor of municipal ownership an' against the private monopoly. The poor creatures didn't have sense enough to know that they had been bought Men have a hundred times more honor. In my time I've seen thousands of dollars paid for votes, an' I've never yet heard of a man actin' dishonestly. "Prohibition also had a lot to do with the outcome. Red-blooded men can't do good work on sundaes. PASSING OF THE OLD GUARD 41 In the days when the saloon gave vim an' vigor to the citizen, I've seen 'em start votin' early in the mornin' an' keep it up until dark without turnin' a hair. You can't get up any sort of enthusiasm for your civic duty on Eskimo pie. Nowadays people are ready to call it a day after they've cast one ballot. "As a matter of course, all these changes put the Old Guard up in the air. Why, out in Indiana they didn't even know that Beveridge was campaignin' until too late to do anything about it. They looked in the barber shops, the livery stables, the pool halls, an' even where the saloons used to be, but they couldn't find hide or hair of him. "To be sure, they heard a steady buzzin' that seemed to come from the churches an' Chautauquas an' homes, but who would ever have dreamed of lookin' for anything political in places like that? An' that's where Albert was all the time. They begged him to come outside an' fight like a man, but he wouldn't take any notice of 'em. Jes' kept on talkin' about present-day issues, hardly ever men- tionin' George Washington an' virtually ignorin' the Civil War. "Lord knows what the end of it is goin' to be, Anything's possible when outsiders like Beveridge, Frazier an' Pinchot can \\in. The mania's liable to spread, an' before the year's over you're liable to see 42 UNCLE HENRY "■"■""■ '■■ „.,J rank outsiders hoppin' up all over the place, oustin* men who've given their whole lives to politics. Cranks yellin' around about good government an' service an' efficiency ! Now understand me, I don't say that they're not all right, but we've gotten along for 147 years without 'em, haven't we? "An' what's goin' to become of the grand old parties? When you once release forces of chaos, my boy, there's no controllin' 'em. Unless some- thing's done you may yet see the day when men in office will actually think of other things than the organization. It sounds like sacrilege, I know, but we must not allow any sick sense of honor to blind us to probabilities. It's not alone the Middle West. The Solid South is showin' great cracks an' even in New England they're havin' difficulty in confinin' political discussions to Appomattox." "People are sick of the old bunk," placidly asserted the Cub Reporter. "A wave of reform is about to hit the country." "Maybe so," said Uncle Henry, "but it remains to be seen whether it's a permanent wave or jes' a temporary crimp." THE POOR LITTLE RICH MAN "OPLENDID!" exclaimed Uncle Henry. i^ "What's splendid?" asked the Cub Reporter, looking up from his own paper. "The recovery of the English. For a long time our cousins across the sea have been depressed. Cricket, croquet, marmalade, an' all their other hardy sports lost zest, an' oftentimes it was all of 4.10 or 4.15 before they'd get up heart for tea. But everything's all right now. The optimism of Old Albion has come back on the hop, an' the empire is again ablaze with the faith that moves mountains. They're actually talkin' about getting some good out of the peerage by substitutin' an aristocracy of brains for an aristocracy of birth. It says here that Lieutenant Colonel Lowther, A. E. I. 0. U. an' some- times W. an' Y., has introduced a bill in Commons providin' for a radical reorganization of the House of Lords, proposin' to change the color scheme entirely by kickin' out blue blood. "It's an encouragin' sign, Jimmy, but I doubt very much if anything will come of it. Y'see, it isn't as if the House of Lords was something new an' sent on approval. Heaven only knows how old it is, for 43 44 UNCLE HENRY Chauncey Depew once told me it was runnin' when he was a boy. Anyway, the English are a whole lot different from us when it comes to antiquities. Here in the United States when a thing gets old — say, fifteen or twenty years — we tear it down as soon as the strikers go back to work, but in England they put a brass tablet on it an' charge admission. They're proud of age an' particularly proud of the ailments that go with age. That's why they've got such a warm spot for the House of Lords. "Membership in that august body, I may explain, used to be a reward for havin' supported the King. You can take that any way you like. A peer does. Some monarchs were hard pressed by foes, others by creditors, but in no case did they fail to ennoble the gallant lads that came to the rescue. I'm no Anglomaniac, but my heart can't help from beatin* faster at some of the tremendous pictures that his- tory paints for us. A king at bay, his back against the wall — battle field or race track, it doesn't make much difference — an' he blows his horn or nose, a sign of distress, an' from every side his supporters spring forward, armed either with swords or check books, dependin' on the generation, an' when the danger is past, the grateful prince, tappin' shoulder after shoulder, says: 'Arise, Sir Geoffrey Strong- bow, Earl of Pembroke,' or: 'Get up, Moe; you're now a baron, so where's my note?' THE POOR LITTLE RICH MAN 45 "Yessir, the House of Lords was a wonderful in- stitution — well managed — fine medical staff an' kindly keepers — but there's no question that Lloyd George has pulled it down considerable. They tell me it got so he actually hawked titles. When he was buildin' up the Coalition Liberals, an' raisin' money for the campaign, you couldn't go anywhere in London without hearin' his shrill cry: Teers put in ! Peers put in !' If a home gave any appear- ance of wealth at all, he'd go right up an' knock on the front door, an' many a hard-workin' man's come home at night to find the whole month's household money spent for a baronetcy. Undoubtedly you yourself have heard the expression 'coming across in the peerage'? "As a consequence, the House of Lords is so crowded now that they're sleepin' in their seats. A duke sleeps the longest, but an earl the loudest. All of 'em are searched at the door for ideas. "No question that England has got to do some- thing. These are times when St. Vitus is on the rampage, an' more than any other country. Old Albion is sufferin' from the jumps. You see, Jimmy, the White Man's burden isn't what it used to be. Ten or even fifteen years ago it was simply a case of takin' it down to the bank an' gettin' a deposit slip for it. Now you've got to hide it in the cellar an' throw a police guard around the house to keep 46 UNCLE HENRY the infuriated owners from gettin' it back. Jes' look at the way they're carryin' on in Egypt an' India. After all these years of sturdy British rule, you'd think those heathens would all be civilized, but there are any number of 'em still at large. An' now with Lloyd George spendin' so much of his time in Genoa, an' almost all their novelists lecturin' here in the United States, the need for strong men is pretty acute. "The paper doesn't make it quite clear jes' how Colonel Lowther means to bring about his aristoc- racy of brains, but I'm mighty eager to learn the details. Between you an' me, if the idea is a good one the United States might do a whole lot worse than steal it. Lord knows, we've tried hard enough to get brains by the elective process, but we've fallen into the habit of confusin' 'em with sweetbreads. "As things are to-day, we're runnin' our biggest business — the Government of the United States — with our littlest men. When an English boy doesn't show any particular ability to earn a livin', they put him in the church, but over here we put him in office. If it's a quiet case, with symptoms more or less latent, he's given some important administrative position, but if the ravin' stage has been reached, he goes to Congress. When it comes to huntin' men for the public service we've always used a micro- scope an' an air rifle. THE POOR LITTLE RICH MAN 47 "You know as well as I do that the brains of America, except in a few exceptional cases, aren't in public life. England may suffer from an aristoc- racy of birth, but we've got an aristocracy of money that's about as useful as a hangnail. When big men do take an interest in politics, it's usually at 10 or 20 per cent. Instead of runnin' the Govern- ment, they generally prefer to run the men that run the Government — the power behind the bone. I don't know as I blame 'em much, considerin' the gantlet an office seeker is compelled to run these days, for why should a man take a mud bath publicly when he can go to Carlsbad or French Lick an' get it private? ''Year by year the situation grows w^orse. Wider an' wider stretches the gulf between public service an' private protiteerin'. Little men m.akin' laws an' big men breakin' 'em. The finest lot of executive, administrative, an' organizin' genius that any nation has ever produced, great financial abilities, dynamic energies, rare technical skills, marvelous legal talent — all permitted to concentrate on their own personal an' selfish advantage, while the government of the country bumps an' rattles along like one of the old high bicycles I used to ride when I was a boy. An' we talk about efficiency! "What makes it worse is that the whole thing is such a colossal cheat all the way round. The Gov- 48 UNCLE HENRY ernment gets shoddy instead of an all-wool article, an' men who might have lived in the hearts of their countrymen go to the grave with a vague, sick sense of failure. In all this world I don't know of any- thing more pathetic than the sight of an aged mil- lionaire tryin' to win popularity by slingin' his money around until a man's afraid to venture out unless he's got a steel helmet on. It used to bring tears into my eyes to watch old Andrew Carnegie runnin' around from town to town with his libraries, reachin' a stage of frenzy where no community with a vacant lot was safe. An' his pension list for super- annuated college professors! Starvation wages through their useful years, but three meals a day when they lose their teeth. "An' look at my old friend Rockefeller! If you leave a buildin' site out overnight, he'll have a Foun- dation on it before mornin'. Institutes for anything an' everything, educatin' the Chinese until you can't get a shirt back under two weeks, an', greatest effort of all, a million-dollar refuge for migratory birds. I've never seen 'em, but they say you can find Old John an' Young John in the thickets almost every day, roundin' up imperiled canaries an' reckless robins, or herdin' jaybirds down the south- ern trail. "Don't remember Harriman, do you? He died in his own harness, never thinkin' of government THE POOR LITTLE RICH MAN 49 except when he wanted some privilege. An' there was Jim Hill, who went to his grave without ever havin' held an office. I can give you a list as long as my arm of men that the country needed, but never had the sense to draft. If we ever had any of the intelligence that we love to brag about, do you know what we'd do? Take the cases I've jes' mentioned. Some mornin' the President would have looked up from his reports an' said to him- self : *H-m-m ! There's a bunch we can use. Better catch 'em young before they form bad habits.' An' the next thing you'd be hearin' this sort of conversation : " *Now listen to me, Andy. Steel is about the most important question before the House jes' now, an' you know too darned much about it to be outside the Government service. Come on in an' get busy. Figure out better an' cheaper methods of produc- tion, tell me to-morrow what's a fair price per ton, an' keep your eye peeled so nobody slips any puttied armor plate over on us. Hustle, or I'll see you don't get any haggis for a week. " * Hey, you Rockefeller! Quit chasin' that dollar an' come here. There's your desk an' you can get down any time you Want to if it's before eight. Dig out a plan for oil development, refinin' an' distri- bution, an' all that sort of thing. Cheap oil's the idea, John! Cheap an' good! An' hand me some 50 UNCLE HENRY red-hot ideas on how to make competition fair an' open. You ought to know. " 'Harriman ! Put that railroad back where you found it an' report for duty. What we want is a good sound transportation scheme for America — a model for the world. Fly at it! " 'Hello, Hill. You've done some big things, but we're goin' to give you a chance to do 'em big- ger. There are thousands an' thousands of miles of desert that have to be turned into orchards — mountains to tunnel — streams to harness — forests to save an' forests to plant. There's a young fellow named Luther Burbank that we can turn over to you, an' a Dutchman named Weyerhauser who's a wizard at timber. Here's your hat, old man, an' good luck.' "Do you think they wouldn't have leaped at the chance? Let me tell you this, my boy. There was never a people in the history of the whole world that cared less for money. It's nothing but chips in a game, an' only prized because it's the one present way we have of makin' success visible an' victory tangible. I sat here durin' the war an' watched most of the big men of America answer their country's call. Many came at first from a sense of duty, but when they began to get the meanin' of public service, an' got some of the applause that unselfish effort always commands, pride an' happi- THE POOR LITTLE RICH MAN 51 ness bubbled up in 'em until hard-boiled gents of sixty nickered like colts. They loved it, an' when politicians kicked 'em out at the end of the war, every man Jack went back to his money makin' with an ache in his heart. "There's the answer. We've got to make peace as important as war, beatin' it into men that it's jes' as fine to live for their country as to die for it." THE YELLOW PERIL ''TT7ELL, thank the good Lord, we've got rid of VV the Yellow Peril at last!" Uncle Henry heaved a sigh of relief as he leaned comfortably against the cigar counter. "No, not the Sunday supplements. It's China I'm talkin' about. Yessir," he continued happily, "a great shadow has lifted from the world. No more will the peaceful an' industrious Caucasian have to live under the fear of the violent an' predatory Celes- tial. The white man can now take up his burden wherever an' whenever the owner has been foolish enough to leave it out overnight. The teeth of the heathen Chinee's been drawn, a stern proceedin', but in line with the best modern medical practice. Acid's his trouble. "It certainly is a great relief to me to get the straight of things, for I don't mind tellin' you I had this China business all wrong. Up to lately, I fig- ured the Chink as a sort of walkin' banana that anybody could skin an' did. A simple childlike soul, bringin' his wife's family to live with him, regularly handin' over his pay envelope to his great-grand- mother, or the oldest survivin' ancestor, an' eatin* 53 54 UNCLE HENRY nothing stronger than chop suey with now an' then a grain of rice for the stomach's sake. For years, it seems to me, I never picked up a paper without see- in' that some great power or other, without even troublin' to wear a mask, had civilized poor old China the night before. Accordin' to the lyin' his- tories I used to read, it started as far back as 1842 when the impracticable Chinee tried to stop the opium traffic. " *You would, would you!* cried outraged Eng- land, who'd built up the business from nothing you might say. *Have you no respect for vested rights ? Take that, you anarchist ! And that ! And, by way of drivin' home the moral lesson, just hand over Hongkong. Also slip us the triflin' sum of $42,000,- 000 while we've got our hand in your pocket. You'd only spend it, anyway.' "France, eager to find room for her decreasin* population, the congestion in the Folies Bergere bein' something frightful, was the next power to make war on China. I forget the cause, but I think a shirt was scorched or maybe Hop Lee wouldn't turn over the laundry without the ticket. Anyway, the militant Frank took Cochin-China, and since the wagon was backed up to the door, an' lots of room left, also loaded in Annam and Tonkin. " *Help !' yells China. Tor the love of Confucius, help!' THE YELLOW PERIL 55 "What's the matter?' says Russia, runnin' up with a lope. " 'IVe been robbed. Twas France an' England. I could identify 'em anywhere.' " *But why didn't you scream for the police?' asks Russia. " 1 did/ moans China. " 'At the top of your voice?' " 'Louder than that.* " *An' did nobody come?' " 'Nobody at all.' " 'Then I think I'll take a few things myself,' says Russia, helpin' herself to the Amur River an' a large slice of Manchuria. "It bein' England's turn now, John Bull picked up the map of China and saw a province called Sikkim. He did, an', bein' on the ground, took over Burma at the same time. " 'My move/ says France, an' grabs Cambodia. "Up to this time the Japs had been confinin' their imitations to Navajo blankets an' German silver, but now they got ambitious. Stealin' the French an' English patterns, they made a Chinese war that you couldn't tell from the original, an' after it was over, awarded themselves the Liaotung Peninsula, Formosa, an' the Pescadores Islands. But the scoundrels hadn't taken outraged civilization into account. 56 UNCLE HENRY i— —■—^^^»^^^——^^—— ^—^— —————— i^"^ " ^Bandits !' cried England, France, an* Russia in one horrified voice. 'Thieves ! Bums ! Waging v^ar on a weaker nation, violating the territorial integrity of China, not to mention infringing on our patent rights. Don't try to make out you didn't see our signs.' "So the Triple Extract made Nippon hand back the Liaotung Peninsula, an' no sooner was it back than all three made a rush for it, Russia winnin' by a bayonet's length. "Just then they heard a loud shout, an' before they could get out an injunction, the Kaiser was among 'em. " 'You seem to have your hands full,' he says enviously, 'but I'm fresh an' strong an' also willing. What's that over there?' he says. 'Shantung? Well, it's not much of a chance to show what Kultur can do, but I'll take it/ he says, 'an' maybe I can work up a demand.' "The more England got to thinkin' things over, the worse she felt about it. '"I'm a loafer in the vineyard,' she says. 'I'm not carryin' my fair share of the White Man's bur- den. To be sure, I've got Ireland on hand,' she says, 'an almost impossible people to civilize,' she says, 'bein' so fleet of foot, an' goodness knows India an' Egypt take most of my spiritual advisers/ she says, 'but still, by cuttin' down a bank holiday here an' a THE YELLOW PERIL 57 cricket match there, I think I can find the time,' she says, 'an' the ammunition.' "So she takes the harbor of Weihaiwei, an' before KipHng could get through writin' a poem about it. Old England grabs a 400-mile chunk of Kowloon an' then the whole Yangtze Valley. Poor Rudyard had to hire two journeymen poets an' an apprentice, an' even then he couldn't keep up with the grand old Union Blackjack. "Meanwhile the Japs had not been idle. Appre- ciatin', at last, the benefits of civilization, they'd been takin' a correspondence course in culture from the well-known Krupp school, an' tutorin' up be- tween times with some learned professors from West Point an' Potsdam. Armed with their diplo- mas, an' a few other things, they took the affirmative in a debate with Russia, an' won handily. After givin' this plain proof of a superior civilization, the Japs took over Port Arthur, Dalny, an' all the other Russian holdings in China, an' fallin' in love with their new work, annexed Korea, an' benevolently absorbed southern Manchuria an' inner Mongolia. "*Is she sufficiently civilized to hold 'em?' asks England anxiously. " *Yes,' said France, after a long, careful look at the Jap navy. *I'm afraid she is.' "The Great War gave the Little Brown Brothers another chance to show that their hearts were in 58 UNCLE HENRY the right place, an', givin' barbarous Germany a rousin' kick, they pouched Shantung. "That's the way I used to look at the Chinese ques- tion in the old days," went on Uncle Henry^ "when I was full of prejudices an' ignorant of the facts in the case. But this here Conference on Pacific an' Far Eastern questions that we had in Washington some time ago has opened my eyes to the truth. All that stuff I jes' told you is lies. Pure Chinese prop- aganda. Things never happened that way at all. Hongkong, Kowloon, Weihaiwei, an' the Yangtze Valley have always been Anglo-Saxon heritages. Gilbert an' Sullivan discovered 'em, an' Lipton set out the first tea orchard. Cochin-China, Tonkin, Annam, an' Yunnan are all historically French. Science proves it. Only the other day, learned archeologists, diggin' in the ruins of Hanky Poo, or wherever it was that civilization struck the last time, discovered perfectly preserved French pastry, or somethin' just as hard. From time in memoriam Shantung, Manchuria, Korea, Mongolia, an' the rest of 'em have been Japanese possessions, although it's only lately that they've been able to move any- thing in. " 'Twas Arthur Balfour that let the light in on our darkness. There's a man for you! A wonderful grasp on affairs, an' anything else, an' a mind so clear you can see to the bottom of it if y' come up THE YELLOW PERIL 59 that way. They tell me that for passion an' pathos there hasn't been an equal to his speech since Harry Daugherty got Taft to pardon Charlie Morse. " *I come now/ Arthur says, when the conference had decided upon disarmament for France and Italy, 'to a matter in which there is no profit for anyone, at least, not any more,' he says. *Needless to state^ I refer to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. An' in con- sidering this momentous matter, ' he says, 'put aside your prejudices, an' particularly your color blind- ness. 'Tis China, an' China alone, that's the Yellow Peril,' he says, *for Japan is the Little Brown Bless- ing. See things as they are,' he says, 'an' quit being deceived by the lacquered exteriors of the devilish inmates of the Flowery Kingdom. Not even the rapacious Irish, the ferocious Egyptian, or the des- perate Hindu is more to be feared when they once get their faces out of the macadam.' " *For years,' he says, 'single-handed an' alone, England has been carryin' the torch of civilization/ he says, *an' the gun. For the last ten,' he says, 'we've been standin' between the peaceful people of little Japan an' the desperate predatory hordes of China,' he says. 'But the time is come when the white man's burden is too much for us,* he says, 'We've had to give up Ireland for lack of time an' attention, an' India an' Egypt show signs of relapsin' into barbarism unless we concentrate upon 'em,' 60 UNCLE HENRY he says, *good an* hard. We need help, an' I can see from your face,' he says, appealin' direct to Charlie Hughes, *that the Anglo-Saxon in you is moved,' he says, *an' that you're ashamed an' envious that you haven't been doin' your part. Don't try to deny it,' he says. *Not for nothing have I read the life of your greatest thinker, P. T. Barnum, an' while you may try to hide your true feelings behind a granite mask,' he says, *I know the soft heart within you,' he says, 'to say nothing of the head. " 'England asks you to join vidth her for the future protection of the Little Brown Brother,' he says, *an' for the preservation of peace in the Far East,' he says, *so that all of us can go forward in- dustriously to the development of our heritages,' he says, 'which the owners are always trying to get back. There's the place to sign,' he says, putting his own fountain pen in Charlie's hand. *An' watch out as you pass Wellington Koo.' "Like Warren/' concluded Uncle Henry, "I haven't got it all quite clear in my h^ad yet, but it looks as if the Orient was going to get peace and get it good. With America and England guaranteeing protection to Japan, lawless China is going to think twice be- fore it starts anything. No longer will British and Japanese provinces in Japan rest under the menace of foreign invaders coming back to see what's been done to their homes." THE YELLOW PERIL 61 "Doesn't China get anything out of it at all?" asked the Cub Reporter in some perplexity. "Sure," answered Uncle Henry. "She's guaran- teed in the possession of her unavailable rights." "And where do we come in?" "Through the Open Sore, of course." DEHOOVERING HERBERT "TDOOR old Herb !" Uncle Henry heaved a sigh as -L he laid the paper aside. "Herb who?" asked the Cub Reporter. "Herb Hoover, of course. It*s a gallant fight he's makin', but a losin' one. Slowly but surely they're pushin' him off the front page. Look at this here interview of his on Government aid for better complexions. Snappy stuff, every line of it, yet the want ad section is the best it gets. An' yesterday, when he gave his opinions on Russian conditions, with some inside dope on Vatican life, an' a de- scriptive bit on Babylonian art, they buried it on the market page. Yessir, I'm afraid Herb's got about as much chance as a cockroach in a porcelain tub. No protective colorin' an' even less foothold. But, pshaw! I don't suppose you've got any idea what I'm talkin' about?" "I have not," said the Cub Reporter coldly. "You journalists!" Uncle Henry shook his head despairingly. "Each day sees life's colorful tide risin' an' roarin' all about you, thunderous with romance an' adventure, struggle an' high resolve, laughter, tears an' hate, tragedy an' farce; yet un- 63 64 UNCLE HENRY less a gun goes off or a scream rings out, it means no more to you than the monotonous flow of an irrigation ditch. Victims of the obvious. Take Hoover, for instance, to you he's jes' another one of those Secretaries of Commerce, runnin' aroun' newspaper offices with articles on shark meat an' the home life of seals, an* bustlin' out of Cabinet meetings with a lot of seed catalogues under his arm to give an effect of vast emprises. Yet, under that placid exterior lives a soul on fire, an' those feverish activities, so meaningless to you, are des- perate moves an' countermoves in a Titanic struggle for the kingdom, the power, an' the glory. "Don't remember the Great War, do you? No, I suppose not. It was a full three years ago, an' talk about it was hushed up almost at once. Well, Woodrow Wilson was President an' Hoover head of the Food Administration, a big job an' one that brought him close to the great, hungry heart of the American people. "Lord, but the following that man built up! Under the inspiration of great slogans like *Food will win the war,' 'Service without sacrifice,' an' *Eat until it hurts,' he led his millions along the grim, bleak way of service, a glorious army without a straggler. Some days he would take away every bit of red meat, leavin' nothin' to sustain life but fish an' chicken, an' at other times he'd order wheat- DEHOOVERING HERBERT 65 less weeks, durin' which terrible periods only cake an' corn bread could be obtained, but though it seemed that such sufferin' must inevitably result in rebellion, a word from Herb never failed to send people back to the table. An' always the forces of rapacity at work — ^tireless, insatiate! Hotel men, for instance, cuttin' portions in half, discardin' sugar, butter, an' wheat bread entirely, an' then wantin' to raise prices 500 per cent, but Herb fightin' 'em an' beatin' 'em, an' forcin' 'em to rest content with a 200 per cent advance. "Through it all he remained jes' as modest as he was in the beginnin'. Applause Was positively pain- ful to him, an' there wasn't anything he left undone to avoid the adulation of the crowd. Before enterin' a room or a hall or a town, a troupe of his young men would go on ahead an' try to make the people understand. They couldn't stoop to deception, of course, an' had to admit the true greatness of their chief, but after frankly confessin' all of Herb's achievements an' genius, they'd explain his in- vincible modesty an' beg everybody as a favor not to make any more of a fuss over him than they could help. But the people couldn't be stopped. When the war ended, Herb was easily the most pop- ular man in the United States; in fact, the only popular man. Naturally enough, a presidential boom started for him, an' spreadin' with the sweep U. H.— 3 66 UNCLE HENRY of a prairie fire, soon penetrated to every corner of the Food Administration buildin*. Unlike Mitchell Palmer's boom, which began an' ended in Mitchell's office. Herb's kept goin'. The New York 'World' considered his claims carefully, an', after hearin' from every ouija board in the editorial department, came out in a demand that the Democrats nominate Herb. **Even while the leaders hesitated, word came that Bryan was jes' turnin' the corner. Panic stricken, they threw the nomination in Herb's lap an' de- manded instant acceptance. " *I don't know how to thank you for the honor,' says Herb, keepin' one hand on the nomination, care- less like, an' usin' the other to push aside the curtain so's he could look down the street in the direction of Republican headquarters, *but at this time,' he says, *when most anything's liable to happen,' he says, *I would be less than true to myself if I didn't con- fess that I'm a man who puts principles above party. Principles never betray you,* he says, *not if you change 'em often enough. I'll not declare what I am at the present moment,' he says, *but now that you know the way, drop in any time,' he says. "I want to tell you that the Republicans were some embarrassed. Harding had been agreed on long before, but the boys had had eight mighty lean years, an' it was bein' planned to let the other DEHOOVERING HERBERT 67 entries do a little helpful spendin* before puttin' Warren over. So you can see that Herb was sure some monkey wrench in the machinery. There he stood, independent as a hog on ice. If they didn't take him, the Democrats would, an' his election was a cinch. All he had to do was to say nothin' an' look noble. "In sheer desperation, more'n anything else, the Old Guard sent for the green goods squad. One was jes' back from sellin' a big order of linen dusters to the Iceland Government, an' the other two were completin' the sale of the the Metropolitan Art Museum to a group of Indiana bankers. All three could run over the keyboard of a piano with wooden shoes on an' never make a sound. "I've been in politics all my life," Uncle Henry continued after a thoughtful pause, "commencin' with the precinct an' endin' with the national, an' in my time I've seen almost everything stuffed — ballot boxes, candidates, an' people — but from now to eternity there'll never be anything like the stuffin' of Herb. I wouldn't have believed it. Why, darn it, the man had the presidency in his pocket with a safety pin run through it. I don't suppose we ever will really know what happened between Herb an' the Old Guard experts. While Herb's got back most of his inlays, they tell me there's a lot of his bridge work that's missin' to this very day. Accordin' to 68 UNCLE HENRY the story I heard, they started off by urgin* him to put all Democratic nonsense out of his head. *Even if you won, you'd have a Republican Congress,' they said. *The thing to do is to take the nomination from; us, insurin' harmony and accomplishment. The question of a platform needn't bother. It never has. Write your own, my boy. All you want. The more the merrier.' "They showed him the nomination, let him hold it in his hand, an' even told him he could keep it. Placin' it in a small black leather bag, they locked it right before his eyes, an' helped him put it away in the safe. Jes' as they were leavin', an' obviously as a mere afterthought, they brought up the ques- tion of Herb's politics. A triviality, to be sure. It really made 'em feel foolish to mention it. But the boys didn't like Herb's independent stuff. After you've beaten organization into a bunch for fifty years, you can't turn around overnight an' tell 'em it's a bad thing. " What we want you to do,' they said, *is to come right out an' say you're one of us ; that you belong to the party of Lincoln, and that whether in Russia, China, Borneo, or Kansas, you always voted the straight Republican ticket.' **An' Herb falls. *I'm a Republican,' says he, *an' always have been. As for the villainous charge that I was once a Democrat, it must have been started DEHOOVERING HERBERT 69 by some one who saw me when I was gettin' over an attack of typhoid/ "A few days later the Old Guard called again. Another little thing had occurred to 'em. 'The Dem- ocrats hold their convention after us/ they ex- plained, 'an' some malignant wretches have started the gossip that you'll take the Democratic nomina- tion if you don't get ours.' "So the next day Herb comes out with another statement in which he gives his full name as Herbert Glue Hoover. He's a boy that sticks. Not the kind that's here one minute and there the next. No, siree! Put him down an' before you can say Jack Robinson he's sunk six tap roots an' has laterals branchin' out for a full fifty feet on every side. " *Not only am I a Republican,' says Herb, *but live or die, sink or swim, in jail or out, I'll stay one. No bolting for me.' "As a result of this announcement, the Old Guard reported that the boys had reached the stage of hysteria. Everything over but the shoutin'. It was really time for Herb to commence work on his speech of acceptance. An' where was his Prince Albert? But just a moment. Another detail. Really a trifle, but still possessin' a certain importance. Some of Herb's supporters were regrettably loose of tongue, an' had been heard to speak roughly of various party leaders. Surely Herb remembered the unfortunate 70 UNCLE HENRY occurrences of 1912, when harsh language worked irreparable woe. Burstin' into tears, Herb sends for his people, an' warns 'em against givin' ammuni- tion to the enemy. 'Boost!' he begs. 'Don't knock !' "Well, sir, you've got to admit it was some job! You could walk all around Herb, under him an' over him, an' you couldn't find an inch that wasn't covered by good, stout clothesline, all tied hard an' fast in knots that even Houdini himself couldn't have budged. He was a Republican, he wouldn't bolt, an' he wouldn't criticize. An' all the time poor old Herb was huggin' the black bag with the nomi- nation in it. He never did get wise until he opened it at the convention, an' saw the two soiled paper collars in it. The old green-goods switch! "After Warren's election, as per schedule, the Old Guard thought of Herb again. It looked like a good idea to keep him under observation for a while; anyway, he'd be company for Laddie Boy. So the Three Statesmen went back, an' after a lot of work got Herb so he quit askin' if anybody had been saved. " 'We're still puzzled/ they said. 'We simply can't understand it. The delegates just got the bit in their teeth an' ran away with the leaders. Ah, well, in a democracy anything may be expected. But what does the individual matter? It is America that calls. Warren wants you. He needs your aid and inspira- DEHOOVERING HERBERT 71 tion. It is the Secretaryship of Commerce that he offers. Now wait a minute! We know what you're going to say, an' you're wrong. It's one of those positions that's as big as the holder wants to make it. There's no Hmit to its possibilities. World recon- struction,' they crooned, passin' their hands rapidly over Herb's face. 'World commerce ! World glory !' Inside of ten minutes they were able to stick pins in him an' break rocks on his chest. "Poor old Herb! It took him all of a month to find out that the Department of Commerce is where the Government keeps its sense of humor. "Aside from lookin' after the lighthouses, popular- izin' shark meat as a food, an' teachin' the Pribilof Island seals to bounce rubber balls, there wasn't another thing that the Constitution permits Herb to do. Nine men out of ten would have walked right into the morgue an' made Cal Coolidge move over, but not Herb ! No matter whether you like him or not, you've got to admire him. Colonel House is makin' no braver, finer fight against catalepsy. Herb's buildin' up as fine a stock of opinions as ever graced a counter, an' people are commencin' to un- derstand that it's no trouble for him to show goods. At one time or another he's settled most every prob- lem that's vexed humanity — 'Shellac Varnish as a Beverage,' 'Are Women's Clothes Coming Down?' 'Baldness—Fault or Misfortune,' What Would 72 UNCLE HENRY Abraham Lincoln Do?' *How to Tell the Stars/ etc. No subject's safe from him. "To be sure, the President's been mighty nice to him, helpin' Herb in every way he could. There's the unemployment situation he's given him to settle, also Russia. An' when he gets through with them, I hear Warren's goin' to hand him the Ulster boun- dary, the soldiers' bonus, the servant-girl problem, the wage-reduction question, prohibition enforce- ment, an' the celebrated Billy Patterson case." "Don't you think Hoover is too big for his job?" asked the Cub Reporter. "Not if he's really big," answered Uncle Henry. "The beauty about an American job is that it isn't cast, but hand-forged." MILLIONAIRES' SONS "TXT ELL, I see where another millionaire's son VV has been indulgin' in the practices peculiar to his sect," remarked Uncle Henry as he pulled up a chair for the Cub Reporter. "I only saw the head- lines, but it's something to do with a workin' girl. Whether he married her or ran over her, whether she was in his car or under it, I don't know. Any- way, it doesn't matter much. The important thing is that he's a millionaire's son. "No wonder you've got a happy light in your eyes. What with Hollywood committin' nothin' worse than its usual pictures, these last few uneventful weeks must have been a terrible strain on you newspaper people. But everything's all right now. I'm willin' to bet when you get back to the office you'll find all the old cheerfulness restored, while from the cages of the editorial writers will float a merry song as the wise graybeards of twenty-four commence quiverin' with indignation over the failure of the American parent. It may be hard for a rich man to break into heaven, but the front page is certainly easy for him. "Well, sir, I used to think society divorces made the best readin', but I've changed over in favor of 73 74 UNCLE HENRY these millionaire-son cases. Not only do they give you your scandal, but you also get a wonderful chance to wag your head an' wall your eyes. They can talk to me all they want about pleasure, an' IVe had more than a speakin' acquaintance with many brands, but I want to say there's no enjoyment like a good long lick at your moral chops. We're a nervous people, so the doctors tell us, but when it comes to sittin' in judgment we can hold our posi- tion for hours an' never even ask for a head rest. "Particularly with respect to wealth. From the way a crowd laughs whenever a millionaire ventures upon the slightest witticism, you might think we loved the rich. But, even while mirth is givin* an imitation of hysteria, every man of the lot is think- in' to himself that there's something wrong when a boob like that can make money while an intellec- tual giant, not mentionin' any names, has a hard job keep in' one jump ahead of the sheriff. We're always layin' for the malefactors of great wealth, an' while it's true we don't get much chance at the crafty wretches themselves, the sons are always good huntin'. "Poor devils!" Uncle Henry sighed sincerely. "Jes' between you an' me — ^though I'll deny it if the charge is ever made — ^the average millionaire's youngster gets about as much chance for his white alley as a Democrat in Maine. It's not only that the MILLIONAIRES' SONS 75 eyes of the press are upon him always, hopefully, expectantly, so that he's afraid to take a bath with the lights on, but his own parents rarely fail to play leadin' parts in the conspiracy against him. "Out in the town where I grew up,' ' he continued irrelevantly, a habit that never failed to disconcert the Cub Reporter, "a Miz' Simmons lived down at the end of our street. Dyin' was about the only favor her husband had ever done her, an' a son was the only contribution he'd made to her support. The town's a city now, with as fine a lot of social dis- tinctions as any Eastern community can boast; but in those days we were a benighted lot, an' Miz' Sim- mons belonged to the Modern Priscillas along with everybody else, an' Abner, the boy, played with the rest of us when he had any chance to play. This wasn't much, for in the summer there were berries to pick an' sidewalks to clean in the winter, an' papers to carry an' milk to deliver all the year round. "We'd *oo-hoo' him when we went swimmin' or skatin', an' now an' then he'd come out to watch us start, but mostly he didn't have the time even for that. He wore our old clothes, an' as we got 'em sec- ond-hand ourselves, they looked like fish nets when they reached Abner, contributin' in no small degree to our childish pleasures. There were no compulsory- education laws in those days, for a tyrannical gov- ernment hadn't yet commenced to lay hands on our 76 UNCLE HENRY personal liberty, so Abner's right to remain igno- rant was never interfered with. He couldn't even cut his initials on a tree. "Miz' Simmons died when Abner was fourteen or so, an* he went to work on the trains as a news- boy. We didn't hear anything of him for years, an' then one day the news came that he'd struck it rich out in the minin' country. Goin' over the mountains, he'd had the rare intelligence to hitch his mule to the right tree, an' while he was plan- nin' an assault on his appetite with a piece of sour bread an' a bit of bacon rind, the faithful animal pawed a hole in the snow an' laid bare a bunch of nuggets. Of course a lot of socialists said the gold belonged to the mule, but there was nothin' acci- dental about Abner's progress after that. If I told you his right name, you'd know he was the man that took Trust out of the dictionary an' put it in the criminal code. A prudent man too, watchin' his pen- nies an' puttin' no faith in that old talk about dol- lars bein' able to take care of themselves. After a time, when he'd got his chattel mortgages trained so that they foreclosed of their own accord, he re- turned to the town of his birth. You don't get the real good of money until you go back with it to the place where you were poor. "Along with his chaperoned shekels, Abner brought a little boy an' a wife that he'd been care- MILLIONAIRES' SONS 77 less enough to accumulate before accumulating his fortune. Funny, isn't it, how hardship takes the rough edges off a man an' puts them on a woman. Boxin' gloves were the one kind she could wear with comfort, an' nitroglycerin was the only soothin' lo- tion that would have done her face any good. But I'll say this for Abner, he never tried to trade her in. "Right off the reel Abner built a house that was the finest example of the Rutherford B. Hayes school in that whole section. The only tools used on it were scroll saws. It fairly oozed nonusable balconies an' turrets an' cupolas, an' a regular litter of cast-iron dogs romped over the yard in friendly association with some stags at bay. Ah, me, those dear old days when you bought your art by the pound an' knew exactly what you were gettin' ! "Orville, the son an' heir, was about six years old when he first maimed our vision. He came to us in curls an' a velvet suit of the style made notorious by Little Lord Fauntleroy, an' each year added to his clothes an' took from his manners. You wouldn't think grown people would mind the comments of a child, but that brat had an almost uncanny knack of pickin' out adult weaknesses. To this day I can't put on a Prince Albert without hearin' Orville's derisive cackle, an' after a few experiences with him, young Doc Whitcomb sacrificed a set of chin whiskers that he'd been years in growin'. 78 UNCLE HENRY ''Spoiled ! Say, that kid was plum rancid. There wasn't anything his father didn't give him. He had the first bicycle, the first Shetland pony, an' the first Flobert rifle, an' if they didn't let him be captain he'd take his ball an' bat an' go home. As a boy, his father gave anxious hours to the expenditure of a penny, rubbin' his nose up an' down the show case, feverishly undecided whether to invest in something that tasted good or something that lasted. But Orville thought nothing of tossin' a dollar on the counter, although he made his friends eat a lot of dirt before he let 'em eat his candy. I don't know of anything more unprofitable than pointin' out the faults of children to their parents, but once I did get up courage to intimate to Abner that a little bringin' up by hand wouldn't hurt Orville. " *I know you mean right, Henry,' he said, *but you don't understand. Until I made my strike I never had a day that wasn't bitter in my mouth. You remember how it was when / was a boy? The cast-oflF clothes? Never any time for play? Never havin' anything other boys had? Well, Orville's goin' to have everjiihing I didn't have. He's my luxury. Wliat's money if it isn't for that?' "What was there to say? If a man can't see with his own eyes, you can't see for him. W^ell, after Or\alle had got through high school, by special an' unanimous request, Abner managed to get him in MILLIONAIRES' SONS 79 one of the swell Eastern colleges. He took pains to find out what was the biggest allowance received by any boy, an' topped it by a large margin. No- body was goin' to look down on Orville, not if he knew it. From the news that drifted back from time to time, we gathered that Orville had gone to work on the night shift, but as this kept him out of sight of the professors, everybody was pleased. After three months the little college town actually regarded him as an asset, an' figured on his fines as fixed income in plannin' local improvements. "Of course he got over to New York now an' then an' lived up to the highest academic traditions by tryin' to whip a waiter. An' he wrote the usual number of letters to the usual chorus girl, for which she soaked Abner the usual price. Not anything bad, an' nothing that would have merited notice if it hadn't been for Abner's money, I don't know what the last straw was that broke his alma mater's back, for the president didn't go into details in his letter. He merely said that acquaintance with Orville had been interestin' an' educational, an' that if he ever mounted to the higher place for which the whole faculty felt that he was destined, he would ap- preciate the favor of a ticket to the hangin'. "For a while Orville was utterly disconsolate at havin' his lot cast among rubes, as he delicately phrased it, but as time went on he managed to 80 UNCLE HENRY achieve a certain tolerance for his environment, de- velopin' various saloons into cultural centers an' buildin' up a night life that had real urban values. It v^as an almost unanimous conviction among us fathers that he should have been put to work, for his example wasn't breedin' industry in any of our boys, but Abner wouldn't hear of it. " *I've done enough work for both of us,* he said. 'I never had any youth myself, an' Orville's bein' young for two.' "Orville certainly appreciated his responsibility. Mornin's found him somewhat tired, but as evenin' came on he took up the burden manfully, an' mid- night found him goin' strong. He had the first automobile that came to town, an' for a while all of us had high hopes, but Orville fooled us by learnin* to run the crazy thing like a born mechanic. "Things rocked along this way until a couple of old school friends came out to visit Orville. Right from the start it was plain to be seen that his parents were a sore trial to the young host. Abner's grammar bagged at the knees, an' his table manners generally needed pressin', while as for Miz' Sim- mons, she was practically a total loss. Well, Abner happened to come downstairs one evenin' when Orville was explainin' Eastern standards to his mother, an' goin' over her various lacks in a frankly critical manner. I never did learn exactly what MILLIONAIRES' SONS 81 happened, but the royal visitors left next mornin', an' a few days later, still wearin* a slight limp, Orville punched a brand-new time clock in a lum- ber yard his father owned. Society knew him no more, for after doin' the bunny hug with planks all day you're kind of fed up on dancin' when evenin' comes. Anyway $4 a week isn't what you'd call a sociable salary. "I was in Washington after that for about a year, an' it was some time after my return before I met Orville. He was swingin' up the street behind a man-sized jaw, an' when he shook my hand I thought I'd lost the use of it. He told me he'd left his father's employment some weeks before — not that dad wasn't a fine old boy, but you know how it is — and was now superintendent of another yard. " 'But there's nothing in workin' for somebody else,' he confided to me at the last. 'I've got my eye on a dandy little lumber concern, ah' as soon as I close in on enough dough to make a first payment, you'll see me in business for myself.' "No," said Uncle Henry, "God never meant sons to be considered as luxuries. If He had, the poor wouldn't have any." THE TROUBLE WITH CONGRESS ''T DON'T know what's come over Congress lately/* ■*■ irritatedly remarked Barney, the cigar-stand man. "What's the matter with 'em, anyway?" "Everything but laryngitis," sighed Uncle Henry. "For months the poor creatures have been out of their heads, knowin' nothing of what's goin' on around 'em, babblin' feverishly an' pickin' at things until they'll never get well. The best veterinary surgeons in the country have confessed failure, an' while chiropractics are still workin' away, they've admitted privately that there's too much bone for 'em. Word's been sent to all the relatives an' friends — maybe it was jes' relatives — but still the sufferers hang on. It's the lingerin' nature of the illness that's so terrible." "I'm serious," insisted Barney. "So am I," said Uncle Henry. "So's everybody else. It's no longer a laughin' matter. I can re- member the days when the mere mention of Con- gress would bring a smile to the lips of the glum- mest, while, as for the gay an' light-hearted, their mirth was uproarious. But that's long ago. It's been months since anybody saw anything funny in 83 84 UNCLE HENRY Congress. Laughter has been pulled without the aid of anesthetics, an' sorrow reigns. What is it the poet says ? Woe awaits a country when She sees the tears of bearded men. "Nor can it be called a silent grief. Up from the nation comes a steady bellowin' that makes the horned herds of Bashan sound like honey drip. Maybe that's the matter ^vith Congress. There's so much noise they can't hear themselves think. Cer- tainly nobody else can. All the important business of life is bein' seriously affected. Captains of in- dustry have lost the use of their wooden clubs en- tirely an' employ a niblick on every tee, while the openin' of the ball season found less than ten thousand people outside when they shut the gates an hour before the game. "Go where you will — keep your ears akimbo from morn till night — an' you can't hear anybody say a good word for 'em. If it keeps up the august body is going to rank with the grippe an' flu, an' 'Have you had Congress yet?' is goin' to be a common in- quiry. A lot of cities are talkin' about quarantinin' against Washington. "Of course there's a lot of hope runnin' round loose. Thirty-four senators an' four hundred an' thirty-five representatives come up for election this fall, an' the optimists — those hardy perennials — are THE TROUBLE WITH CONGRESS 85 keepin' their feet on the gas as they talk about the great changes that are goin' to be made. Well, in the first place, the senators aren't any of our con- cern. They pay as they enter. In the second place, before any changes can be worked in the average of the four hundred an' thirty-five congressmen, you've got to tear the American people up by the roots an' plant 'em over again. We may be a care- less race about many things, my boy, but in the im- portant matter of insurin' the absolute inefficiency of Congress, we have spared neither time nor thought. Yes, sir, I've been through the mill, an' I want to tell you the Hindenburg Line was as full of holes as a player-piano record compared to the forti- fications that guard Congress against the approach of an intelligent man. If one does manage to get in, it's because he hid his ideas in the cellar an' bor- rowed some adenoids for campaign use. " *Votin' the Ticket Straight' is a prize barrier, bein' even less of a mental strain on the voter than it is on the candidate. It gives thousands of Ameri- cans a chance to make their mark. Then there's the 'Me Too' system, or 'Chip of the Old Block Head' method. A sort of inheritance tax on intelligence: young men walkin' up on the twenty-first birthday an' havin' the paternal politics taken out of the safe an' handed to 'em. Both sound systems an' practi- cally foolproof. Even the most harum-scarum can 86 UNCLE HENRY be allowed to handle 'em without the slightest fear of accident. "Of course certain sections have worked out in- ventions an' improvements of their own. Down South an* up in New England, for instance, they've evolved a thought-savin' device that comes darned near bein' automatic. Before a candidate is allowed to declare himself, he's got to make oath that the one burnin' issue is the Civil War, an' '61 is the closest that he can come to present times. News of Appomattox hasn't reached those parts yet, an' f eelin' still runs high. The only fly in the ointment is the well-known carelessness of printers. Once in Maine the Eagle an' the Rooster got reversed on the ballot, an' a Republican stronghold elected an entire Democratic ticket. "The rest of the country, however, doesn't have it so easy. West of the Mississippi the Berlin-Tilzer test is generally used, an' it calls for a lot of work an' some mighty nice discrimination. There's no hope for a candidate for Congress if he can't make a speech that people can dance to. He's got to have endurance as well, keepin' it up for two hours at a stretch without changin' the needle an' takin' care to let nothing sensible creep in. I've seen an idea no bigger than a mustard seed throw a whole crowd out of step. The orator that's got the best rhythm is the boy that wins. It saves graphophones an' has THE TROUBLE WITH CONGRESS 87 the added merit of keepin' the electorate on its toes. Moreover, it certainly accomplishes its purpose as a bar to intelligence, for, although I know your pas- sion for music, I think you've got to agree with me that the best brains don't have player-piano attach- ments. "You can tell that election time is near at hand, for the boys are stringin' up already, an' Washing- ton's like some vast orchestra pit. Yesterday I dropped in at the house of a young congressman who's goin' back home to start his campaign, an' found him hummin' over a few speeches. Naturally enough, after two years of silence, he was afraid of startin' right in on his high notes. I didn't care much for some of the verses, but he had as nice a chorus as I ever heard — somethin' about this fair land of ours where there's snow enough for courage an' sunshine enough for song. "I've heard 'em all in my time, but I want to tell you again that Bill Bryan was the Anglo-Saxophone that could make your feet itch. Joe Bailey was good on the hoedowns, Beveridge has no equal when it comes to parlor music, an' Jim Reed is as good as any tuba you ever listened to; but for all-round work there never was anybody like old W. J. B. He could triple-tongue until the cows came home. At that, I wasn't so bad myself. I used to have a little waltz movement that started in with 'when the 88 UNCLE HENRY mornin* stars sang in their glory/ an' rippled on down through *bosky dells* an' 'American queens,' endin' at last in a patriotic medley that didn't leave an idle foot in the house. Lord, Barney, sometimes I think I've got a tune in me yet. "Efficacious as this 'Say-it-with-Mush* plan proved, I always thought the best of 'em all was the County Directory method, or, more colloquially, the *You-don't-remember-me' test. From the time a candidate went into a district until he went out, a steady stream of people flowed by him, each demand- in' instant an' exact identification. Men first, then the women and children, an* finally houn' dawgs, an' the candidate that remembered the most of 'em got the nomination. Talk about torture, I've seen strong men crack under the strain an' gibber like maniacs. "Once, when I was runnin' for reelection, a full set of whiskers came up to me an' said: 'Howdy.' I knew a man was behind 'em, for I could see his ears wigglin', but for the life of me I couldn't place him. The race was awful close, for I'd missed out on three babies an' a setter pup that mornin', so I braced as hard as I could an' tried to bluff it out. " 'Well, well, I certainly am glad to see you,' I said, givin' him my richest stomach tones; 'you're certainly a sight for sore eyes.' " 'Bet you don't remember me,' he rasped. THE TROUBLE WITH CONGRESS 89 " 'Hah-hah-hah !' I let my hearty laugh have full play again, but in spite of every effort I knew it didn't have the right ring. 'Not remember you? The very idea ! Well, I do hope we'll see a lot of each other before I go back to Washington/ " *You don't know me at all/ he insisted stub- bornly. " 'Not know you?' I turned loose another burst of desperate laughter. *Why, you might as well say I'd forgotten my own brother.' " 'All right, then,' he said. * What's my name?' "For a full ten minutes I stood there, sweatin' my life away, now takin' off his hat, now lookin' at him from the north, now tryin' the southern ex- posure, an' all the while tryin' to pass it off as one of those inexplicable absurdities that sometimes creep into the most orderly lives. At last, however, I had to give up an' admit that I didn't remember him. He was too put out to talk much, but before takin' his insultin' departure, it developed that he was the man in the gray hat that stood over by the pump when I'd made a speech at the Oakridge schoolhouse three years before. After the hyena left me, he moved down the corridor an' started the same performance with old Bud Peasley, who'd told me jes' a few minutes before that he'd quit politics for good, havin' finally qualified for a job as rail- road lobbyist. 90 UNCLE HENRY " *Howdy, judge?' he chirped. " *Howdy?' said Bud, keepin' his hands in his pockets. " 'Don't remember me, do you V " *Why should I?' snarled Bud. 'In this country there are about one million speckled faces like yours. Name one single thing that would enable any intelli- gent man to bear you in mind for more than a minute even if he wanted to.' "I didn't say anything, for my throat was too choked. I jes' walked over to Bud, put my head on his shoulder an' sobbed out my gratitude like any child. "Fine an' effective as these tests are, don't think for a minute that that's the end of effort. Notwith- standin' all the various schemes an' systems, an' the never-sleepin' vigilance of the great American people, it's still the case that a lot of really able, in- telligent men manage to slip into Congress by some hook or crook. No tellin' what they might do if you left 'em alone, so you can see for yourself the neces- sity of hogtyin' 'em so that the high average of defectiveness Won't be dragged down. We've at- tended to that by fixin' the terms of representatives at two years. No sooner are the poor devils elected than they've got to begin runnin' again, a bitter necessity that leaves little time for anything else. The first step in a campaign for renomination, as a THE TROUBLE WITH CONGRESS 91 matter of course, is gettin' jobs for every con- stituent, an' never think this doesn't call for sweat. " *Men put in ! Men put in !' From dawn to dusk you can hear their mournful cry ringin' through the corridors of the Government buildin's. An* when business has been bad, an' they haven't had a single job, you can see 'em hangin' around the corners after dark, plum' afraid to go home. "It's not only jobs, but, worse an' more of it, there's pork! America's Favorite Food! Gettin' a million-dollar post office for a town of 2,000 people is quite a task, an' it takes a lot of time to swing the trade that will secure an appropriation to widen an' deepen Hoot Owl Creek so it can take its proper place among the navigable streams of the world. On top of it all, the trains keep comin' in bearin' con- stituents who can hardly wait to see the Monument an' be taken out to Mount Vernon. That ain't the half of it, but it's enough. When you come right down to it, that famous one-armed scratchin' paper hanger is jes' about as idle as a congressman, an' has much the same amount of time to give to public questions." "Maybe we ought to elect 'em for longer terms," observed Barney. "Or else furnish each voter with a graphophone of his own," said Uncle Henry. KNEE-LENGTH DRAMAS "T WENT to the theatre when I was in New York ■*- last week," casually remarked Uncle Henry after purchasing his fine cut. "Was it a good show?" interestedly inquired Barney, the cigar-stand man. "Did you ever hear of a visitor in New York takin' in a good show?' ' Uncle Henry's tone was chill with reproof. "What do you think a man leaves home an* family for? I might have missed this piece if some preacher hadn't come out the Sunday before an' condemned it in the highest terms. Some say he was a friend of the manager's ; anyway, it was all I could do to get a ticket. Tired business men, nobly conquering fatigue, put up a battle at the door that scattered toupees all over the place, an' the repre- sentative of a local antivice society had her mud guard torn off entirely. A typical New York audi- ence. When the orchestra played *My Old Kentucky Home' an' 'On the Banks of the Wabash Far Away,' the whole house stood up. The man in the next seat was an inmate of Akron, an' wanted me to under- stand that he was only there because he had a nephew, and it was next to impossible to advise the 93 94 UNCLE HENRY young properly unless you knew life in all of its phases. I saw his nephew, an' went him one better with two nieces. "I didn't get the plot exactly — there was some noise at the back that made me miss several lines — ^but it was somethin' about the sex problem. A sort of Margaret Sangerfest. However, I don't want to give you the idea that the piece was all bad. The heroine, for instance, turned good at the last, an', desertin' the vice of Broadway, hurried back to the little country village an' put a weddin' ring on the trustful young hero that she'd jilted in the first act. Then one of the other girls, usin' local anesthetics entirely, extracted $10,000 from a wild millionaire who was celebratin' a corner in the marshmallow market; but, before the piece ended, it developed that her action was in no sense a pleasure, but a duty. She did it for a sick brother. I'll admit it was a lesson to me. Hereafter, when I see a thing like that, I'm not goin' to pass judgment until I've made the round of the hospitals. "An' I'd be a dog if I didn't praise a big motif — look the word up yourself — that the leadin' lady struck. Before she came on the stage, all ready for a chiropractic treatment, I thought I knew what faith was, but she carried me to heights I hadn't dreamed of. I've seen men risk everything on one suspender button^ an' there have been times when I KNEE-LENGTH DRAMAS 95 myself have put no small dependence on a pin; but never in all my life have I seen such implicit confi- dence in a string of beads. Strong men stood up in their seats, an' the vice representatives shook so they could hardly adjust their telescopes; but through it all the little lady moved calm an' serene, clothed in her simple faith. Never again will I have a doubt, for I know now there's nothing you can't get away with if you've got the right sort of backbone." "Something ought to be done about these dirty plays," rumbled Barney when convinced that there were no further details to be had. "Demoralizing the youth of the country, that's what they're doing. I'm about beginning to believe this here movie cen- sorship ought to be spread out to take in everything." "Now you're talkin' !" Uncle Henry exclaimed en- thusiastically. "It isn't only the young that have got to be protected, but all of us. Nobody's safe. Vice is all around us. I don't ask you to take my word for it. Read the reports these reform societies send out. Lord, when you begin to realize all the dangers that purity is called upon to run in the course of a day, you're almost ready to take yours off an' put it in a safe-deposit box. An' jes' look at the stupid, inefficient way we're meetin' the dread menace! Only movie censorships in a few States, only a reform organization here an' there, an' only a few post-office inspectors at Washington to handle 96 UNCLE HENRY the thousands an' thousands of books published every year. I figured the other day that, even if they worked on a ten-hour schedule, they'd only have one minute to a volume. Now you know yourself, Barney, that ain't time enough for an effective smell. "More men an' better methods! We've got a leisure class of from three to five millions. Put 'em to work, say I. But it's not enough to put a skirt measurer on every stage an' inspectors in the home of each movie star until every closet is crowded. We've got to get at the source! Why wait until the lewd play or novel is written? What we ought to do is to put a copper right at the elbow of every author: an' dramatist an' editor. Artists too! Make 'em tell what they're thinkin'! Smash the wicked thought before it can reach the customers. "Stronger penalties too! Whenever a man goes into court an' says: 'Judge, such an' such a play aroused such an' such f eelin's in me, ' there oughtn't to be any foolin' around with trials an' juries. That dramatist ought to be shot at once, or burned in oil, if it isn't too high. "It isn't only that we've got to get more censors, but better ones as well. Vice is as sly as they make 'em. It never looks the same two days hand runnin*, an' changes about from place to place until you get dizzy followin' it. In my own time I've seen the darned creature slip right away from you KNEE-LENGTH DRAMAS 97 when it didn't seem to have a chance of escape. For instance, there was the waltz, that arrived during my boyhood. We'd always had a sort of sus- picion of the lancers an* quadrille, an' even the Virginia reel, but when the waltz came in we felt sure we'd got Vice located an' surrounded at last. A sort of scorched smell came out of every ballroom, an' old Deacon Foster, who peeked through a window saw Vice with his own eyes, an' reported it as plum' rampant. Well, the ministers carried on at such a rate that vigilance committees were finally organized, an' one dark night we crept up on a place where waltzin' was bein' committed. We surrounded the buildin' so a mouse couldn't escape, but when we jumped in, there wasn't hide nor hair of Vice to be seen. Only a lot of nice young people pushin' each other around. Vice had gotten clean away. "Perhaps The Black Crook' was the best chance we ever had. Vice threw off all disguise an' ac- tually went ahead of the show as advance agent, strikin' shame an' anticipation to every heart. I can remember my father sayin' we'd never again be able to hold up our heads as a nation, an' that we might as well tell Europe to roll over an' make room for us in the Old World gutter. "Even now I blush when I think of it, but the sinful fact must be stated that the portly matrons U. H.— 4 98 UNCLE HENRY who lumbered about the stage at odd moments wore tights. It don't seem much to you now, maybe, but jes' remember that up to that time public decency had managed to conceal the shameful fact that women have legs. Bein' a roue was so easy an' in- expensive a process that thousands of young men were lured to their ruin. All you had to do was to go to The Black Crook.' Jes' that, an' a clove now an' then took you out of the simple life an' made you a man about town. Full of confidence, we raided the theatre one night; but instead of catchin' Vice, all we found was a lot of natural-wool union suits. "The next thing we knew Vice was makin' open scandal with a hoochy-koochy dancer at the Chicago World's Fair — a big, billowy young Egyptian, all wrapped up like a sore thumb, except for the solar plexus, where the bandages had slipped, who went through a few elementary calisthenics whenever the crowd reached a point where newcomers had to be pushed in with a shoe horn. It was terrible. If Sodom an' Gomorrah couldn't get away with it, how could a frame-built burg like Chicago expect to escape? The preachers thundered again, an' the papers, eager to protect the home, ran columns each day, pointin' out new an' even more disgustin' de- tails of the repellent orgy that was causin' so many unthinkin' people to ignore the machinery exhibit an' the interestin' display of ores in the Mines KNEE-LENGTH DRAMAS 99 i^— —— ——■———■■■— ■——■—— ^ ' — Buildin'. Again we thought we had Vice cornered, but when we dragged in our net there wasn't any- thing in it but a nice, hard-workin' fat girl from Ohio, who thought you spelled Egypt with a j. Vice had got away again. "That's why I say we've got to have better cen- sors. Vice isn't a Woolworth Tower, so that all you've got to do is raise your eyes an' say *Ah!' Catchin' it is a job that calls for an expert^ one that's known Vice for a good many years, an' is now willin' to turn state's evidence. Men an' women that Vice can't fool. Maybe we'll have to go to the penitentiaries for them, but what of it ? I'm sick to death of these amateurs like Crafts an' his crowd, who start off without any clues except that Vice was last seen wearin' ridin' breeches an' smokin' a cigarette. It's jes' as if you'd drop a village con- stable down in Broadway. He'd hand the victim an awful soak on the head an' send off the robbers for the patrol wagon. "The right sort of censor's also got to be up on morals until he can tell the vintage without lookin' at the bottle. They're almost as cunnin' as Vice when it comes to changes. One generation buys its morals with all sorts of guarantees against fadin', shrinkin', or runnin', an' by the time the new gen- eration comes along they're either ready for the rag bag or else out of style. There's also the question 100 UNCLE HENRY of place to be considered. What's proper in New York an' San Francisco would bring out the entire police force in Bangor an' Tallahassee. Legs are immoral in the West, an* in the East it's ears. What bores Chicago shocks Boston. Boggs Center draws the line at ankles, an' Philadelphia at kneecaps. The country regards nine o'clock as the hour when all decent people ought to go to bed, an' the city regards it as the time when all decent people ought to get up. The standard theatres re- fuse to let an actress be kicked, even in a friendly manner, an' the burlesque houses prohibit the use of *damn.' "What with the thousand an' one different laws in each of the States, a railway journey is the most, immoral thing I know. I may start out a decent, respectable member of society, barrin' my terms in Congress, but I'm liable to be black with depravity by the time I reach Kansas, an' passin' through Texas, you'll likely find me hidin' under the seat an' bribin' the porter to push me food at the end of a stick. "No, sir, I don't know of anyj'ob that calls for more actual genius. As I've tried to explain, locatin' Vice, an' gettin' the goods on it, is difficult enough. But when you think of the way morals are cut up by state, municipal, an' township lines, an' that there are thousands of brands, each one of a different KNEE-LENGTH DRAMAS 101 date, the task is absolutely staggerin'. An' even if we get the two or three million censors we need, so that there's one for everj^body, an' if they're suffi- ciently vicious themselves to know Vice, there'll always be a disturbin' thought." "What's that?" asked Barney in some alarm. "That the only kind of morals worth havin' are homemade," said Uncle Henry. THE HARDING HONEYMOON '^TTTELL/' said the Cub Reporter, pursing his VV Hps importantly. "From the way the Demo- crats talk, I'm very much afraid we're going to witness a revival of partisan feeling." "You don't mean to tell me!" exclaimed Uncle Henry, shaking his head regretfully. "Well, well, that's too bad. It'll certainly be a blow to the Presi- dent. I was talkin' with him the other day, an' I violate no confidence in tellin' you that there's noth- ing he would like more than for the Democrats to be big enough to jes' forget party as long as he's in office. If they commence to act mean, it's goin' to hurt him no little, for he's different from the others. Roosevelt didn't care what people said, an' Wilson never heard 'em ; but Warren's more like McKinley an' Taft. The old Ohio school. Picked for the presidency by birth, cottonwrapped from infancy, elocution the only exercise, an' never allowed to run the streets or take the usual precaution against cramps at the old swimmin' hole. No question that Foraker an' Hanna raised 'em properly, but you can see for yourself that there wasn't much chance to get any of the protective callus that's 103 104 UNCLE HENRY almost as helpful in public life as the statute of limitations. "Why, son, where the rude winds of the golf course haven't been permitted to touch, Warren's as soft an' pink as the day of his birth. Do you re- member that time durin' the campaign when some Baltimore blatherskite shot a question at him right in the middle of his speech? I was there an' saw it all. Warren went on bravely enough, givin' no sigh of pain, an' endin' with as fine a burst of hand- shakin' as I ever saw. Once outside, however, his collapse was pitiable. 'Hurry, boys,' he muttered, *I'm afraid he got me.' " Thank Heaven, a doctor was right in the hotel, an', after administration of a powerful heart stimu- lant, the clothes were cut away an' the wound laid bare. By one of those freaks of chance, the heckle had hit the family copy of Bartlett's Quotations that Warren always carries, but, even so, the tender flesh was bruised from neck to kneecaps. "What makes the situation worse is that I kinda have the notion that Warren's let himself be some- what enthused by his first year in the White House. You can't really blame him. From the days of the immortal George, the presidential honeymoon's been as much of an institution in politics as in matri- mony. In both cases the purpose is kindly, I reckon, springin' from the f eelin' that the victims deserve a THE HARDING HONEYMOON 105 little pleasure before the truth is broken to 'em. Taft loved it to a point where you could hear his purrin' for miles, an' even Woodrow emitted mews of pure enjoyment durin' his first twelve months. All of 'em, as far back as I can remember, have taken the gladsome start-off as a sign of love an' popularity instead of realizin' that it's an ancient custom an' about as personal as the hearty break- fast they give a condemned man. When all is said an' done, it's a brutal institution, for the end catches the poor devils all unprepared, an' reality hits 'em with the soft impact of a ton of ice. History teaches 'em nothin', for each one sort of gets the feelin' that he possesses those qualities that will keep love at fever heat. "It can't be done, personality or no personality. We talk a lot about baseball, but when you come right down to it, president baitin' is the real na- tional game. Ever since the time they banished old Aristides, because they got so sick an' tired of hearin' how just he was, good report has been first cousin to fatigue. Even the strongest of us break^ under the strain of hearin' anybody praised. Bein' a reporter, you ought to know that. Did you ever pick up a paper in your Hfe an' see a scarehead about the decent, creditable events in a man's life? An' even if this wasn't so, the Democrats couldn't reasonably expect to get themselves in, an' the 106 UNCLE HENRY Republicans out, by singin': Tor he's a jolly good fellow/ "It's goin' to be harder on Warren than the others because his honeymoon has lasted longer. The Wil- son job, owin' to its enthusiasm an' thoroughness, was more than usually exhaustin', an' it's only now that the old American spirit is beginnin' to paw the ground an' look for red rags. For more than a year Warren has flitted from pleasure to pleasure — papers sayin' it with flowers, golf champions lettin' him beat 'em, music, cheerin' an' presents, the soft serenades of office seekers, an' the Mayflower always on hand to repair the ravages of mental effort like namin' Laddie Boy an' Doc Sawyer. When the change comes, an' criticism begins to hit that tender skin, he's goin' to give the world something new an' startlin' in the way of hives. An', from all the signs, it's goin' to begin mighty soon. "Between you an' me, I think the Four-Power Pact a tremendous contribution to world peace, but others regard it as a mustard plaster. It isn't enough for the folks who want a league of nations, an' it's too much for the sturdy old Plymouth Rockers who think that America isn't safe except in a prairie-dog hole. But even if Warren had a 100 per cent record, there's the sad fact that Con- gress drags it down to something more like Vol- stead's famous percentage. THE HARDING HONEYMOON 107 B— ■ B^in— I Wl m ilBIH ■■■i m i M IIIII I I M IIIIIIII WW II WH IIIIB U BII HIW IIIIII W I H I I i m illll l » I IW III H I M I' IHi« L WIMn a "Congress!" Uncle Henry flapped his hands de- jectedly. "Oh, my soul ! How Bryan can look at 'em an' keep on denyin' the Darwinian theory is more than I can make out. Time may heal the wound, but the scar's goin' to be with us always, a mute reminder of terrible sufferin'. Worst of all, nobody knows what to do about it. Some think the trouble's a form of whoopin' cough, an' others are firm in the opinion that Madame Montessori ought to take 'em in charge. "At that, things wouldn't be so bad if the darned fools hadn't promised so much. All through the campaign, when I heard the Republicans tellin' the assembled masters of the nation how they were goin' to reduce taxes an* restore prosperity, I had the f eelin' that trouble was goin' to come of it. Son, I've been in politics all my life, an' I want to tell you that a party courts disaster whenever it leaves the Glori- ous Past an' takes a chance on the Present. Abraham Lincoln an' Thomas Jefferson are about as close as you can come in safety. Ponzi would be rich an' respected to-day if he hadn't made the mistake of fixin' dates for repayment. But Congress is almost entirely made up of lawyers, an' they're so used to gettin' continuances I don't suppose it ever entered their minds that they'd have to come to a showdown. "Well, the showdown's come ! Instead of rampin' over South America huntin' for a plesiosaurus, those 108 UNCLE HENRY scientists might have even more excitement stayin' right here in the United States searchin' for a man who's satisfied v^ith Congress. Three full years — for our Republican friends got control in November, 1918, you remember — an' never a minute of the time when you could tell it from Old Home Week in a coconut grove. "Purely as a matter of tatics, I think the Demo- crats are foolish to start anything. If Thomas Jefferson was alive to-day, an' Andrew Jackson an' Grover Cleveland, not to mention Boss Tweed, they couldn't do any more for their party than Lodge an' Fordney an' Mondell an' Fess are doin' right now. Yes, sirree/ If Cordell Hull's got the sense I credit him with, he'll gag Bryan, chloroform Reed, lock Claude Kitchin in the cellar, an' let the Republican majority perform without interference or comment. "Don't imagine for a minute that the Best Minds aren't wise to the situation. Better than anybody else, they know what people are thinking of Con- gress — and Colonel Harvey — an' they've already written 'em off as total losses. The campaign now bein' laid out is goin' to be built up on one Warren Gamaliel Harding, an' never at any time is it goin' to get two inches away from him. Did you notice the statement that issued from the White House on March 4 ? None of your bombast about things done or undone, but merely simple announcement of the THE HARDING HONEYMOON 109 fact that the President had shaken the hands of 150,- 000 people durin' his first year of office. No tiresome an' unprofitable summin' up of achievements or em- barrassin' debate as to whether promises were kept, but a steady spotlight on Warm-hearted Warren, the Human President. *He opened the White House grounds.' There's a slogan for you. Basket parties welcome. A handshake for every citizen ! "Then there'll be movies of the Cabinet meetin's, showin* the happy family spirit. No goloshes, ear muffs, an' wristlets, but everything so warm an' human that they have to wear crash suits an' straw hats even in the dead of winter. At least a hun- dred feet of Secretary Hughes callin' at the White House. *' *Come in, Charlie, old hoss. Come right on in an' sit down. Take off your whiskers, or they won't do you any good when you go out.' An' then a fade- out an' a flash-back showin' Secretary Lansing, wearin' a baseball mask an' chest protector, leapin' out of Woodrow's office window about two inches ahead of the coal scuttle. "A full reel showin' the President leavin' an im- portant conference to meet the first white child born in Tulsa, or Jimmie Jones, the fourteen-year-old boy who grew roastin' ears in a window box. One thousand feet of the President pushin' away the in- vitations of the rich an' goin' out to play golf on the 110 UNCLE HENRY municipal links with the plain people that are at once the strength an' pride of a democracy. "None of your granite stuff. No 'Come one, come all, this rock shall flee from its stern base as soon as me.' Positions an' principles changed every minute. Incessant variety. If you don't like the early- mornin' stand, come back for the matinee. If still dissatisfied, there's the nine o'clock show. "Call it hokum, if you want to, my boy, but it'll go big. A democracy may admire genius, but it's the good old average that the people like, especially in our high places. It lets you sit do^vn comfortably, loosen your vest, an' be reminded of the story that you got from a travelin' man. After ten minutes with Wilson, you began to think you had adenoids, but after an hour with Warren you have the vague, soothin' conviction that you could have been presi- dent yourself if you'd only given your mind to it. Genius makes us think, humanity lets us feel, an' I reckon I don't have to tell you that feelin' is a whole lot easier than thinkin'. Wilson wore us out; Warren rests us. We had to read Wilson's speeches two or three times before we got 'em; we can get Warren in the headlines. Yes, indeed! The Best Minds are on the job when they plan to ignore Congress, keep silent as to achievement, an' put entire emphasis on Warren's warm, pulsatin' humanity." THE HARDING HONEYMOON 111 ''Do you think they can get away with it?" in- terestedly asked the Cub Reporter. "When I was in London some years ago," Uncle Henry answered with seeming irrelevance, "I hap- pened to hear a coster praisin' his donkey to a group of friends. " 'Strong V he w^as demandin'. ^Strong ? Why, it's the strongest little moke y'ever see ! Th* strenth of a bloomin' Samson, s'elp me! Drored twelve of us to the Darby, 'e did. Yuss! to th' Darby! Strike me dead if 'e didn'. 0' course,' he admitted, *all of us 'ad to whip J " OVERMANUFAGTURE IN JUDGES "T'VE just come from the Senate," remarked the ■■" Cub Reporter as he sank into a chair. "Live carefully, my boy, or you may go there," warned Uncle Henry. "An' what was goin' on in that august tribunal where the destinies of the nation are undecided? Was Lodge wantin' a tariff to protect the banana growers of New England ? Or maybe they were debatin' tremendous questions such as whether Eskimo pie comes under the Pure Food Act or the Bureau of Indian Affairs?" "No, they were debating a bill to create another bunch of Federal judges." "O my soul!" groaned Uncle Henry. "What on earth are we goin' to do with 'em? Already the congestion's somethin' awful. Right now they've got jurists sleepin' two in a bed at every seaside resort; they're standin' in line before the trout streams in Colorado an' California, waitin' for a turn, an' you can't slice a drive on any golf course in the country without runnin' the risk of bein' cited for contempt of some court that's sittin' on the next fairway. The only way out of it that I can see is 113 114 UNCLE HENRY for Judge Landis to put in extra grand stands with cot attachments. "State judges aren't so much trouble. They den up in winter, never appearin' until the first thaw, an' in summer almost any veranda will do for 'em if it's equipped with a hammock an' fly screens. But it's mighty different with those Federal boys. Ever since Congress passed a law givin' 'em an extra ten dollars a day whenever away from their o-wn dis- tricts, they've been about as stationary as the St. Vitus dance. "St. Louis, bein' a central point, has always been a sort of spring rendezvous for 'em, an' I used to watch the spectacle with a fascination that never palled. "Along about May you'd commence to see great dust clouds that obscured the sun, an' from every throat would burst a cry: *The judges are com- in'!' In they'd pour by the hundreds an' thousands until the roar of the human stream drowned out the majestic flow of the Father of Waters — from the granite ledges of New England, carryin' their crullers in shawl straps, up from the sun-swept reaches of the South, each with an extra shirt in his hand, down from the Dakotas an' the Minnesotas, over plain an' torrent from the Rockies an' the far Sierras, a mighty assemblage that made old-timers recall the days when the thunder of buffalo herds shook the prairies. OVERMANUFACTURE IN JUDGES 115 *'At first you'd think it didn't have any more order to it than a Shrine convention, but after a while you'd see a well-oiled machinery commence the deli- cate work of distribution. The rheumatics moved off to the Hot Springs an' Mount Clemens dis- tricts, the hay-fever sufferers of the mountain an' plain changed places with military precision, an' the line for New York City always formed on the right. ''Those that had never been in California raised their hands an' slips were provided for such as wanted to visit the Grand Canyon an' Yellowstone Park. With all that mass of detail you'd think mis- takes would be made, but not once in ten years, so they tell me, has any judge been sent to a district that lie knew anything about. "You can see for yourself that there is nothing temporary about the problem. Federal judges are appointed for life, you know, an' the people don't get anything off for good behavior. "Nor is it like the good old times when the cor- poration attorneys used to make themselves entirely responsible for the entertainment of the whole Fed- eral bench. They can talk to me all they please about Southern hospitality, but in the matter of generosity an' thoughtfulness, there was never any- thing like a railroad lawyer in his social contacts with Federal judges. When the rude hand of 116 UNCLE HENRY suspicion destroyed 'em, something very sweet an' beautiful went out of our American life. "Ah me, the fineness an' delight of it all! For instance, in those days of demagogy out in Missouri, when the Legislature was always tryin' to reduce railroad fares or put across a maximum freight- rate bill, the lawyers would stroll over from the offices an' the judge would drive in from the coun- try club, an' for an hour or two there'd be a feast of reason an' a flow of soul that would have turned Mark Twain green with envy. No vulgar story- tellin', such as plays so prominent a part in modern conversation, but brilliant retorts, keen satire, an' instantaneous humor, until the attorneys for the State slunk away in shame an' embarrassment. "Then, with a courtly wave of his hand, the judge would issue a bunch of temporary injunctions, each guaranteed to last a lifetime, an' away all of 'em would go to Miami or Catalina or Topolobampo on a private car, the jurist a loved an' honored guest. "Nothing noble, however, seems to be able to es- cape the stain of muck in these latter days. After one such occasion, such as I have jes' described, a lot of wretched agitators raised an awful hullabaloo, presentin' a long table of figures showin' that every fish caught by the judge cost the people of Missouri at least one million dollars. The clamor even reached a point where they tried to impeach him. OVERMANUFACTURE IN JUDGES 117 "Even after bein* severely rebuked, however, the wretched demagogues kept up their attack, demand- in' to have a pond put on the post-office lawn an* stocked with tarpon, claimin* it would save the people money in the end. Nothin' serious ever came of it, but you can't put back the bloom of a peach. "There is no longer the old, gay companionship be- tween judges an' attorneys, the long, happy jaunts together on private cars an* yachts — an', as a con- sequence, the burden of entertainin' the judiciary is now one of the people's problems. "But there's no use whinin' or worryin', my boy. We can't prove false to one of America's most sa- cred traditions. When the Fathers, in their wisdom, foresaw the necessity of a leisure class, they con- ceived the idea of a Federal judiciary, an' Congress after Congress has kept the faith an' carried on. We've put our hand to the plow an' we can't take it away. Nothin' must ever be allowed to interfere with the creation of more Federal judges. I'm hurt an' surprised that Congress is only providin' for twenty or thirty more. Never before in the history of the Republic has the time been so ripe for whole- sale appointments that would straightway give us more judges than all the rest of the world combined. When was our deficit ever so huge? What's a few millions more in salaries an' expenses?" 118 UNCLE HENRY ■11 1,1—— ——Bag— a— ■MMIIima ll^llMaaMMaMMBiMWMBWMBBiMMlMaMMBMM— ■wim hm * We've got too darned many judges now," sud- denly remarked the Cub Reporter. "Too many!" Uncle Henry exploded. "What on earth are you talkin' about? What we really need, and what we've got to have, is a judge for every citizen. I suppose, of course, you've got the usual layman's idea of what constitutes law. A sort of slot machine? Press a button an' out comes justice in exact quantities an' qualities? Simply a matter of diggin' out the facts an' passin' on 'em? Why, you poor simpleton, don't you know that it's been forty years since a fact got before any American court? What do you think lawyers are for, anyway? "Didn't you see in the papers the other day about that mule case out in Illinois? The mule died ten years ago, not one of the original judges is left alive, an' the grandsons are carryin' on the litigation. "Once a decision was nearly reached, but a Su- preme Court justice found a misspelled word in one of the affidavits. Old Eagle Eye they called him. When it came to commas, he didn't have an equal. "Again a member of a high court rendered a notable opinion based upon the findin' of King Al- fred in the celebrated case of Giles the Archer, caught killin' a roebuck an' its sears. But Gilhooley, J., dissented, curtly declarin' that he wouldn't hang a dog on Saxon evidence, an' endin' up in a strong denunciation of all the Georges, King and Lloyd. OVERMANUFACTURE IN JUDGES 119 "No, sir, Jimmie, litigation isn't any haphazard process in these United States. In the days of our ignorance they couldn't drag out a case for more than a year or two, but now we've reached a stage of excellence where even the smallest an' most un- important suit will last forty or fifty years. "If you're goin' to go to law, you've got to start in your 'teens, an' even then you may have to be carried into court to hear the final verdict. An' all the time there's the risk of havin' everybody forget what it's about. Back in 1874 a friend of mine sued on a mortgage, an' when the decision was rendered in 1906 he got ten years for arson. "In many ways it's been our salvation. The high cost of suin' puts the law out of the reach of the workin' classes, an' since this dissipation was taken away from 'em, they report for work on Monday mornin's, an' savin's-banks deposits have more than doubled. It's an occupation for the rich an' does much to scatter those vast fortunes that are the causes of so much discontent. More than anything else, litigation has brought a note of hush an' halt into the hurly-burly of American life, permittin' us to realize the true meanin' of eternity !" "Sometimes I think we're crazy," sighed the Cub Reporter. "Oh, no, not as bad as that!" said Uncle Henry. "Jes' judge addicts, that's all." TO BOOZE OR NOT TO BOOZE ''OUT their souls go marchin' on," murmured ■^ Uncle Henry dramatically. *'Whose?" idly asked the Cub Reporter. "Washington's! Jefferson's! Lincoln's! Any of 'em or all of 'em. America's body may break, but the spirit lives. One hundred an' forty-six years old an' still goin' strong. "Under the hammer blows of tyranny Freedom's bloody but unbowed. Why, it's gettin' to a point where I can hardly read the papers, they thrill me so. A fresh Declaration of Independence for breakfast every mornin' is too much for my blood pressure. "Listen to this," he exclaimed, picking a front page out of the pile beside his chair, and reading impressively. "Deaths from alcohol jumped 50 per cent in 1921. Seventeen young people stone blind in New York after a session with wood alcohol! Poison gin kills five in Wisconsin. Out in Illinois a whole neighborhood paralyzed by a single round of benzine highballs. Missouri father murders wife an' six children followin' dispute over home brew. Still explodes, manglin' nine. 123. 122 UNCLE HENRY **Brave loyal hearts! As truly martyrs to free- dom as though they had fallen on some stricken field with their faces turned against the invader. I see where the Personal Liberty League is raisin' a monument fund, an' they've already got Governor Edwards at work on a funeral oration entitled ^Nathan Hale, You Said It.' "What makes the showin' even more remarkable is that the champions of constitutional government are fightin' under the handicap of havin' been taken completely by surprise. All this prohibition busi- ness came down on the country like lightnin' from a clear sky. Not since Abraham Lincoln and Uncle Tom hid behind a hedge and jumped out on slavery has there been anything so secret. "I had a long talk yesterday with an old friend who used to be in the brewery business out in St. Louis. As fine a type of American as you'd want to meet, though I don't suppose he ever will get naturalized now. The secrecy of it is what Gus can't forgive. If the prohibition people had only acted square and open; if they'd ever let anybody know they weren't satisfied with the way saloons were being run, Gus says things could have been fixed up nice and satisfactory all around. But no! The derned fanatics didn't have manhood enough for that. Of course Gus blames himself for not havin' been more on his guard, but how was it possible for TO BOOZE OR NOT TO BOOZE 123 anyone to have so much as a suspicion of the con- spiracy that was hatchin'? Why, darn it all, if anything in the world seemed settled, it was an American's right to drink what, when, an' where he pleased. "Time after time we had made it clear that liberty was no mere abstract principle with us, but a sacred thirst. When we got sick an' tired of havin' the British tell us what we could an' couldn't put in our systems, an' jes' naturally rose up an' dumped all that mess of tea into Boston Harbor, v/hat was it but a bold announcement that we claimed the right of self-determination in the matter of beverages, an' that hereafter we meant to take our freedom straight? An' what about the Battle of the Brandy- wine? An' the Black Hawk an' Old Crow Wars? Not a dry page in all our history! With such a record, who would ever have thought of a new attack? Who could dream that bigotry would dare to raise an impious hand an' strike freedom's goblet from the lips of a patriotic an' thoroughly parched people ? "What's that you're mumblin'? State after State and city after city was dry before national prohibi- tion came? Utter nonsense. I've talked with hun- dreds of brewers, distillers, rectifiers, and bar- tenders, an' all of 'em tell me that not until the blow fell did any of 'em have the least warnin' 124 UNCLE HENRY of danger. Compared to that prohibition crowd, moles were as open an' aboveboard as airplanes. You ought to hear Gus tell how they slipped it through Congress. "The House an' Senate, slippin' out of Washing- ton by ones an' twos, met on an island in the Poto- mac at midnight, an', speakin' entirely in whispers, voted to submit the accursed amendment. State legislatures;, with equal stealth, gathered after dark in swamps, graveyards, and haunted houses to ratify the savage pact. Not till then was any citizen per- mitted to know anything about it. "I'll never forget the day the news broke. June it was^ — soft, calm, an' still — ^that quiet hour be- tween the mornin' bracer an' the noon sustainer. Save for a cry from some alcoholic ward, or the raised voice of an unreasonable wife refusin' to let her husband have the children's bank, not a sound broke the stillness. Here an' there a sturdy free- man, worn out by the pursuit of happiness^, slept where he'd fallen the night before, an' now an' then a happy little child dashed out of a Family En- trance with a pitcher or a bucket, but for the most part the streets were deserted. No rattle came from the swingin' doors of the saloons, an' inside the bartenders dozed at their posts, conservin' their energies for those strenuous later hours when the manhood of America would gather an' show to the TO BOOZE OR NOT TO BOOZE 125 world how a strong man can either take it or leave it alone. "I was sittin' here jes' as I am now, drinkin' in the peace of it all through a straw. Over at the cigar stand a new member of Congress from Texas was tryin' to buy tobacco with his telegraph frank, an' down by the cafe door the hat boy and the head waiter were matchin' emeralds. Jes' a nice pleasant hush everywhere. Suddenly I saw a dust cloud comin' from the direction of the Capitol. "Soon came the hoarse clamor of many voices: *Mad dog! Mad dog!' it sounded like, but when it came nearer it was: 'Volstead! Volstead!' "A few figures became visible, dartin' from side to side like rabbits, and then the dust cleared, dis- closin' confusion. Some of 'em had it in bottles, jugs, and kegs, but I saw lots of tubs and wash boil- ers. A bunch of after-dinner speakers streamed by, an' a platoon of musical-comedy managers. *What'll we do now? What'll we do now?' came from them in a moan. They made their last stand down there by the school, where Murphy's Buffet was then. "Faster and faster the hordes streamed by, panicky for the most part, but along toward the end I saw some superb rearguard fighting. Only a handful, but how they did fight ! I thought I knew the two men in command, and who do you think it was? Why, William Randolph Hearst and Arthur 126 UNCLE HENRY Brisbane, of course. Beaten back, inch by inch, they took up a defensive position over there by the library, only then it was McCarty's place. For a while they held their own, shoutin' their battle cry : 'Beer an' Light Wines,* an' then the human tidal wave rushed over 'em. It was that way wherever you looked. Simply overwhelmin' ! By eleven o'clock all the root-beer signs were in place, an' at noon Bryan an' Volstead entered an' were given the keys to the cellar. "It's goin' to be a long while before the bitter- nesses of that day are healed," Uncle Henry pre- dicted sadly. "Y'see, it wasn't only the unfairness of the attack, owin' to its secrecy, but there's also the blacker crime of treachery. For they done what they did while two million American boys were away in France fightin' to make the world safe for democracy. That's what hurt. These boys sailed away little dreamin' that the real danger was not in front of them, but behind. "When you stop to think of this black treachery piled on the top of all that secrecy, was it any won- der that our courage was crushed down into the very dirt for a while? Finally, however, the old Ameri- can spirit commenced to lift itself, an' here an' there, in cellar, attic, or lonely field, the worm be- gan to turn, or maybe distill is the technical term for it. From Maine to California a movement TO BOOZE OR NOT TO BOOZE 127 started to make corn meal the national flour, an' varnish dealers put in little marble-topped tables an' bought straws. "I'm sorry not to be able to give credit to all alike, but the fact remains that the burden of the battle has been borne by our so-called upper classes. It has been wonderful to see our best people bravely turn their own homes into barrooms. No sacrifice has been too great for 'em. Even the children have been enlisted in the struggle, an' I'm hopin' some great artist will paint the picture of the modern father swingin' a flask to his young son's hip an' biddin' him a last good-by in the name of Ameri- can liberty. "It's been a brave fight," said Uncle Henry, pre- parin' another wad of fine cut for insertion in the mastoid process. "None braver was ever waged, but, jes' between you an' me, I'm afraid it's a losin' one. On every hand bathrooms are bein' restored to their natural uses, an' as you come down the street in the mornin' you can smell other things be- sides sour mash. Many bitter disappointments have contrived to shatter courage an' confidence. After all the talk an' high hope, yeast turned out worse'n nothin' at all. Same way with raisins. Even after treatin' 'em with a wrinkle remover, they had noth- ing to offer that was in any ways competent, rele- vant, an' material. As for the various varnishes. 128 UNCLE HENRY benzines, wood alcohol, an' sweet spirits of niter, it's simply the case that we've gone too far away from the old, sturdy pioneer stock. We can't stand 'em. Too many years of soft livin' an' soft drinkin' behind us. No sociability about 'em either. Wild stuff, some of it. A good friend of mine out in Missouri's been up in top of a tree for three weeks, an' they jes' can't get him to come down. "Of course a brave front's still bein' kept up. There's a lot of talk about the direct results to be obtained by feedin' juniper berries to dairy cows, an' here in Washington a bunch of congressmen have the idea they can bring about a repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. Not a chance ! At various times I've lived in Kansas, Colorado, an' other States where they've been prohibitionin' for the last twenty years or so. When it's once done, my boy, it's done for all time. Liquor never comes back. "Your average American will bellow about his booze an' even fight for it, if the other fellow isn't too big, but he won't vote for it. When you're fightin' you've got company, but when you vote you're by yourself. I don't want any saloon by my home where I'm tryin' to bring up my children de- cently. Then what right have I got to put it by some other man's home? I don't want my children to become drunkards, but if the law legalizes it. TO BOOZE OR NOT TO BOOZE 129 what can I do about it? Worst of all, each year sees a new generation comin' on — boys an' girls who never saw a saloon an' don't know what you're yellin' about. Then private stocks run out, judges quit treatin' bootleggin' as a joke, an' at last there comes a day when you hear yourself sayin': *Me? Why, I was always for it !' " U. H. PANTS ACROSS THE SEA "TTAVEN'T seen any movies of Ambassador ■L-*- Harvey in his plush breeches, have you?" asked Uncle Henry. "You mean silk, don't you?*' corrected the Cub Reporter. "Well, it won't be long before he changes to plush, so what's the difference? We're a race that slips fast an' furious if we ever get started. Once induce an American to let loose of his long pants, an' be- fore you know it he reaches a point where even fig leaves mean nothing in his life. The full reports are not at hand, but from the little news that has dribbled across I gather that the colonel throws a wicked leg. Of course, the Cold Cream Guards claim a slight thickness in the pastern. Either that or his speech, I forget which. Anyway, the effect's good as far as Anglo-American relations are concerned. The people follow him in crowds, laughin' an' shoutin' an' friendly as you please. "His appearances at court are no less impressive. What with the short pants an' a bad cold, hardly anyone suspects him of bein' an American. Of course, he doesn't fool any of the English, but the 131 132 UNCLE HENRY commutin' princes an' princesses are completely taken in. Some of 'em actually stand around for hours waitin' for him to pull a rabbit out of his pocket. "I don't know how the Corn Belt is goin' to take George's plunge into knee pants, but as for me, I approve of it. No longer will our ambassador at the Court of St. James's be taken for a waiter, an', by the same token, no more will the sturdy tray bearers of Old England be taken for the American ambassa- dor. An unhappy confusion that has existed ever since the colonel went over is done away with for- ever. Pants across the sea ! With this last source of discord so happily removed, there's no reason why the Anglo-American alliance shouldn't go on an' on until everything we have belongs to the English as much as to us. "As far back as I can remember, this question of uniforms for our ambassadors an' ministers has been what you might call a burnin' issue. Some ten or fifteen years ago it even reached the point where a dauntless American envoy refused to accept the Berlin post unless given the right to wear something that would make people know he hadn't come in with the caterer. A big man he was, who'd amassed a fortune through pickin' the right father, an' whose fitness for foreign service was above question, for never at any time had he permitted the Corrupt PANTS ACROSS THE SEA 133 Practices Act to come between him an' his campaign contributions. Well, sir, this chap stated flatly that he wasn't goin' over there to have a lot of chinless Guten Nobbins orderin' him to hustle a chair, hurry with the beer, or else dumpin' wraps on him until he looked like a rummage sale. "Nobody knew what to do for a while. He didn't belong to the Knights of Pythias or the Shrine, an' as he didn't play anything, a drum major's uniform was out of the question. Finally the President, in sheer despair, told him to go ahead an' get up some- thing himself. Bein' a millionaire, money was no object, an' he called a regular convention of tailors, modistes, scenic artists, textile workers, an' color experts with Ziegfeld an' Belasco as expert ad- visers, "There were so many feathers on the hat that the Humane Society had to collect flannels for the sur- vivin' ostriches. The coat assayed ten pounds to the inch, an' officials from the Government mint were called in to make the proper drape. A sash of crushed rose kept the ensemble from bein' too somber, at the same time guardin' against frontal fullness an' furnishin' a sort of brassiere for the hips. The one weak spot was the pants. Either he distrusted his bob veals or lost courage at the last moment; anyway, he kept 'em long. Gold stripes, however, were provided as a species of distraction. 134 UNCLE HENRY an* some costly Hamburg edgin* was tacked on to the bottom. The cape^ thrown back from the shoulders an' held in place by a family heirloom that he'd bought the day before, was a deep rich crimson velvet handpainted with the coat of arms that he liked best. The sword, while charmingly done in blue enamel, had a real blade to it, for, as his secre- tary explained, some rude boor from Texas might see him some time. "They tell me he hit Berlin like an explosion in a paint factory. The Kaiser was delighted, an' gave him a place in the second row, third from the end, actually promisin' him a speakin' part if he made good. Fashion journals wrote up the costume an' an imperial edict had to be issued to keep the Liberian minister from stealin' it. The Siamese representative took to his bed, for once the Turk was actually unspeakable an' threatened to get out an injunction, an' the Busch Circus might as well have been in another town for all the business it did. "Then, jes' as things were at their loveliest, there came the crash. While Bill Taf t was ferociously clampin' his ear on Teddy's teeth, Woodrow crept in, an' one day Jimmie Gerard hopped off a local at the Bahnhof, an' asked if it was Berlin. When they showed Jimmie the official costume, he exploded in a burst of sound that would have made the Collins- De Valera debate listen like a love chat between PANTS ACROSS THE SEA 135 deaf mutes. He bit the Court Chamberlain, jes' previous to goin' through the window, and even when they caught him in the Black Forest an' brought him back, he wouldn't take off anything at night but his hat. For years after, even the sight of an Easter egg threw him into a violent tremble. "It's been the same way in almost every country but England. With the British it's always been different, an' I reckon it'll continue to be different to the end of time. We're able to stand up before French, Germans, Italians, Austrians, or any of 'em, an' brag about our bank statements, the wife's new car, an' the brick block goin' up on Main Street, but when we reach London we jes' burst into tears, com- mence explainin' that it's our first offense, an' beg 'em to believe that our previous record's always been good. "Old Albion's certainly got the black bean on us. I've seen strong men bellow a sturdy, self-respectin' way from Paris to The Hague, fairly itchin' for a king to start something, an' then turn into con- tortionists before they were halfway 'cross the Eng- lish Channel. It doesn't seem to matter who we send over, inside of a few months our British cousins have got 'em apologizin' for George Washington's dema- goguery an' askin' everybody not to judge our crudi- ties too harshly, as we're a young people with the fur still on our horns. 136 UNCLE HENRY "It isn't only ambassadors, but everybody. You remember how Admiral Sims wanted to march his ships on Dublin, an' if we hadn't yanked him back when we did, Hiram Johnson an' Hank Lodge would now be fightin' over the kind of home rule the Eng- lish ought to give us. The college professors, how- ever, are the boys that sneak away my aged Nanny an' make it do back airsets. After a month among the Druid an' Asquith ruins, luggin' a lunch basket in one hand an' their steamer ticket in the other they come back eager to prove that Israel Putnam an' Paul Revere never rode on a merry-go-round, much less a horse. Now I hate a jingo as much as anybody, but I'm a darned long way from bein' ready to apologize for the American Revolution. Maybe we've stretched Paul's ride a hundred miles or so an' added a few hundred feet to Old Put's jump, but I wouldn't give a hang for a country that let facts come between it an' its heroes. "It isn't only that they do it to us over there. It's the same way here. The minute a boat docks an' we see people gettin' off in art burlap suits that don't fit, an' lookin' like early Christian martyrs jes' be- fore the lions are announced, we drop everything an' rush forward with apologies for the Statue of Lib- erty. 'Spare the snub an' spoil the child' is their motto as they go about the country, eatin' our din- ners an' leavin' early so as to write down all the PANTS ACROSS THE SEA 137 delicious crudities of the hostess before they slip the mind. "I sat at the table with one the other night, a Lady Something or other who's here to give us the facts about India an' Ireland. Of course, as she as- sured us frankly, it was none of our business, but bein' as England was the soul of tolerance, an' since we did pay such extrornery prices for lecture tickets, she had decided to humor us for a while. Our queer food an' quaint accent kept her bubblin' with ques- tions an' laughter, an' when she got up to go, feelin' the call of the diary, her farewell remark was: 'Isn't it amazing how I accept America?' "When I was a boy, livin' on a Missouri farm with the nearest culture eighteen miles away — a real Brussels carpet — we had a bunch of city relatives. They used to spend the summers with us pretty regular, an' I can remember now that they made us feel that every visit was a distinct favor. Noth- in' was like what they were accustomed to hav- in', they complained bitterly about the dull evenin's, but next year would find 'em on hand again, the wells of Christian fortitude havin' been replenished in some miraculous fashion. An' with what gracious- ness they received the packages of butter an' eggs an' preserved stuff we'd send 'em durin' the winter — highly amused, but never failin' to see the kindly heart under the rough exterior. 138 UNCLE HENRY **Once I went to spend a week with 'em, an' to this day my ears burst into flame when I think of it. At the dinner the very first night I found myself explainin' that mother an' dad never had many ad- vantages, an' askin' 'em to believe that the pictures in our parlor didn't represent my taste in art. When I left, a finger bowl was more important to me than the Declaration of Independence, an' it's taken me fifty years to get over the conviction that usin' the wrong fork doesn't stamp you as a moron with criminal tendencies. Maybe it's that way with us an' England." "You're provincial," calmly remarked the Cub Reporter. "What was the matter with Ambassador Harvey's costume, anyway?" "Well," said Uncle Henry judicially, "for one thing, it lacked a muzzle." FREEDOM'S SHRIEK ''T SEE where our old friends, Emma Goldman an' ■*- Alexander Berkman, would like America to take 'em in again," said Uncle Henry. "TheyVe had just about all the freedom they can possibly stand. New Russia is too stimulatin' for 'em. Another month of liberty an' the doctors won't answer for the consequences. They want to come back to this land of bondage for a rest cure. "I kind of figured it that way from the first. Y'see, there's nothin' sedentary about the Russian brand of freedom. It isn't a thing that you can take sittin' down. It calls for youth, strength, endurance, an' speed — mostly speed. Under the Soviet, life is real, life is earnest, and the grave is not its goal, not if you can run fast enough. In the days of the brutish Czar, ordinary agility would serve, but now a citizen's got to be able to do a hundred yards in better than ten seconds. Bein' free is a blessin* guaranteed by Lenine, but keepin' free is up to the individual. Fallen arches is the same as a death sentence. "It isn't only the case that Emma and Aleck ain't as young as they used to be. You've got to take 139 140 UNCLE HENRY into consideration the years of sufferin' behind 'em. Bitter, soul-crushin' lecture tours that sapped cour- age, undermined stamina, an' played hob with the waist line! Day after day of weary travel on the enervatin' Pullman with the plush eatin' into your vitals an' the porter never around when you want him ! Meal after meal in expensive hotels, with the caviar about to hatch, the soup half cold, an' the fish seldom above suspicion! **Don't talk to me about the tortures of Siberia or Hiram Johnson's agony over not reachin' the Senate in time for the Newberry vote. All my sympathy's for Emma. Every time the proletariat got ready for revolution, a new Chaplin film would come along, an' only the loathsome rich seemed will- in* to listen. Night after night she would have to drag herself to her feet in the auditorium of some vulgar caravansary, an' face the assembled bour- geoisie vdth nothin' to support her but the con- sciousness that there wasn't an unsold seat in the place; half suffocated by the heavy odor of massed American Beauties, her nerves racked by a noisy meetin' of some Rotary Club on the next floor, an' always laborin' under the sick fear that the re- porters might not be present, but still forced to go on. I suppose there were hundreds of mornings when Emma an' Aleck just prayed for strength to keep on bearin' it. FREEDOM'S SHRIEK 141 "An' on top of it all a drear sense of futility, the chillin' conviction that she was a voice cryin' in the v^ilderness. Oftentimes, after one of her most pas- sionate periods, vi^hen she'd ripped the capitalistic system wide open, an' had absolutely proved the necessity of destroyin' the existin' order, drownin' it in blood, like as not the banker's wife would say: 'Isn't it too lovely!' Or maybe the daughter of a traction magnate would whisper: * Aren't you just ^00 thrilled!' ''Heaven knows what the end would have been^ for Emma was gettin' to be the rage with the accursed bourgeoisie. All over the country Near Thought so- cieties were demandin' her presence, an' chambers of commerce were wonderin' if a speech by her wouldn't liven up the annual dinner. Even Bryan got nervous about his Chautauqua job, an' began to think about puttin' some new stuff in 'The Prince of Peace.' "The order of deportation came just in time to save poor Emma an' Aleck. Another day an' they'd have had to diet. At first, however, they didn't dare to believe the glad news. It looked too much like some capitalistic trick. " 'Quit torturin' us,' cried Emma and Aleck, bracin' their four feet right up against the threshold of liberty. 'You don't mean to let us go, an' you know it.' 142 UNCLE HENRY " 'Indeed we do/ said Uncle Sam. 'Our better nature has asserted itself at last. Bold, untamable spirits, no longer will we detain you here in this hell hole of despotism. Slaves of capitalism, you are free ! The beat of your wings against the cage has touched our hearts. The door is open, an' give it a good push as you go out. There's a spring lock on it. Over there, in the heart of the sunset, only it's houses burnin', is unshackled Russia. Fly to it an' at it.' "Even then Emma an' Aleck couldn't bring them- selves to realize that their day of release had come. Convinced that there was a catch in it somewhere, they tried everything their lawyers could suggest. Habeas corpuses, attachments, replevins, contribu- tory negligence, assumed risk, an' mechanics' liens — nothin' was left undone to make sure that the order of deportation was on the square. When the last decision was rendered, an' they knew that no corrupt judge could keep 'em from goin' to glorious Russia, their cries of joy were heart-rending. They simply couldn't contain themselves. Police- men had to do it for 'em. "All the Bolsheviks in New York were at the dock to see 'em off. The limousines took three hours to pass a given point. Lots of radicals would have gotten right on the boat with Emma an' Aleck, leavin' this sordid land forever, if their grand- fathers hadn't of put their money in trust. FREEDOM'S SHRIEK 143 " 'Have our Russian comrades be of good cheer/ shouted the intercollegiate section. *The American revolution's at hand. All the sophomores came over to us yesterday.' " 'Cable us what's bein' v^orn in Petrograd,' shrilled the Daughters of the Commune. " 'We're doing our part in the campaign of ter- rorism/ was the message of the Greenwich Village delegation. 'Tell 'em we've started two more tea rooms.' "The Communist party of Newport, unable to re- strain himself, jumped up on the rail and began singin' 'The Internationale' in a clear, vibrant soprano that tore at the heartstrings. Blood lust swept the crowd, an' there was unanimous decision to give a demonstration of the proletariat's power. At least five thousand revolutionists were in the maddened throng, an' Lord knows what might of happened if Officer Kelly hadn't come by an' made 'em move on. "As the good ship sailed away from this land of the fee an' home of the slave, you never in all your life saw anything more pathetic than the joy of Emma an' Aleck. It was days before they could get over it. But as they came close enough to hear the sound of shootin' and realized that they were soon to touch freedom's shores, they threw aside the past an' addressed themselves hopefully to the future. 144 UNCLE HENRY " We must play our part in the great drama of liberty/ says Aleck. *I ain't thrown a bomb since that time I missed Frick in 1890/ he says, 'an' it's goin' to be hard at first. But I think I can come back. The old arm feels pretty good,' he says, pumpin' it up an' down. *After all, though, my forte is writin', he says, *an' I think I'll suggest it to 'em.' " 'It ought to be a great field for lecturing,' says Emma. 'Of course, I can't get my regular price, an' I may have to take it in by the week,' she says, 'but it's all for the cause. Did you bring the trokeys?' she says. "Well, Russia was reached at last, an' their re- ception was tumultuous. Rushin' forward, the Bol- sheviks threw their arms about the distinguished visitors as if they never wanted to let 'em go. Some of 'em didn't. Emma an' Aleck were overcome. It was quite a while before they were even able to walk. Willin' hands relieved 'em of every burden. Only Emma's shoes were left. They didn't seem to fit anybody. "When Emma an' Aleck made their names known to the commissars, nothing could have exceeded their courtesy. " 'In the name of the Revolution', they says, givin' 'em the Soviet salute square on the jaw. " 'An' some folks say this ain't a strong govern- ment,' says Aleck, tryin' to find the rest of his teeth. FREEDOM'S SHRIEK 145 " Too bad you came just now/ murmurs the chief commissar. 'Distinguished radicals like you ought to be shot at once, but a spirit of unrest has crept into the firin' squads. They're demandin' the eight-hour day an' time an' a half for over- time. Siberia's got a waitin' list as long as your arm, an' it would take a shoehorn to get you into a Petrograd jail.' " *How about the Moscow prisons ?' asks another commissar. " 'Crowded ! That's where we put the opposition editors, don't you remember? "'Kronstadt, then?' " Tull to the brim with misguided wretches who wanted an election.' *lt looked for a while as if they'd have to shoot Emma an' Aleck, regardless of the expense, but at last they found room for 'em in a provincial jail. " Treat 'em gently,' says the commissar, as the Red Guards led 'em away. The eyes of the world are on us,' he says, *an' we must show the capitalistic governments what liberty means. Anything worse than a compound fracture,' he says, 'will meet with a reprimand.' "Well, Emma an' Aleck hadn't been out of that jail for more'n a day when they were jugged again for walkin' on the grass. After that they put 'em back again for violatin' the ordinance prohibitin' 146 UNCLE HENRY free speech. Emma had to confess that she'd talked without first submittin' her words to the official cen- sor. They just couldn't seem to get in tune with liberty. If they walked together, they were arrested for unlawful assemblage, an' if they walked alone, they pinched 'em as suspicious characters. Why, it got to be so that whenever Emma an' Aleck saw a jail, they'd walk right into it without waiting to be arrested. " *I don't know what to make of you,' says the commissar, out of all patience with 'em. 'Come out of the past into the glorious present/ he says. *Keep pace with the world an' with us. Realize that private property's been purged of its evil,' he says, 'since we got hold of it.' "History," went on Uncle Henry earnestly, "has paid all too little attention to the smaller tragedies of life. What if Patrick Henry had had the mumps when he said 'Give me liberty or give me death?' Or if Paul Revere'd developed boils just before his ride? Porfirio Diaz might have been president of Mexico to-day but for an ulcerated tooth. At the very moment when Emma an' Aleck were gettin' Russia's new message, an' when it looked as if there was a chance for 'em, chilblains developed. That was the end. The Soviet was sorry to see 'em go, but Emma an' Aleck beat 'em to the Swedish frontier by a nose. FREEDOM'S SHRIEK 147 *'The Swedish authorities were mighty nice, puttin' 'em in jail at once as a special favor. They'd gotten so they couldn't sleep anywhere else. An' now they want to come back to this land of wage slavery until their constitutions begin to mend." "I don't think they ought to have deported them in the first place," asserted the Cub Reporter, who took the "Nation" and was by way of being a radical. "Same here," said Uncle Henry. "It made the rest of the world think we'd lost our sense of humor." THE NEWBERRY CASE **^V\JELLy I suppose we never will hear the last V V of that Newberry case/' sighed Uncle Henry. "Newberry?" The Cub Reporter repeated the name in a puzzled way. "Oh yes! You mean the Michigan guy — the one that thought the Senate was being run on the pay~as-you-enter plan." "I don't blame you for bein' a trifle hazy," re- plied Uncle Henry. "It all happened so long ago. At least six months, wasn't it ? But there are some long memories in the Senate, especially Bill Borah. Time doesn't cool him off at all, an' he keeps in- sistin' that he's goin' to make Newberry an issue in the next campaign. Between us, I'm sorry, for I'd like to see the whole darned business dropped. Lord knows, I don't hold any brief for Truman, but it does seem to me he's suffered enough. They vindi- cated on him without usin' anesthetics, an' it looked for a long while as if the exoneration wasn't goin' to be a success. The stitches stuck an' blood poisonin' almost set in. An' just think of what he endured before they decided to exonerate ! "Ever hear about that man who went to a ball an' ripped his pants as he was gettin' out of the 149 150 UNCLE HENRY car? An' how his wife took him into a little side room an' said: 'Slip 'em off. Thank Heaven, I've got a needle an' thread.' An' when they heard the sound of women's voices she opened a door an' pushed him into what she thought was a closet. An' it wasn't a closet at all, but the ballroom. Well, that was poor Truman's fix for three years an' four months. Right out in the heart of things with nothin' on but a union suit. "My heart used to bleed for him, but Truman's courage never failed. Then, too, as time went on, the simple charm of the man made itself felt in some degree. Always, however, there remained a group of implacables like Lodge, Smoot, Moses, Brandegee, Warren, New an' du Pont — remote, de- tached, an' ascetic, livin' an thinkin' on so high a plane as to make it impossible for 'em to have either sympathy or understandin' where human frailty is concerned. Pure Roman types! Stern to cruelty in advocacy of virtue, an' feelin' dishonor like a wound. "Not once did this fanatic band show a sign of softenin' through the long years of Truman's travail. Time after time, out of their gloomy intolerance, they tried to stop all of the investigations, and if it hadn't been for the Democrats, noble enough to put patriotism above partisanship, poor, persecuted Tru- man never would have had any open hearing. THE NEWBERRY CASE 151 " This shameful affair has already occupied too much of our attention,' was Lodge's incessant cry. 'Larger an' safer questions beckon. The thing to do is to forget it all — cast it back into the oblivion from which it should never have been dragged.' "But the Democrats stood firm, aided by the kindly Borah an' the gentle Kenyon, an' at last the glad day dawned when Truman took the floor in his own defense. You ought to have been there. Never be- fore was there anything like it in the history of America. Excitement ran high. They let nobody in until they'd searched 'em at the door for concealed questions. After three years of waitin', the joy of it all proved too much for Truman. The sergeants- at-arms had to carry him in. "But the superb nerve that had sustained him through all of his trials came to the rescue. Takin' the statement that was handed him, he read it through without mispronouncin' a word. His voice, considerin' its long disuse, was remarkably clear, an' the speech itself was a marvel. I've been in politics for a good long while, as well as practicin' law in off years, but I'm frank to say I never heard the equal of Truman's address for masterly analysis, close reasonin', an' inescapable logic. " 'I don't know what you're talking about,' he says. 'What election? An' where,' he says, 'is Michigan?' 152 UNCLE HENRY "As he ceased speakin', a great silence fell. For a moment men forgot Republicanism an' Democracy, an' remembered only that they were Americans. Hearts were purged of bitterness, an' into many a soul crept the resolve to be more sparing of harsh judgments in the future. Then a great shout arose — the emotional relief of a simple people. The noise even reached the White House, an' Warren came hurryin' to the gate to hear what it was all about. "The Senate, once convinced of Truman's inno- cence, was as generous as it had been cruel. Lodge, Smoot, Moses, Brandegee, McCormick, Pepper, an' all the rest, ashamed of their doubts, sprang forward with a will, an' the resolution of vindication was frank, manly, an' affectionate, leavin' nothing to conjecture or distortion. " ^There's no question that Truman's seat was bought,' it says, *an' as such sinful practices are ab- solutely contrary to a sound public policy, harmful to the honor an' dignity of the Senate, an' danger- ous to the perpetuity of a free government, be it hereby resolved that we severely condemn an' dis- approve 'em,' it says, 'from this day on, an' be it further resolved, that we accept Truman's apology, an' hereby order it spread upon the minutes in some inconspicuous place, specifically recommendin' in- visible ink for the whole proceedin's as compatible with the honor an' dignity of the United States.' THE NEWBERRY CASE 153 "A splendid end to an unhappy business. The only untoward event of the day was Hiram John- son's apoplectic stroke. By some wretched mis- chance, he took the wrong train from California, an' pretty near reached Washington in time to cast his vote." *'Talk all you please," insisted the Cub Reporter, with some approach to stubbornness, "but I don't see any difference between Newberry and Lrorimer." "All in the world, my boy," rejoined Uncle Henry. "Lorimer did his owti marketin'. That's the dif- ference an' that's the issue. Truman's vindication was more than personal. It marked a millstone in the progress of the race. We've put provincialism away an' are now hand in hand with culture. A lot of people have had monuments put up to 'em for less than what Truman did. He made us realize that America's no longer a bunch of impoverished colonies, but the richest country in the world. "When I started out in politics it was right an' proper for us to buy our votes at a five-an'-ten-cent store, for we were a young people with frugality enjoined on us by poverty. But times have changed. Aboundin' wealth has come to us, an', as a plain matter of pride, we've got to live up to our new station in life. An office seeker to-day, especially when it's for a seat in the Senate, can't run round huntin' bargains, hagglin' over prices, an' puttin' 154 UNCLE HENRY candles under votes to see if they're fresh. You've got to leave it to others, just as you leave marketin' to the kitchen help. Truman understands. He may be a hardy annual when it comes to ideas, but he knows enough to keep pace with progress. " 'What's good in town?' he says to his brother John one evenin*. " 'The Senate, so they tell me,' says John. "'A musical comedy?' asks Truman. *' 'Without music,' says John. " 'I think I'll go !' says Truman. 'Dawson,' he says, callin' his butler, 'a seat for the Senate,' he says. 'Something about the third row.' "With that he turns an' walks into his library, all aglow with its dark woods an' richly bound alma- nacs, an' shuts himself off from the sordid world, barrin' a telephone switchboard, a telegraph instru- ment, an' a few messengers. "Ask me, an' I'll say it was princely. Quite in the grand manner, as Ham Lewis puts it. Accord- in' to my reports, an' judgin' from the cottage- organ rash that broke out all over Michigan the day after the primary, something like half a million was spent. Civic interest ran so high that there was talk of doin' away with the State Fair an' makin' the election an annual event. They tried to show the books to Truman, but he merely waved 'em away. THE NEWBERRY CASE 155 " Tigures bore me/ he says. 'What is it,' he says, 'that the seat's for? I've forgotten/ he says. "In my opinion, the importance of Truman's vic- tory can't be overestimated as far as its influence on our national life is concerned. For years the problem has been to get our best people interested in politics, but the sordid details of office seek- in' have always stood in the v^ay. Now that Tru- man has demonstrated that it needn't take a day away from work, an' necessitates no contact more personal than a telephone call, you're goin' to see a change. All over the country wherever any of the leisure class are gathered, there is the thrill of a new resolve." "Before they get through," the Cub Reporter prophesied darkly, "some of these birds are goin' to land in the pen. Just remember Newberry got a two-year sentence handed to him." "Jes' some of Henry Ford's personal spite," said Uncle Henry airily. "Havin' memorized the whole of Guffey's Fourth Reader he was crazy to go to the Senate himself. But don't forget that Truman didn't have to serve a single day. Thank Heaven, there's still some law in the land. The Supreme Court's decision in Truman's case may well be called a new Magna Charta, for it upholds the legality of office seekin' by proxy, an' affirms collective bargainin' as a fundamental political right. Truman's conviction 156 UNCLE HENRY was reversed an' reprimanded, an' the Corrupt Practices Act handed over to the ash man. " * We've looked everj^where/ says the learned justices, 'in the Constitution, under it, behind the door, an' as far back as Alfred the Great, thinkin' it might have dropped out on the way, an' we can't find mention of any such law. How didya say you spelled it?' "But what does it all matter, anyway? Even if the Supreme Court should ever fail, it isn't as if any reputable men would have to stay in the peni- tentiary for more than a few days. A cough or two, an' then the pardon comes." "It's a disgrace," insisted the Cub Reporter. "The dignity of the Senate's been lowered." "Raised, you mean," Uncle Henry corrected. "By $250,000 at least. Why, there isn't another parlia- mentary body in the world that's got such an initia- tion fee." THE NUDE IN LITERATURE WHAT'S the book?" asked Uncle Henry. "Freud," the Cub Reporter admitted in a tone he strove to make casual. "He's the man that analyzed sex, one might say." "Popularized it, one might also say. And a thor- ough job he's made of it too. At the present time it's about the most conspicuous thing in the whole world. Go where you will, an' as far as you like, an' you're never out of sight or sound of it. Close your eyes and it jazzes on the eardrum. Sextettes sing it, sexaphones play it, and many an eminent author reaches sextremes in his sexplanations. "Lord knows where it's goin' to stop. Every time my grandson comes home from school I expect to hear that the multiplication table has been set for two, that your friend Freud has been substituted for McGuffey, or that Henry VHI is held up as an ex- ample for the young instead of George Washington. Each Sunday I'm prepared to learn that the earth was made in sex days an' that Job's trouble wasn't boils but inhibitions. "An* look what it's done to literature ! No up-to- date author thinks any more. He eavesdrops. Not 157 158 UNCLE HENRY long ago I picked up one of a bunch of new novels lyin' on my daughter's library table. She has the grace to hide 'em when her mother's around, but I'm one of those fathers that always kept the family discipline in my wife's name, so none of the children stand in much awe of me. The minx actually had the impudence to make me sit down an' read it, in- sistin' it would broaden me. It did. When I got home the garage door was the only one I could get through, an' I stuck twice on the back stairs. "The hero — I've got to call him that, for I grew up on literature in which the central character was always a hero — was a fattish man of forty-seven with a wife an' family, at least they call two children a family here in the East, an' sometimes they fill out with a Pomeranian or Pekinese at that. As the story opens, our hero is thinkin', an' the more he thinks the more convinced he is that life's holdin' something out on him. "After a chapter or so of thinkin', he kind of got the idea that his wife might be responsible for it in some way an' he began to giwe her the once over. As a consequence, he came suddenly to the crushin', blindin' realization that he didn't love her any more. When he looked at her there was no longer any effect of the Aurora Borealis doin' tail spins an' nose dives. Carefully, patiently, for he wanted to be just, he went over his feelin' an' discovered that what he THE NUDE IN LITERATURE 159 felt for her was merely tenderness. Only that an' nothin* more. The old pulsatin', prismatic chaos had gone. You can see for yourself that there wasn't but one thing for him to do. He set out immediately to catch up v/ith life an' make her come across with all her hidden meanin's. "Well, sir, you never heard of a more thorough, painstakin' cuss. He jes' gave up golf an' business an' everything for the search. "Came a day, as all the good writers put it, when his niece's husband was goin' to leave her because a movie actress had taught him the meanin' of the word bourgeois. Nobody could call him that an' get away with it. However, it's an ill wind that blows nobody good, an' this one certainly blew our hero good and plenty. The movie girl had a rich rela- tive, one of the leaders of New York's Four Hun- dred, an' he went to see her about preservin' his niece's home. The bleak hauteur of the lady — ice had been f ormin' on her for forty years — chilled him at first, but in reachin' for a dish of tea he happened to touch her knee. She gave a low moan an' jumped over the piano an' two davenports, but despite her iron restraint, he discerned inner tumult. At first he thought it must be rheumatism, but no sooner had the husband an' other guests left the room than she grabbed him in her arms an' kissed him with flamelike an' intolerable passion. 160 UNCLE HENRY "I know it's a bitter disappointment to you, Jim- mie, but I'll have to skip a little at this point. Of course, there's nothin' that can't be talked about nowadays, but habit is strong an' I'm still afraid of the police. Anyway, life revealed itself to him con- siderable. In due time he went back home an' you can imagine how intolerable it was ! The bourgeois- ness of it all settled down on him like a thick, chokin' fog. Hastily wallopin' his wife good-by, one for herself an' two for the children, he dashed out of the house an' went straight to New York. "The lady accepted the inevitableness of it jes' as our hero did. Nobody had ever understood her. Her husband was the kind that insisted upon her keepin' his mother's furniture in the house an' wanted his Sunday dinner in the middle of the day. All would have gone well if the lady hadn't been careless enough to die, an' if our hero's brother hadn't fallen asleep just when our hero wanted to tell him about his romantic adventures in leavin' home. "No question about it bein* a great book. It's the Magna Charta of middle age. Already there's a boom in toupees an' the roar of permanent waves is the loudest noise in the land. Wherever you turn you see elderly women hangin' from chandeliers by their hair an' stout men havin' their saggin' faces reenforced with concrete. A bold spirit of sixty told THE NUDE IN LITERATURE 161 me it was a wonderful message, an* when I left she was telephonin' about a new set of teeth. If I were you, Jimmie, I*d keep off the streets until the ex- citement dies down. "How I wish a book like this had come along twenty or thirty years ago when I was young enough to take advantage of it. In those old-fashioned days we treated our complexes merely as a part of life instead of seein' them as all of life. Time has dimmed many things for me, but as though it was yesterday I can remember when my fortieth birth- day sneaked up an' jumped on me from behind. Up to then I*d accepted youth as something that was goin' to last forever, an' all of a sudden I saw her with her hat on, all packed an' ready to go. First I had a f eelin' of outrage an' then a sense of panic an' unbearable pathos. I thought of all the lands I'd never seen — white beaches and camel bells — an' domesticity hung about my neck like a millstone. "Yes, sir, if Freud had been on the job then, he'd been after me with a butterfly net an' I'd now be figurin' in his book as Exhibit A. Don't suppose I'd thought about my wife's looks for years, but when I turned new an' startled eyes on her, I saw she wasn't anything like the girl I'd married. She'd spread! The children, viewed critically, were a total loss. The way in which Johnnie wolfed his food was simply disgustin', an' little Emily had a habit of U. H.— 6 162 UNCLE HENRY perspirin' that made her nose look like an effect in seed pearls. "Well, there wasn't anything to do but get over it, for in those days we still suffered from duty an' honor complexes. Instead of tellin' my wife I'd lost my taste for her, an' puttin' the children in some State home, I told her to get ready for a trip to Europe. I've got to admit that the New York ward- robe I bought her did work an almighty change, an' after she got over wonderin' what the children would do without her, all sorts of interestin' an' enter- tainin' qualities developed. "Women got the same way, I reckon, for when my wife reached forty, I noticed her lookin' at me criti- cal like, an' for days she annoyed me considerable by askin' why I didn't do something for my hair an' waist line. No doubt she was missin' the pul- satin', prismatic values, too, but like me she was weighted down with the old Victorian supersti- tions about duty an' honor. Anyway, I decided on another trip, only this time it was me that got the new wardrobe. "Now what if we'd only had Freud in those days, an' a few novelists bold enough to preach the gospel of the soul's revolt an' the divine right of self-expres- sion? Instead of yieldin' servile obedience to bour- geois conventions, I'd have found me a restless woman an' we'd have taken my wife's butter an' egg THE NUDE IN LITERATURE 163 money, robbed the youngsters' banks an' gone off to Cuba or Brazil. "As it is, look Sit me ! Nothin' but peace an' com- panionship an' understandin'. Bourgeois stuff, Jim- mie. No prismatic values at all — ^jes' a quiet jour- ney into the sunset with the same wife I've always had. No place to go but home, an' no excitement except another grandchild every now an' then. But you're young enough to start right. Life can't cheat you if you keep your eyes open an' stick to Freud. Of course, your job is a hindrance. Sex is some- thing you've got to give your whole time to, an' all your thought, if you're goin' to make a success of it. Frequently I hear you talk of other things. That's bad. It's a Victorian streak you've got to get rid of." "You're always knockin' the big modern writers," protested the Cub Reporter. "What's the matter with 'em?" "Well, I'm no doctor," said Uncle Henry, "but I'd diagnose the trouble as high mud pressure." BULL-JAWED BRUTES "TlfTELL, it looks like the Senate's got police VV protection again!" remarked Uncle Henry, putting aside his newspaper. *The press gallery's fillin' up with sporting writers, Cal Coolidge has hired Jack Dempsey for his understudy, 'n' there's brisk bidding for the motion-picture rights. Why, it's almost like the good old days when they made Ben Tillman wear a muzzle, 'n' wouldn't let Joe Bailey come in until he'd checked his hot Southern blood at the door. "Yes, sir, I certainly must get a ringside seat 'n' watch this Tom Watson the next time he goes into action. Big 'n' rawboned from the shoulders up, 'n' jaw muscles that make the coils of a python look like the failures at a candy pull. An' a demon for endurance! Never stops even for a comma! "Debates under his own name too. Nothin' like these Battling O'Briens that answer to the name of Moe at home. A sterling American product, hailing from those hardy uplands of Georgia just a few days' travel off the rock road as you go south, where corn is still put to its natural use 'n' only books are vile. None of your fancy articles is Tom, but real 166 166 UNCLE HENRY home brew. Never wore clothes until he was twenty- one, 'n' then they had to hunt him down with hounds 'n' rope him. "Don't you remember how he hit the Senate? No fiddlin' around, waiting for Jim Reed to reach a colon, but an instant appeal for consideration. Calm 'n' gentlemanly, of course, as became a descendant of the Cavaliers, but still sufficiently positive to make the agent of a plate-glass insurance company order cancellation on every Washington policy. Five Western senators, wakin' up with awful starts, began to beg the reporters not to mention their names, before they realized where they were. Brandegee, dreamin' of the second comin' of Mark Hanna, fell out of his seat, 'n' Reed Smoot dropped the Life of Brigham Young that he was readin'. " ^Insensate despots !' cried Tom. 'Malevolent tyrants! Not content with dragging the flower of American youth into degrading contact with the degenerate scions of decadent France and the no less depraved Briton, but taking advantage of dis- tance to enforce a loathsome servitude upon hun- dreds of thousands of free-born youths, even to the point of salutes, which is no more than a cunning modernization of the pull at the forelock with which the vassals of old greeted the lord of the manor as he took his morning walk across their faces, and compelling servile obedience by the lash, the black- BULL-JAWED BRUTES 167 jack, loaded canes, fence rails, rocks, boots, and even by the gallows, until there wasn't an unoccupied tree in the whole of France or a hip in the Ameri- can Expeditionary Forces that had not known its humiliation. Swimmers in blood !' he yelled. *Apoca- lyptical beasts!* " 'Bravo !' cried Henry Cabot Lodge. 'Admirable, even if somewhat restrained.' " *Hush !' hissed Frelinghuysen. *It's the army he's talking about!' " *Holy Theodore !' gasped Henry. *I thought he meant Woodrow Wilson.' "By now the Billingsgate Lad was going good. Words, jammin' at the source, fled screamin' from every pore. Language, first no more than pools on the floor, rose higher and higher until it lapped Cal Coolidge's ankles, 'n' a page, who couldn't swim, was only saved by clinging to a Congressional Record, the one dry spot in the chamber. On and on went Tom. The slaughter was terrible. Inside of ten minutes he'd hung three whole divisions, maimed a brigade, 'n' was proving that General Pershing always returned a salute with brass knucks. Over in a corner Hell-Roaring Hi Johnson of California turned so bright a green that Walsh of Massachusetts moved his appointment as am- bassador and referee extraordinary to the Irish Free-for-all State. Reed, once as fine a debater as 168 UNCLE HENRY ever heaved an ink bottle, turned away in mute acceptance of defeat. ** *I think I shall cry shame!' exclaimed Lodge. "*No, no!" said Moses hastily. They might not know who you meant.' "'He must be answered/ cried brave New of Indiana. 'Spring at him, McCormick,' he said. " 'I would in a minute,' said the senator from Chi- cago, *but we've never been introduced.' "Treat him with contempt!' piped Spencer of Missouri. " Toot 1' said Poindexter. 'He's been in politics too long to mind it.' "An' just then in came Wadsworth, genially re- marking : 'What ho !' or maybe it was : 'Pip-pip 1' " 'It's this man Watson/ they told him. 'He's talking about the army.' "'Eh, what!' gasped the senator for New York north of Albany. 'A bit thick, that ! The army's a fine institution. I had a friend in it once. Hey, there, my man!' he said, waving his cane in the general direction of the Billingsgate Lad. 'I'll trouble you to cite the evidence upon which you base your charges, which I will only denounce as uncon- ventional until I can find out whether my con- stituents still retain any interest in the late war.' " 'Evidence I' bellowed Tom, spitting out the tip end of Wadsworth's malacca. 'He asks for evidence BULL-JAWED BRUTES 169 when what he takes for the sunset glow is the bright crimson lif eblood of young America, beaten to death by brutes drunk with the authority that comes from gold stars on the shoulder. For all that I have said, and for all I mean to say — for the century's still young — I have the authority of as fine an American as ever suffered from fallen arches, not to mention heart murmurs, hailing from the imperial common- wealth of Arkansas, or maybe it was Massachusetts — I never could remember dates — Vd have his letter here with me now only it didn't come — and if there's any further doubt that these terrible things were done in France, I can take the map and show you the country itself, unless the depraved head of the War Department has moved it in pursuance of his fell policy of destroying evidence. "'And, by way of collaboration,' said he, 1 can show that Lafayette came to this country to escape bigamy charges, that Rochambeau served three terms in jail, the first a life sentence for larceny, and if I ever overcome the reticence that feeds like a worm on the damask of my speech, there are other reputations I can destroy.' "By the time that Wadsworth had collected him- self with the aid of blottin' paper 'n' some mucilage, the elder statesmen came to the conclusion that the time for mercy had passed by, 'n', witia one accord, thumbs were turned. 170 UNCLE HENRY " To the committee rooms/ went forth the order. In those darksome confines, dank with decomposed hopeS;, and ghost-white with the bleachin' remains of thousands of reform bills, the gallant Georgian slowed down to a stutter, but the sight of an officer in the uniform of the United States army gave him new strength. "*Bull-jawed brute!' said he. Tor five cents — and if I thought you wouldn't strike back,' said he, *I'd give you a clout in the eye. Thank your God,' said he, *if the army regulations permit it, that you're dealing with a gentleman, and a cautious one, for all my seeming impulsiveness, or else I'd scramble your ugly mug for you. But don't dare look at me. I know what you're thinkin', 'n' you're another.' "What happened to the case? Why, just what happens to everything that gets in a Senate com- mittee. What the doctors would call a natural death. Anyway, most everybody's forgotten all about it by now, although I still meet some who keep het up. There's Tony, for instance. He's my boot- black, 'n' as fine an Italian lad as ever ripened a banana by direct action. " 'Whatta da hell dees man Tomma da Wat goin' to get for da bigga da insult to da flag 'n' da arm' ?' isays he. *Dam traditore,' says he. 'Oughta maka da hang !' BULL-JAWED BRUTES 171 "But Tony's one of these new Americans who still take America seriously. He hasn't had the ad- vantage of those years of calm consideration that come to a man whose ancestors swam over just ahead of the Mayflower. When he went over to France with Pershing, about the only English he could understan' was Tly at 'em, boys.' Not bein' able to read very well, he doesn't come under the broadenin' influence of the ^Nation' 'n' the *New Republic,' 'n' fails to realize that patriotism is provincial. "No, I wouldn't say Watson came in the Tony class. Knowin' quite a bit of history, Tom's aware that the casualties of war are nothin' to the casual- ties of peace. An army may survive a battle, but it's a total loss when peace comes. Overnight the hero becomes the zero. " Ts the war all over, illustrious champion of our sacred liberties?' cries Harry Heartmurmur, rushing up to the returned soldier. "'It is, thank God!' " 'And there's going to be no more fighting, brave youth?' "'Nope, she's finished!' " 'America's perfectly safe?' " 'Absolutely.' "'Then take that, you bum!' says Harry, plant- ing a kick just south of the hero's equator. 172 UNCLE HENRY "Yessir, bootin' the country's gallant defenders is by way of bein' a national sport from the days of Washington down to Dewey. It's the comeback of the boys Over Here. And there's still another consideration that moved Tom no little, I expect. Nobody, certainly no public man, ever got on the front page by speakin' well of anything or anyone. An' when he looked over the Senate, undoubtedly Tom figured that St. Vitus dance promised more press notices than catalepsy. "But, Lord love you," Uncle Henry concluded cheerily, "it's not serious like the water pipes f reezin* or bein' asked to explain your last income- tax return. It's only in the Senate after all. An* there's this good thing about it: While Watson's talkin' they can't be legislatin'." DUMDUMS AND DIARIES "TTURRAH for Margot!" Uncle Henry threw ■*•-■- down the morning paper and let an affectionate smile take charge of his face. "Some little Anglo- Saxon!" "Who do you mean? Mrs. Asquith?" The Cub Re- porter pocketed his volume of Freud with obvious relief and looked up interestedly. "Why, I didn't know you knew her?" "Who said anything about knowin' her?" Uncle Henry was plainly amazed by the assumption. "Didn't you hear me speak of her in a friendly man- ner? What's all that but the same as sayin' that me an' Margot have never even met? If we were friends, or if she'd so much as laid eyes upon me, for that matter, I'd be huntin' her with an ax on ac- count of some little pleasantry, such as her tellin' how I proposed to her three times an' finally married my present wife out of spite. Yes, indeed, my boy. Knowin' Margot isn't a society note, but a police item. Since she published her diary most of the male population of England is under bonds to keep the peace. They do say that when she sailed for the United States some of her old admirers 173 174 UNCLE HENRY swam after the ship for five or six miles before they could believe it true that Margot was really leavin' the country. **No, son, what you mistook for friendship was nothin' more than gratitude. Jes' plain gratitude! Y'see, I've always had a weakness for P. T. Barnum. In my opinion he's one of the greatest thinkers that America ever produced, an' it's warmed my heart to watch Margot provin' the truth of everything that old Phineas used to preach. We've had a lot of England with us these last few months — statesmen, poets, an' novelists, not to mention the whole London stage — an' while all of 'em give signs of havin' studied Barnum closely, none of 'em makes us realize his profundity like Margot does. Of course a lot of ill-natured fuss is bein' raised, but it won't come to anything. After all, one of her lecture tickets only costs $3.50. It isn't as if she was sellin' somethin' expensive like minin' stock, or as if the people that go to hear her had to work for their money. Even if they paid twice as much, it would be worth it for 'em to hear the human voice again. What with Sun- day comic supplements gettin' bigger an' bigger, an' Mutt an' Jeff runnin' as a daily feature, our upper class was comin' dangerously close to bein' bookworms. "There's our international relations that you've also got to consider. When it comes to cementin' DUMDUMS AND DIARIES 175 the Anglo-American alliance, you'll find that Mar- got swings as mean a trowel as George Harvey or even Henry Cabot Lodge. She'll make us know the sturdy Briton, an', as any of them will tell you, to know 'em is to love 'em. "The average American has got an altogether wrong idea of our cousins across the sea. Instead of bein' cold an' reserved, they're the openest peo- ple in the world — almost as open as that man whose picture we used to see in the old-fashioned almanacs. Many's the excitin' week-end I've spent listenin' to the fair daughters of old Albion discussin' vital personal problems that would have perplexed a master plumber. Comin' as I did from the United States, where up to ten years ago people didn't ad- mit that the hum^an body had any existence between the ankles an' the chin, it was rather hard on me at first, an' I reckon I broke many a record for the standin' broad blush. But, after my provincialism wore away, I joined up on every journey into the interior. Why, I got to know the English much better than my own people, an' even when I was back in this country I'd find myself worryin' about Muriel's liver, Rose's gastritis, and Diana's foot troubles. "When was I ever in England? Oh, lots of times, off an' on. While I was in Congress we managed to pull off several nice European junkets, an' once, a 176 UNCLE HENRY long time ago, I was clerk in the London embassy — a reward of merit. In those days, my boy, we didn't take our political duties lightly. My very first elec- tion I worked all night on certain obvious errors in the count. Well, the hounds of the opposition raised some fuss, an' the boss thought it best for me to vanish a while. That was before they turned the diplomatic service over to Harvard for a post- graduate school, so gettin' me the London job was easy. An* I liked it — that is, after I got used to installment baths. Englishmen aren't much dif- ferent from the women either. Light an' unim- portant topics leave 'em cold an' reserved ; but when the fundamentals are touched they put their reti- cence in their wives' names. Once, on a trip from Southampton to London, I jes' couldn't get my com- panions to talkin'. War, peace, taxes, art, science, politics — nothin' started em', but all of a sudden one of 'em looked up an' pointed out of the window in great excitement. " *See that large red brick buildin' over there ?' he asked. 'It's an insane asylum!' he said. An' then, vdth a beautiful candor that moves me strangely to this very day, he told us : That's where the dear old pater has been for the last ten years.' "At first you got an idea that they were a con- ceited people, but nothin's further from the truth. True Britons never think of themselves. They DUMDUMS AND DIARIES 177 conceded their superiority centuries ago, an' aren't troubled by those uneasy doubts that bedevil us poor Americans. We are always worryin' whether other people are goin' to think harshly of us, while the English are worryin' whether they are goin' to think harshly enough of other people. "Margot's a true type an' a fine expression. A member of the most brilliant family that England ever produced (see page 14 of her diary), adored an' admired by Gladstone, Morley, Jowett, an' Tennyson (page 82), the leader of London society for the last twenty years (page 117), an' the wife of Herbert Henry Asquith, Premier of Great Britain until he decided to give more time to bridge. "What more could you ask in the way of authority? Lord, but I'd Hke to see a copy of her diary in the hands of every American, for I don't know any- thing that lets us see deeper into British home life. Why, after readin' it you feel as intimate as though you an' King George had been usin' the same tooth- brush. One by one she nails the lies that have kept us Anglo-Saxons apart through all these years. With a simple candor our own Beatrice Fairfax couldn't beat, she enters into the mysteries of the human heart, an' tells all about the men who were in love with her, an' what they did an* what they said. An' how conclusively she smashes that silly superstition about the English bein' unemotional! For real 178 UNCLE HENRY intense feelin' I don't want anything better than those passages that describe her partin' with Peter Flower, one of her first sweethearts. Then there's that tremendous scene where the Dark Lady begs Margot for Peter's love. " 'Release him from your spell !' she sobs, throwin' herself on the floor at Margot's feet. Turn the light of your beauty away from him an' he'll come back to my arms.' "But there's humor in it too — a sheer delight of delicious sparkle for the most part, but now an' then a deeper note that strikes right down to the heart of things, makin' you realize that under all the laughter was a mental clash as swift as sword play. " 'Don't you think that Mohammedanism has been a force for good?' asked some stupid person. " 'Bananas,' Arthur Balfour replied with rapier- like quickness. "Delicious! A note of coldness now an' then, as when Margot says she never had any pity for the men who loved her. But always frank! Why, I'm willin' to bet Margot could live in a greenhouse an' never worry about the blinds. There's no question that she's goin' to give the American people a brand- new idea of British character. "Still an' all," Uncle Henry continued thought- fully, "I'm afraid Margot's visit is goin' to hand us DUMDUMS AND DIARIES 179 some results we won't like. Especially in connection with our women. Now, don't get the idea that I'm knockin' the American queen. No, sir! As Sena- tor Reed yodels in his Ozark campaign speeches: 'When God poured out the milk the cream ran over, an' that was Woman.' But even her most bigoted admirers have got to admit that, unless she changes her habits of action, we men are goin' to have to buy our clothes from the United States Steel Cor- poration. Even at my age, I never think of goin' any place where there's a chance of meetin' the weaker sex without first takin' out a bunch of life an' accident policies. Darned if I know what's got into 'em ! Some say Bill Hart an' some say Herb Wells. It's beyond me. "If you look at 'em, you're a blackguard, an' if you don't look at 'em, you're a brute. Offer a lady your seat in a car, an' she sues you for defamation of character. Take off your hat in an elevator, an' the lady you've done it for follows you into your office an' deposits four or five bullets in some incon- venient place. Pick up a lady's handkerchief for her, an' she knocks you down an' charges you with bein' the head of a giant narcotic ring. Ridin' in the same train with one is anything from a compound fracture to permanent disability. "About the only thing that's saved us so far has been the deep-rooted feminine belief that a certain 180 UNCLE HENRY amount of beauty an' charm was necessary in any campaign against mere man. Risin' in the mornin', the fair sex would buckle on the pearl-handled re- volver or the Spanish jade knife, an' then walk to the mirror for a last inspection. A certain percentage then bounded out with loud cries, but the majority fell back with low cries an' cleared their minds of everything except lotions, permanent waves^ an' wrinkle removers. Yes, sir, for a good many years now the lookin'-glass has been the only thing that's stood between us an' absolute extermination. "An' this is what I'm afraid Margot's goin' to change. It isn't as if she were wearin' a veil. Why, darn it, our women will come away from her lecture absolutely convinced that the pursuit of the male calls for nothing more than determination an* endurance. Not face, but feet! Not charm, but courage. From now on, if you ask me, we're goin' to have the whole sex after us. "There's still another gloomy angle to the busi- ness. Up to now we've had only the bullet an' the blade to fear — brutal an' cruel, to be sure, but still decisive. They did put you out of your misery. But do you think for a minute that our females are goin' to stick to revolvers an' knives after studyin' the Margot method? No, sir! What we've got to fear from now on is not the merciful dagger, or the peace- DUMDUMS AND DIARIES 181 gtpiii—i— —■——■■— — — — bringin' pistol, but the slow, everlastin' torments of the diary. "There's only one ray of hope I can see," said Uncle Henry, reachin' for his fine-cut. "Maybe the Hague Conference will put women's diaries in the same class with dumdum bullets." THE FOUR-POWER PACT "ri RIM-VISAGED war has smoothed his wrinkled VJT front and is goin' in for tea dances." Uncle Henry shook his head pessimistically. "Maybe so, but I sure would hate to start anything in the ballroom. "I don't mind admittin' that I was considerably enthused when Charlie Hughes pushed through his windbreaks an' declared that, in the interest of humanity, not to mention our own — which, good- ness knows, is long overdue — there must be no more battleships. Along with the rest of my delirious fellow countrymen, I searched my bronnicals for new noises when Henry Cabot Lodge ran down the aisle an', in a voice choked with emotion an' certain previous expressions, asked the prayers of the con- gregation. An' as I read the splendid commenda- tions of independent journals like the New York *Sun* an' the Marion 'Star,' I felt sure that there'd never be another war. "But that was before Charlie went into the back room. The minute I saw 'em leadin' him away, with Balfour's arm affectionately thrown about his throat, an' every Jap suckin' up more'n his fair share 183 184 UNCLE HENRY of air, somethin' seemed to tell me that the next communique would say it with flowers. Y'see, my boy, we Americans are peculiarly a race of open diplomats — wide open. Put us out on a prairie, with the Rocky Mountains moved back a bit, so's not to interfere with our swing, an' we can win any fair-minded body of men in the world to our way of thinkin', if they ever recover consciousness. It's different with the effete but still effective dip- lomats of the Old World. Born by way of twilight sleep, brought up in a cellar, an' given a post- graduate course in the Catacombs, the only thing light about them is their fingers. A back room's their workshop. They know every sliding panel an' trapdoor, the time the policeman makes his round, an' how to fix the drink of the gentle guest before his very eyes. "I don't know exactly what went on in that back room any more than you do or Warren Gamaliel himself, for that matter. The proceedings were so secret they wouldn't even open them with prayer. As for Charlie, he's still cryin': *Save the women and children ; I can swim' ; an' the doctors say it may be weeks before he can tell his story to the district attorney. Lodge refuses to answer by advice of counsel, an' Underwood insists that he remembers nothing from the time Admiral Kato poured him a cup of tea. THE FOUR-POWER PACT 185 "But we're not Americans for nothing. Every- thing else may go, but imagination will still remain. Puttin' two an' two together, thus makin' the well- known fourteen, I can come mighty close to tellin' you what happened behind those sound-proof portals where the destinies of civilization were taken apart to see what made them sick. Balfour, our distin- guished English cousin, was the first to take the floor after leavin' William J. Briand on it. " This is a great moment in the history of the world,' says Arthur, *for here I am. I want to say that when I heard your noble words out- side, my good fellow,' he says, indicatin' Charlie Hughes by a tap in the face, *an' reflected on what disarmament would mean to my beloved sovereign, the King of Ireland and Emperor of India, as w^ell as having a voice in Egypt when he can make himself heard,' he says, *I could hardly contain myself, an' now that we're alone I'd kiss you but for the fact that our Anglo-Saxon blood com- pels a certain rude dissembling where the affec- tions are concerned,' he says, givin' Charlie a belt in the eye. "There are various trifling amendments that I will not trouble to offer now,' he says, 'since you seem to be lookin', but when it comes to your main point I am with you unreservedly. The battle- ship must go. Accursed instrument of destruction/ 186 UNCLE HENRY he says, *and almost useless now, what with one submarine and another. The voice of humanity cries out against them. Hellish distortion of man's inventive gifts, and highly overrated, in my opinion, there's no place for 'em in a civilized world! Old England will never feel that she has kept faith with the sacred dead as long as a dreadnought re- mains afloat,' he says; 'that is, a French one. On behalf of our noble ally, la belle France, Great Britain accepts your plan enthusiastically. And I am sure that if my distinguished colleague, Monseer Briand, could speak for himself — watch out, Kato, he seem to be movin' — ^he'd indorse my views nobly and eloquently. " *As for ourselves,' he says, 'we stand ready to sink the devilish things at once,' he says, 'such as are unseaworthy, and when old England and Japan have finished a few triflin' cruisers now under way, and are convinced that you don't mean to lend us any more money,' he says, *and it being understood that nothing's been said about convertible liners, we stand ready to go forward in joy to the naval vacation that's the hope of the world. But we must not stop there,' he says; *we must go onward and onward until we reach those heights where lie man's most precious ideals,' he says, 'amid the ice and eternal snow. There's noth- ing that we must not do for humanity, or to her. THE FOUR-POWER PACT 187 And to show our faith in our fellow men, and to dis- pel the last lingerin' doubt of our passion for peace, an' with full appreciation of the importance of the proposal, I do hereby move that we give up 18-inch guns, and have only 16-inch guns in the future,' he says. 'They tell me they're even more effective,' he says. " *We come now,' continues Arthur amid a silence so profound you could almost hear a couplin' pin drop, *to the consideration of the most horrible of all the engines of death— the assassin of the sea, the damnable submarine.' "At Arthur's words the whole room broke into applause by Lord Lee. The world doesn't want 'em, especially England,' he says. *They must be banned now an' forever.' **Well, sir, Arthur's eloquence was sweepin' everjiihing before it when Briand got the atten- tion of the chair with one. In a stirrin' speech old William J. came to the defense of the submarine, hailin' the quiet, retirin' little undersea craft as man's best friend, no trouble to make, easy to keep, an' payin' fpr themselves out of the car fare they save. " *You,' he says with a forceful gesture that just missed Balfour an' Hughes, 'prosperous an' happy with your opera, your phonographs, your cabarets, your unravaged fields an' your warships,' he says, 188 UNCLE HENRY *an* never needin' to stay in the home/ he says, *may feel no need for the humble submarine, but in the devastated areas of France it's the one thing that stands between a sufferin' people and a hard winter,' he says. **It's the same way with poison gas an' high ex- plosives," continued Uncle Henry. "Not naturally vicious, but just weak. Bad associations was their ruin. Now that they're goin' to be taken into Christian homes, everything's all right. An' as for bombing planes, they didn't have the heart to drown 'em on account of the children. But the Four-Power Pact is goin' to see that they're house-broke." "Say," said the Cub Reporter, "I don't want to be a knocker, but just what does America get out of this, anyway?" "The freedom of the seas, of course. Absolute and unconditioned on a line stretchin' from St. Louis to El Paso, with exclusive rights to a marine band at Topeka. Could more be asked? "Breakin' right down, though, an' conf essin'," cau- tiously admitted Uncle Henry, "when you consider how fine everything started out, I can't help feelin' that if the President had only — But what's the use ! Never happened to see an elephant cross a bridge, did you ? The intelligent pachyderm, as Joe Tumulty would call him since becomin' an author, advances THE FOUR-POWER PACT 189 slowly an' puts down one ponderous foot on the first plank. After testing it thoroughly, he brings up another foot. Then he gets on the extreme outer edge with his whole bulk an' gives a series of jiggles. Finally, when convinced that the structure is per- fectly safe, he retires to a near-by hill an' waits for some venturesome cuss to go across first. That's Warren ! The trouble with the disarmament bridge was that none of the nations really wanted to get over on the other side. *1 saw that the minute the generals an' admirals commenced arriving, all lookin' like an explosion in a mint, not to mention a bunch of Elder Statesmen who were beyond the draft age at the time of the Napoleonic wars. If the nations had been on the square about not wanting no more bloodshed, they'd have sent a bunch of buck privates. Those boys know what war means, but to a general or an ad- miral, it's just an eight-hour day at the checker- board with summers off. "No, sir, as long as you leave it to gold lace an' Prince Alberts, you'll never get rid of armies and navies. It's not that they love peace less, but honor more. "You an' me, playing our childish game of 'Dollar, dollar, whose got the dollar?' give a look at Amer- ica's honor now and then, and are satisfied with seeing that it's still there. But only those who sit 190 UNCLE HENRY up with it at night, taking its temperature from hour to hour, an' puttin' on a mustard plaster now an' then to relieve the inflammation, know how delicate a thing it really is. War's the only thing that does it any good. "Average people like us just don't understand. We quarrel now an' then, an' talk a lot about fightin', but if the other fellow gives us half a chance we're always willin' to grasp the outstretched hand after makin' sure the other's got nothing in it. But it's different between nations. If you offer an explana- tion, you're a base poltroon, an' if you take one you're worse. Blood's the only thing that can take the stain out of a nation's honor. "Then there's old Human Nature," mused Uncle Henry. "I was talkin' only yesterday with young Doc Smith. A fine patriot an' a great soldier if his feet hadn't kept him home. Accordin' to Doc, there's always been war an' there'll always be war. Ever since man discovered that the human head was softer than the granite of his humble hatchet, he's been a fightin' animal. If he's at peace, it's only because he's out of breath. *You can take away navies,' says Doc, 'an' armies an' submarines an' airplanes an' every other scientific device for the promotion of death, an' people'll still go at it with hands an' rocks.' Maybe so. But if a man's dead set on handing me a wallop, you can just bet THE FOUR-POWER PACT 191 I'd rather have him do it with his fist than with a hand grenade/' "But don't you think the President — " began the Cub Reporter. "Now you jes' let Warren alone," Uncle Henry commanded. "It's a new car, an' he's jes' mistakin' the foot brake for the gas." MR. RUTH AND MR. DEMPSEY ""XT'OU certainly are a puzzle to me," exclaimed •*• Uncle Henry, viewing the Cub Reporter with pronounced disfavor. "At this very moment the fate of the nation hangs in the balance, an' here you are loungin' in a hotel lobby. The whole future of the white race is at stake, an' you sit there gabbin' about senatorial elections an' Hague con- ferences. Off with your sloth an' gird your loins, or whatever it is you do to 'em, for it's the zero hour ! How can you expect him to win unless he has a united people behind him, bulwarkin' his strength an' high resolve with every atom of their thought an' hope an' passion?" "Expect who to win?" asked the Cub Reporter in complete bewilderment. "Who? Who? Don't you read the papers at all? Have you no interest in flag an' country? Why, Jack Dempsey, of course! Aren't you aware that even now they are on the eve of matchin' him with Mr. Wills? That before winter's snow has changed to summer's green, a battle may be fought that will decide whether the Caucasian is to perish or endure? I don't blame the press for its frenzy, u. H.— 7 193 194 UNCLE HENRY Through the centuries we've preached an' believed the doctrine of Caucasian supremacy. A great civi- lization has been reared on it. An' now all hangs on the hazard of a punch. I try to be brave, but every now an' then it's as though a cold hand clutched my heart. "About the only hope I get is in the study of my history. You may remember, for instance, that when the savage hordes of Africa overran all Eu- rope, pressin' forward until it seemed that Occi- dental civilization was doomed, one Charles Martel rose to lead a forlorn hope, an' his courage an' genius beat back the Saracen an' saved the white race. The Hour has never failed to produce the Man. Why, even Jess Willard came through. "Heigh-ho! These are certainly terrible times. Taken all in all, I suppose it's the most critical period in the whole of American history. To add to the strain, there's the motion-picture situation an' Mr. Ruth. Even if the Dempsey-Wills match wasn't tearin' at every nerve of the nation, the travail of Babe's heroic efforts would be enough in itself to invite emotional collapse. Will he break his 1921 record? Can he stave off the furious rivalries of Mr. Kenneth Williams an' Mr. Walker? In New York, so they tell me, you can't attend a game with- out a doctor's prescription. Instead of rain checks, they give out pulmotors, an' oxygen is bein' sold in MR. RUTH AND MR. DEMPSEY 195 place of pop. Every time Babe strikes out, it takes the ushers an hour to pick up the fallen arches. Be- tween you an' me these strikeouts are becomin' too frequent for comfort. Personally, I think it's the lit- erary strain. You can't do your best at bat when you're puzzlin' over some of the long words in your mornin' article or wonderin' what you've written for the evenin' papers. Sport an' literature don't mix. Corbett found that out. He had to give up fightin' entirely. "Now, Heaven knows I don't want to criticize your noble profession, Jimmie, but it does seem to me that the press isn't meetin' the situation with its usual energy an' foresight. Frequently I have to wait ten whole minutes before I know the result of Mr. Ruth's activities of an afternoon. I know, of course, that they're utilizin' every resource of tele- phone an' telegraph, but aren't they overlookin' the possibilities of radio? Why not have President Harding close the air every afternoon from 2.30 to 5 o'clock to everything except Ruth news? An' for the whole radio industry of America to unite in one great broadcast that would flash the results instantly to every home, store, office, an' factory throughout the land? **It would mean an end to many of your news- paper competitive activities, to be sure, but when a nation is on tiptoe, sick with expectancy, is it any 196 UNCLE HENRY time for petty rivalries ? What's money compared to human anguish? For every dollar lost a precious life may be saved. The Senate ought to take the matter in hand, but it's busy tryin' to bring Beveridge under the Volstead Act. "While presentin' many surface points of differ- ence, the motion-picture agitation is almost as fundamental as the Dempsey an* Ruth issues. It goes deep. What good will it do for Mr. Dempsey to save civilization if the soul of the race is to atrophy an' decay? You can't measure civilization in terms of material progress, my boy. The test of advancement isn't bank balances, but beauty. Do you remember Greece for its emporiums an' its chambers of commerce? Does Rome endure because of its Rotary Clubs an' annual hardware conventions? No, sir! Art's the thing that counts in the long run. An' how can Art get up steam an' make its best showin' if it's goin' to be cribbed, cabined, an' confined by the bourgeois traditions that we've carried over from the days of Victoria an' Rutherford B. Hayes? "The present may prove ungrateful to the movies, but posterity will do 'em justice, for they're the greatest educational factor of the age. They've left nothin' for even the children to learn. Moreover, the silver screen has imbued Americans with the old aspiration. We were gettin' to be the slaves of rou- MR. RUTH AND MR. DEMPSEY 197 tine, in love with our ruts. All over the country men an* women were content with sordid little jobs — cookin' an' plowin' an' sellin' — deaf to the call of soul. Woodrow Wilson preached the New Freedom, but it fell on dull ears until the movies gave it pas- sion an' purpose. Mark the change ! Job thralldom has been thrown off completely. Each mornin' I hear the tramp of marchin' thousands past my win- dow. At the Mississippi they're not waitin' for boats, but strikin' right into the ragin' flood. Thousands have been lost in the sands of the Platte an' the short grass country is white with bones, but the rush to Hollywood shows no signs of abatement. When history is written, my boy, this tremendous Los Angeles movement is goin' to rank in importance with the Great Trek of 1849. "An' now we see these public benefactors shamed an' attacked. An' for what ? Jes' because of triflin' miscounts in the number of their wives or hus- bands. In addin' up they sometimes carry over one too many. What more natural ? No great artist was ever good at figures. I tell you, it's a big issue, involvin' vast principles an' goin' right down to fundamentals. What we've got to decide right here an' now is whether Art's goin' to be encour- aged or arrested. "As I said, I don't want to be put in the light of criticizin' the press. The papers have done won- 198 UNCLE HENRY ders, an' I don't deny that they've spared no space to fire the hearts an' souls of people with respect to the Dempsey crisis, the Ruth struggle, an' the great movie scandals. But you've got to admit yourself that it's not yet a 100 per cent effort. Too many columns are still bein' wasted on trivial an' unimportant things like international relations, poli- tics, taxes, world reconstruction, business, an' comic stuff like the Senate. "It isn't so much the space that it takes, though every inch counts, but these nonessentials distract an' confuse. We can't give Mr. Dempsey the pas-, sionate thought that he deserves if Harding an' Hoover keep on bein' mentioned. How may Mr. Ruth be assured of the tense concentration that is his due an' meed if people are asked to think about national affairs ? At a time when the movies call for all that is broad an' modern in public judgment, is it wise to refer to Europe at all? "What's more, it shames us in the eyes of the world. It makes us look like a volatile, erratic peo- ple, incapable of sustained passion in the support of great causes an' the pursuit of tremendous objectives. No, my boy, the press has put its hand to the plow an' it can't turn back. It is false to the nation, an', what is more, false to its own best an' noblest traditions, if it fails to give over every single inch to the great issues that it MR. RUTH AND MR. DEMPSEY 199 itself has done so much to raise. Cut out every- thing else!" "You can josh all you want," sneered the Cub Re- porter, "but millions of Americans are crazy over Dempsey an' Ruth." "No," said Uncle Henry judicially, "I don't think it fair to hold Jack an* Babe entirely responsible." HUMANIZING SCIENCE ''TT7ELL, youVe certainly got to hand it to sci- VV ence!'' declared the Cigar Stand Man. "I've put in a radio set up at my place, an* it sure is a marvel. Opera, concerts, sermons, speeches — " "Yes," Uncle Henry agreed grudgingly, "it's all right now, but what if development reaches a point where you can't shut the thing off, an' everybody's got to listen? Imagine La Follette loose in the air lanes? Think of Lodge's campaign appeals comin' in the window before you've had your breakfast coffee? Or Bryan's plea of *Not Guilty' to Darwin's charge? No, Barney, when it comes to science I'm as full of reservations as a Republican senator. It's given us lots of things, I know, but it's also taken lots away, and I sometimes wonder whether we didn't get the worst of the swap. "My mother went across the plains in '59, an' while it took her six months she saw the country, met the people, an' her whole life was richer. I can go to California now in less than five days, but all I see is a string of billboards, an', after it 's over, only the porter's life is richer. As soon as I recover from my last pleasure trip I'm goin' to lead a great 'See Home First' movement. 201 202 UNCLE HENRY "All the telephone does is let people talk to you that you might otherwise avoid. It's taken the little remainin' courtesy out of conversation an* utterly destroyed privacy, turnin' the whole world into a regular aquarium. A one-way telephone, that would let us do all the talkin*, is what invention ought to get busy on. "The telegraph has put correspondence among the lost arts an' given literature a wound that won't heal. Imagine a modern Lord Chesterfield's *Night Messages to His Son' or some new Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Vailima Telegrams'? I reckon I'm about the only man left that writes letters any more, for my wife's old-fashioned an ' telegrams still mean battle, murder, an' sudden death to her. However, the night letter has sent the average vocabulary up to fifty words, so that's a clear gain. "Airplanes, subways, automobiles, fast steamers — speed, speed, always speed. No question we travel quicker now that we ever did before. Well, it's necessarj'-, for, as Alice says, you've got to go awful fast when you're goin' nowhere. Every day I see people spendin' hours thinkin' what to do with the minutes they've saved. "Bigger men than me, Barney, are on record with grave doubts as to whether all of our scientific dis- coveries an' inventions have added anything to real human happiness. I kind of figure it's because the HUMANIZING SCIENCE 203 excitement of achievement has made us lose sight of human values in the thing we call success. You can't turn men an' women into machines without gettin' a purely mechanical output. "I don't know of anything that makes my point clearer than Dr. Hubert Work's recent experiments with President Harding. The newspapers gave 'em considerable space, but I'm waitin' for the medical journals to get the real dope. If it's as I think, the Doc's discoveries are goin' to humanize science, takin' away the harsh, granite effects an' givin' it the tender, appealin' human-interest note that's been so sadly lackin'. "When we elected Harding president it looked like at last he could say good-by to the handshake ma- chine at which he had worked so long, for had he not been given the biggest job in the world, callin' for the best in high thought an' wise decision? Poor old Warren! He didn't know the American people like he thought he did. Perils may menace an' calamity blast, but nothing is ever allowed to interfere with our frenzied passion for handshakes. "He hadn't been in the White House an hour be- fore the rush commenced. Thousands upon thou- sands — maddened by eight years of abstinence under Wilson — invadin' the White House grounds like a locust swarm, leapin' through windows, divin' into coal holes, an' slidin' down chimneys. No use 204 UNCLE HENRY attemptin' to deny the voice of the people. Before Warren knew it, the party leaders had snatched him away from his desk an' had him at the old machine. "What's more, they put efficiency experts on him, speedin' up his production until it doubled an* trebled. No question that results were obtained, for when the White House staff took the slips out of the addin' machines on March 4, 1922, they found that Warren's output of handshakes for the pre- cedin' year totaled more than 150,000. "But men who'd been usin' the Hardin' handshake for years made no bones about sayin' that Warren wasn't puttin' the right stuff in 'em any more an' some even hinted he was tradin' on his past reputation. "They were right. Warren's heart wasn't in his work, for even the little he'd been permitted to see of a president's duties had made a strong appeal to him. What with elections comin' on, an' Democrats makin' low prices on handshakes in quantity, the party leaders were desperate. "As a last resort Good Old Dr. Work was called in from the Post Office Department where he was busy prescribin' for Democratic postmasters. The Doc took X-rays an' tried almost everjrthing but turpen- tine, but jes' when he was ready to give up in de- spair, the truth was suddenly revealed to him. Funny thing, but most great scientific discoveries HUMANIZING SCIENCE 205 are accidental. We praise Newton for discoverin' the law of gravity, but where would we have been but for that loose apple? "Doc an' Warren happened to be playin' golf, an' more by way of habit than anything else, the Presi- dent was turnin' out a few handshakes for the cad- dies. They weren't much good, an' none knew it better than Warren, for he turned to Doc, every lip quiverin', with a piteous look that said : Well, you can see for yourself I'm done,' when at that very moment a band struck up somewhere in the neigh- borhood. The effect was electrical. Like a flash, Warren's head went back, the old pride of craft blazed in his eyes, an' in one superb movement he ex- ecuted a shake as perfect as any in his whole career. "The significance of it all wasn't lost on Doc, for you don't rise to success in Colorado politics by over- looking' things. Tremblin' with excitement, he hur- ried Warren back to the White House an' sent at once for the Marine Band. A big order for hand- shakes from the Moose was waitin' to be filled, an' after dividin' the band into three shifts, so that there would be continuous music, the Doc ordered Warren to start off. Well, sir, he sliced the first few badly, droppin' his right shoulder, takin' his eye off his hand an' puttin' his whole body into the shake. " 'Stop pressin' !' Doc hissed. " *I can't !' groaned Warren. 206 UNCLE HENRY P J "For a second Doc reeled under the sick sense of failure, an' then he gave a glad shout. The fools were playin' the Toreador's song from *Carmen/ Rushin' to the leader. Doc changed 'em over to Tosti's 'Good-by,' an' immediately the President settled down into a free easy swing an' perfect rhythm. The five thousand handshakes were turned out in a little over three hours, a performance never approached by any other Chief Executive in the history of the United States. You can't name one that ever did anything like it. "Doesn't that show you how much better re- sults can be gotten out of science when you humanize it? When you don't let it make you forget the soul in man? No wonder happiness hangs over the White House like a pall these days. Orders for handshakes are pourin' in like they used to. I hear the Shrine wants one for every member an' there's a rumor that the Elks have also decided to give Warren their business. Doc Work is now installin' three pipe organs, four jazz orchestras an' a mechanical saxo- phone, an' may possibly hire the Boston Symphony for big orders like the National Poultry Dealers' Association an' the Ancient Aggregation of Antique Furniture Makers. "I'm glad of it, Barney. Warren's all right an' I want to see him succeed. But they've got to take better care of him. A man can't give his best to the HUMANIZING SCIENCE 207 big things when he's harassed an' distracted by a press of nonessentials. If we expect him to turn out A-1 handshakes for us, we must see that he isn't bothered by this League of Nations stuff, coal an* railroad strikes, deficits, reconstruction, an' things like that." "Say," exploded Barney, "we don't elect presidents just to shake hands." "No?" Uncle Henry queried. "Then what do we elect 'em for?" THE YELLOW KIDS "/CAREFUL!" hissed Uncle Henry, putting a v>' finger to his lips. "Not a word if you value your life." "Say, what's the matter with you, anyway?" de- manded the Cigar Stand Man in angry bewilder- ment. "You nearly made me swallow a lump of gum." "All right now." Uncle Henry straightened up and expelled his breath noisily. "It was only a man with a bad case of jaundice. For a moment I thought it was a Japanese spy. The country's full of 'em, Barney. Millions! Maybe thousands, an' perhaps hundreds. I was completely deceived at first, but when I saw they didn't put their thumbs in the soup, I knew they weren't real waiters. Snoopin' every- where, day and night, ears akimbo, an', instead of bein' on our guard, we actually seemed pleased to have somebody around that's willin' to listen. "Not since the terrible days when there was no Henry Cabot Lodge has Occidental civilization been in such peril. Secretly, silently but surely, the yellow hordes are massin' for their descent on the Western World. They've got Atlantic City an' 209 210 UNCLE HENRY almost every other summer resort already, an' while you may attach no great importance to the art stuff they sell, I want to tell you it's doin' more than any- thing else to ruin the American home. Where once hung fine crayon enlargements of our ancestors, you now see some print of a fat Jap with the cramps. An' look at Coney Island! No more the old manly sports like knockin' the nigger baby down an' swing- in' the hammer to see how hard you can hit, but merely effeminate ball rollin' an' other purely Orien- tal games. That's the way Rome went. 'Why, I wouldn't no more pass a Chinese laun- dry at night than I'd think of sendin' a love let- ter by radio. Sure, the Chinese are in on it! Why, I have it on the authority of a high official, whose name I am not at liberty to disclose, that Peking an' Shanghai are vast storehouses for the secret collection of deadly weapons. Firecrackers by the million, hundreds of thousands of devil kites, an' all sorts of stink pots. Chicago troops would be the only ones we could use against 'em. "An' the Hindus too! An' the Siamese, a terri- ble breed that comes in pairs. Barnum was the first to expose 'em. "It's a wonder to me we've held our Pacific pos- sessions as long as we have. They've got the Philippines completely surrounded on one side. According to a prominent naval official, whose name THE YELLOW KIDS 211 can't be mentioned, their boats are numberless, an* while all look like fishing smacks, at the press of a button they turn into battleships, each able to vomit death and destruction. It's the same way with Guam. "Oh, the crime of our bhndness! I didn't see the danger myself until certain courageous papers opened my eyes. Set a Yellow Press to catch a Yellow Peril ! Never was a sayin' more true. There, thank Heaven, is one part of America that can't be fooled, for, bein' as most of their readers are jes' commencin' to learn English, they know foreigners. "Personally, I'm kind of sorry hostilities can't be put off for a year or two, so's we could finish payin' for the last war, but I reckon the editors know what they're doin*. If Pershing had only listened to 'em, Germany never would have whipped us, an ' Grant's refusal to take their advice is now recognized as the cause of the North's defeat. "Lots of people give Albert Fall credit for the an- nexation of Mexico, but this is a grievous injustice, every ounce of praise bein' deserved by the Yellow Press. They were the first to see that the United States ought to reach from Maine to Panama an' the first to point out how the low and depraved nature of the degenerate Aztec made him easy and proper prey for the conquerin' Tango-Saxon. "No discouragement could chill their souls. Ten times the insolent Mexican invaded the United States 212 UNCLE HENRY — look up the back papers an' see for yourself — an' every day for months they killed American citi- zens by the hundreds with savage, slashin' strokes of the pen, an' still the country couldn't be aroused. Seein' the hopelessness of it all, the editors came to the bold resolution that they v^ould intervene all by themselves. Plungin' into the blindin' dust clouds that blew off the Rio Grande, an' crossin' the deserts disguised as cactuses — a ruse repeatedly pointed out to the War Department — ^they gained entrance to the city itself an' ordered instant surrender under pain of Sunday supplements. ''They conquered Yucatan without a struggle, havin' been gum chewers all their lives, an' took over Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, an' all oil an' mineral rights in the equator. Guatemala gave them some trouble for a while — they couldn't seem to get over the habit of spellin' it with a "w" — ^but in the end Old Glory waved triumphant, and not an accursed Latin remained alive. Every editorial room ran knee deep in blood, an' there were so many additional stars that bay windows an' alcoves had to be put in the flag. "In many respects, however, I regard the victory over England as the greatest military achievement of the Yellow Press. Their strategy was masterful. Comin' around from behind, they drove the per- fidious Albions out of India, an' then, movin' THE YELLOW KIDS 213 swiftly, won the independence of Egypt in a whirl- wind campaign that expelled every Briton from the land of the Pharaohs. At the same time they were secretly arousin' the peaceful Gael, an' at the psychological moment recognized the Irish Republic, sendin* Hiram Johnson over as envoy extraordinary. "As a consequence of these maneuvers, the Eng- lish suddenly found themselves cut off from every colonial possession, an* penned up in their own little island. When they realized that they would have to associate with each other, no avenue of escape pre- senting itself, a great groan of despair went up, an' surrender was unconditional. "There's no doubt that the Yellow Press will lead us to a glorious victory over the Japanese. For one' thing, the Y. P. is takin' no chances, plannin' the campaign with more than usual care. The grave blunders of Wilson will not be repeated, for even now the country is bein' scoured for the Best Minds, an' the Cabinet will be a coalition one. I have it on the best authority that the portfolios will be dis- tributed as follows: Secretary of State — Gaston. Under Secretary — Alphonse. Secretary of War — Mutt. Secretary of the Navy — Jeff. Secretary of the Interior — Krazy Kat. Secretary of Commerce — ^Abie, the Agent. 214 UNCLE HENRY Secretary of the Treasury — Barney Google. Secretary of Labor — Happy Hooligan. Secretary of Agriculture — Uncle Si. Under Secretary of Agriculture — Maud. Attorney General — Hawkshaw. "Prohibition makes necessary the creation of a new post in connection with the army, that of vivandiere, an' I understand Brisbane is to be ap- pointed. If this is true, you can depend upon it that our boys will lack nothin* in the way of beer an' light wines. The Katzen jammer Kids, as a matter of course, will have charge of all strategy, an' I feel sure that this wise selection is goin' to gain the con- fidence of the country. War is hell, but what weVe got to do is to grin an' bear it. *Grin until it hurts.' That must be our motto." "Wake up!" sneered Barney. "We're not goin' to fight Japan." "For once I'm inclined to believe you're right," sighed Uncle Henry. "The world isn't what it used to be, when war was recognized as the one way for a nation to save its soul. Nowadays sordid considera- tions have crept in, an' the vulgar question of money is taken into account. Nothin' interferes with militarism like taxes. "Still, I don't know. If you pick long enough, it's easy to make a sore. As a matter of fact, that's the Yellow Press's source of strength. They're prize THE YELLOW KIDS 215 pickers. But in this Japanese business it happens that there's something to pick at. The Japs own California already, an* the only reason whites are still allowed is because the thrifty Nipponese want somebody to pay the bills for schools an' such like. We excluded the Chinese quite effectively, as you may remember, but the Japs were exempted because they admitted that they were a proud people an' easily offended. "Heaven only knows how many of them slip into the country every year. First the men an' then the women — a daring application of the mail-order idea to wives. The hardy bachelors look over photo- graphs, an' fill out a blank that they send to the central office in Japan. An' we have the nerve to call ourselves a nation of gamblers ! I'm against all this Yellow Peril nonsense as much as anybody, but — well, we've simply got to keep the yellow peoples out. Races that can't mix nice are bound to mix rough." "I don't see any harm in the Japs/' Barney argued. "No, an' there isn't any harm in a wet dog, either," said Uncle Henry. "But you don't want him in your lap." THE MISSOURI SPREE ''TTTELL/' said Uncle Henry jubilantly, "it wasn't VV a permanent wave after all." "What wasn't a permanent wave?" asked the Cub Reporter. "Why, the reform one. Jim Reed took out all the curl when he won that renomination to the Senate in Missouri over Breck Long. A lot of the Wash- ington bunch were considerable worried for a while, what with all these Beveridge, Pinchot and Brook- hart victories, for it certainly did look as though the people were goin' to cut loose from their most sacred traditions an' commence demandin' brains in office. Why, they had poor old Lodge to a point where he was actually experimentin' with a waffle mold an' paraffin. But I never lost confidence. "For one hundred an' forty-six years the people of these United States have been fed on Good Old Guff, an' an inherited appetite like that isn't thrown off over night. Time an' again, I've seen 'em strug- gle to break away from the hellish habit, but always, with tormented faces an' quiverin* lips, they've come back an' begged for it. Accordin' to my reports from Missouri, it wasn't a campaign, but 217 218 UNCLE HENRY a spree. Hundreds of people are still lyin' where they fell, little children tuggin' at 'em pathetically an' hopelessly. "Jim gave 'em the pure quill jes' as I knew he would. Others, harried into expediency by fear, may attempt intelligence, but old Jim always chews to the line. It's quite the custom nowadays to damn politicians, an' most of 'em deserve it, but I want to tell you right here an' now that when it comes to ideas, there isn't a cleaner man in the United States than James A. Reed. Never uses 'em in any form. Back in the good old times, when treatin' hadn't yet come under the operation of the criminal law, I've heard hundreds of fellows fairly beg him to have an idea on them. " *Aw, come on ! Be a sport !' they'd plead an' insist. *Jes' one won't hurt you.' " 'No, boys/ was Jim's invariable reply. It's the first think that's the most dangerous. Take one an' you'll take another, an' before you know it you're a steady thinker. There's no such thing as thinkin' in moderation. I've seen too many good men go that way.' *'Even in those days when you might have ex- pected youth to clamor for its fling, I can truthfully say that I never saw him under the influence of any strong think. It wasn't that he was a goody-goody, but even then an ideal of public service was takin' THE MISSOURI SPREE 219 ■WMM"!!^"— ————»—— —i— ^ I III III ■ ■■■II — aB———— shape in the roof of his mouth. Already he had made a trip to Washington, an' Congress, together with intensive study of state legislatures, had shown him plainly what the people wanted in their serv- ants. It was a hard an' lonely life, with people thinkin' all around him, an' youths of his own age carousin' in libraries, but Jim never faltered, an' many a time I've heard him practice his triple- tonguin' the whole night long. "How all of those early denials an' patient drudg- eries came back to me as I stood in the Senate of the United States last winter an' heard Jim win the long distance heel an' toe talkin' championship of the world, leadin' his closest rival by five days, fifteen hours an' forty-seven minutes, no time taken out for ideas. "I didn't get out to Missouri for the campaign, but they tell me Jim was in rare form, broadcastin' further than the most powerful radio. The words aren't all in yet, but it looks as though Jim v/ould lead by several billion. Breck Long put up a good fight, but I knew from the first he never had a chance. No knowledge of politics at all ! Went into the race all loaded down with semicolons an' paren- theses an' periods instead of strippin' down to the last comma! Moreover, he hasn't got the right sort of tongue. It's got a mental attachment an' that's fatal. 220 UNCLE HENRY "To be a success in political life, my boy, you've got to have a self-startin' tongue runnin' under its own motive power. Reed's got one. I've seen him set it off, an' then go back to the hotel for a nap, or a bath if it happened to be Saturday, an' when he'd return the hall would be filled with words, an' enough runnin' out of the windows to take care of the overflow meetin'. "Accordin' to reports, Jim gave 'em what they'd always had, an' that's what they wanted. Jes' used his old records without the slightest change. Sometimes he'd have to give as many as ten encores after playin' 'When God poured out the milk, the cream ran over an' that was Missouri.' When some low Long partisan would ask him why it was that he'd never advanced a constructive suggestion dur- in' his whole twelve years in the Senate, Jim would merely put on 'America,' givin' it with full drum an' fife accompaniment, never skippin' a single rock or wood an' templed hill, an' endin' up on a high G that jes' scattered the crowned heads of Europe all over the place. That was another place where Long showed himself a rank amateur in politics. Never once mentioned the monarchs of the Old World, or offered to oppose their tyrannies with his bare breast. "Now an' then a rude voice would ask about Jim's consistent antagonism to every law for the protec- THE MISSOURI SPREE 221 tion of women an' children, but he'd jes' turn loose a four hours' oration on motherhood that was as fine as though he'd been one. Thinkin' back, I reckon- I like the motherhood record as well as any Jim ever put on. Takin' the baby in the cradle, a rose petal fallen from Heaven, he'd follow the little one right through the prattle of infancy an' the dreamin* days of adolescence on into womanhood with its high responsibilities, usherin' in the dawn of love with a shower of bird notes, sinkin' his voice to a whisper as he told of a new life's comin', pullin' out the tremolo plug with both hands as he worked up to the torment of travail, an' finishin' with a burst of brass that told of triumphant birth. An' all the while poor old Long was tryin' to talk issues! "No question about Jim's senatorial record bein' pretty sad. Not once in twelve years did he ever frame a bill in the public interest or fail to vote against one. Naturally enough, the people were a good deal irritated, but you ought to have seen irritation turn over an' purr when Jim tuned up an' started off on the soft, sensuous strains of *The Beautiful Blue Osage !' There wasn't a dry foot left in the State. His great symphony, based on native themes such as the pawpaw an' hominy, soothed the most savage breast, an' when he reached the purlin' brooks an' bosky dells motif, bearded men jes' threw their heads back an' bayed like coon dogs. 222 UNCLE HENRY *T\\ bet you that right now they're dryin' Jim's speeches an' hangin' 'em in muslin bags from the rafters for use this winter. You can smoke 'em, chew 'em, sniff 'em or dip 'em, an' after you get used to the bitter taste, the results are surprisin'. Of course they stunt growth, but you know what a habit is. "There are also other features about Jim's re- nomination that please me no little. For one thing, it proves that the poorest professional is still better than the best amateur. When the news came in that the country districts were rolHn' up a big majority against Jim I only grinned, for I knew that the boys of the river wards in St. Louis an' Kansas City were simply waitin' until they learned what was expected of 'em. There's more to an election than mere vot- in', my boy, for as an eminent American once said : *I care not who casts the votes of a nation if they'll let me make the count.' "Another bright spot was the manner in which all pretense of partisanship was laid aside. From what I hear, gang Republicans couldn't have voted more enthusiastically an' oftener if Jim had been their own candidate. That's the way it should be. Aside from the squabble over offices, there's really no fundamental difference between the two machines. Deep down Reed's as good a Republican as Smoot, an' Smoot's as good a Democrat as Reed. It's all THE MISSOURI SPREE 223 right to put up a fight for the entertainment of the jays, but in the face of a common peril, Hke one of these reform waves, the thing to do is to stand together an' call out the shock troops. Once let these crazy voters get out of hand an' there's no tellin' what might happen." "It's disgraceful," the Cub Reporter declared gloomily. "What's the matter with people any- way?" "Not long ago," murmured Uncle Henry in a ruminative tone, "they were holdin' a sort of Old Home week in a dope den. Suddenly an honored visitor leaped up from his bunk with an awful yell 'Whew!' he panted. 'That was certainly a narrow escape! Whole herd of buffaloes after me, an' if they hadn't stopped to climb a sycamore after some grapes, I sure would have been a goner.' " *Yes/ dreamily answered one of his listeners after a long pause, 'Buffaloes mttst have their grapes.' " FREEDOM'S FAULTS ON this particular morning the Cub Reporter was asking signatures to a petition for the pardon of the whole antiwar crew, or, as he termed it, a "general amnesty for all political prisoners." "Sure, I'll sign," said Uncle Henry, reaching for a pen. "I'm sick of seein* those fellows favored. First we put 'em in nice, comfortable institutions, safe from every hardship of war, even the drives, an' we've let 'em stay there durin' all the pains an' perils of peace. Lollin' in cool, quiet cells while we sweat an' suffer outside! It's not fair. Throw 'em out, say I, even if the wardens have to use vio- lence, an' make 'em stand their share of normalcy along with the rest of us." "The point of this petition," corrected the young journalist in icy tones, "is an assertion of the right of free speech. But maybe you don't believe in it ?" he sneered. "Well, to be absolutely honest, I don't," tranquilly replied Uncle Henry. "Neither do you. Neither does any other true American, for that matter. It's a fine, mouth-fillin' phrase, warm in winter an' a cool an' ref reshin' beverage in summer, but only now u. H.— 8 225 226 UNCLE HENRY an' then does it ever get below the tonsils. What you mean, what all of us mean, when we're honest enough to admit it, is that our own speech must be free. We want our mouths to be high above the law. But there are mighty few of us that wouldn't be happy an' satisfied to have large, efficient gags in- serted between the teeth of those dangerous an' de- praved wretches who don't think as we do. "In the days before I got too old for violent exer- cise, I used to love to attend conferences called for the solemn purpose of affirmin' an' upholdin' the American citizen's sacred an' unalienable right to 100 per cent freedom of speech. Many an evenin' I've seen as high as twenty men knocked off the platform, not to mention personal debates on the floor that tore holes in it. It wasn't enough merely to have the right on your side. You also had to be able to swing a swift an' accurate left. I can't re- member that a sentence was ever finished, an' though I was a pretty husky lad in those days, a semicolon was the furthest I ever got. "It's much the same way with all this gabble about the freedom of the press. The papers that support OUT particular brand of prejudices an' opinions are true palladiums of liberty, the hope of free institutions, but deep in our hearts we know that the vile sheets of the opposition are subsidized, an' at some time or another we're perfectly willin' FREEDOM'S FAULTS 227 to have 'em suppressed. An' there's the holy right of free assemblage ! It's always sacred an' unalien- able for our crowd to assemble to consult for the common good, but you can bet we get sore at the police when they permit the other fellows to voice their damnable heresies without gettin' a club over the head. "Yessir, my boy, Washington an' Jefferson an' the rest of the fathers certainly slipped one over when they put the Constitution across. It's a life sentence for all of us, an' at hard labor too, for nothin' about it is what you might call natural. What's the use of havin' rights if everybody else has got 'em too? You know jes' as well as I do that true pleasure springs from a sense of privilege. An' when you do get 'em it's only to find that every blamed one of 'em is tied up tight to some sort of obligation. If that isn't takin' the joy out of life, then what is it? "Equality's another shabby trick. I don't get any satisfaction by bein' on the same level with you, I want to be higher, not so much to look down as to have you look up at me. How can you expect a man to feel superior unless a few inferiors are scattered around where they'll do the most good? The free- dom stuff looks good at first, but when you dash forward to get yours, usin' hands, teeth, an' elbows, you discover that it's all mixed up with things like 228 UNCLE HENRY duty an' tolerance. Now, who the dickens wants to be tolerant? "Right now, at this very moment^ I don't doubt that thousands of people are walkin' the streets who aren't in agreement with me on politics, base- ball or religion, or anything else. Darn their de- praved hides ! I'd like to make 'em listen to reason with an ax. But this is free America, so all I can do is to write a letter to the papers now an' then — maybe an Indignant Taxpayer one on Wednesday, askin' what the country's comin' to, an' a Constant Reader smash on Sundays, gloomily pointin' out that Greece an' Rome went the same way. There simply isn't any room in this country for the fine old natu- ral impulses. "Lord knows I'm a good American, despite the drudgery of the job, but sometimes I jes' can't help castin' envious glances at Russia. Over there, as soon as the breakfast coffee has ceased to rankle, you pick up your gun an' a pair of brass knucks, an' go forth firm in the conviction that truth must an' shall prevail. If you don't hke a face, why, you change it with a few deft strokes, an' as for traitors who dare to hold different opinions, you kill 'em on the spot, an' rush off to get another service medal. "Between you an' me, I've always had a sneakin' fancy for those Bolsheviks. It began, I reckon, when they helped us out of our great unemploy- FREEDOM'S FAULTS 229 ment crisis that time when we had so many minds out of work, an* thousands of Bold Spirits walkin' the streets actually beggin' for something to think. Conditions were terrible. Birth control an' bobbed hair had lost their novelty, Socialism had become a bourgeois fad, an' the great fight of married ladies to keep their own names furnished sustenance for only a few. You remember, of course, what a god- send the Russian gospel was ? "But as I've watched the swift march of their powerful purpose, gratitude has given way to a distinct admiration. Lenine certainly knows human nature. Right at the start he saw that duty an' tolerance were acquired tastes, an' he didn't waste time on 'em. His motto was Tromp 'em,' an' he did. When he got through with Free Speech, for instance, only a few lifeless commas were left to tell the story. About the only people that escaped the firin' squad were confirmed deaf mutes, an' they had to keep their hands tied up for a year. As for Free Press an* Free Assemblage, the job was so thorough they can't even find the place where they used to stand. "Payin' your bills is another moldy old tradition wished on us by the Constitution. How in the name of common sense can a man lay up anything if he's all the time dolin' it out? If it hadn't been for the first of the month comin' around every thirty days, 230 UNCLE HENRY an' sooner in February, I'd be a rich man to-day, well able to run for the Senate. Russia has the right idea. She won't even meet her obligations in rubles, not that they begrudge another whirl of the printin' presses, but because she refuses to en- courage a vicious principle. Lenine has the vision to see bill payin' as a Victorian superstition that's got to be done away with if life is to be larger an' richer. "Industry is another. Pure habit. Nothin' in- stinctive about it. Back in the good old days when the race was young, an' when you could go swim- min' as you were, nobody heard any of this guff about thrift an' hard work. You jes' looked around until you located a chap that had something you wanted, an' then you picked out your most reliable club, sneaked up behind him an' expressed your views on the survival of the fittest. In that happy time you didn't wait for Opportunity to knock. You did the knockin' yourself, only takin' care to make it a good one. No wonder Bolshevism has a world-wide appeal, for it's a great *Back to Nature' movement. "Of course there isn't much chance of America adoptin' any of these fine, bold ideas. Too many of us own our homes, an' when you own anything you can't do a very good job of Bolshevickin'. Then for another thing, we've been workin' at this freedom FREEDOM^S FAULTS 231 business for a good long while now, an' habits are hard to break. What I do say, though, is that we ought to have time off now an' then — a sort of sum- mer vacation — for, while I'm no pessimist, signs are not lackin' to show that people are commencin' to show the effects of strain. "At the last presidential election, for instance, more than 26,000,000 men an' women were jes' too worn out with workin' at freedom to get to the polls. Other millions, by dint of sheer courage an' free automobiles, did manage to stagger to the ballot box, but only had strength enough left to vote a straight ticket. Even so, thousands of cases of brain fag were reported, an' it's only now that attendance at ball games is normal. Congress is workin' hard on a bill to provide a trained nurse for every votin' booth, an' there's a movement on foot to mobilize the Red Cross for use at the next election. "Heaven knows it was hard enough when we didn't have anything to do but choose between the Eagle an' the Rooster an' bawl out the election officials when the pencils wasn't sharp. But what's to become of us now that they've put over these here direct primaries where you've jes' got to know somebody that's runnin' before you can vote? No wonder there's a boom on in ouija boards, an' a strong movement to hire Conan Doyle to stay in this country. 232 UNCLE HENRY "An' the end's not yet. On every side you hear talk about how we ought to take an interest in men after they've been elected to office. Yessir! To be sure, Democratic an' Republican leaders are present- in' a solid front against the monstrous proposition, an' the Humane Society has entered a ringin' pro- test, but it looks as if the thing had a sweep that couldn't be stopped. Then there are all these Beveridge an' Pinchot an' Frazier victories. When we put the Grand Old Party back in power with New an' McCumber an' all the rest of 'em on the job, an' Warren sittin' there in the White House readin' E. P. Roe, I thought we'd heard the last of reform, an' could take life easy for a while.' Budgets! Economy! Efficiency! Square deal! Prog- ress! Unless something is done, Jimmie, an' done quickly, we're jes' one jump ahead of a mental col- lapse. The Bolshevik plan for a little while — even a few months — might save us. A complete rest from freedom. No elections. No responsibilities. No thinkin' of any kind." "Honestly now," demanded the Cub Reporter with his most patronizing expression, "do you really think we still have liberty in this country?" "Well," answered Uncle Henry, "we certainly take a lot of liberties with it." AMERICA'S FAMOUS MUD BATHS '^TTTELL, I hope you've got everything in readiness VV for the golden shower?*' beamed Uncle Henry as he drew up alongside the cigar stand and weighed anchor. "At any moment now a rain of money is likely to start that'll make the gutters run gold pieces. Before I left home this morning I put all the tubs an' washboilers out in the yard, the good wife stretched blankets between the clotheslines, an' even my grandchildren were spreadin' their aprons. "Well, sir, I could hardly believe my eyes when I read Secretary Mellon's modest statement tellin' how the national debt had been reduced by the sum of $999,999,999.01 an' a snug surplus of $314,- 999,999,999.02 tucked away besides. Good old Andy! That's what comes of havin' an experienced banker at the head of the Treasury Department. They're the boys that know how to make figures behave. You can't spend all your life gettin' out bank statements without learnin' how to have balances look pleasant when they're havin' their, pictures taken. 233 234 UNCLE HENRY "What makes joy all the more intense is that it comes as a relief to apprehension an' despair. To tell you the honest truth, Gloomy Gus Dawes was gettin* on my nerves with all his mutterin' about huge annual deficits an* the necessity for strictest economy. Why, he almost had me worked up to a pitch of self-denial where I wasn't goin' to let my wife have any summer clothes. Not that Charlie Dawes isn't all right, though. It's simply the case that he's old-fashioned, the kind that believes the way to have money is to save it. "Mellon's up to date. He belongs to the modern school where you make it after the other fellow's saved it. You don't see Andy rushin' around pickin' up pencil stubs, makin' clerks write on both sides of the paper an' buyin' pins in dozen lots for the sake of a petty discount. None of that picayune stuff for him. He believes in makin' money by bold strokes, no matter if they break the pen. They tell me that before he got through reducin' the national debt his arm gave out, an' that he had to equip his Waterman with an automatic drive for purposes of the surplus. "Didn't I tell you what would happen when we put the Republican party back in power? No use talk- in', Barney, the G. 0. P. understands the habits of Prosperity — jes' what to feed her an' how to bed her down. It's a beautiful sight to see her on the White AMERICA'S FAMOUS MUD BATHS 235 House lawn, friskin' around with Laddie Boy, an' growin' fat again on a regular, nutritious diet of printer's ink. I shouldn't wonder if we'd see all taxes taken off in the next month or two an' divi- dends declared. We certainly will if Andy doesn't get writer's cramp. I've got the coal cellar all cleared out for my share. Looks as if there wouldn't be much use for it anyway. "An' it isn't as if we only had Secretary Mellon to depend on. Harry Daugherty is another who's tapped a source of quick an' marvelous wealth. He's goin' to get back all the trillions that the Democrats stole durin' the war. Lord knows how much the re- covered loot will amount to, for the thievin' was so widespread an' persistent. Every Democrat came down to work in the mornin' with an empty basket, but goin' home at night he staggered under its weight. Thin men arrived at their offices in rain- coats an' left in the evenin' lookin' like sufferers from dropsy. The rumblin' through the streets of Washington at night, that we used to think artillery trucks, was really nothin' more than members of the Cabinet takin' home their swag. A high plumber, whose identity may not be disclosed at the moment, while preparin' for a nap in the cellar of the Treasury buildin' the other day, discovered a tunnel that led directly to the home of a Democrat who held one of the big jobs under W — dr — W — Ison. 236 UNCLE HENRY **No names are bein' mentioned as yet, for you cannot appreciate the intense desire to work no man a wrong; but it's well known that a former secre- tary of the Treasury, whose first two initials are W. G., an' whose last name begins with Mc, stole forty-one millions in silver dollars. He was seen with one the other day, carryin' it carefully in order not to break it. They say he's fled the United States an' is now in Los Angeles. "J phus D Is (you can understand the ne- cessity for discretion) got away with four battle- ships an' several submarines, sneakin' them out of the navy yards under his coat, but the secret-service boys have located 'em in his newspaper office at Raleigh an' their recovery is certain. Full proof isn't gathered yet, but the evidence points to N — ton B — ^ker's guilt in embezzlin' all the money that should have been spent for supplies an' munitions. Funny how little things betray criminals. A half- starved mackerel, crawlin' across a New England field, was the means of revealin' the theft of mil- lions appropriated for the support of our edible fish by the Department of Commerce. R — field's arrest may come at any time. "The Democrats, of course, are doin' their best to break the force of Daugherty's disclosures. Senator Reed, you may remember, exposed H — bert H — ver for havin' pocketed every cent the American people AMERICA'S FAMOUS MUD BATHS 237 donated for European relief, an' then goin' over an' pouchin' everything that the Belgians had collected. Accordin' to Reed, H — bert v^^as doin' the same thing in Russia, but after he stole $1.80, the weight of the rubles broke him down. Also, Sec — ^tary of W — r W — ks is charged with profitin' to the tune of millions on German patents. "But they can't beat Harry. He's hot on the job, an' you can bet no guilty man's goin' to escape. Of course they may get pardons after conviction, but you can't expect a fellow to break old habits all at once. "It's strange to me the papers haven't given him more credit, for not even Sherlock Holmes ever showed greater deductive ability. The job was an inside one, if you know what I mean, an' for a long time it practically baifled detection. Congress ap- pointed fourteen committees the minute the armi- stice was signed, an' not one of 'em could find anything but errors in a rag account. Daugherty himself worked away for a full year, an' might well have given up in despair if it hadn't been for Charlie Morse. "Heaven knows I don't like the man, but you've got to give him credit, for he's certainly been a motive power. All you've got to do is to mention his name an' Harry's off like a shot in the pursuit of some overshadowin' crime. 238 UNCLE HENRY "Of course lama, little bit disappointed that there haven't been any arrests an' trials as yet. Four years ought to be plenty of time. But now that Congress has given Harry another fifty million, well undoubtedly get results, for he'll be able to hire sleuths in quantity. He's got to have enough to cover all the primaries this summer as well as the fall elections. There's a rumor that some of the fugitive Democrats may come down out of the hills to vote." "You don't really believe all that stuff, do you?" asked Barney in a tone of utmost disgust. "Certainly not," calmly replied Uncle Henry. "No more does Daugherty or any other Republican leader. But what's that got to do with it? What- ever else you may say about Harry, an' Mondell an' Lodge an' the rest, they're good Americans, an' you can't well expect 'em to go back on the oldest game in our national life. It began on that day that Washington delivered his inaugural address. Before he'd reached the first period a big gob of dirt hit him in the eye, an ' by the end of his second term it took four mud scows to dig him out of the White House an' get him back to Mt. Vernon. They accused him of everything but mayhem, an' were only waitin' for him to get some new teeth to bring that charge. "Lincoln's thought well of to-day, but when he got home of an evenin' it took his wife an' the AMERICA'S FAMOUS MUD BATHS 239 children a good hour to scrape off the mud. Six months or so before Appomattox both Democratic an' Republican national bodies flayed him alive for losin' the war, one document allegin' unfaithfulness, incapacity, an' selfishness. Fierce lads even talked of poison. An' I reckon you remember what Con- gress did to Wilson. "Politics is a game that's always been played in a wallow. The side wins that gets the least mud on 'em. As a matter of course, it's developed a highly professional class of players, for it isn't everybody that has a natural aptitude for wallow- in'. Yet who's to blame? No game can endure that doesn't draw patronage, an' if mud slingin' didn't touch a popular chord it wouldn't last a minute. You know as well as I do, Barney, that we Americans like our gossip raw. "Look at the newspapers. Unless the front page hits you in the eye hard enough to draw blood, the editor feels that he's failed in his duty. Take your- self, if you can screw up the courage for a brief inspection. If they came to you an' began to tell what a fine man I was, such a fond father, devoted husband, an' all-around good citizen, you'd be bored to tears. But if they led you off into a corner, droppin' into excited whispers, an' started off with something like, *Say, did you hear about Henry? In strict confidence, I heard that — ' why, you'd stick 240 UNCLE HENRY out both ears like giant flanges, an' then spend the rest of the day spreadin' the glad news." "Anyway, it's terrible," grumbled Barney. "No wonder decent men don't want to go into politics. But what are we goin' to do about it?" "Well," said Uncle Henry, "maybe a genius like Edison can work out some plan for makin' good report as interestin' as evil report." FISHES AND FISHING ''"riOND of fishing?" asked the Cigar Stand Man, -L looking up from a bunch of summer resort literature. "Well," said Uncle Henry cautiously, "that de- pends. The pursuit of a fish, taken by itself, an' viewed critically, isn't exactly rich in big values, either dramatic or human. There's a certain dig- nity about standin' up under the charge of a bull moose, but it takes a mighty high imagination to give the onslaught of a bull mackerel anything ap- proachin' courage an' adventure. Do you know of any man that ever had his picture taken vdth one foot restin' on the dead body of a catfish? You can't imagine Scott writin' " 'The perch at eve had drunk his fill, Where danced the moon on Monan's rill. And deep his midnight lair had made Amid the water lily's shade. But when the sun, his beacon red Had kindled on Benvoirlich's head, The wild-eyed angler's deep-mouthed bay, Came floating down the rocky way.' "Never seen any great canvas showin' a flounder at bay, have you? To be sure, the Dutch school 241 242 UNCLE HENRY used to be strong on paintin' fish family groups, but even that's out of vogue since Volstead gave us a new an' higher concept of still life. Roosevelt was as keen a judge of dramatic values as this country has ever produced, but jes' think back, an' you'll remember that he never wasted any time on pursuin' scollops, small-mouthed bass, whitebait an' such like monsters of the deep. No, Barney, my boy, fishin' is something that requires a lot of mix- in' before it's ready for human consumption. You can't take it straight. "Missouri's got the idea. Out there you can fol- low your depraved tastes without ever havin' the finger of shame pointed at you, for people don't know whether you're fishin' or sleepin'. Given the proper amount of shade an' the right texture of grass, an' I'm not prepared to deny that fishin', taken under the Missouri prescription, is an out- door sport worthy of any red-blooded American. Strange the athletic East hasn't gone in for it more, for it furnishes as much exercise as watchin' baseball, tennis or a prize fight, with none of the emotional strain. "Come to think of it, I don't know of a more in- stant end to life's fret an' fever than when you've picked out the spot that offers largest inducements to visitin' hips, an' cast your cork upon the placid bosom of a home-made pond. No inner turmoil, FISHES AND FISHING 243 born of painful expectancies an' anguished uncer- tainties — no constant pullin' an' haulin' — ^but peace an' calm comin' from the sure knowledge that the cork will call to action only when action is de- manded. "What a people we are! We praise William C. Whitney for the cotton gin, Medill McCormick for the self-bindin' reaper, an' Henry Ford for his dis- covery of tin an' shellac, but none of them ever saved as much time an' labor as the cork, yet I'll bet you can't remember the name of the inventor. "Trout fishin', however, is another thing entirely, Barney, an' if that's what you've got in mind, you can have my motion picture rights an' welcome. After sittin' down suddenly an' violently on sharp rocks in every Rocky Mountain stream, an' leavin' samples of my virgin hide on every bramble, I've finally reached the point where I'm a pacifist as far as trout are concerned. "Don't talk to me about the brutality of football! Eleven men comin' on top of you is nothin' compared to one pointed rock comin' under you. An' it isn't as if they ever came out in the open an* fought fair. It's their stealth that makes 'em doubly deadly. From above, a pool may look as soft an' yieldin' as a baby's bath, but when you slip — an' you always do — a hundred hidden granite peaks leap forward with horrid cries an' drive themselves in up to the lung. 244 UNCLE HENRY "There's also the matter of hazards. Thank Heaven, Nature's confined herself to trout streams an' kept her hands off golf courses. At that it wouldn't be so bad if your hook always got caught in a bush or a tree, for while there's a good deal of irritation in the hour you spend gettin' it untangled, no real physical sufferin' is entailed. But it never does, for the blamed things have a blood lust that would shame a saber-toothed tiger. Some day I'm goin' to write a book on *Wild Hooks I Have Met.' Many a time I've hurled a line amid virgin forests an' thickest jungle, where it didn't seem humanly possible to miss a branch or vine, an' always that infernal hook would return to me with the accuracy an' velocity of a homin' pigeon. "What with bein' married an' havin' to sell news- papers, Barney, you may think you know the sor- rows of life, but wait until you've made a mighty cast, an' instead of seein' your hook hoverin' over the water fifty feet away, suddenly feel it establish- in' direct relations just south of the lumbar region. "I've fallen in cactus, I've backed into the hot water pipes in many bathrooms, I've met wasps on the mornin' when they'd put the wrong foot out of bed, but for sheer preoccupation I don't know of any- thing that takes up your mind more completely than a fishhook on a journey into the interior. What's more, it rarely fails to pick some embarrassin' FISHES AND FISHING 245 location that makes you shrink from summonin* assistance. "Some day, maybe, they'll invent a rockless trout stream with a sand bottom and heavily padded sides, an' fit it up with non-skid boots an' vegetarian hooks. When they do, an' put the whole thing in a desert, five miles from the nearest growin' thing, I may be induced to endure the sport again. "I'll also enter plea of not guilty if you mean deep sea fishin'. If you're in a sailboat the wind dies down an' if it's a gasoline launch, the engine goes dead, an' there you sit for hours, wonderin' if it would have helped any if you'd made your break- fast off of some good, solid ballast like concrete or pig iron. An' as for pleasure, catchin' a cod offers about the same emotional excitement as pullin' a dead cat out of the well. Life under the ocean wave can't mean much, Barney, for I've never yet pulled up a fish that didn't act as if I was doin' it a favor. They sink into your lap with a tired sigh, cuddlin' down contentedly, an' for a moment you have the horrid feelin' that you've got to go through life with 'em. "Then there are the flies, not the table flies of daily life, grown pickish an' choosy from ease an' surfeit, but the ocean-goin' article, brought up on traditions of the Spanish Main, askin' no mercy an' showin' none. Many a time, after bloody hand-to- 246 UNCLE HENRY mmmmmmmmmKmmammmmmmmmammmKmmmmmmmm^maammummmmmmmamaim^mmmmmammmimtmmmmm hand battles on shore, IVe confessed defeat, an' fled the field in a high-power boat, turnin' on speed until the water boiled an' the surface shone white with fish I'd run over. But when I'd stop, miles away, there would be the flies, playin' hopscotch to kill time, an' eager to know what had kept me, "Nowadays, when I feel the cravin' creepin' over me, I jes' go out in the yard where the sun gets a fair chance at the back of my neck, take a good un- comfortable position, an' drag old rubber coats up an' down for an hour or so. Shut your eyes, an' you can't tell 'em from real kelp. When the time comes to catch something, I get up an' hang out the wash. Of course if you want to savor realism to its fullest, you can take a dose of ipecac every now an' then, an' get every effect of waves except the sound. ^'Europe's funny about fishin'. In Scotland an' Ireland, for instance, fish come under the head of folklore, bein' handed down from generation to generation in the form of traditions. Each one has a name an' number, jes' like Francois, the famous rabbit that furnishes all the huntin' for France, an' your pursuit is never general but absolutely specific. Nor do you catch 'em, as in this country. You kill 'em, that is, you would if you ever saw one. In the British Isles they point out the chap that's killed a fish with the same pride that Arizona exhibits a two-gun man. FISHES AND FISHING 247 "No, Barney, I've practiced fishin* both here an' abroad, an' when I say there's nothin' in it, the opinion is based on scientific observation. How a grown man can — " "I hear they're bitin' fine up in Maine/' mur- mured the Cigar Stand Man, who had never stopped thumbing the folders. "I think I'll go up Monday for a week or so." "Make it Wednesday," said Uncle Henry eagerly, "and I'm with you." OUR INTERNATIONAL POLICY ''QAY, what about this League of Nations busi- Oness anyway?" demanded the Cigar Stand Man. "Are we going in it or ain't we?" "Sorry, Barney," murmured Uncle Henry regret- fully, "but the ouija board isn't workin' very well for me of late, an' I'm as much in the dark as anybody. However, an aunt of mine from Mis- souri is comin' to visit me next week, an' when that old lady gets to goin' good with tea leaves, the future jes' throws off all concealment an' begs for mercy. "There was a time when I figured Warren as bein* in favor of an international concert, but he seems to have lost his taste for music since gettin' the presidency. But when he first commenced to run for it, he certainly made a noise like world federa- tion. What more natural? A lifetime of socia- bility — the long sentences he'd served in the Elks, Moose, Owls, Eagles, and so forth — had taught him that man was not meant to live alone, an' his drift was inevitably in the general direction of the Big Idea. Not exactly a League, as I gathered it, but something a little more intimate an' cozy, like a 249 250 UNCLE HENRY World Luncheon club or a Friday Afternoon Cur- rent Events Circle. "All the same, I never felt quite safe, knowin' of Warren's mind as I did. Y'see, it's one of those v^ide-open affairs, free to the wind on four sides, an' with the latch string always out. He may wind the clock an' put out the cat, but when it comes to the Harding mind, nobody ever heard the sound of bolts an' turnin' keys. The minute I saw Lodge an' McCormick an' Johnson startin' for Marion— Hi wearin' a brand-new brogue — I knew there was goin' to be trouble. " 'What do you mean?' they cried. *Can't you hear the voice of America?' " *Yes,' Warren admitted, *but I only speak Eng- lish.' "When they got through, they tell me, Warren was white as a sheet at his narrow escape, an' never rested until old Doc Sawyer had gone over him with sprays for everything from heresy to the San Jose scale. The mere mention of the League of Nations threw him into a cold sweat, an' the very next day, in a speech to the Wood Growers* Benevo- lent Association of Lawrence, Mass., he made a ringin' denunciation of the damnable proposal to barter America's sovereignty. At least, that was what he meant it to be, but the trouble with bein' raised in the Ohio Nursery for Presidents is that it OUR INTERNATIONAL POLICY 251 becomes almost impossible for you to say what you mean. The heart may swell with high resolve, and the tongue warm up with all sorts of speed an' con- trol, but when the words appear, somehow all of 'em are kind of soft an* run together. For weeks after Warren's speech, guessin' contests as to what it meant rivaled strawberry socials in point of popularity. ''Lodge an' Johnson an' McCormick, as a matter of course, maintained that Warren had blown the League into a thousand pieces, supportin' their con- tention by affidavits from the most prominent psychoanalysts and clairvoyants. Taft an' Hoover an' Hughes, who by this time had committed them- selves to the League past all chances of wrigglin' out, took a tuck in their belts, an' by reducin' Warren's words to early Anglo-Saxon, proved con- clusively that he was for the League. "I tell you, Barney, my heart went out to Warren in the tryin' days that followed. Time after time, in vigorous addresses to the Society for the Support of Destitute Ship Owners and Sons of the Fiume Revolution, he tried to make it clear that he was opposed to a League of Nations in any shape or form, but he jes' couldn't make his words behave. I suppose I was about the only man in the country that knew what he was drivin* at, because when I was in Congress my relations with the Ohio delega- 252 UNCLE HENRY tion was very close. By addin' all the colons an' then subtractin' the commas, I was generally able to get Warren's drift. But Taft an' Hughes an' Hoover never failed to interpret jes' the other way. " True friends of the League cannot fail to re- joice at Mr. Harding's latest declaration,' Charlie would declare in a pithy little statement of 15,000 words. *While there is no doubt that his expressions are likely to prove misleading to one who is not a lawyer, I am able to say authoritatively^ owing to my long legal training, that his statements, when properly and charitably analyzed, are splendid in- dorsements of the great idea of world federation. There is no longer any reason why every true sup- porter of the League of Nations should not get behind this brilliant son of a — son of Ohio — and push him forward to the Presidency with both hands and feet.' "I understand that Warren even went so far as to go to 'em an' beg 'em to quit, but they met him with that sort of affectionate tolerance that is so much harder to bear than downright contempt. Hughes advised him to lie back, relax an' take deep breaths, an' Hoover felt sure that the trouble came from eatin' bread with too little bran content. "'It's simply a case of not knowin' your own mind,' said Taft. 'I was exactly the same way when I ran for President. My advice is to quit tryin' to OUR INTERNATIONAL POLICY 253 think for yourself. You have no idea how much strength it saves you/ "Of course, the Irreconcilables got sore, an' sent everybody to Marion from George Harvey up Jo Senate pages. I can't for the life of me under- stand how the railroads showed a deficit that year, for if nobody else had traveled except Harvey, there ought to have been a handsome surplus. Warren certainly did his darnedest to make good, but no matter how he tried to declare his opposition to the League, the Official Interpreters were always on hand to remove the meanin'. "The human ear, as they explained it, was about the most untrustworthy organ in the human body. Nothin' was more unsafe than reliance upon hearin*. To be sure, it did seem as if Warren had denounced the League, but what is sound between friends? It is not in the lips that truth must be sought, especially durin' the campaign, but in the heart, an' down in those inner depths where lives the soul, Warren loved the League. "Jes' before the election, Warren made a supreme effort to defy interpretation, but you can't get over the habits of a lifetime in a day. The veins on his forehead stood out, an' his vocal cords stretched to breakin', but all that issued was the same old mellifluous gurgle. An' while he lay flat on his back, utterly exhausted, they put out the famous 254 UNCLE HENRY statement signed by thirty-one eminent Republicans with the names of Taft, an' Hughes an' Hoover at the top. " *At last/ it said. 'The President has spoken in such manner as to leave no room for doubt. In the bold^ vivid phrase of which he is so peculiarly the master, he has declared for the League of Na- tions. The last excuse for hesitancy is swept aside. All those who believe in an international concert will rally to the support of Warren the Fearless. A vote for Harding is a vote for the League.' "I believed 'em. So did a good many hundreds of thousands of others. It never entered my mind that Warren could get away from an iron-willed pair like Hoover an' Hughes. An' when they went into the Cabinet, it seemed like it was all over but the shoutin'. But Warren's fooled us. That soft, yield- in' look was only velvet that hid iron. They thought it was marshmallow they were bitin' into, but deep down under the pulpy exterior reposed the solid substance of the all-day sucker. "What! You don't mean to say you didn't see the Hughes letter? The one in which Charlie swal- lowed his campaign statement that the way to get the League of Nations was to vote for Harding? Yessir! Admittin' right out that there isn't goin' to be any League, an' askin' people to forgive an' forget all he'd ever said on the subject in the past. OUR INTERNATIONAL POLICY 255 As I read the fateful document, so pathetically eloquent of surrender, I could see the picture as plainly as though I'd been sittin' in the State De- partment. Charlie at his desk, pen in hand, an' the Strong, Silent Son of Ohio standin' over him, gnarled hands clenched an' eyes stern as fate. ** Write ! ' commands Warren. " *No, no !' begs Charlie. *Let me save my face.' "*What for?' sneers Warren, givin' Hughes's whiskers a mean look. 'Nobody ever sees it anyway.' "'Mercy! Mercy!' " *Did you show me mercy?' There was a quality in Warren's voice that covered the windows with white frost. *No,' he says. 'You made your bed. Writer "Word by word Warren dictates, an* at the last, when the tremblin' signature is affixed, Charlie falls backward in a faint. For a minute Warren looks down, a slow smile curvin' his lips, an' then walks out, a strong man that has found himself. "It looks like the end, but you never can tell about Warren. An' we've still got Herb to rely on, you know. An' Taft too! When Bill gets back from his European joy ride, an' writes his annual opinion, he'll have lots of time on his hands, an' ought to be able to do something. But I don't know. They tell me Warren is about to let a contract for tearin' up the cables an' is workin' on a proclamation f orbiddin' 256 UNCLE HENRY the departure or arrival of ocean steamers. Lodge has a plan for runnin' electrified barb wire around the whole country, an' Borah, Moses an' La Follette have already formed a day an' night ocean patrol." "What about our foreign policy?" persisted Barney. * Well, " said Uncle Henry, "it looks to me as if it had lapsed." i Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: Sept. 2009 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111