Books: The Hohenzollerns in America
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Stephen Leacock >> The Hohenzollerns in America
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But for the club itself the thing came with a perfect
crash. The whole preparation of the great Kermesse was
well under way when the news broke upon us. For a time
the members were aghast. It looked like ruin. But presently
it was suggested that it might still be possible to save
the club by turning the whole affair into a Peace Kermesse
and devoting the proceeds to some suitable form of relief.
Luckily it was discovered that there was still a lot of
starvation in Russia, and fortunately it turned out that
in spite of the armistice the Turks were still killing
the Armenians.
So it was decided to hold the Kermesse and give all the
profits realised by it to the Victims of the Peace.
Everybody set to work again with a will. The Kermesse
indeed had to be postponed for a few months to make room
for the changes needed, but it has now been held and, in
a certain sense, it has been the wildest kind of success.
The club, as I said, has been a blaze of light for three
weeks. We have had four orchestras in attendance every
evening. There have been booths draped with the flags of
all the Allies, except some that we were not sure about,
in every corridor of the club. There have been dinner
parties and dances every evening. The members, especially
the ladies, have not spared themselves. Many of them have
spent practically all their time at the Kermesse, not
getting home until two in the morning.
And yet somehow one has felt that underneath the surface
it was not a success. The spirit seemed gone out of it.
The members themselves confessed in confidence that in
spite of all they could do their hearts were not in it.
Peace had somehow taken away all the old glad sense of
enjoyment. As to spending money at the Kermesse all the
members admitted frankly that they had no heart for it.
This was especially the case when the rumour got abroad
that the Armenians were a poor lot and that some of the
Turks were quite gentlemanly fellows. It was said, too,
that if the Russians did starve it would do them a lot
of good.
So it was known even before we went to hear the financial
report that there would be no question of profits on the
Kermesse going to the Armenians or the Russians.
And to-night the treasurer has been reading out to a
general meeting the financial results as nearly as they
can be computed.
He has put the Net Patriotic Deficit, as nearly as he
can estimate it, at fifteen thousand dollars, though he
has stated, with applause from the ladies, that the Gross
Deficit is bigger still.
The Ladies Financial Committee has just carried a motion
that the whole of the deficit, both net and gross, be
now forwarded to the Red Cross Society (sixty per cent),
the Belgian Relief Fund (fifty per cent), and the remainder
invested in the War Loan.
But there is a very general feeling among the male members
that the club will have to go into liquidation. Peace
has ruined us. Not a single member, so far as I am aware,
is prepared to protest against the peace, or is anything
but delighted to think that the war is over. At the same
time we do feel that if we could have had a longer notice,
six months for instance, we could have braced ourselves
better to stand up against it and meet the blow when it
fell.
I think, too, that our feeling is shared outside.
5.--The War News as I Remember it
Everybody, I think, should make some little contribution
towards keeping alive the memories of the great war. In
the larger and heroic sense this is already being done.
But some of the minor things are apt to be neglected.
When the record of the war has been rewritten into real
history, we shall be in danger of forgetting what WAR
NEWS was like and the peculiar kind of thrill that
accompanied its perusal.
Hence in order to preserve it for all time I embalm some
little samples of it, selected of course absolutely at
random,--as such things always are--in the pages of this
book.
Let me begin with:--
I--THE CABLE NEWS FROM RUSSIA
This was the great breakfast-table feature for at least
three years. Towards the end of the war some people began
to complain of it. They said that they questioned whether
it was accurate. Here for example is one fortnight of
it.
Petrograd, April 14. Word has reached here that the
Germans have captured enormous quantities of grain on
the Ukrainian border.
April 15. The Germans have captured no grain on the
Ukrainian border. The country is swept bare.
April 16. Everybody in Petrograd is starving.
April 17. There is no lack of food in Petrograd.
April 18. The death of General Korniloff is credibly
reported this morning.
April 19. It is credibly reported this morning that
General Korniloff is alive.
April 20. It is credibly reported that General
Korniloff is hovering between life and death.
April 21. The Bolsheviki are overthrown.
April 22. The Bolsheviki got up again.
April 23. The Czar died last night.
April 24. The Czar did not die last night.
April 25. General Kaleidescope and his Cossacks
are moving north.
April 26. General Kaleidescope and his Cossacks
are moving south.
April 27. General Kaleidescope and his Cossacks
are moving east.
April 28. General Kaleidescope and his Cossacks
are moving west.
April 29. It is reported that the Cossacks under General
Kaleidescope have revolted. They demand the Maximum.
General Kaleidescope hasn't got it.
April 30. The National Pan-Russian Constituent Universal
Duma which met this morning at ten-thirty, was
dissolved at twenty-five minutes to eleven.
My own conclusion, reached with deep regret, is that the
Russians are not yet fit for the blessings of the Magna
Carta and the Oklahama Constitution of 1907. They ought
to remain for some years yet under the Interstate Commerce
Commission.
II--SAMPLE OF SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE
New York (through London via Holland and coming out at
Madrid). Mr. O. Howe Lurid, our special correspondent,
writing from "Somewhere near Somewhere" and describing
the terrific operations of which he has just been an
eyewitness, says:
"From the crest where I stood, the whole landscape about
me was illuminated with the fierce glare of the bursting
shells, while the ground on which I stood quivered with
the thunderous detonation of the artillery.
"Nothing in the imagination of a Dante could have equalled
the lurid and pyrogriffic grandeur of the scene. Streams
of fire rose into the sky, falling in bifurcated
crystallations in all directions. Disregarding all personal
danger, I opened one eye and looked at it.
"I found myself now to be the very centre of the awful
conflict. While not stating that the whole bombardment
was directed at me personally, I am pretty sure that it
was."
I admit that there was a time, at the very beginning of
the war, when I liked this kind of thing served up with
my bacon and eggs every morning, in the days when a man
could eat bacon and eggs without being labelled a
pro-German. Later on I came to prefer the simple statements
as to the same scene and event, given out by Sir Douglas
Haig and General Pershing--after this fashion:
"Last night at ten-thirty P.M. our men noticed signs of
a light bombardment apparently coming from the German
lines."
III--THE TECHNICAL WAR DESPATCHES
The best of these, as I remember them, used to come from
the Italian front and were done after this fashion:--
"Tintino, near Trombono. Friday, April 3. The Germans,
as I foresaw last month they would, have crossed the
Piave in considerable force. Their position, as I said
it would be, is now very strong. The mountains bordering
the valley run--just as I foresaw they would--from
northwest to southeast. The country in front is, as I
anticipated, flat. Venice is, as I assured my readers it
would be, about thirty miles distant from the Piave,
which falls, as I expected it would, into the Adriatic."
IV--THE WAR PROPHECIES
Startling Prophecy in Paris. All Paris is wildly excited
over the extraordinary prophecy of Madame Cleo de Clichy
that the war will be over in four weeks. Madame Cleo,
who is now as widely known as a diseuse, a liseuse, a
friseuse and a clairvoyante, leaped into sudden prominence
last November by her startling announcement that the
seven letters in the Kaiser's name W i l h e l m represented
the seven great beasts of the apocalypse; in the next
month she electrified all Paris by her disclosure that
the four letters of the word C z a r--by substituting
the figure 1 for C, 9 for Z, 1 for A, and 7 for R produce
the date 1917, and indicated a revolution in Russia. The
salon of Madame Cleo is besieged by eager crowds night
and day. She may prophesy again at any minute.
Startling Forecast. A Russian peasant, living in
Semipalatinsk, has foretold that the war will end in
August. The wildest excitement prevails not only in
Semipalatinsk but in the whole of it.
Extraordinary Prophecy. Rumbumbabad, India. April 1. The
whole neighbourhood has been thrown into a turmoil by
the prophecy of Ram Slim, a Yogi of this district, who
has foretold that the war will be at an end in September.
People are pouring into Rumbumbabad in ox-carts from all
directions. Business in Rumbumbabad is at a standstill.
Excitement in Midgeville, Ohio. William Bessemer Jones,
a retired farmer of Cuyahoga, Ohio, has foretold that
the war will end in October. People are flocking into
Midgeville in lumber wagons from all parts of the country.
Jones, who bases his prophecy on the Bible, had hitherto
been thought to be half-witted. This is now recognised
to have been a wrong estimate of his powers. Business in
Midgeville is at a standstill.
Dog's Foot. Wyoming. April 1. An Indian of the Cheyenne
tribe has foretold that the war will end in December.
Business among the Indians is at a standstill.
V--DIPLOMATIC REVELATIONS
These were sent out in assortments, and labelled Vienna,
via London, through Stockholm. After reading them with
feverish eagerness for nearly four years, I decided that
they somehow lack definiteness. Here is the way they ran:
"Special Correspondence. I learn from a very high authority,
whose name I am not at liberty to mention, (speaking to
me at a place which I am not allowed to indicate and in
a language which I am forbidden to use)--that
Austria-Hungary is about to take a diplomatic step of
the highest importance. What this step is, I am forbidden
to say. But the consequences of it--which unfortunately
I am pledged not to disclose--will be such as to effect
results which I am not free to enumerate."
VI--A NEW GERMAN PEACE FORMULA
Dr. Hertling, the Imperial Chancellor, speaking through
his hat in the Reichstag, said that he wished to state
in the clearest language of which he was capable that
the German peace plan would not only provide the fullest
self determination of all ethnographic categories, but
would predicate the political self consciousness
(politisches Selbstbewusztsein) of each geographical and
entomological unit, subject only to the necessary
rectilinear guarantees for the seismographic action of
the German empire. The entire Reichstag, especially the
professorial section of it, broke into unrestrained
applause. It is felt that the new formula is the equivalent
of a German Magna Carta--or as near to it as they can
get.
VII--THE FINANCIAL NEWS
The war finance, as I remember it, always supplied items
of the most absorbing interest. I do not mean to say that
I was an authority on finance or held any official position
in regard to it. But I watched it. I followed it in the
newspapers. When the war began I knew nothing about it.
But I picked up a little bit here and a little bit there
until presently I felt that I had a grasp on it not easily
shaken off.
It was a simple matter, anyway. Take the case of the
rouble. It rose and it fell. But the reason was always
perfectly obvious. The Russian news ran, as I got it in
my newspapers, like this:--
"M. Touchusoff, the new financial secretary of the Soviet,
has declared that Russia will repay her utmost liabilities.
Roubles rose."
"M. Touchusoff, the late financial secretary of the
Soviet, was thrown into the Neva last evening. Roubles
fell."
"M. Gorky, speaking in London last night, said that Russia
was a great country. Roubles rose."
"A Dutch correspondent, who has just beat his way out of
Russia, reports that nothing will induce him to go back.
Roubles fell."
"Mr. Arthur Balfour, speaking in the House of Commons
last night, paid a glowing tribute to the memory of Peter
the Great. Roubles rose."
"The local Bolsheviki of New York City at the Pan-Russian
Congress held in Murphy's Rooms, Fourth Avenue, voted
unanimously in favor of a Free Russia. Roubles never
budged."
With these examples in view, anybody, I think, could
grasp the central principles of Russian finance. All that
one needed to know was what M. Touchusoff and such people
were going to say, and who would be thrown into the Neva,
and the rise and fall of the rouble could be foreseen to
a kopeck. In speculation by shrewd people with proper
judgment as to when to buy and when to sell the rouble,
large fortunes could be made, or even lost, in a day.
But after all the Russian finance was simple. That of
our German enemies was much more complicated and yet
infinitely more successful. That at least I gathered from
the little news items in regard to German finance that
used to reach us in cables that were headed Via Timbuctoo
and ran thus:--
"The fourth Imperial War Loan of four billion marks, to
be known as the Kaiser's War Loan, was oversubscribed
to-day in five minutes. Investors thronged the banks,
with tears in their eyes, bringing with them everything
that they had. The bank managers, themselves stained with
tears, took everything that was offered. Each investor
received a button proudly displayed by the
too-happy-for-words out-of-the-bank-hustling recipient."
6.--Some Just Complaints About the War
No patriotic man would have cared to lift up his voice
against the Government in war time. Personally, I should
not want to give utterance even now to anything in the
way of criticism. But the complaints which were presented
below came to me, unsought and unsolicited, and represented
such a variety of sources and such just and unselfish
points of view that I think it proper, for the sake of
history, to offer them to the public.
I give them, just as they reached me, without modifications
of any sort.
The just complaint of Mr. Threadler, my tailor, as
expressed while measuring me for my Win-the-War autumn
suit.
"Complaint, sir? Oh, no, we have no complaint to make in
our line of business, none whatever (forty-two, Mr.
Jephson). It would hardly become us to complain (side
pockets, Mr. Jephson). But we think, perhaps, it is rather
a mistake for the Government (thirty-three on the leg)
to encourage the idea of economy in dress. Our attitude
is that the well dressed man (a little fuller in the
chest? Yes, a little fuller in the chest, please, Mr.
Jephson) is better able to serve his country than the
man who goes about in an old suit. The motto of our trade
is Thrift with Taste. It was made up in our spring
convention of five hundred members, in a four day sitting.
We feel it to be (twenty-eight) very appropriate. Our
feeling is that a gentleman wearing one of our thrift
worsteds under one of our Win-the-War light overcoats
(Mr. Jephson, please show that new Win-the-War overcoating)
is really helping to keep things going. We like to reflect,
sir (nothing in shirtings, today?) that we're doing our
bit, too, in presenting to the enemy an undisturbed nation
of well dressed men. Nothing else, sir? The week after
next? Ah! If we can, sir! but we're greatly rushed with
our new and patriotic Thrift orders. Good morning, sir."
The just complaint of Madame Pavalucini, the celebrated
contralto. As interviewed incidentally in the palm-room
of The Slitz Hotel, over a cup of tea (one dollar), French
Win-the-War pastry (one fifty) and Help-the-Navy cigarettes
(fifty).
"I would not want to creetecize ze gouvermen' ah! non!
That would be what you call a skonk treeck, hein?" (Madame
Pavalucini comes from Missouri, and dares not talk any
other kind of English than this, while on tour, with any
strangers listening.) "But, I ask myself, ees it not just
a leetle wrong to discourage and tax ze poor artistes?
We are doing our beet, hein? We seeng, we recite! I seeng
so many beautiful sings to ze soldiers; sings about love,
and youth, and passion, and spring and kisses. And the
men are carried off their feet. They rise. They rush to
the war. I have seen them, in my patriotic concerts where
I accept nothing but my expenses and my fee and give all
that is beyond to the war. Only last night one arose,
right in the front rank--the fauteuils d'orchestre, I do
not know how you call them in English. 'Let me out of
zis,' he scream, 'me for the war! Me for the trenches!'
Was it not magnifique--what you call splendide, hein?
"And then ze gouvermen' come and tell me I must pay zem
ten thousan' dollars, when I make only seexty thousan'
dollars at ze opera! Anozzer skonk treeck, hein?"
The just complaint of Mr. Grunch, income tax payer, as
imparted to me over his own port wine, after dinner.
"No, I shouldn't want to complain: I mean, in any way
that would reach the outside,--reach it, that is, in
connection with my name. Though I think that the thing
ought to be said by SOMEBODY. I think you might say it.
(Let me pour you out another glass of this Conquistador:
yes, it's the old '87: but I suppose we'll never get any
more of it on this side: they say that the rich Spaniards
are making so much money they're buying up every cask of
it and it will never be exported again. Just another
illustration of the way that the war hits everybody
alike.) But, as I was saying, I think if YOU were to
raise a complaint about the income tax, you'd find the
whole country--I mean all the men with incomes--behind
you. I don't suppose they'd want you to mention their
names. But they'd be BEHIND you, see? They'd all be there.
(Will you try one of these Googoolias? They're the very
best, but I guess we'll never see them again. They say
the rich Cubans are buying them up. So the war hits us
there, too.) As I see it, the income tax is the greatest
mistake the government ever made. It hits the wrong man.
It falls on the man with an income and lets the other
man escape. The way I look at it, and the way all the
men that will be behind you look at it, is that if a man
sticks tight to it and goes on earning all the income he
can, he's doing his bit, in his own way, to win the war.
All we ask is to be let alone (don't put that in your
notes as from me, but you can say it), let us alone to
go on quietly piling up income till we get the Germans
licked. But if you start to take away our income, you
discourage us, you knock all the patriotism out of us.
To my mind, a man's income and his patriotism are the
same thing. But, of course, don't say that I said that."
The just complaint of my barber, as expressed in the
pauses of his operations.
"I'm not saying nothing against the Government (any facial
massage this morning?). I guess they know their own
business, or they'd ought to, anyway. But I kick at all
this talk against the barber business in war time (will
I singe them ends a bit?). The papers are full of it,
all the time. I don't see much else in them. Last week
I saw where a feller said that all the barber shops ought
to be closed up (bay rum?) till the war was over. Say,
I'd like to have him right here in this chair with a
razor at his throat, the way I have you! As I see it,
the barber business is the most necessary business in
the whole war. A man'll get along without everything
else, just about, but he can't get along without a shave,
can he?--or not without losing all the pep and self-respect
that keeps him going. They say them fellers over in France
has to shave every morning by military order: if they
didn't the Germans would have 'em beat. I say the barber
is doing his bit as much as any man. I was to Washington
four months last winter, and I done all the work of three
senators and two congressmen (will I clip that neck?)
and I done the work of a United States Admiral every
Saturday night. If that ain't war work, show me what is.
But I don't kick, I just go along. If a man appreciates
what I do, and likes to pay a little extra for it, why
so much the better, but if he's low enough to get out of
this chair you're in and walk off without giving a cent
more than he has to, why let him go. But, sometimes, when
I get thinking about all this outcry about barber's work
in war time, I feel like following the man to the door
and slitting his throat for him... Thank you, sir; thank
you, sir. Good morning. Next!"
The just complaint of Mr. Singlestone;--formerly Mr.
Einstein, Theatre Proprietor.
"I would be the last man, the very last, to say one word
against the Government. I think they are doing fine. I
think the boys in the trenches are doing fine. I think
the nation is doing fine. But, if there's just one thing
where they're wrong, it's in the matter of the theatres.
I think it would be much better for the Government not
to attempt to cut down or regulate theatres in any way.
The theatre is the people's recreation. It builds them
up. It's all part of a great machine to win the war. I
like to stand in the box office and see the money come
in and feel that the theatre is doing its bit. But, mind
you, I think the President is doing fine. So, all I say
is, I think the theatres ought to be allowed to do fine,
too."
The just complaint of Mr. Silas Heck, farmer, as
interviewed by me, incognito, at the counter of the
Gold Dollar Saloon.
"Yes, sir, I say the Government's in the wrong, and I
don't care who hears me. (Say, is that feller in the
slick overcoat listening? Let's move along a little
further.) They're right to carry on the war for all the
nation is worth. That's sound and I'm with 'em. But they
ought not to take the farmer offen his farm. There I'm
agin them. The farmer is the one man necessary for the
country. They say they want bacon for the Allies. Well,
the way I look at it is, if you want bacon, you need
hogs. And if there are no men left in the country like
me, what'll you do for hogs!
"Thanks, was you paying for that? I guess we won't have
another, eh? Two of them things might be bad for a feller."
So, when I used to listen to the complaints of this sort
that rose on every side, I was glad that I was not
President of the United States.
At the same time I DO think that the Government makes a
mistake in taxing the profits of the poor book writers
under the absurd name of INCOME. But let that go. The
Kaiser would probably treat us worse.
I.--Some Startling Side Effects of the War
"There is no doubt," said Mr. Taft recently, "that the
war is destined to effect the most profound uplift and
changes, not only in our political outlook, but upon our
culture, our thought and, most of all, upon our literature."
I am not absolutely certain that Mr. Taft really said
this. He may not have said "uplift." But I seem to have
heard something about uplift, somewhere. At any rate,
there is no doubt of the fact that our literature has
moved--up or down. Yes, the war is not only destined to
affect our literature, but it has already done so. The
change in outlook, in literary style, in mode of expression,
even in the words themselves is already here.
Anybody can see it for himself by turning over the pages
of our fashionable novels or by looking at the columns
of our great American and English newspapers and
periodicals.
But stop,--let me show what I mean by examples. I have
them here in front of me. Take, for example, the London
Spectator. Everybody recognised in it a model of literary
dignity and decorum. Even those who read it least, admitted
this most willingly; in fact, perhaps all the more so.
In its pages to-day one finds an equal dignity of thought,
yet, somehow, the wording seems to have undergone an
alteration. One cannot say just where the change comes
in. It is what the French call a je ne sais quoi, a
something insaisissable, a sort of nuance, not amounting
of course to a lueur, but still,--how shall one put
it,--SOMETHING.
The example that is given below was taken almost word
for word (indeed some of the words actually were so) from
the very latest copy of The Spectator.
EDITORIAL FROM THE LONDON "SPECTATOR"
Showing the Stimulating Effect of the War on Its
Literary Style
"There is no doubt that our boys, and the Americans, are
going some on the western front. We have no hesitation
in saying that last week's scrap was a cinch for the
boys. It is credibly reported by our correspondent at
The Hague that the German Emperor, the Crown Prince and
a number of other guys were eye witnesses of the fight.
If so, they got the surprise of their young lives. While
we should not wish to show anything less than the chivalrous
consideration for a beaten enemy which has been a tradition
of our nation, we feel it is but just to say that for
once the dirty pups got what was coming to them. We are
glad to learn from official quarters that His Majesty
King George has been graciously pleased to telegraph to
General Pershing, 'Soak it to 'em--and THEN some.'
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