A WIRELESS ANTEPENULTIMATUM
The President. Hay, Secretary of State. Bowen, Minister to Venezuela.
PRESIDENT:
John Hay, where are you on the great, gray sea?
I beg you will at once return to me.
This wireless business is the devil’s own,
And Castro’s playing him with me alone!
Venezuela sneering at my threat;
Santo Domingo more and more in debt;
Their foreign creditors dispatching fleets
With duns and guns and sons of guns—it beats
The Dutch, the devil and the band! I swear
From sheer distraction I could pull your hair!
’Twixt Castro and the Doctrine of Monroe,
My fears are nimble and my wits are slow.
I know not where to go nor how to stop—
Stand fast or, like old Saul of Tarsus, “flop.”
Nothing I know, and everything I doubt—
Dear John, in God’s name put your prow about!
HAY:
Though the skies fall upon the hills beneath
Be resolute. If needful show your teeth.
PRESIDENT:
Dear Bowen, go to Castro. Tell him straight
He must make up his mind to arbitrate.
Say if he won’t—here swing the big, big stick—
We’ll do a little stunt to make him sick.
BOWEN:
Your words I’ve put into his ear. Said he:
“I’m sick already—to the mountains, me.”
PRESIDENT:
Tell him again; then if he won’t, why, add
We’ll give him ninety days to wish he had.
BOWEN:
I’ve told him that, sir, and he says if you
Are pressed for time a single day will do,
For he’s a rapid wisher. What shall I
Say further, to provoke a coarse reply?
PRESIDENT:
Tell him that when the time allowed is up
We’ll press against his lips the bitter cup.
We’ll waste no further words in this. Don’t fail
To send the scalawag’s reply—by mail.