From me, your husband
SHMÙEL MÖSHEH.
——
THIRD LETTER
My beloved wife:
I can remember when Yoneh the shoemaker went to America, and people began to talk about it for the first time, wondering what it was like there, how things were done.
They asked, whether people walked on their heads, and it is true that everything here is upside down. No sort of order, only a great shouting and noise, as in the butchers' meeting-house at home.
Imagine, for instance, Paltiel the wadding-maker and Yössil the tanner coming and saying that our rabbi is not learned; that he is not experienced enough in the application of the Law, or that they are not satisfied with the head of the community—that they want another rabbi, another communal head. Well, wouldn't one hold one's sides laughing?
And here, in America, workmen, cigar-cutters, for instance like me, have a word to say in everything. They share in the elections, take part in the voting, and choose—a President.
And what do you think that is? A President is nothing more nor less than the supreme head of the whole country. And America, so I have heard, is ten times as large as the whole of Europe. You see what that means? Now imagine my surprise, as I sit in my room one evening, thinking of home, and suddenly the door opens, and there come in two workmen, ordinary workmen, who stand with me at the same machine, and are Achènu Benè Yisroèl.[126] And they laid two names before me, I don't even recollect what they were, and tell me, I also am a workman, and must see to the election of a President who shall favor our class.
And they told me that one President was all for the rich people and trod down all those who lived by their ten fingers; while the second, the one they wanted to have elected, was a jewel; he stood for the workingman like a flint, and pursued the bloated upper classes with a fierce hatred. And more such foolishness, which I did not understand.