"But why should the Secretary of the United States Treasury got to touch Mr. Wilson for?" Abe demanded. "Every day the people of the United States is paying into the United States Treasury millions and millions dollars income-tax money and all the President owns is a few gold caskets which he got presented with, and maybe a little tapestry, y'understand. What's the matter with that feller Carter H. Glass? Is he afraid he is going to run short if he spends a couple million dollars or so? Has he lost his nerve or something?"
"Well, I'll tell you, Abe," Morris began. "The Secretary of the Treasury 'ain't got such a cinch like some people think, y'understand. If the Bureau for Paying Allowances to the Relations of Soldiers send over and asks the Secretary of the Treasury to be so good and let 'em have for a few days three million dollars, understand me, you would naturally think that it is one of them dead open-and-shut, why-certainly propositions. The impression you have is that the Secretary grabs ahold of the 'phone and says to the head of stock to look on the third shelf from the elevator shaft is there any more of them million-dollar bills with the picture of Rutherford B. Hayes on 'em left, and if not, to send Jake up with three hundred of them three-by-seven-inch ten-thousand-dollar bills, and that's all there is to it. But as a matter of fact he doesn't do nothing of the kind, because nobody could get any money out of the Secretary of the Treasury except by an act of Congress."
"Well, it's nothing against Mr. Glass that he is such a tight-wad, Mawruss, because that's the kind of man to have as Secretary of the Treasurer, Mawruss, which supposing they had one of them easy-come, easy-go fellers for Secretary of the Treasurer, Mawruss—somebody who would fall for every hard-luck story he hears, y'understand, and how long is it going to be before the police is asking him what did he done with it all?" Abe said. "So, for my part, Mawruss, they could abuse Mr. Glass all they want to, y'understand, but I would be just as well satisfied, so far as my income taxes is concerned, if the only way you could get money out of him was by a miracle instead of an act of Congress. Am I right or wrong?"
"Do me the favor, Abe," Morris said, "and don't talk a lot of nonsense about a subject about which you don't know nothing about, because when I say that nobody could get money out of Carter H. Glass except by an act of Congress, y'understand, I ain't talking poetical in a manner of speaking. They must actually got to got and act of Congress before anybody could get any money out of the Secretary of the Treasury, no matter if Mr. Glass would be the most generous feller in existence, which, for all I know, he might be. So, therefore, Abe, when Congress adjourned without passing the acts which was necessary in order that the Secretary of the Treasury should pay the railroads seven hundred and fifty million dollars to keep 'em going, y'understand, not to mention such chicken-feed like three million dollars for this here Soldiers' Relations Bureau and the like, it leaves the country practically broke with seven or eight billion dollars in the bank. Now do you understand what I am driving into?"
"I think I do," Abe said, "but explain it to me just as if I didn't, because what is a mystery to me is, why did Congress adjourn without passing them acts, Mawruss?"
"They did it to put Mr. Wilson in bad on account he went to Europe without calling an extra session," Morris said.
"I thought Congress got paid by the year and not by the session," Abe remarked.
"So they do," Morris continued, "but they said they wanted to stay in session while Mr. Wilson was in Europe to help him, and Mr. Wilson thought they wanted to stay in session while he was in Europe to knock him, and he said: 'Watch! I'll fix them fellers,' and they said: 'Watch! We'll fix that feller.' And between the two of them, the railroads is left dry and high, the War Risks Bureau claims that they could only keep going for a week or so, the Soldiers' Relations people is sending out J O S signals, and that's the way it goes."
"And who do you think is right, Mawruss?" Abe asked. "Mr. Wilson or Congress?"
"Well, I ain't exactly prepared to say, y'understand," Morris replied, "but it's a question in my mind whether or not there ain't just so much need for a Peace Conference in Washington as there is in Paris, and if so, Abe, whether Mr. Wilson ain't at the wrong Peace Conference."