XIV
THE FIRST DAY OF MAY
"I see where in Genoa they already changed the name of a street which only last week they called Wilson Avenue, Mawruss," Abe Potash said one morning after the rupture with Orlando.
"Well, that's the trouble with calling articles after the latest popular success, Abe," Morris said. "It don't make no difference if it's streets or cigars, the first thing you know the people gets a grouch on the original of the brand and the manufacturer has got to tear up a few thousand Flor de President Wilson labels and go back to calling it the Regalia de Ginsburg Brothers, or whatever the name was."
"But in Genoa they didn't go back to the name of the old street, Mawruss," Abe said. "They renamed it Fiume Street."
"And it wouldn't surprise me in the least if a few Burleson streets was changed to Second Class Avenue, Abe," Morris declared, "on account this is a time of great ups and downs in the reputations of politicians, not to say statesmen, Abe, which six months from now nobody would be able to say offhand whether the name was Bela Hanson or Old Kun except the immediate family in Budapest or Seattle, as the case may be."
"In a way, Mawruss, the reputations of politicians, not to say statesmen, can get to be, so to speak, a nuisance to their fellow-countrymen," Abe observed, "which it happens once in a while that some politicians and statesmen gets to having such a high regard for their reputations, Mawruss, they would sooner injure their country than their reputation. Italian statesmen, French statesmen, English statesmen, and even, you might say, American statesmen goes about their work with one eye on the job in hand and the other eye on a possible statue or so at the junction of Main Street and Railroad Avenue in their native town, y'understand, with a subscription on the pedestal:
"'Harris J. Sonnino
Erected by His Fellow-Townsmen of East Rome,
August 1, 1919.'"
"Such an ambition, anyhow, makes the statesmen try to do the right thing," Morris observed.
"And it also occasionally makes him do the obstinate thing, Mawruss," Abe continued. "In fact, Mawruss, sometimes I couldn't help wishing that it was the custom to have corporations and not men as ambassadors and presidents, because it would be such a simple matter when the Republicans nominated the Chicago Title Guarantee, Security and Mortgage Company for President and the Democrats nominated the Algonquin Trust Company, of Pottstown, for the voters of the country to compare the statement of assets of each company and judge which was the most reliable, y'understand. Also, Mawruss, if the Algonquin Trust Company was now President of the United States, understand me, and somebody was to say they didn't like the way the President was running things at the Peace Conference, y'understand, nobody would have the nerve to arrest him for criticizing a great and good corporation like the Algonquin Trust Company. Furthermore, Mawruss, if Italy had been represented at this here Peace Conference not by Sonnino, but by the Milan Trust Company, which no doubt acts as executor, guardian or trustee like any other trust company, and therefore why not as ambassador, understand me, there never would have been no scrap about Fiume arising from the fact that the Milan Trust Company could never go home and face the people of Italy without Fiume, and also nobody would have considered that Mr. Wilson's statement was a direct slap in the face of the Milan Trust Company, Mawruss."