"Some people is willing to get in a knock at Mr. Wilson without even so much as an orange-phosphate tax for an excuse, Abe," Morris said, significantly.
"I know they are," Abe replied, innocently, "and as for Postmaster-General Burleson, seemingly he couldn't suit nobody no matter what he does. Take, for instance, them fourteen bombs which was mailed in New York the other day, Mawruss, and if it wouldn't be that Postmaster-General Burleson has probably given strict orders that no mail should be forwarded which was short even a half-a-cent postage-stamp even, the chances is that every one of them fourteen bombs would have been delivered and exploded by now. But suppose that, instead of Postmaster-General Burleson, we would have had as Postmaster-General some good-natured feller which when his New York representatives called him up and told him they were holding fourteen packages there for additional postage, would have said: 'Oh, let 'em go. We couldn't afford to be small about a little thing like additional postage.' And what would have happened? Why, the fourteen judges, mayors, and assorted Senators and district attorneys to which them packages was addressed would have been lucky if they escaped with nothing worse than singed eyebrows, Mawruss. And to-day yet, Mawruss, them fellers which has got only Postmaster-General Burleson to thank that they can still riffle a deck of cards, understand me, is probably going around beefing about the terrible delay in the delivery of mail under the administration of Postmaster-General Burleson."
"And do you think that the police will ever find out who sent them bombs, Abe?" Morris asked.
"Probably not," Abe replied, "but they will probably find some man or men who would have liked to have sent them and would have been glad to have sent them, and as nobody is going to miss such fellers, Mawruss, it probably won't make much difference in the long run if any such case of mistaken identity ain't discovered until the sentence is carried out, y'understand."
"I see that it says in the paper where the anarchists which sent them bombs was celebrating the first day of May, which is the anarchists' Fourth of July, Abe," Morris observed, "which, considering all the trouble that takes place in Europe with general strikes and riots on the first of May, Abe, it's a wonder to me that the constitution of the League of Nations didn't contain an article providing that in the interests of international peace, y'understand, the month of May should hereafter contain thirty days instead of thirty-one, commencing with the second day of May, and leave them anarchists up against it for a day to celebrate."
"The first of May is the socialists' Fourth of July, not the anarchists'," Abe said, "which, while it is possible that these here anarchists sent them bombs around the first of May out of compliment to their friends the socialists, Mawruss, an anarchist don't attach no particular sentiment to the day when a bomb explodes, just so long as it does enough damage, Mawruss."
"Just the same, I am in favor of doing away with the first of May," Morris insisted, "and if it ain't practical to abolish the date, Abe, let 'em anyhow cut out the celebration. Them general strikes causes a whole lot of trouble."
"They do if you take them seriously," Abe agreed, "because in this country, at least, Mawruss, only a few people takes part in the May first general strike. This year we only had two of our work-people away on account of the general strike, and one of them now claims he stayed home on account of injuring his hand in one of our buttonhole-machines, which I have got proof to show, Mawruss, that when the police threw him out of the hall where the meeting was taking place he landed on his wrist."
"He should have landed on his neck," Morris observed, "because if them socialists get hurt by their nonsense it's their own fault, Abe. They go to work and announce a general strike, and naturally the authorities takes them seriously and gets ready for trouble with a lot of policemen, which you know as well as I do, Abe, when the police gets ready for trouble they usually find it, even if they have to make it themselves. The consequence is, Abe, that a fractured skull has become practically the occupational disease of being a socialist, just the same as phosphorus-poisoning attacked people which worked in match-factories in the old days before the Swedish manufacturers invented matches which strike only on the box one time out of fifty if the weather conditions is just right."
"Sure, I know," Abe observed, "but people worked in match-factories because they couldn't make a living in any other way, Mawruss, whereas nobody compels any one to be a socialist if he don't want to, Mawruss, and what enjoyment them socialists get out of it I don't know."