"Not in the least," Abe said. "Millionaires behave the way their fellow-countrymen encourages them to behave, Mawruss, which to my mind, Mawruss, the only way to learn a millionaire like Mr. Ford his place is not to notice him and, in particular, not to pay no attention to anything he says, and such a millionaire would quick subside and devote himself to the manufacture of safety-pins or the best four-cylinder car for the money in the world, as the case may be, which I see in the paper that the refusal of the United States Senate to confirm the Treaty of Peace looks quite certain to them people to whom the winning of the Willard-Dempsey fight by Jeff Willard looked quite certain, Mawruss."
"Well, to my mind, Abe, them round-robins is right to look into the Treaty and the League of Nations covenant before they confirm them," Morris said. "Also, Abe, you couldn't blame them Senators for getting indignant about the Shantung settlement."
"Personally I couldn't blame them and I couldn't praise them, Mawruss, because, like a hundred million other people in this country, not being in the silk business, Mawruss, I never had the opportunity to find out nothing about even where Shantung was on the map till they printed such a map in the papers last week, and if you've got to go and look it up on a map first to find out whether you should ought to be indignant or not, Mawruss, you couldn't get exactly red in the face over Japan taking Shantung, unless you are a Senator from the Pacific coast, where people have got such a wonderful color in their cheeks that Easterners think it's the climate, when, as a matter of fact, it is thinking about Japanese unrestricted immigration that does it."
"But the Senators represents the people which elects them, Abe," Morris said, "and if it don't take much to make a Californian indignant about any little thing he suspects Japan is doing, y'understand, then Senator Hiram Johnson has got a right to go 'round looking permanently purple over this here Shantung affair. As for the other Senators, Abe, the theory on which they talk each other deaf, dumb, and blind is that they are doing a job which it is impossible for the hundred million people of this country to do for themselves. They are saving their constituents the trouble of leaving their homes and spending a lot of time on government-controlled railroads, going to and from Washington to make their own laws, y'understand. That is what representative government is, Abe, and if the people of this country couldn't get indignant over what ain't right in this here Treaty of Peace and League of Nations without working up such indignation by several days' careful investigation of the reasons for getting indignant, then it is up to the United States Senate to get indignant for them, even if the individual Senators has got to sit up with wet towels 'round their heads and strong black coffee stewing on the gas-stove, so as not to fall asleep over the job of letting their feelings get the better of their judgment in working up a six-hour speech which will give the country the impression that it just came pouring out on the spur of the moment as a consequence of the Senators' red-hot indignation about this here Shantung."
"It's too bad that the House of Representatives couldn't be mind-readers like the Senate, Mawruss, and get off indignant speeches about what is making certain sections of the country so indignant, Mawruss, that if their Congressmen is going to really and truly represent them, there would be a regular epidemic of apoplexy in Washington," Abe said, "which I am talking about the enforcement of prohibition, Mawruss."
"For myself, Abe, I couldn't understand why it should be necessary to pass a law to enforce a law," Morris remarked, "because, if that is the case, what is going to be the end? After they pass this here law to enforce the prohibition law, are they going to pass another law to enforce the law to enforce prohibition, or do they expect that this here enforcement law will enforce itself, and if so, then why couldn't the prohibition law be enforced without a law to enforce it?"
"To tell you the truth, Mawruss, a dyed-in-wool Dry could be as hopeful as a man could possibly be on soft drinks, and in his heart of hearts he must got to know that if Congress would sit from now till the arrival of Elia Hanov'e and did nothing all that time but pass an endless chain of enforcement laws, prohibition will never be enforced except in the proportion of 2.75 enforcement to 97.25 violation, anyhow in those parts of the country where the hyphen Americans live and like their beverages with a hyphen in it, because, Mawruss, where a hundred per cent. of the population of a certain district has been drinking beer and light wines since 12 a.m. on Rosh Hashonah in the year one up to and including twelve midnight on June 30, 1919, y'understand, and seeing no harm in it, understand me, not only would an act of Congress fail to change the hearts and conscience of such people, but there could be an earthquake, a cyclone, and anything else which a confirmed Dry would call a judgment on them people, and still they wouldn't see no harm in it."
"Then what is the country going to do to enforce the prohibition law?" Morris asked.
"I don't know," Abe said; "but one thing is certain, you can't change people's habits on and after a certain hour on a certain date by putting a law into effect on such date. You might just so well expect that, if the Senate should confirm the provision handing over Shantung to the Japanese, all the Chinamen in Shantung is immediately going to open stores for the sale of imitation expensive vases and fake silk embroidery, start factories for the manufacture of phony Swedish safety-matches, and do all the other things which Japanese do so successfully that any reputable business man is willing to take a chance on getting indignant about Shantung without even asking his stenographer to look it up for him."
"But I thought you thought that prohibition would be a good thing, Abe?" Morris said.