"Sure, I know," Morris said, "but he left it to the spender's judgment as to what was necessary and what was unnecessary, Abe, which even President Wilson himself finds it necessary once in a while to go to a theayter in order to forget the way them Pro Bono Publicos is nagging at him, morning, noon, and night."
"But the country must got to get very busy if we expect to win, Mawruss," Abe said, "and them Pro Bonos thinks it's up to them to make the people realize what a serious proposition we've got on our hands."
"That's all right, too," Morris agreed, "but it would be a whole lot more serious if the people become Meshuggah from melancholia before we got half-way through with the war. Even when times is prosperous only a very few of the Leute takes more amusement than is necessary for 'em, Abe, and that's why I say that this here Frank J. Vanderlip knew what he was talking about when he didn't say what things was unnecessary. For instance, Abe, if a Pro Bono Publico, on account of the war, cuts out taking a summer vacation for a couple of hundred dollars, and in consequence gets a breakdown from overwork and has to spend five hundred dollars for doctor bills, all you've got to do is to strike a balance and you can see for yourself that he has spent three hundred unnecessary unpatriotic dollars."
"Well, doctors has got to have money to buy Liberty Bonds with the same like anybody else, Mawruss," Abe commented.
"I know they have," Morris agreed, "and that's why I say the great mistake which these here Pro Bonos makes is that the war is going to be fought only with the money which is saved, whereas if them boys had any experience collecting for an orphan asylum or a hospital, Abe, they would know that it ain't the tight-wads which come across. Yes, Abe, you could take it from me, the very people which is cutting out theayters, automobile rides, and auction pinochle for the duration of the war would think twice before they invest the money they save that way in anything which don't bear interest at the rate of six per cent. per annum."
"You may be right, Mawruss," Abe said, "but arguments about how to finance the war is like double-faced twelve-inch phonograph records. There's a good deal to be said on both sides, which it looks like a dead open-and-shut proposition to me that people couldn't buy no Liberty Bonds with the money they spend for theayter tickets."
"But the feller which runs the theayter could, and he must also got to pay the government a tax on the money which he gets that way," Morris retorted.
"But how about the money which the theayter-owner must got to pay in wages to actors, play-writers, ushers, and the Rosher which sells tickets in the box-office?" Abe argued.
"Well, how are all them loafers going to buy Liberty Bonds if they wouldn't get their money that way?" Morris asked. "So you see how it is, Abe: the feller which saves all his money for the duration of the war ain't such a big Tzaddik as you would think, because even if he invests the whole thing in Liberty Bonds, which he ain't likely to do, all he gets for his money is Liberty Bonds, and at the same time he is helping to ruin a lot of business men and throw their employees out of their jobs, and incidentally he is also doing the best he knows how to make the whole country sick and tired of the war. Aber you take one of them fellers which goes once in a while to the theayter for the duration of the war, y'understand, and indirectly he is handing the government just so much money as the tight-wad, the only difference being that the government ain't paying him no interest on it, and he is also helping to keep the show business going and to pay the wages of the actors and all them other low-lives which makes a living out of the show business."
"Sure, I know," Abe said. "But how is the government going to get men for the ammunition-factories if they are busy making automobiles for joy-riding oder fooling away their time as actors, Mawruss?"