"Everybody ain't so easy as Harris Immerglick," Morris Perlmutter commented.
"Maybe not," Abe admitted. "But Harris Immerglick didn't want them lots not nearly as bad as the Kaiser wants peace, Mawruss, so while the parties to the proposed contract seems to be at present too wide apart to make a deal likely, Mawruss, at the same time I look to see the Kaiser offer a few concessions."
"Perhaps you're right, Abe," Morris said, "but while the Kaiser may have control of enough property so as to throw in a little here and a little there, y'understand, in the end it will be the boot money which will count, Abe, and before this deal is closed, Abe, you could bet your life that not only would the parties of the first part got to give up Belgium, Servia, Rumania, Poland, and Alsace-Lorraine, but they would also got to pay billions and billions of dollars in cash or certified check upon the delivery of the deed and passing of title under the said contract, and don't you forget it. So if some of them railroad presidents which is now drawing a hundred thousand a year salary, Abe, has got any hopes that President Wilson would hold up taking over the railroads pending negotiations for peace, y'understand, they must be blessed with sanguinary dispositions, Abe, because it's going to take a long time yet the Kaiser would concede enough to justify the Allies in so much as hesitating on even a single pair of soldiers' pants."
"Say, if anybody thinks the government would let go the railroads when we make peace with Germany, Mawruss, he don't know no more about railroads as he does about governments," Abe declared, "because this war which the government has got with the railroads, meat-packers, oil trusts, and coal-mine owners wouldn't end when we've licked Germany any more than it begun when Von Tirpitz started his submarine campaign. Yes, Mawruss, if we wouldn't leave off fighting Germany till it's agreed that no fellers like Von Tirpitz, Von Buelow, Von Bethmann-Hollweg, and all them other Vons can use German subjects and German property for their own personal purposes, why it's a hundred-to-one proposition that we ain't going to leave off fighting the railroads till it's agreed that them Von Tirpitzes, Von Buelows, and Von Hindenbergs of the American railroads couldn't use the transportation business of this country for stock-gambling purpose as though the railroads was gold and silver mining prospects somewhere out in Nevada and didn't have a thing to do with the food and coal supply of the nation."
"Wait a moment," Morris said, "and I'll ask Jake, the shipping-clerk, to bring you in a button-box. We 'ain't got no soap-boxes."
"That ain't no soap-box stuff, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "If the government should do the same thing to the meat-packers as they did to the railroads, Mawruss, the arguments of them soap-box orators wouldn't have a soap-box to stand on."
"Well, if the government thinks it is necessary in order to carry on the war, Abe," Morris said, "it will grab the meat business like it has taken over the railroads, but we've got enough to do to supply our soldiers with ammunition without we would spend any time stopping the ammunition of them soap-box fellers."
"Of course I may be wrong, Mawruss," Abe admitted, "but the way I look at it, the war ain't an excuse for not cleaning up at home. On the contrary, Mawruss, I think it is an opportunity for cleaning up, and when I see in the papers where people writes to the editors that the prohibitionists, the women suffragists, and the union laborers should ought to be ashamed of themselves for putting up arguments when the country is so busy over the war, I couldn't help thinking that there must be people over in Germany which is writing to the Tageszeitung and the Freie Presse that the German Social Democrats and Liberals should ought to be ashamed of themselves for putting up arguments about the Kaiser giving them popular government when Germany is so busy over the war. In other words, it's a stand-off, Mawruss, with the exception that the Kaiser 'ain't made no speeches so far that Germany would never make peace with America till the millions of American women which 'ain't got the vote has some say as to how the war should be carried on and what the terms of peace should be."
"Do you mean to say that women not having the vote puts our government in the same class with Germany?" Morris demanded.
"I mean to say that the proposition of German men having the vote sounds just so foolish to the Kaiser as the proposition of American women having the vote does to this here Eli U. Root," Abe retorted, "and while there is only one Kaiser in Germany, Mawruss, we've got an awful lot of Roots in America, so until Congress gives women the vote, Mawruss, the Kaiser will continue to have an elegant come-back at President Wilson for that proclamation of his."