And Mr. Edgerton says that is so and perhaps we hadnt ought to take it but the trouble is if we dont sell the tractors the tractor factory will have to shut down and that will leave a lot of good honest American working people to starve in the middle of the winter. “And so you see,” says he, “how complicated these here international affairs is.”
And I says, “My God I hardly know how to think my way around in such a mix-up. That is almost worse than the problem about getting the debts paid,” I says, “for I was going to say that to make up with them Bolshivikis would be like shaking hands with murder.” And Mr. Edgerton says, “Yes, it was Lord George that said that a few years ago over in England.” And gee Mom you have sure got to keep Pop from sending me old ones else I’ll have to stop using his ideas and think them all up for myself.
Well I done the best I could in a hurry. He said the Spokesman was very unhappy because of the way the prohibitionists was fussing because the boot-leggers wasnt stopped the dries didnt like it because the job of enforcing the law was left to that banker that is in the cabinet—I never can remember his name but I keep thinking of Cantelope though that dont sound right. Well anyhow this Mr. Cantelope is the biggest manufacturer of whiskey in the country and the prohibitionists dont seem to think that he is the best one to catch the bootleggers and I says, “Well, you have heard the old saying about setting a thief to catch a thief.” And Mr. Edgerton thought that was clever but he didnt think it was just the way the Spokesman would want to defend His friend the great banker in the cabinet.
And so there it was Mom I couldnt think of nothing else so I have fell down complete and Mr. Edgerton will think that getting these new clothes has made me stop being able to feel with the plain people. So please ask Pop to see if he can think of any reason why a great whisky-maker should be hired by the government to stop the whisky-business, and if he can, to write it to me quick. But please dont let him send nothing that he has read in the papers about it because Mr. Edgerton is sure to say that is old stuff.
P. S. Again I been thinking it over and this idea has hit me that maybe Pop aint really got any ideas at all except what he gets out of the papers and if so I have got to do this job all alone. I am going to talk it over with the girls in the beauty parlor because I am sure they dont read nothing in the papers except the divorces and the crimes and the beauty hints the same as what I done before I was invited to help the Spokesman with his speeches.
Your anxious
Mame.
LETTER VII
IN WHICH I AM PAID COMPLIMENTS