6
;1
SUPERIORITY OF GER
BOMBS
DISTRESSES BIRSKY AN
ZAPP
THE SUNDAY OREGOXIAX, PORTXAXD, T MARCH 2G, 1916. "
HE
D
Congress, They Think, Ought to Take Into Account Their Explosive Transcendence
By Montague Glass. Illustrations by Brings,
Cdpyright, 1916, the Tribune Association (The New York Tribune.)'
sky. the
PART I.
"ELL. you got to give them
credit." Louis Bir-
ne real estater, said
the day before the McLemore reso
lution was tabled. "They ain't throw
ing no bluffs. Zapp. They're scared
to death and they admit" it. Their
idea is that if Germany kills any more
Americans that Germany would go to
war with us, y'understand, so Senator
Gore and this here McLemon wants to
make a motion that if Germany kills
any more Americans it should be reck
oned as suicide and not murder, and if
the policy ain't been in force one year,
understand me, the insurance company
wouldn't got to pay."
The insurance companies owns
them fellers. Barnett Zapp. the waist
manufacturer, commented.
"The insurance companies is got
nothing to do with it, Zapp." Birsky
retorted. "You are like a whole lot
of people. Zapp. You are always will
ing to abuse a Senator. You should
ought to be careful what you say about
them fellers. They're honest, even if
they would be cowards. Not that I
don't think them poor Sclilemeils is right
at that Why should the whole country
go to war just because a couple of
Americans gets killed?"
"A couple ain't much. Zapp
agreed, "aber how many Americans is
Germany entitled to kill before we get
mad enough to fight?
j "She ain't told us yet. Birsky said.
' "Who ain't told us?" Zapp in
cruired. . "Germany," Birsky replied.
' "Aber why should Germany tell
us?" Zapp asked. "Ain't America a
big enough country to know what to
do without asking Germany first?"
"Seemingly not," Birsky replied.
That's the whole trouble betwee Mr.
Wilson and Congress, Zapp. Mr. Wil
son claims like you do, that America
should act according to American law,
and Congress says we should act ac
cording to German law which Germany
makes since the war started."
"Well, what are we, anyway,"
Zapp asked, "Americans or Germans?"
"Really and truly, we are Ameri
can with a handful of Germans."
Birsky said.
"Then it seems to me that the Ger
mans in Congress is making an awful
Ceschrei for only a handful," Zapp
commented.
"Sure, I know." Birsky replied,
"hut the German element in Congress
is like saffron in the soup. Zapp. A
little pinch, y'understand, will turn a
whole gallon yellow. In fact. Zapp,
the way some Congressmen is behav
ing, you would think that if America
goes to work and gets an American
ship sunk on her by Germany and there
happens to be a couple of German
Americans drowned on it. y'understand,
Milwaukee, Hoboken, St. Louis,' Cin
cinnati and the Hamburg and Knick
erbocker avenue sections of Brooklyn
would declare war on the United
States. Furthermore, if there's some
particular the choice perfectos ; because
them Americans which has got business
important enough to make them risk a
trip to Europe in these times is the best
stock of the country. Take A. G.
Vanderblit, Charles Frohman and Lin
don Bates, and a lot of other Ameri
cans who went down on the Lusitania,
and they was perfectos and invincibles
worth a couple of thousand such stogies
and rough smokers as we got in Con
gress today, Zapp."
"That's all right, too, Birsky," Zapp
"D
"SO THAT THEY COTT.Tl WALK AROVJTD LOOKING I.IKJ3 THEY'D COMB
DOWN WITH H RIGHT'S DISEASE."
Irishmen sunk on the same boat. Sena
tor O'Gorman would give up his
American citizenship and become a
naturalized Milwaukeean, while if Coll
soil huelen an Italioner or so would be
killed, y'understand. Mulberry Bend
wouldn't even bother to call back her
ambassador before her corpse of fly
ing machines would begin dropping
on the Fifth avenue retail district bombs
filled with garlic, salami, Parmesan
cheese, tabble dote red wine and other
strong Italian explosives. I tell you,
Zapp, when it comes to this here Ger
man submarine proposition, the United
States of America ain't no more united
that the United Cigar Stores of Amer
ica would be if its salesmen was in
viting its competitors to walk right in
and help themselves to the stock, in
commented. "You can call Congress
saffron, stogies and any other vegetable
from lemons to onions, Birsky, aber
if they can keep America out of this
war I am satisfied. War to a country
is Tike lawsuits to a business man, Bir
sky. They eat him up mil expenses,
y'understand, and nine times out of ten
it don't'make no difference if he-wins
or loses, he is broke anyhow."
"Did I say he wasn't?" Birsky con
tinued. "But if a business man lets
it be known that he would do anything
rather than go into a lawsuit, y'under-"
stand, his customers would claim short
ages before they unpacked the goods;
his traveling salesmen would sell his
samples on him; his bookkeeper would
take taxicab rides mil the petty cash ; his
competitors would steal his designs; his
foreman would pad the payroll, and
finally when it is seen that he wouldn't
do nothing about it, the small fry gets
busy. One of the button-iole makers
claims an unlawful discharge and sues
him in a Municipal Court that the boss
hired him for a term of one year at
twelve dollars a week in front of two
disinterested witnesses with a twenty
five per cent interest in . tlie verdict.
When the foreman gets fired he brings
a five thousand dollar action for libel
on account of being called a dirty crook,
also acts as witness in three thousand
dollar suits against the boss by opera
tors which alleges personal injuries from
falling downstairs, and they got no dif
ficulty in proving that the stairs was de
fective on account they made em so
with a hatchet the day before the acci
dent. And that's the " way - it goes,
Zapp. Nobody has got so many law
suits as the business man who would do
anything to avoid a lawsuit. And if a
feller claims to be long-suffering, Zapp.
there's plenty people would oblige him
that way."
PART II.
ID YOU ever hear the like.
Zapp?" Louis Birsky ex
claimed the morning after
the McLemore resolution was f tabled.
"We must got to go to war because a
couple dudes in New York ain't satisfied
to buy their clothes where their fathers
made their money, y'understand, but
must take a trip over to London and
buy English clothes, so that they could
walk around looking like they'd come
down with B right's disease that day
after the last fitting and lost twenty
five pounds weight before the suit was
delivered. Honestly, Zapp, it's a
Milzv-ah to submarine such fellers, and
this here McLemon, instead of warn
ing them not to travel on English boats,
should be requested them to do so as
a favor to their families and the New
York custom tailoring business. Sena
tor O'Gorman was right, Zapp. We
are living in America, not England."
"Aber I thought you said the day
before yesterday that O'Gorman
thought this was Ireland instead of
America," Zapp said. "Evidencely
you changed your mind, Birsky."
"Supposing I did," Birsky retorted;
"a feller which claims he never changes
his mind might just so well boast that
he never changes his collar, Zapp. I
ain't like some people which never read '
nothing but the letters in their morning
mail, Zapp. I open once in a while
a newspaper, Zapp. and when I read
the speeches which some of them Con
gressmen made it, I admit I am mis
taken in them fellers. They know what
they are talking about, Zapp, and why
should I go to work and put myself in
a position where some one is liable to
schencle me a gallon or so of liquid
fire? Maybe you like such things,
Zapp. Might you would enjoy sitting
in a trench somewheres around Coney
Island with nothing but the United
States Navy such as it is between you
and a couple million German soldiers
carrying bombs, and the things inside
of them bombs that's going to hurt you
least is sulphuric acid and red hot rusty
nails.
"Listen, Birsky," Zapp reassured
"Schmooes, Birsky!" Zapp said.
"Right now you could be as strong
and healthy as Jeff Willard even, and
long before the United States goes to
war your friends would be sitting
around your front parlor, and some of
'em says you left, a will and others says
you didn't and anyhow the estate was
eaten up by the doctors bills from
such a lingering sickness. There's more
expensive ways of dying than in the
trenches, Birsky. But, anyhow, Birsky,
if we should got to go to war and we
"SCRAMBLED OATS WHICH WAS
him; "them fellers in Congress is
alarmists."
"Sure, I know alarmists!" Birsky
said. "You can say that! You've got
a floating kidney and gall stones, Zapp.
but everybody ain't so lucky as you. I
got examined for additional insurance
in the I. O. M. A. last week, and the
doctor said I would pass for ten years
younger than I am. OO-ee ! My poor
wife!" ,
"What are you talking nonsense,
Birsky?" Zapp said. "If the worser
comes to the worst, they wouldn't take
you for a soldier. You are too old."
"What do you mean too old?"
Birsky retorted. "At my age Napoleon
Bonaparte selig was fighting the bat
tle of Waterloo nebich, and General
Grant olav hasholom was older yet
when he had his troubles in 1861. So
what show do I stand?"
SWEPT IP FR03I THE DECKS."
needed it men so badly that they asked
an alter Bocher like you to fight,
y'understand, you wouldn't be talking
this way.- You would want to fight.
It's like if you and me was arguing
whether champanyer wine is good for
the human body, y'understand, you
would tell me it is poison already ; aber
if I wasAo say to you: 'Come, Birsky,
we will drink a bottle champanyer wine
together," the chances is that a feller
which makes a god out of his stomach
the way you do would get away with
a couple quarts at my expense, even if
you would got from it Magenbesch
tverden for a month afterwards."
Birsky flipped the fingers of both
hands derisively.
"For all the stomach trouble people
would get from you blowing 'em to
champanyer wine, Zapp." he said,
"the soda mint manufacturers might
just so well go into the ammunition
business and be done with it."
"Well, there you got the whole
thing in a nutshell," declared Zapp,
who was beginning to think he had
gone a little too far in the statement of
his hypothetical case. He therefore
changed the conversation. "The trou
ble with Americans is not that they
shouldn't ought to travel across the
ocean, but that they shouldn't ought to
manufacture ammunition for them fel
lers in Europe; and it don't make no
difference that Congress couldn't pass
a law to prevent em from doing it;
Americans should ought to be decent
enough to stop it without being told."
"Why should they stop it?" Birsky
said. "They ain't doing no harm."
"What do you mean they ain't do
ing no harm?" Zapp asked.
"Why, you take a feller which used
to was in the art needlework business
and is now manufacturing shrapnel,
y'understand." Birsky explained, "and'
when they fire one of his bombs some
wheres in France, and it bursts over the
First Brandenburger Schutzen Corpse,
the chances is a hundred to one that
nothing drops out of it but two and
six-twelfth dozen dotted Swiss doolies
that the feller has had on hand since
1902 and couldn't dispose of other
wise. It's the same way with a break
fast food manufacturer which is now
making up 13 14 -inch shells. The Eng
lish super-dreadnought Lord Rothschild
fires a whole broadside of them shells
at the German battle cruiser Prinz Wil
helm Franz Heinrich August 1 1 , y'un
derstand, and not only there ain't a
German sailor wounded, y'understand,
but for the rest of the war them poor
fellows is living on Scrambled Oats
which was swept up from the decks the
day after the battle, and which the
breakfast food manufacturer tried his
best and couldn't even give away in
every pure food show from Eastport,
Maine, to San Diego after an advertis
ing campaign costing $100,000."
"Then if that's the kind of bombs
they're using in this war, Birsky," Zapp
said, "why, should you worry?"
"I'm speaking from American
bombs," Birsky said. "German bombs
is different, Zapp. When a Zeppeliner
drops one of them bombs on a babies
hospital in mistake for a dockyard,
Zapp, he's confident that it was made
back home in Germany by a regular
bombmaker, and not a feller which
used to was in the ladies" neckwear
manufacturing and couldn't make a
success of it. Because, you can say
what you please about the Germans,
Zapp, commercially speaking they're as
honest as the day."
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