w '^^o^ ■?> r .^'\ ^ ""' ^'^ vaste by a hostile administration. This nation, which 230 SIZING UP UNCLE SAM sheds tears every time some woodchopper fails to con- serve a pine tree, now possesses two Ex-presidents, and is not making as much use of them as it would of a 1901 automobile. A commission should be appointed for the purpose of extracting all possible usefulness from Ex-presidents. When people have spent a million dollars electing a President, and half a million more teaching him states- manship, it ought not to turn him over to law colleges, magazines or publishing houses free of charge when his commission has expired. If Ex-presidents were turned loose for life into the House of Representatives or the Senate, they would be cheap, with their vast experience at twice the price, and could give lessons in patriotism and high motives which might possibly interest some of the newcomers. The present lot of the Ex-president is considered to be a sad one, but most of us would cheerfully undertake it even at half price. PROBLEMS 231 THE TARIFF THE tariff is like a revolver. It is either a men- ace or a protection, depending on whether you are opposing it or are standing behind it. If jou are opposing the tariff, it is a cruel and hun- gry monster which reaches into the dinner bucket of the poor man and yanks the porterhouse steak and cold raspberry pie out of it. If you favor the tariff it is a benevolent high board fence which keeps the cruel mon- ster of foreign competition from getting at the same dinner pail. Any way you look at it, the tariff is intimately asso- ciated with the dinner pail. A good many people in- sist that it is the watch dog of the dinner pail, while others say that it never ipstys to give the dog the con- tents of said pail for watching it. The tariff lives in the customs house, but is borrowed by both Republican and Democratic parties during each campaign and led about the country for exhibition pur- poses. When Democrats exhibit the tariff, they do so with great terror, and pale statesmen endeavor to keep it from breaking out of its cage and devouring children, three at a gulp. On the other hand, when Republicans exhibit the tariff they put their arms lovingly around its neck and claim that it is as useful in a kitchen as two hired girls and a gas stove. On the whole, it is more fun to be a Republican than a Democrat, because a Democrat is so scared of the tariff all through the campaign that he 232 SIZING UP UNCLE SAM can't sleep at night. A Democrat will link arms with a tiger and stroke his whiskers with pleasure, but let the tariff rise up ever so little and he shrieks for help from Maine to California. Republicans are very kind to the tariff and point with pride to its growth and height. But Democrats claim it should be cut in two close to the tail, and they would have done so last year when they had the thing tied up, if they had not been so afraid of it. We owe a great deal to the tariff, because it has pro- tected our infant industries until they could grow up and become carnivorous. PROBLEMS 233 THE SLEEPING CAR THE sleeping car is one of the greatest of Ameri- can inventions. It enables the corporations to work us while we sleep. The sleeping car is filled with beautiful plush seats which are made more uncomfortable at night by being turned into berths. There are ordinarily twenty berths and each berth will hold one and three-fifths per- sons and a peck of cinders. The berths are divided into upper and lower berths respectively. The lower berths were much more popular because of their prox- imity to the floor until the Interstate Commerce Com- mission lowered the rates on the uppers, after which it was discovered that the long, hard climb to the upper berth is very beneficial and assists in producing sleep. To utilize a sleeping car you must pay about $2.00 a night. Seventy-five cents of this is for the use of the car, the blankets and the pillows, and the rest is for the use of the beautiful wood carving and inlaying with which the car is decorated. If you have rented a lower berth, you will find on the inside a small hammock large enough to hold a No. 4 shoe on an A last. Into this you may place your clothes, your overcoat, your hat and your valise, reserving your pocket handkerchief for additional bed covering. If you rent an upper berth, you must ascend by means of a ladder. Climb- ing to the top of this, you take hold of the curtain rail with one hand and the outer ring of Saturn by the other and draw yourself up until you can clasp one leg 234 SIZING UP UNCLE SAM about the berth chain next to the wall. You then re- treat gradually into the berth sideways, after which the porter takes away your shoes in order to have evidence against you in the morning when he calls for his tip. Rules of etiquette require passengers to dress in the berths of a sleeping car instead of in the aisles. As a result of this, American contortionists now lead the world. Women often travel in sleeping cars, but the company doesn't encourage the practice. It has made the women's toilet room so small that only one woman at a time can occupy it, and if two women are in a car one of them has to get up at three o'clock in order to give both a chance to dress before breakfast. Sleeping cars are now so numerous that the company finds great difficulty in finding names for them. It has exhausted the names of countries, cities and operas, but if it will now start in on the names which passengers have called sleeping cars, it will be amply provided for all time to come. PROBLEMS 235 CITY HALLS THE American city hall is a barometer of munici- pal honesty. Every American city is equipped with a city hall. It may not have parks, hospitals, playgrounds or boards of health, but it always has a city hall, and it usually owes money on it. The casual stranger can tell whether to button up his money in an inside pocket when arriving in an Amer- ican town by inspecting its city hall and inquiring its cost. If it appears to have been built of ordinary ma- terial and only cost as much as it looks he can linger with safety in that city. But if its cost indicates that sheet gold and powdered diamonds were employed in its construction he had better travel down the middle of the street and secrete himself in a manhole at the ap- proach of a policeman or city official. Building city halls is indulged in with passionate pleasure by city officials who have forgotten all ten commandments and have invented several new ones to break. Buying stone at jewelry prices, paying for solid silver and getting brick and installing furniture that cost $1,000 a ton and looks like thirty-seven cents is a favorite pastime with city hall builders in those towns who hold their noses at municipal elections and their pocketbooks forever afterward. Many crowds of earnest, impartial safeblowers have built grand city halls in American cities and have retired for life to live on the income thereof. And the worst of it is the city 236 SIZING UP UNCLE SAM halls remain, and the citizens have to view them every day with humility and deep crimson blushes. Chicago is not a phenomenally virtuous town, but it built a city hall recently for less money than was ap- propriated for the purpose and has been proud about it ever since. On the other hand, Philadelphia has a city hall which reached 537 feet toward Heaven and smells several thousand miles higher than that. It is impossible for a Philadelphian to become haughty and noisy about his town, because whenever he attempts it some ribald citizen of elsewhere asks him how much his city hall cost. PROBLEMS 237 OUR STANDING ARMY THE standing army of the United States is the greatest in the world. There are statisticians who will indignantly deny this, but this is because they ride home in auto- mobiles at night, and do not know how the other f orty- ninc-fiftieths of us live. Our standing army consists of upwards of 5,000,000 people. Thanks to American chivalry, most of these are men. Some of us stand only a mile or so each day, while others stand ten miles a day, and have to transfer three times in the bargain. The discipline of the American standing army is mag- nificent. This is because it is drilled regularly, twice a day. Every evening in every American city, whole cars full of the army can be seen obeying commands. After a man has belonged for a while he answers the commands : " Step lively," " Move up in front," and " Take the next car," like a well oiled machine. Many members of the army are splendid athletes. Nothing is finer for the muscles than standing army drill. A veteran will carry four bundles and a garden rake under one arm, hang from a strap with the other, and hold up two large men on his feet for hours at a time. The American standing army is very useful. It is used to build costly mansions and provide titled sons- in-law and other trinkets for street car magnates. When a magnate wants a new yacht or an old master, 238 SIZING UP UNCLE SAM he takes a few cars off his line and thus increases his standing army. In New York as many as 200 members of the army are often crowded into a single car. This is accomplished by other members of the army who are trained to push on them from behind. Sometimes the cars burst, and sometimes the patrons do. The former is considered more unfortunate by the company. New York magnates are very kind to their standing army, however, and have recently put sanitary straps in their cars. New York is the only city where the standing army has a regular waiting list each night. This is be^ cause women are allowed to belong to it, however. Contrary to custom in other countries, the American standing army draws no pay. On the contrary, it pays for the privilege of standing. This leads to the belief that the army would not be worth two bits in time of war. An army which pays five cents per head for the privilege of hanging from a strap, and being punched in the back by a conductor, would probably thank the enemy with tears in its eyes while it was being kicked off the field of battle. /■.B D (I HtiUNC ro«( Canada V ''S^' :A- ^<; /I^A^^^ -•? ^' SP^ ^\/ ^fREfc :^^>?AXtr' 1M^^^* # IOWA UROf& ' -p ,-ll "> \.^' m JVC, 0~ .', j.°-n(.. 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