d States is going to think in
the fall of 1920 as what they are going to wear in the fall of 1920,
which it would of been a whole lot better for the general's prospects if
he would of said that Grover Cleveland was just as expert at verbal
messages as another great American and believed just as strongly in a
League of Nations. In fact, Abe, if there was, Heaven forbid, a chance
of me being nominated for President in 1920, I would lay pipes for
claiming that it was me that suggested the whole idea of the League of
Nations to President Wilson in the first place. Am I right or wrong?"

"You're right about the Heaven forbid part, anyway," Abe commented.

"Because," Morris continued, as though he had not heard the
interruption, "what between the people who are willing to take President
Wilson's word for it and the people who ain't willing to take a United
States Senator's word for anything, y'understand, this here League of
Nations looks like a pretty safe proposition for any politician to tie
up to, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if even some of them
Senators which signed the round robin would be claiming just before the
1920 National Conventions that they was never what you might call
actually against a League of Nations except, as one might say, in a
manner of speaking, if you know what I mean. Also, Abe, these here
Senators which is now acting like they would have sworn a solemn oath,
in addition to the usual amount of swearing about such things, that
they would never ratify this here League of Nations, y'understand, are
already beginning to say that they wouldn't ratify it anyhow in its
present form, understand me, and before they got through, Abe, you could
take it from me, that when it finally comes up for ratification them
same Senators is going to go over it again carefully and find that it
has been amended by inserting two commas in Article two and a semicolon
in Article twenty-five, and a glad shout of 'Oh, well, this is something
else again!' will go up, understand me, and after they vote to
unanimously ratify it they will be telling each other that all you have
to do is to make a firm stand against Mr. Wilson and he will back right
down."

"The way it looks to me, Mawruss," Abe commented, "the back-down is on
the other foot."

"It's fifty-fifty, Abe, because, when the President gets his back up,
the Senate starts to back down," Morris concluded, "and _vice versa_."

IX

WORRYING SHOULD BEG