Act 2 — ACT II
Reading edition
The Same, August, 1907.
Pres.—Mr. Secretary, it is reported that the Japanese in Hawaii are rising.
Met.—You don’t say so! Why, it is hardly six o’clock by their time. They are early risers.
Pres.—I learn from Secretary Root that Admiral Togo’s battleships are coaling. Now, what can that mean?
Met.—Let us ask Dewey. [Enter, thoughtfully, Admiral Dewey.] Admiral, the President has learned that the Japanese battleships at Tokio are taking on coal. What, in your judgment as a sailor, are they going to do with it?
Dewey—Burn it.
[Enter Secretary Root.]
Root—Mr. President, California is about to secede—we shall lose Metcalf! The entire Pacific Coast will follow. I go to glory or the grave!
[Exit Secretary Root. Enter Secretary Taft, with bottle.]
Taft—In this supreme crisis of the nation let us fortify our souls (filling glasses) for any trial.
Pres. (lifting glass)—Here’s confusion to the memory of the late Commodore Matthew Perry!
[They drink. Tumult within: “Banzai! Banzai!” Enter Loeb.]
Loeb—Mr. President——
Pres.—Where’s Root?
Loeb—In the East Room, playing draw poker with the Japanese Minister. [Renewed tumult within: “Banzai Nippon!”] The Jap seems to be winning.
A WIRELESS ANTEPENULTIMATUM
The President. Hay, Secretary of State. Bowen, Minister to Venezuela.
PRESIDENT:
John Hay, where are you on the great, gray sea? I beg you will at once return to me. This wireless business is the devil’s own, And Castro’s playing him with me alone! Venezuela sneering at my threat; Santo Domingo more and more in debt; Their foreign creditors dispatching fleets With duns and guns and sons of guns—it beats The Dutch, the devil and the band! I swear From sheer distraction I could pull your hair! ’Twixt Castro and the Doctrine of Monroe, My fears are nimble and my wits are slow. I know not where to go nor how to stop— Stand fast or, like old Saul of Tarsus, “flop.” Nothing I know, and everything I doubt— Dear John, in God’s name put your prow about!
HAY:
Though the skies fall upon the hills beneath Be resolute. If needful show your teeth.
PRESIDENT:
Dear Bowen, go to Castro. Tell him straight He must make up his mind to arbitrate. Say if he won’t—here swing the big, big stick— We’ll do a little stunt to make him sick.
BOWEN:
Your words I’ve put into his ear. Said he: “I’m sick already—to the mountains, me.”
PRESIDENT:
Tell him again; then if he won’t, why, add We’ll give him ninety days to wish he had.
BOWEN:
I’ve told him that, sir, and he says if you Are pressed for time a single day will do, For he’s a rapid wisher. What shall I Say further, to provoke a coarse reply?
PRESIDENT:
Tell him that when the time allowed is up We’ll press against his lips the bitter cup. We’ll waste no further words in this. Don’t fail To send the scalawag’s reply—by mail.
A PRESIDENTIAL PROGRESS
First American Sovereign—Hurrah! Hooray! Hurroo!
Second American Sovereign—What’s the matter with you?
F. A. S.—What’s the matter with me? What’s the matter with all of us? Don’t you see the President’s train? Don’t you hear him speaking from the rear platform?
S. A. S.—What’s to prevent?
F. A. S.—Nothing could prevent—not all the crowned heads of Europe, nor all their sycophant courtiers and servile subjects!
S. A. S.—No, nothing—just nothing at all—excepting personal self-respect and a decent sense of the dignity of American citizenship.
F. A. S.—What! You think it base and undignified to pay honor to the President’s great office?
S. A. S.—It is easy to call it “honoring his great office.” I believe we commonly do give the name of some virtue to our besetting vice. I observe that the President, too, honors our own great office by the most sickening flattery of the people every time he opens his mouth. His reasons are better than ours, for we really rank him: his great office is of our own making and bestowal. But I wish he wouldn’t lick my boots.
F. A. S.—Sir, you have no right to use such language of the ruler of the nation!
S. A. S.—It is “ruler” when you want an excuse to grovel; in your more austere moods it is “servant of the people”—and that is his own name for the thing that he has the distinction to be. I don’t cheer my butler, nor throw flowers at my coachman, nor crush the hand of my cook.
F. A. S. (aside)—This must be a millionaire! (Aloud) I see great wisdom, sir, in what you say. I’ll never again abase myself before any one. Listen to the senseless applause! (Aside, as loud as he can bawl) Hooray! Hooray!
S. A. S.—Ah, that was the fellow’s expiring platitude. He has finished waving the red flag and is coming this way.
[President passes, shaking hands with both.]
F. A. S. (gazing at his hand with deep emotion)—God bless him!
S. A. S.—Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!