John Kendrick Bangs

“ When the Hatter's [Pg 60] Municipal Police Commission looked into the question they found that the Cop who spent most of his time asleep spent less of his time clubbing people who wouldn't whack up with him on the profits of their business. Every ossifer who has been convicted of petty larceny in the past, the records show, has been a fellow who stayed awake most of the time, and no ossifer has ever yet been known to go in for graft or get a record for clubbing innocent highwaymen over the head while he was asleep either on a Park Bench, or in an alleyway. ”

“ On the contrary the Municipally Owned retort had architecturally all the classic beauty of a Carnegie Library.
"We call it the Retort Courteous," said the Hatter pridefully as he gazed at the structure, and smiled happily as he noted Alice's very evident admiration for it. "You see, in urban affairs, as a mere matter of fitness, we believe in cultivating urbanity, my child, and in [Pg 39] consequence everything we do is conceived in a spirit of courtesy. The gas-houses under private ownership have not been what you would call polite. ”

“ People don't need to see to go to bed. They may need to see when they are dressing in the morning, but when they go to bed all they have to do is to take their clothes off and go, and I added that people who didn't know enough to do that had better have nurses. Finally some of the chief kickers got up a mass-meeting and protested that the new gas wasn't gas at all, and in view of that fact refused to pay their gas tax."
"Oho!" said Alice. "That was pretty serious I should think."
"It seemed so at first," said the Hatter, "but just then the beauty of the Municipal Ownership scheme stepped in. ”

“ Every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon we make 'em go to a matinee, rain or shine, whether they want to or not, and really it's pathetic to see how some of the little dears pine for a half-holiday with a hoople, and since I forbade the youngsters to even look at the back of a geography or a spelling book, it is most amusing to see how they sneak into the library and devour the contents of those two books when they think nobody's looking. ”

“ It ain't for the benefit of their families—it's for the benefit of the City. A City like this can use benefits to great advantages most all the time. But you see the results of Municipalising all sorts of crime from straight burglary up to life insurance resulted in the Police having nothing to do. There wasn't anybody to arrest, or to quell, or to club, and so they turned us into a social organisation and that's where Tea Drinking comes in strong. Every afternoon at five o clock, tea is served on every corner in Blunderland by the Policeman on beat. ”

“ It really makes Municipal Ownership self-perpetrating."
"He means perpetuating," whispered the March Hare.
"Ah," said Alice. "I see."
Just then a heavy gong like a huge fire alarm sounded and all the passengers sprang to their feet and made for the doors. [Pg 36]
"What's that?" cried Alice, timidly, as she rose up hurriedly with all the rest.
"Don't be alarmed. It's only the signal that our time is up," said the Hatter. "We must get out now and make room for others who may wish to use the cars. Nobody can monopolise anything under our system. ”

“ Come along, Miss Alice, and we'll show you our City Poets at work."
"I don't think I understand," said Alice. "What is a city poet?"
"He bears the same relation to Municipal Poetry that a White Wing bears to the Street Cleaning Department," explained the Hatter. "Two years ago the City took over all the Verse-making enterprises of Blunderland, appointed a Municipalaureat, otherwise a Commissioner of Public Verse, and started him along with a Department. He employs 16,743 poets who provide all the poetry that is consumed by our people. It has resulted in great good for everybody. ”

“ The Hatter blushed and smiled foolishly. "I—ah—am thinking about that," he said with a funny little laugh. "It would be a most excellent thing to do, for in my opinion a great many people nowadays [Pg 90] get married too thoughtlessly. Just because they happen to love each other they go off and get married, but under Municipal Control it would be much more difficult for a man or a woman to take so serious a step. For instance, if I had my way the Common Council would have to be asked for permission for a man to marry. ”

“ Consuls may be dipsomaniacs, but a Diplomat is a man worthy of Ambassadorial honours.
"Oh—I see," said the March Hare. "Well—he's a Diplomat all right, all right."
"How are things going to-day, Duchess?" asked the Hatter. "Children happy?"
"They will be in time," said the Duchess. "So many of them have been brought up so far on the Ladies' Home Journal system that it is hard to introduce the new Blunderland method without friction."
"I was afraid of that," said the Hatter. "How does the compulsory soda-water regulation work?" ”

“ THE MUNICIPAL CHEWERY
"Yes," said the Hatter. "The March Hare and the White Knight and I. We've started a city to do it with. We've sprinkled our streets with Rough on Copperations until there isn't one left in the place. Everything in town belongs to the People—street cars, gutters, pavements, theatres, electric light, cabs, manicures, dogs, cats, canary birds, hotels, barber shops, candy stores, hats, [Pg 12] umbrellas, bakeries, cakeries, steakeries, shops,—you can't think of a thing that the city don't own. ”

“ Burbank and thank him for inventing the coreless apple——"
"You don't means the Corliss Engine, do you?" asked the White Knight.
"Well, I'm sorry," said the Hatter, "but Mr. Burbank wouldn't come unless we'd pay him real money, which, although we don't publish the fact broadcast, is not in strict accord with the highest principles of Municipal Ownership. We contend that when people work for the common weal they ought to be satisfied to receive their pay in the common wealth, and under the M. O. system the most common kind of wealth is represented by Bonds. ”

“ If a man can do a seemingly impossible thing with one plant there is no reason why he shouldn't do a seemingly impossible thing with another plant, so I immediately wrote to Professor Burbank offering him a hundred thousand dollars in Blunderland Deferred Debenture Gas Improvement Bonds a year to come here and see what he could do to transmogrify our gas-plant. ”

“ Beauty can be applied to the lines of a gas-tank just as readily as to the lines of a hippopotamus, and as for the odours, they are due to the fact that gas as it is now made does not smell pleasantly, but there is no reason why it should not be so manufactured that people would be willing to use it on their handkerchiefs. ”

“ In addition to this we look after old ladies who want to go shopping and aren't strong enough to [Pg 66] break through the rush line at the bargain counters. And then once in a while somebody's baby will wake up at three o'clock in the morning and demand the moon, and we go up and attend to it."
"What?" cried Alice in amazement. "You don't mean to say you give it the moon?"
"Not exactly," said the Dormouse. "We just promise to give it. That's one of the strong points about Municipal Ownership. It's the easiest system to make promises under you ever knew. ”

“ We don't take a man's teeth away from him without compensation. We pay him what the teeth are worth and place them at the service of the whole community.
"Where do you get the money to pay him?" asked Alice.
"HANDING HER A CARD"
"We give him a Municipal Bond," explained the Hatter. "It's a ten per [Pg 16] cent. bond costing two cents to print. When he cracks a hickory nut for the public, the man he cracks it for pays him a cent. ”

“ Same way in the gas plant [Pg 104] and the trolley—in fact in all the City Departments. It is only another evidence of the very great value of Municipal Ownership. It is uncertainty in political times that upsets business, but with the Municipality in control of all these Departments from Gas to Poetry there is no uncertainty about who will win, so that business is not unsettled by it."
"Wonderful," said Alice.
"By the way, Mr. Commissioner, you'd better start the Rhyming Bureau on the search for rhymes to Hatter at once," said, the Mayor. ”

“ With only one car, and that a permanent fixture, nobody could miss it. If it didn't move we could economise on motive power, and even bounce the motorman without injury to [Pg 33] the service, if he should happen to be impudent to the Board of Aldermen; nobody would be run over by it; nobody would be injured getting on and off; it wouldn't make any difference if the motorman didn't see the passenger who wanted to get aboard. Being circular there'd always be room enough to go around, and there'd be no front or back platform for the people to stand on or get thrown off of going round the curves. ”

“ The passer-by thanked him and paid him a cent, which the Hatter immediately rang up on a small cash register on his vest, as required by the laws of Blunderland.
"That's the way the Municipal Ownership of Teeth works," said the Hatter as the man passed on, and then he resumed. "This street railway business, however, was a much harder proposition than the Municipal Ownership of Teeth. When we took the railways over of course we had to run 'em on the old system until we'd learned the business. ”

“ Hare," retorted the Hatter. "I did not mean ee-liminate, which means to suppress, but subliminate, which means to sublimify or make sublime. I guess I know my own language."
"Excuse me," said the March Hare meekly. "I haven't studied the M. O. Dictionary beyond the letter Q, Mr. Mayor, and I was not aware that the Common Council had as yet passed favourably upon subliminate, either," he added with some feeling.
"That is because it was not until [Pg 40] yesterday that the Copperation Council decided that subliminate was a constitutional word," said the Hatter sharply. ”

“ The ends being the venerable spot, abolish them.
"A very careful and conscientious [Pg 30] public servant," whispered the March Hare aside to Alice. "When we have Municipal Ownership of the Federal Government we're going to put him on the Supreme Court Bench. He means vulnerable when he says venerable, but you mustn't mind that. When we have Municipal Ownership of the English Language we'll make the words mean what we want 'em to." ”

“ Alice gazed after him in wonder.
"I—I didn't suppose you had any beggars in Blunderland," said she.
"He's the only one," replied the Dormouse. "He's the official Beggar of the [Pg 70] Town. He gets $25,000 in Tenth Deferred Reorganisation Certificates a year—which, if the Certificates pay ten cents on the dollar, as we hope, will turn out to be a good salary in the end."
"But why does he beg? Who gets the money?" asked Alice.
"The City," said the Dormouse. ”

“ We found that just as a first [Pg 97] class confectioner made a splendid manager of our gas plant, and a successful Hoki-Poki merchant had the required push to keep our trolley systems going, so the Haberdasher had the precise kind of genius to manage the poets. He won't stand any nonsense from them, and any poem that he can't understand is immediately thrown into the Civic Waste-Basket, taken to the Municipal Ferry and used for fuel to run the boats. I guess we burn nineteen tons of refuse verse a day, don't we, Alderman?"
"About that—on the average," said the March Hare. ”

“ With only one car, there'd be no car ahead, which always irritates people who miss it and then have to take it later. With only one car, there could be no collisions. With only one car we could get along with only one motorman and one conductor at a time, thus giving the others time to go to dancing school and learn good manners. ”

“ This little book here has a list of the names of everybody in town with their Municipaphone numbers attached. The lowly as well as the highly, from the newsboy up to the Bridge Whist set, are all represented here, so that all are connected in one way or another with each other. There is no man, woman, or child so poor and humble of birth, that he or she cannot get into immediate relations with the haughty and proud. ”

“ Quatrains have been increased from four lines to twenty-three, and the old stingy fourteen-line sonnet has been enlarged to fifty-four lines. We have also passed an ordinance requiring that poems shall say what they mean, which is a vast improvement on the old private control method whereunder anybody was allowed to write rhymes which nobody could understand—like that thing of Miss Arethusa Spink's, for instance, called Aspiration. Remember that?"
"I don't think I ever heard it," said Alice. ”

“ We never spend a cent where a bond will serve the purpose."
"GREETED BY THE COMMISSIONER, THE HABERDASHER"
By this time Alice and her hosts had reached the building occupied by the Department of Public Verse, and upon entering its spacious doorway the party were greeted by the Commissioner, the Haberdasher, to whom Alice was promptly introduced. He reminded her very forcibly of her old acquaintance Bill the Lizard, but she was not sure enough on this point to recall their previous meeting when she had so tactlessly kicked him up through the chimney flue of the Wonderland Cottage. ”

“ It gave one class of citizens a distinct advantage over other people and the Declaration of Independence demands absolute equality for all. One man owning his own teeth could eat all the hickory nuts he wanted [Pg 13] just because he had teeth to crack 'em with, while another man not having teeth had either to swallow em whole, which ruined his digestion, or go without, which wasn't fair.
"I see," said Alice. ”