A Fling at the Unfair
Daly, T. A.
A FLING AT THE UNFAIR By T. A. DALY ALL my life I have had unfair women on my trail. It is *V not, mind you, of individual unfair women that I speak but of an organized flock of them. I was...
...Why you laugh at me...
...It has always been difficult for me to please the W. C. T. U. Once I was blamed for saying this: "The Women's Christian Temperance Union is an organization of earnest women who are doing the Devil's work...
...I was born of poor-but-honest parents in 1871...
...she asked...
...But why you call me "Dago Man" An' mak' so badda face...
...Ees onla seexa mont', my frand, Seence I am comin' here...
...Of course I would give you the credit for your >art of the poem...
...You married, meester...
...It was this: Wat for you call me "Dago Man," An' mak' so badda face...
...How long you leeve een deesa land...
...Beer ees no good, I leeves heem be, He's maka man a fool...
...My "keeds ees no good breed," you say...
...Far from pursuing those women, I have always striven strenuously to keep out of their way...
...I saf my mon, I no drink beer I saf Eetalian too, I tella alia folks I know 'Beer ees no good for you!'" What the author wrote to his would-be collaborator need not be gone into here, execept to say that it was prompt and sharp— and perhaps too long and hot...
...Whenever, in those old reporting days, I was assigned to cover a W. C. T. U. affair it was my habit to frequent instead the delightful purlieus of Reisser's Rathskeller (dried up this many a year) and there dally with foamy half-litres of Pilsener or Muenchener...
...How long...
...I s'pose you are more better dan Da Dago Man could be But pleassa, Meester 'Merican, I ask you wait and see...
...I am so sad Fer speakin' to you so...
...Sister So-and-so began proceedings by going through the audience, giving the hand of fellowship to everyone who responded properly to her greeting...
...For a long time we—Nemesis and I—were mutually unaware of each other's existence...
...I letta pizon stuff alone I know w'at I'se about...
...The parade started at midday...
...Come on in...
...I weesh you geeve me time for try An' see w'at I can do...
...Some years later a reprint of those verses came back to me vith this letter, written on the stationery of the State Superinendent of the W. C. T. U. "Dear sir, I am writing you to ask of you permission to use a >oem of yours published in one of our city papers a few years igo...
...But it was not my fault that the compositor left out the quotation marks...
...This, so far as I am concerned, may be partially due to the fact that I have always been small for my age, and to the further fact that I was early immured in a Catholic boarding-school, where welcome visitors seldom— and the W. C. T. U. never—intruded...
...I am so strange, you see...
...It was and it still is...
...Escuse...
...I keepa my head cool...
...What appeared in my paper the next morning was not pleasing to the W. C. T. U. Still it was a fair piece of reporting...
...So mebbe I gon' be, bimeby, So gooda man like you...
...That took all afternoon...
...But what has that availed me, or even you, dear reader...
...It was not until I had passed on to, and through, college, where I majored in baseball and cigarette smoking, that I first encountered the enemy...
...We cannot, it seems, prevent this "organization of earnest women" from making our laws, but may we not protest against their breaking in upon our songs...
...Thirta-seven year...
...and this belated bleating over a grievance that has lain hid in my craven bosom for more than a decade may set the W. C. T. U. again upon my trail...
...the publican had said, "we don't gener'ly allow no disturbance in here, but you ladies can go as fur as you like...
...Escusa me...
...They were spoken about thirty years ago by a distinguished Protestant Episcopal clergyman, the late Reverend Dr...
...Dingman wished to insert be:ween the last two verses of the original: "But wait my friend, I like to ask Now tella please to me, Baycause I do not understan', I am so strange, you see...
...An' dey be stronga 'Merican, More strong dan you are, too...
...Dingman a strict injunction against the use of any of the author's writings to further the cause of prohibition...
...let us get on with the story...
...My leetla cheeldren, too, ees strong— Eh...
...I am compiling a little booklet on Americanization, and I lave added several verses to your poem introducing the temperince thought...
...I feel that I really earned this generous stipend, because every day, in addition to my routine work, I tossed off a batch of side-splitting jests...
...Baycause I am so strong, I guess I gon' do pretta wal...
...that it denied the possibility of any sane Italian holding such views upon wine and beer...
...I said a moment ago that it has always been difficult for me to say or write anything pleasing to the W. C. T. U. That is not quite true...
...And here are the lines Mrs...
...I am enclosing the poem with the addition, kindly return same with your reply...
...Thus, I had three years' start...
...Yours expectantly, "Mrs...
...I'd be very glad if rou gave your permission...
...You no gotta none...
...Rainsford, of New York...
...It is not a money-making scheme...
...We gentlemen of the press had had enough, and what we had was still to be written and put in type, so we started to file out...
...wal, ees mebbe not, But dey weell be more good som' day Dan dose you don'ta got...
...We shall see...
...By this time—and the time was the gay nineties—the W. C. T. U. had grown up and was adding to the gaiety of the nation, too...
...They settled down to what promised to be a long dry session...
...I did write something, many years ago, that almost—but not quite—got into a W. C. T. U. textbook...
...An' mans for drink go evra day, Until he know can stan...
...I do not ondrastand...
...The words are not mine...
...So long I 'tand to beezaness An' jus' bayhave mysal...
...There had been much trumpeting in advance of the event, and so a half-dozen of us gentlemen of the press went down from Philadelphia to Bridgeton for to see...
...please, my frand, no getta mad...
...Notwithstanding this, the women have followed me...
...They did...
...The booklet will be used as a medal contest ¦eciter...
...Our heroine (?) was little more than sweet sixteen when she entered upon a crusade against rum in the little town of Bridgeton, in southern New Jersey...
...But Sister So-and-so reached out and caught me by the arm: "Friend, are you a Christian...
...Twalve year...
...Eh...
...and the world, indeed, took little note of either of us...
...Ees no room for Eetalian Een deesa bigga place...
...The answer, probably, is no...
...Long, long ago, when this republic was young, somebody said "Let me make the nation's songs and I care not who makes its laws," or words to that effect...
...Shak' han' bayfore you go...
...Speeches were made and hymns were sung...
...Come, come...
...Ees no room for Eetalian Een deesa bigga place...
...The title of the poem is Apologia Pro Vita Sua...
...No, ma'am," I replied, earnestly, "I'm a reporter...
...Wat for you have so much saloon Een deesa bigga Ian...
...W. B. Dingman...
...If you have any other, or would :eel in a mood to write another for us, I would personally be rery grateful...
...and that, finally, it served upon Mrs...
...The Women's Christian Temperance Union first saw the light (pardon the phrase) in 1874...
...Eef wine an' beer goes eenside me, Den all da good goes out...
...Ees notta many Dago Man So skeenny lika you...
...But if we who laughed then had only known...
...She released me, and I followed my mates into exterior darkness...
...I see too much bad w'at he do...
...I was then a very young and green reporter, drawing a weekly wage of $8.00 from a Philadelphia morning newspaper...
...The W. C. T. U., with white badges (the line forming for the right) led us to—but not into— every saloon in town, and there were many of them...
...In the evening came the grand climax—a meeting in the ladies' parlor of the town's largest saloon...
...an' no got wan ? Oh, 1 am sad for you, my frand— Eh...
...This last must have greatly shocked the lady, for was not the Eighteenth Commandment even then a part of the constitution of this great an' glorious republic...
Vol. 12 • June 1930 • No. 7
