By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, April 12, 1941.
“Isn’t that the same old coat?” inquired Jimmie Frise.
“Yes, it’s the same coat,” I informed him stiffly. “And the same old suit underneath. And the same old shoes. Probably you’ve forgotten there is a war?”
“I suppose you are not doing any spring cleaning at home this year,” surmised Jim, “on account of the war.”
“Being neat and tidy is one thing,” I stated. “But spending money on new clothes is another. The money I might spend on clothes I might lend the government to buy war material.”
“You might, is right,” agreed Jim. “But if you are the average person, you will just buy enough war bonds and certificates to keep your conscience from yelling out loud. And then you’ll weasel along as usual.”
“I haven’t bought any new clothes,” I insisted.
“But have you bought any new war bonds?” inquired Jim.
“No,” I confessed. “But at least I am in a position to buy some; which I wouldn’t be in if I had spent the money on clothes.”.
“In other words,” said Jim, “if they can persuade you, you can be persuaded. I see.”
“I don’t like your tone,” I informed him. “The government would rather have you save your money than spend it. Every dollar you spend these days on personal things, on non-war things, is a dollar’s worth of work done by somebody else on non-war jobs. And a dollar’s worth of material used for non-war purposes.”
“So if we starve a lot of tailors and clothing store clerks,” pursued Jimmie, “we are helping the war. Is that it?”
“Well, they can join the army,” I pointed out.
“I see,” said Jim. “And the $401 you would have spent on a new suit of clothes will buy them uniforms and feed them for three days or so.”
“If,” I explained, “I lend the government the $40.”
“Then they come back from war,” said Jim, “and take off the uniforms. And then you want your $40 back from the government – plus interest. Where does that money come from?”
“The government can issue a new lot of bonds, peace bonds,” I explained, “and pay back the war bonds.”
“Who’ll buy these peace bonds?” inquired Jim. “There will be no war profiteers this time to soak away their loot in bonds.”
“Well,” I explained, “when I get my cash back I’ll go and buy the suit of clothes I’ve been putting off. And tailors and clothing store clerks who have just taken off the uniform will be back on the job to sell them to me. And they’ll start making money again. They can buy the peace bonds.”
“Won’t they want a new suit of clothes, too?” demanded Jim.
“It’s very complicated. Jim,” I showed him. “All I know is, a lot of clever men are working on this problem of war finance. And we’ve got to accept their advice.”
Using War As Excuse
“Who says they’re clever?” asked Jimmie.
“Well, they’re the cream of the financial world,” I assured him. “They proved their cleverness by rising to the top of their profession in the past few years.”
“What does that prove?” demanded Jim. “Maybe they’re the same birds who got the world into this mess.”
“Okay,” I submitted. “Who will we put in their place? You and me? Or some of those wild-eyed agitators? Or just another bunch of the same sort who are in now? Jim, I don’t think it’s the leaders of the world who are fuddled. I think it’s us, the people of the world.”
“We’re sheep,” said Jim. “We’ve got to have a shepherd.”
“Good sheep usually have a good shepherd,” I reminded him.
“In that suit,” declared Jim, “you sure look like an old sheep that had been let run wild. You’ve got stouter since you bought it. It pulls at all the buttons. The pants are shiny. I can faintly see your shirt through the elbow.”
“I’m going to make it do until summer,” I stated. “Then I can put on my old gabardine suit. Next fall I’ll get a new tweed.”
“Come clean,” wheedled Jimmie. “What is it you are buying instead? A new boat? An outboard engine? You’re just like millions of other people. You are using the war as an excuse. You are going around in old clothes, creating an impression of how patriotic you are, and getting away with it; while really you are soaking your money away into something else you’ve really wanted all your life but couldn’t afford because you had to keep up with the Joneses.”
“Jim, being cynical won’t get you anywhere,” I assured him.
“I’m not cynical,” said Jimmie. “I’m just trying to figure things out. And to figure things out, you’ve got to face the facts. And the easiest fact to face is you. And me.”
“And what light do you see in me?” I inquired.
“Look,” said Jim. “We’re at war. We insist that we are not at war with nations, but with certain gangsters in those nations. However, the people of those nations are not like us. They are not giving what they feel like giving. They are giving all. Do you realize that if you want a new overcoat in Germany you have to turn in your old one?”
“It’s a good idea.” I agreed. “We should get an allowance on all our old clothes when we buy new ones.”
“They don’t get any allowance,” said Jim. “How many coats have you got? They’re only allowed one. And when they buy a new one, they turn in their old one without any allowance or without any question. The idea is that they can’t have any more of anything than they actually need. It goes for food, for household furniture and goods of all kinds; for books, lawn mowers, soap, handkerchiefs, everything.”
“They’ll rebel,” I assured him. “Human nature is human nature.”
“All these people who are allowed as little as possible,” went on Jimmie, “are organized by harsh law to produce as much as possible. But since there is no possible demand for clothes, furniture, books, soap, lawn mowers, they produce only what the government wants. And that is bombs, planes, guns, and food for soldiers.”
“Now you see the reason,” I exclaimed, “why I am not buying a new, suit.”
“Suppose,” said Jim craftily “the government suddenly announced that you couldn’t buy a new suit?”
I looked down at myself. It was true my vest buttons all drew my vest in ridges and creases. It was true my trousers bagged. I examined my elbow. I could detect a faint whitish tone through the tweed.
“The government wouldn’t do that,” I declared.
“Certainly it would,” cried Jimmie, “if we, the people, wanted it to.”
“Ah,” I smiled. “If we wanted it to.”
“There are plenty of people shouting at the government to do more than it is doing,” said Jim. “And about the only thing they haven’t done is start to interfere with the private lives of Canadians.”
“They don’t let us go to Florida for a holiday,” I pointed out.
“That doesn’t affect the people of Canada,” scoffed Jim. “That only affects a tiny minority of people who have the money to think of their comfort. Wait until the government starts telling you what you can buy with your money.”
“They’re telling us now,” I retorted. “By taking our surplus in taxes, they’ve cut me off of a lot of things I intended to buy.”
“That isn’t the same as being told you can’t buy a new suit,” warned Jimmie. “Or that you can only have one pound of bacon a week. Or you can only buy ten gallons of gasoline a week.”
“Will it get that tough?” I wondered.
“It’s that tough and a thousand times tougher in Britain now,” said Jim. “And it is Britain we are supposed to be helping.”
“Aren’t we helping?” I demanded.
“Well, there are a lot of people yelling, for the government to go full out in the war,” said Jim. “Remember, in our country, the government represents the people. And if the people suddenly agree that we want to go full out, the government will obey. Then they’ll take all your money, not borrow it. They’ll tell you what you can buy. They’ll tell you what work you’ll do. We can save democracy all right by throwing it over.”
“I can have this suit pressed,” I considered. “If it doesn’t look right then, maybe I will get a new suit.”
“After all, it’s Easter,” said Jim.
“And besides,” I said, “I wouldn’t want to be caught by any high-handed government decree that I can’t buy any clothes I want…”
“That’s the spirit,” cried Jim.
“You won’t know this suit in a couple of days,” I said. “I’ll send it to be pressed tonight.”
“Look,” said Jim, “there’s a while-you-wait pressing place just a block north. At lunch, let’s both go in and get all pressed up. I could do with a little smartening up, seeing it’s Easter.”
“What kind of a place is this pressing establishment?” I inquired.
“It’s just up in the next block or the one next to that,” said Jimmie. “I can’t just place it. But I’ve seen it lots of times. We’ll find it. You sit in little cubicles while they press your suit. It only takes a few minutes…”
“Probably one of those cheap little joints,” I protested, “where they leave a smell of gasoline all over you…”
But we had a quick sandwich and went out looking for the press-while-you-wait shop that Jimmie had often seen. And after walking around four blocks and not finding it, we finally asked a cigar store man if he knew of it. And he said it was two blocks farther west. He knew it well. His cousin ran it. So we went into a rather down-at-heel neighborhood, mostly garages and warehouses, found the press-while-you-wait shop as directed.
It was hardly the kind of place I would have selected myself. There were two or three very odd-looking gentlemen sitting in the front part of the shop, reading the papers. They had long sharp noses and sideburns. They were all smoking cigars which they had tucked halfway into the very corner of their mouths. They looked up at us when we came in as though we were the funny-looking customers, not they.
There were no cubicles, as Jimmie had promised. Only a large screen. The place was barely furnished. There were a couple of second-hand cupboards partly filled with a few shabby garments on hangers. But at the back there was a man working very casually at a hot smelling pressing machine. Not a very modern pressing machine at that.
“Can you press us up while we wait?” asked Jimmie pleasantly, as this gent left his job to come and attend to us. He, too, had a cigar butt jammed away off in his east cheek.
“It’ll take three-quarters of an hour,” he said rather impatiently.
“Let’s leave it, Jim,” I said. Because from the back of the shop two more men came out, looking at us with the same cold, appraising eye. Behind them I could see others. The place was alive with them, all the same kind, lean, oddly dressed, and all with cigars shoved away over in their cheeks. And most of them with sideburns.
But Jim had his coat off and was undoing his braces.
“Let’s get it over with while we’re at it,” he said.
So the proprietor shoved the screen impatiently around to shield us, and the men sitting and standing about resumed reading and muttered to one another, and some of them drifted into the back room.
“Gimme,” said the proprietor, reaching for our pants and coats.
Jim picked up a paper to read. It was a racing paper, like a railway time table full of small print.
I picked up some annual of the pressing and cleaning trade. And the thudding of the pressing machine came to us behind the screen. Jim was intent on his catalogue of horses and I was glancing over the pressing journal when a sudden scuffle caused us to prick up our ears.
The door opened and we heard a loud voice say:
“Nobody budge!”
But everybody budged. There were scuffles and thudding of feet. There were soft, startled yells of warning and loud bellows. Everybody budged but Jimmie and me, sitting there behind the screen, in our underwear, unable to see what was going on, but very much interested, I can assure you.
In the midst of the rumpus, there appeared around the edge of the screen a large and startled policeman.
“Now what’s this?” he said very cheerfully.
“What’s what?” inquired Jim, hiding the paper he was reading behind his back.
“Come on, me buckoes,” said the policeman. “Get your pants on.”
He hailed somebody over the screen and two more policemen came and stood looking at us.
“A new one,” said the oldest.
“Evidence,” said the second, “of the honest character of the establishment.”
“What is this, constable?” I demanded with dignity.
“Come on, get your pants on,” said he. “It’s chilly in the wagon.”
I was the first to smell singeing.
“Whose pants?” I yelled, leaping up and trying to dash past the constable.
They were my pants. The proprietor had my trousers on the machine and in the excitement he had left the pad down, with the power on. It was an old-fashioned machine. And when the policeman lifted the lever, there was very little left of my good tweed pants.
Meanwhile, ignoring us and our tragedy, other policemen were leading men out of the shop half a dozen or more coming from the back room. Upstairs, we could hear tramping and scuffling, and still more came down the back stairs.
“It’s a raid,” said Jimmie. “And if I’m not mistaken it’s on a handbook outfit2.”
“Wrap something around him,” said the head policeman, “and get him in the wagon.”
“Inspector,” I cried, “we can prove we are innocent customers who just dropped in.”
“This one,” said the first cop, “was reading a racing form when I popped around the screen.”
“There was nothing else to read,” retorted Jimmie indignantly.
From our coats, we were able to produce identity cards.
“Identity cards won’t help you,” said the head policeman. “You were found in. You can prove your identity and innocence in court. Our job is simply to raid the joint and collect all those found in.”
“Are you going to ruin my good name,” I demanded, “when you can see the charred ruins of my pants right there on that pressing machine? What will the judge say to you when I tell him that evidence of my innocence was still smouldering before your very eyes?”
So they took our names and addresses. And in the cupboard they found a pair of pants that would at least carry me as far as the nearest clothing store. In fact they drove Jimmie and me to the store in one of the scout cars.
And that is how I got this very handsome Donegal tweed3 I’m wearing.
Editor’s Notes:
- $40 in 1941 would be $785 in 2025. ↩︎
- A “handbook outfit” is a criminal organization involved in illegal gambling, like a bookie. ↩︎
- Donegal tweed is a woven tweed manufactured in County Donegal, Ireland. ↩︎
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