 Section 9 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part IV, 1900 through 1906. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by John Greenman. November 17, 1900. Mark Twain. The Lotus Club Dinner. His Speech and the Others. Those present. A Royal Welcome Home was extended to Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Mark Twain, last Saturday night, November 10, 1900, at the Lotus Club. It was the initial dinner of the season at this popular club, which enjoys a reputation for brilliant gatherings and good fellowship. While the Lotus has many successful events set down to its credit, in the judgment of the members none has surpassed the tribute it has paid to the Dean of American Humour, as Mr. Clemens was described by one of the speakers of the evening. By word and act he was made to feel that he was indeed in the house of his friends. Long before the breaking up of the company he must have been firmly impressed that his place was secure in their affections. Men of high positions in business, literature, politicos, and the various professions gathered to do him honour. The dinner was somewhat delayed by the guest himself who had forgotten that it was Saturday and the night of the feast. To the messenger who was sent to inquire the reason for his absence and who found him at his hotel he said, I am so sorry, but I had forgotten this was Saturday. I thought it was Friday. I'll go right upstairs and dress. It won't take me fifteen minutes. President Frank R. Lawrence presided, and besides Mr. Clemens the guests at the main table were Governor-Elect Benjamin B. O'Dell, Jr., St. Clair McElway, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, United States Senator Chauncey M. DePew, Booker T. Washington, Ex-Speaker Thomas B. Reed, Henry H. Rogers, George Harvey, E. Wood Perry, Jr., John Hare, Joseph C. Hendricks, Augustus Thomas, John Kendrick Bangs, Moncure D. Conway, S. E. Moffitt, and Frank H. Platt. Mr. Lawrence. About ten o'clock President Lawrence rapped for order and began the speeches of the evening in the following words. Our Lotus Club season opens very happily, for we have just voted ourselves some years of prosperity, and Mark Twain has come home, applause. When in this fortunate country we want good times we get them by popular vote. But for the presence of Mark Twain we depend upon a more uncertain caprice. Seven years ago he returned from abroad, and was entertained at dinner by this club, with the result that he went straight back to Europe, and has remained out of the United States ever since. Laughter. It has been suggested that the club assemble in his honour regularly at similar intervals. But it is felt that, after a time this would become a steady habit, and steady habits could never be made popular here. We welcome him home as one of the staunchest and truest members of the club, and we remember that he was one of those who, with that reed, and Brom, and Florence, and Bromley, and a score of kindred spirits, made the club sparkling and attractive in its early days, and laid broad and deep the foundation of all its later years of merriment and good fellowship. Our guest became a member of the club when it was only three years old, and now that it has seen more than ten times that number of years he remains faithful to its principles, or at least he would be faithful to its principles, if it had any, and that amounts to the same thing. Applause and laughter. Well, he has been away, and he has been gone a long time, and I believe he has been around the world, and what he has been doing we only know in part. He says that he has been following the Equator. What a fortunate thing it is that he did not, as the climax to a somewhat revolutionary career, induce the Equator to follow him. Had that occurred the Equator would probably have passed the remainder of its days in Hartford, Connecticut, or some weird or literary portion of the globe, and its reputation for constancy would have been forever blasted. Some things about him we do know. We know that while away from us he has kept up a steady stream of work, furnishing to the world an abundance, both of instruction and of amusement, and increasing his old reputation as one who, while he writes in fun, yet ever thinks in earnest. We hail him, as we have done before, as a master of letters, as the pioneer in a new and original field, as the possessor of a quaint and peculiar genius which has discovered unsuspected possibilities of language and of thought, and whose works, from the earliest to the latest, from the lightest to the most serious, have always commanded the widest audience, and have been received the world over with unbounded applause. We hail him, too, as one who has borne great burdens with manliness and courage, who has emerged from great struggles victorious, and in welcoming him back to night to his old place, first taken at Lotus Board nearly twenty-seven years ago, we greet him with all friendship and in all kindliness, and hope that his life may be happy and prosperous, whether here or abroad, through all future time. Applauds. Mark Twain. When Mr. Clemens rose to speak, he was cheered loud and heartily. It was nearly three minutes before he was permitted to proceed. Pushing his bushy white hair back from his forehead, he began. Mr. President and Friends, I thank you for this greeting. I thank you all out of my heart, for this is a fraternal welcome, a welcome too magnificent for a humble Missourin, far from his native state, but I feel at home here, as there are other Missourins seated at this table, and I am glad to see Tom Reed here too. They tell me that, since I have been away, Reed has deserted politics, and is now leading a creditable life. He has reformed, and as he himself says, he is now engaged in raising the standard of beauty laughter. Your President has referred to certain burdens which I was waited with. I am glad he did, as it gives me an opportunity which I wanted. To speak of those debts, you all knew what he meant when he referred to it, and of the poor bankrupt firm of C. L. Webster and Company. No one has said a word about those creditors. There were ninety-six creditors in all, and not by a finger's weight did ninety-five out of the ninety-six add to the burden of that time. They treated me well, they treated me handsomely. I never knew I owed them anything. Not a sign came from them. Don't you worry, and don't you hurry, was what they said. How I wish I could have creditors of that kind always, laughter. Really I recognize it as a personal loss to myself to be out of debt. I wasn't personally acquainted with ten of them, you know. Don't you worry, and don't you hurry, that phrase is written on my heart. You are always very kind in saying things about me, but you have forgotten those creditors. They were the handsomest people I ever knew. They were handsomer than I was. Handsomer than Tom Reed. Cheers and laughter. How many things have happened in the seven years I have been away from home? We have fought a righteous war, and a righteous war is a rare thing in history. We have turned aside from our own comfort and seen to it that freedom should exist not only within our own gates but in our own neighborhood. We have set Cuba free, and placed her among the galaxy of free nations of the world. We started out to set those poor Filipinos free, but why that righteous plan miscarried perhaps I shall never know. We have also been making a creditable showing in China, and that is more than all of the powers can say. The yellow terror is threatening the world, but no matter what happens the United States says that it has had no part in it. Applauds. Since I have been away we have been nursing free silver. Laughter. We have watched by its cradle. We have done our best to raise that child, but every time it seemed to be getting along nicely along came some pesterous Republican and gave it the measles or something. Laughter and applause. I fear we will never raise that child. Applauds. We have done more than that. We elected a president four years ago. We have found fault with him and criticized him, and here a day or two ago we go and elect him for another four years, with votes enough to spare to do it over again. Laughter. We have tried a governor for two years and we liked him so well that we decided to put him in the great office of vice president, not that the office may confer distinction upon him, but that he may confer distinction upon the office. For a while we will not stammer and be embarrassed when somebody asks us the name of the vice president, laughter. He is widely known, and in some places favorably, laughter. I am a little afraid that these fulsome compliments may be misunderstood. I have been away for a long time, and I am not used to this complementary business. I merely want to testify to my old admiration for my friend the governor. If you give him rope enough, prolonged laughter. I am meant to say, well, it is not necessary for me to say any more. You know him, renewed laughter. Then take O'Dell. You've made him governor. He's another rough rider, I suppose. All the fat things seem to go to that profession. I would have been a rough rider myself. Had I known this political clundike was going to open up, I would have gone to war if I could have gone in an automobile, but never on a horse. I know the horse too well. I know the horse in peace and in war. A horse thinks of too many things to do which you do not expect. He is apt to bite you in the leg when you think he is half asleep. A horse is too capricious for me, laughter. We have taken Chauncey Depew out of an active and useful life and made him a senator. Embalmed him, corked him up. Look at that gilded mummy. That man has said many a true thing about me in his time, and I always said something would happen to him. That man has made my life miserable and many a banquet on both sides of the ocean, and palsied be the hand that draws that cork. Laughter. All these things and many more have happened since I have been away. It only goes to show how little a mugwump, perhaps the last of his race, is missed in this unfeeling world. I come back and find myself a party by myself. Seven years ago when I was old and worn and down, you gave me the grip and the word which lifts a man up and makes him glad to be alive. I come back from my exile, fresh and young and alive, ready to begin a new applause. Your welcome warms me. It makes me feel that it is a reality, and not a glorious dream, to vanish with the morning. Governor-elect O'Dell. Mr. Clemens was loudly cheered as he took his seat, and then President Lawrence, called upon Governor-elect O'Dell, who received a hearty welcome. I was up in my home in Newburgh, prepared to take a rest. Usually when I get up there I take the telephone receiver off the hook, so that no one can reach me, but I neglected to do so to-night, and Riggs and Lorde managed to raise me and tell me I was wanted down here at the Lotus Club. I consulted with Mrs. O'Dell, and she told me that while I could go to political dinners at any time there was but one Mark Twain, so I put on my coat and caught the first train to New York, and here I am. I have known Mr. Clemens for a long time. The last time I met him was at a dinner given in London by the American Society to celebrate the anniversary of American independence, and I am glad to meet him here tonight at the Lotus Board. McKellway has said that I am a statement-maker and not an orator, so you must not expect a speech from me. Laughter and applause. Mr. Reed. Ex-speaker Reed was presented by President Lawrence as one who had become a New Yorker, and who has yet has shown no sign of being sorry for it. The former czar of the House of Representatives met with a warm welcome and spoke with a drawl which is familiar to those who have heard him. I want it to be understood that I fully appreciate that this is a hopeless situation, a hopelessness of trying to meet our guest's ideas of what we ought to say about him. We can say nothing that will not seem to him absolutely inadequate. He will go home to-night and think over his invaluable services to mankind and think how utterly inadequate the words of his friends here have been. He will think it all over and say to himself, Well, the boys meant well enough, but if they had known what they had been talking about, they would have presented it better. He will learn after a while how to add the proper percent to bring the average of what has been said up to what he thinks should have been said. I want to say some things to him now that I've got him where he can't talk back, which will make it necessary to add on a heavy percentage. Laughter. I have been waiting for seven years to get at him for some things he said about me down in Washington. He came to Washington with a lot of those literary fellows with a vague idea that they were going to prove their rights to some of their own property. I came to see me. I had occasion to remind them that they were sitting under the effulgence of the political intelligence which fully comprehends things. Laughter. I explained to him that he and his friends were absolutely incapable of self-government. Laughter. We intended to let him keep some small percentage of right to his property, but we were going to benevolently assimilate his property, or most of it. Laughter. Apparently he behaved most credibly, but after he left me it was reported to me that he had gone round town telling people the things he would have said to me if he hadn't been scared. Laughter. We all owe him a debt greater than we can ever discharge for what he has given us. He has described the life on the Mississippi for us as has no other man, but when you read his books think of the wealth of vocabulary he had to draw on when he was writing about life on the Mississippi after. He says he was named after the prophet Samuel. He says he remembers lying in his cradle and thinking that in five minutes more he would be one day old. He says that he remembers his father and mother talking over a name for him. They spoke of Zerobabble, Ababucca, I think that would have fitted him, and Samuel. At that name he says that he arose, climbed over the edge of the cradle, and left home. As he was leaving the door he said, Father, I can't be named Samuel. Why not, asked his father, because Samuel had to be called by the Lord twice before he had come. In twenty-four hours his father overtook him and gave him Samuel and a sound thrashing. Now I can believe that he left his cradle and left home, but I do not believe him when he says the old gentleman overtook him and gave him a thrashing. No one ever overtook him. Great laughter and applause. Mr. Howells. Mr. Lawrence then introduced William Dean Howells in these words. It is many a long day since we had the pleasure of seeing in this club the distinguished author and friend of our guest upon whom I am now about to call. I remember that when Mr. Howells was with us last he began by saying that he could not speak at all, and he ended by making most of the speeches of the evening. I ought perhaps to say, in explanation of that statement, that it happened that our guest that night was a distinguished Italian dramatist who spoke no English, and Mr. Howells found himself in a position of translating all the speeches as he went along. Gentlemen, there is no name greater in contemporary American literature than that of Mr. William D. Howells. I know you will join me in expressing most warmly the gratification it gives us to see him in the Lotus Club. Mr. Howells said, I am not so fortunate to-night as I was on the occasion that you allude to, because then I had merely to speak for everybody, and now I have to speak for myself. It is very much simpler to translate Italian than to get off one's own English, and if Mr. Clemens had been so good as to put his speech into very choice Italian, I should have done my best to put it into equivalent English. However, like all impromptu speakers, I prepared myself most carefully beforehand, and I hope you don't mind my reading what I have to say. If you meet a humorist on his own ground, the chances are that you will be thrown down, unless you are a very great joker. He will probably out-joke you, or if he doesn't, people will think he does, which is quite as bad. The only way is to take him seriously, and then, if you praise him, he will be apt to think you are in earnest. That is why I am going to be serious in the very little I have to say about our great and good friend to-night, though we have not arrived at that happy stage of a complimentary dinner when the guest, unless he is a person of extraordinary perspicacity, does not know whether you are praising him or not. He is so thickly buttered by this time that he thinks everything offered him is butter, and in a lordly dish. If you get out your little hammer, and drive your little nail into his skull, he smiles blandly when it reaches his gray matter, and comes round at the end of the dinner with the head of the nail sticking out to say, Thank you, old fellow, that was very nice of you. I hope you won't have too much on your conscience. Like everyone else here, I am glad to have Mr. Clemens among us again, because, for one thing, I hate to see him having such a good time abroad. I always suspect a fellow citizen who has a good time abroad. We are afraid that there must be something wrong about it. We feel that he never could have been what we thought him, if other people think so, too. We are jealous of his fame if it is universal. We should have liked to keep it to ourselves. Many a time in the course of the last nine years my heart has been saddened by the acceptance of our friend in France, Germany, Austria, and England as one of the first humorous of all times, and I have done what little I could to set the matter right among those people who loved him, as I did, by whispering round that they were overdoing it. But now that we have got him back, I am not so sure that they were overdoing it. At any rate, I wish to lift my voice in welcoming him home and to be one of the very first publicly to forgive him. I realize that he was not to blame because other peoples have appreciated him in their poor, unintelligent way, and told him so in languages which are difficult for any true American to understand. We ought to forgive him in our own interest, if for no other reason, for no one else has been so fully in the joke of us or known better how to interpret us to ourselves. And at no other period of our national life have we been a greater joke or more needed interpretation. He has probably arrived by our happy instinct to tell us just what we mean, and to declare how about it, when we are ourselves most in the dark. He is, at any rate, a humorist of continental dimensions, and he could not be the great humorist he is without being vastly better, if there is anything better, if it is really better to be a sagacious reader of contemporary history, a generous and compassionate observer of one's kind, a philosopher without a theory, a poet whose broad-winged imagination transcends the bounds of verse. Perhaps it takes all these to make up the sum of a great humorist. At least we find them all summed up in the humorist whom we amusingly suppose ourselves to be honoring tonight when he is so obviously honoring us. Why, in a manner he has invented us, and has more than any other man made us the component parts of the great American joke, which we all realize ourselves to be when we are serious. More than others he has discovered us to ourselves. He has determined our modern mental attitude, fixed our point of view, and he could not have done this without being vitally of the material he worked in. He has invented us, but then we invented him to begin with, and that is where I think we have reason to be proud. Before us no people had a humorist with nothing cruel but everything kindly in his smile, who never laughed with the strong against the weak, or found anything droll in suffering or deformity. When we look back over our literature and see what savage and stupid and pitiless things have passed for humor, and then open his page, we seem not only to have invented the only true humorist, but to have invented humor itself. We do not know by what mystery his talents sprang up from our soil and flowered in our air, but we know that no such talent has been known to any other. And if we set any bounds to our joy in him, it must be from that innate American modesty not always perceptible to the alien eye, which forbids us to keep throwing bouquets at ourselves. St. Clair McElway. St. Clair McElway was the next speaker. He said, years ago we here sought to hold up Mark Twain's hands. Now we all feel like holding up our own in congratulation of him and of ourselves. Of him because his warfare is accomplished. Of ourselves because he has returned to our company. If it was a pleasure to know him then, it is a privilege and an honor to know him now. He has fought the good fight. He has kept the faith. He is ready to be offered up, but we are not ready to have him offered up, for we want the Indian summer of his life to be long, and that to be followed by a genial winter, which if it be as frosty as his hair shall also be as kindly as his heart. Applause. He has enough excess and versatility of ability to be a genius. He has enough quality and quantity of virtues to be a saint. But he has honorably transmuted his genius into work, whereby it has been brought into relations with literature and with life. And he has preferred warm fellowship to cold perfection, so that sinners love him and saints are content to wait for him. May they wait long. Applause. I think he is entitled to be regarded as the Dean of America's humor, that he is entitled to the distinction of being the greatest humorous this nation ever had. I say this with a fair knowledge of the chiefs of the entire corps, from Francis Hopkinson and the author of hasty pudding, down to Bill Nye and Dooley. None of them would I depreciate. I would greatly prefer to honor and hail them all for the singular fittedness of their gifts to the needs of the nation in their times. Hopkinson and Joe Barlow lightened the woes of the revolution by the touch of nature that makes the whole world grin. Sabah Smith relieved the Yankee sense of tension under the impact of Jacksonian roughness by tickling its ribs with a quill. Lieutenant Derby turned the searchlight of fun on the stiff formalities of army posts, on the raw conditions of alkali journalism, and on the solemn humbugs of frontier politics. James Russell Lowell used dialect for dynamite to blow the front off hypocrisy or to shatter the common commercialism in which the New England conscience was insisted. Robert H. Newell, mirthmaker and mystic, satirized military ignorance and pinch-beck bluster to an immortality of contempt. Bret Hart, in verse and story, touched the parallels of tragedy and of comedy, of pathos, of bathos, and of humor, which love of life and lust of gold opened up amid the unapprehended grandeurs and the coveted treasures of primeval nature. Charles F. Brown made Artemis Ward as well known as Abraham Lincoln in the time the two divided the attention of the world. Bill Nye singed the shams of his day, and Dooley dissects for Hennessy the shams of our own. Nor should we forget Eugene Field, the beautifier of childhood, or Joel Chandler Harris, the fabulist of the plantation, or Ruth McHennery Stewart, the coronal singer of the joys and hope, the loves and the dreams of the images of God in ebony in the old south ere it leaped and hardened to the new. To these, love and honor. But to this man honors crown of honor, for he has made a mark none of the others has reached. Few of them have diversified the delights to be drawn from their pages of humor. They have as humorous in distinction to the work of moralists, novelists, orators and poets, in which the rarest among them shine, they have as humorous in the main, worked a single vein. And some of them were humorous for a purpose, a dreary grime that, and some of them were only humorous for a period as well as for a purpose. The purpose served the period past, the humor that was of their life a thing apart ceased. To his Clemens's whole existence, applause. As Bacon made all learning his province, so Mark Twain has made all life and history his quarry, from the jumping frog to the Yankee at Arthur's Court, from the inquested petrification that died of protracted exposure to the present Parliament of Austria, from the grave of Adam to the mysteries of the Adamless Eden, known as the League of Professional Women, from mulberry sellers to Joan of Arc, and from Edward VI to Puddin Head Wilson, who wanted to kill his half of a deathless dog. Nevada is forgiven its decay because he flashed the oddities of its zenith life on pages that endure. California is worth more than its gold because he showed to men the heart under its swagger. He annexed the Sandwich Islands to the fun of the nation long before they were put under the flag. And because of him the Missouri and the Mississippi go not unvexed to the sea, for they ripple with laughter as they recall Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Poor Jim, and the Duke. Europe, Asia Minor, and Palestine are open door to the world, thanks to his pilgrim's progress with his innocence abroad. Purity, piety, and pity shine out from Prince and Popper like the eyes of a wondering deer on a torch-lighted night from a wooded fringe of mountain and lake. But enough of what I fear is already too much. In expressing my debt to him I hope I express somewhat at least of yours. I cannot repay him in kind any more than I could rival him. None of us can. But we can render to him a return he would like. With him we can get our way to reality and burn off pretense, as acid eats its way to the denuded plate of the engraider. We can strip the veneer of convention from style and strengthen our thought in his Anglo-Saxon well of English undefiled. We can drop seeming for sincerity. We can be relentless toward hypocrisy and tender to humanity. We can rejoice in the love of laughter without ever once letting it lead us to libertinism of fancy. We can reach through humour the heart of man. We can make exaggeration the scourge of meanness and the magnifier of truth on the broad screen of life. By study of him the nothing new under the sun can be made fresh and fragrant by the supreme art of putting things. Though none of us can handle his wand, all of us can be transformed by it into something different from and finer than our dull selves. That is our delight, that is our debt, both due to him, and long may he remain with us to brighten, to broaden, and to better our souls with the magic mirth, and with the mirthful magic of his incomparable spell. Applauds. John Hare. John Hare, the actor discussing the drama, said, My task is rendered comparatively easy, because we are here not to enter the lists in oratorical rivalry, but to unite in paying homage to a great and distinguished and brilliant writer, and, to use an Americanism, a lovely man. The last time I had the pleasure of listening to Mr. Clemens was at a dinner in London on the occasion of Sir Henry Irving's return from America. Among the toasts was one to the drama, with the names of Mark Twain and Mr. Pinero coupled. We all looked forward to the speeches of these two. Mr. Pinero had come, we could see, from the expression of his face, all prepared to give us a very weighty essay on the drama. But Mr. Clemens spoke first, and with such brilliant humour, and wit, that the effect was electrical. We waited for Mr. Pinero, but the air was so charged with the electricity of humour, that Mr. Pinero could only sit down with the remark, I beg to return my thanks for this honour. The health of the drama is extremely good. Its vitality is excessive. In the past we have had as good, better plays, and as good players, but at present we have more of them. There may be no genius, but the average is far better. In this there is a great solace, and a great danger. Genius may do what it likes. Average ability must be controlled. The practical extinction of the actor-manager in our country, and his total extinction in yours, are a great menace. It is impossible for the commercial director to amalgamate and control those forces which give to the public the perfect drama. It is the fashion now to cry down the actor-manager. What a mistake! What a folly! The more I look around, the more I deplore the lack of state and municipal aid for the theatre. In England we can never hope for it, but in this country it could be, and looking upon the ability of your actors and the grace of your actresses, my impression is that in this country could be founded the finest dramatic school in the world. Senator Depew. Senator Depew was greeted with a round of applause which showed that his popularity had not waned at the lotus. He began by telling a story of a rural friend who once had gone to hear Mark Twain lecture. Upon his return the senator asked, Hear Mark? Yes. Was he funny? Yes, funny, but not damn funny. Mr. Depew then said, I learned later that my friend had listened to a lecture by the Reverend Joseph Cook. Our friend Mark owes his distinction to that faculty so much abused in politics and business, humor. Every man who has made a success in politics has been handicapped by being a joker. I never yet met a man who had made a fortune who could tell a story or get off a joke. I never yet saw a man worth one million dollars at any function who didn't want to get back to the office in five minutes. No man can make one million dollars if he is funny. That's nothing against the man with the one million dollars or the man who makes a joke. It simply shows that there are two avenues, and some of us take one and some the other. Tonight's evening post had a leading article on two distinguished citizens, one of whom had recently died. The paper said, Mr. Brian and myself. Of the late lamented Mr. Brian, the post said that he had lost the opportunity of being president by lowering himself in his speeches to the level of the common people. And as for Depew, no one who jokes can be president. Having followed Brian through the canvas, I never expected to be bracketed with him, but I'm willing to have my chances of being president classed with his. I believe that when a man once gets to be president of the United States, if he has wit and humor, they add enormously to the distinction, but that he can never get there if it is known beforehand. Lincoln was not known outside of Illinois when he ran for president, but after he got to be president he began illustrating anything he wanted the people to understand by humor, and he became the greatest factor we ever had in American politics. Lincoln once said to me, I know they say I lower the dignity of the presidential office and that I don't rise to its high plain, but I have found that the plain people are more easily influenced by broad humorous illustrations than any other way, and, young man, I don't care what hypocritical people say. It gives me great pleasure to appear before an assembly which comprises so much of the journalistic, artistic, and bohemian circles of our great American commonwealth. I am pleased with the honor to unite here with you in praising the distinguished guest. He began life in a humble sphere, a characteristic of all men rising to distinction in our country. He became at one time connected with the transportation interests of the land. If he had continued in that sphere he might some time have reached the lofty position of president of one of the great carrying companies of our country. Although he began humbly in the pilot house of a steamboat, I am assured by one who knew him that he had the respect of the passengers and the confidence of the owners of the boat. I am not sure, but he made a mistake when he left that path for the path of literature. He has a genius, unique, which has secured him recognition on both sides of the Atlantic, and as an American citizen I thank him. Had he abandoned humor for the higher walks of literature, which Homer and Aristotle ornamented, I am not sure but he would have achieved greater distinction. Now that's the candidate's speech, and I hope the post will give me credit for being equal to the job if I should take it. Senator DePue then told a new joke on the guest of the evening. The story was that while in London he had received a draft from America for one thousand and twenty-five pounds and attempted to cash the duplicate of it after cashing the original, believing it was another draft. At the first bank he went to Mr. DePue said they told Mr. Clemens that he was a great humorist, but if it wasn't a joke they would send for the police. At the Union Bank of London he was detained while a man from the home secretary's office was summoned. Later, Mr. DePue said, told the humorist that his reputation was a glory to the literary world, but in order not to destroy the cordiality between the two nations he thought Mr. Clemens had better go home. And that, said Mr. DePue, is why Mark Twain is here to-night. The laughter that followed was mingled with calls for an explanation from the man the joke was on, so Mr. Clemens accommodated them. He said the story was not all true, as told, I am, said he, a literary person and not acquainted with commercial details. I got the draft and in a day or two I got another just like it, which was a gratifying surprise. I thought it judicious to cash them one at a time. I cashed the first one, but I didn't know what to make of the other, but I thought likely the bank had forgotten it had sent the first one. I needed advice, so I went to Mr. DePue, laid the whole circumstances before him, asked him what he would do about it, and he said he would collect it. And that's what all the trouble was due to. I went from place to place and couldn't get any one to pay that draft. And finally I suspected DePue. John Kendrick Bangs. John Kendrick Bangs was then introduced. He began his remarks with a few jesting allusions to Mr. Clemens' observations on Senator DePue's railway interests, and in proceeding said, I must confess that I have listened with some astonishment and regret to the address of the gentleman who edits an evening paper in the Brooklyn end of Greater New York. I greatly enjoyed Mr. McKelloway's interesting lecture on humor and humorouss, until he reached the point where he failed to mention. While he omitted two great New Yorkers, Governor Odell, who as a little joker in the political pack has recently proved quite a pronounced success in his own special line, and another, a great favorite of mine, whose omission reminds me of an experience of my own in a previous state of existence. I was trying to get into politics at the time, and it took all that my friends could do to keep me out. They succeeded, however, but during that brief but bitter period I was introduced to a willing voter. He was more willing than I was, so I lost him. It seems that I was no better known to him as a combination than as a candidate for after gazing at me for a moment with that bewildered expression which the meek and lowly always feel in the presence of the truly great. He observed, huskily, My God, are you John Kendrick Bames? Yes, said I. Well, by Heavens, said he. Well, I've seen you and I've seen your name, but I'll be damned if I ever put the two together before. Maybe that is the case with Mr. McElway and his omission of the name of my favorite author from his list of the elect. He has seen his name and he has seen his work, but the combination of humorist did not suggest itself to him, all of which taken together with other incidents this evening rather clears up a situation which has somewhat perplexed me. I could not understand why, however welcome the task, I should be honored with an invitation to help the Lotus Club in doing honor to our distinguished guest. As the evening has worn on, however, the reason has become obvious. It is quite evident that in order to heighten the glory of Mark Twain, the Committee of Arrangements have invited to act as a background to their effulgent guest all the second class humorists of this country and abroad. Governor O'Dell of Newburg, Thomas Brackett Reed, and St. Clair McElway of Missouri, and John Hare, and Senator DePue of London, and Sandrigan, respectively. How successfully they have carried out their brilliant idea, the speeches we have listened to attest. Now I suppose that even the mouse which crept into the lion's cage was glad in spite of his physical shortcomings, that he belonged to the forefooted order of beings, just as did the more massive creature upon whom he called to pay his respects. I am entitled therefore in spite of my own shortcomings to take pride and pleasure in being one of the biped family who have essayed to make the world happier and brighter by calling attention to the lighter side of life and whatever my failings may have been. I shall leave this gathering tonight with a swelling head as well as with a swelling heart, because as far as I personally am concerned I regarded as a sufficient distinction in my calling to have been permitted to lay my tribute of affection, esteem, and earnest appreciation at the feet of the great philanthropist to whom we are doing honor tonight and in this company. The speeches at the Lotus Club are as a rule so numerous and so long that it rarely happens that the majority of the speakers get a chance to say anything until the next morning, so I shall not detain you with any remarks of mine tonight, further than to say that the milestone along the footpath of Mark Twain from the insignificant beginnings along the brilliant way to success, which he has so persistently followed for so many years, and which has led him into and found for him there, a home in the hearts of the English-speaking people everywhere, are not unlike the little guideposts on the footpath to Peace, which have been so beautifully and eloquently described by Dr. Henry Van Dijk himself a humorist of no mean order in his charming prose poem of that name. Dr. Van Dijk's poem is copyrighted, but I know he will forgive me if I read it in part to you in my ardent wish to do honor to the man we pay homage to tonight. It reads as follows, To be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars, to be satisfied with your possessions, but not contented with yourself until you have made the best of them. To despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice, to be governed by your admirations rather than by your disgusts, to covet nothing that is your neighbors except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners, to think seldom of your enemies and often of your friends, and to spend as much time as you can with body and with spirit in gods out of doors. These are little guideposts on the footpath to peace. It seems to me, Mr. President, that it is because that in and between every line he has written the sweet underlying principles of the Creed of Peace, set forth by Dr. Van Dijk, have shone conspicuously forth. Mark Twain is regarded by most of us as a gift of a divine providence. His work is full of the gladness of life. It is full of incentive to love and to work. It is full of play. It is full of gods out of doors. The humorist has been satisfied with his possessions, but it is apparent that he has not been contented with himself until he has made the best of them. There is no note of fault-finding in anything that he has done, save when falsehood and meanness give reason to its being, and that he has feared nothing, save cowardice, has been shone by the noble and courageous fight which he has made under conditions so adverse that they would have overwhelmed a man of less strenuous fiber. He has been governed by his admirations rather than by his disgusts, and in his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners he has had no reason to covet even his neighbor, for these were gifts which were lavished upon him in richest profusion from the beginning of his span. It is these qualities that have made the humor of Mark Twain a cherished possession in every home of this land, and which will keep his name alive and reverenced by all who love that which is good and uplifting, long after he, and we, have passed into the unknown. Secretary Chester S. Lorde then gave those present another opportunity for a hearty laugh by reading a letter from F. Hopkinson Smith, in which Mr. Smith accused Mark Twain of having taken his overcoat, and of not returning it. Mr. Clemens was again called on to defend himself, and confessed that he had been guilty of taking the overcoat, but had returned a handkerchief he had found in one of the pockets. Joseph C. Hendricks spoke briefly and eulogized Mr. Clemens, aghast of the evening, he said, told us that he felt a personal loss at being free of debt. I am prepared on Monday morning to remedy that, if he will give his note, for every banker in the United States knows that note will be paid. Augustus Thomas paid a brief tribute to the guest of the evening, who, he said, was the foremost humorist of his time. Three other speeches by Mark Twain. Mark Twain made three speeches at the reception, tendered him by the New York Press Club on Monday night. He was first introduced in most glowing terms by the President of the Club, Colonel William L. Brown, whereupon he said, and must I always begin with a regret that I have left my gun behind? I've said so many times that if a gentleman introduced me with compliments and then sat down, I'd use a gun. But as I haven't the gun, I am going to give this Chairman of yours a dose of his own medicine. Gentlemen, you behold before you an old, old man. His features would deceive one. Apparently he is hardened, a person dead to all honest impulses. On these features are the marks of an unimaginable crime, and yet the features belie themselves. Instead of having led a life of crime, as his face indicates, he began in a Sunday school and will end there. He has always led an exemplary life, one of those lives that make you think of all the long words in the vocabulary that suggest virtue, virtue which he appears to have but has not. His public history has been merely a deception, milestone every now and then by misdemeanors. But these misdemeanors were only the effervescences of a great nature, the accidents of a great career. He really has all the virtues known, and he practices them secretly. Gentlemen, you know him too well for me to further prolong this introduction. Mr. Clemens sat down and the victim of his joke said a few words to turn the tables on him, in which, needless to say, the victim was unsuccessful. Then Joseph I. C. Clark took the floor and told how Mr. Twain had discovered that the foundation of all humor in life was seriousness. He found that all fun comes from tears, and so he has been making fun of the American people for the last one hundred and fifty years maybe longer. Why, this Mark Twain once made a Scotchman laugh. Mr. Clark closed his talk with the story of how the humorous drew, just after the Franco-Prussian War, a map of Paris, showing the position that the German army had occupied by the picture of a depleted brewery. Then Mr. Twain got up again and said, I rise this time without invitation, in order to defend myself. You need it, you need it, interrupted Colonel Brown. Yes, Mr. Twain went on, and there are others here, older than I, that needed more. What I was going to say was this. I don't mind slanders, and that sort of thing. The facts are what I object to. I don't want anybody to know my true history, and I appeal to you journalists, to keep it from getting abroad. When you live as long as I have, you'll find out that the world knows you much more favorably than you know yourself. I tell you, when you wake up in the morning feeling bad and thinking yourself a pretty low down kind of a creature, it is not on account of what the world thinks or the slanders of other people, but on account of some infamous deed you have committed, and which nobody but yourself knows anything about. Now, the things that those westerners said about me were all slanders. There was no truth in them. The true things that I did in that region they didn't know, so they couldn't tell them. If they could, they would have put me in a hole. I have not been an alleged humorist. I have been a wise man, a Solomon. I have kept secret the things I have done. But it is no wonder that those people told slanderous tales about me. I would have done the same thing for another man. Mr. Clark is right in saying that the foundation of humor is seriousness, gravity. Contrast is what brings out humor. To show you that this is true, I will tell you how I came to draw that very map of Paris which he spoke about. It was in 1870 or 1871, I think. In my home was a very sick friend of ours. For days and nights my wife and I sat up and worried. What made the strain worse was the fact that we did not know where to locate the family of our sick friend. In vain we made inquiries to discover what was their post office so that we might reach them by wire. It was no use, and the strain continued for three long weeks. At the end of that time I was completely worn out, exhausted, miserable. Then came the reaction. I sat down and took a big M and made that map of Paris. But when I went to print the map it was upside down. I had forgotten that the cut of a map had to be made reversely in order to have the map look right on paper. The thing that I printed didn't look any more like Paris than like New York. It was a sight to behold. But it was published nevertheless, and some people said it was very humorous. Under it I placed a dozen explanatory notes, but they didn't explain. Then I attached some more notes, without improving the value of the map as a map. But folks said it was funny. Some American students in Berlin took it from one beer mill to another and laughed over it. Then some native Germans got a hold of it and talked excited German about it. These Germans saw nothing funny in it, and there was humor in that very fact. Now you can see how a very sad experience resulted in arousing my humor, for if it hadn't been for that sick friend of ours I would never have drawn the map of Paris. Mr. Clemens was followed by Mr. Hennessy, who began by saying that he had never read any of the humorous books. Then John W. Keller said he had read all those books and declared that Newspaper Men had no greater source of inspiration than the writings of Mark Twain. Mr. Clemens followed with his good night talk. He said, I want to say good night. Times have changed, you know. I am old. I am reformed, too. I am just as competent to run all night as I ever was, and more competent to discuss Scotch whiskey when it is good. And I see many before me who can do that. But when one becomes respectable one must go home early. It is to protect my reputation that I am going. The last time I was with you I was like the rest of you, not respectable. All the slanders that were poured upon me tonight, I know, were pure artificialities. The compliments paid me were the only things that had the imprint of truth. I shall take the compliments home and forget the slanders. I have one thing to say before I go. Of all these slanders there is only one that rankles, and it is not a slander on me, but on the man that said it. He said he had never read my books. Now that hurts. Really. I can't understand it. He seemed so intelligent. So, intelligent. But how could he be so, under these circumstances? If he hasn't read those books, his intelligence must be artificial. Mr. Keller has read them, and he simply oozes intelligence. He is brimming over with it. I bid you good night, and thank you very much. Another dinner. Another dinner in this city to Mark Twain in honor of his return home is announced. It will be given by the Aldyne Association at its rooms 111 Fifth Avenue on Tuesday evening December 4. The Committee of Arrangements expects to secure a number of other prominent guests. End of Section 9, November 17, 1900, Mark Twain, the Lotus Club Dinner, read by John Greenman. Section 10 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 4, 1900 through 1906. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. November 22, 1900, Mark Twain has a grievance. The writer makes complaint at City Hall against cab driver. Mark Twain went to the City Hall yesterday and told a story similar to some tales in his innocence abroad. Mr. Clemens could see no joke in a New York cab driver overcharging a passenger and then becoming insolent. I am a patient and long-suffering citizen, said the humorist. Secretary Downs was at first tempted to regard the matter as a Twain joke. Mr. Clemens told in all seriousness how he took a cab after a dinner at the 19th Century Club to drive to his home in West 10th Street. When the cab stopped, Mr. Clemens claimed that the cab men wanted an exorbitant fee. Payment was made under protest after Mr. Clemens demanded the number of the cab. As the Nighthawk rounded into Fifth Avenue, Mr. Clemens claims the man hurled abuse at him from his high perch. It was also found that the cab man had given the wrong number of his license. His right number, it appears, is 191. Mr. Clemens did not see Mayor Van Wick. He stated his complaint to Mayor's Marshal David Roach. An officer was sent out to find the offending Nighthawk and a hearing will be held on the matter this morning. A Times reporter called at Mr. Clemens' residence, 14 West 10th Street, and was informed that Mr. Clemens would see no newspaper men and would make no statement about the incident. Mr. Clemens' stories of his adventures with Hackman abroad occupy many pages of his works. November 23, 1900. Mark Twain is avenged. One false cabbie learns the power of his wrath. His license is reclaimed. The humorous says the citizen is an unclassified policeman. Due praise for Marshal Roach. The downtrodden victims of New York's Nighthawk G. Hughes can exalt today in a triumph gained yesterday by Mark Twain. A cabbie was hailed before Mayor's Marshal Roach, and his license to overcharge and insult his customers was suspended. The people who witnessed the trial were wondering all the time whether it was another of Mark Twain's rare jokes, and they expected to hear him tell a funny story about how he wept over the tomb of Adam, my original ancestor. If there was a joke in the matter, Mark Twain held it up his sleeve until after the hearing. In fact, he started a quixotic quarrel with the people of New York who allowed G. Hughes to overcharge them for rides, condemn them as criminals, and appeared as an abused citizen. There was plenty of humor in the hearing, however. Marshal Roach, dressed in a shiny cutaway coat, was overwhelmed with his judicial dignity before the hearing commenced. His small office was more crowded than the Kostermonger's Theatre in the Whitechapel District, London, on a holiday night. Marshal Roach welcomed the reporters ten minutes before the hour set for the hearing. Twenty crowded into an office which would comfortably accommodate ten museum midgets. A throng in the doorway stretched their necks to see the humorist. The accommodations is meager, gents, announced Marshal Roach with courtly grace. Say, the boss could make Chauncey M. de Pugh pull up lame in the stretch, said one of the clerks as he bent over his work. I beg of you, let each and every gentleman of the press see himself as he wishes. I will ascertain if this man twain has come or not. His name's Clemens, ain't it? The other is an alias. What? Marshal Roach, as he uttered the last word, hid four fingers between the buttons of his coat, took a deep breath, and pushed out his chest. At that moment a figure in a high hat was ushered through the throng. He doesn't look as funny as Martin Engel, said one timiny office holder. The room became suddenly quiet as Mr. Clemens got within the zone of the dignity with which Marshal Roach had surrounded himself. This is indeed an honour, said Roach, bending low. Beads of perspiration trickled down his face. Mark Twain looked with a cold, steely eye from under his bushy brows at the official. Marshal Roach seemed to shiver as if a sudden arctic draught had been wafted into the room. It became apparent at once that Mr. Clemens would have no joking at his expense. Have a chair, Mr. Clemens! blurted out Marshal Roach. Mr. Clemens found a vacant chair in an out-of-the-way corner, but every one in the room and those who crowded the doorway again stretched next to have a good look. Is the driver of cab number 191 in attendance? Say, where is that fellow anyway? He's got a right to show up. And then Marshal Roach jumped up and made a rush for an out-of-the-room. He reappeared, and at his heels was a sheepish-looking cab man and a red-faced livery stable owner. The latter announced, I'm Michael Burns, and I'm the man who hires this driver. I'm here for a square deal. And you'll get it, said the Tammany clerk. At this point a camera in the hands of a newspaper photographer was levelled at Mark Twain, who looked at that time innocent of all humour. Would Mr. Clemens here relate the circumstances in point? said Marshal Roach, with the air of a Chesterfield. Ain't he a bird? said the man at the books. At this time Mr. Twain, with his woman servant Kate Leary beside him, sat facing employer Burns and the G. Hugh, whose name proved to be William Beck. Mr. Clemens began with his customary drawl. The salient features are these. The maid servant came into my study on the evening of November 20th and said that she had been driven by this cab man from the Grand Central Station to my house at 14 West Tenth Street. The hack man demanded one dollar and fifty cents for that service. I went down to see him, and he also asked one dollar and fifty cents of me. That is thirty-two blocks, the legal fare is one dollar, said Marshal Roach. I have not finished yet, said Mr. Clemens. When I asked for his number, he gave me a false one. How did you learn the right one? asked Marshal Roach, through my other witness. The other witness was a colored butler who hustled after the fast-disappearing cab and found that the number was two thousand five hundred and eighty-one. G. Hugh Beck then told his story and acknowledged that he had made an overcharge. Well, this man refused to show his license. Therefore we will have to suspend you, my dear man, said Marshal Roach. Secretary Winston of the Public Hack Owners Union said they were trying to reform the abuses in the cab system in New York. Then employer Byrne said in a sarcastic tone, I don't think the matter warrants this publicity and notoriety. This remark seemed to grate on Mark Twain's ear. He said, This is not a matter of sentiment, my dear sir. It is simply practical business. I am doing this just as any citizen who is worthy of the name of a citizen should do. He has a distinct duty. He is a non-classified policeman. It is his duty to aid the police and the magistracy. Here is a man who is a perfectly natural product of an infamous system. It is a charge on the lax patriotism in this city of New York that this thing can exist. You have encouraged him in every way you know how to overcharge. He is not the criminal here at all. The criminal is the citizen of New York and the absence of patriotism. I am not here to avenge myself on him. My quarrel is with the citizens of New York who have encouraged him. Should not be excused for failing to bring a charge against a man who assaults me with a club to rob me? If this man attempts to rob me without a club, then why should I refrain from making the charge? Then Marshall Roach said, I stand ready at all times to receive and adjudicate on complaints of such outrages. I first inflict a reprimand, and then I suspend the driver's license. This short speech was delivered with great gravity. A twinkle came into Mr. Clemens' eyes as he said, It seems to me that if the people only knew how easy it would be to come here and receive consideration at this official's hands, if they only knew your stand, Mr. Marshall, they would feel more at liberty to present their grievances to you. I stand ready to serve the public at any and all times, said Marshall Roach. We stand for hours at a time without a fair, and you can't blame us if we make it up when we get one, said Mr. Burns. A pirate might advance that argument, said Mark Twain, with droll emphasis. Now, see here, gents, yelled Marshall Roach. This hearing's off. Mr. Clemens tipped his hat and said, Good afternoon, Mr. Marshall. Marshall Roach bowed low, after offering to help Mark Twain with his coat. Mr. Clemens walked out of the dark basement. Marshall Roach, in his office, mopped his brow, shook his head, and said, What a damn fool that cab man was! End of Section 11, November 23, 1900, Mark Twain is avenged. Red by John Greenman. Section 12 of Mark Twain in The New York Times, Part 4, 1900 through 1906. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by John Greenman. November 24, 1900, Mark Twain to Women, Public Education Association complemented by the humorist, adverts to foreign topics. Russia disappoints him, wherein he agrees with the boxer, an idle man's apology. The annual meeting of the Public Education Association, held yesterday in the Berkeley Lyceum on West 44th Street, brought out the largest attendance that has been present at these meetings in several years. Every seed in the hall was taken by women interested in auxiliary educational work in the city, while the standing-room in the aisles was largely taken up. There were probably a half-dozen men scattered around in the wilderness of millinery, while two lone specimens of the male sex were let out on the speaker's platform. These were Dr. James H. Canfield of Columbia University and Mark Twain. Both were greeted with an enthusiastic round of gloved applause as they took their seats meekly behind a big bunch of roses that stood on a table beside the President's Chair. This seemed to cheer them considerably. This was the second occasion since his return from foreign shores that Mr. Clements has faced an audience composed chiefly of women, and it was the universal verdict that he bore himself with wonderful composure. Nevertheless, he earnestly requested that an opportunity be granted to him to make his address as soon as possible, giving the excuse that he had another engagement. Accordingly, he was introduced immediately after the President's opening address. Mrs. Schuyler van Rensseler, the President of the Association, reviewed the work accomplished by the organization during the past year, calling attention to the fact that very gratifying results had been attained. Reference was made to the fact that the Association had been appealed to by the Charter Revision Commission for details regarding the special lines of instruction of the Association. In outlining the planks of the Association for the coming season Mrs. Van Rensseler said that it was intended to hold a series of public meetings in Cooper Union at which instructive lectures would be given free. She said it was hoped to have for exhibition the public school pictures which had been shown during the past summer at the Paris Exposition, but that the pictures had attracted so much attention abroad that several foreign governments had asked for the loan of them and that they were at present in the hands of the Russian government. The President then introduced Mark Twain who was honored with more applause. The humorist affected great embarrassment in beginning his address. I was not invited here as an expert on education, he said, or at least I should hope not, and when I thank the President and members of the Society for asking me here at all, I do so with the distinct understanding that I am not expected to furnish information. I can conceive of two reasons why I am invited to be present. The first is that I may gather an idea of the worthy objects of an educational society of this order and some notion of the good work which it accomplishes. The second reason is that I am asked here to operate as a contrast, the contrast of an idle man in the company of 600 or 700 earnest energetic women, and further to show by this contrast the possibilities of education. Go on with your good work and you will receive the applause of the idle and lazy as well as the others. I have a wild and vague and nebulous idea of the aims and objects of the Society and already I applaud. If I understood fully the grand scope of your organization I might raise my applause to a still higher key. The President has just mentioned the fact that the Society has won one great credit mark in the fact that it has been called upon for instruction by the Charter Revision Commission. The Commission would not have made this request unless it had felt sure of being able to learn something from its councils. Reference has been made to the fact that the pictures of the New York schools have gone here and there throughout Europe for the instruction of foreign governments and are now in the hands of Russia. Well, that was a compliment that I was not expecting for our educational system because it has not been an hour since I was reading a cable dispatch in one of the newspapers which began, Russia proposes to retrench. When one is not expecting a thunderburst like that it is exciting. I thought how happy this news is for the world. Russia has 30,000 soldiers now in Manchuria, I said to myself, and this dispatch means that she is going to take them out of there and send them back to their farms to live in peace. If Russia retrenches this way, why shouldn't Germany and France follow suit? Why shouldn't all the foreign powers withdraw from China and leave her free to attend to her own business? It is the foreigners who are making all the trouble in China and if they would only get out how pleasant everything would be. As far as America is concerned we don't allow the Chinese to come here and we would be doing the graceful thing to allow China to decide whether she will allow us to go there. China never wanted any foreigners and when it comes to a settlement of this immigrant question I am with the boxer every time. The boxer is a patriot. He is the one patriot China has and I wish him success. The boxer believes in driving us out of his country. I am a boxer for I believe in driving the China men out of this country. The boxers on this side have won out. Why not give the boxer on the other side a chance? But about that Russian dispatch regarding retrenchment I read further and my dream vanished. The dispatch went on to say that Russia, on account of the vast expense to which she was being put in the Far East, had decided to cut down expenses so she had withdrawn her appropriation for the public schools. Now I never expected to see any humor in a cable dispatch from Russia. The worst thing about it is that the Russians themselves probably don't see any humor in it. The idea of a country concluding that the best way to save expenses is to cut off the common schools. We who have been led to believe that out of the schools grow a nation's greatness can hardly believe this tale. It is curious to reflect how history repeats itself and how great minds all over the earth are sure at some time to alight on the same great idea. Now this same Russian plan of retrenchment was brought up once in a township on the Mississippi River when I was a boy. The town was short of money, and it was proposed to discontinue the common schools. At a meeting where the scheme was being discussed, an old farmer got up and said, I think it's a mistake to try to save money that way. It's not a real saving. For every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end, you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. You will never fatten that dog. This society is wiser than the Emperor of Russia and all his people. That is not much of a compliment, but it is the best I have in stock. Dr. Canfield then read a paper on the relation of education to the state. End of Section 12, November 24, 1900, Mark Twain to Women, read by John Greenman. Section 13 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 4, 1900 through 1906. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. December 5, 1900, Dinner to Mark Twain. The writer meets two hundred persons at Aldine Association Dinner. The Aldine Association gave a dinner last evening to Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain, at the rooms of the Association, 18th Street and Fifth Avenue. More than two hundred members and guests sat down to the dinner, which began at 7.30 o'clock. H. W. Mayby presided, at his right being Mark Twain, and on his left, Bishop Potter. In addition to a speech by the guest of the evening, speeches were made by Bishop Potter, Joseph Jefferson, John K. Bangs, F. Hopkinson Smith, and others. Among others present at the dinner were Brander Matthews, Lawrence Hutton, Nathan Strauss, H. Loomis Nelson, Albert Shaw, Charles Scribner, George H. Richmond, Major Pond, Judge Herd, Edward Bach, R. H. Russell, Richard Watson-Gilder, James W. Alexander, Dr. C. C. Rice, Augustus Thomas, E. F. Bliss, and Captain Joshua Slokum. End of Section 13, December 5, 1900, Dinner to Mark Twain, read by John Greenman. Section 14 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 4, 1900 through 1906. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by John Greenman. December 7, 1900, Banquet of the St. Nicholas Society. This edited article contains sections that refer to Mark Twain. Elaborate decorations, souvenirs, and other features, Twain's view of New York, speaks humorously of its appearances and sarcastically of its government. Dr. McKay on the Gospel of the Smile. A full representation of the membership of the St. Nicholas Society assembled for the 66th annual banquet held last night at Delmonicoes. The function was attended by all the quaint old world glitter and pomp that has characterized the banquets of the society in the past, and upward of three hundred members and guests in song and oratory honored the traditions of their ancestry of Holland. The decorations of the hall as well as the wealth of unique souvenirs distributed among the diners were suggestive of the Netherlands. Broad streamers of orange swung from the big central chandelier to the walls of the Banquet Hall. The table decorations were of the same color. The long guest's table was spread with a cloth of orange hue and was draped with smilex. Above the President's Chair were draped four immense American flags about the shield of the society. In addition to the regular core of waiters, were scattered about the dining hall, ebb and hewed servitors dressed in the uniform of a court page of the House of Orange. Chief among the dinner souvenirs were Holland beer mugs, upon which appeared the coat of arms of Holland and pictures of New Amsterdam in 1650 and of the present city of New York. The lids were of silver. The mugs were made in Holland for the occasion. Frederick de Paster Foster, President of the Society, who presided and acted as Toastmaster, had to his right and left at the guest table the reverence Dr. Donald Sage, McKay, Dr. Louis J. Parker, Baron Jeavers, Minister from the Netherlands, General Brooke, Admiral Barker, Nicholas Fish, Julian T. Davies, Frederick J. de Paster, General William E. Dodge, William Pearson Hamilton, ex-Judge Henry E. Howland, James G. King, and George Blagdon. It was late in the evening when the first lull came in the hum of the banquet hall and Toastmaster Foster, dressed in his sash and headgear of office, greeted the procession of standard-bearers and pages, and started the speech-making by saying that the past year had been a feast of plenty for the Society. He said the Society had given the State, a Governor, and the Country, a Vice-President. He referred to Governor Roosevelt as a Hollander of the truest type. In the midst of a selection by the Boy Choir of Grace Church, Mark Twain entered the banquet hall in custody of a committee who had been sent in a cab to seek him out at his home, he having delayed to put in an appearance at the banquet. The humorous limping a little from the effects of a rheumatic attack was led up to the guest-table where the diners arose and gave him long continued applause. The City as Mark Twain sees it. When Mark Twain arose to respond to the toast our City, he was cheered for a fully five minutes. These are prosperous days for me, he said. Night before last, Bishop Potter complimented me and thanked me for my contributions to—theology, laughter. Tonight the Reverend Dr. McKay has elected me to the priesthood, laughter. I thank both these gentlemen for discovering things in me which I had long before discovered, but which I had begun to fear the world at large would never find out, laughter. Returning to New York after an absence of nine years, I find much improvement in it, a great moral improvement. Some think it is because I have been away, laughter, but the more intelligent think that it is because I have come back, laughter. But we'll not discuss that. Let's get down to the business end of this toast. Our City. We take stock of a city like we take stock of a man. The clothes and appearance are the externals by which we judge. We next take stock of the mind, the intellect. These are the internals. The sum of both is the man or the city. New York has a great many details of the external sort which impress and inform the foreigner. Among these are the skyscrapers, and they are new to him. He hasn't seen their like since the Tower of Babel. He is shocked by them. I am not. As seen by daylight these skyscrapers make the city look ugly, too chimney-like, like a mouth full of snags, like a cemetery with all monuments and no gravestones. But at night when the great walls of masonry are all a sparkle, the city is fairy-like. It is more beautiful than any other city since the days of the Arabian nights. When the disgruntled foreigner has exhausted his objections by day, let us float him down the river by night. Certainly the skyscraper has its advantages, and we don't need to apologize for it. Then we have elevators in them that elevate, not like the cigar boxes of Europe called lifts. The European lift is always stopping to reflect between floors. That's well enough in a hearse horse, but not in an elevator. Laughter. In Europe, when a man starts to the sixth floor on a lift, he often photographs his family so he may recognize them when he gets back. Laughter. Then look at our cable and trolley and elevated cars. They are the cleanest, simplest, most comfortable in the world, and all of them were created and conferred upon us by the New York Hackman. Laughter. He did it, and we ought always to be grateful to him. We have a custom of erecting monuments to our benefactors. We owe him one, not a permanent one maybe. We might build it of plaster, and after gazing upon it for a while, tear it down. The reference to the Dewey Arch was quickly perceived and applauded by the audience. The speaker then went on to describe the London Bus and Underground Roads. You can get no one to believe that you rode on a London Underground Road, said he, unless you have a cinder in your eye, and as for the buses, some find it cheaper to ride on a London Bus than to pay board. Laughter. New York is also cleaner than it used to be. It is cleaner than Bombay, but I'm not here to flatter Bombay, Laughter. When the speaker got around to what referred to as the internal characteristic of the city, he lapsed into sarcasm of the most biting sort, interrupted frequently by applause. By the municipal government of a city, he said, a foreigner distinguishes its character. He sees now that you have the best municipal government that the world has ever seen. The purest, most fragrant, the angels in heaven must envy you. You got it from your noble fidelity to civic duty, by your stern and watchful exercise of the powers conferred upon you by your citizenship. You got it by your manly refusal to sit inert, while man made high places and took them. You who have made this city the envy of the world, and when you enter the gates of heaven, the angels will say, Here they come, the citizens who saw their civic duty and did it. Turn on the limelight. End of Section 14, December 7, 1900, Banquet of the St. Nicholas Society, read by John Greenman. Section 15 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 4, 1900 to 1906. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. December 13, 1900. How Lieutenant Churchill Escaped from Boars. This edited article contains sections that refer to Mark Twain. How Lieutenant Churchill Escaped from Boars. Introduced to an American audience by Mark Twain. Committee of Reception. Protests of some with pro-Boars sympathies whose names were used. Mr. Van Ness's Circular. Winston Spencer Churchill, the war correspondent, told a fashionable audience at the Waldorf Astoria last night how he escaped from Pretoria. The grand ballroom was crowded to the doors. More than usual publicity had been given the lecture owing to the action taken by certain persons named on the reception committee list by Major Pond, who is managing Mr. Churchill's tour. On December 7, William Dean Howells and J. Kennedy Todd announced that the use of their names was unauthorized, and this was followed by a similar protest from Edward Van Ness, who was actively pro-Boar during the war in South Africa. Mr. Van Ness addressed a circular letter to each gentleman named on the reception committee list, asking him if a similar liberty had been taken with his name. The reception committee list, as at first given out, contained, among others, the following names—Governor Roosevelt, Governor-Electo Dell, White Law Reed, Mayor Van Wick, Senators Chauncey M. DePieu, and Thomas C. Flatt, and Thomas B. Reed. Mark Twain's Introduction. The lecture began at 8.30. Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain, being in the chair. Mr. Clemens, introducing the speaker, said Mr. Churchill knew all about war and nothing about peace. War might be very interesting to persons who like that sort of entertainment, but he had never enjoyed it himself. During the Civil War he remembered visiting a battlefield once, but he had never felt comfortable there. One cannot carry an umbrella when it rains, for when shells are flying they might get tangled up with the umbrella. Personally he disapproved of the war in South Africa, and he thought England sinned when she interfered with the Boers, as the United States is sinning in meddling in the affairs of the Filipinos. England and America were kin in almost everything. Now they are kin in sin. He had long worked as a missionary advocating bonds of friendship between America and England, and thanks to his efforts the United States was on good terms with the Great Britain. America and England wept at the door of China when the mailed fist of blustering Germany battered the unhappy Chinaman while Russia robbed him, and they have worked together to maintain the favor of the world. He sympathized with the Boers, but as a missionary in the cause of an Anglo-American alliance he took pleasure in welcoming Mr. Churchill, a blend of America and England which makes a perfect match. Mr. Churchill was greeted cordially by the audience. He showed nervousness at first but soon forgot himself in his subject, and held the attention of his listeners by a clear recital of some of the most striking episodes of the struggle between Boer and Britain. A touch of humor, introduced halfway unconsciously, lightened up the lecture considerably. Story of the Escape After alluding to the fact that he had already written a book about his escape from Pretoria, he said he trusted that everyone in the audience would purchase a copy. This was the anniversary of his escape, many accounts of which had been related here and in England, but none of which was true. He escaped by climbing over the iron pailing of his prison while the sentry was lighting his pipe. He passed through the streets of Pretoria, unobserved, and managed to board a coal train on which he hid among the sacks of coal. When he found the train was not going in the direction he wanted, he jumped off. He wandered about aimlessly, he said, for a long time, suffering from hunger, and at last he decided that he must seek aid at all risks. He knocked at the door of a crawl, expecting to find a Boer, and to his joy found and occupied by an Englishman named Herbert Howard, manager of the Transfal Coalury, who ultimately helped him to reach the British Isles. End of Section 15, December 13, 1900, How Lieutenant Churchill Escaped from Boers, read by John Greenman. Section 16 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 4, 1900 through 1906. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. December 15, 1900, Mark Twain at the Aldine Club. The reception and dinner which the Aldine Association gave to Mark Twain on December 4 was the most notable event of the kind that has ever taken place at that club. Although one of the stormiest nights of the season, the rooms of the club were thronged at an early hour, and the large dining room became so inadequate that some forty persons had to be seated in an adjoining apartment once they emerged with their chairs when the speaking began. The occasion was also notable for the men who were present. Among these were Bishop Potter, Joseph Jefferson, F. Hopkinson Smith, James W. Alexander, John Fox Jr., Winston Churchill, Brander Matthews, Richard Watson-Gilder, John Kendrick Banks, Albert Shaw, Robert Bridges, Clarence C. Buell, George Haven Putnam, Charles Scribner, George P. Brett, Arthur H. Scribner, Frank H. Scott, Edward Bach, William W. Ellsworth, Frank N. Doubleday, Colonel G. B. M. Harvey, Major James B. Pond, Robert W. Smith, Winfield S. Moody, Fletcher H. Banks, Ernest D. North, Charles F. Chichester, Lawrence Hutton, Hamilton W. Maybe, Henry Loomis Nelson, F. A. Dineck, Augustus Thomas, Captain Joshua Slocum, David A. Monroe, and Francis W. Halsey. The speeches were made by Bishop Potter, Joseph Jefferson, Mark Twain, James W. Alexander, George Haven Putnam, Captain Slocum, John Kendrick Banks, John Fox Jr., and Augustus Thomas. The dinner was remarkable for the decorations of the rooms. These had been arranged by Alexander W. Drake. Mr. Clemens, and Mr. Maybe, the Toastmaster, were framed in by a pilot house, from the corners of which were suspended colored lights, and the cornice of which bore the name of Alonzo Child, the name of one of the steamboats which Mr. Clemens used to pilot on the Mississippi River. The walls were festooned with hanging moss, and here and there were suspended oranges, gourds, and other southern growths, while catfish were sailing about in aquariums. Mr. Clemens found in these decorations the principal themes for his speech, which was reminiscent and constantly delightful. When the dinner was first arranged, an understanding was entered into with Mr. Clemens that the speeches should not be reported. He felt that the public tributes already paid to him fully supply the public needs. The committee, while differing from him, respected his wishes, and the New York Times' Saturday review, must do the same. End of Section 16, December 15, 1900, Mark Twain at the Aldine Club, read by John Greenman. Section 17 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 4, 1900 through 1906. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. This edited article contains sections that refer to Mark Twain. Bishop Potter says he was approached, declares a crocker emissary tried to close his mouth. Talk at City Club Dinner, members criticized for indifference, Mark Twain and other notable speakers heard. The causes of our present municipal degradation was the subject that was discussed from many standpoints at a dinner given by the City Club last night. Not only were the causes the subject of discussion, but the speakers presented plans for the betterment of the city, prominent among them being those put forward by Bishop Potter and Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain. The dinner was a large one, and Wheeler H. Peckham presided. With him at the table were Bishop Potter, Samuel L. Clemens, Charles Sprague Smith, Senator LeGrand Tibbets, St. Clair McElway, John E. Parsons, George F. Seward, Frank Moss, Paul Dana, R. R. Bauer, the Reverend Thomas R. Slicer, and the Reverend Granville Merrill. Bork Cochran had accepted an invitation to speak, but was detained at the last moment, while letters of regret were read from Governor O'Dell, Abram S. Hewitt, District Attorney Philbin, Charles Stewart Smith, Robert C. Morris, William H. Baldwin, Charles R. Miller, and Joel Bernhard. Bishop Potter came in while the dinner was under way, and at once the diners rose and gave him a cordial welcome. Throughout the course of the address, which was the first public utterance on the police question since he sent his letter to the mayor, the Bishop was constantly interrupted by applause. Several of his statements caused a sensation, notable the one in which he declared that just before he sent his letter to the mayor, calling attention to the conditions on the east side, and when it was known that such a letter was being prepared, he was visited by a man who said he represented Richard Crocker, and was asked if he would be satisfied to let the matter of the Reverend Mr. Paddock drop. Drop the whole question, in fact. If Captain Hurley he and Inspector Cross were removed from their positions on the police force. Many other emissaries of various persons and interests came to see him, Bishop Potter said, to try to make terms with him for the abandonment of the crusade, the terms to be such as would satisfy what the emissaries thought was the Bishop's personal vengeance. Bishop Potter told the diners that he had come to the dinner to say pleasant things, and was not going to say them. He called them to account for not having done something to carry out the plan he had proposed in St. Paul's Chapel, and which individual vigilance corps in which each citizen struggling for the general welfare should see to it that those charged with duties under the municipal government performed them. He contended that that was the key of the situation, and that out of it alone could grow great reforms. Mark Twain said that he held the whole matter of reform in his hands, that he knew all about it, and that he was going to tell his hearers just how to bring it about. He told about an organization of which he was a member fifty-one years ago when he was fourteen years old, which had been dubbed the Anti-Donut Party. In the course of his address he dwelt on the fact that just such a party was needed now, and it was the opinion of those who heard him last night that the Anti-Donut Party would be one of the slogans in the next municipal campaign. Mark Twain's Remedy Mark Twain, who was the next speaker and who Mr. Peckham said would view the matter from a different standpoint, took issue with Bishop Potter at once. He said that there was lust for gain and dishonesty, but that it must be admitted that if such a condition was universal this country could not survive. He said that he believed that forty-nine out of every fifty men were honest, and asked if this were true why it was that the forty-nine honest ones could not have their way. The whole matter simplified, he said, was that the wrong man was in authority. Now I am here, said Mr. Clemens, with the utmost seriousness of manner to tell you what's to be done, and how to do it. I have exercised the trade of unsalaried statesmanship for years. I am a statesman not for reward, but for the peace of mind it brings me. I am too old to learn, but I am not too old to teach. Now, to set this whole thing right is very simple. I know all about it. It has been said by somebody, and if it hasn't it will be now, that we must learn wisdom out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, or something of that sort. The whole solution of the question rests just there. Fifty-one years ago, when I was fourteen years old, I was a member of a party of a peculiar sort, and it was my belief that if we could have such a party now, we would soon clear the political atmosphere. I bring it to you here, now, for the salvation of this town. The party was called the Cadets of Temperance. Its members wore red merino scarves, and walked in church parades and picnics. On entering it, a boy had to promise not to smoke, said Mr. Clemens, removing the cigar from his mouth, never to drink or gamble, to keep the Sabbath, and not to steal watermelons. In fact, you promised to leave behind all the liberties that were of any value, and pursue a career of virtue, that was irksome to yourself, and a reproach to all other people. There were thirty-four members of the party, and they were divided into two factions, the reds and the blues. Five of the members were purchasable, and they had to be purchased every month when there was an election. Four could be secured on reasonable terms, but the fifth held out for war prices. The bribes were paid in the shape of donuts and chewing gum. There were two boys, the most incapable of the lot, but the most enterprising, who were always to the fore. There was Crocker Brown on one side, and Platt Higgins on the other, and one or the other managed to get himself elected every time. The good boys stood no show at all. They couldn't get elected. The Anti-Donut Party When we had stood this thing a long time, we got an idea. We good boys stepped out when we saw the balance of power with the purchasables and formed another party. We called ourselves the incorruptibles. We were not always known by that name. We had obliquely heaped on us, and we got the name of the Anti-Donut Party, because we couldn't be approached on the usual terms. Well, we started wrong by putting up one of our members for office, and of course he got licked. But we stuck together, we twelve, and enunciated new principles. They were that none of us would ever accept office of any kind. We were here, we said, to put some virtue into the gang, and we're going to do it. We won't take office, but we warn you, meaning the other two parties, that you've got to put up your best men for office, or you won't get our support. We were strong enough to make those terms, and that was the end of the crockers and the plaits. The good boys were put up, and then we picked the best one, and voted for him and he was elected. There's the problem, gentlemen, solved. What we want today is an Anti-Donut Party, that won't take office, but will keep the other parties safe. I am sure that it can be done. In a modified form it has been done by the mugwumps of which body I am the only living representative. An Anti-Donut Party of sixty thousand or eighty thousand can do the trick. It would spread from the city to the country, and in time it would dictate the nomination of every office holder from Constable to President. All it would ask for was the best possible man, and its support would mean the best man's election. Not long ago we had two men running for President. There was Mr. McKinley on the one hand, and Mr. Bryan on the other. If we'd had an Anti-Donut Party, neither would have been elected. I didn't know much about finance, but some friend told me that Bryan was all wrong on the money question, so I didn't vote for him. I know enough about the Philippines to have a strong aversion to sending our bright boys out there to fight with a disgraced musket under a polluted flag, so I didn't vote for the other fellow. I've got that vote, and it's clean yet, ready to be used when you form your Anti-Donut Party that will want only the best men for the offices, no matter what party they belong to, and which will solve all your political problems. End of Section 17, January 5, 1901, Bishop Potter says he was approached. Read by John Greenman.