 Imitation can be the severest condemnation—as well as the sincerest flattery—and it was doubtless with the intention of expressing in characteristic way his disgust, natural to all patriotic Americans, at the impudence of the anti-imperialists that Mr. Clemens, at the City Club dinner, professed, a strong aversion to sending our bright boys out to the Philippines to fight with a disgraced musket under a polluted flag. The professional humorist must vary his effects, under penalty if he does not, of becoming wearysome at last, and it is an entirely legitimate device for him occasionally to put on a solemn face and with all the accustomed signals of sincerity to exploit with seeming earnestness the views held by foolish or wicked or deluded persons on some great question. The late Petroleum v. Nassby did this with brilliant success, and it is no wonder that Mark Twain aspires to win a triumph of the same sort. But the plan, though good when skillfully carried out, has its incidental dangers. Mr. Locke avoided them, possibly because he had never justified any suspicion of a desire on his part to preach directly, instead of indirectly. Mr. Clemens, unfortunately, has suggested several times of late that his inclination lies that way, that fame, as a humorist, does not content him, and that he aspires to add to his own abundant laurels those which lesser men acquire by the maintenance of a consistent gravity. This has now and then proved confusing, even to some of his most ardent admirers, and we very much fear, lest his present assumption of anti-imperialism's garments may deceive the hasty-minded into thinking that he wears them from choice and habit. Of course Mr. Clemens is not so poor a gesture that he need paint large on every one of his inventions. This is a joke. But he should not go to the other extreme and trust too confidently to the existence of a universal sense of humor. When he talks about the United States flag as polluted, it would be only reasonable caution to give us all a reassuring and explanatory wink. Else may mistakes follow, mistakes the consequences of which to his popularity may be serious. End of Section 18, January 7, 1901, Untitled Editorial on Anti-Imperialism, read by John Greenman. Section 19 of Mark Twain in The New York Times, Part 4, 1900-1906. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. January 11, 1901. Mark Twain Literature and War. Letter from Moncure Conway. To the editor of The New York Times. Mark Twain's speech at the City Club Dinner should bring to him the homage of his confrars if only for its outspokenness. For myself regarding the so-called war in Manila as an effort to lynch the humble Washington's and Hancock's of that region, I hail Mark Twain's utterance as a surson corda to the intellectual leaders and public teachers of America. The summons is needed. The cause of peace has certainly declined during the past fifty years. The authors who gave America its literary fame in the middle of the past century, Emerson, Longfellow, Sparks, Hawthorne, Bryant, Holmes, Lowell, Motley, to name only some, were celebrants of peace. I can remember the universal wonder when Carlisle's discordant note sounded. But their principles apparently survive only in a few old-fashioned writers. War is defended as a divine method. Applause of bloodshed pervades new and popular novels, and apologies for ferocities like lynching and for the culture of brutality in our colleges have become familiar. In a large company of authors where I was called on to speak, I alluded to a telegram which had been generally published stating that a Harvard professor had in an address suggested the legalizing of burning at the stake. A professor present who had heard the address declared that its illusion to the stake was a sarcasm. We were all relieved, but in old times we should not have needed the rectification. No reporter would have then taken the sarcasm seriously, and if he had no one would have believed it. But as lynching, and the whipping post, and tortures by white caps and hazers have taken their place as institutions, and eloquent divines clamor for Chinese heads, and wish us to slaughter Turks for ninety thousand dollars, one hardly ventures to pronounce any proposal to inhuman to find cultured support. One would know, of course, that any such extreme instance among authors must be sporadic. Nevertheless the literary testimony on such matters has become doubtful, and it is well that one Trump should announce a day of judgment, and every author realize his or her responsibility for what looks like American decadence. People look back to the great American authors and orators who in the last generation made their influence felt throughout the land, and talk of the decline of genius. There is, I believe, no decline, but an abdication. There is no genuine leadership of a country except its literature. Preachers are in sectarian bonds, politicians are in partisan bonds, and if the scholars and independent thinkers do not tell the boss-ridden, parson-ridden masses the truth, and uphold national and international justice, the people must gravitate downward. And we may presently hear a new classification of the world into men, women, and literalists. Is there not courage and magnanimity enough among the scholars of this country to tear the mask of patriotism from the base inhuman principles that have gained the authority of virtues? It appears, for instance, that by some informal acts of Congress the commandment Thou shalt not kill has been superseded by Thou shalt not remove the American flag from any place where it has been raised. I suppose if bulldogs had a decalogue the first commandment would be, wherever you once stick your teeth never let go, be it in a weak and harmless animal, be it in man, woman, or babe, if your teeth are once fastened he'd no cries. But hold on, this is the first and greatest commandment. Is there a thinking man in America who does not see that if a flag is wrongly raised in any place the honour is in lowering it, the dishonour in keeping it there? I did not hear Mark Twain's speech and have had no opportunity to ask him if he was accurately reported, but I have no doubt that he declared that a flag stained with brave and innocent blood is polluted, and I have these many years recognized that Mark Twain's humour is apt to feather a serious arrow, and I venture to predict that the indignant patriots who are demanding his explanations will not have long to wait. The nation has already heard the protests of some of its finest intellects among them Howells and Charles Norton, and it may be now hoped that the bugle call of Samuel Clemens will be the signal for an uprising of intellectual forces in America similar to that which, in France, has just laid low the militarist dragon and plucked the spoil out of its teeth. I was residing in Paris during the last two years of that struggle and for the first time realised what tremendous power lay in the united intellectual forces of a cultured nation, with the exception of two or three timid dilettantes, neither of whom ventured to discuss the dryfus case on its merits, the authors, professors, artists, confronted the python coiled around France in a phalanx that could not be broken by any military menace or ministerial persecution. I counted more than four hundred of these men of intellectual literary, scientific, or artistic distinction. They were raised from the Legion of Honor, deprived of professorships, fined, challenged to duels, shot at by assassins, and went on inflexibly with their articles. Articles never surpassed by the greatest publicists in history, Junius, Payne, Cobbitt, and one after another hostile ministries well before their terrible pen, until militarism, after crawling through all the mires of falsehood, perjury, forgery, was reduced to cover its defeat with the verdict at Rennes, at once perjured and ridiculous that there were extenuating circumstances for high treason, such as the splendid record made by the genius of France at the close of the 19th century, one twentieth of the number of those French intellectuals, that was the proverbial epithet for them in France, in America and in England equally united and heroic for justice and peace, could have prevented the wars that in the Anglo-Saxon world have caused the son of the century to set in blood. The admirable sermon of Cardinal Gibbons, January 6, may remind us that it is on the chief Protestant nations that the blood guiltiness rests. In this day of judgment the czar and the pope rise up and condemn the Protestant powers that frustrated their efforts for peace. It was Protestant pulpits that shrieked for Spanish blood and Turkish blood. It is Protestant missionaries that clamor for Chinese heads. The shame of it all cannot be effaced, but whether the twentieth century is to swell the outrages and the shame will depend on the adequacy or the inadequacy of our scholars and thinkers to recognize that man alone is the providence of this world, that the nation will be what men make it, that there is no law of progress any more than of retrogression, and that it rests mainly on them to restore the control of reason and righteousness or by default permit the agencies of decay to have it their own way. Moncure D. Conway, New York, January 7, 1901. End of Section 18, January 7, 1901, Untitled Editorial on Anti-Imperialism, read by John Greenman. Section 20 of Mark Twain and the New York Times, Part 4, 1900 through 1906. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. January 20, 1901, Mark Twain on Hazing, calls West Point Cadets who indulge in it cowards, special to the New York Times. Washington, January 19. Mark Twain, in an interview today, spoke about hazing at West Point and announced the practice as a brutal one and the men who indulge in it as bullies and cowards. Why, he said, the fourth class man who is compelled to fight a man from the first class hasn't a show in the world, and it is not intended that he should. I have read the rules provided to prevent such practices, and they are wholly deficient because one provision is omitted. I would make it the duty of a cadet to report to the authorities any case of hazing which came to his notice, make such reports a part of the vaunted West Point Code of Honor, and the beating of young boys by upper class men will be stopped. I am not opposed to fights among boys as a general thing. If they are conducted in a spirit of fairness, I think it makes boys manly. But I do oppose compelling a little fellow to fight some man big enough to whip two of him. When I was a boy going to school down in the Mississippi Valley, we used to have our fights, and I remember one occasion on which I got soundly trounced. But we always matched boys as nearly of a size as possible, and there was none of the cowardly methods that seemed to prevail at West Point. In the Section 20, January 20, 1901, Mark Twain on hazing, read by John Greenman. Section 21 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 4, 1900 through 1906. This edited article contains sections that refer to Mark Twain. Mark Twain says women should vote. Men belong to two petrified parties, the humorous declares. New York City a disgrace. Mr. Clemens makes an address before the members of the Hebrew Technical School for Girls. Expressing himself as strongly in favor of women's rights in the past, the present, and the future, Mark Twain at the annual meeting of the members of the Hebrew Technical School for Girls, last night said that he believed that if women had the right of suffrage, such corruption as is said to exist in this city would be swept away. He predicted that the time would come when women in this city would be allowed to vote, and he contended that it would mean much for the purity of the city when such was the case. The meeting at which Mr. Clemens made these predictions in a speech of characteristic humor and wit was held in the vestry-room of the Temple Emanuel Fifth Avenue and Forty-Fourth Street. Every seat was taken long before the exercises began. With members of the Society and its well-wishers Mr. Clemens entered with Nathaniel Myers, the president, and as he took his seat on the platform there was a greeting of applause. Mr. Myers presented a report in which the progress of the school, which is situated at 267 Henry Street, was outlined in detail. Material edited out. An election of trustees followed, and then Mr. Myers introduced Mr. Clemens, saying that he was one who had no prejudices against any kind of man, and adding, in one of his works he says that he has no prejudice whether a man be white or black, Jew or Gentile, deader or creditor, old or young. The moment he says he is a man, he can't say anything worse, but Mr. Clemens has not told us what he thinks of women. So we have asked him to come here and perhaps he will tell us that. He said he could not resist a request to help our cause. Mr. Clemens said that such help as he was able to give he gave willingly, but it was the kind of help that came from his heart through the mouth. Mr. Myers has conducted this matter with distinguished ability, he continued, but at the end of this report I noticed a defect. He made such a strong appeal to those people who are going to make their wills. Some of you are here, you know. Such an appeal loosens your purse strings, and you want to give. Well, when he was talking, I thought, now he's going to do it. When a man makes an appeal like that he ought not to make it for day after tomorrow. We are all creatures of impulse. It's a great mistake to get everybody ready to give money and then not pass the hat. After the laughter had subsided the speaker went on to tell a little story. Some years ago in Hartford, he said, we all went to the church on a hot, sweltering night to hear the annual report of Mr. Hawley, a city missionary, who went around finding the people who needed help and didn't want to ask for it. He told of the life in the cellars where poverty resided. He gave instances of the heroism and devotion of the poor. The poor are always good to each other. When a man with millions gives, we make a great deal of noise. It's noise in the wrong place. For it's the widow's might that counts. Well, Hawley worked me up to a great state. I couldn't wait for him to get through. I had four hundred dollars in my pocket. I wanted to give that and borrow more to give. You could see greenbacks in every eye. But he didn't pass the plate. And it grew hotter, and we grew sleepier. My enthusiasm went down, down, down. One hundred dollars at a time. Till finally when the plate came round, I stole ten cents out of it. Prolonged laughter. So you see, a neglect like that may lead to crime. Mr. Clemens then said that he thought the President's description of the institution as almost a model school would be improved by the omission of the word almost. He added that in the statement of the neglect of the Virgin Mary, he recognized the truth, though he had not read it recently. Man has made woman what she is, he went on. He has kept her down in her proper place. Your President sits here in that self-satisfied conceit of his, and assumes that I don't know anything about women. Why, I've been in favor of women's rights for years. I see in this school a hope for the realization of a project I have always dreamed of. Why, do you know, when I looked at my grey-haired old mother with her fine head and noble thoughts, I really almost suspected, toward the last, that she was quite as capable of voting as I was. He's got the wrong notion if he thinks I don't know anything about women. Women may vote. I know that since the women started out on their crusade, they have scored in every project they undertook against unjust laws. I would like to see them help make the laws, and those who are to enforce them. I would like to see the whiplash in women's hands, the suffrage in the hands of the men degenerates into a couple of petrified parties. The man votes for his party and gets the city in the condition this one is in now, a disgrace to civilization. If I live seventy-five years more, well, I won't. Fifty years then, or twenty-five. I think I'll see women use the ballot. It's the possession of the ballot that counts. If women had it, you could tell how they would use it. Bring before them such a state of affairs as existed in New York City today, and they would rise in their strength at the next election, elect a mayor, and sweep away corruption. True, they might sit ten years and never use it, but on such occasions they would cast it. Or in the case of an unjust war. Why, war might even pass away and arbitration take its place. It never will so long as men have the votes. Mr. Clemens said that the contention that only vicious women would vote was absurd. How many of our six hundred thousand women are vicious, he asked. Not enough to amount to anything. If women could vote, each party would feel compelled to put up the best candidate it could, or take the risk of being voted down by the women. States are built on morals, not intellects, and men would never get any morals at all if the women didn't put it into them, when they were boys. If women could vote, the good women would all vote one way. Men won't do that. It's a choice of evils with them. Mr. Clemens then said that he had noticed that the President had said that previous to a year ago the institution had a lady-board of managers, but now it had men. And now, he added, amid laughter, he says they have twenty-one typewriters, whereas before they had only four. Oh, I like that modesty. We men are all like that. Well, at any rate, I hope a lot of us will die, and leave something in our wills. End of Section 21, January 21st, 1901, Mark Twain says women should vote. Red by John Greenman. Section 22 of Mark Twain and The New York Times, Part 4, 1900 through 1906. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Red by John Greenman. February 3, 1901, Mark Twain tells about pawnbrokers, relates how he advised a friend to commit suicide, said he was only a poet. It was at the annual meeting of the University Settlement Society, other prominent speakers. At the annual meeting of the University Settlement Society, held yesterday afternoon in the Society's house at Rivington and Eldridge Streets, they gathered a large crowd, mostly composed of patronesses and patrons of the organization from Uptown. Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain, was the principal speaker, and he talked for a full three-quarters of an hour. Longer, he said, than he planned, for the audience insisted upon interrupting him with their laughter after almost every remark. William H. Baldwin, Jr., Chairman of the Committee of Fifteen, also made a speech in which he talked of the city's responsibility for the proper rearing of children in the crowded sections. Seth Lowe presided over the meeting. Dr. Franklin H. Giddings, Professor of Sociology and Columbia University, delivered an address on the subject of how efforts to uplift people of the poor classes should be directed. Mrs. Edward R. Hewitt made a report on the settlement work in the east side, and Mrs. Bond Thomas told how the charitable work of the various clubs in the west side was progressing. The report of headworker James B. Reynolds dealt with the general doings of the society. Richard Watson Gilder, Editor of the Century Magazine, talked extemporaneously just before the meeting was adjourned. In introducing Mark Twain, President Lowe said that the humorist had just whispered to him that the meeting should be adjourned at this point. Mr. Twain began by telling why he made such a request. Mark Twain's address. It was because I had nothing to do and you had, he said. I was thinking of you, for I myself would like to talk for two or three hours as usual. I was reared to think of others always, never of myself, and I have ever tried to spread that doctrine by proxy. He continued by remarking upon the fact that the older men grew the more they became convinced of their overpowering ignorance, for until a few days ago he himself had not even heard of the university settlement. But he had studied and had found that he knew of nothing which could be compared to it in usefulness, because it was a charity that carried to its beneficiaries no humiliation. The speakers before me, he said, have told how you have to drive pupils away from your schools instead of into them. It was not that way in my young days. When I came down here this afternoon, I saw in the building a dancing class. The cost of a lesson, I was told, was two cents. It is well to make people pay for what they get. That is why your charity does not humiliate. By the way, the reason I never learned to dance was because the schools for that art charged money. I saw downstairs too a pawn shop that you have in the house. This is a great advantage. The ordinary pawnbroker is allowed to collect from his patrons an enormous percentage. He fleeces the straggling stranger. I have paid much to them. Just now I saw a man pledge a watch in your shop for two dollars. He wanted the money only for a fortnight, and the price charged for the loan for that time was only a penny. I wish I could have gotten such terms when I was young. The reason I speak so feelingly on the subject of pawn shops is that I once had a romance which was closely connected with an establishment of the kind. The other day I was looking through that autobiography, the one on which I have been working for a long time, so that the world might soon be blessed with accurate information about me, when I came across an incident that I had written several years before. It was about something that happened in San Francisco a long time ago. At that time I was a newspaper man. I was out of a job. I had a friend who was a poet, but as he could not sell his poems he also had nothing to do for a living. There was a love passage in the incident, but I will spare you that and leave you to read it in my book. Well, my friend the poet said to me that his life was a failure. I said I thought so too. We consulted. He thought suicide would be a good thing. I couldn't lie, so I again agreed with him. My advice was positive. It was somewhat disinterested, but there were a few selfish motives behind it. As a reporter I knew that a good scoop would get me employment, and so I wanted him to kill himself without letting anybody, but me, know about the deed. Then I could sell the news and get a new start in life. Thus it was that largely for his own good and partly for mine I urged him not to delay in doing the thing. I kept the idea in his mind. You know, there is no dependence in a suicide. He may change his mind. He insisted that the best way for him to take his departure was to blow out his brains. I responded that this was an extravagant method, that we could not afford it. I told him that as we were financially crippled we could not buy the revolver. Then he wanted a knife. To that I objected too on the same grounds. At last he mentioned drowning and asked me what I thought of it. I said that it was a very good way, except that he was a fine swimmer, and I did not know whether it would turn out well on this account. But I consented to the plan, seeing no other better one in sight. Miraculous event. To the water we went. I went with him because I wanted to see how it was done. You know, the curiosity some people have. When we reached the shore of the sea a wonderful thing happened. He was all ready to take the fatal leap. I was ready to see him do it. Providence interposed. From out the ocean, born perhaps, from the other side of the Pacific, there was washed up on the sand at our feet a gift. A gift that the sea had been tossing around for weeks, maybe, waiting for us to come down to the coast and receive it. What was it? It was a life preserver. Now you can imagine the complications that arose. The plan to do the suicide act by the drowning method fell through with a crash. With that life preserver, you see, he might have stayed in the water for weeks. I couldn't afford to wait that long. Suddenly I had an idea. That was no trouble for me, for I have the habit of having them often. Pawn the preserver and get a revolver! I cried. He said that suited him. The preserver was a good one. To be sure the ocean had kept it for us a long time, and it had a few holes in it. But yet it was good enough to pawn somewhere. We sought the pawnbroker. He wanted ten percent a month on the loan from the life preserver. I didn't object, for I never expected to try to get it out again. All I wanted was the revolver! Quick! The pawnbroker gave us an old derringer, which is a kind of pistol that has but one barrel, and shoots a bullet as big as a hickory nut. It was the only firearm that he would let us have. Then he grew suspicious, wanted to know what we were going to do with the derringer. I drew him aside. My friend is a poet, I said, and he wants to kill himself with it. Upon which he replied, Oh, well, if he is only a poet, it is well. God speed him! We went out and loaded the pistol. Just then I had some qualms about staying to see the act of my friend. I hadn't objected to witnessing a drowning, but this shooting was different. The drowning might have been looked upon as accidental, but not so with this. But I calmed myself. For when I suggested that I might go away, he grew uneasy and acted as though he would not carry out his purpose if I did not stay beside him. So I stayed. He placed the barrel at his temple. He hesitated. In spite of all I could do, I waxed impatient. Pull the trigger, I cried. He pulled it. The ball went clean through his head. I held my breath. Then I found that the bullet had cleaned out all the gray matter. It had made a new man of him. Before he shot that shot, he was nothing but a poet. Now he is a useful citizen. The ball just carried the poetic faculty out of the back door. Ever since then, although I am aware that I assisted him in the crime for selfish ends, I have been wishing that I might again help some other poet or many of them in the same way. So you see what a good thing a pawnbroker is. I am going to tell all the poets I know where your shop is located. Of course you have lots of other good things in your establishment besides the pawnshop, and I have been thinking of sending you my check to help along your work. But I have decided, instead, to send to your library a lot of those books of buying that I hear one of your small boys has dubbed Strawberry Finn. End of Section 22, February 3, 1901, Mark Twain tells about Pawnbrokers. Red by John Greenman. Section 23 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. February 7, 1901. Certainly false, but probably funny. When Mr. Mark Twain, with dauntless pocketbook, withstood the extraordinary cab man, he climbed to a notable height of civic distinction, the loftiest his feet had ever trod. He had become a soldier in the war of liberation, and an enslaved community was grateful to him. He was invited to many public dinners and began to make speeches with great rapidity. Flattered by the evident curiosity of the mob, Mr. Twain presently changed his tune from lively to severe, and astonished the town by repeated attempts at serious moral discourse, or at least so they seemed. Probably they were nothing of the kind. Probably Mr. Twain's North American Review article on the shocking atrocity of our efforts to establish a civil government in the Philippines is nothing of the kind. Our neighbor, the son, says, Mark is on a spree. For the moment he is in a state of mortifying intoxication from an overdraft of seriousness, something to which his head has not been hardened. Mr. Howells, in a study of Twain in the same number of the North American Review, and therefore before he could have known what the subject of his kindly appreciations was about to do, says that, what we all should wish to do is to keep Mark Twain what he has always been, a comic force unique in the power of charming us out of our cares and troubles. Also that this comic force is united with a potent ethic sense of duty, public and private, which shows that Mr. Twain's dissembling has fooled even his critic. If Mr. McKinley, grave and care-burdened man that he is, should send to the North American Review a reminiscent article entitled, Sidesplitting Stories from the Ways and Means Committee Room, and Colonel Harvey should print it, or if Mr. Cleveland, abating the native seriousness of his mind, should suddenly begin to write comic verse, the public might laugh, but it would be with counterfeited glee. So when Mark Twain, tumbling in among us from the clouds of exile and discarding the grin of the funny man for the sour visage of the austere moralist, forthwith starts in to lecture us about the things of state that have made all heads ache these two years, the result is neither fish nor flesh. It may be good red herring, but in such disguise that the old audience, which as Mr. Howell says, thought itself liberal when it sometimes allowed this humorous to be a philosopher, will miss the familiar flavor. Mr. Twain draws a grotesque picture of the Philippine transaction, true at no point and faithful in no detail, but he handles the brush with the air of an apostle teaching the word, and puts such a note of stern conviction into his castigations of those in authority that the reader off his guard, coming upon solemn preachments, where he had expected provocations to inextinguishable laughter, would be in imminent danger of being deceived. It is, in fact, very much as if Mr. Twain, catching up a yellow journal artist's delineation of a courtroom scene during a murder trial, should exhibit it to an audience swearing on Bibles that it was a papal consistory. Those who were deceived would be woefully deceived, indeed, and those who were actively disseminating deceptions would laud his picture extravagantly, and so speed the error further on its way. The only cure we can recommend for those who have been taken in by Mr. Twain's joke is to read with care the original authorities, the official sources from which he would have it appear that he drew the information so amusingly perverted in his article. Then will the reader perceive that Mr. Twain's picture of our relations to the Filipino insurgents of their part in the military operations before Manila, of their nature and disposition, and of the beginning of their war with us, is a travesty of the truth, a reckless travesty, we should call it, if the presumption of comic intent did not exclude harsh judgments. It is a pretty heavy way to be funny, for a man who reads a joke wants to have his laugh the same day. Nobody can see the point of Mr. Mark Twain's North American-reviewed joke, until with incredible labour he has read through two big volumes of executive documents. Then he begins to see that what has been called the swish of Mr. Twain's lash is only the tinkle of the bells on his cap. End of Section 23, February 7, 1901, certainly false, but probably funny, read by John Greenman. Section 24 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. Letters to the editor. Agrees with Mark Twain and Mark Twain's younger days. Agrees with Mark Twain, to the editor of the New York Times, having read the editorial in your today's issue, certainly false, but probably funny, I gratified the curiosity thereby excited and read Mr. Mark Twain's article in the North American-review to which you refer. It gave me great pleasure and satisfaction to find expressed in such a clear, cogent and interesting manner the exact views which I and many other loyal American citizens have entertained from the beginning, upon the subjects treated in that article. On the Boer War, the Chinese Questions, and the vicious methods of many of the missionaries in China and the East, Russia's treatment of Japan, our conduct in the Philippine invasion, and the absurdity and wickedness in our having paid $20 million to Spain for the archipelago, he speaks for patriotic Americans who look at these questions without commercialism or maudlin, Christian, or otherwise perverted progressiveness. It speaks the truth, and dispels the sophism of Chamberlain, McKinley, and the rest. Every one must, however, realize that having gone so far in the Philippine situation, we can repair our wrongful acts only by an unselfish consideration of the natives, and leave wholly out of view our material advantages. It is quite misleading to suppose that Mr. McKinley's re-election is to be taken as an endorsement of his policy. It was solely an emphatic protest against the charlatan Brian, a Christian patriot, New York, February 7th, 1901. Mark Twain's Younger Days To the editor of The New York Times In Mark Twain's Younger and Better and Humorous Days, he had as auditor of one of his lectures in a western city a certain old gentleman who remarked afterward, There were good things in it, but at times he seemed to verge on unveracity. The old gentleman's prophetic wisdom excited only a gently contemptuous merriment in those days. G. S. C. Morristown, February 7th, 1901. End of Section 24, February 8th, 1901, letters to the editor, agrees with Mark Twain and Mark Twain's Younger Days. Red by John Greenman Section 25 of Mark Twain in The New York Times, Part 4, 1900-1906 This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, Red by John Greenman February 9th, 1901, Mr. Christian Patriot and Mr. Mark Twain A reader of the Times, who signs himself a Christian Patriot, says in a letter which we printed yesterday that our note of warning against the total untrustworthiness of Mr. Mark Twain's burlesque history of the Philippine Transaction has prompted him to read Mr. Twain's article, and he likes it. It speaks the truth, he tells us, and dispels the sophism of Chamberlain, McKinley, and the rest. We remark with surprise and grief that Mr. Christian Patriot has disobeyed our injunction to read with care the original authorities, the official sources, from which he, Mr. Twain, would have it appear that he drew the information so amusingly perverted in his article. That was the cure we recommended for those who have been taken in by Mr. Twain. We assumed that every Christian Patriot, who was really seeking the truth, would let neither business nor pleasure stop him from applying this test of the truthfulness of Twain. How dare any Christian Patriot declare that Twain speaks truth, when by so simple a procedure as consulting the sources of the truth, he would have been apprised of the indisputable fact that Twain speaks falsehood. The handy compilations published in pamphlet form by the Philippine Information Society, to be obtained of L. K. Fuller, Thirteen Otis Place, Boston, Massachusetts, will furnish anybody facts enough to confound Twain. But it is better to consult the official war and Navy Department reports contained in the Four Volumes' Message and Documents abridgment for 1898. Take this statement from Twain's North American Review article. On the first of May, Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet. This left the archipelago in the hands of its proper and rightful owners, the Philippine Nation. Their army numbered 30,000 men, and they were competent to whip out or starve out the little Spanish garrison. In his statement prepared for the Philippine Commission, report of the Philippine Commission Volume 1, page 171, quoted on page 36 of the Fourth Pamphlet of the Philippine Information Society, Admiral Dewey said, upon the arrival of the squadron at Manila it was found that there was no insurrection to speak of, and it was accordingly decided to allow Aguinaldo to come to Cavite on board of the McCulloch. He arrived with thirteen of his staff. He was allowed to land at Cavite and organize an army. This was done with the purpose of strengthening the United States forces and weakening those of the enemy. No alliance of any kind was entered into with Aguinaldo, nor was any promise of independence made to him then or at any other time. General Wesley Merritt, who arrived at Manila on July 25th, after Aguinaldo had been recruiting his army nearly three months, says, message and documents, Volume 3, page 40, that the insurgent strength was variously estimated and never accurately ascertained, but probably not far from twelve thousand men. Twain says thirty thousand, eagerly accepting the guess of Mr. John Foreman. He says Dewey should have sailed away, leaving the Filipino citizens to set up the form of government they might prefer. Dewey says that at that time there was no insurrection to speak of. Even on June 27th, nearly two months after the destruction of the Spanish fleet, the Admiral Cable to the Navy Department, I believe he, Aguinaldo, expects to capture Manila without my assistance, but doubtability, they not having many guns. General F. V. Green, in his memoranda concerning the situation in the Philippines of date August 30th, printed in Senate Document 62 and quoted in Pamphlet No. 3 of the Information Society, says, upon one point all are agreed, except possibly Aguinaldo and his immediate adherence, and that is that no native government can maintain itself without the active support and protection of a strong foreign government. How can any Christian patriot believe that Twain speaks truth and dispels sophistries when the testimony of responsible officers on the ground shows that his statements bear no resemblance to the truth? But Mr. Twain confutes himself. The insurgents, he says, were competent to whip out or starve out the little Spanish garrison. A dozen lines further on, he says, we entered into a military alliance with the trusting Filipinos, and they hemmed in Manila on the land side, and by their valuable help the place, with its garrison of 8,000 or 10,000 Spaniards, was captured, a thing which we could not have accomplished unaided at that time. That is, the Filipino army, with few guns and without the cooperation of our fleet, could have captured the place. But the Americans, with their batteries and their fleet, could not have captured it without the help of the Filipinos. General Merritt, who was in command of the land forces, says, message in documents Vol. 3, page 40, for these reasons the preparations for the attack on the city were pressed, and military operations conducted without reference to the situation of the insurgent forces. The wisdom of this course was subsequently fully demonstrated by the fact that when the troops of my command carried the Spanish entrenchments, extending from the sea to the Pase road on the extreme Spanish right, we were under no obligations, by prearranged plans of mutual attack, to turn to the right and clear the front still held against the insurgents, but were able to move forward at once and occupy the city and suburbs. General Anderson, documents Vol. 3, page 54, says, believing that however successful the insurgents may have been in guerrilla warfare against the Spaniards, they could not carry their lines by assault or reduce the city by siege, and suspecting further that a hearty and effective cooperation could not be expected, he had an independent reconnaissance made. In his memoranda quoted on page 29 of the Information Society's pamphlet, number three, General Green says, the services which Aguinaldo and his adherents rendered in preparing the way for attack on Manila are certainly entitled to consideration, but after all they were small in comparison with what was done by our own fleet and army. In fact, a careful reading of the orders in the field and the reports of the military operations before Manila makes it clear that the chief anxiety of the American commanders as to the insurgents was first to get them out of the way, so that their own advance toward the Spanish lines should not be obstructed, and second to keep them out of the city after its capitulation to prevent looting and killing. Mr. Mark Twain entitles his article to a person sitting in darkness. To paraphrase Mr. Ruskin's remark about Swinburne, he is indeed sitting in darkness and adding to it. It is impossible to exclude the suspicion that Mr. Twain was indifferent to the truth or falsity of his recital. To a person of his literary habit and temperament, that aspect of the matter might not seem to be important. A man who makes it his vocation to be funny is not called upon late in life to develop a historical conscience. If the article was deemed smart, that was doubtless quite enough to satisfy Mr. Mark Twain. We have determined that our Christian patriot should be delivered out of the meshes of Twain, the more particularly because he makes a dangerous admission. It gave me great pleasure and satisfaction, says he of Twain's article, to find expressed in such a clear, cogent, and interesting manner the exact views which I and many other loyal American citizens have entertained from the beginning. Mr. Twain's statements are untrue, and his views perverted, but because the views are also his own, Mr. Christian Patriot finds pleasure in reading them. He would not take our advice to seek the truth, he spurns our warnings, and he clings to Twain because he agrees with him. All these things are indicative of a closed mind. Although Mr. Christian Patriot says that the last election was an emphatic protest against the charlatan Brian, we are afraid he cannot lay his hand on his heart and aver that he has read Mr. Brian's speeches and the whole of the Kansas City Platform. The ranks of anti-imperialism are crowded with men who hear but one side, invariably the side that expresses the views they have held from the beginning. End of Section 25, February 9th, 1901, Mr. Christian Patriot and Mark Twain, read by John Greenman. Section 26 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. February 12th, 1901, Blue and Gray pay tribute to Lincoln, celebration at Carnegie Hall in aid of Memorial University. How Twain saved the Union. Humorist moves his audience to laughter. Then to seriousness. Colonel Waterson's eulogy of the Great War President. Two self-confessed Confederates, Samuel L. Clemens and Henry Waterson, paid a high tribute to Abraham Lincoln last evening. Incidentally the humorist told how both of them saved the Union when Colonel Waterson failed to follow the advice of Second Lieutenant Twain and drive General Grant across the country into the Pacific Ocean. It was the celebration of the 92nd anniversary of the birthday of Lincoln, and was for the benefit of the Lincoln Memorial University at Cumberland Gap, Tennessee. The boxes were crowded. High in the family circle were grouped over five hundred singers, under the command of Frank Damrosch, and they sang the Great War songs so that the audience at each burst of a new melody rose and faced the singers. The tribute paid to the memory of Lincoln was more than eulogistic. Gathered on the stage were veterans, some wearers of the blue and other wearers of the gray of the Civil War. General Nelson A. Miles and General Joseph Wheeler sat in the same row. The first part of the program was devoted to music. The grand march from Meyerbeers, The Prophet, was played by the Fifth United States Artillery Regiment Band. The next was the old Netherlands hymn of thanks, rendered by the People's Coral Union, conducted by Frank Damrosch. The Reverend Dwight Newell Hillis, pastor of Plymouth Church, delivered the prayer. One of the favorite hymns of Abraham Lincoln was then sung, the first line of which is, Father, what air of earthly bliss. Then Mark Twain, who acted as chairman, said, We will now listen to what I conceive to be the most beautiful and the most sublime battle hymn the world has ever known, the battle hymn of the Republic. Following this came the Hallelujah Chorus from the Messiah. Mark Twain then walked, with mincing steps and bent head, to the left wing of the stage, and brought forward Miss Tracy, a soprano, who smiled at the humorist and smiled at her audience. She sang several songs. Chairman Twain read the following letter from President McKinley, addressed to General O. O. Howard, who is a member of the Board of Directors of the Memorial University. Dear General Howard, I had hoped to be able to accept the kind invitation extended to me to attend the Lincoln's Memorial celebration at Carnegie Hall, New York City, on Monday evening next, the eleventh inst, but find very much to my regret that public duties will prevent my doing so. It would have afforded me much pleasure to be present on such an occasion and participate in honoring the memory of the great American who did so much to perpetuate the union and ensure the blessings of liberty to all his countrymen. Please extend my cordial greetings to those present at the celebration and accept best wishes for its complete success. Very sincerely yours, William McKinley. Mark Twain, gay and grave. The speaking part of the program was begun by Mark Twain making a speech introducing Henry Watterson as the orator of the evening. Mark Twain said, There remains of my duties as presiding officer on this occasion two things to do, only two, one easy, the other difficult. It is easy to introduce to you the orator of the evening, and then to keep still and give him a chance is the difficult task. Laughter and applause. To tell an American audience who Henry Watterson is, is not at all necessary. Just to mention his name is enough. A name like his mentioned to an audience would be like one of those blazing sentiments on the Madison Square Tower. Just the mention of his name touches the cords of your memory tenderly and lovingly. Distinguished soldier, journalist, orator, statesman, lecturer, politician, rebel. Laughter and applause. What is better, he is a reconstructed rebel. Always honest, always noble, always loyal to his confessions, right or wrong, he is not afraid to speak them out. And last of all, whether on the wrong side or on the right side, he has stood firm and brave, because his heart has always been true. Applause. It is a curious circumstance, a peculiar circumstance, and it is odd that it should come about, that in the millions of inhabitants of this great city, two confederates, one-time rebels, should be chosen for the honorable privilege of coming here and bowing our heads in reverence and love to that honorable soul whom, 40 years ago, we tried with all our hearts and all our strength to defeat and suppress Abraham Lincoln, but are not the blue and the gray one today? By these signs we may answer here, yes, there was a rebellion, and we understand it is now closed. Laughter and applause. I was born in a slave state. My father was a slave owner before the Civil War, and I was a second lieutenant in the Confederate service, for a while. Laughter. Oh, I could have stayed longer. There was plenty of time. The trouble was with the weather. I never saw such weather. I was there, and I have no apologies to offer. But I will say that, if this second cousin of mine, Henry Watterson, the orator of the evening, who was born and reared in a slave state, and was a colonel in the Confederate service, had rendered me such assistance as he could, and had taken my advice, the Union armies would never have been victorious. I laid out the whole plan with remarkable foresight, and if Colonel Watterson had carried out my orders, I should have succeeded in my vast enterprise. Laughter. It was my intention to drive General Grant into the Pacific Ocean. If I could have had the proper assistance from Colonel Watterson, it would have been accomplished. I told Watterson to surround the Eastern armies and wait until I came up. Laughter. But he stood upon the punctilio of military etiquette and refused to take orders from a second lieutenant of the Confederate army, and so the Union was saved. He was in subordinate. Now this is the first time that this secret has ever been revealed. No one outside of the family has known these facts, but they're the truth of how Watterson saved the Union, and to think that, up to this very hour, that man gets no pension. That's the way we treat people who save unions for us. There ought to be some blush on the cheek of those present this evening, but to tell the truth, we are out of practice. Laughter and applause. Mark Twain then began to talk in a serious vein. His tone and manner changed. The audience soon stopped laughing and took the speaker seriously. He said, The hearts of this whole nation, north and south, were in the war. We of the south were not ashamed of the part we took. We believed in those days we were fighting for the right, and it was a noble fight, for we were fighting for our sweethearts, our homes, and our lives. Today we no longer regret the result, but we of the south are not ashamed that we made an endeavor, and you too are proud of the record we made. We are here to honor the noblest and the best man after Washington that this land, or any other land, has yet produced. When the great conflict began, the soldiers from the north and south swung into line to the tune of that same old melody. We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand strong. The choicest of the young and brave went forth to fight, and shed their blood under the flag, and for what they thought was right. They endured hardships equivalent to circumnavigating the globe four or five times in the olden days. They suffered untold hardships and fought battles night and day. The old wounds are healed, and you of the north and we of the south are brothers yet. We consider it to be an honor to be of the soldiers who fought in the lost cause, and now we consider it a high privilege to be here tonight and assist in laying our humble homage at the feet of Abraham Lincoln. And we do not forget that you of the north and we of the south, one time enemies, can now unite in singing that great hymn America. Applauds. End of Section 26 February 12, 1901, Blue and Gray, Pay Tribute to Lincoln, read by John Greenman. Section 27 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. February 28, 1901. Mark Twain, Osteopath. Appears at Public Hearing before Assembly Committee. His personal liberty plea. Wants to try everything that comes along. Adam, he says, was unjustly criticized. Special to the New York Times. Albany, February 27. With Mark Twain and Will Carleton advertised as top liners, the hearing before the Assembly Committee on Public Health today upon the Seymour bill to license Osteopaths drew a big audience to the Assembly Chamber. Mr. Carleton did not speak, but Mark Twain did, for nearly an hour he had his hearers laughing. The New York County Medical Society, which is opposing the bill, was represented at the hearing today by a formidable delegation. Among the speakers for the society were Dr. Elliot Harris, Dr. Floyd Randall, Dr. Frank Van Fleet, Dr. Charles N. Dowd, Dr. Henry D. Dittemana, Regent of the Medical University of Syracuse, and Jacob Boffin, the President of the New York Society of Massers. Assemblyman Julius Seymour, the author of the bill, Attorney Edward Coleman and Mason W. Presley, a Philadelphia Osteopath, were the speakers in support of the bill. In his speech Dr. Van Fleet made some caustic personal references to Mark Twain and to Assemblyman Seymour. He said, One of the reasons which are given why this bill should be passed is that Mark Twain favors it. Mark Twain is a very funny man, he writes humorous books. People read them and roll over on the floor with laughter. But no one ever takes Mark Twain seriously. When he returned from abroad recently, Mark Twain referred to the American flag as a dishonored flag. The people did not take his utterance seriously. If they had, they would have mobbed him, and justly too. Mr. Clemens was sitting within a few feet of Dr. Van Fleet when the doctor took his fling at him, but he showed no signs of being disturbed by the criticism. Dr. Dittemana of Syracuse said the purpose of the bill was a vicious one. It sought to give a license to practice to men who, according to their own admissions, did not take a course of study of half the length required by the state of all persons who applied to practice medicine. Referring to Dr. Van Fleet's references to Mark Twain, Dr. Dittemana said, Mark Twain has the respect, not only of the physicians of this state but of the whole country. Down under all his joking we know him to have a great deal of common sense, and we do not believe his common sense will permit him to give endorsement to the proposition which is here advanced. Dr. Robert T. Morris read from one of the authorities of the osteopaths the treatment prescribed for felon. The treatment advised consisted in moving the muscles of the finger on which the felon was. The value of that treatment will be readily understood, said Dr. Morris, when I tell you that there are no muscles in the fingers. He continued, Mark Twain may come to you with jokes, but we are here dealing with life and death. It is a part of the game which these people play to get noted men to endorse their practice When a patient medicine man wants to advertise his medicine, he goes to a clergyman. They are used to taking things on faith. These osteopaths and others go to the great men in public life who give their endorsement to get their pictures in the papers or to get rid of the praying solicitor. When the physician wants to try a new remedy, he first tries it on the dog. He does not fool with precious human life. I notice that a lot of the endorsements of these osteopaths come from Vermont. Well, Vermont has such tax laws with regard to medical practice that it is now the garbage ground of the profession. At this point of his address Dr. Morris created something of a sensation, after referring to the fact that the osteopaths, according to their authorities, treated locomotor ataxia by rubbing the spinal cord and adjusting, as they claimed, by this process, bones which were out of position. The doctor produced from a bundle which he unwrapped the spinal cord of a child. Now there, he said, is the vertebrae of a little child. I challenge any one of these osteopaths to move a part of that bone the fraction of an inch. A crowd gathered around the table upon which the specimen had been laid to view it, but none of the osteopaths took up the challenge, although Dr. Morris repeated it several times, saying, Now there are the gloves, come put them on and give us an exhibition of your professed skill. Mark Twain's Purpose Attorney Coleman, the spokesman for the osteopaths, introduced Mark Twain as the first speaker in their behalf. As Mr. Clemens faced his large audience he was greeted with generous applause. Turning to Dr. Van Fleet, he said, This is the gentleman who gave me the character. Well, I want to say to him that I have been furnished with views of my character before he was born, and the men who described it were much more competent to show up all the inquiries in it than he is laughter. Now, gentlemen of the committee, when I came here I came with the purpose of some kind, but it is difficult for me to find out now just what it was. These debaters have knocked it all out of my head. They have put my mind in a sort of maze with their scientific terms. I must say that I was both touched and distressed when they brought out that part of a child. I suppose the object of it was to prove that you cannot take a child apart in that way, laughter, and I suppose we must concede that they have proved that. Why, sir, when I listened to all those remarkable names of diseases which our learned medical friends have thrown out to us here this afternoon, it made me envious of the man who had them all, laughter. I don't suppose I shall ever enjoy the felicity of having them all in the span of life allotted to me, but I am truly thankful for those I have had. I am so constituted that I want to give everybody a chance. I want to give the Mount Bank a chance, if you please, and I do not want to have any restriction put upon my free will when I have that disposition. I could not stand here and advocate osteopathy without knowing much more about it than I do. One of the gentlemen who spoke referred to my having acquired such knowledge of osteopathy as I had in Sweden. That is true. About a year and a half ago in London I met Mr. Kelgren, who I believe is the most noted practitioner of this kind abroad. He calls himself Mr., because he has not acquired the privilege of giving a certificate when a patient dies on his hands. He has been practicing in London for twenty-seven years. My meeting with him was quite by chance. I heard of him through a friend of mine, whom he had cured of dysentery after eminent physicians had failed to give any relief, and after my friend had been brought close to the point of death. The friend of whom I speak is Poltny Bigelow. Now, of course, there may have been some flaw in Mr. Bigelow's cure. But he seemed to me to have been restored to full strength and health, and he himself insisted that he was. I thought he ought to know, though doubtless our medical friends will not agree with me on that point, wants to try everything. Now I am always wanting to try everything that comes along. It doesn't matter much what it is, I want to try it. And so I went to Mr. Kelgren, was treated by him in London and later on in Switzerland, and he did me a lot of good, as I thought, although I must admit that my education doesn't qualify me to say just when I am in good health, laughter. But I should like to have the right to experiment with my own body to my heart's content. I don't care whether it is to my own peril or anybody else's, I am not particular about that. I notice that the bell-bill exempts the grandmother practitioner. Well, that is just as well, for she would practice anyhow. As a matter of fact, we all know that our population is really divided in allegiance between two schools of medicine, the regular physicians and the grandmothers laughter. Now, all I ask is the same liberty that you give to the grandmother. The grandmother has been practicing without a license, as far as the memory of any one of us goes back, and on the whole, her success has been such that the medical profession is willing to have her continue in practice. The state stands a Gibraltar between me and anybody who insists upon prescribing for my soul what I don't want to take, and why shouldn't I have equal liberty with regard to my body, which is of so much less concern, wants to retain liberty. I believe we ought to retain all of our liberties. We can't afford to throw any of them away. They didn't come to us in a night like Jonah's gourd if Jonah was the man who had a gourd laughter. The moment you start to drive anybody out of the state, then you have the same situation which existed in the Garden of Eden. I don't know as I cared much about these osteopaths until I heard you were going to drive them out of the state, but since I heard that, I haven't been able to sleep laughter. I suppose if you do drive them out, they will go up to Vermont, which has been characterized here as the garbage ground of the profession, and which, since it became that, has also become one of the healthiest states in the Union, and I suppose I can go up there without much trouble. But anyhow it worries me. I can conceive just how it was in the Garden of Eden when the Lord told Adam he must not eat of the forbidden fruit, and my own opinion is that Adam is unjustly criticized. I am confident that if any of my tribe had been in the Garden of Eden when that injunction was served, they would never have contented themselves with just one apple. They would have eaten the whole crop. Great laughter. Now, what I contend is that my body is my own. At least I have always so regarded it. If I do it harm through my experimenting, it is I who suffer, not the state. And if I indulge in dangerous experiments, the state don't die. I attend to that, laughter. This disposition to experiment is an inheritance from my mother. She was all the time experimenting. She bought every patent medicine that came along. Not that she needed it, but just to see what effect it would have. But with all she was cautious. She didn't try the thing herself first, nor did she just pick out any one of the flock at random. She nearly always chose me. The Cold Water Cure I can remember when the Cold Water Cure was first talked about. I was then about nine years old, and I remember how my mother used to stand me up naked in the backyard every morning and throw buckets of cold water on me just to see what effect it would have. Personally, I had no curiosity upon the subject. Laughter. And then when the dousing was over, she would wrap me up in a sheet and then wrap blankets around that and put me into bed. I never realized that the treatment was doing me any particular good physically, but it purified me spiritually. For pretty soon after I was put into bed, I would get up a perspiration that was something worth seeing. Mother generally put a life preserver in bed with me. And when finally she let me out and unwound the sheet, I remember that it was all covered with yellow color. But that was only the outpourings of my conscience. Just spiritual outpourings. And, fortunately, it removed all that, so that I am not troubled with it now. But I am willing to say that sometimes my mother's experiments had such an effect upon me that she was obliged to call in that ministering angel with the pills to bring me around. And remembering that I do not bar allopathy in my experiments now? No. I am willing to take a chance at that, just for old time's sake, laughter. At the time when I lived in the Banner estate, Missouri, we had a rather primitive society there. We didn't have the fine distinctions in language, which we now have. To us the word dispute meant to quarrel. One day, when I was carried out to visit an uncle of mine, I saw a picture in the house, copies of which most of you have doubtless seen, Christ disputing with the disciples in the temple. Now, although I was the model Sunday school boy of our section, I couldn't quite understand that. For to my mind, to dispute meant to quarrel. There was an old slave in the house, uncle Ben, by name, who came into the room when I was revolving the problem of the picture in my mind. I thought perhaps uncle Ben might be able to enlighten me, for he was a sort of doctor himself, a herb doctor, unlicensed, of course. Uncle Ben, I asked him, what does that picture mean? Christ surely didn't begin the dispute, did he? No, the doctors. They begin it, he said. And what did they want to argue with Christ for? Because he ain't got no license. That's why they say he busts them up in business. Great laughter. of the New York Times. Mark Twain, humorist, author, lecturer, critic of the government, maliner of the flag, osteopath and experimenter of everything that comes along, has run many changes upon the old cry of personal liberty. Unfortunately, like most persons who yearn to preserve the liberty of the individual, he entirely ignores the liberty of the majority. If a jaunty experimenter in everything that comes along should choose to indulge in the throwing of lighted torches upon the roofs of his neighbor's houses, doubtless the strong hand of the law would promptly step in and stop him from trying at least that particular experiment. But if he calls to his child's sickbed a person who has been in no way qualified to recognize disease, he is putting his neighbor's life into quite a serious danger. Yet in the latter case, let the strong hand of the law step in, and at once the air is full of rodiment aids on the sacredness of personal liberty. Is this jaunty experimenter to be permitted to give everything a chance? Even the deadly microbes of scarlet fever? Typhus and smallpox? Mark Twain has grandiloquently asserted that he wants no restrictions put upon his free will. Neither does his idol Aguinaldo. But can the state afford to overlook the fact that the exercising of his free will may spread disease and death among other innocent citizens of the state? The osteopaths argue most disingenuously that all new treatments have been received at first with contundly. They cite the water cure as in instance. But it is not against the treatment of disease that the law should militate, but against ignorance in recognizing disease. Notwithstanding the loss of patience by the alienists, I think I can safely say that no one would object to Mr. Twain, Mrs. Eddy, Mrs. Stetson, or any one of that ilk, trying upon themselves any treatment that they wish. In fact, the more severe, the more satisfactory would it be. But it should be permitted only if they have first asked the advice of one who is qualified to say, is the disease treated dangerous or not to the helpless citizens who may come into contact with the invalids? It is the pretense of these untrained persons to be able to say where danger to others steps in. That is so severely condemned by members of the medical profession. If these seekers, after personal liberty, would limit their treatment to such diseases as cannot interfere with the rights and safety of others, all would be well. And they could go about exciting the risability of reasonable beings to their hearts' content. Annie Nathan Meyer, New York, February 28, 1901 End of Section 28, March 1, 1901, letter to the editor, Mark Twain, Osteopath, read by John Greenman. Section 29 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part IV, 1900 through 1906. This liver-box recording is in the public domain, read by John Greenman. March 14, 1901, Mark Twain, a witness, summoned in Rudyard Kipling's suit against publishers. The humorist, not pleased. He smokes at Commissioner Shield's invitation, and then testifies about copyright questions. Mark Twain was again hunted down and corralled as a witness yesterday, and was plied with questions by a number of inquisitors. His appearance this time was before United States Commissioner Shield's, in a hearing on a suit brought last November by Rudyard Kipling against R. F. Fanow and company publishers, alleging infringement of the copyright law. Mr. Clemens appeared as a witness for the plaintive in the action, having been summoned by A. T. Gerlitz, Mr. Kipling's counsel, and he did not seem to be highly delighted at having been singled out as an expert on copyright questions. The hearing took place in Commissioner Shield's private office, and nearly all those present were directly concerned in the question at issue. Mr. Clemens was first questioned as to his technical knowledge of the trademark used by Rudyard Kipling's publishers to identify his works. To nearly all of these questions, Lawyer Rivers, counsel for the defendants, objected. They don't seem to want me to talk at all, said the witness, hopelessly. Then Commissioner Shield took pity on him and offered him a cigar. It looked like a pretty good cigar, but the witness regarded it doubtfully. Then he looked at the plaintive's counsel, and then at the defendants' counsel, then waving his hand deprecatingly, he said, No! No! I guess I'd better not take it. They would object, I know, and it's too good a cigar to have to refuse. On the assurance that there would be no objection, however, Mr. Clemens took the cigar, lit it, and adjusting a pair of steel-rimmed eyeglasses, leaned back in his chair and puffed contentedly. Now I'm ready to meet all objections, he said. What is known as the outward bound addition of Kipling's works was shown to him, and he was asked if he recognized any mark or trademark used by Mr. Kipling. He pointed out the elephant's head on all three volumes. A ten-volume edition of Kipling's works published by the Defendant Company was then shown to him, and in answer to questions he said the volumes contained different stories from those in the outward bound addition. Have you written in your career? asked Mr. Curlitz. Oh, yes, a number of stories and the like. Have you later collected the same and had them published in book form? Yes. Give me some of the titles used by you. Oh, there were a number of them. I don't recall just this minute. The first, I guess, was sketches, new and old. The white elephant, and, well, that's enough, isn't it? The witness was told that he need not enumerate more, and then he went on to say positively in answer to questions that the titles under which his books were published were selected by him. Consider, said Mr. Curlitz, a book of stories of an author arranged and published under a title selected by an author. Do you consider that that could reasonably and generally be regarded as a book written by that author? I should say yes, replied Mr. Clemens positively. Do you consider that another publisher than the one bringing out such a book would have any right to issue a similar volume? What's that? Give me that again, said the witness, waving his hands about his head and blowing out a great cloud of smoke. The question was repeated. No, that wouldn't be square. Nothing's square about such things. What would you call such an act? It might be called piracy, said the witness. Would you call it counterfeiting a book? Yes, I think so. Decidedly. A manufacturer putting up soap, beer, whiskey, and the like under the label used by another manufacturer would be guilty of the same thing, wouldn't he? Yes, no difference between counterfeiting, be it whiskey or a book. Do you think it an important thing for an author to preserve control and title of his books? I certainly do, replied Mr. Clemens positively. I consider it very important. On cross-examination the witness admitted that when he said that certain acts could properly be classed by certain terms he was not speaking from a legal or ethical point of view but merely giving the ordinary definition of a word. When his examination was concluded, Mr. Rives stated that he would waive verification of the testimony and Mr. Clemens' signature. I will have him read it, said Mr. Gerlitz, and make any corrections necessary. You'll have a hard time getting me to read it, said Mr. Clemens. Don't you ever read your own productions? asked Mr. Rives. Never! When I can get a proofreader to read it for me! was the rejoinder. The hearing was then adjourned for one week, and Mr. Clemens made his escape with all speed. End of Section 29, March 14, 1901, Mark Twain, A Witness. Read by John Greenman. Section 30 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. March 17, 1901. Mark Twain, On Training That Pays. Speaks at the Supper of the Male Teachers Association. He says that he intended to build 65 libraries, but changed his mind. The regular monthly supper of the Male Teachers Association of the City of New York was held at the Hotel Albert, East 11th Street, and University Place, last evening. About 150 teachers from all boroughs were present. George H. Chatfield, the President of the Association, was the Toastmaster, and the principal speakers were State Superintendent of Schools Charles H. Skinner and Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain. Dr. Skinner was the first speaker introduced, and he spoke on patriotism for the young. He told of the patriotic exercises used in all the public schools at least once a week. Among other things, he said, Our schools must make our citizens, and our richest assets are our children, in these times under present conditions. Citizenship means a great responsibility, a very great responsibility to put on our boys. Our Republic has changed its place from a doubtful position in the line to the first place among the nations of the earth. We have told the world that we care not for contests, but that barbarism cannot be practiced in the Western Hemisphere. Today we do not care to own Cuba, Puerto Rico, or the Philippines, but we do want to keep them from the dark rule of barbarian people. Mr. Clemens was then introduced, his subject being Training that Pays. In part he said, We cannot all agree. That is most fortunate. If we could all agree, life would be too dull. I believe, if we did all agree, I would take my departure before my appointed time. That is if I had the courage to do so. I do agree, in part, with what Mr. Skinner has said. In fact, more than I usually agree with other people. I believe that there are no private citizens in a republic. Every man is an official. Above all he is a policeman. He does not need to wear a helmet and brass buttons, but his duty is to look after the enforcement of the laws. If patriotism had been taught in the schools years ago, the country would not be in the position it is in today. Mr. Skinner is better satisfied with the present conditions than I am. I would teach patriotism in the schools, and teach it this way. I would throw out the old maxim, my country right or wrong, etc., and instead I would say, my country when she is right. I would not take my patriotism from my neighbor or from Congress. I should teach the children in the schools that there are certain ideals, and one of them is that all men are created free and equal. Another, that the proper government is that which exists by the consent of the governed. If Mr. Skinner and I had to take care of the public schools, I would raise up a lot of patriots who would get into trouble with his. I should also teach the rising patriot that if he ever became the government of the United States and made a promise that he should keep it. I will not go any further into politics as I would get excited, and I don't like to get excited. I prefer to remain calm. I have been a teacher all my life and never got a cent for teaching. The speaker then cited some incidents from his boyhood life which he said he had later incorporated in his books. The fence whitewashing incident in Tom Sawyer's he said brought him in four thousand dollars in the end when he never expected to get anything for teaching the other boys how to whitewash way back in 1849. I have a benevolent faculty, continued the speaker. It does not always show, but it is there. We have had some millionaires who gave money to colleges. Now we have Mr. Carnegie building sixty-five new libraries. There is an educator for you on a large scale. I was going to do it myself, but when I found out it would cost over five millions I changed my mind as I was afraid it would bankrupt me. When I found out Mr. Carnegie was going to do it I told him he could have my ideas gratis. I said to him are the books that are going to be put into the new libraries on a high moral plane? If they are not, I told him, he had better build the libraries and I would write the books. With the wealth I would get out of writing the books I could build libraries and then he could write books. I am glad that Mr. Carnegie has done this magnificent thing and as the newspapers have suggested I hope that other rich men will follow his example and continue to do so until it becomes a habit they cannot break. Among the other speakers were Sidney C. Walmsley, Dr. Myron T. Scutter, and Magnus Gross. End of Section 30, March 17, 1901, Mark Twain on Training That Pays, read by John Greenman. Section 31 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. March 22, 1901, Demand That Twain Retract Missionaries say statement by him in the North American Review is libelous. Mark Twain has brought down upon his head the wrath of the Pay King Missionary Association and the American Board of Foreign Missions, who both demand that the author humorist retract statements made in an article by him in the February issue of the North American Review. The article, it is alleged, contained a libelous attack on missionary W. S. Amont of the American Board of Foreign Missions. Colonel George B. M. Harvey, editor of the North American Review, yesterday received the following cablegram. Pay King Missionary Association demands public retraction Twain's gross libel against Amont, utterly false. Secretary. Colonel Harvey turned the cablegram over to Mr. Clemens, Mark Twain, who would not be interviewed yesterday on the subject, he being bound by contract to his publishers not to talk of the matter for other publications. Those who called at his place of residence, 14 West 10th Street, with reference to the matter, were met by a very close friend of Mr. Clemens who said, Mr. Clemens cannot say anything touching on the affair at present. The American Board of Foreign Missions some time ago requested him to either prove or retract the statements he made in the article and at which they took umbrage and exceptions. Mr. Clemens replied that if they would have patience he would discuss the situation further in a new article, which will appear in the April issue of the North American Review. Mr. Clemens' friend was asked if the article would be in the nature of a retraction. I can only say that Mr. Clemens will have much more to say on the subject. He has received many letters from China since the publishing of the first article. He hopes that both the Pay King Missionary Association and the American Board of Foreign Missions will like it. But he has his doubts. End of Section 31, March 22, 1901, demand that Twain retract. Read by John Greenman. Section 32 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. March 24, 1901, Lotus Club's Welcome to the Governor. Article edited to include only Mark Twain's speech. And Slander's Mask of Humour. Lotus Club's Welcome to the Governor. Mr. Odell declares he is executive of the whole state. He recognizes no faction. The official chamber at Albany, his quarters, not the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Governor Benjamin B. Odell, Jr. was the guest of honour at a dinner given by the Lotus Club last evening, and many complimentary things were said about him by the speakers. The Governor had hardly stepped into the dining hall, which was tastefully decorated for the occasion, when he was cheered. Thereafter, whenever his name was mentioned, he was cheered again and again. And when, during his brief speech, he declared that he was the Governor of the whole state, not of Republicans alone, he was rewarded with shouts of approval that compelled him to stop speaking for a considerable time. Even before the speech-making began, the Governor was made much of by the banqueters, and he and Senator Chauncey M. de Pew were kept busy writing their autographs on the menu cards, which were attractive enough to deserve mention. Late in the evening Mark Twain arrived, and for a time shared the attention of the guests with the Governor. Mark Twain's speech. Mark Twain, who next spoke, was greeted with enthusiasm as he arose. I recently had the pleasure of visiting Governor Odell and his official family, he said. The family is made up of three Republicans for business, and one Democrat for ornament and social elevation. I have also been to Albany two or three times, without salary, on expensive errands, once to help repeal the Ramapo bill, and again to assist in passing a police bill, in case he was short a police bill. I'm privileged on the floor of any legislator. There was a little self-interest here and there. My scheme was to have only authors in the bill. For myself, I wanted to be chief of the force, not because I was particularly qualified, but because I was tired and wanted to rest, and I wanted Mr. Howells for first deputy, not because he has any police ability, but because he's tired too, and I wanted Mr. Depew to be my second deputy, not because he's tired, but because he can do most anything well, and I could draw the salary. Then he and I are members of the famous class of 53 at Yale, though he was there before I was. Then again Senator Depew is a Missouri man, the same as I am, and in the Missouriian, there is no guile, there is too a further bond of union in that when I was young, I was a member of a firm of twins, and one of them disappeared. There seems to me to be a resemblance in Senator Depew to me in grace of motion and fluency of speech, which seems to me to designate him as that long-lost twin. Then, in my police bill, I wanted Steadman and Aldridge and Matthews for the Broadway Squad, and others still for the Red Light District, and others to look after the pretty manicurists and to modify the activity of the cadets. Now Depew could do that. Now that bill was my bright dream and my ambition, but it faded as so many other bright dreams have faded. Governor Odell couldn't favor it. He said he couldn't leave the city unprotected. Now I have nothing to do tomorrow, and if the Governor will just hold a conference with me, we'll settle the police question. If my bill passes, I'd just fill up the Red Light District with poets, the best poets we've got, armed not with barbaric clubs, but with their own poems, and I would make them corral those poor unkempt people of that locality, and I would have my poetic policemen read their poems to them until that region was so elevated and uplifted and reformed that the inhabitants over there themselves wouldn't know it. Senator Ellsberg, St. Clair McElway, and George H. Daniels also spoke. Slander's Mask of Humour from The Army and Navy Journal. We observe that Mark Twain has taken a friend of his, Mr. William J. Lampton, to task, because he has been guilty of writing a patriotic poem. In a letter to Mr. Lampton, described by the Philadelphia North American as a gently satirical epistle, Mr. Clemens says, Dear Lampton, will you allow me to say that I like those poems of yours very much, especially the one which so vividly pictures the response of our young fellows when they were summoned to strike down an oppressor and set his victim free? Write a companion to it and show us how the young fellows respond when invited by the government to go out to the Philippines on a land-stealing and liberty-crucifying crusade. I noticed that they swarmed to the recruiting office at the rate of eight hundred a month out of an enthusiastic population of seventy-five million free men, and that no American-born person can pronounce their names without damage to his jaw, nor spell them without a foreign education. Sincerely yours, Mark Twain. This statement concerning enlistments has five percent of truth in it, which is perhaps as large a proportion as we could expect of an author who has so long been accustomed to contribute to the good nature of the world by statements so exaggerated and grotesque that we never by any possibility mistake them for anything but humorous extravagances. In the case of the letter printed above, Mark Twain appears to have made an attempt at telling the truth, in which case he cannot object if he is held to the rule of exactness, which binds other men when they assume to argue serious propositions. The applications at the recruiting offices during the months when recruiting was for the Philippines and China were nearly fifteen times what Mark Twain says they are, or 11,735 for July 1900 and 11,760 for August. The average for the thirteen months ended with last January was 8,000 or 104,816 altogether. Commencing with last month, February, the recruiting has been wholly for the regular army and it has been steadily on the increase, so that the prospect is that the total for March will be in excess of the high totals for July and August last. The enlistments for March 6th indicate a monthly total of 13,400 applications and those for March 15th a total of 17,144 or 21 times what Mark Twain says they are. These are facts, proved by the official records at the War Department and the liveliness of a humorous imagination cannot alter them. The difficulty Mr. Clemens finds in speaking the names of our soldiers is apparently an illustration of the inability to pronounce one's native tongue, which sometimes affects those who travel abroad. Over 88 percent of these soldiers, according to the latest statistics, are native-born Americans and the remaining 11.5 percent of foreign birth are either citizens or have legally declared their intention of becoming such. The requirements for the service are very exacting, including besides citizenship and the ability to read and write the English language, physical and moral qualifications in excess of those demanded for ordinary occupations. Of 100 men offering to enlist, 78 are rejected, the remaining 22 furnishing our army with a class of men personally superior to the average soldier of any other service. It is unfortunate for the reputation of Mark Twain that he should go out of his way to slander these men because they believe in the right and duty of our government to enforce its authority over all of the territory belonging to the United States. Mr. Clemens denied that proposition during our civil war when he enjoyed the experience of a guerrilla rebel chased all over the State of Missouri, which he has so amusingly described. History has already recorded the verdict that our soldiers were right then and that Mr. Clemens and his friends were wrong. It will not require forty years to prove that those who sustain the government are right now, the Filipinos themselves being witnesses to the fact. But whatever Mr. Clemens may think of this, he can hardly justify himself for making use of the weapons of slander and misrepresentation against the government and the soldiers who are loyally obeying its orders. It is melancholy to find the genial Mark in descending into the arena of partisan falsification, giving up to party what was meant for mankind. End of March 24, 1901. Lotus Clubs Welcome to the Governor and Slander's Mask of Humor. Read by John Greenman.