 Section 121 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. April 12, 1906. Gorky and Mark Twain Plead for Revolution. And… Hoppy defeats Cutler. Schaefer wins easily. Gorky and Mark Twain Plead for Revolution. Committee formed to raise funds for Russian freedom, to arm revolutionists. I come to you, a beggar, that Russia may be free," says Gorky, at a club dinner. The American auxiliary movement to aid the cause of freedom in Russia was launched last night at a dinner given at the Club A House, 3 Fifth Avenue, with Mark Twain and Maxine Gorky as the principal spokesman. If we can build a Russian republic to give to the persecuted people of the Tsar's domain the same measure of freedom that we enjoy, Let us go ahead and do it," said Mark Twain. We need not discuss the method by which that purpose is to be attained. Let us hope that fighting will be postponed or averted for a while, but if it must come— Mr. Clemens Hytas was significant. I am most emphatically in sympathy with the movement now on foot in Russia to make that country free," he went on. I am certain that it will be successful, as it deserves to be. Anybody whose ancestors were in this country when we were trying to free ourselves from oppression must sympathize with those who now are trying to do the same thing in Russia. The parallel I have just drawn only goes to show that it makes no difference whether the oppression is bitter or not. Men with red, warm blood in their veins will not endure it, but will seek to cast it off. If we keep our hearts in this matter Russia will be free. The dinner was given by Ivan Narodny, the representative in this country of the Russian military revolutionists, in honor of Maxim Gorky. The list of guests included Dr. Nicholas Tchaikovsky, Robert Collier, Kikolay Zavolsky-Peshkov, the adopted son of Gorky, Nicholas Burenin, his friend and private secretary, Arthur Brisbane, David Graham Phillips, Robert Hunter, Ernest Poole, Dr. Walter Whale, Leroy M. Scott and Howard Brubaker. W. D. Howells and Peter Finley Dunn had been invited but were unable to attend. Mark Twain's speech followed the reading by Robert Hunter of a manifesto formally inaugurating the American movement to help make Russia free. This movement will involve the appointment of a large committee of men of national reputation to aid in the collection of funds throughout the United States for the purchase of arms for the Russian revolutionists. Mr. Clemens, Mr. Collier, Mr. Howells, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Phillips, Ms. Jane Adams of Hall House, Chicago and others have already accepted places on the committee. And it was said by Mr. Hunter that invitations have been sent to a great number of others who are expected to join the movement. Funds for Russian Freedom The object of the committee, said Mr. Hunter in his after-dinner speech, is to collect funds to help the movement for Russian freedom. An appeal will be issued to the American public within a couple of days, and there is no doubt that there will be a generous response when we ask Americans to help the oppressed people of Russia to gain the same freedom that our fathers fought for and which we have enjoyed these hundred years and more. In other words, we will ask the American people to aid the Russians in gaining freedom of the press, freedom of speech and of assembly, freedom of ballot and of conscience. All these things we have in America, and to them we owe our well-being, our happiness, our peace, and our prosperity. Mr. Hunter said after the dinner that the friends of the Russian cause gathered at Three Fifth Avenue had so far scrupulously refrained from discussing the means by which the purpose of the Russian revolutionists is to be accomplished. They prefer to leave that to the revolutionists themselves. Among the latter there is a practical unanimity at this moment that Russia's freedom can be gained only by an armed uprising. The money raised here, it was said, will in all probability be handed over to a general committee composed of delegates from all the various organizations now at work to make Russia free. This, however, has not been definitely determined, and the final disposition of the funds remains at present, in a large measure, optional, with the committee on this side. Mark Twain sat at the right of Mr. Narodny. Maxim Gorky sat on the right of Mr. Clemens. On the other side of the Russian writer sat his adopted son, who acted as interpreter during the animated conversation which was carried on between the American author and the writer, who has depicted so vividly the tragic depths of the life of the lower classes in Russia. Mr. Clemens, in beginning his speech, paid a warm tribute to Gorky, and this was returned by the Russian when his turn came to speak. Gorky praises Mark Twain. I am very glad to meet Mark Twain, he said. I knew him through his writings almost before I knew any other writer. I was little more than a boy when I began to wait and hope for the meeting which has been realized tonight. It is a happy day. A day happy beyond all expectation to me. Mark Twain's fame is so well established all the world over that I could not add anything to it by any words of mine. He is a man of force. He has always impressed me as a blacksmith who stands at his anvil with a fire burning and strikes hard and hits the mark every time. He has done much to beat away the dross and bring out the true steel of character in his writings. I come to America expecting to find true and warm sympathizers among the American people for my suffering countrymen who are fighting so hard and bearing so bravely their martyrdom for freedom. Now is the time for revolution. Now is the time for the overthrow of Zardom. Now. Now. Now. But we need the seniors of war, the blood we will give ourselves. We need money, money, money. I come to you as a beggar that Russia may be free. The remarks of the Russian writer were translated to the little company at the table by his adopted son and were loudly applauded. Gorky did not appear in evening dress but in the blue blouse buttoned high up at the neck which is familiar from the pictures of him which have appeared in print. The young Nikolay in attire was an exact replica of his father by adoption. The Aldine Association will entertain Gorky next Wednesday at luncheon at their rooms, 111 Fifth Avenue. The socialists on the east side are planning a dinner for the Russian writer at some date yet to be fixed to suit his convenience. Another dinner is being planned at which he is to meet a number of literary men. Gorky feels at home. Looking out from his window high up in the Hotel Belclair Gorky saw the Hudson River yesterday afternoon and exclaimed, What? Is this my native Nisky Novgorod? And is this the Volga? Then I am at home indeed. A Russian friend who was at his elbow at the time said that Nisky Novgorod and New York were words almost identical in their meaning. Gorky interrupted him and said, Oh, what does it matter after all? I feel at home, though the language of New York is not my own and I do not understand a word of it. I never visited a place so kindly to my imagination. I had not been here one hour before I felt that this was the biggest city and the United States the greatest country on the face of the earth. This is the country of all countries to which the social revolutionists can look with hope. In this will be worked out the salvation of humanity. Maxim Gorky was still the recipient yesterday of the devoted homage of his countrymen in New York and of the friends in this city of the cause of freedom for Russia. He received in the course of the day about one hundred visitors and he had hardly a breathing moment. But when the night came he was as happy as a boy who had found a new toy. One of the first callers yesterday was Oskar S. Strauss, formerly United States minister to Turkey. Mr. Strauss was a long time explaining that he wished to see Mr. Gorky and a protracted comedy of errors was enacted on the ninth floor while Mr. Strauss was kept waiting in the lobby of the hotel. Mr. Strauss said that he had merely paid a social visit but that he probably would see Gorky again and that he might have something to say then. Among the callers on the Russian novelist were Abraham Cain, editor of the Jewish Forward, and himself a writer of some distinction as well as a Russian by birth. Revolutionists call. Two members of the Russian Bund in this city paid their respects to the Russian and conferred with him upon the plans now pending to make Russia free. One of these was Dr. Maxim Rom. The other was Moses Gulovich. Mr. Gulovich escaped from a Russian prison eighteen months ago. He is a member of the central committee of the nihilist organization and was sent to this country by his political friends to be out of harm's way for the present. That, as a matter of fact, is the reason for so many of the Russian revolutionists seeking a refuge here for the next few months. The first call to arms will see the procession starting back again. Gorky was asked yesterday whether he was a subject of the Tsar. Subject? No! replied the Russian writer. I am not. I am a citizen of underground Russia. We are all citizens there just as you are in this great free country, and there are several millions of us. Politically, I am an outlaw. The Russian novelist told the reporters again and again that this city had made an almost overwhelming impression upon him. It is not quite as grand as the ocean, but almost, he said. Marvel's at the Times Building. One of the skyscrapers of which Gorky got a close-range view was the Times Building. Wonderful! Wonderful! he exclaimed, looking through his carriage window. I mean to know how it is possible to erect such structures before I leave this country. Gorky said that plans for his stay here had not been completed. His stay in New York will in all probability be more protracted than he at first had expected. There is so much to see, and I haven't seen anything as yet," he said, his wife acting as interpreter. I have been a prisoner all day long in my apartments, but it wasn't unpleasant when compared with my prison experience in Russia. The first opportunity I get I shall take a drive through Central Park, of which I caught a glimpse on my way up from the steamer. Gorky said that among English authors he admired Byron most, and among the French, Gustave Flaubert, and the elder Dumas. Among the Germans he registered his preference for Heine and Goethe among the poets, and Nietzsche and Schopenhauer among the philosophers. Gorky was asked what he thought of Kipling as a writer. Kipling, he said, is a man of bone and blood. He is a great poet and a great novelist. But he should not lend his pen to the support of an ephemeral imperialism, even though the imperialism of Great Britain is humane, and the word there means something different from what it means with us. Kipling should sing the songs of the people. Regarding his own mode of writing, he said, I am not aiming at producing literature or art. I am striving to paint life as I find it and to tell the truth always. What have you read in American literature, Gorky was asked? I have read Mark Twain. The reading proved an inspiration to me. It is part of the liberal education of Russia to read Mark Twain's works. They have all been translated and sold in hundreds of editions. And you would be surprised to know what the prestige of Edgar Allan Poe is among the Russian people. We love him better than his own countrymen do. I think that it is the women who prevent you from loving him as well as you should, broke in the writer's wife. Madame Gorky, who was an actress, was asked whether she had acted in her husband's plays. She said she had, but that it was long ago. At present I am just my husband's wife, nothing else, and I don't wish to be before the public in any other capacity, she said. The following article has been edited to include only material relating to Mark Twain. Hoppy defeats Cutler. Schaefer wins easily. Young billiard champion leads Boston player by 118 points. Neither a game brilliant. Wizard makes top run of tournament, scoring 137. Hoppy's best effort is 68. Victories for the new and the old billiard champions, William F. Hoppy and Jacob Schaefer, were scored yesterday in the international championship tournament in the concert hall of Madison Square Garden. Each won by an entirely different method of 13-inch bulk line, two counts in bulk. Hoppy's stroke, hard and pounding, was the antithesis of Schaefer's touch, gentle as a summer's effort, which kept the balls together splendidly. The young champion could not attain the softness of touch which produced a great nursing run of 137 for the wizard. Hoppy's caroms were gained by ball-to-ball billiards. He defeated Albert G. Cutler, the ex-amateur of Boston, by 500 points to 382. His average was one notch below Slalson's, on the night previous. Schaefer easily defeated Oro Morningstar by 500 points to 233. His average was 1814-27. Mark Twain made his second visit to the tournament during the evening, coming as he said, To see the boy David get away with one of the billiard Goliaths. He was accompanied by Albert Bigelow Payne. They came in while Cutler was in the middle of his fifth turn at the table. There was a spontaneous outburst of applause, and Twain smiled and bowed his white head to all parts of the house before taking his seat. Then he began a running fire of comment upon the play, applauding good shots of both competitors without partiality. End of Section 121, April 12, 1906, Gorky and Mark Twain plead for revolution, and Hoppy defeats Cutler. Schaefer wins easily. Read by John Greenman. Section 122 of Mark Twain in The New York Times, Part 4, 1900-1906. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. April 13, 1906, Maxine Gorky visits Tomb of Grant. Authors to meet him. This edited article contains only references to Mark Twain. Mark Twain and W. D. Howells called upon Gorky at his apartments in the Hotel Belclair last evening. They remained with him for about half an hour discussing literature, and invited him to attend a literary dinner about a fortnight from now. Gorky accepted the invitation. Some waiting reporters waylaid Mr. Clemens and Mr. Howells in the hotel lobby after their call. When Mr. Clemens was asked regarding the purpose of their visit, he made signals of distress to Mr. Howells, who was some distance away, and said, Come here, Howells! You don't look as if you had any information. You are a good man. Come back here and tell them all about it, and be sure to make it a private talk so as to get it in the papers. Mr. Howells modestly averred that the idea of the dinner had originated with Mr. Clemens. Yes, said Mark Twain, we are going to offer Gorky the literary hospitality of the country. He is big enough for the honour. It is going to be a dinner with only authors and literary men present. We want to do it in proper style, and we'll have authors not only from New York, but from Chicago. And we may have some literary geniuses from Indiana, where I believe they read them. Enter Section 122, April 13, 1906. Maxine Gorky visits Tomb of Grant, read by John Greenman. Section 123 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 4, 1900-1906. This liver-box recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. April 15, 1906. Gorky and actress asked to quit hotels, and Mark Twain tells how to manage audiences. This edited article includes only the portion most relevant to Mark Twain. Gorky and actress asked to quit hotels. She is not Madame Gorky, though he calls her so. Real Madame Gorky is in Russia. Writer's companion is Madame Andreyev, a Russian actress. He says she's his wife, in his eyes. The manager of the Hotel Belclair, where Maxine Gorky and the woman who has been generally known here as Madame Gorky have been staying as guests of H. Gaylord Wilshire, discovered yesterday from a published story that has been no secret since their arrival, that is, that the so-called Madame Gorky is not the wife of the revolutionary leader but Madame Andreyeva, a Russian actress. As a result, both were compelled to leave the hotel. They moved to the Lafayette Braeport at Fifth Avenue and 8th Street. Late yesterday they left this hotel also going to apartments at 12 Fifth Avenue. At the Lafayette Braeport it was said that they had departed of their own accord. The relations which led to Gorky and his companion being dispossessed from the Belclair, and which may tend to alienate many influential Americans who had committed themselves to aid him in raising funds and arousing sympathy here for the cause of Russian freedom, had long been known to Gorky's friends. They knew that the actress nursed him back to health on one occasion when his life was disparate of. Gorky has another wife and two children, from whom he is separated, but in Russia where such relations are regarded differently from the American view of them, Gorky has invariably introduced Madame Andreyeva as his wife, and in the little circle of which the novelist was the centre, she was taken as a matter, of course. The question arose yesterday whether the revelation of their real relations will not make Gorky and Madame Andreyeva, or at least the latter, subject to deportation from the United States. When manager Milton Robley of the Hotel Belclair saw a newspaper story yesterday regarding the relations existing between Gorky and the woman he brought to this country as his wife, he had once asked Mr. Wilshire, whose guests they were at the hotel, to make other arrangements for them. My hotel, said Mr. Robley, is a family hotel, and in justice to my other guests, I cannot possibly tolerate the presence of any persons whose characters are questioned in the slightest manner. Mr. Wilshire hastened to the hotel and pleaded with Mr. Robley to relent, but to no purpose. He told Mr. Wilshire that he had not been anxious to have the Russian author in his hotel in the first place, who certainly would never have admitted him, had the slightest hint of the circumstances, since printed, reached him before they arrived. Mr. Wilshire then went to Gorky's apartment on the ninth floor, accompanied by Joseph Mandelkern, a mutual friend. They had a slight breathing spell before breaking the news to Gorky, who was out driving with Madame Andreyeva and Nicolet, his adopted son, and his secretary, Mr. Burenin. Gorky had already been told of the newspaper's story and had given a denial, characterizing it as a slimy scandal. When they returned, Madame Andreyeva walked proudly through the hotel lobby. Gorky followed a few steps behind. He smiled, quizzically, and greeted a group of reporters with a military salute as he entered the elevator. Mr. Wilshire and Mr. Mandelkern were the first to see the Russian author, the socialist publisher who has been both host and sponsor for the Russian writer since his arrival in this country, invited him and Madame Andreyeva to move over to his residence in West 93rd Street and be his guest there. Gorky bluntly declined this offer, saying that in view of the published scandal he did not feel that he should do anything that might embarrass Mr. Wilshire any further. He added that he wished to be absolutely independent. It was said that Mr. Wilshire departed feeling hurt. Before starting out for his drive, Gorky had seen some reporters and said, regarding the story, the publication of such a libel is a dishonor to the American press. I am surprised that in a country famed for its love of fair play and reverence for women, such a slander as this should have gained credence. Madame Peshkov is my wife. No law that was ever devised or made by man could make her any more so. The insinuation that the relations existing between her and me are illicit is a base colony. Never was union between man and woman more holy than that between Madame Peshkov and myself. A lie travels fast, and I must overtake this one before it has gone too far. I will have a statement shortly. After returning from his drive, Gorky gave out a signed statement. Here it is. I think this disagreeable act against me could not have come from the American people. My respect for them does not allow me to suspect that they lack so much in courtesy in their treatment of women. I think that this dirt is conspired by the friends of the Russian government. My wife is my wife, the wife of Maxim Gorky. She and I both consider it below us to go into any explanation of this. Everyone may say what he pleases. For us still remains the human right to overlook the gossip of others. The best people in all the lands will be with us. The author said that the publication of the story would not in any way interfere with his plans in this country. It is in great and tragic moments of life that I find the real Maxim Gorky, he said. I am always strongest when I stand alone. The bitter cup contains the noblest wine of life, and I am not afraid to drain it. All is harmony in my soul, there is music in the air, and an atmosphere of poetry all about. At the Club A House, where the American movement in aid of Russian Revolution was launched the other night with Mark Twain as the principal speaker, Leroy Scott, who has been active in behalf of Gorky, said that he felt too bad to talk. Robert Hunter was equally noncommittal. William Dean Howells begged to be excused from any comment. Even if it should prove that no official marriage ceremony was performed, said Mr. Wilshire, that cannot affect his standing as a man of letters or a revolutionist. Dr. Jacob J. Klinkostine of 77 McKibben Street, Williamsburg, said last night that the difficulties surrounding the getting of a divorce and marriage in Russia, if known, would throw a somewhat different light on the relations between Madame Andreva and the Russian author. No separation or divorce can be obtained in Russia except through the Orthodox Church, and after one of the parties to a marriage has made public confession of adultery, said he. In order to get a divorce at all, you must be in good standing both with government and church. Gorky was in good standing with neither. Mark Twain's position. We took France's aid and should help Russians, he holds. Much adverse criticism has risen here through the formation of the committee to purchase arms to aid Maxine Gorky in his revolutionary movement. Many prominent men are on the committee. Mark Twain, one of the members, was questioned on the matter yesterday at his Fifth Avenue home. Why, he was asked, should this country assist in any way the Russian people in their revolutionary movement? Because we were quite willing, he replied, to accept France's assistance when we were in the throes of our revolution, and we have always been grateful for that assistance. It is our turn now to pay that debt of gratitude by helping another oppressed people in its struggle for liberty, and we must either do it or confess that our gratitude to France was only eloquent words with no sincerity back of them. But do you think it's consistent that Americans, with their so-called love of peace, should aid in a movement to throw Russia into a bloody revolution, particularly in view of the fact that America was chiefly instrumental in bringing to an end the Russo-Japanese War? To this Mr. Twain replied, in as much as we conducted our own revolution with guns and the sword, our mouths are closed against preaching gentler methods to other oppressed nations. Revolutions are achieved by blood and courage alone. So far as I know there has been but one revolution which was carried to a successful issue without bloodshed. In lending then our assistance to the Russian people for the overthrow of their despotic form of government, why should we not also start active propaganda seeking the abolition of all similar forms of government? Simply because, replied Mr. Clemens, we have not been invited to do it. Should the invitation come, as in the present case, we will put our shoulder to the wheel. Mark Twain tells how to manage audiences. They believe everything but the truth, he says, and he won't ever retire, but won't talk for pay any more, all this apropos of a coming lecture for Fulton Association. Mark Twain will lecture in Carnegie Hall on Thursday night for the benefit of the Robert Fulton Memorial Association, of which he is Vice President. When he was requested by General Frederick D. Grant to lecture, Mr. Clemens was asked if he would deliver the lecture for a fee of $1,000. He replied that he had stopped talking for pay many years ago, and could not resume the habit without a good deal of personal discomfort. He stipulated that he would lecture for the benefit of the Fulton Memorial Fund on condition that they keep the $1,000 and add it to the fund as his contribution. Anyhow he said he loved to hear himself talk, because he got so much instruction and moral upheaval out of it. But the bulk of such joy was lost to him when he got paid for talking. He wanted to make it an occasion to retire permanently from the platform, whereupon General Grant wrote a letter begging the humorist as an old friend not to retire from the platform, whereupon Mr. Clemens wrote in reply, I mean the pay platform. I shan't retire from the gratis platform until after I am buried, and the courtesy requires me to keep still and not disturb the others. What shall I talk about? My idea is this, to instruct the audience about Robert Fulton, and tell me, was that his real name or was it his nom de plume? However, never mind, it is not important. I can skip it, and the house will think I knew all about it, and forget. Could you find out for me if he was one of the signers of the declaration, and which one? But if it is any trouble, let it alone, and I can skip it. Was he out with Paul Jones, will you ask Horace Porter? And ask him if he brought both of them home. These will be very interesting facts, if they can be established. But never mind, don't trouble Porter, I can establish them anyway. The way I look at it, they are historical gems, gems of the first water. Well, that is my idea, as I have said. First excite the audience with a spoonful of information about Fulton, and then quiet them down with a barrel of illustrations drawn by memory from my books. And if you don't say anything, the house will think they never heard it before, because people don't really read your books. They only say they do to keep you from feeling bad. Next excite the house with another spoonful of Fulton fact, then tranquilize them with another barrel of illustration, and so on, all through the evening. And if you are discreet and don't tell that the illustrations don't illustrate anything, they won't notice it. I will send them home as well informed about Robert Fulton as I am myself. Don't be afraid, I know all about audiences. They believe everything you say, except when you are telling the truth. P.S. Mark all the advertisements private and confidential, otherwise the people won't read them. Hugh Gordon Miller, in arranging the program for the benefit, wanted to know from Mr. Clemens how long he intended to talk, and the humorist answered, It is my custom to keep on talking until I get the audience cowed. Sometimes it takes an hour and fifteen minutes. Sometimes I can do it in an hour. Then Mr. Clemens surprised Cornelius Vanderbilt, the president of the Fulton Association, by inviting the members of the Old Guard to bring their uniforms and band, and sit on the lecture platform. There will be many well-known New Yorkers at the benefit Thursday night, including General Grant and his staff, several high city officials, Archbishop Farley, Dr. Felix Adler, Joseph H. Chote, George Gould, Andrew Carnegie, John Jacob Astor, Levi P. Morton, and Governor Higgins and his staff. Cornelius Vanderbilt will preside. End of Section 123 April 15, 1906 Gorky and actress asked to quit hotels, and Mark Twain tells how to manage audiences, read by John Greenman. Section 124 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 4, 1900-1906 This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. This edited article includes only the portion most relevant to Mark Twain. April 19, 1906 Sutton beat Slosson by superior billiards. Student suffers first defeat of the tournament. Final issue, very doubtful. Cutler disposes of cure in the early game after a close contest, 500 to 439. George F. Slosson, the leader of the international billiard tournament, went down to defeat last night for the first time before the superior play of George Sutton. There was no repetition of the wonderful nursing by the victor which he had shown the previous night, but he played a sterling game nevertheless, average 22, 16 to 22, and running 80 in his best inning. His victory was easy, 500 to 271, and at no time, after the tenth inning, was Slosson in the race. A great crowd gathered in the concert hall of the Madison Square Garden, expecting to see Sutton repeat his record average and runs of the night before. They were disappointed in this respect, but he played brilliantly at times. The result makes the ultimate outcome of the tourney very doubtful. In a courageous finish, Albert G. Cutler, the Boston ex-amateur, won the matinee game after Louis Curray, the Frenchman, had it within his grasp. The score was 500 points to 439, and the winner's average was 17, 7 to 29. Mark Twain witnessed the contest from his usual seat at one side of the table. He laughed heartily as the French billiardist rubbed along the carams for fair-sized runs at the beginning until he had obtained a lead of 270 to 193 at the end of the thirteenth inning by cleverly executed ball-to-ball billiards. The American humorist foresaw the end, however, as he explained to those sitting near him, when once Cutler attained perfect control of the ivories on his short table system, similar to the method pursued by Sutton on the previous night, the Bostonian speedily overhauled Curray, passing into the lead with a pritally accumulated cluster of 32 on his twenty-fourth turn at the table. Cutler backed this with forty, and the Frenchman endeavored to retaliate, as the score was 447 to 392 against him. His stroke deserted him at this critical stage, and he found all of the holes around the balls, Cutler experiencing no difficulty up to the end of his string. In order to avoid a repetition of $15 being charged for $3 seats by the speculators, as was the case at the Slosson Hoppy Match last Saturday night, the sale of seats for the final matches of the tournament will begin this afternoon. It is now certain that there will be ties to be played off, and these will be decided at evening sessions next week. End of Section 124, April 19, 1906, Sutton beats Slosson by Superior Billiards, read by John Greenman. Section 125 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. April 20, 1906, Mark Twain appeals for the Smitten City, and Mark Twain, a poem by James Ernest Caldwell. Mark Twain appeals for the Smitten City, begs the audience, at his last public lecture, to be liberal. A unique talk on Fulton. Humorist speaks in his old vein for the benefit of the Fulton Memorial Association. Mark Twain's last words on the public lecture platform were an appeal for charity to alleviate human suffering. He delivered his public valedictory at Carnegie Hall last night, and in announcing with a tinge of sadness that he appeared in the role of a public lecturer for the last time, he begged New York to aid the victims of the disaster in San Francisco. Now, he said to the audience which filled the hall, since I must, I shall say, goodbye. I see many faces in this audience well known to me. They are all my friends, and I feel that those I don't know are my friends, too. I wish to consider that you represent the nation, and that in saying goodbye to you, I am saying goodbye to the nation. In the great name of humanity, let me say this final word. I offer an appeal in behalf of that vast, pathetic multitude of fathers, mothers, and helpless little children. They were sheltered and happy two days ago. Now they are wandering forlorn, hopeless and homeless, the victims of a great disaster. So I beg of you," he concluded, raising his head and stretching out his arms in appeal, I beg of you to open your hearts and open your purses and remember San Francisco, the smitten city. Mr. Clemens later talked to the newspaper reporters about earthquakes on the Pacific Coast. I haven't been there since 1868, he said, and that great city of San Francisco has grown up since my day. When I was there, she had 118,000 people, and of this number, 18,000 were Chinese. I was a reporter on the Virginia City Enterprise in Nevada in 1862, and stayed there, I think, about two years, when I went to San Francisco and got a job as a reporter on the call. I was there three or four years. I remember one day I was walking down Third Street in San Francisco. It was a sleepy, dull Sunday afternoon, and no one was stirring. Suddenly, as I looked up the street, 300 yards, the whole side of a house fell out. The street was full of bricks and mortar. At the same time, I was knocked against the side of a house and stood there stunned for a moment. I thought it was an earthquake. Nobody else had heard anything about it, and no one said earthquake to me afterward, but I saw it and I wrote it. Nobody else wrote it, and the house I saw go into the street was the only house in the city that felt it. I've always wondered if it wasn't a little performance gotten up for my special entertainment by the Nether regions. Mr. Clemens delivered his lecture last night for the benefit of the Robert Fulton Memorial Association, which is to erect a monument in New York to the memory of the man who applied steam to navigation. I wish to deliver a historical address," he said. I've been studying the history of—let me see—and he stopped in confusion and walked over to General Fred D. Grant, who sat at the head of the platform. He leaned over in a whisper and then returned to the front of the stage and continued, Oh yes, I've been studying Robert Fulton, I've been studying a biographical sketch of Robert Fulton, the inventor of—let's see—oh yes, the inventor of the electric telegraph. Also I understand he invented the air, I have it at last, the dirigible balloon. Yes, the dirigible, but it is a difficult word, and I don't see why anybody should marry a couple of words like that when they don't want to be married at all and are likely to quarrel with each other all the time. I should put that couple of words under the ban of the United States Supreme Court under its decision of a few days ago and then take him out and drown him. And Fulton was born in—well, it doesn't make much difference where he was born, does it? I remember a man who came to interview me once to get a sketch of my life. I consulted with a friend, a practical man, before he came to know how I should treat him. Whenever you give the interviewer a fact, he said, give him another fact that will contradict it. Then he'll go away with a jumble that he can't use at all. Be gentle, be sweet, smile like an idiot, just be natural. That's what my friend told me to do and I did it. Where were you born? asked the interviewer. Well, I began. I was born in Alabama or Alaska or the Sandwich Islands, I don't know where, but right around there somewhere. And you had better put it down before you forget it. But you weren't born in all those places, he said. Well, I've offered you three places, take your choice. They're all at the same price. How old are you? he asked. I shall be nineteen in June, I said. Why, there's such a discrepancy between your age and your looks, he said. Oh, that's nothing, I said. I was born discrepantly. Then we got to talking about my brother Samuel and he told me my explanations were confusing. I suppose he is dead, I said. Some said that he was dead and some said that he wasn't. Did you bury him without knowing whether he was dead or not? asked the reporter. There was a mystery, said I. We were twins and one day when we were two weeks old, that is, he was one week old and I was one week old, we got mixed up in the bathtub and one of us drowned. We never could tell which. One of us had a strawberry birthmark on the back of his hand. There it is on my hand. This is the one that was drowned. There's no doubt about it. Where's the mystery, he said. Why, don't you see how stupid it was to bury the wrong twin? I answered. I didn't explain it any more because he said the explanation confused him. Me, it is perfectly plain. But, continued Mr. Clemens, to get back to Fulton. I am going along like an old man I used to know who used to start to tell a story about his grandfather. He had an awfully retentive memory and he never finished the story because he switched off into something else. He used to tell about how his grandfather one day went into a pasture where there was a ram. The old man dropped a silver dime in the grass and stooped over to pick it up. The ram was observing him and took the old man's action as an invitation. Just as he was going to finish about the ram, this friend of mine would recall that his grandfather had a niece who had a glass eye. She used to loan that glass eye to another lady friend who used it when she received company. The eye didn't fit the friend's face and it was loose and whenever she winked it would turn over. Then he got on the subject of accidents and he would tell a story about how he believed accidents never happened. There was an Irishman coming down a ladder with a heart of bricks, he said, and the Dutchman was standing on the ground below. The Irishman fell on the Dutchman and killed him. Accident? Never! If the Dutchman hadn't been there the Irishman would have been killed. Why didn't the Irishman fall on a dog which was next to the Dutchman? Because the dog would have seen him coming. Then he'd get off from the Dutchman to an uncle named Reginald Wilson. Reginald went into a carpet factory one day and got twisted into the machinery's belt. He went excursioning around the factory until he was properly distributed and was woven into 69 yards of the best three-ply carpet. His wife bought the carpet and then she erected a monument to his memory. It read, sacred to the memory of 69 yards of the best three-ply carpet containing the mortal remainders of Reginald Wilson. And so on he would ramble about telling the story of his grandfather until we never were told whether he found the ten-cent piece or whether something else happened. Mark Twain Jester, sage, man. These are the titles three. We grant you, in preeminent degree. First to awake the drowsy ear of mirth with joyous call a rippling around earth. Then dropping in the cup of human tears a pearl of wisdom straightway hope appears. Then last and best to break the chilling ice of cold convention piteous pride's device warming the heart of human brotherhood. For these a precious trinity of good. For these our thanks and far beyond above gold laurel grant we you the wreath of love. So write I heedless, but forgive me pray you've worn that priceless wreath for many a day. James Ernest Caldwell End of Section 125, April 20, 1906. Mark Twain Appeals for the Smitten City and Mark Twain, Poem by James Ernest Caldwell. Read by John Greenman. Section 126 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. April 22, 1906. California's women here are going to aid. We'll give a progressive euker and a benefit by amateurs. Twain presides at meeting. It sends a telegram to San Francisco saying, We are with you. Many offer aid. The rooms of the California Club at the Waldorf Astoria are to be the headquarters for relief work on behalf of San Francisco by many leading women of New York. They are to act under the lead of a committee consisting of Mrs. Thomas Vivian, president of the club, Miss Blanche Bates and her mother, and Miss Margaret Anglin. The committee will receive and forward clothing, money, and food. A progressive euker party will be held at the Waldorf Astoria on Friday night under the management of Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt, Mrs. E. H. Harriman, Mrs. Herman Olrich, Mrs. Charles B. Alexander, Mrs. Collis P. Huntington, and Mrs. Ogden Mills. In the near future also, Mrs. Benjamin Wood of 440 West End Avenue, who has a home in California, and whose husband lost one million dollars in the disaster, will give a benefit performance at her home here. Amateur performers, who formerly lived in San Francisco, will participate. Miss Margaret Anglin is arranging for the affair. The proceeds, of course, will go to San Francisco. This program was arranged at a meeting of sympathy at the Casino yesterday afternoon. It was held under the auspices of Mrs. Vanderbilt and Mrs. Olrich, and was attended by many women and men in New York society. Mark Twain presided. Message of Confidence This message was sent to San Franciscans as voicing the sentiments of the gathering. San Francisco shall rise more beautiful than ever. We glory in the bravery of her citizens, and have unbounded belief in their ability and determination to sustain this great catastrophe. The spirit of your father still lives in their children and their children's children. The general and spontaneous aid of the whole country is with you. The telegram was endorsed with cheers. Before you give your cheers for the Californians, interrupted Mr. Clemens, walking to the front of the stage and raising his hands, I hope you'll include the doctors who have done such noble service in the afflicted district. I don't like doctors on general principles, but those men out there have done some great work. Put the firemen and the soldiers in too." Then the cheers were given with a will. The meeting which was largely composed of women was not without dramatic features. While Mr. Clemens was explaining the destruction and the suffering that had ensued, a man in the front row groaned and then fell back in a faint in his seat. A dozen women ran to him with restoratives, and he soon recovered. Joseph D. Redding, a former Californian lawyer who was introduced by Mr. Clemens, remarked that it was a great pity that private telegrams were not being received from the scene of the disaster. I know of only four or five that have reached New York, he said. Immediately a dozen persons jumped up shouting, We have news! Thank God for that, exclaimed Mr. Redding, has anybody a telegram dated today? Telegrams received. Yes, I have, replied a woman who said she was Mrs. Prescott. I have one this morning, which says, We are poor, but safe and hopeful. Another witch who was Redd said, Safe and not discouraged! Both telegrams were received with applause. Mr. Clemens opened the meeting by introducing Henry Miller, the actor who said the sympathies of all the theatrical people were with California. He announced that a monster benefit was being arranged to be held at the casino next Sunday night, and that Miss Anglin, DeWolf Hopper, Mrs. Fisk, Arnold Daley, Harry Woodruff, and others had volunteered their services. Mr. Clemens then explained the object of the meeting. We must not let our minds dwell upon the dead, he said. After life's fitful fever they rest well. Our sorrows and our sympathies are for the living, suffering thousands. Last time I saw San Francisco was thirty-eight years ago. It was then my home. It is your home too, and every sentiment endears it to us. Forty-eight hours ago I pledged myself not to speak to any audience that paid to get in. However, you didn't pay to get in here. You're going to pay to get out, laughter. This earthquake and the fire transcends anything in human history, ancient or modern, but the same energy that built San Francisco in fifty years to be destroyed in a day will build it again. Everybody is in a mood to contribute, from the hands of poverty up to those of the millionaire. But it is the poor man that gives most. The Salvation Army is the best means I know of to do this work. They are of the poor, and they know how to reach the poor. I have seen their work all over the world. Always good. Applauds. Going there to help. Just after the committee had been named a young woman arose in the audience and said, I am the daughter of the man who made the seal of California in eighteen forty-nine. He died last January. His widow, Mrs. Udita Coner, is in San Francisco now. I was about to go to Europe, but instead I shall go to San Francisco. E. Paek Soto, the artist and a former Californian, made a plea for the young art students of California. Other pleas were made for actors and musicians. Mr. Clemens spoke again, saying that he interpreted the President's announcement about foreign contributions to mean that foreign governments and not individuals should refrain from contributing. There's one thing about blood and bone, he added, and that is that it's common, made of the same clay. Homer Davenport, the cartoonist, said he wanted to give something. I used to live on the Pacific Coast and I would like to contribute, but I haven't any money. I would like to offer one thousand of my original drawings to be sold for the benefit of the suffering. His offer was applauded. No doubt of help. Joseph Redding said there could be no doubt that Californians in New York would contribute handsomely. I have read somewhere in history, he declared, of Caesar's entrance into Alexandria in Egypt. He asked the inhabitants where they came from. We are Athenians, they replied. They had lived in Egypt for thirty years. So I say about Californians. Once a Californian, always a Californian. This telegram has been received by E. J. McGanne, President of the California Society, in response to a message offering aid. E. J. McGanne, Three Broad Street City. Many thanks. Help is coming from many quarters. Calamity is so great that all possible aid is welcomed. George C. Pardee, Governor, California. It was agreed before the meeting closed that another should be held in the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria at four o'clock tomorrow afternoon. End of Section 126, April 22, 1906. California's women here are going to aid. Read by John Greenman. Section 127 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. May 7, 1906. Mark Twain out again. Recovered from Bronchitis and takes a walk in Fifth Avenue. Mark Twain walked out on Fifth Avenue yesterday for the first time since April 27. His confinement to his home at 21 Fifth Avenue was caused by an attack of Bronchitis. He was taken ill the day before he had intended to leave New York for a double in New Hampshire where he will spend the summer. Mr. Clemens, however, expects to be well enough to make the journey to Dublin within a few days. The humorist has had a strenuous winter, attending meetings and dinners and giving lectures, and it is thought that this work brought on his illness. But he has thoroughly enjoyed his winter's labors," said his secretary yesterday afternoon. At Dublin this summer Mr. Clemens will devote the morning hours to literary work, and in the afternoons he will recuperate his strength with the assistance of white mountain air and scenery. He spent last summer at Dublin, where he found the air so invigorating that he determined to return there again this summer. End of Section 127, May 7, 1906, Mark Twain Out Again. Read by John Greenman. Section 128 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. May 21, 1906. For a Booth Memorial. $5,000 pledged to the players. Committees appointed. This edited article includes only the committee on which Mark Twain served. Committees have been appointed to advance the plan for a monument to be erected by the players to Edwin Booth and considering suggestions by the members. As already told in the Times, the monument will probably be placed in Gramercy Park facing the clubhouse. There is already a nucleus for the fund consisting of pledges from nearly one hundred members of the club and amounting to more than $5,000. Here are the committees appointed by the club. Literature. Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Edmund Clarence Stedman, Richard Watson Gilder, and David A. Monroe. End of Section 128, May 21, 1906. For a Booth Memorial. Read by John Greenman. Section 129 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. September 18, 1906. A People's Lobby to Watch Congress. Twain, Stephens, Mitchell and others in a new plan. Will show up all secrets and keep the records of good and bad legislators. President Roosevelt's friends behind it all. Article edited to include sections mentioning Mark Twain. If anybody is naughty in Congress, hereafter he will have to reckon with a new force. This is the People's Lobby, which is announced to begin work at Washington at the next session of Congress. Its first duty, according to the announcement in the October number of success, which is a sponsor for the idea, will be to watch all committee and legislative work through a permanent bureau established in Washington and combat the attorneys for special interests. Incidentally, the bureau will keep records of the public career of each senator and representative. There is nothing frantic in the work, the magazine promises, and politics are to be faithfully avoided. The announcement says there will not be the slightest feeling of antagonism toward Congress as a body. The People's Lobby will merely see in a methodical manner that Congress hides no secrets, no secret alliances. The Lobby will be to Congress and to national politics what Duns and Bradstreet's are to commercial life, its promoter's hope. And to give it standing and to free it from suspicion of magazine control, a governing committee is being organized. Mark Twain is named as a member of this committee, half of it is already made up, but it consists mostly of authors whose names have been often heralded in connection with political, economical articles in magazines. End of Section 129, September 18, 1906, A People's Lobby to Watch Congress. Red by John Greenman. Section 130 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part IV, 1900 through 1906. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Red by John Greenman. This edited article contains only references to Mark Twain. September 20, 1906. Spelling and Pictures and Mark Twain at Dinner. The Associated Press men hear a plea for fanatic forms. The speakers cartooned. So were the oysters, who couldn't object. General Porter, one of the orators. There were about a hundred and fifty members present and about a dozen guests including General Horace Porter and Mark Twain, each of them being counted for statistical purposes only as one person each. A dozen or so women sat above the banqueters and watched them and listened to the speakers. Great American flags draped the wall in behind the stage upon which sat the Associated Press men and their guests. After General Porter, Toastmaster Melville E. Stone rose to introduce Mark Twain. The diners, turned to page 13 of the menu, found there this picture and verse dealing with the gentle humorist. Drawing of baby-sized adult Twain, feeding alphabet blocks to a rocking-horse Pegasus. His hobby was a hobby horse with wings of driven snow and everywhere that Sammy went his hobby too would go. The ban played for he's a jolly good fellow when Mr. Clemens rose and the people at the tables took up the song. Mark Twain's speech. I am here, said Mr. Clemens, to make an appeal to the nations in behalf of the simplified spelling. I have come here because they cannot all be reached except through you. There are only two forces that can carry light to all the corners of the globe, only two. The sun in the heavens and the Associated Press down here. I may seem to be flattering the sun, but I do not mean it so. I am meaning only to be just and fair all around. You speak with a million voices. No one can reach so many races, so many hearts and intellects as you. Except Rudyard Kipling, and he cannot do it without your help. If the Associated Press will adopt and use our simplified forms and thus spread them to the ends of the earth, covering the whole spacious planet with them as with a garden of flowers, our difficulties are at an end. Every day of the 365, the only pages of the world's countless newspapers that are read by all the human beings and angels and devils that can read are these pages that are built out of Associated Press dispatches. And so I beg you, I beseech you, oh, I implore you to spell them in our simplified forms. Do this daily, constantly, persistently for three months, only three months, it is all I ask. The infallible result? Victory. Victory all down the line, for by that time all eyes here and above and below will have become adjusted to the change and in love with it, and the present clumsy and ragged forms will be grotesque to the eye and revolting to the soul. And we shall be rid of fists and fist and pneumonia and pneumatics and diphtheria and pterotactile and all those other insane words which no man addicted to the simple Christian life can try to spell and not lose some of the bloom of his piety in the demoralizing attempt. Do not doubt it, we are Chameleons, and our partialities and prejudices change places with an easy and blessed facility and we are soon wanted to the change and happy in it. We do not regret our old yellow fangs and snags and tushes after we have worn nice fresh uniforms store-teeth a while. He was a scoffer. Do I seem to be seeking the good of the world? That is the idea. It is my public attitude. Privately I am merely seeking my own profit. We all do it, but it is sound and it is virtuous, for no public interest is anything other or nobler than a massed accumulation of private interests. In 1883, when the simplified spelling movement first tried to make a noise, I was indifferent to it. More I even irreverently scoffed at it. What I needed was an object lesson, you see. It is the only way to teach some people. Very well, I got it. At that time I was scrambling along, earning the family's bread on magazine work at seven cents a word, compound words at single rates, just as it is in the dark present. I was the property of a magazine, a seven-cent slave under a boiler-iron contract. One day there came a note from the editor, requiring me to write ten pages on this revolting text, considerations concerning the alleged subterranean, homophital extemporaneousness of the conciliatious superimplication of the ornithorincus as foreshadowed by the unintelligibility of its plesiosaurian and its adactolous aspects. Ten pages of that. Each and every word a seventeen-jointed vestibuled railroad train, seven cents a word. I saw starvation staring the family in the face. I went to the editor, and I took a stenographer along, so as to have the interview down in black and white, for no magazine editor can ever remember any part of a business talk, except the part that's got graft in it for him and the magazine. I said, read that text, Jackson, and let it go on the record. Read it out loud. He read it, considerations concerning the alleged subterranean, homophital extemporaneousness of the conciliatious superimplication of the ornithorincus as foreshadowed by the unintelligibility of its plesiosaurian and its adactolous aspects. I said, you want ten pages of those rumbling, great, long summer thunderpeals, and you expect to get them at seven cents a peal? He said, a word's a word, and seven cents is the contract. What are you going to do about it? I said, Jackson, this is cold blooded oppression. What's an average English word? He said, six letters. But, was converted, I said, nothing of the kind, that's French, and includes the spaces between the words. An average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I've dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and shaved it down till the average is three letters and a half. I can put one thousand two hundred words on your page and there's not another man alive that can come within two hundred of it. My page is worth eighty-four dollars to me. It takes exactly as long to fill your magazine page with long words as it does with short ones. Four hours. Now then, look at the criminal injustice of this requirement of yours. I am careful. I am economical of my time and labor. For the family's sake I've got to be. So I never write metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same money for city. I never write policeman because I can get the same price for cop and so on and so on. I never write valitudinarian at all for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents. I wouldn't do it for fifteen. Examine your obscene text please count the words. He counted and said it was twenty-four. I asked him to count the letters. He made it two hundred and three. I said, now I hope you will see the whole size of your crime. With my vocabulary I would make sixty words out of those two hundred and five letters and get four dollars and twenty cents for it. Whereas for your inhuman twenty-four I would get only one dollar and sixty-eight cents. Ten pages of these skyscrapers of yours would pay me only about three hundred and nine dollars. In my simplified vocabulary the same space and the same labor would pay me eight hundred and forty. I do not wish to work upon this scandalous job by the peace. I want to be hired by the year. He coldly refused. I said, then for the sake of the family if you have no feeling for me you ought at least to allow me overtime on that word extemporaneousness. Again he coldly refused. I seldom say a harsh word to any one, but I was not master of myself then, and I spoke right out and called him an anisodactylus plesiosaurian, conciliatius, or nithrinus, and rotten to the heart with his hlophital subterranean extemporaneousness. God forgive me for that wanton crime. He lived only two hours. From that day to this I have been a devoted and hard working member of the heaven-born institution, the International Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Authors, and now I am laboring with Carnegie's simplified committee and with my heart in the work. A real phonetic letter. Now then, let us look at this mighty question reasonably, rationally, mainly. Yes, and calmly, not excitedly. What is the real function, the essential function, the supreme function of language? Isn't it merely to convey ideas and emotions? Certainly. Then if we can do it with words of phonetic brevity and compactness, why keep the present cumbersome forms? But can we? Yes, I hold in my hand the proof of it. Here is a letter written by a woman right out of her heart of hearts. I think she never saw a spelling book in her life. The spelling is her own. There isn't a waste letter in it anywhere. It reduces the phonetics to the last gasp. It squeezes the surplusage out of every word. There's no spelling that can begin with it on this planet outside of the White House. And as for the punctuation, there isn't any. It is all one sentence, eagerly and breathlessly uttered, without break or pause in it anywhere. The letter is absolutely genuine. I have the proofs of that in my possession. I can't stop to spell the words for you, but you can take the letter presently and comfort your eyes with it. Mr. Clemens then read the letter, which was, Miss Blank, dear friend, I took some close into the armory and give them to you to send to the sufferers out to California. And I hate to trouble you, but I got to have one of them back. It was a black oil wool cheviot with a jacket to match. Trimmed, kind of fancy, no thirty-eight burst measure and passimentary across the front and the color. I wouldn't trouble you, but it belonged to my brother's wife, and she is mad about it. I thought she was willing, but she won't, she says. She won't, done with it, and she was going to wear it a spell longer. She ain't so free-hearted as what I am, and she has got more to do with than I have having a husband to work and slave for her, I guess. You remember me? I am shot and stout and light-complected. I talked with you quite a spell about the sufferers and said it was awful about that earthquake. I shouldn't wonder if they had another one right off. Seeing general condition of the country is kind of explosive, I hate to take that black dress away from the sufferers, but I will hunt around and see if I can get another one. If I can, I will call to the armory for it. If you will just lay it aside, so no more at present from your true friend, I liked your appearance very much. Now you see, said Mr. Clemens, what simplified spelling can do. It can convey any fact you need to convey, and it can pour out emotions like a sewer. I beg you, I beseech you to adopt our spelling and print all your dispatches in it. Twain's serious word. Now I wish to say just one entirely serious word. I have reached a time of life, seventy years and a half, where none of the concerns of this world have much interest for me personally. I think I can speak dispassionately upon this matter, because in the little while that I have got to remain here, I can get along very well with these old-fashioned forms, and I don't suppose to make any trouble about it at all. I shall soon be where they won't care how I spell, so long as I keep the Sabbath laughter. There are eighty-two million of us people that use this orthography, and it ought to be simplified in our behalf, but it is kept in its present condition to satisfy one million people who like to have their literature in the old form. That looks to me to be rather selfish. And we keep the forms as they are while we have got one million people coming in here from foreign countries every month, and they have got to struggle with this orthography of ours, and it keeps them back, and damages their citizenship for years until they learn to spell the language, if they ever do learn. This is merely sentimental argument. No real argument. People say it is the spelling of Chaucer and Spencer and Shakespeare and a lot of other people who did not know how to spell anyway, and it has been transmitted to us, and we preserved it, and wish to preserve it because of its ancient and hallowed associations. Now, I don't see that there is any real argument about that. If that argument is good, then it would be a good argument not to banish the flies and the cockroaches from the hospitals, because they have been there so long that the patients have got used to them, and they feel a tenderness for them on account of the associations. Why, it is like preserving a cancer in a family because it is a family cancer, and we are bound to it by the test of affection and reverence and old moldy antiquity. I think that this declaration to improve this orthography of ours is our family cancer, and I wish we could reconcile ourselves to have it cut out and let the family cancer go. Now, you see before you the wreck and ruin of what was once a young person like yourselves. I am exhausted by the heat of the day. I must take what is left of this wreck and run out of your presence, and carry it away to my home, and spread it out there, and sleep the sleep of the righteous. There is nothing much left of me but my age and my righteousness, but I leave with you my love and my blessing, and may you always keep your youth. Prolonged applause. September 23, 1904. Miss Clemens in concert. Mark Twain makes a speech at his daughter's debut. Special to the New York Times. Winstead, Connecticut, September 22. Before a large audience in the Norfolk gymnasium, Norfolk, this evening Miss Clara Clemens, the daughter of Mark Twain, made her debut as a concert singer. A large delegation of the young singer's friends was present from New York and other places. Miss Clemens was assisted by Marie Nichols, a Boston violinist. Miss Clemens, who is the possessor of a rich contralto voice, was enthusiastically received. Mark Twain made a short speech at the close of the recital. He described his first appearance before an audience in San Francisco and told of a sudden stage fright that overcame him then. He compared stage fright to sea sickness and said he wished his choicest enemy could have both at the same time. Ender, September 23, 1906. Miss Clemens in concert. Read by John Greenman. November 5, 1906. Mark Twain endorses exposure of Mrs. Eddie. He says Mr. Wright proves she didn't write science and health. His own book unpublished. And Mr. Clemens says he doesn't know why his argument against her claims has been surprising. Mark Twain, whose book intended to prove that Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddie could not have written such a finished literary work as Science and Health, has never been published, was brought into the Christian Science Controversy yesterday. The introduction of Mr. Clemens into the Controversy was done by Mr. Greenman. He said he didn't know why his argument against her claims yesterday. The introduction of Mr. Clemens into the Controversy was due to the publication yesterday of a manuscript written by Livingston Wright of Boston in 1901 in which Mr. Wright contends that it was the late Reverend J. Henry Wigan who revised and rewrote Science and Health. Mark Twain, owing to his familiarity with the subject, was selected by Mr. Wright to look over his manuscript. Mr. Clemens, after carefully reading the manuscript, gave it his endorsement and declared that he could not at that time, 1903, understand why Mr. Wright had waited two years without publishing so interesting and valuable a paper. In his manuscript Mr. Wright, who is the literary executor of the Reverend Mr. Wigan, states that Mr. Wigan in August 1885 received a call at his office in the old Boston Music Hall from a man who said he was Calvin A. Frey. Frey said that he represented a woman who wished to have a manuscript revised. A few days later Mrs. Eddie called on Mr. Wigan and the outcome of that visit was the contract for Mr. Wigan to revise Science and Health. Mr. Wigan told Mr. Wright that when he opened the manuscript he was surprised by the misspelling, the lack of punctuation and the chaotic arrangement of the subjects. Mr. Wigan said there were passages that flatly contradicted others that had preceded them, while incorrect references to historical and philosophical matters were scattered all through the Eddie manuscript. Mr. Wigan revised the work and added a chapter entitled Wayside Hints. The book that is now known as Science and Health was the result. In his lifetime Mr. Wigan kept the secret of his participation in the preparation of the Eddie book from the public, but he left instructions with Mr. Wright as his literary executor to make public at the proper time the truth about Science and Health. When Mr. Wright sent his manuscript containing the statement of Mr. Wigan's part in the publication to Mark Twain, the latter sent him the following reply, which Mr. Clemens said yesterday was self-explanatory of his interest in the matter. The letter is as follows. Riverdale, New York City, April 17, 1903 Dear sir, the manuscript with your letter of yesterday arrived in my bedroom with my breakfast two hours ago, and I have already read the manuscript through. I wonder why you have kept it two years without publishing it, for I find it exceedingly interesting and valuable, and with only one weak place in it that I can discover, the same one that is in Mr. Peabody's pamphlet, the presenting, on your page 28, of that grotesque eruption of Mrs. Eddie's in print form instead of, at least partly, in facsimile reproduction of her hand. With that defect cured your essay would gain great strength, but it is convincingly strong, strong enough in my belief, to prove to every intelligent non-scientist that Mrs. Eddie and God did not write science and health. All the world and God added could not convince a scientist, intelligent or otherwise, that Mrs. Eddie's claim to the scholarship is a lie and a swindle. The first paragraph of your letter requires me to make instant decision or return your manuscript. Therefore, as I am not able to act so quickly, I am in bed these five days with bronchitis and barred from work. I will make the return per today's next mail as in on her bound. I am puzzled. In the new part of my book I take up a great deal of space with an elaborate argument reinforced by extracts from Mrs. Eddie's literature to prove that she couldn't write science and health and must have stolen it. Circumstantial evidence, the whole of it, and now comes your essay and proves the same points by what the world would consider much better evidence. It's like a man trying to prove by labored and fine-spun logic that there has been a murder, and then, when he gets through, talking to the stage manager, ask Mr. Wright to fetch in that corpse. A reader might properly say, why did you make me read all that stuff when you might have introduced Mr. Wright and the corpse in the first place and saved my time? Either process would do in a book, but doubtless to use one would bar the other from the book. I learn by a letter from a stranger that my book has been withdrawn until autumn. It is true. I did it myself. I wonder how he knows. I have not said it publicly. Very truly yours, S. L. Clemens. Yesterday at his home, Twenty-one Fifth Avenue, Mr. Clemens said that he did not know why his book, which he said is still in the hands of his publishers, had never reached the public. He said that the nature of the work was indicated in his letter to Mr. Wright. Beyond this he added, under the circumstances he could not talk at present. End of Section 132, November 5, 1906, Mark Twain endorses exposure of Mrs. Eddy, read by John Greenman. Section 133 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, 1906. Bar Mark Twain's book. A Massachusetts Librarian draws the line at Eve's Diary. Special to the New York Times. Boaster, Massachusetts. November 23. Eve's Diary by Mark Twain, a copy of which is among one hundred books recently bought for the Charlton Public Library, has been barred by Frank O. Wakefield, one of the trustees. The other trustees, the Reverend G. O. Genesse and Louis A. McIntyre, concur with him. The other ninety and nine books are all right, but this one book, Mr. Wakefield says, is objectionable. That is because there are pictures in the book of a kind to which Mr. Wakefield objects. Before Eve's Diary could go on the circulating shelves, the Librarian, Mrs. H. L. Carpenter looked it through. She saw the pictures and made known to Mr. Wakefield that she had her doubts. On every left-hand page is a picture, fifty of which represent Eve in summer costume. Her dresses are all cut, Garden of Eden style. In one of them Eve is seen skipping through the bushes unrestrained and not at all afraid. The bushes do not seriously cut off the view of Eve. After looking long and earnestly at one picture depicting Eve pensively reclining on a rock, Mr. Wakefield decided to act. Mr. Clemens sent out word last night to a Times reporter who conveyed to him the substance of this dispatch that the action of the Charlton Library was not of the slightest interest to him. End of Section 133, November 24th, 1906. Barr, Mark Twain's book. Read by John Greenman.