SERIALIZATION OF “REBEL WITH A CAUSE: MARK TWAIN’S HIDDEN MEMOIRS” -- CHAPTER 66 (of 78)
Darkness on the Edge of the 20th Century (1900, 1901)
Chapter 66
Darkness on the Edge of the 20th Century (1900, 1901)
I had entertained hopes that the new century would bring freedom to the oppressed and enlightenment to mankind, but it seemed I had been taken in again.
When I felt I would otherwise burst, I picked up my pen—with the tongs—and set forth some thoughts I had on the state of affairs.
Although they were reticent about my publishing some other things I was writing at the time, both Livy and Howells urged me to publish an essay I wrote in 1901, To the Person Sitting in Darkness; this effort they heartily endorsed.
That essay of mine was a mild protest against the country’s military involvement in the Philippines and in China. This is, of course, a gross understatement. Statesmen tend to be jackasses. In fact, it seems that concerning the difference between man and the jackass, while some observers hold that there isn’t any, this wrongs the jackass.
Along with Howells, Andrew Carnegie, former President Grover Cleveland, and many others, both celebrated and otherwise, I became an active member of the American Anti-Imperialist League.
EDITOR’S NOTES: By the turn of the century, Twain was in some ways old. He had always been in some ways wild—during his days in the far West, he had earned the sobriquet “Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope.” Twain was also demonstrably wise, good and grave. Although Dylan Thomas’ poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night was still half a century off, Twain did rave and rage as he sensed the close of his “day” approaching, and perhaps the fading away of mankind’s last best chance for peace and freedom and equality.
A short excerpt from To The Person Sitting In Darkness follows; you be the judge of just how radical it is:
Shall we go on conferring our Civilization upon the peoples that sit in darkness, or shall we give those poor things a rest? Shall we bang right ahead in our old-time, loud, pious way, and commit the new century to the game; or shall we sober up and sit down and think it over first? Would it not be prudent to get our Civilization-tools together, and see how much stock is left on hand in the way of Glass Beads and Theology, and Maxim Guns and Hymn Books, and Trade-Gin and Torches of Progress and Enlightenment (patent adjustable ones, good to fire villages with, upon occasion), and balance the books, and arrive at the profit and loss, so that we may intelligently decide whether to continue the business or sell out the property and start a new Civilization Scheme on the proceeds?
. . .
Is it, perhaps, possible that there are two kinds of Civilization—one for home consumption and one for the heathen market? … It is yet another Civilized Power, with its banner of the Prince of Peace in one hand and its loot-basket and its butcher-knife in the other.
On the last day of 1900, Twain wrote A Salutation Speech From the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth. It was for such scathing attacks on churches and the clergy that he was often called “the son of the devil” by those he targeted. The title of the piece is almost longer than the blistering contents of that screed, which follows in its entirety:
I bring you the stately matron named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched and dishonored from pirate-raids in Kiao-Chow, Manchuria, South Africa and the Philippines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and a towel, but hide the looking glass.
Not all reactions to Twain’s criticisms were negative. Abner C. Goodell, a Massachusetts attorney and historian, wrote a letter to Twain which contained the following:
Will you forgive a stranger for obtruding upon your scant leisure this expression of gratitude for your “Salutation” to the incoming century.
In my opinion it is, so far as I know, the best thing you ever did. Indeed, I rank it with Lincoln’s immortal speech at Gettysburg.
It has done me good. I have stopped taking medicine, now that somebody has done something effectual to rouse the public from their chronic apathy in this universal reign of terror.
It is a great strain upon one’s self-confidence to continue to harbor the conviction that he is right, and all the “powers that be” of Christendom are wrong in their fearful onslaughts upon human beings. And if wrong, how appalling the magnitude of the error or crime!
You have cheered me. You reassure me against the depressing doubt of my own sanity …
I implore you to continue to improve the advantage which the high place you have attained gives you for reaching the public ear and conscience . . .
Twain replied to Mr. Goodell’s letter as follows:
I think you are right: it is a “universal reign of terror.” There seems to be a universal reign of error also—& a strange indifference to that formidable fact, in pulpit, press & people. The standard of honor is shrinking pretty fast every where, I think,—among individuals—& has fairly disappeared from Governments. I find but few men who disapprove of our theft of the Philippines & of our assassination of the liberties of the people of the Archipelago.
I thank you very much for your letter. I shan’t receive many of its kind.
In 1900 and 1901, Twain not only wrote To the Person Sitting in Darkness and Salutation, but also To My Missionary Critics;The Battle Hymn of the Republic (Brought Down to Date); and The United States of Lyncherdom.
Although written in 1901, the last-named essay (“Lyncherdom”) was not published until 1923 — thirteen years after Twain’s death, and after the conclusion of “The Great War” of 1914-1918. Twain wrote it in response to mass lynchings in his home State of Missouri. He wrote that the missionaries sent by America to China were more needed at home, writing, “O kind missionary, O compassionate missionary, leave China! Come home and convert these Christians!”
But ultimately, Twain decided that the country was not ready for the essay, and shelved it.
He was not hiding all of his vitriol, though. In fact, Twain has been described as wielding a “pen warmed up in hell” and it is mostly the writings of this period (the first decade of the twentieth century) that this description refers to.
In early 1901, a newspaper editorial opined:
A remarkable transformation, or rather development, has taken place in Mark Twain. The genial humorist of the earlier day is now a reformer of the vigorous kind, a sort of knight errant who does not hesitate to break a lance with either Church or State if he thinks them interposing on that broad highway over which he believes not a part but the whole of mankind has the privilege of passing in the onward march of the ages.
Twain biographer A. Big. Paine wrote of Twain:
He did not believe that he could reform the world, but at least he need not withhold his protest against those things which stirred his wrath. He began by causing the arrest of a cabman who had not only overcharged but insulted him. He continued by writing openly against the American policy in the Philippines, the missionary propaganda which had resulted in the Chinese uprising and massacre, and against Tammany politics. Not all his efforts were in the line of reform. He had become a sort of general spokesman which the public flocked to hear, whatever the subject.
Twain was aware of what he was doing and what effect it might have on his reputation and legacy and income, but was willing to suffer the consequences. In an early 1901 letter to his old friend Joe Twichell, he admitted:
I’m not expecting anything but kicks for scoffing, and am expecting a diminution of my bread and butter by it, but if Livy will let me I will have my say. This nation is like all the others that have been spewed upon the earth—ready to shout for any cause that will tickle its vanity or fill its pocket. What a hell of a heaven it will be when they get all these hypocrites assembled there!
I can’t understand it! You are a public guide and teacher, Joe, and are under a heavy responsibility to men, young and old. If you teach your people—as you teach me—to hide their opinions when they believe the flag is being abused and dishonored, lest the utterance do them and a publisher a damage, how do you answer for it to your conscience? You are sorry for me. In the fair way of give and take, I am willing to be a little sorry for you.
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Blackbird Crow Raven’s “Rebel With A Cause: Mark Twain’s Hidden Memoirs” is being serialized in this space on substack every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; it is also available in its entirety from here.