December 26 Thursday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Jules Hart, responding to a letter not extant.

“I realize that you are perfectly right: to publish the letter would do harm, not good. If I could spare the time I would gladly write another, but I am away behind with my work, & must try to keep my mind from getting side-tracked from it” [MTP]. Note: See Dec. 16 and Dec. 17 to Hart.

Charles S. Fairchild wrote to Sam, enclosing a prospectus with The American Mechanical Cashier Co. and six-pages of details. “I have just telephoned to you that the Cashier Co. is to be organized tomorrow. The difficulties of the telephone were such that I did not attempt to explain the situation fully…” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “The ‘Cashier” Co. Have written him to make my subscription $16,000 instead of $15,000”.

Elisabeth Marbury wrote to Sam: “Your letter sustains your reputation for humor. I think, however, that it will be as well for us to enforce the Tom Sawyer contract as an actual fact. I am sure that Mr. Frohman will be quite willing to keep his part of the contract, therefore, if you will allow me to apply to him for the amount in question….” She reported a “most grateful letter” from the Mayos [MTP].

Rogers wrote to Sam.

I send you a clipping from the “World” relating to the much advertised history of the Standard Oil Company now being prepared for Mc Clure’s Magazine by Ida M. Tarbell. It would naturally be supposed that any person desiring to write a veritable history, would seek for information as near original sources as possible. Miss Tarbell has not applied to the Standard Oil Company, nor to anyone connected with it, for imformation on any subject. On the contrary, I have reason to believe, she is seeking all her information from those not disinterested enemies of the “Standard” who have for years invented and published falsehoods concerning it…. I do not know whether you can be of any service in the matter, but it would be a kindness to Mr. Mc Clure as well as myself if you could suggest to him that some care should be taken to verify statements which may be made through his magazine…

After his signature, relating to the recent cruise of the Kanawha, Rogers wrote: “I got a stocking full of water.

I hope you fared better. Harry got his filled with oil. R” [MTHHR 478-9].

Note: from n2 of source: “In her autobiographical All in the Day’s Work (New York, 1939), pp. 211-212, Ida M. Tarbell reveals that Clemens had inquired of McClure ‘what kind of history’ his magazine proposed to publish and had suggested that Miss Tarbell talk to Rogers himself before proceeding. The first interview between the two took place at Rogers’s New York home, and a series of subsequent ‘frank’ discussions were held at 26 Broadway. ‘The History of the Standard Oil Company’ was serialized in McClure’s Magazine from October 1902 to October 1904; it was published as a book by McClure, Phillips & Company in 1904.” Ida Minerva Tarbell (1857-1944), teacher, author and “muckracker.” A. Hoffman points out that due to the interviews with H.H. Rogers, Tarbell’s “indictment of the company portrayed him as Standard Oil’s sole honest man” [442].

Bertrand Shadwell wrote to Sam, enclosing a clipping of his poem “A Song of Freedom” as published in the July 20, 1901 issue of The Public (Chicago) [MTP].