February 6 Friday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Emilie R. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers).
“Yes, dear Mrs. Rogers, Sunday the 15th , that is the date. If you will be good enough to telephone me an hour before you leave home I will roust out the Riverdale ambulance so that you won’t have to walk up from the station” [MTHHR 518].
Sam also wrote to Samuel M. Bergheim, enclosing a copy of the cable shared with Wright on Feb. 5.
Your letter of January 26th has this moment reached me. I notice one or two defects in it: you were not astonished when you heard from Mr. Wright that I had heard nothing about your work there.
You knew quite well that I had had no information which the London Plasmon Company had been able to conceal from me, during the past two years and one month.
You were not almost certain that Mr. Mc Allister was in frequent communication with me, and that he was furnishing me business details due to me as a director during many months, and due to me afterward in the form of annual reports to stock holders, because you knew better when you wrote that.
You would not have written me before, in the circumstances suggested by you—it is a superstition.
The Company’s secretary did not send me a report of your annual meeting, and you are not sorry it never reached me. You know, and he knows that a document with my name on it cannot be sent to North America so misdirected that it will not find me inside of three days. You both know as I have remarked, that he has never sent me an Annual report, that he has never given me notice of an annual meeting, and that he has violated his duty toward me as a stock holder, deliberately, persistently and always.
Such is your first paragraph as I read it. Your second deals in non committal generalities of a sort commonly furnished by business men to prying outsiders, but never toward insiders from whom they have nothing of a damaging character to conceal. The rest of the paragraph consists of last year’s mince pie of carefully confused and information-avoiding hopes, conjectures and guesses, warmed over for this year’s consumption. I know, from trustworthier sources, that more than double the sum you are longing to reach, was reached seven months ago. I also know that you could pay a 50% dividend today if you wanted to. I am warned, from sources which I respect, that the Company is crooked, and has private schemes which will not bear the light. The Company’s deliberately dishonest course toward me for two years, is good circumstantial evidence that the warning was well founded.
I want every detail of the business that I was entitled to have while a director, and which the Company for its own reasons has withheld from me. In addition I want every report, and every document of any kind that any other stock holder has received during these two years. I want my address—which has been suppressed replaced upon the secretary’s list. I want direct communication with the Company; there is no occasion to grope for me through the New York office. If I get another letter filled with diplomatic vacancies, I will publish it together, with comments similar to these which I am now making on this one. In future I want all information due to me as a stock holder sent to me promptly when it is due. In case of failure to comply with any of these requests, you will get a cablegram from me once a week until the defect is made good. I enclose a copy of the first one. I had ordered it to be sent to the Company day before yesterday, and the order had already gone to the city by mail, when Mr. Wright telephoned me that your letter was in his hands and would reach me yesterday evening‘, therefore I stopped the order [MTP].
Edward Thimme and Clarence Davis of the Direct Legislation League of NY wrote to Sam soliciting his signature on a petition for an amendment to the NY Constitution, calling for direct legislation by Initiative and Referendum. Sam wrote on the letter: “Would be glad to sign the petition” [MTP].
Fatout lists a dinner speech by Mark Twain at the Century Club, NYC. [MT Speaking 672], which he likely surmised from the following NB entry, though no speech is mentioned:
Sam’s notebook: “Century Club 7.30 / Chas. Fairchild” [NB 46 TS 10].