March 30 Monday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to David Rowland Francis, President of the 1904 St. Louis Fair. The letter ran in the New York Times, Mar. 31, 1903 p.9.
RACES ON THE MISSISSIPPI.
Mark Twain’s Suggestions for Repetitions at the
Fair of Old-Time Contests Between Steamboats.
Mark Twain has revived memories of the days when he was a pilot on the Mississippi River, by sending a letter to President Francis of the St. Louis World’s Fair. It is an answer to Sir Thomas Lipton’s suggestion that a series of old-time Mississippi steamboat races be inaugurated as a feature of the exposition. The letter is as follows:
New York City, March 30 [1903]
Dear President Francis: As regards the suggestion of Sir Thomas Lipton, it seems to me that an old-fashioned Mississippi steamboat race, as a feature of the fair, would be a very good specialty indeed. As to particulars, I think that the race should be a genuine reproduction of the old time race, not just an imitation of it, and that it should cover the whole course. I think the boats should begin the trip at New Orleans, and side by side, (not with an interval between), and end it at North St. Louis, a mile or two above the Big Mound.
I think they should have ample forecastle crowd of negro chantey-singers, with able leaders to do the solo and conduct the chorus from the capstan. I should reinstate the torch basket and use the electric for business only. I should extinguish the Government lights in every crossing throughout the course, for where boats are equally matched in the matters of speed and draught, it is the quality of the piloting that decides the race.
Have you a couple of six-day boats? Then you have a continuous six-day world advertisement, for you would have wireless operators and Associated Press representatives on both boats, and they would report the positions of the contestants hourly, day and night, and describe the succeeding or failing jockeyings and strategems of the pilots. This would be an innovation and dreadfully modern, but the value of it would condone it. It would keep the boats quite vividly in sight straight along a stretch of 1,400 miles, and for the first time the world would see a six-day boat race from start to finish.
The fair would issue the great War Department map of the Mississippi, and every citizen would buy a copy and check off the progress of the race hour by hour and arrange his bets with such judacity as Providence had provided him withal. This map is a yard wide and thirty-six feet long. It might be well to reduce it a little.
As a fair advertisement it would be difficult to beat the boat race; as a spectacle, nothing could add to it, except an old-time blow-up as the boats finished the home stretch. But this should not be arranged; it is better left to Providence and prayer. Truly yours.
MARK TWAIN
Lawrence J. Anhalt wrote from NYC to Sam on a huge piece of paper. “I notice that you spent one day in reading a certain book and sent in a bill of $400 for your time. The note which you wrote to the author, from an advertising standpoint, is worth at least $200 more.” Thus, Anhalt wished to “buy” a day’s worth of Sam’s time at the $400 rate, split into four segments to buy interviews [MTP]. Note: answered Mar. 31.
Will M. Clemens for Clemens Literary Agency wrote a short note to Sam offering to pay whatever price he said for an interview of 2,000 words or a short story of 3,000 words or both. “Please answer promptly—my client is waiting” [MTP]. Note: Isabel Lyon answered for Clemens on Mar. 31.
Lady Augusta Gregory wrote from London to Sam, thanking him for his “kind letter—the more welcome as I never received the first letter, which you mention having written to me—I am glad indeed you like Chuchulain—our Irish stories have been too long neglected, & the Anglo-Irish teachers & professors in Dublin think Irish things are ‘low’ so had only alluded to these tales to disparage them” [MTP]. Note: Cuchulain of Muirthemne: The Story of the Men of the Red Branch of Ulster (1902). This letter may be a reply to Clemens’ Mar. 9 [Gribben 277].