September 2 Saturday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote per Lyon to Ralph W. Ashcroft, again warming him not to put Clemens’ name in any letters; he advised him again not to send any letters without submitting them to William Woodward Baldwin, the American Plasmon Co.’s attorney. “They are awful letters & will do you great harm” [MTP]. Note: Ashcroft had wanted to send a letter out to interested parties including Sam’s name and pasting a picture of a crowing rooster after announcing initial victories in court over John Hays Hammond and his allies in the company. Sam was not one to crow publicly.
Sam also wrote to daughter Clara in Norfolk, Conn.
Dear Ashcat, I must enclose Mr. Whiting’s confidential letter; also Jean’s letter of explanation. Jean has since elaborated the explanation, & I think she has made out a good case for herself. But I hope she will remember her promise & not take any more chances of the kind. She is daily having immensely good times here.
Miss Lyon & I are persuading her to look out for and report the attractive points of the people she meets, & ignore the others. She can learn to be uncensorious; I could have learned it myself if I had begun young, the year before I was born.
Jean has invited 5 dinner parties (return-obligations,) but I am reserving a week, after Sept. 18 & before the 26th—without explaining why, except that I may run to New York or Boston for a day.
Katy’s room is next to my study. Yesterday afternoon I said, down-stairs, “Katy, you have given me a most uncomfortable day.” “Why, how?” “Every time I have exploded in profanity I have immediately been hit with a cold shock, because I recognized that I was shocking you.” “Oh, no, Mr. Clemens, I like to hear it. It was so still & lonesome before you came home.” So it is all right, & I must try & remove the lonesomeness altogether. I owe this effort to Katy, she is so good & has been with us so long.
Gracious, but Miss Lawton is in for some prodigious work! I wish she might enthuse the whole world, same like the President is doing with that foolish brief truce which they call by the large name of a “peace.”
I’m ready to start to the Higginson wedding, now.
More and more I realize how very much I enjoyed the visit with you, dear dear Ben. With kindest regards to Miss Alling— / Father / I kept Ugo well reminded about his hands, & I think he is reformed & that it may stick [MTP]. Note: Ugo Piemontini, the Italian servant brought back from Florence. Charles B. Whiting, President Orient Ins. Co. of Hartford had written Sam on Aug. 25.
Sam attended the wedding of Miss Margaret Higginson, to Dr. James Dellinger Barney, with some 60 guests. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, author and Sam’s longtime friend was in the Dublin area [Sept. 3 to Clara; Oct. 9 to Duneka (2 ); IVL journal entry below].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Today, this morning Miss Margaret Higginson was married and we all went to the wedding in the Unitarian Church where Dr. Collier performed the ceremony. It was touching to see the old quiver in Col. Higginson as he walked up to the altar with that dear and only daughter on his arm. Such a pretty wedding it was, and everyone was so prettily dressed. Mr. Clemens was a guest of honor, of course, and he sat in pew 16—in the middlest aisle. But Jean and I were only “Common or Garden” folk and sat on the side. We left Mr. Clemens at the house for the reception and we came home. But later—contrary to expectation, Mr. Clemens came home, driven up in a tiny yellow cart, by two children.
Mr. Clemens and I drove down to the Club to hear Mr. [Ernest Flagg] Henderson talk of Versailles and Louis Juatorze. He had some very beautiful pictured post cards with him and the talk was a nice one. Jean rode down on Scott [MTP TS 92-94]. Note: Louis Quatorze, Louis XIV of France.
Ralph W. Ashcroft sent a telegram and a letter to Sam. The telegram from NY: “All right I will not use your name in any way or take the case to Jerome [.] I am quite willing to suffer if necessary for the freedom of speech I appreciated in denouncing a knave my letters do not in any way effect the legal status of the Plasmon case. Ashcroft” [MTP].
The letter, in part, in which Ashcroft admitted knowing that his letters to Hammond had not been “politic,” and that he had considered the possible harm they might bring him for criminal libel, but he claimed to be “quite willing to spend a few years in Sing Sing in exchange for the opportunity of telling Hammond and Wheeler” what he thought of them. Sam evidently tried to act as a buffer to Ashcroft’s enmity in the Plasmon debacle. Ashcroft here reassured Sam:
“I have your telegram and the letters. I will, of course, respect your wishes. I will not take the case to Jerome, even on my own hook, as this would involve you as a witness, etc.” [MTP].
Collier’s Weekly ran anonymously an article by Mark Twain, “Christian Citizenship”:
Is there such a thing as Christian citizenship? No, but it could be created. The process would be quite simple, and not productive of hardship to any one. It will be conceded that every man’s first duty is to God; it will also be conceded, and with strong emphasis, that a Christian’s first duty is to God. It then follows, as a matter of course, that it is his duty to carry his Christian code of morals to the polls and vote them. Whenever he shall do that, he will not find himself voting for an unclean man, a dishonest man. Whenever a Christian votes, he votes against God or for Him, and he knows this quite well. God is an issue in every election; He is a candidate in the person of every clean nominee on every ticket; His purity and His approval are there, to be voted for or voted against, and no fealty to party can absolve His servant from his higher and more exacting fealty to Him; He takes precedence of party, duty to Him is above every claim of party.
If Christians should vote their duty to God at the polls, they would carry every election, and do it with ease. They would elect every clean candidate in the United States, and defeat every soiled one. Their prodigious power would be quickly realized and recognized, and afterward there would be no unclean candidates upon any ticket, and graft would cease. No church organization can be found in the country that would elect men of foul character to be its shepherd, its treasurer, and superintendent of its Sunday-school. It would be revolted at the idea; it would consider such an election an insult to God. Yet every Christian congregation in the country elects foul men to public office, while quite aware that this also is an open and deliberate insult to God, who can not approve and does not approve the placing of the liberties and the well-being of His children in the hands of infamous men. It is the Christian congregations that are responsible for the filling of our public offices with criminals, for the reason that they could prevent it if they chose to do it. They could prevent it without organizing a league, without framing a platform, without making any speeches or passing any resolutions —in a word, without concert of any kind. They could accomplish it by each individual resolving to vote for God at the polls—that is to say, vote for the candidate whom God would approve. Can a man imagine such a thing as God being a Republican or a Democrat, and voting for a criminal or a blackguard merely because party loyalty required it? Then can we imagine that a man can improve upon God’s attitude in this matter, and by help of professional politicians invent a better policy? God has no politics but cleanliness and honesty, and it is good enough for men.
A man’s second duty is to his family. There was a time when a clergyman’s duty to his family required him to be his congregation’s political slave, and vote his congregation’s ticket in order to safeguard the food and shelter of his wife and children. But that time has gone by. We have the secret ballot now, and a clergyman can vote for God. He can also plead with his congregation to do the like.
Perhaps. We can not be sure. The congregation would probably inquire whom he was going to vote for; and if he stood upon his manhood and answered that they had no Christian right (which is the same as saying no moral right, and, of course, no legal right) to ask the question, it is conceivable—not to say certain—that they would dismiss him, and be much offended at his proposing to be a man as well as a clergyman.
Still, there are clergymen who are so situated as to be able to make the experiment. It would be worth while to try it. If the Christians of America could be persuaded to vote God and a clean ticket, it would bring about a moral revolution that would be incalculably beneficent. It would save the country—a country whose Christians have betrayed it and are destroying it. The Christians of Connecticut sent Bulkeley to the Senate. They sent to the Legislature the men who elected him. These two crimes they could have prevented; they did not do it, and upon them rest the shame and the responsibility. Only one clergyman remembered his Christian morals and his duty to God, and stood bravely by both. Mr. Smythe is probably an outcast now, but such a man as that can endure ostracism; and such a man as that is likely to possess the treasure of a family that can endure it with him, and be proud to do it. I kiss the hem of his garment.
Four years ago Greater New York had two tickets in the field: one clean, the other dirty, with a single exception; an unspeakable ticket with that lonely exception. One-half of the Christians voted for that foul ticket and against God and the Christian code of morals, putting loyalty to party above loyalty to God and honorable citizenship, and they came within a fraction of electing it; whereas if they had stood by their professed morals they would have buried it out of sight. Christianity was on trial then, it is on trial now. And nothing important is on trial except Christianity.
It was on trial in Philadelphia, and failed; in Pennsylvania, and failed; in Rhode Island, and failed; in Connecticut, and failed; in New York, and failed; in Delaware, and failed; in every town and county and State, and was recreant to its trust; it has effusively busied itself with the small matters of charity and benevolence, and has looked on, indifferent while its country was sinking lower and lower in repute and drifting further and further toward moral destruction. It is the one force that can save, and it sits with folded hands. In Greater New York it will presently have an opportunity to elect or defeat some straight, clean, honest men, of the sterling Jerome stamp, and some of the Tammany kind. The Christian vote—and the Christian vote alone—will decide the contest. It, and it alone, is master of the situation, and lord of the result.
Sam also wrote to daughter Clara in Norfolk, Conn.
Dear Ashcat, I must enclose Mr. Whiting’s confidential letter; also Jean’s letter of explanation. Jean has since elaborated the explanation, & I think she has made out a good case for herself. But I hope she will remember her promise & not take any more chances of the kind. She is daily having immensely good times here.
Miss Lyon & I are persuading her to look out for and report the attractive points of the people she meets, & ignore the others. She can learn to be uncensorious; I could have learned it myself if I had begun young, the year before I was born.
Jean has invited 5 dinner parties (return-obligations,) but I am reserving a week, after Sept. 18 & before the 26th—without explaining why, except that I may run to New York or Boston for a day.
Katy’s room is next to my study. Yesterday afternoon I said, down-stairs, “Katy, you have given me a most uncomfortable day.” “Why, how?” “Every time I have exploded in profanity I have immediately been hit with a cold shock, because I recognized that I was shocking you.” “Oh, no, Mr. Clemens, I like to hear it. It was so still & lonesome before you came home.” So it is all right, & I must try & remove the lonesomeness altogether. I owe this effort to Katy, she is so good & has been with us so long.
Gracious, but Miss Lawton is in for some prodigious work! I wish she might enthuse the whole world, same like the President is doing with that foolish brief truce which they call by the large name of a “peace.”
I’m ready to start to the Higginson wedding, now.
More and more I realize how very much I enjoyed the visit with you, dear dear Ben. With kindest regards to Miss Alling— / Father / I kept Ugo well reminded about his hands, & I think he is reformed & that it may stick [MTP]. Note: Ugo Piemontini, the Italian servant brought back from Florence. Charles B. Whiting, President Orient Ins. Co. of Hartford had written Sam on Aug. 25.
Sam attended the wedding of Miss Margaret Higginson, to Dr. James Dellinger Barney, with some 60 guests. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, author and Sam’s longtime friend was in the Dublin area [Sept. 3 to Clara; Oct. 9 to Duneka (2 ); IVL journal entry below].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Today, this morning Miss Margaret Higginson was married and we all went to the wedding in the Unitarian Church where Dr. Collier performed the ceremony. It was touching to see the old quiver in Col. Higginson as he walked up to the altar with that dear and only daughter on his arm. Such a pretty wedding it was, and everyone was so prettily dressed. Mr. Clemens was a guest of honor, of course, and he sat in pew 16—in the middlest aisle. But Jean and I were only “Common or Garden” folk and sat on the side. We left Mr. Clemens at the house for the reception and we came home. But later—contrary to expectation, Mr. Clemens came home, driven up in a tiny yellow cart, by two children.
Mr. Clemens and I drove down to the Club to hear Mr. [Ernest Flagg] Henderson talk of Versailles and Louis Juatorze. He had some very beautiful pictured post cards with him and the talk was a nice one. Jean rode down on Scott [MTP TS 92-94]. Note: Louis Quatorze, Louis XIV of France.
Ralph W. Ashcroft sent a telegram and a letter to Sam. The telegram from NY: “All right I will not use your name in any way or take the case to Jerome [.] I am quite willing to suffer if necessary for the freedom of speech I appreciated in denouncing a knave my letters do not in any way effect the legal status of the Plasmon case. Ashcroft” [MTP].
The letter, in part, in which Ashcroft admitted knowing that his letters to Hammond had not been “politic,” and that he had considered the possible harm they might bring him for criminal libel, but he claimed to be “quite willing to spend a few years in Sing Sing in exchange for the opportunity of telling Hammond and Wheeler” what he thought of them. Sam evidently tried to act as a buffer to Ashcroft’s enmity in the Plasmon debacle. Ashcroft here reassured Sam:
“I have your telegram and the letters. I will, of course, respect your wishes. I will not take the case to Jerome, even on my own hook, as this would involve you as a witness, etc.” [MTP].
Collier’s Weekly ran anonymously an article by Mark Twain, “Christian Citizenship”:
Is there such a thing as Christian citizenship? No, but it could be created. The process would be quite simple, and not productive of hardship to any one. It will be conceded that every man’s first duty is to God; it will also be conceded, and with strong emphasis, that a Christian’s first duty is to God. It then follows, as a matter of course, that it is his duty to carry his Christian code of morals to the polls and vote them. Whenever he shall do that, he will not find himself voting for an unclean man, a dishonest man. Whenever a Christian votes, he votes against God or for Him, and he knows this quite well. God is an issue in every election; He is a candidate in the person of every clean nominee on every ticket; His purity and His approval are there, to be voted for or voted against, and no fealty to party can absolve His servant from his higher and more exacting fealty to Him; He takes precedence of party, duty to Him is above every claim of party.
If Christians should vote their duty to God at the polls, they would carry every election, and do it with ease. They would elect every clean candidate in the United States, and defeat every soiled one. Their prodigious power would be quickly realized and recognized, and afterward there would be no unclean candidates upon any ticket, and graft would cease. No church organization can be found in the country that would elect men of foul character to be its shepherd, its treasurer, and superintendent of its Sunday-school. It would be revolted at the idea; it would consider such an election an insult to God. Yet every Christian congregation in the country elects foul men to public office, while quite aware that this also is an open and deliberate insult to God, who can not approve and does not approve the placing of the liberties and the well-being of His children in the hands of infamous men. It is the Christian congregations that are responsible for the filling of our public offices with criminals, for the reason that they could prevent it if they chose to do it. They could prevent it without organizing a league, without framing a platform, without making any speeches or passing any resolutions —in a word, without concert of any kind. They could accomplish it by each individual resolving to vote for God at the polls—that is to say, vote for the candidate whom God would approve. Can a man imagine such a thing as God being a Republican or a Democrat, and voting for a criminal or a blackguard merely because party loyalty required it? Then can we imagine that a man can improve upon God’s attitude in this matter, and by help of professional politicians invent a better policy? God has no politics but cleanliness and honesty, and it is good enough for men.
A man’s second duty is to his family. There was a time when a clergyman’s duty to his family required him to be his congregation’s political slave, and vote his congregation’s ticket in order to safeguard the food and shelter of his wife and children. But that time has gone by. We have the secret ballot now, and a clergyman can vote for God. He can also plead with his congregation to do the like.
Perhaps. We can not be sure. The congregation would probably inquire whom he was going to vote for; and if he stood upon his manhood and answered that they had no Christian right (which is the same as saying no moral right, and, of course, no legal right) to ask the question, it is conceivable—not to say certain—that they would dismiss him, and be much offended at his proposing to be a man as well as a clergyman.
Still, there are clergymen who are so situated as to be able to make the experiment. It would be worth while to try it. If the Christians of America could be persuaded to vote God and a clean ticket, it would bring about a moral revolution that would be incalculably beneficent. It would save the country—a country whose Christians have betrayed it and are destroying it. The Christians of Connecticut sent Bulkeley to the Senate. They sent to the Legislature the men who elected him. These two crimes they could have prevented; they did not do it, and upon them rest the shame and the responsibility. Only one clergyman remembered his Christian morals and his duty to God, and stood bravely by both. Mr. Smythe is probably an outcast now, but such a man as that can endure ostracism; and such a man as that is likely to possess the treasure of a family that can endure it with him, and be proud to do it. I kiss the hem of his garment.
Four years ago Greater New York had two tickets in the field: one clean, the other dirty, with a single exception; an unspeakable ticket with that lonely exception. One-half of the Christians voted for that foul ticket and against God and the Christian code of morals, putting loyalty to party above loyalty to God and honorable citizenship, and they came within a fraction of electing it; whereas if they had stood by their professed morals they would have buried it out of sight. Christianity was on trial then, it is on trial now. And nothing important is on trial except Christianity.
It was on trial in Philadelphia, and failed; in Pennsylvania, and failed; in Rhode Island, and failed; in Connecticut, and failed; in New York, and failed; in Delaware, and failed; in every town and county and State, and was recreant to its trust; it has effusively busied itself with the small matters of charity and benevolence, and has looked on, indifferent while its country was sinking lower and lower in repute and drifting further and further toward moral destruction. It is the one force that can save, and it sits with folded hands. In Greater New York it will presently have an opportunity to elect or defeat some straight, clean, honest men, of the sterling Jerome stamp, and some of the Tammany kind. The Christian vote—and the Christian vote alone—will decide the contest. It, and it alone, is master of the situation, and lord of the result.
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