September 14 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Today I’m regretting the hours that have to go into the fashioning of costumes. This afternoon Mr. Sterling called and Secretary Hancock [sic Hitchcock], he went up to see Mr. Clemens and later Mr. Thayer came in, to be followed by Mrs. [Alice] Pearmain and Mr. Montague. The three men went up to talk with Mr. Clemens and in his whiteness he held an audience there. I think it was good for him for he had been saying that he feels as if he had sawdust in his brain.
After Secretary [of Interior] Hitchcock paid his respects to Mr. Clemens, having had a splendid talk with him about spiritualism, he joined us at tea. When Jean asked him about the condition of the Indians, he told of the improving conditions. Also he said that the tribes are to be disbanded in March and that the Indians are to be taken into the citizenship of the U.S. He was telling us about the flourishing conditions of one tribe which has divided itself into sections— the Astors and the Vanderbilts, and not long since the Vanderbilts bought up all the horses and carriages to be had on their reservation; there was nothing left but an old hearse, but Chief Astor bought that, put his family in it and drove around the town [MTP TS 98-99]. Note: Gilbert Holland Montague (1880-1961) young attorney, who would become an instructor of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. See Miss Lyon’s Sept. 16 entry and letters from Montague.
Hawkins paraphrases and cites Isabel Lyon’s journal #2: “About the time the Soliloquy was published, Twain concocted a Tom Sawyerish scheme to make the Congo a religious issue in the United States. He ordered copies sent to one hundred prominent Protestant clergymen and offered to pay the costs himself. His note [to Barbour] specified, ‘Let all the copies go as if they did not come from me’” [160].
Hawkins also writes of a fragment [DV 370-370A] in which Sam planned to send the pamphlet to “every Catholic priest in the country [p.6]….Therefore: make this a religious issue between our 68,000,000 Protestants & our 12,000,000 Roman Catholics, & carry it to the polls….The Catholics can be depended on to cast a solid vote for Leopold [Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore had defended Leopold], slavery, robbery, mutilation, starvation, murder & American dishonor, & the Protestants can be depended upon to line up & snow the whole thing under & out of sight (p. 4)” [160].
Insert: Masonic Hall and Touraine Hotel, Boston, Mass. 1904
Today I’m regretting the hours that have to go into the fashioning of costumes. This afternoon Mr. Sterling called and Secretary Hancock [sic Hitchcock], he went up to see Mr. Clemens and later Mr. Thayer came in, to be followed by Mrs. [Alice] Pearmain and Mr. Montague. The three men went up to talk with Mr. Clemens and in his whiteness he held an audience there. I think it was good for him for he had been saying that he feels as if he had sawdust in his brain.
After Secretary [of Interior] Hitchcock paid his respects to Mr. Clemens, having had a splendid talk with him about spiritualism, he joined us at tea. When Jean asked him about the condition of the Indians, he told of the improving conditions. Also he said that the tribes are to be disbanded in March and that the Indians are to be taken into the citizenship of the U.S. He was telling us about the flourishing conditions of one tribe which has divided itself into sections— the Astors and the Vanderbilts, and not long since the Vanderbilts bought up all the horses and carriages to be had on their reservation; there was nothing left but an old hearse, but Chief Astor bought that, put his family in it and drove around the town [MTP TS 98-99]. Note: Gilbert Holland Montague (1880-1961) young attorney, who would become an instructor of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. See Miss Lyon’s Sept. 16 entry and letters from Montague.
Hawkins paraphrases and cites Isabel Lyon’s journal #2: “About the time the Soliloquy was published, Twain concocted a Tom Sawyerish scheme to make the Congo a religious issue in the United States. He ordered copies sent to one hundred prominent Protestant clergymen and offered to pay the costs himself. His note [to Barbour] specified, ‘Let all the copies go as if they did not come from me’” [160].
Hawkins also writes of a fragment [DV 370-370A] in which Sam planned to send the pamphlet to “every Catholic priest in the country [p.6]….Therefore: make this a religious issue between our 68,000,000 Protestants & our 12,000,000 Roman Catholics, & carry it to the polls….The Catholics can be depended on to cast a solid vote for Leopold [Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore had defended Leopold], slavery, robbery, mutilation, starvation, murder & American dishonor, & the Protestants can be depended upon to line up & snow the whole thing under & out of sight (p. 4)” [160].
Insert: Masonic Hall and Touraine Hotel, Boston, Mass. 1904
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