December 7 Friday – Sam was in Washington, D.C., and spoke before the Joint Congressional Committee on Patents in favor of stronger copyright legislation. It was a cause Twain was long chasing. Shelden writes perhaps the most dramatic and telling account of his appearance in his white suit:
On a blustery Friday afternoon in December 1906, Mark Twain arrived for a special appearance at the Library of Congress, trailing smoke from his usual brand of cheap cigar. The temperature hovered at freezing and the skies were gloomy, but he was dressed warmly in a long dark overcoat and a derby from which thick curls of white hair protruded on either side. At the main doors, facing the Capitol, he entered the Great Hall of the Library and made his way down a long marble corridor to the Senate Reading Room, where a hearing was in progress on copyright legislation. The Librarian of Congress—a dapper middle-aged man named Herbert Putnam—was expecting him and emerged from the hearing to escort Twain inside.
All heads turned as the famous guest strode to the front of the chamber, which was full of lobbyists, lawyers, authors, and publishers. Normally used as a private study for senators, the high-ceilinged room had the look and feel of an elegant club…. At a long conference table facing the gathering were the dozen or so members of the Joint Congressional Committee on Patents, chaired by a jowly Republican lawyer from South Dakota, Senator Alfred Beard Kittredge.
…Twain reached his seat and paused to remove his overcoat. By this simple gesture he caused —as one observer later put it—“a perceptible stir.” That was an understatement. Against the fading light of the afternoon Twain emerged as a figure clothed all in white. His outfit perfectly matched his hair, from his white collar and cravat—held in place by a “creamy moonstone”—to his white shoes. Among so many soberly dressed fellows in black and gray, he stood out as a gleaming apparition, impossible to ignore [MTMW xvii-xviii]
Insert: New York World, Dec. 8, 1906, p.1.
William Dean Howells was in the audience. Shelden writes he was “so taken aback by this unconventional outfit that the first words from his mouth were ‘What in the world did he wear that white suit for?’” [ibid.]. Note: wearing white in the dead of winter was considered a shocking breach of etiquette, something Sam often relished doing. However, Twain received extensive press coverage for he flamboyant flaunting of such social norms. A composite of Sam’s speech based on several sources may be found in Fatout, MT Speaking p.533-39.
Later, at the New Willard Hotel., Sam wrote to daughter Jean in Katonah, N.Y., giving his arrival and explaining the nature of his trip.
Jean dear, I came down yesterday, to attend the hearings before the copyright committee to-day & to-morrow. I was asked to speak, this afternoon, & did it. I enclose my notes for the speech, so that you can see it was a bright one & a good one.
I shall stay here several days & work for the bill, in your interest & Clara’s. The Speaker of the House has given me his private room in the Capitol, & a Colored messenger to invite members for me, & I shall talk to every member. It is a large job, & will take some days, but I shall enjoy it. To-day there were a hundred people present, including a couple of dozen ladies, & I was the only man there in snow-white clothes. The others all wore black, & looked gloomy & funereal. But I had a mighty good time talking copyright to them, & Howells laughed the buttons off his clothes. /Lots of love & hugs, / Father [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Joseph Gurney Cannon, Speaker of the House of Representatives, who had allowed Sam to use his special office.
Dear Uncle Joseph—Please get me the thanks of Congress—not next week, but right away! It is very necessary. Do accomplish this for your affectionate old friend—and right away! by persuasion if you can, by violence if you must. For it is imperatively necessary that I get on the floor for 2 or 3 hours and talk to the members, man by man, in behalf of the support, encouragement and protection of one of the nation’s most valuable assets and industries—its literature. I have arguments with me—also a barrel. With liquid in it.
Get me a chance! Get me the thanks of Congress. Don’t wait for the others—there isn’t time— furnish them to me yourself, and let Congress ratify later. I have stayed away and let Congress alone for seventy-one years, and am entitled to the thanks. Congress knows this perfectly well; and I have long felt hurt that this quite proper and earned expression of gratitude has been merely felt by the House and never publicly uttered. Send me an order on the Sergeant-at- Arms. Quick! When shall I come? With love and a benediction, / Mark Twain [Paine’s 1917 Mark Twain’s Letters 801-2]. Note: the letter ran in the N.Y. Times, p.1, Dec. 9, 1906.
Sam then wrote to Kate D. Wiggin (Riggs):
Dear Mrs. Riggs: / I have telegraphed you & provoked you to say dam—& I am as sorry as I can be; sorry I can’t be there Sunday; & not perfunctorily so, but most sincerely so, for I was going to see you, & have a good time; & moreover I am very sorry to break into your plans. But needs must when duty drives. It is may be that this improved copyright bill can be pushed to success; if so, there is only one way, not two: every member of Congress must be reasoned with individually. I am the only person that is willing to undertake this formidable enterprise, & perhaps the only one who has the gifts to do it ’ansomely. And so, I shall stay here & attend to it. The Speaker gives me his private room in the Capitol, & a servant to send for members, & I shall talk to all the members in urgent favor of the proposed copyright-limit of “the author’s lifetime & 50 years after.”
Sunday afternoon I shall talk to the President, & try to get him to send in a special message. Forgive me—but don’t forget me [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s journal (in Hartford): “Today came word that the King went to Washington on the copyright issue, & AB went with him” [MTP TS 149].
Daniel Carter Beard wrote from Flushing, NY to annonce he was “the happy daddy of a bouncing baby boy” [MTP].
B.B. Fouts, “collector of relics,” wrote from Seabrook, Tex. to Sam. Fouts had a cane supposedly made from the Florida, Mo. house that Sam once lived in. Fouts described the cane and wanted to know if it was authentic [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “Never seen the house since he was 2½ years old—wasn’t interested in it then & still less now.”
Elsie Clews Parsons (Mrs. Herbert Parsons) wrote from 1229 Nineteenth St. NYC to introduce herself and invite Sam to lunch on Sunday at 1:30 p.m. [MTP].
Frederic Whyte wrote to Sam and enclosed an excerpt—Alfred Russel Wallace’s (1823- 1913) advocacy of phrenology—from Wallace’s book The Wonderful Century; Its Successes and Its Failures. (1898). Whyte asked for Sam’s response, which he published (without Sam’s permission) in the London Daily Graphic [MTP; Gribben 734]. Note: Sam supposed his reply was a “private answer” and would not be used in “a public way.” See Jan. 29, 1907 complaint of the publication.
The New York Times, ran “Mark Twain in White Amuses Congressmen”:
WASHINGTON, Dec. 7.—Mark Twain spent a busy afternoon at the Capitol today, and for half an hour entertained the newspaper correspondents with a characteristic talk. Despite the blustering wind which swept down Pennsylvania Avenue, the author wore a suit of white flannels. In the members’ gallery, which he first visited to watch the proceedings of the House, he attracted general attention.
Later Mr. Clemens visited the Speaker’s room, and while awaiting the arrival of “Uncle Joe,” entertained a dozen Congressmen, including Grosvenor, Payne, Daizell, and Foster, who hastened to pay him their respects. With the Speaker Mr. Clemens discussed briefly the pending Copyright bill. With William Dean Howells and a party of other authors and publishers, Mr. Clemens came here to be present at the hearings on this bill, which are now being conducted in the Senate reading room at the Congressional Library by the Committee on Patents of the Senate and the House.
With Mr. Howells, Edward Everett Hale, Thomas Nelson Page, and a number of other authors, he appeared before the committee this afternoon. The new Copyright bill extends the authors’ copyright after the term of his life and for fifty years thereafter. It is also for the benefit of artists, musicians, and others, but the authors did most of the talking. F. D. Millet made a speech for the artists, and John Philip Sousa for the musicians.
Committee Enjoys Twain’s Speech.
Mr. Clemens was the last speaker of the day, and its chief feature. He made a speech the serious parts of which created a strong impression, and the humorous parts set the Senators and Representatives in roars of laughter.
Chapters from “My Autobiography—VII” ran in the N.A.R. p.1089-95.