May 14 Thursday – Sam left 21 Fifth Ave. at 10 a.m., sat on the platform for the City College Ceremonies for three and a half hours, then returned home at 3 p.m. and an hour later took a walk: “At 4 I walked out to 57th street & made a call, then came back in the ’bus—for it was raining” [May 15 to Jean]. In the evening he gave a speech for the banquet of the Alumni of the City College, below:
Sam was included as a speaker at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel for the Jubilee celebration of the College of the City of New York. He arrived at 9:30 p.m. The New York Times, p. 5 covered the event:
JUBILEE DEDICATION FOR CITY COLLEGE
Eighty Seats of Learning Represented at the Ceremonies on St. Nicholas Heights.
——— ——— ——— ———
BRYCE AND TWAIN THERE
Mrs. Cleveland Touches Electric Button That Rings the Tower Bell Signalizing the Dedication.
The College of the City of New York which cost $6,500,000 and in its completed state is said to be second to none in the United States, was dedicated yesterday to the cause of higher education, free to all, under the most auspicious conditions.
The day was an ideal one for the ceremonies, at which no less than eighty colleges of this and other lands were represented in the throng that was gathered for the dedicatory exercises.
Aside from the actual dedication there were two notable features. One was the ovation with which Mark Twain was received. The other was the raising of the Stars and Stripes to the lofty flagstaff on the plaza, while the assembled company sang “America” and the silken folds of the emblem snapped in the breeze.
The exercises began at 9:15 o’clock with a reception for the speakers and distinguished guests in Townsend Harris Hall, where the academic procession was formed. It was a few minutes after 10 o’clock, while the Seventh Regiment Band played an overture, that the line, with Major Charles E. Lydecker, Marshal in Chief, at its head, moved from the north door of Harris Hall toward the plaza, where the presentation and raising of the flags of the city and of the Nation took place.
President McGowan of the Board of Alderman, introduced by Dr. Finley, President of the college, presented the city flag.
“We of New York owe allegiance to three flags,” said Mr. Gowan. “First is our allegiance to the National flag, with beautiful and inspiring Stars and Stripes; second, to the flag of this Commonwealth, the emblem of the great Empire State, and the greatest and most powerful in the Union; third, the flag of this city.”
Flag Flung to the Breeze.
The emblem was received by a delegation of students, who hurried with it to the tower of the auditorium, from which it was soon flung to the breeze.
Edward Lauterback, on behalf of the Associate Alumni of the college, presented the National emblem. The flag-raising which followed the address and formal presentation, was inspiring. With thousands grouped about the flagstaff “Old Glory” was run up and in a moment it was caught in the breeze.
As the band struck up the “Star Spangled Banner” every hat was doffed and cheer after cheer rang out to be echoes and re-echoed among the turreted towers of the surrounding buildings. Mark Twain reached the grounds just before the flag-raising, and instantly recognized he was welcomed with cheers as he walked with buoyant step from the Amsterdam Avenue gate to the plaza. He wore the gown of a Doctor of Laws of Oxford, and the red and pale blue of his flowing robe and his shock of white hair would have made him a conspicuous figure in any assemblage. He joined a group of the guests and speakers consisting of Ambassador Bryce, President Eliot of Harvard University, Joseph H. Choate, Mayor McClellan, and Edward M. Shepard, President of the college trustees, all greeting him cordially.
The movement of the guests and speakers to the main hall, where the dedication exercises proper took place, proved a triumphal procession for Mark Twain. He walked with St. Clair McKelway, but all efforts to carry on a conversation with the editor were futile. Cheer after cheer rang out for the distinguished author. He smiled, waved his hand and doffed his cap to the enthusiastic throng. The undergraduates were unsparing in their welcome of the famous man of letters.
“What do you think of it?” he was asked.
“I am not a bit embarrassed,” he replied.
Another reporter asked him if he didn’t wish all the shouting boys could vote.
“That I don’t,” he said, laughing. “I am afraid they might elect me Sheriff, or to some other high office which I am not qualified to fill.”
It was the City College’s day, and Mark Twain’s.
In the great hall those taking part in the programme were seated in the front row on the platform. Among them was Mrs. Grover Cleveland, who had a simple but interesting duty to perform in connection with the dedication. She sat between Mr. Shepard and President Finley, and was quickly recognized. She was quietly dressed in black, with just a dash of color in the form of purple trimming and a bit of lace at the throat. Her hat was trimmed with flowers and a white wing.
The exercises began with an invocation offered by Mgr. Lavelle, followed by the formal presentation of the buildings to the Mayor of the city by Mr.. Shepard. Turning to Mayor McClellan, Mr. Shepard said:
“It is the plain duty of the Trustees at this dedication to express their special sense of the obligation which the college and city owe the genius and labors of George B. Post, the architect, and of those who have labored with him here.
“We offer, Mr. Mayor, this great hall and these buildings upon St. Nicholas Heights as the result of our stewardship over the moneys and other power which the city has put into our hands. Whatever may be amiss in what we have done we are confident that here is fit provision for the present work of the President, Faculty, and instructors, who must, in truth, be the rulers of the college, and for it earn its lesser or its greater glory.
“No doubt there must in time come still larger provision, but what has thus far been done makes easy on these very heights that increase in college work which will inevitably come with the Greater and still Greater New York. through the work of President Finley and his associates and successors may God bring the full measure of a great blessing to the City of New York, to those who dwell within its borders, and to those who are within the ever larger and larger, and, we pay, the nobler and still nobler, scope of its influence.”
[passage cut here]
Every one settled back for a good laugh when President Finley called on Mark Twain to speak for Oxford, introducing him as the foremost figure in American letters. When he could make himself heard, the author said, in all seriousness:
“How difficult, indeed, is the higher education. Mr. Choate evidently needs a little of it. He is not only lacking as a statistician of New York, but he is off, way off, in his mathematics. ‘Four thousand citizens of New York,” indeed!
“But I don’t think it was wise or judicious on the part of Mr. Choate to show the kind of higher education he has obtained. He has said that seventy years ago he was in the lap of that great educator Horace Mann. I was there at the time—and see the result, the lamentable result. May be, if he had had a sandwich here to sustain him, the result would not have been so serious.
Gov. Hughes was to have spoken, but telegraphed that he was kept away by pressing official duties. He sent his congratulations.
———
400 ALUMNI AT THE WALDORF. [This at 9 p.m.]
———
They Sing Old Songs and Listen to the Wisdom of Mark Twain.
The “old boys” of the College of the City of New York—400 strong—representing the Associate Alumni of the institution, lustily last night drank to the long life and prosperity of their alma mater at a dinner in the Waldorf-Astoria. It was the closing feature of the day of celebration in connection with the dedication of the new buildings on St. Nicholas Heights. The alumni sang the song with a zest which revived memories of the old days, when they were enrolled as students in the buildings now vacated for the larger and more magnificent quarters which the city has built.
And when the echoes had died away, the alumni and members of the college Faculty, together with the Presidents of several other colleges in this and other States, listened to the words of wisdom and wit by Mark Twain and others.
One suggestion made by Mark Twain may take root and grow, the college men say, although, when offered last night, it was partially cloaked in jest. The suggestion was that a chair of citizenship be established at City College, and the idea met with applause. Mark Twain, who was late in arriving at the dinner, was lustily cheered. Some one facetiously shouted, “Who is Mark Twain?”
Instantly came the reply from many throats:
“First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”
Before the author was called upon to speak, the other speakers had been frequently interrupted by cries of “Louder!” And on this Mark Twain commented:
“If you have a voice loud enough to state what you have to state you don’t have to have anything in what you say anyhow.” And then he told of the Mayor’s suggestion made in his speech at the dedication exercises in the afternoon, that citizenship should be placed above everything, even learning.
Mark Twain’s Suggestion.
“I thought when the Mayor said that there was not a man within hearing who did not agree with that sentiment,” added Mr. Clemens. “And then I thought—is there in any college of the land a chair of citizenship where good citizenship and all that it implies is taught? there is not one— that is, not one where sane citizenship is taught. There are some which teach insane citizenship, bastard citizenship, but that is all. Patriotism! Yes, but patriotism is usually the refuge of the scoundrel. He is the man who talks the loudest.
“You can begin that chair of citizenship in the College of the City of New York. You can place it above mathematics and literature, and that is where it belongs.
“Some years ago on the gold coins we used to trust in God. We didn’t put it on the coppers and the nickels because we were not sure. If you teach citizenship you will teach that veracity is one of the first principles of good citizenship. I think that the Congress of the United States should take it upon itself to state just what we do believe in.
“That statement on the gold coins, ‘In God We Trust,’ was an overstatement. There is not a nation in the world which ever put its faith in God. In the unimportant cases of life, perhaps, we do trust in God—that is, if we rule out the gamblers and burglars, and plumbers, for of course they do not believe in God.
“If cholera ever reached these shores the bulk of the Nation would pray to be delivered from the plague, but the rest of the population would put their trust in the Boards of Health. If I remember rightly, the President required or ordered the removal of that sentence from the coins. Well, I didn’t see that the statement out to remain there. It wasn’t true.
“The author then told of the forty-two children in the Holy Land who were devoured by two bears, and suggested that if they put their trust in God, as they had been advised to do by the prophet, they were sadly disappointed.
He Respects the Prophets.
“But I have a great respect for the baldheaded prophets,” he resumed. “I expect to be one myself sometime. I don’t know Mr. Bryan, but he’s got that sort of a head. If congress puts that motto back on the coins I hope they will modify it. There are limitations. If there is not room on the coins for the limitations let them enlarge the coins.
“Now I want to tell a story about jumping at conclusions. It was told to me by Bram Stoker, and it concerns a christening. There was a little clergyman who was prone to jump at conclusions sometimes. One day he was invited to officiate at a christening. He went there sat the relatives—intelligent-looking relatives they were. The little clergyman’s instinct came to him to make a great speech. He was given to flights of oratory that way—a very dangerous thing, for often the wings which take one into the clouds of oratorical enthusiasm are wax and melt up there, and down you come.
“But the little clergyman couldn’t resist. He took the child in his arms and, holding it, looked at it a moment. It wasn’t much of a child. It was little, like a sweet potato. Then the little clergyman waited impressively, and then: ‘I see in your countenances, he said, ‘disappointment of him. I see you are disappointed with this baby. Why? Because he is so little. My friends, if you had but the power of looking into the future you might see that great things may come of little things.
His Name Was Mary Ann.
“ ‘There is the great ocean, holding the navies of the world, which came from little drops of water no larger than a woman’s tears. There is the great constellations in the sky, made up of little bits of stars. Oh, if you could consider his future you might see that he might become the greatest poet of the universe, the greatest warrior the world has ever known, greater than Caesar, than Hannibal, than er —er (turning to the father,) what’s his name?’
“The father hesitated then whispered back, ‘His name? Well, his name is Mary Ann.’ ”
It was nearly midnight when Mr. Clemens finished speaking. With a long cigar in his mouth he hastened from the dining hall, pausing at the door to say:
“I have an important engagement at a quarter of eleven.”
It was then 11:45
Isabel Lyon’s journal: “The King, Paine and I went up to the New City College to see the gift of them to the city” [MTP: IVL TS 53].
Albert Bigelow Paine wrote for Sam to Charles Gladstone Bird in Oakland, Calif., asking for a negative of Bird’s picture of the cabin at Jackass Hill, which Paine wanted for publication in the only authorized biography of Mark Twain. Paine mentioned that he had been to the very spot though there “was no trace of the old cabin” remained [MTP].
Caroline Coddington of Brooklyn wrote another bunch of drivel to Sam, enclosing some wood chips and a wooden ring, and some doodles with abstruse captions. All pretty non compis mentis were these crank letters of hers [MTP].
Mrs. Beaumont Packard for the Golden Gate Professional Club, NYC wrote to invite Sam to be their guest of honor at a reception, May 24 at the Plaza Hotel, and “make a few remarks on California and what it stands for in the world…. The objects of this Club are many principally however to benefit young aspirants, especially young women, coming here from California to seek their fortunes by studying the arts” [MTP]. Note: IVL: “Answrd May 15, ’08 / Regret very much”
Dorothy Quick wrote to Sam.
My Dear Mr Clemens / I got your letter & will be so glad to come Saturday I may come in with grandma on an early train which will bring me to your house at 11 but if I come in with mother it will be half-past I am writing this letter in a great hurry so you must excuse it this is going to be a very short letter as I want it to catch the first mail
With lots & lots of love I am your loving / Dorothy [MTAq 157].