May 4 Thursday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Sam cabled Chatto & Windus:

PLEASE FIND MADAME BLANCHE MARCHESI THROUGH HER CONCERT AGENT ASK HERE WHERE SHE WILL SPEND THE SUMMER AND WILL SHE TEACH MY DAUGHTER TELEGRAPH ANSWER AND KEEP THIS PRIVATE = CLEMENS [MTP]. Note: see May 10.

Sam also replied to John M. Hay, at this time US Secretary of State. (Hay’s incoming not extant.)

Dear Excellenz: / This is only a line to thank you. It was fine of you to do that for me when your hands were so full. In fact I did not foresee how particularly full—by help of Samoa & Coughlan & so-on—they were going to be, or I should have waited a little.

I am going to let the P.O. Department rest & strengthen-up till I come in the fall; & meantime I will arrange to make myself the pet of the War Department. I am perfecting a scheme whereby I can cheaply & thoroughly exhaust the life-principle of the atmosphere & instantly kill the massed armies of the world & every living thing, within a radius of three hundred thousand miles around them. In fact I am already able to do this…but must postpone it & think further, for I do not know what to do with my family [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote Hay on Mar. 11 asking if he might get assurance of royalties from the Post Office for a scheme (to be later divulged) for it to issue postal cheques. See entry.

Sam also wrote to Joe Twichell

I have at last finished the Christian Science article & it has gone to be type-written. Somehow I continue to feel sure of that cult’s colossal future. You must remember that the human race is made up almost exclusively of people wholly destitute of anything really resembling a thinking-equipment, & that of the scattering few who have it hardly two in a million ever use it. This is not an extravagance of speech, but a cold calm fact. The Science has pirated the one feature which has kept Romanism alive & strong all the centuries—the money-lust & money-grubbing—& has added some taking things that will make for perpetuity. Among them a fresh new god to worship [MTP]. Note: Sam added that he thought Christian Science “stock” was the “Standard Oil of the future.” He enclosed a “scrap which Livy” made him “snip out of a letter to John Hay” [enclosure not yet found].