January 27 Wednesday – Sam’s “Message to the ‘Third House,’ Delivered in Carson City, 27 January” ran on or about this date in the Enterprise. The paper is lost but the piece was reprinted on Jan. 29 and 30 in two other Virginia City newspapers [Camfield bibliog.]. Sam wrote in HOUSE – SEVENTEENTH DAY, Jan. 28 of the speech:
I delivered that message last night [Jan. 27], but I didn’t talk loud enough—people in the far end of the hall could not hear me. They said “Louder—louder,” occasionally, but I thought that was a way they had—a joke, as it were. I had never talked to a crowd before, and knew none of the tactics of the public speaker…Some folks heard the entire document, though—there is some comfort in that. Hon. Mr. Clagett, Speaker Simmons of the inferior House, Hon. Hal Clayton, Speaker of the Third House, Judge Haydon, Dr. Alban, and others whose opinions are entitled to weight, said they would travel several miles to hear that message again…One of these days, when I get time, I will correct, amend and publish the message, in accordance with a resolution of the Third House ordering 300,000 copies in the various languages spoken at the present day.
P.S.—Sandy Baldwin and Theodore Winters heard that message, anyhow, and by thunder they appreciated it, too. They have spent a hundred dollars apiece to San Francisco this morning, to purchase a watch chain for His Excellency Governor Twain. I guess that is a pretty good result for an incipient oratorical slouch like me, isn’t it? I don’t know that anybody tendered the other Governor a testimonial of any kind. MARK TWAIN [Smith 146-7].