At least I have read such
portions
as I could
understand.
understand.
Twain - Speeches
I've been studying
a biographical sketch of Robert Fulton, the inventor of--er--a--let's
see--ah yes, the inventor of the electric telegraph and the Morse
sewing--machine. Also, I understand he invented the air--diria--pshaw! I
have it at last--the dirigible balloon. Yes, the dirigible--but it is a
difficult word, and I don't see why anybody should marry a couple of
words like that when they don't want to be married at all and are likely
to quarrel with each other all the time. I should put that couple
of words under the ban of the United States Supreme Court, under its
decision of a few days ago, and take 'em out and drown 'em.
I used to know Fulton. It used to do me good to see him dashing through
the town on a wild broncho.
And Fulton was born in---er--a--Well, it doesn't make much difference where
he was born, does it? I remember a man who came to interview me once,
to get a sketch of my life. I consulted with a friend--a practical
man--before he came, to know how I should treat him.
"Whenever you give the interviewer a fact," he said, "give him another
fact that will contradict it. Then he'll go away with a jumble that
he can't use at all. Be gentle, be sweet, smile like an idiot--just be
natural. " That's what my friend told me to do, and I did it.
"Where were you born? " asked the interviewer.
"Well-er-a," I began, "I was born in Alabama, or Alaska, or the Sandwich
Islands; I don't know where, but right around there somewhere. And you
had better put it down before you forget it. "
"But you weren't born in all those places," he said.
"Well, I've offered you three places. Take your choice. They're all at
the same price. "
"How old are you? " he asked.
"I shall be nineteen in June," I said.
"Why, there's such a discrepancy between your age and your looks," he
said.
"Oh, that's nothing," I said, "I was born discrepantly. "
Then we got to talking about my brother Samuel, and he told me my
explanations were confusing.
"I suppose he is dead," I said. "Some said that he was dead and some
said that he wasn't. "
"Did you bury him without knowing whether he was dead or not? " asked the
reporter.
"There was a mystery," said I. "We were twins, and one day when we were
two weeks old--that is, he was one week old, and I was one week old--we
got mixed up in the bath-tub, and one of us drowned. We never could tell
which. One of us had a strawberry birthmark on the back of his hand.
There it is on my hand. This is the one that was drowned. There's no
doubt about it.
"Where's the mystery? " he said.
"Why, don't you see how stupid it was to bury the wrong twin? " I
answered. I didn't explain it any more because he said the explanation
confused him. To me it is perfectly plain.
But, to get back to Fulton. I'm going along like an old man I used to
know who used to start to tell a story about his grandfather. He had an
awfully retentive memory, and he never finished the story, because
he switched off into something else. He used to tell about how his
grandfather one day went into a pasture, where there was a ram. The old
man dropped a silver dime in the grass, and stooped over to pick it
up. The ram was observing him, and took the old man's action as an
invitation.
Just as he was going to finish about the ram this friend of mine would
recall that his grandfather had a niece who had a glass eye. She used
to loan that glass eye to another lady friend, who used it when she
received company. The eye didn't fit the friend's face, and it was
loose. And whenever she winked it would turn over.
Then he got on the subject of accidents, and he would tell a story about
how he believed accidents never happened.
"There was an Irishman coming down a ladder with a hod of bricks," he
said, "and a Dutchman was standing on the ground below. The Irishman
fell on the Dutchman and killed him. Accident? Never! If the Dutchman
hadn't been there the Irishman would have been killed. Why didn't the
Irishman fall on a dog which was next to the Dutchman? Because the dog
would have seen him coming. "
Then he'd get off from the Dutchman to an uncle named Reginald Wilson.
Reginald went into a carpet factory one day, and got twisted into the
machinery's belt. He went excursioning around the factory until he was
properly distributed and was woven into sixty-nine yards of the best
three-ply carpet. His wife bought the carpet, and then she erected a
monument to his memory. It read:
Sacred to the memory
of
sixty-nine yards of the best three-ply carpet
containing the mortal remainders of
REGINALD WILSON
Go thou and do likewise
And so on he would ramble about telling the story of his grandfather
until we never were told whether he found the ten-cent piece or whether
something else happened.
FULTON DAY, JAMESTOWN
ADDRESS DELIVERED SEPTEMBER 23, 1907
Lieutenant-Governor Ellyson, of Virginia, in introducing Mr.
Clemens, said:
"The people have come here to bring a tribute of affectionate
recollection for the man who has contributed so much to the
progress of the world and the happiness of mankind. " As Mr.
Clemens came down to the platform the applause became louder
and louder, until Mr. Clemens held out his hand for silence.
It was a great triumph, and it was almost a minute after the
applause ceased before Mr. Clemens could speak. He attempted
it once, and when the audience noticed his emotion, it cheered
again loudly.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,--I am but human, and when you, give me a reception
like that I am obliged to wait a little while I get my voice. When you
appeal to my head, I don't feel it; but when you appeal to my heart, I
do feel it.
We are here to celebrate one of the greatest events of American history,
and not only in American history, but in the world's history.
Indeed it was--the application of steam by Robert Fulton.
It was a world event--there are not many of them. It is peculiarly
an American event, that is true, but the influence was very broad in
effect. We should regard this day as a very great American holiday. We
have not many that are exclusively American holidays. We have the Fourth
of July, which we regard as an American holiday, but it is nothing of
the kind. I am waiting for a dissenting voice. All great efforts that
led up to the Fourth of July were made, not by Americans, but by English
residents of America, subjects of the King of England.
They fought all the fighting that was done, they shed and spilt all the
blood that was spilt, in securing to us the invaluable liberties which
are incorporated in the Declaration of Independence; but they were not
Americans. They signed the Declaration of Independence; no American's
name is signed to that document at all. There never was an American such
as you and I are until after the Revolution, when it had all been fought
out and liberty secured, after the adoption of the Constitution, and the
recognition of the Independence of America by all powers.
While we revere the Fourth of July--and let us always revere it, and the
liberties it conferred upon us--yet it was not an American event, a great
American day.
It was an American who applied that steam successfully. There are not
a great many world events, and we have our full share. The telegraph,
telephone, and the application of steam to navigation--these are great
American events.
To-day I have been requested, or I have requested myself, not to confine
myself to furnishing you with information, but to remind you of things,
and to introduce one of the nation's celebrants.
Admiral Harrington here is going to tell you all that I have left
untold. I am going to tell you all that I know, and then he will follow
up with such rags and remnants as he can find, and tell you what he
knows.
No doubt you have heard a great deal about Robert Fulton and the
influences that have grown from his invention, but the little steamboat
is suffering neglect.
You probably do not know a great deal about that boat. It was the
most important steamboat in the world. I was there and saw it. Admiral
Harrington was there at the time. It need not surprise you, for he is
not as old as he looks. That little boat was interesting in every way.
The size of it. The boat was one [consults Admiral], he said ten feet
long. The breadth of that boat [consults Admiral], two hundred feet.
You see, the first and most important detail is the length, then the
breadth, and then the depth; the depth of that boat was [consults
again]--the Admiral says it was a flat boat. Then her tonnage--you know
nothing about a boat until you know two more things: her speed and her
tonnage. We know the speed she made. She made four miles---and sometimes
five miles. It was on her initial trip, on, August 11, 1807, that she
made her initial trip, when she went from [consults Admiral] Jersey
City--to Chicago. That's right. She went by way of Albany. Now comes
the tonnage of that boat. Tonnage of a boat means the amount of
displacement; displacement means the amount of water a vessel can shove
in a day. The tonnage of man is estimated by the amount of whiskey he
can displace in a day.
Robert Fulton named the 'Clermont' in honor of his bride, that is,
Clermont was the name of the county-seat.
I feel that it surprises you that I know so much. In my remarks of
welcome of Admiral Harrington I am not going to give him compliments.
Compliments always embarrass a man. You do not know anything to say. It
does not inspire you with words. There is nothing you can say in answer
to a compliment. I have been complimented myself a great many times, and
they always embarrass me--I always feel that they have not said enough.
The Admiral and myself have held public office, and were associated
together a great deal in a friendly way in the time of Pocahontas.
That incident where Pocahontas saves the life of Smith from her father,
Powhatan's club, was gotten up by the Admiral and myself to advertise
Jamestown.
At that time the Admiral and myself did not have the facilities of
advertising that you have.
I have known Admiral Harrington in all kinds of situations--in public
service, on the platform, and in the chain-gang now and then--but it was
a mistake. A case of mistaken identity. I do not think it is at all a
necessity to tell you Admiral Harrington's public history. You know that
it is in the histories. I am not here to tell you anything about his
public life, but to expose his private life.
I am something of a poet. When the great poet laureate, Tennyson, died,
and I found that the place was open, I tried to get it--but I did not
get it. Anybody can write the first line of a poem, but it is a very
difficult task to make the second line rhyme with the first. When I was
down in Australia there were two towns named Johnswood and Par-am. I
made this rhyme:
"The people of Johnswood are pious and good;
The people of Par-am they don't care a----. "
I do not want to compliment Admiral Harrington, but as long as such men
as he devote their lives to the public service the credit of the country
will never cease. I will say that the same high qualities, the same
moral and intellectual attainments, the same graciousness of manner, of
conduct, of observation, and expression have caused Admiral Harrington
to be mistaken for me--and I have been mistaken for him.
A mutual compliment can go no further, and I now have the honor and
privilege of introducing to you Admiral Harrington.
LOTOS CLUB DINNER IN HONOR OF MARK TWAIN
ADDRESS AT THE FIRST FORMAL DINNER IN THE NEW CLUB-HOUSE,
NOVEMBER 11, 1893
In introducing the guest of the evening, Mr. Lawrence said:
"To-night the old faces appear once more amid new surroundings.
The place where last we met about the table has vanished, and
to-night we have our first Lotos dinner in a home that is all
our own. It is peculiarly fitting that the board should now be
spread in honor of one who has been a member of the club for
full a score of years, and it is a happy augury for the future
that our fellow-member whom we assemble to greet should be the
bearer of a most distinguished name in the world of letters;
for the Lotos Club is ever at its best when paying homage to
genius in literature or in art. Is there a civilized being who
has not heard the name of Mark Twain? We knew him long years
ago, before he came out of the boundless West, brimful of wit
and eloquence, with no reverence for anything, and went abroad
to educate the untutored European in the subtleties of the
American joke. The world has looked on and applauded while he
has broken many images. He has led us in imagination all over
the globe. With him as our guide we have traversed alike the
Mississippi and the Sea of Galilee. At his bidding we have
laughed at a thousand absurdities. By a laborious process of
reasoning he has convinced us that the Egyptian mummies are
actually dead. He has held us spellbound upon the plain at the
foot of the great Sphinx, and we have joined him in weeping
bitter tears at the tomb of Adam. To-night we greet him in the
flesh. What name is there in literature that can be likened to
his? Perhaps some of the distinguished gentlemen about this
table can tell us, but I know of none. Himself his only
parallel! "
MR. PRESIDENT, GENTLEMEN, AND FELLOW-MEMBERS OF THE LOTOS CLUB,--I have
seldom in my lifetime listened to compliments so felicitously phrased
or so well deserved. I return thanks for them from a full heart and an
appreciative spirit, and I will say this in self-defence: While I am
charged with having no reverence for anything, I wish to say that I have
reverence for the man who can utter such truths, and I also have a deep
reverence and a sincere one for a club that can do such justice to me.
To be the chief guest of such a club is something to be envied, and if
I read your countenances rightly I am envied. I am glad to see this club
in such palatial quarters. I remember it twenty years ago when it was
housed in a stable.
Now when I was studying for the ministry there were two or three things
that struck my attention particularly. At the first banquet mentioned
in history that other prodigal son who came back from his travels was
invited to stand up and have his say. They were all there, his brethren,
David and Goliath, and--er, and if he had had such experience as I have
had he would have waited until those other people got through talking.
He got up and testified to all his failings. Now if he had waited before
telling all about his riotous living until the others had spoken he
might not have given himself away as he did, and I think that I would
give myself away if I should go on. I think I'd better wait until the
others hand in their testimony; then if it is necessary for me to make
an explanation, I will get up and explain, and if I cannot do that, I'll
deny it happened.
Later in the evening Mr. Clemens made another speech, replying
to a fire of short speeches by Charles Dudley Warner, Charles
A. Dana, Seth Low, General Porter, and many others, each
welcoming the guest of honor.
I don't see that I have a great deal to explain. I got off very well,
considering the opportunities that these other fellows had. I don't
see that Mr. Low said anything against me, and neither did Mr. Dana.
However, I will say that I never heard so many lies told in one evening
as were told by Mr. McKelway--and I consider myself very capable; but
even in his case, when he got through, I was gratified by finding how
much he hadn't found out. By accident he missed the very things that I
didn't want to have said, and now, gentlemen, about Americanism.
I have been on the continent of Europe for two and a half years. I have
met many Americans there, some sojourning for a short time only, others
making protracted stays, and it has been very gratifying to me to find
that nearly all preserved their Americanism. I have found they all like
to see the Flag fly, and that their hearts rise when they see the Stars
and Stripes. I met only one lady who had forgotten the land of her birth
and glorified monarchical institutions.
I think it is a great thing to say that in two and a half years I met
only one person who had fallen a victim to the shams--I think we may call
them shams--of nobilities and of heredities. She was entirely lost in
them. After I had listened to her for a long time, I said to her:
"At least you must admit that we have one merit. We are not like the
Chinese, who refuse to allow their citizens who are tired of the country
to leave it. Thank God, we don't! "
COPYRIGHT
With Mr. Howells, Edward Everett Hale, Thomas Nelson Page, and
a number of other authors, Mr. Clemens appeared before the
committee December 6, 1906. The new Copyright Bill
contemplated an author's copyright for the term of his life and
for fifty years thereafter, applying 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.
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.
I have read this bill.
At least I have read such portions as I could
understand. Nobody but a practised legislator can read the bill and
thoroughly understand it, and I am not a practised legislator.
I am interested particularly and especially in the part of the bill
which concerns my trade. I like that extension of copyright life to the
author's life and fifty years afterward. I think that would satisfy any
reasonable author, because it would take care of his children. Let
the grandchildren take care of themselves. That would take care of my
daughters, and after that I am not particular. I shall then have long
been out of this struggle, independent of it, indifferent to it.
It isn't objectionable to me that all the trades and professions in
the United States are protected by the bill. I like that. They are
all important and worthy, and if we can take care of them under the
Copyright law I should like to see it done. I should like to see oyster
culture added, and anything else.
I am aware that copyright must have a limit, because that is required
by the Constitution of the United States, which sets aside the earlier
Constitution, which we call the decalogue. The decalogue says you shall
not take away from any man his profit. I don't like to be obliged to
use the harsh term. What the decalogue really says is, "Thou shalt not
steal," but I am trying to use more polite language.
The laws of England and America do take it away, do select but one
class, the people who create the literature of the land. They always
talk handsomely about the literature of the land, always what a fine,
great, monumental thing a great literature is, and in the midst of their
enthusiasm they turn around and do what they can to discourage it.
I know we must have a limit, but forty-two years is too much of a limit.
I am quite unable to guess why there should be a limit at all to the
possession of the product of a man's labor. There is no limit to real
estate.
Doctor Hale has suggested that a man might just as well, after
discovering a coal-mine and working it forty-two years, have the
Government step in and take it away.
What is the excuse? It is that the author who produced that book has
had the profit of it long enough, and therefore the Government takes
a profit which does not belong to it and generously gives it to the
88,000,000 of people. But it doesn't do anything of the kind. It merely
takes the author's property, takes his children's bread, and gives the
publisher double profit. He goes on publishing the book and as many of
his confederates as choose to go into the conspiracy do so, and they
rear families in affluence.
And they continue the enjoyment of those ill-gotten gains generation
after generation forever, for they never die. In a few weeks or months
or years I shall be out of it, I hope under a monument. I hope I shall
not be entirely forgotten, and I shall subscribe to the monument myself.
But I shall not be caring what happens if there are fifty years left of
my copyright. My copyright produces annually a good deal more than I
can use, but my children can use it. I can get along; I know a lot of
trades. But that goes to my daughters, who can't get along as well as I
can because I have carefully raised them as young ladies, who don't know
anything and can't do anything. I hope Congress will extend to them the
charity which they have failed to get from me.
Why, if a man who is not even mad, but only strenuous--strenuous about
race-suicide--should come to me and try to get me to use my large
political and ecclesiastical influence to get a bill passed by this
Congress limiting families to twenty-two children by one mother, I
should try to calm him down. I should reason with him. I should say to
him, "Leave it alone. Leave it alone and it will take care of itself.
Only one couple a year in the United States can reach that limit. If
they have reached that limit let them go right on. Let them have all the
liberty they want. In restricting that family to twenty-two children you
are merely conferring discomfort and unhappiness on one family per year
in a nation of 88,000,000, which is not worth while. "
It is the very same with copyright. One author per year produces a book
which can outlive the forty-two-year limit; that's all. This nation
can't produce two authors a year that can do it; the thing is
demonstrably impossible. All that the limited copyright can do is to
take the bread out of the mouths of the children of that one author per
year.
I made an estimate some years ago, when I appeared before a committee
of the House of Lords, that we had published in this country since the
Declaration of Independence 220,000 books. They have all gone. They had
all perished before they were ten years old. It is only one book in 1000
that can outlive the forty-two year limit. Therefore why put a limit at
all? You might as well limit the family to twenty-two children.
If you recall the Americans in the nineteenth century who wrote books
that lived forty-two years you will have to begin with Cooper; you can
follow with Washington Irving, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edgar Allan Poe,
and there you have to wait a long time. You come to Emerson, and
you have to stand still and look further. You find Howells and T.
B. Aldrich, and then your numbers begin to run pretty thin, and you
question if you can name twenty persons in the United States who--in a
whole century have written books that would live forty-two years. Why,
you could take them all and put them on one bench there [pointing]. Add
the wives and children and you could put the result on, two or three
more benches.
One hundred persons--that is the little, insignificant crowd whose
bread-and-butter is to be taken away for what purpose, for what profit
to anybody? You turn these few books into the hands of the pirate and of
the legitimate publisher, too, and they get the profit that should have
gone to the wife and children.
When I appeared before that committee of the House of Lords the chairman
asked me what limit I would propose. I said, "Perpetuity. " I could see
some resentment in his manner, and he said the idea was illogical, for
the reason that it has long ago been decided that there can be no such
thing as property in ideas. I said there was property in ideas before
Queen Anne's time; they had perpetual copyright. He said, "What is a
book? A book is just built from base to roof on ideas, and there can be
no property in it. "
I said I wished he could mention any kind of property on this planet
that had a pecuniary value which was not derived from an idea or ideas.
He said real estate. I put a supposititious case, a dozen Englishmen who
travel through South Africa and camp out, and eleven of them see nothing
at all; they are mentally blind. But there is one in the party who knows
what this harbor means and what the lay of the land means. To him it
means that some day a railway will go through here, and there on that
harbor a great city will spring up. That is his idea. And he has another
idea, which is to go and trade his last bottle of Scotch whiskey and his
last horse-blanket to the principal chief of that region and buy a piece
of land the size of Pennsylvania.
That was the value of an idea that the day would come when the Cape to
Cairo Railway would be built.
Every improvement that is put upon the real estate is the result of an
idea in somebody's head. The skyscraper is another idea; the railroad
is another; the telephone and all those things are merely symbols which
represent ideas. An andiron, a wash-tub, is the result of an idea that
did not exist before.
So if, as that gentleman said, a book does consist solely of ideas, that
is the best argument in the world that it is property, and should not be
under any limitation at all. We don't ask for that. Fifty years from now
we shall ask for it.
I hope the bill will pass without any deleterious amendments. I do seem
to be extraordinarily interested in a whole lot of arts and things that
I have got nothing to do with. It is a part of my generous, liberal
nature; I can't help it. I feel the same sort of charity to everybody
that was manifested by a gentleman who arrived at home at two o'clock
in the morning from the club and was feeling so perfectly satisfied with
life, so happy, and so comfortable, and there was his house weaving,
weaving, weaving around. He watched his chance, and by and by when the
steps got in his neighborhood he made a jump and climbed up and got on
the portico.
And the house went on weaving and weaving and weaving, but he watched
the door, and when it came around his way he plunged through it. He
got to the stairs, and when he went up on all fours the house was so
unsteady that he could hardly make his way, but at last he got to the
top and raised his foot and put it on the top step. But only the toe
hitched on the step, and he rolled down and fetched up on the bottom
step, with his arm around the newel-post, and he said:
"God pity the poor sailors out at sea on a night like this. "
IN AID OF THE BLIND
ADDRESS AT A PUBLIC MEETING OF THE NEW YORK ASSOCIATION FOR
PROMOTING THE INTERESTS OF THE BLIND AT THE WALDORF ASTORIA,
MARCH 29, 1906
If you detect any awkwardness in my movements and infelicities in my
conduct I will offer the explanation that I never presided at a meeting
of any kind before in my life, and that I do find it out of my line. I
supposed I could do anything anybody else could, but I recognize that
experience helps, and I do feel the lack of that experience. I don't
feel as graceful and easy as I ought to be in order to impress an
audience. I shall not pretend that I know how to umpire a meeting like
this, and I shall just take the humble place of the Essex band.
There was a great gathering in a small New England town, about
twenty-five years ago. I remember that circumstance because there was
something that happened at that time. It was a great occasion. They
gathered in the militia and orators and everybody from all the towns
around. It was an extraordinary occasion.
The little local paper threw itself into ecstasies of admiration and
tried to do itself proud from beginning to end. It praised the orators,
the militia, and all the bands that came from everywhere, and all this
in honest country newspaper detail, but the writer ran out of adjectives
toward the end. Having exhausted his whole magazine of praise and
glorification, he found he still had one band left over. He had to
say something about it, and he said: "The Essex band done the best it
could. "
I am an Essex band on this occasion, and I am going to get through as
well as inexperience and good intentions will enable me. I have got
all the documents here necessary to instruct you in the objects and
intentions of this meeting and also of the association which has
called the meeting. But they are too voluminous. I could not pack those
statistics into my head, and I had to give it up. I shall have to just
reduce all that mass of statistics to a few salient facts. There are
too many statistics and figures for me. I never could do anything
with figures, never had any talent for mathematics, never accomplished
anything in my efforts at that rugged study, and to-day the only
mathematics I know is multiplication, and the minute I get away up in
that, as soon as I reach nine times seven--
[Mr. Clemens lapsed into deep thought for a moment. He was trying to
figure out nine times seven, but it was a hopeless task, and he turned
to St. Clair McKelway, who sat near him. Mr. McKelway whispered the
answer, and the speaker resumed:]
I've got it now. It's eighty-four. Well, I can get that far all right
with a little hesitation. After that I am uncertain, and I can't manage
a statistic.
"This association for the--"
[Mr. Clemens was in another dilemma. Again he was obliged to turn to Mr.
McKelway. ]
Oh yes, for promoting the interests of the blind. It's a long name. If
I could I would write it out for you and let you take it home and
study it, but I don't know how to spell it. And Mr. Carnegie is down in
Virginia somewhere. Well, anyway, the object of that association which
has been recently organized, five months ago, in fact, is in the hands
of very, very energetic, intelligent, and capable people, and they will
push it to success very surely, and all the more surely if you will give
them a little of your assistance out of your pockets.
The intention, the purpose, is to search out all the blind and find work
for them to do so that they may earn, their own bread. Now it is dismal
enough to be blind--it is dreary, dreary life at best, but it can be
largely ameliorated by finding something for these poor blind people to
do with their hands. The time passes so heavily that it is never day
or night with them, it is always night, and when they have to sit with
folded hands and with nothing to do to amuse or entertain or employ
their minds, it is drearier and drearier.
And then the knowledge they have that they must subsist on charity, and
so often reluctant charity, it would renew their lives if they could
have something to do with their hands and pass their time and at the
same time earn their bread, and know the sweetness of the bread which
is the result of the labor of one's own hands. They need that cheer and
pleasure. It is the only way you can turn their night into day, to
give them happy hearts, the only thing you can put in the place of the
blessed sun. That you can do in the way I speak of.
Blind people generally who have seen the light know what it is to
miss the light. Those who have gone blind since they were twenty years
old--their lives are unendingly dreary. But they can be taught to use
their hands and to employ themselves at a great many industries. That
association from which this draws its birth in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
has taught its blind to make many things. They make them better than
most people, and more honest than people who have the use of their eyes.
The goods they make are readily salable. People like them. And so they
are supporting themselves, and it is a matter of cheer, cheer. They pass
their time now not too irksomely as they formerly did.
What this association needs and wants is $15,000. The figures are set
down, and what the money is for, and there is no graft in it or I would
not be here. And they hope to beguile that out of your pockets, and you
will find affixed to the programme an opportunity, that little blank
which you will fill out and promise so much money now or to-morrow or
some time. Then, there is another opportunity which is still better, and
that is that you shall subscribe an annual sum.
I have invented a good many useful things in my time, but never anything
better than that of getting money out of people who don't want to part
with it. It is always for good objects, of course. This is the plan:
When you call upon a person to contribute to a great and good object,
and you think he should furnish about $1,000, he disappoints you as like
as not. Much the best way to work him to supply that thousand dollars is
to split it into parts and contribute, say a hundred dollars a year,
or fifty, or whatever the sum maybe. Let him contribute ten or twenty a
year. He doesn't feel that, but he does feel it when you call upon him
to contribute a large amount. When you get used to it you would rather
contribute than borrow money.
I tried it in Helen Keller's case. Mr. Hutton wrote me in 1896 or 1897
when I was in London and said: "The gentleman who has been so liberal in
taking care of Helen Keller has died without making provision for her
in his will, and now they don't know what to do. " They were proposing
to raise a fund, and he thought $50,000 enough to furnish an income of
$2400 or $2500 a year for the support of that wonderful girl and her
wonderful teacher, Miss Sullivan, now Mrs. Macy. I wrote to Mr. Hutton
and said: "Go on, get up your fund. It will be slow, but if you want
quick work, I propose this system," the system I speak of, of asking
people to contribute such and such a sum from year to year and drop
out whenever they please, and he would find there wouldn't be any
difficulty, people wouldn't feel the burden of it. And he wrote back
saying he had raised the $2400 a year indefinitely by that system in a
single afternoon. We would like to do something just like that to-night.
We will take as many checks as you care to give. You can leave your
donations in the big room outside.
I knew once what it was to be blind. I shall never forget that
experience. I have been as blind as anybody ever was for three or
four hours, and the sufferings that I endured and the mishaps and the
accidents that are burning in my memory make my sympathy rise when I
feel for the blind and always shall feel. I once went to Heidelberg
on an excursion. I took a clergyman along with me, the Rev. Joseph
Twichell, of Hartford, who is still among the living despite that fact.
I always travel with clergymen when I can. It is better for them, it is
better for me. And any preacher who goes out with me in stormy weather
and without a lightning rod is a good one. The Reverend Twichell is one
of those people filled with patience and endurance, two good ingredients
for a man travelling with me, so we got along very well together. In
that old town they have not altered a house nor built one in 1500 years.
We went to the inn and they placed Twichell and me in a most colossal
bedroom, the largest I ever saw or heard of. It was as big as this room.
I didn't take much notice of the place. I didn't really get my bearings.
I noticed Twichell got a German bed about two feet wide, the kind in
which you've got to lie on your edge, because there isn't room to lie on
your back, and he was way down south in that big room, and I was way up
north at the other end of it, with a regular Sahara in between.
We went to bed. Twichell went to sleep, but then he had his conscience
loaded and it was easy for him to get to sleep. I couldn't get to sleep.
It was one of those torturing kinds of lovely summer nights when you
hear various kinds of noises now and then. A mouse away off in the
southwest. You throw things at the mouse. That encourages the mouse. But
I couldn't stand it, and about two o'clock I got up and thought I
would give it up and go out in the square where there was one of those
tinkling fountains, and sit on its brink and dream, full of romance.
I got out of bed, and I ought to have lit a candle, but I didn't think
of it until it was too late. It was the darkest place that ever was.
There has never been darkness any thicker than that. It just lay in
cakes.
I thought that before dressing I would accumulate my clothes. I pawed
around in the dark and found everything packed together on the floor
except one sock. I couldn't get on the track of that sock. It might
have occurred to me that maybe it was in the wash. But I didn't think of
that. I went excursioning on my hands and knees.
a biographical sketch of Robert Fulton, the inventor of--er--a--let's
see--ah yes, the inventor of the electric telegraph and the Morse
sewing--machine. Also, I understand he invented the air--diria--pshaw! I
have it at last--the dirigible balloon. Yes, the dirigible--but it is a
difficult word, and I don't see why anybody should marry a couple of
words like that when they don't want to be married at all and are likely
to quarrel with each other all the time. I should put that couple
of words under the ban of the United States Supreme Court, under its
decision of a few days ago, and take 'em out and drown 'em.
I used to know Fulton. It used to do me good to see him dashing through
the town on a wild broncho.
And Fulton was born in---er--a--Well, it doesn't make much difference where
he was born, does it? I remember a man who came to interview me once,
to get a sketch of my life. I consulted with a friend--a practical
man--before he came, to know how I should treat him.
"Whenever you give the interviewer a fact," he said, "give him another
fact that will contradict it. Then he'll go away with a jumble that
he can't use at all. Be gentle, be sweet, smile like an idiot--just be
natural. " That's what my friend told me to do, and I did it.
"Where were you born? " asked the interviewer.
"Well-er-a," I began, "I was born in Alabama, or Alaska, or the Sandwich
Islands; I don't know where, but right around there somewhere. And you
had better put it down before you forget it. "
"But you weren't born in all those places," he said.
"Well, I've offered you three places. Take your choice. They're all at
the same price. "
"How old are you? " he asked.
"I shall be nineteen in June," I said.
"Why, there's such a discrepancy between your age and your looks," he
said.
"Oh, that's nothing," I said, "I was born discrepantly. "
Then we got to talking about my brother Samuel, and he told me my
explanations were confusing.
"I suppose he is dead," I said. "Some said that he was dead and some
said that he wasn't. "
"Did you bury him without knowing whether he was dead or not? " asked the
reporter.
"There was a mystery," said I. "We were twins, and one day when we were
two weeks old--that is, he was one week old, and I was one week old--we
got mixed up in the bath-tub, and one of us drowned. We never could tell
which. One of us had a strawberry birthmark on the back of his hand.
There it is on my hand. This is the one that was drowned. There's no
doubt about it.
"Where's the mystery? " he said.
"Why, don't you see how stupid it was to bury the wrong twin? " I
answered. I didn't explain it any more because he said the explanation
confused him. To me it is perfectly plain.
But, to get back to Fulton. I'm going along like an old man I used to
know who used to start to tell a story about his grandfather. He had an
awfully retentive memory, and he never finished the story, because
he switched off into something else. He used to tell about how his
grandfather one day went into a pasture, where there was a ram. The old
man dropped a silver dime in the grass, and stooped over to pick it
up. The ram was observing him, and took the old man's action as an
invitation.
Just as he was going to finish about the ram this friend of mine would
recall that his grandfather had a niece who had a glass eye. She used
to loan that glass eye to another lady friend, who used it when she
received company. The eye didn't fit the friend's face, and it was
loose. And whenever she winked it would turn over.
Then he got on the subject of accidents, and he would tell a story about
how he believed accidents never happened.
"There was an Irishman coming down a ladder with a hod of bricks," he
said, "and a Dutchman was standing on the ground below. The Irishman
fell on the Dutchman and killed him. Accident? Never! If the Dutchman
hadn't been there the Irishman would have been killed. Why didn't the
Irishman fall on a dog which was next to the Dutchman? Because the dog
would have seen him coming. "
Then he'd get off from the Dutchman to an uncle named Reginald Wilson.
Reginald went into a carpet factory one day, and got twisted into the
machinery's belt. He went excursioning around the factory until he was
properly distributed and was woven into sixty-nine yards of the best
three-ply carpet. His wife bought the carpet, and then she erected a
monument to his memory. It read:
Sacred to the memory
of
sixty-nine yards of the best three-ply carpet
containing the mortal remainders of
REGINALD WILSON
Go thou and do likewise
And so on he would ramble about telling the story of his grandfather
until we never were told whether he found the ten-cent piece or whether
something else happened.
FULTON DAY, JAMESTOWN
ADDRESS DELIVERED SEPTEMBER 23, 1907
Lieutenant-Governor Ellyson, of Virginia, in introducing Mr.
Clemens, said:
"The people have come here to bring a tribute of affectionate
recollection for the man who has contributed so much to the
progress of the world and the happiness of mankind. " As Mr.
Clemens came down to the platform the applause became louder
and louder, until Mr. Clemens held out his hand for silence.
It was a great triumph, and it was almost a minute after the
applause ceased before Mr. Clemens could speak. He attempted
it once, and when the audience noticed his emotion, it cheered
again loudly.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,--I am but human, and when you, give me a reception
like that I am obliged to wait a little while I get my voice. When you
appeal to my head, I don't feel it; but when you appeal to my heart, I
do feel it.
We are here to celebrate one of the greatest events of American history,
and not only in American history, but in the world's history.
Indeed it was--the application of steam by Robert Fulton.
It was a world event--there are not many of them. It is peculiarly
an American event, that is true, but the influence was very broad in
effect. We should regard this day as a very great American holiday. We
have not many that are exclusively American holidays. We have the Fourth
of July, which we regard as an American holiday, but it is nothing of
the kind. I am waiting for a dissenting voice. All great efforts that
led up to the Fourth of July were made, not by Americans, but by English
residents of America, subjects of the King of England.
They fought all the fighting that was done, they shed and spilt all the
blood that was spilt, in securing to us the invaluable liberties which
are incorporated in the Declaration of Independence; but they were not
Americans. They signed the Declaration of Independence; no American's
name is signed to that document at all. There never was an American such
as you and I are until after the Revolution, when it had all been fought
out and liberty secured, after the adoption of the Constitution, and the
recognition of the Independence of America by all powers.
While we revere the Fourth of July--and let us always revere it, and the
liberties it conferred upon us--yet it was not an American event, a great
American day.
It was an American who applied that steam successfully. There are not
a great many world events, and we have our full share. The telegraph,
telephone, and the application of steam to navigation--these are great
American events.
To-day I have been requested, or I have requested myself, not to confine
myself to furnishing you with information, but to remind you of things,
and to introduce one of the nation's celebrants.
Admiral Harrington here is going to tell you all that I have left
untold. I am going to tell you all that I know, and then he will follow
up with such rags and remnants as he can find, and tell you what he
knows.
No doubt you have heard a great deal about Robert Fulton and the
influences that have grown from his invention, but the little steamboat
is suffering neglect.
You probably do not know a great deal about that boat. It was the
most important steamboat in the world. I was there and saw it. Admiral
Harrington was there at the time. It need not surprise you, for he is
not as old as he looks. That little boat was interesting in every way.
The size of it. The boat was one [consults Admiral], he said ten feet
long. The breadth of that boat [consults Admiral], two hundred feet.
You see, the first and most important detail is the length, then the
breadth, and then the depth; the depth of that boat was [consults
again]--the Admiral says it was a flat boat. Then her tonnage--you know
nothing about a boat until you know two more things: her speed and her
tonnage. We know the speed she made. She made four miles---and sometimes
five miles. It was on her initial trip, on, August 11, 1807, that she
made her initial trip, when she went from [consults Admiral] Jersey
City--to Chicago. That's right. She went by way of Albany. Now comes
the tonnage of that boat. Tonnage of a boat means the amount of
displacement; displacement means the amount of water a vessel can shove
in a day. The tonnage of man is estimated by the amount of whiskey he
can displace in a day.
Robert Fulton named the 'Clermont' in honor of his bride, that is,
Clermont was the name of the county-seat.
I feel that it surprises you that I know so much. In my remarks of
welcome of Admiral Harrington I am not going to give him compliments.
Compliments always embarrass a man. You do not know anything to say. It
does not inspire you with words. There is nothing you can say in answer
to a compliment. I have been complimented myself a great many times, and
they always embarrass me--I always feel that they have not said enough.
The Admiral and myself have held public office, and were associated
together a great deal in a friendly way in the time of Pocahontas.
That incident where Pocahontas saves the life of Smith from her father,
Powhatan's club, was gotten up by the Admiral and myself to advertise
Jamestown.
At that time the Admiral and myself did not have the facilities of
advertising that you have.
I have known Admiral Harrington in all kinds of situations--in public
service, on the platform, and in the chain-gang now and then--but it was
a mistake. A case of mistaken identity. I do not think it is at all a
necessity to tell you Admiral Harrington's public history. You know that
it is in the histories. I am not here to tell you anything about his
public life, but to expose his private life.
I am something of a poet. When the great poet laureate, Tennyson, died,
and I found that the place was open, I tried to get it--but I did not
get it. Anybody can write the first line of a poem, but it is a very
difficult task to make the second line rhyme with the first. When I was
down in Australia there were two towns named Johnswood and Par-am. I
made this rhyme:
"The people of Johnswood are pious and good;
The people of Par-am they don't care a----. "
I do not want to compliment Admiral Harrington, but as long as such men
as he devote their lives to the public service the credit of the country
will never cease. I will say that the same high qualities, the same
moral and intellectual attainments, the same graciousness of manner, of
conduct, of observation, and expression have caused Admiral Harrington
to be mistaken for me--and I have been mistaken for him.
A mutual compliment can go no further, and I now have the honor and
privilege of introducing to you Admiral Harrington.
LOTOS CLUB DINNER IN HONOR OF MARK TWAIN
ADDRESS AT THE FIRST FORMAL DINNER IN THE NEW CLUB-HOUSE,
NOVEMBER 11, 1893
In introducing the guest of the evening, Mr. Lawrence said:
"To-night the old faces appear once more amid new surroundings.
The place where last we met about the table has vanished, and
to-night we have our first Lotos dinner in a home that is all
our own. It is peculiarly fitting that the board should now be
spread in honor of one who has been a member of the club for
full a score of years, and it is a happy augury for the future
that our fellow-member whom we assemble to greet should be the
bearer of a most distinguished name in the world of letters;
for the Lotos Club is ever at its best when paying homage to
genius in literature or in art. Is there a civilized being who
has not heard the name of Mark Twain? We knew him long years
ago, before he came out of the boundless West, brimful of wit
and eloquence, with no reverence for anything, and went abroad
to educate the untutored European in the subtleties of the
American joke. The world has looked on and applauded while he
has broken many images. He has led us in imagination all over
the globe. With him as our guide we have traversed alike the
Mississippi and the Sea of Galilee. At his bidding we have
laughed at a thousand absurdities. By a laborious process of
reasoning he has convinced us that the Egyptian mummies are
actually dead. He has held us spellbound upon the plain at the
foot of the great Sphinx, and we have joined him in weeping
bitter tears at the tomb of Adam. To-night we greet him in the
flesh. What name is there in literature that can be likened to
his? Perhaps some of the distinguished gentlemen about this
table can tell us, but I know of none. Himself his only
parallel! "
MR. PRESIDENT, GENTLEMEN, AND FELLOW-MEMBERS OF THE LOTOS CLUB,--I have
seldom in my lifetime listened to compliments so felicitously phrased
or so well deserved. I return thanks for them from a full heart and an
appreciative spirit, and I will say this in self-defence: While I am
charged with having no reverence for anything, I wish to say that I have
reverence for the man who can utter such truths, and I also have a deep
reverence and a sincere one for a club that can do such justice to me.
To be the chief guest of such a club is something to be envied, and if
I read your countenances rightly I am envied. I am glad to see this club
in such palatial quarters. I remember it twenty years ago when it was
housed in a stable.
Now when I was studying for the ministry there were two or three things
that struck my attention particularly. At the first banquet mentioned
in history that other prodigal son who came back from his travels was
invited to stand up and have his say. They were all there, his brethren,
David and Goliath, and--er, and if he had had such experience as I have
had he would have waited until those other people got through talking.
He got up and testified to all his failings. Now if he had waited before
telling all about his riotous living until the others had spoken he
might not have given himself away as he did, and I think that I would
give myself away if I should go on. I think I'd better wait until the
others hand in their testimony; then if it is necessary for me to make
an explanation, I will get up and explain, and if I cannot do that, I'll
deny it happened.
Later in the evening Mr. Clemens made another speech, replying
to a fire of short speeches by Charles Dudley Warner, Charles
A. Dana, Seth Low, General Porter, and many others, each
welcoming the guest of honor.
I don't see that I have a great deal to explain. I got off very well,
considering the opportunities that these other fellows had. I don't
see that Mr. Low said anything against me, and neither did Mr. Dana.
However, I will say that I never heard so many lies told in one evening
as were told by Mr. McKelway--and I consider myself very capable; but
even in his case, when he got through, I was gratified by finding how
much he hadn't found out. By accident he missed the very things that I
didn't want to have said, and now, gentlemen, about Americanism.
I have been on the continent of Europe for two and a half years. I have
met many Americans there, some sojourning for a short time only, others
making protracted stays, and it has been very gratifying to me to find
that nearly all preserved their Americanism. I have found they all like
to see the Flag fly, and that their hearts rise when they see the Stars
and Stripes. I met only one lady who had forgotten the land of her birth
and glorified monarchical institutions.
I think it is a great thing to say that in two and a half years I met
only one person who had fallen a victim to the shams--I think we may call
them shams--of nobilities and of heredities. She was entirely lost in
them. After I had listened to her for a long time, I said to her:
"At least you must admit that we have one merit. We are not like the
Chinese, who refuse to allow their citizens who are tired of the country
to leave it. Thank God, we don't! "
COPYRIGHT
With Mr. Howells, Edward Everett Hale, Thomas Nelson Page, and
a number of other authors, Mr. Clemens appeared before the
committee December 6, 1906. The new Copyright Bill
contemplated an author's copyright for the term of his life and
for fifty years thereafter, applying 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.
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.
I have read this bill.
At least I have read such portions as I could
understand. Nobody but a practised legislator can read the bill and
thoroughly understand it, and I am not a practised legislator.
I am interested particularly and especially in the part of the bill
which concerns my trade. I like that extension of copyright life to the
author's life and fifty years afterward. I think that would satisfy any
reasonable author, because it would take care of his children. Let
the grandchildren take care of themselves. That would take care of my
daughters, and after that I am not particular. I shall then have long
been out of this struggle, independent of it, indifferent to it.
It isn't objectionable to me that all the trades and professions in
the United States are protected by the bill. I like that. They are
all important and worthy, and if we can take care of them under the
Copyright law I should like to see it done. I should like to see oyster
culture added, and anything else.
I am aware that copyright must have a limit, because that is required
by the Constitution of the United States, which sets aside the earlier
Constitution, which we call the decalogue. The decalogue says you shall
not take away from any man his profit. I don't like to be obliged to
use the harsh term. What the decalogue really says is, "Thou shalt not
steal," but I am trying to use more polite language.
The laws of England and America do take it away, do select but one
class, the people who create the literature of the land. They always
talk handsomely about the literature of the land, always what a fine,
great, monumental thing a great literature is, and in the midst of their
enthusiasm they turn around and do what they can to discourage it.
I know we must have a limit, but forty-two years is too much of a limit.
I am quite unable to guess why there should be a limit at all to the
possession of the product of a man's labor. There is no limit to real
estate.
Doctor Hale has suggested that a man might just as well, after
discovering a coal-mine and working it forty-two years, have the
Government step in and take it away.
What is the excuse? It is that the author who produced that book has
had the profit of it long enough, and therefore the Government takes
a profit which does not belong to it and generously gives it to the
88,000,000 of people. But it doesn't do anything of the kind. It merely
takes the author's property, takes his children's bread, and gives the
publisher double profit. He goes on publishing the book and as many of
his confederates as choose to go into the conspiracy do so, and they
rear families in affluence.
And they continue the enjoyment of those ill-gotten gains generation
after generation forever, for they never die. In a few weeks or months
or years I shall be out of it, I hope under a monument. I hope I shall
not be entirely forgotten, and I shall subscribe to the monument myself.
But I shall not be caring what happens if there are fifty years left of
my copyright. My copyright produces annually a good deal more than I
can use, but my children can use it. I can get along; I know a lot of
trades. But that goes to my daughters, who can't get along as well as I
can because I have carefully raised them as young ladies, who don't know
anything and can't do anything. I hope Congress will extend to them the
charity which they have failed to get from me.
Why, if a man who is not even mad, but only strenuous--strenuous about
race-suicide--should come to me and try to get me to use my large
political and ecclesiastical influence to get a bill passed by this
Congress limiting families to twenty-two children by one mother, I
should try to calm him down. I should reason with him. I should say to
him, "Leave it alone. Leave it alone and it will take care of itself.
Only one couple a year in the United States can reach that limit. If
they have reached that limit let them go right on. Let them have all the
liberty they want. In restricting that family to twenty-two children you
are merely conferring discomfort and unhappiness on one family per year
in a nation of 88,000,000, which is not worth while. "
It is the very same with copyright. One author per year produces a book
which can outlive the forty-two-year limit; that's all. This nation
can't produce two authors a year that can do it; the thing is
demonstrably impossible. All that the limited copyright can do is to
take the bread out of the mouths of the children of that one author per
year.
I made an estimate some years ago, when I appeared before a committee
of the House of Lords, that we had published in this country since the
Declaration of Independence 220,000 books. They have all gone. They had
all perished before they were ten years old. It is only one book in 1000
that can outlive the forty-two year limit. Therefore why put a limit at
all? You might as well limit the family to twenty-two children.
If you recall the Americans in the nineteenth century who wrote books
that lived forty-two years you will have to begin with Cooper; you can
follow with Washington Irving, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edgar Allan Poe,
and there you have to wait a long time. You come to Emerson, and
you have to stand still and look further. You find Howells and T.
B. Aldrich, and then your numbers begin to run pretty thin, and you
question if you can name twenty persons in the United States who--in a
whole century have written books that would live forty-two years. Why,
you could take them all and put them on one bench there [pointing]. Add
the wives and children and you could put the result on, two or three
more benches.
One hundred persons--that is the little, insignificant crowd whose
bread-and-butter is to be taken away for what purpose, for what profit
to anybody? You turn these few books into the hands of the pirate and of
the legitimate publisher, too, and they get the profit that should have
gone to the wife and children.
When I appeared before that committee of the House of Lords the chairman
asked me what limit I would propose. I said, "Perpetuity. " I could see
some resentment in his manner, and he said the idea was illogical, for
the reason that it has long ago been decided that there can be no such
thing as property in ideas. I said there was property in ideas before
Queen Anne's time; they had perpetual copyright. He said, "What is a
book? A book is just built from base to roof on ideas, and there can be
no property in it. "
I said I wished he could mention any kind of property on this planet
that had a pecuniary value which was not derived from an idea or ideas.
He said real estate. I put a supposititious case, a dozen Englishmen who
travel through South Africa and camp out, and eleven of them see nothing
at all; they are mentally blind. But there is one in the party who knows
what this harbor means and what the lay of the land means. To him it
means that some day a railway will go through here, and there on that
harbor a great city will spring up. That is his idea. And he has another
idea, which is to go and trade his last bottle of Scotch whiskey and his
last horse-blanket to the principal chief of that region and buy a piece
of land the size of Pennsylvania.
That was the value of an idea that the day would come when the Cape to
Cairo Railway would be built.
Every improvement that is put upon the real estate is the result of an
idea in somebody's head. The skyscraper is another idea; the railroad
is another; the telephone and all those things are merely symbols which
represent ideas. An andiron, a wash-tub, is the result of an idea that
did not exist before.
So if, as that gentleman said, a book does consist solely of ideas, that
is the best argument in the world that it is property, and should not be
under any limitation at all. We don't ask for that. Fifty years from now
we shall ask for it.
I hope the bill will pass without any deleterious amendments. I do seem
to be extraordinarily interested in a whole lot of arts and things that
I have got nothing to do with. It is a part of my generous, liberal
nature; I can't help it. I feel the same sort of charity to everybody
that was manifested by a gentleman who arrived at home at two o'clock
in the morning from the club and was feeling so perfectly satisfied with
life, so happy, and so comfortable, and there was his house weaving,
weaving, weaving around. He watched his chance, and by and by when the
steps got in his neighborhood he made a jump and climbed up and got on
the portico.
And the house went on weaving and weaving and weaving, but he watched
the door, and when it came around his way he plunged through it. He
got to the stairs, and when he went up on all fours the house was so
unsteady that he could hardly make his way, but at last he got to the
top and raised his foot and put it on the top step. But only the toe
hitched on the step, and he rolled down and fetched up on the bottom
step, with his arm around the newel-post, and he said:
"God pity the poor sailors out at sea on a night like this. "
IN AID OF THE BLIND
ADDRESS AT A PUBLIC MEETING OF THE NEW YORK ASSOCIATION FOR
PROMOTING THE INTERESTS OF THE BLIND AT THE WALDORF ASTORIA,
MARCH 29, 1906
If you detect any awkwardness in my movements and infelicities in my
conduct I will offer the explanation that I never presided at a meeting
of any kind before in my life, and that I do find it out of my line. I
supposed I could do anything anybody else could, but I recognize that
experience helps, and I do feel the lack of that experience. I don't
feel as graceful and easy as I ought to be in order to impress an
audience. I shall not pretend that I know how to umpire a meeting like
this, and I shall just take the humble place of the Essex band.
There was a great gathering in a small New England town, about
twenty-five years ago. I remember that circumstance because there was
something that happened at that time. It was a great occasion. They
gathered in the militia and orators and everybody from all the towns
around. It was an extraordinary occasion.
The little local paper threw itself into ecstasies of admiration and
tried to do itself proud from beginning to end. It praised the orators,
the militia, and all the bands that came from everywhere, and all this
in honest country newspaper detail, but the writer ran out of adjectives
toward the end. Having exhausted his whole magazine of praise and
glorification, he found he still had one band left over. He had to
say something about it, and he said: "The Essex band done the best it
could. "
I am an Essex band on this occasion, and I am going to get through as
well as inexperience and good intentions will enable me. I have got
all the documents here necessary to instruct you in the objects and
intentions of this meeting and also of the association which has
called the meeting. But they are too voluminous. I could not pack those
statistics into my head, and I had to give it up. I shall have to just
reduce all that mass of statistics to a few salient facts. There are
too many statistics and figures for me. I never could do anything
with figures, never had any talent for mathematics, never accomplished
anything in my efforts at that rugged study, and to-day the only
mathematics I know is multiplication, and the minute I get away up in
that, as soon as I reach nine times seven--
[Mr. Clemens lapsed into deep thought for a moment. He was trying to
figure out nine times seven, but it was a hopeless task, and he turned
to St. Clair McKelway, who sat near him. Mr. McKelway whispered the
answer, and the speaker resumed:]
I've got it now. It's eighty-four. Well, I can get that far all right
with a little hesitation. After that I am uncertain, and I can't manage
a statistic.
"This association for the--"
[Mr. Clemens was in another dilemma. Again he was obliged to turn to Mr.
McKelway. ]
Oh yes, for promoting the interests of the blind. It's a long name. If
I could I would write it out for you and let you take it home and
study it, but I don't know how to spell it. And Mr. Carnegie is down in
Virginia somewhere. Well, anyway, the object of that association which
has been recently organized, five months ago, in fact, is in the hands
of very, very energetic, intelligent, and capable people, and they will
push it to success very surely, and all the more surely if you will give
them a little of your assistance out of your pockets.
The intention, the purpose, is to search out all the blind and find work
for them to do so that they may earn, their own bread. Now it is dismal
enough to be blind--it is dreary, dreary life at best, but it can be
largely ameliorated by finding something for these poor blind people to
do with their hands. The time passes so heavily that it is never day
or night with them, it is always night, and when they have to sit with
folded hands and with nothing to do to amuse or entertain or employ
their minds, it is drearier and drearier.
And then the knowledge they have that they must subsist on charity, and
so often reluctant charity, it would renew their lives if they could
have something to do with their hands and pass their time and at the
same time earn their bread, and know the sweetness of the bread which
is the result of the labor of one's own hands. They need that cheer and
pleasure. It is the only way you can turn their night into day, to
give them happy hearts, the only thing you can put in the place of the
blessed sun. That you can do in the way I speak of.
Blind people generally who have seen the light know what it is to
miss the light. Those who have gone blind since they were twenty years
old--their lives are unendingly dreary. But they can be taught to use
their hands and to employ themselves at a great many industries. That
association from which this draws its birth in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
has taught its blind to make many things. They make them better than
most people, and more honest than people who have the use of their eyes.
The goods they make are readily salable. People like them. And so they
are supporting themselves, and it is a matter of cheer, cheer. They pass
their time now not too irksomely as they formerly did.
What this association needs and wants is $15,000. The figures are set
down, and what the money is for, and there is no graft in it or I would
not be here. And they hope to beguile that out of your pockets, and you
will find affixed to the programme an opportunity, that little blank
which you will fill out and promise so much money now or to-morrow or
some time. Then, there is another opportunity which is still better, and
that is that you shall subscribe an annual sum.
I have invented a good many useful things in my time, but never anything
better than that of getting money out of people who don't want to part
with it. It is always for good objects, of course. This is the plan:
When you call upon a person to contribute to a great and good object,
and you think he should furnish about $1,000, he disappoints you as like
as not. Much the best way to work him to supply that thousand dollars is
to split it into parts and contribute, say a hundred dollars a year,
or fifty, or whatever the sum maybe. Let him contribute ten or twenty a
year. He doesn't feel that, but he does feel it when you call upon him
to contribute a large amount. When you get used to it you would rather
contribute than borrow money.
I tried it in Helen Keller's case. Mr. Hutton wrote me in 1896 or 1897
when I was in London and said: "The gentleman who has been so liberal in
taking care of Helen Keller has died without making provision for her
in his will, and now they don't know what to do. " They were proposing
to raise a fund, and he thought $50,000 enough to furnish an income of
$2400 or $2500 a year for the support of that wonderful girl and her
wonderful teacher, Miss Sullivan, now Mrs. Macy. I wrote to Mr. Hutton
and said: "Go on, get up your fund. It will be slow, but if you want
quick work, I propose this system," the system I speak of, of asking
people to contribute such and such a sum from year to year and drop
out whenever they please, and he would find there wouldn't be any
difficulty, people wouldn't feel the burden of it. And he wrote back
saying he had raised the $2400 a year indefinitely by that system in a
single afternoon. We would like to do something just like that to-night.
We will take as many checks as you care to give. You can leave your
donations in the big room outside.
I knew once what it was to be blind. I shall never forget that
experience. I have been as blind as anybody ever was for three or
four hours, and the sufferings that I endured and the mishaps and the
accidents that are burning in my memory make my sympathy rise when I
feel for the blind and always shall feel. I once went to Heidelberg
on an excursion. I took a clergyman along with me, the Rev. Joseph
Twichell, of Hartford, who is still among the living despite that fact.
I always travel with clergymen when I can. It is better for them, it is
better for me. And any preacher who goes out with me in stormy weather
and without a lightning rod is a good one. The Reverend Twichell is one
of those people filled with patience and endurance, two good ingredients
for a man travelling with me, so we got along very well together. In
that old town they have not altered a house nor built one in 1500 years.
We went to the inn and they placed Twichell and me in a most colossal
bedroom, the largest I ever saw or heard of. It was as big as this room.
I didn't take much notice of the place. I didn't really get my bearings.
I noticed Twichell got a German bed about two feet wide, the kind in
which you've got to lie on your edge, because there isn't room to lie on
your back, and he was way down south in that big room, and I was way up
north at the other end of it, with a regular Sahara in between.
We went to bed. Twichell went to sleep, but then he had his conscience
loaded and it was easy for him to get to sleep. I couldn't get to sleep.
It was one of those torturing kinds of lovely summer nights when you
hear various kinds of noises now and then. A mouse away off in the
southwest. You throw things at the mouse. That encourages the mouse. But
I couldn't stand it, and about two o'clock I got up and thought I
would give it up and go out in the square where there was one of those
tinkling fountains, and sit on its brink and dream, full of romance.
I got out of bed, and I ought to have lit a candle, but I didn't think
of it until it was too late. It was the darkest place that ever was.
There has never been darkness any thicker than that. It just lay in
cakes.
I thought that before dressing I would accumulate my clothes. I pawed
around in the dark and found everything packed together on the floor
except one sock. I couldn't get on the track of that sock. It might
have occurred to me that maybe it was in the wash. But I didn't think of
that. I went excursioning on my hands and knees.
