Mark Twain, A Biography 1900-1907 | Page 6

occasion. In closing his introductory
speech President Frank Lawrence said, "We hail him as one who has

borne great burdens with manliness and courage, who has emerged
from great struggles victorious," and the assembled diners roared out
their applause. Clemens in his reply said:
Your president has referred to certain burdens which I was weighted
with. I am glad he did, as it gives me an opportunity which I wanted--to
speak of those debts. You all knew what he meant when he referred to
it, & of the poor bankrupt firm of C. L. Webster & Co. No one has said
a word about those creditors. There were ninety-six creditors in all, &
not by a finger's weight did ninety-five out of the ninety-six add to the
burden of that time. They treated me well; they treated me handsomely.
I never knew I owed them anything; not a sign came from them.
It was like him to make that public acknowledgment. He could not let
an unfair impression remain that any man or any set of men had laid an
unnecessary burden upon him-his sense of justice would not consent to
it. He also spoke on that occasion of certain national changes.
How many things have happened in the seven years I have been away
from home! We have fought a righteous war, and a righteous war is a
rare thing in history. We have turned aside from our own comfort and
seen to it that freedom should exist, not only within our own gates, but
in our own neighborhood. We have set Cuba free and placed her among
the galaxy of free nations of the world. We started out to set those poor
Filipinos free, but why that righteous plan miscarried perhaps I shall
never know. We have also been making a creditable showing in China,
and that is more than all the other powers can say. The "Yellow Terror"
is threatening the world, but no matter what happens the United States
says that it has had no part in it.
Since I have been away we have been nursing free silver. We have
watched by its cradle, we have done our best to raise that child, but
every time it seemed to be getting along nicely along came some
pestiferous Republican and gave it the measles or something. I fear we
will never raise that child.
We've done more than that. We elected a President four years ago.
We've found fault and criticized him, and here a day or two ago we go
and elect him for another four years, with votes enough to spare to do it
over again.
One club followed another in honoring Mark Twain--the Aldine, the St.
Nicholas, the Press clubs, and other associations and societies. His old

friends were at these dinners--Howells, Aldrich, Depew, Rogers,
ex-Speaker Reed--and they praised him and gibed him to his and their
hearts' content.
It was a political year, and he generally had something to say on
matters municipal, national, or international; and he spoke out more
and more freely, as with each opportunity he warmed more righteously
to his subject.
At the dinner given to him by the St. Nicholas Club he said, with deep
irony:
Gentlemen, you have here the best municipal government in the world,
and the most fragrant and the purest. The very angels of heaven envy
you and wish they had a government like it up there. You got it by your
noble fidelity to civic duty; by the stern and ever watchful exercise of
the great powers lodged in you as lovers and guardians of your city; by
your manly refusal to sit inert when base men would have invaded her
high places and possessed them; by your instant retaliation when any
insult was offered you in her person, or any assault was made upon her
fair fame. It is you who have made this government what it is, it is you
who have made it the envy and despair of the other capitals of the
world--and God bless you for it, gentlemen, God bless you! And when
you get to heaven at last they'll say with joy, "Oh, there they come, the
representatives of the perfectest citizenship in the universe show them
the archangel's box and turn on the limelight!"
Those hearers who in former years had been indifferent to Mark
Twain's more serious purpose began to realize that, whatever he may
have been formerly, he was by no means now a mere fun-maker, but a
man of deep and grave convictions, able to give them the fullest and
most forcible expression. He still might make them laugh, but he also
made them think, and he stirred them to a truer gospel of patriotism. He
did not preach a patriotism that meant a