MTPDocEd
slc
farmington avenue, hartford.
Feb. 27.
I beg you to read the enclosed ar letter, of mine, & try to interest yourself
in the remedying this evil. in the destruction of this law.2 When Duncan got up his commissionership
& Seamen Association projects, all of us who knew him, said knew he was purposing to rob somebody;
but what is everybody’s business is nobody’s business—so nobody interfered. ThisⒶ Duncan
is one of the vilest men that exists to-day; & I am exceedingly sorry that I have
numbered myself with the
silent ones all these years. However, one reason was, that I supposed he was kicked
out of office when his villainies
were exposed 5 years ago.
I know your hands are full without any additions from me, but my motive must be my
excuse.3
Truly Yours
Samℓ. L. Clemens
Explanatory Notes
1 George W. McCrary (1835–90), an attorney from Keokuk, had been a Republican congressman
from Iowa since March 1869. Clemens wrote this letter to him in the belief, widely
shared at the time, that he was about to be appointed attorney general in President
Hayes’s new cabinet. In the event, Hayes made McCrary his secretary of war, making
Clemens’s request moot (New York
Herald: “Personal Intelligence,” 19 Feb 1877, 4; “Why M’Crary Was Not Made Attorney General,”
8 Mar 1877, 3).
2 Clemens’s enclosure, no longer extant, was presumably the newspaper printing of his
recent letter critiquing the shipping commissioners act of 1872 (22 Feb 1877 to the
editor of the New York
World).
3 Clemens continued to investigate Duncan’s affairs. He sent a note (no longer extant)
to New York attorney Edward P. Wilder, co-author of
Philanthropy Dissected (22 Feb 1877 to the editor of the New York
World, n. 3). On 8 March 1877 Wilder replied with a long letter giving details of Duncan’s
“knaveries,” enclosing copies of affidavits from seamen defrauded by Duncan, and wishing
Clemens “every success in your crusade agst. him” (
CU-MARK). Clemens’s “crusade” against Duncan remained dormant until 1883. In June of that
year he renewed his charges in an interview printed in the New York
Times, which led Duncan to sue the paper for libel. In March of 1884, however, a jury found
that he deserved only twelve cents in damages (“Mr. Mark Twain Excited on Seeing the
Name of Capt. C. C. Duncan in Print,” New York
Times, 10 June 1883, 1; “The Duncan Libel Suit,” Brooklyn
Eagle, 8 Mar 1884, 4).
Emendations and Textual Notes
Ⓐ interfered. This ● ~.— | ~
MS, George W. McCrary Papers, OFH.
MicroPUL, reel 1.
Opened in 1916, OFH preserves President Rutherford B. Hayes’s “12,000 volume personal library along with archival material from his military and political career, particularly his presidency, 1877–1881.”
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.