Government of new Territory of Nevada—Governor Nye and the practical jokers—Mr. Clemens begins journalistic life on Virginia City Enterprise Ⓐtextual note—Reports legislative sessions—He and Orion prosper—Orion builds twelve-thousand-dollarⒶtextual note house—GovernorⒶtextual note Nye turns Territory of Nevada into a State.Ⓐtextual note
PROMOTION FOR BARNES, WHOM TILLMAN BERATED Ⓔexplanatory note
Had Woman Ejected from White House; to be Postmaster.
MERRITT GETS NEW PLACE
Present Postmaster
at Washington to be Made
Collector at Niagara—Platt Not Consulted.
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON, March 31.—President Roosevelt surprised the capital this afternoon by announcing that he would appoint Benjamin F. Barnes as Postmaster of Washington, to succeed John A. Merritt of New York. Mr. Merritt, who for several years has been Postmaster here, has been chosen for Collector of the Port of Niagara, succeeding the late Major James LowⒺexplanatory note.
Mr. Barnes is at present assistant secretary to the President. Only a short time ago he figured extensively in the newspapers for having ordered the forcible ejection from the White House of Mrs. Minor Morris, a Washington woman who had called to see the President. What attracted attention to the case was not the ejection itself, but the violence with which it was performed.
Mrs. Morris, who had been talking to Barnes in an ordinary conversational tone, and with no indications of excitement, so far as the spectators observed, was seized by two policemen and dragged by the arms out of the building and across the asphalt walk in front of the White House, a distance corresponding to that of two ordinary city blocks. During a part of the journey a negro carried her by the feet. Her dress was torn and trampled.
She was locked up on a charge of disorderly conduct, and when it was learned that she would be released on that charge a policeman, a relative of Barnes’s, was sent to the House of Detention to prefer a charge of insanity against her so that she would have to be held. She was held accordingly until two physicians had examined her and pronounced her sane. He was denounced by Mrs. Morris, by various newspapers, and by Mr. Tillman in the Senate.
The appointment of Barnes to be Postmaster soⒶtextual note soon after this incident has created endless talk here. It is taken to be the President’s way of expressing confidence in Barnes and repaying him for the pain he suffered as a result of the newspaper criticisms of his course.
Orion Clemens again. To continue.
The Government of the new Territory of Nevada was an interesting menagerie. [begin page 4] Governor Nye was an old and seasoned politician from New York—politician, not statesmanⒺexplanatory note. He had white hair; heⒶtextual note was in fine physical condition; heⒶtextual note had a winningly friendly face and deep lustrous brown eyes that could talk as a native language the tongue of every feeling, every passion, every emotionⒶtextual note. His eyes could out-talkⒶtextual note his tongue, and this is saying a good deal, for he was a very remarkable talker, both in private and on the stump. He was a shrewd man; heⒶtextual note generally saw through surfaces and perceived what wasⒶtextual note going on inside without being suspected of having an eye on the matter.
When grown-up persons indulge in practical jokes,Ⓐtextual note the fact gauges them. They have lived narrow, obscure, and ignorant lives, and at full manhood they still retain and cherish a job lotⒶtextual note of left-over standards and ideals that would have been discarded with their boyhood if they had then moved out into the world and a broader life. There were many practical jokers in the new Territory. I do not take pleasure in exposing this fact, for I liked those people; but what I am saying is true. I wish I could say a kindlier thing about them instead—thatⒶtextual note they were burglars, or hat-rack thieves, or something like that, that wouldn’t beⒶtextual note utterly uncomplimentary. I would prefer it, but I can’t say those things, theyⒶtextual note would not be true. These people were practical jokers, and I will not try to disguise it. In other respects they were plenty good enoughⒶtextual note people; honest people; reputable and likableⒶtextual note. They played practical jokes upon each other with success, and got the admiration and applause and also the envy of the rest of the community. Naturally they were eager to try their arts on big game, and that was what the Governor was. But they were not able to score. They made several efforts, but the Governor defeated these efforts without any trouble and went on smiling his pleasant smile as if nothing had happened. Finally the joker-chiefsⒶtextual note of Carson City and Virginia City conspired together to see if their combined talent couldn’t win a victory, for the jokers were getting into a very uncomfortable place. TheⒶtextual note people were laughing at them, instead of at their proposed victim. They banded themselves together to the number of ten and invited the Governor to what was a most extraordinary attention in those days—pickled oyster-stewⒶtextual note and champagne—Ⓐtextual noteluxuries very seldom seen in that region, and existing rather as fabrics of the imagination than as facts.
The Governor took me with him. He said disparagingly,
“It’sⒶtextual note a poor invention. It doesn’t deceive. Their idea is to get me drunk and leave me under the table, and from their standpoint this will be very funny. But they don’t know me. I am familiar with champagne and have no prejudices against it.”
The fate of the joke was not decided until two o’clock in the morning. At that hour the Governor was serene, genial, comfortable, contented, happy,Ⓐtextual note and sober, although he was so full that he couldn’t laugh without shedding champagne tears. Also, at that hour the last joker joined his comrades under the table, drunk to the last perfection. The Governor remarked,
“ThisⒶtextual note is a dry place, Sam, let’s go and get something to drink and go to bed.”
The Governor’s official menagerie had been drawn from the humblest ranks of his constituents at home—harmlessⒶtextual note good fellowsⒶtextual note who had helped in his campaigns,Ⓐtextual note and now they had their reward in petty salaries payable in greenbacks that were worth next [begin page 5] to nothing. Those boys had a hard time to make both ends meet. Orion’s salary was eighteen hundred dollars a year, and he couldn’t even support his dictionary on it. But the Irishwoman who had come out on the Governor’s staff charged the menagerie only ten dollars a week apiece for board and lodging. Orion and I were of her boarders and lodgersⒺexplanatory note;Ⓐtextual note and so,Ⓐtextual note on these cheap terms the silver I had brought from homeⒺexplanatory note held out very well.
At first I roamed about the country seeking silver, but at the end of ’62 or the beginning of ’63 when I came up from Aurora to begin a journalistic life on the Virginia City Enterprise, Ⓐtextual note I was presently sent down to Carson City to report the legislative sessionⒺexplanatory note. Orion was soon very popular with the members of the legislature, because they found that whereas they couldn’t usually trust each other, nor anybody else, they could trust him. He easily held the belt for honesty in that country, but it didn’t do him any good in a pecuniary way, because he had no talent for either persuading or scaring legislators. But I was differently situated. I was there every day in the legislature to distribute compliment and censure with evenly balanced justice and spread the same over half a page of the Enterprise Ⓐtextual note every morning, consequently I was an influence. I got the legislature to pass a wise and very necessaryⒶtextual note law requiring every corporation doing business in the Territory to record its charter in full, without skipping a word, in a record to be kept by the Secretary of the Territory—my brother. All the charters were framed in exactly the same words. ForⒶtextual note this record-serviceⒶtextual note he was authorized to charge forty cents a folio of a hundred wordsⒶtextual note for making the record; alsoⒶtextual note five dollars for furnishing a certificate of each recordⒺexplanatory note, and so on. Everybody had a toll-road franchise but no toll-road. But the franchise had to be recorded and paid for. Everybody was a mining corporation, and had to have himself recorded and pay for it. Very well, we prospered. The record-serviceⒶtextual note paid an average of aⒶtextual note thousand dollars a month, in goldⒺexplanatory note.
Governor Nye was often absent from the Territory. He liked to run down to San Francisco every little while and enjoy a rest from Territorial civilization. Nobody complained, for he was prodigiously popular. He had been a stage-driver in his early days in New York or New England, and had acquired the habit of remembering names and faces, and of making himself agreeable to his passengers. As a politician this had been valuable to him, and he kept his arts in good condition by practice. By the time he had been Governor a year, he had shaken hands with every human being in the Territory of Nevada, and after that he always knew these people instantly at sight and could call them by name. The whole population, of twenty thousand persons,Ⓐtextual note were his personal friends, and he could do anything he chose to do and count upon their being contented with it. Whenever he was absent from the Territory—which was generally—Orion served his office in his place, as ActingⒶtextual note GovernorⒺexplanatory note, a title which was soon and easily shortened to “Governor.”Ⓐtextual note Mrs. Governor Clemens enjoyed being a Governor’s wife. No one on this planet ever enjoyed a distinction more than she enjoyed that one. Her delight in being the head of society was so frank that it disarmed criticism, and even envy. Being the Governor’s wife and head of society, she looked for a proper kind of house to live in—a house commensurate with these dignities—and she easily persuaded Orion to build that house. Orion could be persuaded to do anything.Ⓐtextual note He recklesslyⒶtextual note built and furnished aⒶtextual note [begin page 6] house at a cost of twelve thousand dollarsⒺexplanatory note, and there was no other house in that sage-brush capitalⒶtextual note that could approach this property for style and cost.
When Governor Nye’s four-year term was drawing to a close, the mystery of why he had ever consented to leave the great State of New York and help inhabit that jack-rabbitⒶtextual note desert was solved: heⒶtextual note had gone out there in order to become a United States SenatorⒶtextual note. All that was now necessary was to turn the Territory into a State. He did it without any difficulty. That patch of sand andⒶtextual note that sparse population were not well fitted for the heavy burden of a state governmentⒶtextual note, but no matter, theⒶtextual note people were willing to have the change, and so the Governor’s game was madeⒺexplanatory note.
Orion’s game was made too, apparently, for he was as popular because of his honesty as the Governor was for more substantial reasons; butⒶtextual note at the critical moment the inborn capriciousness of his character rose up without warning, and disaster followedⒺexplanatory note.
PROMOTION FOR BARNES, WHOM TILLMAN BERATED] The article that begins here was published in the New York Times on 1 April. Clemens provided his stenographer with a (partial) clipping of it and dictated the following instructions: “Miss Hobby, please paste this in at this point, in record of April 1st, but I may not comment on it until later.” The clipping itself did not include the last two paragraphs of the original article, which contained background information about Benjamin Barnes and a comment about Senator Platt (see the note at 3.11–20). Clemens had discussed Mrs. Minor Morris’s ejection from the White House, Barnes’s part in it, and Senator Benjamin Tillman’s response in his Autobiographical Dictations of 10 January, 15 January, and 18 January 1906 ( AutoMT1 , 256–59, 279–81, 292–93). He takes up his discussion of the incident in the next dictation, of 3 April.
MERRITT GETS NEW PLACE . . . succeeding the late Major James Low] President William McKinley appointed John A. Merritt (1851–1919) as postmaster of Washington in 1899, the same year that he made James Low collector of customs for the district of Niagara. Thomas Collier Platt (1833–1910), who had recommended Merritt for the postmastership, was a senator from New York and former Republican party leader (“New City Postmaster,” Washington Post, 28 May 1899, 3; New York Times: “Presidential Nominations,” 21 Jan 1899, 4; “John A. Merritt,” 17 Oct 1919, 17).
Governor Nye was . . . politician, not statesman] James W. Nye (1815–76) had been a district attorney and judge in Madison County (New York), a lawyer in Syracuse, and president of the New York City Metropolitan Police Commission before Abraham Lincoln appointed him governor of Nevada Territory in 1861 (“Obituary. Gen. James W. Nye,” New York Times, 28 Dec 1876, 4; see also the notes at 5.25–36 and 6.8–9).
The Governor’s official menagerie . . . boarders and lodgers] In the first four chapters of Roughing It Clemens recalls Orion’s appointment as secretary of Nevada Territory, and the “six pounds of Unabridged Dictionary” he brought along on their stagecoach trip west from Missouri. In chapter 21, he describes the Carson City boardinghouse at which he and Orion and Nye’s “menagerie”—that is, his “Irish Brigade” of retainers—lived. It was run by “a worthy French lady by the name of Bridget O’Flannigan, a camp follower of his Excellency the Governor.” Her real name was Margret Murphy (see RI 1993, 1–19, 141–46, 613).
the silver I had brought from home] Out of his earnings as a Mississippi River steamboat pilot, Clemens had paid his and Orion’s $200 stagecoach fares from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Carson City, and had also provided about $800 for expenses ( RI 1993, notes on 574–76).
a journalistic life on the Virginia City Enterprise . . . Carson City to report the legislative session] After about six weeks on the staff of the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, Clemens was assigned to report the second session of the Nevada Territorial Legislature, held in Carson City from 11 November until 20 December 1862. None of his legislative dispatches has been recovered, but two of the weekly general letters he sent to the paper at the time survive (see AutoMT1 , 251, 543 n. 251.31–38, and MTEnt, 9–10, 33–41).
I got the legislature to pass a wise and very necessary law . . . furnishing a certificate of each record] Clemens may be conflating two sessions of the Nevada Territorial Legislature. During the first session he served as Orion’s clerk, and it is likely that he influenced the passage of a law on 29 November 1861 that permitted Orion to collect certain fees: thirty cents per hundred words for copying documents, one dollar for sealing and for filing them, and five dollars for appointing a commissioner of deeds (notary public). Another law was approved during the second session, on 19 December 1862, that required corporations to file official certificates (with no fee stated) and raised the copying fee to forty cents—the amount Clemens recalls here. No evidence has been found, however, that he was involved in the enactment of this second law (William C. Miller 1973, 3–5; Laws 1862, 310–11; Laws 1863, 94).
Very well, we prospered. The record-service paid . . . a thousand dollars a month, in gold] Orion’s salary was $1,800 a year, paid quarterly, as set by the congressional act of 2 March 1861 which organized the Nevada Territory. Clemens earned $480 as Orion’s clerk during the first session of the legislature, and evidently planned to do so in the second (1862) session. It is highly unlikely that the record-service was so lucrative. In fact, the Clemens brothers were frequently pressed for funds, in part because they were spending much of what they did have on working their several mining claims and speculating in mining stock (see 25 Oct 1861 to PAM and JLC through 26 May 1864 to OC, L1, 129–301 passim; Laws 1862, ix, xiv).
Governor Nye was often absent . . . as Acting Governor] For four years Nye was a driver for his brother’s stagecoach line, hauling passengers and express on its Syracuse-Albany run, before studying law in Troy, New York, and being admitted to the New York State bar in 1839. Orion’s longest stint as acting governor was between December 1862 and July 1863, while Nye was on one of his frequent political forays outside Nevada (Samon 1979, 16; OC and SLC to MEC, 29, 30, and 31 Jan 1862, L1, 145–46 n. 2).
He recklessly built and furnished a house at a cost of twelve thousand dollars] In November 1863 Orion paid George B. Cowing $1,100 for the plot of land at the northwest corner of Spear and Division streets in Carson City. There he built the two-story clapboard house which, somewhat renovated, still stands today. Shortly after it was completed in early 1864, the house and its furnishings were assessed at a taxable value of $3,250. Orion and his wife, Mollie, sold the property on 14 August 1866, after they had already left Nevada (Rocha 2000; Jeffrey M. Kintop [Nevada state archivist], personal communication, 3 Jan 2012, CU-MARK).
Source documents.
TS1 Typescript, leaves numbered 618–25 (altered in pencil to 627–34), made from Hobby’s notes and revised.Times Clipping from the New York Times, 1 April 1906, 1, attached to TS1: ‘PROMOTION FOR . . . his course.’ (3.5–41).
TS2 Typescript, leaves numbered 772–80, made from the revised TS1 with the attached Times clipping and further revised.
NAR 11pf Galley proofs of (projected) NAR 10–11, typeset from the revised TS2 and further revised (the same extent as NAR 11), ViU.
NAR 11 North American Review 184 (1 February 1907), 229–32: ‘The Government . . . disaster followed.’ (3.43–6.12).
TS1 begins with Clemens’s dictated request that the Times clipping be pasted in at the beginning of the dictation, which has been treated here as an authorial direction rather than as text (see entry at 3.5). Clemens revised TS1 and his changes are incorporated in TS2. Clemens further revised TS2 to serve as copy for NAR, deleting the opening section (up to ‘To continue.’ at 3.42) in blue pencil.
NAR 10 was originally to comprise excerpts from the ADs of 28 March, 29 March, and 2 April 1906; the galley proofs were typeset as a consecutive batch, and this proof was revised by Clemens. Starting with the issue of 4 January 1907, however, the issue length of the North American Review was changed from 128 pages to 112. The autobiography installments, which had generally run between 10 and 14 pages, had to be shorter, and the proposed installment was split: in consequence, NAR 11 is made up of an excerpt from the present dictation, coupled with excerpts from the AD of 29 March 1906 (misdated 28 March in NAR).