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Autobiographical Dictation, 22 November 1906 ❉ Textual Commentary

Source documents.

Clipping      Clipping from an unidentified newspaper, attached to OSC 1885–86, p. [89], revised: ‘The Outlook . . . larger part.’ (283.16–284.10).
TS1 ribbon      Typescript, leaves numbered 1412–18, made from Hobby’s notes and the Clipping and revised.
TS1 carbon      Typescript carbon, leaves numbered 1412–18, revised.

Clemens revised TS1 ribbon and transferred those revisions to TS1 carbon, which received a further round of revision with NAR publication specifically in mind. Clemens noted ‘Use all of it.’ on the first page of the carbon copy; but none of it was used. We follow Clemens’s most fully and cumulatively revised text, TS1 carbon, except where he marked it to follow NAR style.

The text of the inserted newspaper article (Clipping) derives from Susy’s insertion into her own manuscript of a clipping from an unidentified newspaper—as marked by Clemens, who canceled the last few sentences of the article.

Marginal Notes on TS1 carbon Concerning Publication in NAR

Location on TS Writer, Medium Exact Inscription Explanation
TS1 carbon, p. 1412 SLC, ink, canceled in ink III use as the third section of the NAR installment
TS1 carbon, p. 1412 SLC, ink Usable. Use all of it.  
TS1 carbon, p. 1412 SLC, ink 3½ R. p. number of NAR pages
TS1 carbon, p. 1412 SLC, ink summary paragraph deleted  
Thursday,textual note November 22, 1906

The international copyright bills before Congress in ’86—Mr. Clemens supported the Chacetextual note Billtextual note—The young physician (now very old) who by drawing quaint pictures and writing original poems persuaded his little patients to take his odious mixtures, and who afterwards had these published in book form and is still living on income from his book, as he is a citizen of an honest country, Germany. Mr. Clemens will be seventy-onetextual note next week. His copyrights will soon begin to expire, therefore he must continue writing.

From Susy’s Biography. textual note

Feb. 12, ’86.

Papatextual note has long wanted us to have an international copywright in this country, so two or three weeks ago, he went to Washington to see what he could do to influence the government in favor of one. Here is a newspaper’stextual note description of the hearing of the Senate that he attended. Jan. 30, ’86.

The Outlook for International Copyright.

Washington, January 30.—It is the impression of those who have followed the hearing in international copyright that the Senate Committee on Patents will report favorably the bill with the “printers’ amendment,” which is advocated by General Hawley, by Senator Chacetextual note, by Mr. Clemens, and other publishers who are also authors, and is accepted by the representative of the Typographical Union, which, as the agent of that Union somewhat grandiloquently told the Committee, through its affiliation with the Knights of Labor, speaks for from 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 people. Although it was clearly demonstrated to the Committee by Mr. Lowell and otherstextual note that the American author is the only laborer who is obliged to [begin page 284] compete with those who are not paid anything, the influence of the book manufacturers, and of labor unions, and of the various protected interests, is so strong in Congress that those who boast that they are “practical legislators” will not support a bill solely on the ground that, as Mr. Lowell put it, “it is a measure of morality and justice.” It is not, however, measures of morality and justice that can control the most votes. Mr. Clemens, in his humorous way, during the hearing said a very practical thing, in accordance with which the Committee is very likely to act. He said that while the American author has a great interest in American books, there are a great many others who are interested in book-making in its various forms, and the “other fellows” are the larger part.

There were two international copyright bills before Congress at the time: (1)textual note the Chacetextual note Billtextual note, which recognized the claims of American printers and binders, and other trades which had acquired vested rights in the business of book-making, and (2)textual note the Hawley Billtextual note, which ignored these claims. It did not seem to me that Congress could properly abolish those rights; therefore in speaking before the Senate Committee I supported the Chacetextual note Billtextual note explanatory note. It was finally passed, and in the summer of 1891 it went into effect. It was a lame, poor bill, as regards the rights and interests of foreign authors,textual note but this can be said with truth, and emphatically, of any copyright law, either foreign or domestic,textual note that has ever come into being since the invention of printing—except in Germanytextual note, France, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Russia,textual note and some other countries, civilized, half civilized, and savage. Of unmentioned governmentstextual note there remain two, Great Britain and the United States. Neither of these has ever passed a copyright bill which was not conspicuously distinguished for ignorance, robbery, and silliness. As I have said, the Chacetextual note Billtextual note was a lametextual note poor affair, yet it was a great improvement upon any that had ever passed through the criminal Congressionaltextual note mill before. It had its share of silliness and villainy, but it could not be British nor American without these characteristics.

Somewhere about 1888 or ’89, if my memory is correct, I went, one day, and paid my respects to the venerable author of “Struwwelpeter.”textual note explanatory note He was very old, not far short of eighty, I think. When he was a young physician and just getting into practicetextual note, his methods were the methods of that ancient time—that is to say, if a patient had any blood in him he pumped it out, and then filled up his body,textual note a dipperful at a time, with bitter and nauseating and odious mixtures compounded of ordure, and dead men’s fat, and the dried livers of toads, and ipecac, and calomel, and raisins, and spices, and lemon juice, and sugar, and spiders, and sewagetextual note, and asafetida, and molasses, and some of the blood that had been pumped out of the sufferer the day before. In some cases the patient survived; but in cases where the patient was a little child, the physician and the mother mettextual note with difficulty, and obstruction, and resistance, and sobs, and tears, and pleadings, when the dipperful of filth was offered and the pair of touched and sympathetic executioners implored the child to swallow it.

1888 or ’89 textual note

By and by the young physician discovered a new and powerful persuader, by accident. He did not know how to draw, and that was the valuable part of his discovery, for he drew a child that was so unlike any child that God had been able to design up to that [begin page 285] time, that when the little patient by whose bed he was watching got a glimpse of it, that child was excited and delighted to the verge of convalescence. The young physician did not know how to write poetry, and that was another inestimably valuable addition to his discovery, for when he appended to the picture some lines of poetry, they were so far beyond human help, in their abandoned unliterarinesstextual note, that when they were read to the patient they completed the cure.textual note To make it stilltextual note completer, the young physician offered to make another picture, and purge himself oftextual note another poem, if the child would agree to swallow the offered dipperful of slush without murmuring. The child was glad to sign the contract.

From that day forth, the young physician moved upon all suffering nurseries equipped with pencil and paper and water-colors, and he had no more trouble with the children. He could draw a picture and do a poem in five minutes, and he was always able to trade these fascinatingly dreadful manufactures to his little patients on the terms just indicated. He kept his drawings and poems, in order that he might administer them, from time to time, to children that had not yet seen them but needed their persuasions, and by and by his accumulation of these things sufficed to fill a small table-drawer. Crude as the pictures were, and unconventionaltextual note and fearfully original as the poetry was, they were smart and witty and humorous, and to children they were limitlessly captivating. Somebody suggested to the young doctor that he publish these works in a little book. He did it. The little book was a primer, and was sold at a price which brought it within reach of even the leanest purse—four or five cents, I should say, I do not remember exactly. The sale was prodigious, and it has never ceased from being that in any year from that time till to-day.

In the course of time it came to pass that the doctortextual note stood in need of the income produced by that accidentally begotten primer, and when I saw him, in his old age, that income was his sole support. But it was sufficient. At that time his book was more than fifty years old—I should say fifty-five—but he was a citizen of an honest country, and his Government sat tranquilly by and saw him buy his bread with his own money without making any attempt to rob him of it, for by the German law the copyright term was fifty years,textual note and as many more years added to that as the author might live; whereas if he had been of the English or American breed of Christians, and product of the English and American breed of civilization, I should not have seen him, for he would have been already a dozen years in the poor housetextual note, and meantime his and other publishers would have been stealingtextual note his children’s share of the profits of his book, with his Government standing by and approving.

I am nearly seventy-one. I shall be seventy-one a week from now. I have supported myself by my own labor during every year for fifty-nine years. If I were living under an honorabletextual note governmenttextual note I could retire from work, now, and take a holiday for the two or three years that possibly remain of my life; but I am not privileged to do that, because five years from now my copyrights will begin to expire, under the forty-two-year limit,textual note and the publishers and their confederate,textual note the Government, will begin to steal from my children the bread which I have earned for them; therefore instead of taking a vacation, [begin page 286] I must dictate these memoirs and build them as a protecting fortress around and about my twenty-fivetextual note books, and by this means confer upon those books the equivalent of another twenty-eight years’ copyrightexplanatory note.

I should like to stop dictating and blasphemetextual note a while, now, but I must not do it—I have reformed, until day after to-morrow.

Textual Notes Thursday, November 22, 1906
  Thursday, ●  Thursday, (TS1 ribbon)  Thursday, Dictated  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  Chace ●  Chase (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  Bill ●  B bill (TS1 ribbon-Hobby, TS1 carbon-Hobby) 
  seventy-one ●  71 (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  From Susy’s Biography.  ●  From Susy’s Biography. (TS1 ribbon)  From Susy’s Biography. of Me. ‘From Susy’s Biography of Me.’ underscored  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  Feb. 12, ’86. [¶] Papa ●  Feb. 12, ’86. [¶] Papa (TS1 ribbon)  Feb. 12, ’86. [¶] Papa dateline marked to precede ‘Papa’ at 283.24  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  newspaper’s ●  not in  (TS1 ribbon)  newspaper’s  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  Chace ●  Chase (Clipping, TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  others ●  other (Clipping, TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  (1) ●  not in  (TS1 ribbon)  (1)  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  Chace ●  Chase (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  Bill ●  b Bill (TS1 ribbon-Hobby, TS1 carbon-Hobby) 
  (2) ●  not in  (TS1 ribbon)  (2)  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  Bill ●  b Bill (TS1 ribbon-Hobby, TS1 carbon-Hobby) 
  Chace ●  Chase (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  Bill ●  b Bill (TS1 ribbon-Hobby)  bill (TS1 carbon) 
  1891  ●  (1891) (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  foreign authors, ●  foreign authors, both foreign and domestic,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  law, either foreign or dometic, ●  law (TS1 ribbon)  law, either foreign or domestic,  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  Germany ●  Russia, Turkey, Germany (TS1 ribbon)  Russia, Turkey, Germany (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  Russia, ●  not in  (TS1 ribbon)  Russia,  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  governments ●  Governments (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  Chace ●  Chase (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  Bill ●  bill (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  lame ●  lame, (TS1 ribbon)  lame,  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  Congressional ●  congressional (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  1888 or ’89  ●  (1888 or ’89) (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  “Struwwelpeter.” ●  “Struwwelpeter.” Hobby left a space for the name, which SLC supplied; a second ‘w’ was inserted in pencil on TS1 ribbon, in ink on TS1 carbon  (TS1 ribbon-SLC + Hobby?, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  practice ●  practise (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  body, ●  stomach body,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC)  stomachbody, rotunda  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  sewage ●  sewerage marked to close up  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  met ●  were met (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  unliterariness ●  unliterary iness (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  they completed the cure. ●  the child’s cure was rounded and just about complete. (TS1 ribbon-SLC)  the child’s cure was just about complete. they completed the cure cure. corrected miswriting  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  still ●  not in  (TS1 ribbon)  still  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  of ●  with of  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  unconventional ●  unconventional,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  doctor ●  D doctor ‘D’ marked for lowercase with a slash and ‘l.c.’  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  years, ●  years, ,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC)  years, (TS1 carbon) 
  poor house ●  poor-‖house (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  meantime his and other publishers would have been stealing ●  meantime his and other publishers filching (TS1 ribbon-SLC)  his meantime his and other publishers filching would have been stealing  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  honorable ●  honest honorable  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  government ●  Government (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  under the forty-two-year limit, ●  under the 42-year limit,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  confederate, ●  confederates, (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  twenty-five ●  twenty-three (TS1 ribbon)  twenty-three five  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  blaspheme ●  curse blaspheme  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
Explanatory Notes Thursday, November 22, 1906
 

he went to Washington . . . I supported the Chace Bill] At the invitation of the American Copyright League, which was sponsoring the “Hawley bill” on international copyright, Clemens went to Washington in January 1886 to testify before the Senate Committee on Patents. He was not, however, in perfect accord with the league’s official stance, and his testimony was diffident. At the hearing of 28 January, Clemens, upset by differences between himself and the league’s leaders, excused himself from speaking; at the next day’s hearing, urged by George Walton Green, the league’s secretary, to “speak right out like a little man,” he lent qualified support to the Hawley bill. In his remarks, Clemens advocated the adoption of what he called the “printing clause,” which would protect the interests of publishers, printers, and manufacturers by requiring that books be domestically produced (Fatout 1976, 206–9; Robert Underwood Johnson 1923, 267). The rival bill introduced by Senator Jonathan Chace of Rhode Island, a member of the Committee on Patents, did include such a clause, but Clemens refrained from mentioning the Chace bill explicitly. Also mentioned in the newspaper clipping inserted by Susy are General Joseph Hawley; the International Typographical Union, which represented workers in the printing industry in the United States and Canada; and James Russell Lowell, president of the American Copyright League since 1885 (Seville 2006, 217–24, 299; for Hawley see AutoMT1 , 576 n. 317.23–24; for the Chace bill see also AD, 18 Dec 1906, note at 318.21–22).

 

Somewhere about 1888 or ’89 . . . author of “Struwwelpeter.”] The author and illustrator of Der Struwwelpeter (1845) was Heinrich Hoffmann (1809–94), of Frankfurt. Clemens may have met him during his visit to Frankfurt in October 1891. On 27 October he wrote his publisher, Fred Hall, from Berlin that he had just spent “3 days & nights” translating Der Struwwelpeter into English and was about to send him the text. He wanted Hall to publish his translation “on the blank page facing the corresponding picture & the corresponding German verses,” and to have the book “on the American market Dec. 10 to catch the holidays.” But the very next day he again wrote Hall, this time from Frankfurt, to say that he had been trying and failing to acquire the plates of the German edition, which he wanted to reproduce in his own book (CSmH, in MTLP, 287–89; Wecter 1941). Clemens’s translation, which he never published, goes unmentioned in this 1906 dictation. His 1891 manuscript preface begins:

Struwwelpeter is the best known book in Germany, & has the largest sale known to the book trade, & the widest circulation. For nearly fifty years it has had its home in every German nursery. No man can divine just where its mysterious fascination lies, perhaps, but that it has a peculiar & powerful fascination for children is a fact that was settled long ago. (SLC 1891a)

 

five years from now my copyrights will begin to expire . . . another twenty-eight years’ copyright] In 1906 United States law conferred copyright on original works for twenty-eight years, reckoned from the date of publication, and a renewal term of fourteen years. Under this law, The Innocents Abroad, first published in 1869, if renewed, would have gone into the public domain in 1911, to be followed in due course by Clemens’s other works. For his plan to extend the copyright of his books by republishing them with the Autobiographical Dictations included as running footnotes, see AutoMT1 , 23–24 (Draper 1901, 40).