Decaying political and commercial morals of the United StatesⒶtextual note—The press no longer the palladium of our liberties—Mr. Guggenheim chosen SenatorⒶtextual note for Colorado by a bought legislature—The little unfinished tale of the Rev. Mr. X. who discovered a first-editionⒶtextual note ShakspeareⒶtextual note—Mr. Clemens finishes the tale—And shows the difference between this man and the late Hammond Trumbull.
The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet. The human being is a curious and interesting invention. It takes a CromwellⒶtextual note and some thousands of preaching and praying soldiers and parsonsⒶtextual note ten years to raise the standards of English official and commercial morals to a respectworthyⒶtextual note altitude, but it takes only one Charles IIⒶtextual note a couple of years to pull them down into the mud againⒺexplanatory note. Our standards were fairly high a generation ago, and they had been brought to that grade by some generations of wholesome labor on the part of the nation’s multitudinous teachers; but Jay Gould, all by himself, was able to undermine the structure in half a dozen years; and in thirty years his little band of successors—the Senator Clarks, and their kind—have been able to sodden it with decay from roof to cellar, and render it shaky beyond repair, apparently.
Before Jay Gould’s time there was a fine phrase, a quite elegant phrase, that was on everybody’s lips, and everybody enjoyed repeating it, day and night, and everywhere, and of enjoying the thrill of it: “The press is the palladium of our liberties.”Ⓔexplanatory note It was a serious [begin page 410] saying, and it was a true saying, but it is long ago dead, and has been tucked safely away in the limbo of oblivion. No one would venture to utter it now except as a sarcasm.
Mr. Guggenheim has lately been chosen United States SenatorⒶtextual note by a bought legislature in Colorado—which is almostⒶtextual note the customary way, now, of electing United States SenatorsⒶtextual note. Mr. Guggenheim has purchased his legislature and paid for it. By his public utterances, it is plain that the general political rottenness has entered into him and saturated him, and he is not aware that he has been guilty of even an indelicacy, let alone a gross crimeⒺexplanatory note. In many instances theⒶtextual note palladium of our liberties has nothing but compliment for him, and justification. The Denver Post, which is recognized as the principal and most trustworthy reflector of the public opinion of his State, says:
It is true that Mr. Guggenheim spent a large sum of money, but he only followed the precedents set in many other States. There is nothing essentially wrong in what he has done. Mr. Guggenheim will make the best Senator Colorado has ever had. His election will result in bringing to Colorado what the State needs, capitalists and population of the desirable quality. Mr. Guggenheim will get for Colorado many improvements which Tom PattersonⒺexplanatory note failed to obtain from Washington. He is just the man for the place. There is no use trying to reform the world. They have been trying that for two thousand years and haven’t succeeded. Mr. Guggenheim is the choice of the people and they ought to have him, even if he spent a million dollars. The issue of the election was Tom Patterson and Simon Guggenheim, and the people chose Guggenheim. The Denver Post bows to the will of the peopleⒺexplanatory note.
Mr. Guggenheim,Ⓐtextual note in buying what an obsolete phrase called senatorial “honors,”Ⓐtextual note did not buy the entire legislature, but practisedⒶtextual note the customary economy and bought only enough of it to elect him. This has been resented by some of the unbought; they offered a motion to inquire into the methods by which his election was achieved, but the bought majority not only voted the motion down but actually sponged it from the records Ⓐtextual note Ⓔexplanatory note. It looks like sensitiveness, but it probably isn’t; it is human nature, that even the most conscienceless thieves do not like to be pilloried in the Rogues’ Gallery.
A Little Tale.
It was told me the other night by one of the guests present at the service of praise given by the Union League Club in adulation of Senator Clark, the fragrantⒶtextual note. He said:
The ReverendⒶtextual note Elliot B. X.,Ⓐtextual note of the City of XX,Ⓐtextual note is an eager and passionate collector of rare books; by grace of his wife’s wealth, he is able to exploit his passion freely. Several years ago he was traveling through a sparsely settled farming country, and he stopped at a farm-house to rest, or feed, or something. It was a poor little humble place, but the farmer and his wife and their two little children seemed contented and happy. Presently the clergyman’s attention was attracted by a large book which in their play the little children were using as a stool. It seemed to be a family Bible. Mr. X.Ⓐtextual note was troubled to see the Scriptures used in such a way; also, the ancient aspect of the book inflamed his [begin page 411] book-collecting lust, and he took up the volume and examined it. An earthquake of sudden joy shook him from dome to cellar—the book was a ShakspeareⒶtextual note, first-editionⒶtextual note, and in good repair!
As soon as he was able to compose himself, he asked the farmer where he got the book. The farmer said it had been in the possession of his people in New England no one knew how many years or generations, and that when he removed to the West to find a new home he brought the book along merely because it was a book; one doesn’t throw books away.
Mr. X.Ⓐtextual note asked him if he would sell it. The farmer said “Yes,” that he would like to trade it for a book or two of some other character—books of a fresher interest than this one.
Mr. X.Ⓐtextual note said he would take it home, then, and——
Somebody broke into the conversation at this point and it was not resumed. I went home thinking about the unfinished tale, and in bed I continued to think about it. It was an interesting situation, and I was sorry the interruption had occurred; then, as I was not sleepy, I thought I would finish the tale myself. I knew it would be easy to do, because such tales always move along a certain well defined course and they all fetch up at one and the same goal at the end.
I must go back for a moment, for I have forgotten a detail. The book had furnished the clergyman not merely one joyful earthquake, but two, for in it he found what was manifestly Shakspeare’sⒶtextual note autograph—a prodigious find, there being only two others known to be in existence on the planet! Along with Shakspeare’sⒶtextual note name was another name—WardⒶtextual note. Without doubt this name would be a help in tracing the book’s pedigree and in establishing its authenticityⒺexplanatory note.
As I have said, it would be easy to furnish the tale, so I began to think it out. I thought it out to my satisfaction—as follows:
My Version.
Upon his arrival at home, the clergyman examined the latest quotations of the rare-bookⒶtextual note market and found that perfect copies of first-editionⒶtextual note ShakspearesⒶtextual note had advanced 5 per centⒶtextual note since the autumn quotations of the previous year, therefore the farmer’s copy was worth $7,300; also, he found that the standing offer of $55,000 for an authentic autograph of ShakspeareⒶtextual note had been advanced to $60,000. He returned humble and fervent thanks for the happy fortune which had thrown these treasures in his way, and he resolved to add them to his collection, and thus make that collection illustrious and establish its renown forever; so he sent his check for $67,300Ⓐtextual note to the farmer, whose astonishment and gratitude were beyond his ability to express in words.
I was very well satisfied with my version, and not unproud of it; wherefore I was eager to get hold of the rest of the other version and see if I had fallen into any discrepancies. I hunted up the narrator, and he furnished me what I wanted, as follows:
[begin page 412]Conclusion of the First Version.
The gigantic find proved to be genuine, and worth many thousands of dollars in the market; indeed the value of the autograph was quite beyond estimate in dollars, there being American multimillionairesⒶtextual note who would be glad to pay three-fourths of a year’s income for it. The generous clergyman did not forget the poor farmer, but sent him an encyclopediaⒶtextual note and eight hundred dollarsⒶtextual note.
Caesar’s ghost!Ⓐtextual note I was disappointed, and said so. A discussion followed, in which several of us took part, I maintaining that the clergyman had not been generous to the farmer, but had taken advantage of his ignorance to rob him; the others insisted that the clergyman’s knowledge was a valuable acquisition which had been earned by study and diligence, and that he was entitled to all the profit he could get out of it—that there was no call for him to give away that valuable knowledge to a person who had been interesting himself in potatoes, and corn, and hogs, when he might have been devoting his leisure hours to acquiring the same knowledge which had turned out to be so valuable to the clergyman. I was not persuaded, but still insistedⒶtextual note that the transaction was not fair to the farmer, and that he ought to have had half of the value of his book and the autographⒶtextual note anyway. I believed I would have allowed him half, and IⒶtextual note said so. I could not be sure of this, but I at least believed it. Privately I knew that in my first burst of emotion, if I had been in the clergyman’s place, I would have given the farmer the entire value; that when the burst of emotion had had time to modify, I would have reduced the farmer’s share by 10Ⓐtextual note per cent; that when the second burst had had time to cool off a little the farmer’s share would suffer another shrinkage; and if there should be still further extensions of time for cooling off, I thought it more than likely that I should end by sending the farmer the CyclopediaⒶtextual note and stopping there;Ⓐtextual note for this would be the way of the human race, and I am the human race compacted and crammed into a single suit of clothes, but quite able to represent its entire massed multitude in all its moods and inspirations.
But there are exceptions; I am aware of that; I do not represent those exceptions, but only the massed generality of the race. The late Hammond Trumbull of Hartford was an exception. He was a very great scholar and aⒶtextual note very fine human being. If he had used his vast knowledge commercially, he could have made himself rich out of it, but he didn’t; he never made a penny out of it at the expense of some other person’s ignorance; he was always ready to help the poor possessor of any rare and precious thing, out of his store of knowledge, and he did it gladly, and without charge. I remember an instance: twenty years after the war a lady wrote him from the South that among the flotsam and jetsam left unappropriated by the Union soldiers when they destroyed her father’s houseⒶtextual note in the war time was a copy of the EliotⒶtextual note Indian Bible; that she had been told it was worth a hundred dollars;Ⓐtextual note that she had also been told that Mr. Trumbull would know the book’s valueⒺexplanatory note, and would be able to advise her in the matter;Ⓐtextual note that she was poor, andⒶtextual note the hundred dollars would be an important sum for her.
Trumbull replied that if the volume was perfectⒶtextual note the British Museum would take it at its standing price, which was a thousand dollars. He asked the lady to send the book [begin page 413] to him, which she did. It turned out to be a perfect copy, and he sent her the money, without rebate.Ⓐtextual note
I recall an instance of the other sort: a poverty-stricken sister, or other female relative of Audubon,Ⓐtextual note possessed a copy, in perfect condition,Ⓐtextual note of Audubon’s great book, and she wished to sell it, for she was very poor. Among collectors it had an established price, which was a thousand dollars, but she did not know that. She offered it to a professor in a university, who did Ⓐtextual note know it, and he gave her a hundred dollars for it; and not only did he play this swindle upon her, but had no more witⒶtextual note and no more heartⒶtextual note than to boast about it afterwardsⒺexplanatory note.
It takes a Cromwell . . . to pull them down into the mud again] Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) was the Puritan political and military leader of the parliamentary forces during the English civil wars (1642–51), which led to the overthrow of the English monarchy. As Lord Protector of the newly established republican Commonwealth, he promoted moral and spiritual reform. The monarchy was restored after his death, and King Charles II (1630–85) placed on the throne.
“The press is the palladium of our liberties.”] The full quotation—“The liberty of the press is the Palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights of an Englishman”—is from the dedication in Letters by Junius (fl. 1770), the pseudonymous English polemicist.
Mr. Guggenheim . . . he is not aware that he has been guilty of even an indelicacy, let alone a gross crime] Simon Guggenheim (1867–1941), like his father and seven brothers, made a fortune in mining and smelting. He was elected as a Republican senator from Colorado by the state legislature on 15 January. When accused of buying the members’ votes, he replied, “The money I have contributed has helped to elect these men, and naturally they feel under obligation to vote for me. It is done all over the United States to-day” (“Guggenheim Is Scored,” Washington Post, 15 Jan 1907, 1; “Guggenheim for Colorado,” Los Angeles Times, 16 Jan 1907, 15). Although no formal action was brought against Guggenheim, his reputation for dishonesty persisted: in July 1907 a Denver judge, Ben B. Lindsey, was reported as saying, “Not the senate chamber but the penitentiary or the gallows is the place for Guggenheim” (“Advises Gallows for Guggenheim,” Chicago Tribune, 16 July 1907, 1).
It is true that Mr. Guggenheim . . . will of the people] The date of this article from the Denver Post has not been identified.
Tom Patterson] Thomas MacDonald Patterson (1839–1916) had served as a Democratic senator from Colorado since 1901 and was in the last year of his term.
they offered a motion to inquire . . . actually sponged it from the records] On 11 January a resolution was introduced in the Colorado legislature that provided for the appointment of a committee to investigate Guggenheim’s “alleged purchase of the United States Senatorship.” The resolution was tabled, and by a “viva-voce vote” the matter was “expunged from the records” (“Guggenheim Vindicated,” Los Angeles Times, 12 Jan 1907, 17).
The Reverend Elliot B. X. . . . establishing its authenticity] In 1886 Frank M. Bristol, a Chicago minister and book collector, found, supposedly in Nevada, a copy of the second (1632) folio edition of Shakespeare’s plays. On a flyleaf was pasted a slip of paper bearing an apparent Shakespeare signature. The book also contained the signature of John Ward. Since this was the name of a seventeenth-century vicar of Stratford-on-Avon, it seemed to lend credibility to the Shakespeare signature. Bristol acquired the book and sold it to the wealthy Chicago book collector Charles F. Gunther. The signature was soon recognized as a forgery, an imitation of one of the signatures on Shakespeare’s last will and testament. Clemens himself would ignore it in Is Shakespeare Dead? (1909), where he enumerates the five signatures then extant (“Literary Notes,” New York Tribune, 18 Feb 1886, 6; Vining 1887; Rolfe 1890; “The Gunther Autograph,” New Shakespeareana 4 [Apr 1905]: 56–62; SLC 1909c, 33–34; Tannenbaum 1927, 149, 152–53).
copy of the Eliot Indian Bible . . . Mr. Trumbull would know the book’s value] Missionary John Eliot (ca. 1604–90) translated the Bible into Natick, a dialect of the Massachusett-Naragansett tribe in the Algonquian family. A thousand copies of it—the first Bible published in the Americas—were printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1660–63. By 1881 the preeminent historian and linguist James Hammond Trumbull (a Hartford acquaintance of Clemens’s) was said to be the only man living who could read it. He spent his last years working on a Natick dictionary, which he left nearly complete when he died in 1897. It was published posthumously in 1903 by the Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution (Library of Congress 2011; “Eliot’s Indian Bible,” Chicago Tribune, 17 Apr 1881, 24; “Key to Eliot’s Bible,” New York Times, 15 Aug 1903, BR13).
poverty-stricken sister, or other female relative of Audubon . . . boast about it afterwards] The original folio edition of John James Audubon’s Birds of America, published in London in 1827–38, comprised four volumes of plates; five volumes of text were issued in 1831–38. Clemens described this incident, and contrasted it with Trumbull’s sale of the Eliot Bible, in a eulogy he published in the Century Magazine in 1897: “James Hammond Trumbull. The Tribute of a Neighbor” (SLC 1897).
Source document.
TS1 Typescript carbon (the ribbon copy is lost), leaves numbered 1748–58, made from Hobby’s notes and revised.With the ribbon copy of TS1 missing, TS1 (a carbon copy), which Clemens revised, is our only authoritative source for this dictation. Into TS1 Hobby transcribed an unidentified newspaper article about Simon Guggenheim (at 410.11–21). According to Clemens, the original appeared in the Denver Post, but he probably clipped a reprinting of it from one of the newspapers he habitually read. Since Hobby’s source has not been identified, our text follows her transcription.