Dictated OctoberⒶtextual note 18, 1907
First Marconigrams sent across the Atlantic yesterday—President comes within threeⒶtextual note miles of flushing a bear—Mr. Clemens mentions the great comet of 1858, the year in which the first cablegram was sent.
I believe I have now arrived at that occasion in Vienna already spoken of when, by accident, I learned how to read on the platform without previous preparation—a most valuable discovery! As I recall it now—never mind it, let it go for the present; this morning’s news possesses a larger and more immediate interest:
First Marconigrams Sent Across Atlantic to The World.
London (via Marconi wireless via Glace Bay, N. S.), Oct. 17, 1907.
To the New York World:
Greetings to the Americans through the New York World in the words of Burns:
Man to man the world o’er
Shall brithers be for a’Ⓐtextual note thatⒺexplanatory note.
(Lord) LOREBURNⒶtextual note, Lord High Chancellor of EnglandⒺexplanatory note.
London (via Marconi wireless via Glace Bay, N. S.), Oct. 17, 1907.
To the New York World:
Greater miracles than those of old bewilder us to-day.
(Andrew) CARNEGIE.
London (via Marconi wireless via Glace Bay, N. S.), Oct. 17, 1907.
To the New York World:
I earnestly trust that this marvellous discovery may tend to enrich the mutual affection and confidence between the two great branches of the English-speaking race.Ⓐtextual note
(Ven. William Macdonald) SINCLAIRⒺexplanatory note,
Archdeacon of London and Chairman of the Pilgrims’
Committee.
Two colossal historical incidents had place yesterday; incidents which must go echoing down the corridors of time for ages; incidents which can never be forgotten while histories shall continue to be written. Yesterday, for the first time, business was opened to commerce by the Marconi Company, and wireless messages sent entirely across the AtlanticⒺexplanatory note, straight from shore to shore; and on that same day the President of the United States for the fourteenth time came within three miles of flushing a bear. As usual, he was far away, nobody knew where, when the bear burst upon the multitude of dogs and hunters, and equerries, and chamberlains in waiting, and sutlers, and cooks, and scullions, and Rough Riders, and infantry and artillery, and had his customary swim to the [begin page 173] other side of a pond and disappeared in the woods. While half the multitude watched the place where he vanished, the other half galloped off, with horns blowing, to scour the State of Louisiana in search of the great hunterⒺexplanatory note. Why don’tⒶtextual note they stop hunting the bear altogether,Ⓐtextual note and hunt the President? He is the only one of the pair that can’t be found when he is wanted.
By and by the President was found and laid upon the track, and he and the dogs followed it several miles through the woods, then gave it up, because Rev. Dr. Long, the “nature fakir,”Ⓐtextual note came along and explained that it was a cow trackⒺexplanatory note. This is a sorrowful ending to a mighty enterprise. His Excellency leaves for Washington to-day, to interest himself further in his scheme of provoking a war with Japan with his battleshipsⒶtextual note Ⓔexplanatory note. Many wise people contend that his idea, on the contrary, is to compel peace with Japan, but I think he wants a war. He was in a skirmish once at San Juan HillⒺexplanatory note, and he got so much moonshine glory out of it that he has never been able to stop talking about it since. I remember that at a small luncheon party of men at Brander Matthews’sⒺexplanatory note house, once, he dragged San Juan Hill in three or four times, in spite of all attempts of the judicious to abolish the subject and introduce an interesting one in its place. I think the President is clearly insane in several ways, and insanest upon war and its supreme glories. I think he longs for a big war wherein he can spectacularly perform as chief general and chief admiral, and go down to history as the only monarch of modern times that has served both offices at the same time.
Yesterday Marconi’s stations on the two sides of the Atlantic exchanged messages aggregating five thousand words, at the rate of forty or fifty words per minute. It is a world event. I met Mr. Marconi in London seven years ago, in company with Sir Hiram MaximⒺexplanatory note; he was confident, at that time, that he would some day be able to send wireless telegrams across the ocean, without relays, but not many other persons shared this confidence with him. I am glad to have seen him and talked with him, and glad that I have seen and talked with Professor Morse, and Graham BellⒺexplanatory note, and EdisonⒺexplanatory note, and others among the men who have added the top story to the majestic edifice of the world’s modern material civilization. No fuss was made over the great event of yesterday, either in England or America; the time for that will come later, as was the case with Morse’s telegraph.
I remember the wave of jubilation and astonishment that swept the planet in the summer of 1858 when the first electric message was sent across the Atlantic under the sea, by cableⒺexplanatory note. It did not seem believable; it seemed altogether unbelievable, yet we had to believe it and go through the several stages of getting reconciled to it and adjusted to it; then, as usual in these vast matters, it presently became a commonplace. That was the year of the great cometⒺexplanatory note—the most illustrious wanderer of the skies that has ever appeared in the heavens within the memory of men now living.Ⓐtextual note It was a wonderful sprayⒶtextual note of white light, a light so powerful that I think it was able to cast shadows—however, necessarily it could Ⓐtextual note, there is no occasion to seek for evidence of that; there is sufficient evidence of it in the fact that one could read a newspaper by that light at any time in [begin page 174] the night. I know this because I did it myself. I was a cub pilotⒶtextual note in those days, and had the glory and the splendor of that great companionship for my solace and delight on my lonely watch in the pilot-houseⒶtextual note during many and many a night. More than once I read a newspaper by the light that streamed from that stupendous explorer of the glittering archipelagoes of space.
By and by Marconi, like Morse, will have his triumph. It was not my fortune to be present when Morse had his, but I remember the stir it made. Morse, clothed in stars and ribbons and crosses contributed in his honor by the chief scientific societies and sceptredⒶtextual note rulers of the world, sat, old and bowed with age, upon the stage of the Academy of Music, in presence of several thousand persons, and worked the key himself and exchanged messagesⒺexplanatory note over land and under sea with monarchs and municipalities scattered far and wide around the rotundity of the globe. I missed that colossal event, but I hope to be present when it is repeated, with Marconi at the key.
Burns . . . for a’ that] The lines are loosely quoted from the last verse of “Song: ‘For a’ That and a’ That’ ” by Robert Burns (1795).
(Lord) LOREBURN, Lord High Chancellor of England] Robert Reid, Baron Loreburn (1846–1923), a Liberal politician, served as Lord Chancellor from 1905 to 1912.
(Ven. William Macdonald) SINCLAIR] William Macdonald Sinclair (1850–1917) was the archdeacon of London from 1889 to 1911.
Yesterday, for the first time . . . wireless messages sent entirely across the Atlantic] Guglielmo Marconi (1874–1937) of Italy received a British patent for a system of wireless telegraphy in 1896, and the following year founded the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company of Britain. Although his device first transmitted a message from Newfoundland to Cornwall in December 1901, it was nearly six years before a regular transatlantic service was launched (“Dream of Marconi Realized at Last,” Los Angeles Times, 18 Oct 1907, I4; “Marconi Opens Regular Service over Atlantic,” New York World, 18 Oct 1907, 1).
on that same day the President . . . scour the State of Louisiana in search of the great hunter] The newspapers printed frequent front-page reports of President Roosevelt’s October bear-hunting trip; the specific article that Clemens read has not been identified (see, for example, “Bear Escapes Roosevelt,” New York Times, 17 Oct 1907, 1; “Bear Ran Other Way,” Washington Post, 17 Oct 1907, 1). He treats this subject at greater length in the Autobiographical Dictation of 21 October 1907.
Rev. Dr. Long, the “nature fakir,” came along and explained that it was a cow track] For the ongoing quarrel between William Joseph Long and Roosevelt see the Autobiographical Dictation of 29 May 1907 and notes. Clemens’s joke anticipates an actual interview that appeared four days later in the New York World, in which Long derided Roosevelt for “chasing a timid animal with a pack of dogs and then shooting him from a safe distance when he can’t do a thing to save or defend himself” (“Calls Roosevelt Bearkilling Pure Brute Cowardice,” New York World, 22 Oct 1907, 1).
his scheme of provoking a war with Japan with his battleships] In 1906–7, tensions arising from Japanese territorial claims in Asia and the treatment of Japanese immigrants in California fueled an existing controversy over the proposed deployment of United States warships to the Pacific. When in August 1907 it was announced that Roosevelt was planning to send a fleet of sixteen battleships to the Pacific, purportedly on a practice cruise, several newspapers—notably the New York World and New York Sun—denounced the maneuver as bound to provoke a war; Roosevelt replied that his intentions were peaceful, and that the show of naval power was intended to avert trouble with Japan. The fleet departed in December, but there was no official announcement until March 1908 that it would undertake a world cruise (a plan that the newspapers had reported as early as September 1907). The Japanese, choosing to regard the action as a friendly demonstration and not a provocation, formally invited the fleet, and received it hospitably in October 1908. Roosevelt considered the cruise of the “Great White Fleet”—as it came to be known—one of his greatest contributions to world peace (Bailey 1932, 389–403, 408, 413–14, 421–22; John M. Thompson 2011, 227; for Roosevelt’s role in ending the Russo-Japanese War see AutoMT1 , 462–63, 647–48 n. 462.33–36).
He was in a skirmish once at San Juan Hill] Roosevelt was second in command of the First Volunteer Cavalry, known as the Rough Riders, who captured San Juan Hill in Cuba on 1 July 1898 during the Spanish-American War.
I met Mr. Marconi in London . . . with Sir Hiram Maxim] Nothing is known of this meeting, beyond Clemens’s notebook entry, “Met Marconi & Sir Hiram Maxim, 1900” (Notebook 48, TS p. 12, CU-MARK). In that year, American-born inventor Hiram Stevens Maxim (1840–1916) became a British subject; he was knighted the following year. Best known for the machine gun that bears his name, he also experimented with flying machines and incandescent lamps. Several of Maxim’s letters to Clemens survive, in which he expounds at length his opposition to the work of Christian missionaries in China. He praises Clemens’s writings on the subject as “of very great value to the civilization of the world,” there being “no man living whose words carry greater weight than your own as no one’s writings are so eagerly sought after by all classes” (17 Apr 1901, CU-MARK). Clemens’s letters to Maxim have not been found.
Professor Morse, and Graham Bell] It is not known when Clemens met Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791–1872), acknowledged here as the inventor of the telegraph—although elsewhere Clemens noted that “Professor Henry, the American, Wheatstone in England, Morse on the sea, and a German in Munich, all invented it at the same time” (SLC 1891, 98). Neither is it known when Clemens met Alexander Graham Bell.
Edison] Clemens met Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931) on one documented occasion, in June 1888: see the Autobiographical Dictation of 14 February 1908, note at 205.24 (1st).
in the summer of 1858 when the first electric message was sent . . . by cable] The first transatlantic cable was laid in August 1858, after several failed attempts, but it stopped working after only three weeks. It was not until 1866 that a functioning cable was successfully put in place.
That was the year of the great comet] Donati’s comet was first sighted by Giovanni Battista Donati (1826–73) of Italy on 2 June 1858. The brilliance of its tail captured public interest while it was visible to the naked eye, from September 1858 to March 1859. The comet will not return until 3808.
It was not my fortune to be present . . . worked the key himself and exchanged messages] On 10 June 1871 a bronze statue of Morse was unveiled in New York’s Central Park, and he was honored that evening at a reception in the Academy of Music. The climax of the event occurred when an operator sent a message over all the wires in America: “Greeting and thanks to the telegraph fraternity throughout the land. Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good-will to men.” Morse then sat at the keyboard himself and transmitted “S. F. B. Morse,” which was greeted with a “wild storm of enthusiasm” (Prime 1875, 718–20). Clemens was in Elmira on that day, plotting another lecture tour (10 June 1871 to Redpath and Fall, L4 , 398–402).
Source documents.
World Facsimile of the New York World (the original clipping that Hobby transcribed is now lost), 18 October 1907, 1: ‘First Marconigrams . . . Pilgrims’ Committee.’ (172.9–27).TS1 Typescript, leaves numbered 2357–62, made from Hobby’s notes and World and revised.
TS1, as revised by Clemens, is the only authoritative source for the dictated portion of this text. For the article from the New York World we follow the original newspaper.