To Richard McCloud
16 March 1876 • Hartford, Conn.
(Hartford Courant, 18 March 1876, UCCL 01313)
(SUPERSEDED)

[Hartford], March 16.

Richard McCloud, Esq. 1

[Dear Sir]—I am very sorry that I cannot be with the Knights of [St.] Patrick to-morrow evening. In this centennial year we ought all to find a peculiar pleasure in doing honor to the memory of a man whose good name has endured through fourteen centuries. We ought to find pleasure in it for the reason that at this time we naturally have a fellow-feeling for such a man. He wrought a great work in his day. He found Ireland a prosperous republic, [&] looked about him to see if he might find some useful thing to turn his hand to. He observed that the president of that republic was in the habit of sheltering his great officials from deserved punishment, so he lifted up his staff [&] smote him, [&] he died.2 He found that the secretary of war had been so unbecomingly economical as to have laid up $12,000 a year out of a salary of $8,000, [&] he killed him.3 He found that the secretary of the interior always prayed over every separate [&] distinct barrel of salt beef that was intended for the unconverted savage [&] then kept that beef himself, so he killed him also.4 He found that the secretary of the navy knew more about handling suspicious claims than he did about handling a ship, [&] he at once made an end of him.5 He found that a very foul private secretary had been engineered through a sham trial, so he destroyed him.6 He discovered that the congress which pretended to [prodigious] virtue was very anxious to investigate an ambassador who had dishonored the country abroad, but was equally anxious to prevent the appointment of any spotless man to a similar post;7 that this Congress had no God but party; no system of morals but party policy; no vision but a bat’s vision, [&] no reason or excuse for existing anyhow. Therefore he massacred that congress to the last man.

When he had finished his great work he said, in his figurative way, “Lo, I have destroyed all the reptiles in Ireland.”

St. Patrick had no politics; his sympathies lay with the right—that was politics enough. When he came across a reptile he forgot to inquire whether he was a democrat or a republican, but simply exalted his staff [&] “let him have it.” Honored be his name—I wish we had him here to trim us up for the Centennial. But that cannot be. His staff, which was the symbol of real, not sham, reform, is idle. However, we still have with us the symbol of Truth—George Washington’s little hatchet—for I know [where] they’ve buried it.

Yours truly,

S. L. [Clemens].

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Richard McCloud, an attorney, was president of the Hartford Knights of St. Patrick. Clemens declined an invitation to appear at the society’s third annual banquet, held at the City Hotel on the evening of 17 March. His letter was among several read (Geer 1876, 108, 305; “Knights of St. Patrick,” Hartford Courant, 18 Mar 76, 2).

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2 This, for Clemens, was an unusually biting criticism of Ulysses S. Grant, who appointed and supported the tainted officials alluded to here.

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3 On 2 March 1876, just hours before the House of Representatives began impeachment proceedings against him, William W. Belknap (1829–90) had resigned as Grant’s secretary of war. Belknap, whose annual salary in fact was $8,000, was charged with having sold the position of post trader at Fort Sill, in the Indian territory that later became Oklahoma, for a total of $24,450, paid in installments since 1870. The selling of such posts, to individuals who cheated soldiers and Indians alike, was only one element in Belknap’s systematic malfeasance. Articles of impeachment were formally adopted by the House of Representatives on 3 April and Belknap’s trial in the Senate began on 17 April. It concluded on 1 August with his acquittal when the two-thirds vote necessary for conviction could not be mustered. Most of those who opposed a guilty verdict did so not because they believed Belknap innocent, but because they felt that his resignation had put him beyond the Senate’s jurisdiction. Subsequent to the acquittal a belief persisted that Belknap’s second and third wives, sisters Carrie (d. 1870) and Amanda Tomlinson (d. 1916), were responsible for the profiteering from the Fort Sill appointment. But although they encouraged and facilitated Belknap’s corruption and their extravagance was served by it, the fundamental guilt was his ( Annual Cyclopaedia 1876, 686–91; Cooper 2003,passim).

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4 Columbus Delano (1809–96), secretary of the interior from 1870 to 1875. His tenure, which ended with his resignation, was marked by allegations of fraud in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He was succeeded by Zachariah Chandler (1813–79), who attempted to reform the bureau.

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5 George M. Robeson (1829–97), a lawyer, was secretary of the navy from 1869 to 1877. Accused of extravagance and favoritism, he was investigated by Congress, but no definite action was taken against him. Clemens had private reason to dislike Robeson (see 6 and 7 Jan 76 to PAM, n. 1)

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6 In November 1875 Orville E. Babcock (1835–84), Grant’s private secretary and former aide-de-camp during the Civil War, was indicted by a Missouri grand jury for involvement with leaders of the infamous “Whisky Ring” in a conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service. Although on 24 February 1876 a fourteen-day trial, which included the reading of a Grant deposition in support of Babcock, ended with his acquittal, serious doubts about his innocence remained. On 28 February he attempted to resume his duties as Grant’s secretary, but a few days later resigned (New York Times: “The St. Louis Whisky Frauds,” 5 Nov 75, 1; “The President’s Cabinet,” 19 Feb 76, 1; “The Trial of Gen. Babcock,” 19 Feb 76, 8; “Gen. Babcock’s Acquittal,” 26 Feb 76, 1; “Gen. Babcock,” 28 Feb 76, 1; “The Western Whisky Trials,” 1 Mar 76, 1).

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7 In February 1876 Robert C. Schenck (1809–90), a former Union general, had to resign his post as United States minister to Great Britain as a consequence of his involvement in the promotion of a worthless Utah silver mine. In late May 1876 the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives closed a lengthy investigation by concluding, despite popular opinion to the contrary, that Schenck had not done anything criminal. Nevertheless, it condemned the cupidity and lack of sagacity he had displayed. Meanwhile, in early March 1876, Grant nominated author Richard Henry Dana (1815–82) to succeed Schenck, an act that was widely applauded. Grant was thwarted by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which voted against the appointment after active lobbying by a personal enemy of Dana’s, William Beach Lawrence (1800–81). In 1866, Dana had annotated and published an authorized edition of a standard legal text, Henry Wheaton’s Elements of International Law, which competed with the former authorized editions annotated by Lawrence, Wheaton 1855 and 1863. Lawrence had been accused of subverting the notes to his own “disloyal” views on slavery and state’s rights, and he in turn accused Dana of literary piracy. Lawrence’s cause was taken up by Democratic senators. The Senate completed the rejection of Dana on 4 April (New York Times: “The New Minister to England,” 7 Mar 76, 4 [two items]; “The Preposterous Story of Literary Piracy,” “The Mission to England,” 15 Mar 76, 1; “The Nomination of Mr. R. H. Dana,” 16 Mar 76, 1; “The Nomination of Mr. Dana,” 22 Mar 76, 1; “Notes from the Capital,” 5 Apr 76, 1; “The Emma Mine Scandal,” 26 May 76, 2).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Copy-text:

“Mark Twain’s Letter,” Hartford Courant, 18 Mar 76, 2.

Previous publication:“Mark Twain on St. Patrick,” New York Times, 19 Mar 76; “In General,” Boston Advertiser, 20 Mar 76, 1; Moore 1876, 1:287–88; SLC 1899–1907, 20:489.

Emendations and textual notes:

Hartford • Hartford

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•

& • and

& • and

& • and

& • and

& • and

& • and

& • and

prodigious • prodigous

& • and

& • and

where • [word not in; adopted from SLC 1899–1907, 20:439]

Clemens • Clemens