[Dear Sir]—I am very sorry that I cannot be with the Knights of [St.] Patrick to-morrow evening.1 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,
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Richard McCloud, an attorney, was president of the Hartford Knights of St. Patrick,a cultural and educational society that promoted and preserved Irish heritage.
Clemens declined an invitation to appear at its third annual banquet, held at the City Hotel on the evening of
17 March. His letter was among several that were read (Geer 1876, 108, 305;
“Knights of St. Patrick,” Hartford Courant, 18 Mar 1876, 2).
St. Patrick’s “great work” of ridding Ireland of its snakes becomes the occasion for an unusually vituperative commentary on political corruption in the administration of Ulysses S. Grant. The various tainted officials whom Grant appointed and supported are identified in the notes below.
On 2 March 1876, just hours before the House of Representatives began impeachment proceedings against him, William W. Belknap (1829–90) resigned as Grant’s secretary of war. Belknap, whose annual salary was in fact $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 of
Belknap’s 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 (1843?-1870) and Amanda Tomlinson (1840-1916), were responsible for the
profiteering from the Fort Sill appointment. But even though 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).
Columbus Delano (1809–96) was 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.
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 his own reason to dislike Robeson (see 6 and 7 Jan 1876 to PAM, n.
1)
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. Despite his acquittal on 24 February 1876, after a fourteen-day trial that included the reading of a Grant deposition in his support, serious doubts about his innocence remained. On 28 February he attempted to resume his duties as
Grant’s secretary, but resigned a few days later (New York Times: “The St. Louis Whisky
Frauds,” 5 Nov 1875, 1; “The President’s Cabinet,” 19 Feb 1876, 1; “The Trial of
Gen. Babcock,” 19 Feb 1876, 8; “Gen. Babcock’s Acquittal,” 26 Feb 1876, 1; “Gen.
Babcock,” 28 Feb 1876, 1; “The Western Whisky Trials,” 1 Mar 1876, 1).
In February 1876 Robert C. Schenck (1809–90), a former Union general, had to
resign his post as U.S. 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
(1800–1881). 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 prior authorized editions annotated
by Lawrence (Wheaton 1855, 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 1876, 4 [two items]; “The Preposterous Story of Literary
Piracy,” “The Mission to England,” 15 Mar 1876, 1; “The Nomination of Mr. R. H.
Dana,” 16 Mar 1876, 1; “The Nomination of Mr. Dana,” 22 Mar 1876, 1; “Notes from the
Capital,” 5 Apr 1876, 1; “The Emma Mine Scandal,” 26 May 1876, 2).
Source text(s):Previous publication:
Moore 1876, 1:287–88; SLC 1899–1907, 20:489.
Emendations and textual notes:
Hartford • Hartford
Richard McCloud, Esq. • Richard McCloud, Esq.
Dear Sir • Dear Sir
St. • ~‸
& • and [here and hereafter]
prodigious • prodigous
where • [word not in; adopted from SLC 1899–1907, 20:439]
Clemens • Clemens
