To George W. McCrary
27 February 1877 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: OFH, UCCL 09190)

slc farmington avenue, hartford.

Feb. 27.

My Dear Mr. McCrary:1

I beg you to read the enclosed ar letter, of mine, & try to interest yourself in the remedying this evil. in the destruction of this law.2 When Duncan got up his commissionership & Seamen Association projects, all of us who knew him, said knew he was purposing to rob somebody; but what is everybody’s business is nobody’s business—so nobody [interfered. This] Duncan is one of the vilest men that exists to-day; & I am exceedingly sorry that I have numbered myself with the silent ones all these years. However, one reason was, that I supposed he was kicked out of office when his villainies were exposed 5 years ago.

I know your hands are full without any additions from me, but my motive must be my excuse.3

Truly Yours

Samℓ. L. Clemens

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1George W. McCrary (1835–90), an attorney from Keokuk, had been a Republican congressman from Iowa since March 1869. Clemens wrote this letter to him in the belief, widely shared at the time, that he was about to be appointed attorney general in President Hayes’s new cabinet. In the event, Hayes made McCrary his secretary of war, making Clemens’s request moot (New York Herald: “Personal Intelligence,” 19 Feb 1877, 4; “Why M’Crary Was Not Made Attorney General,” 8 Mar 1877, 3).

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2Clemens’s enclosure, no longer extant, was presumably the newspaper printing of his recent letter critiquing the shipping commissioners act of 1872 (22 Feb 1877 to the editor of the New York World).

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3Clemens continued to investigate Duncan’s affairs. He sent a note (no longer extant) to New York attorney Edward P. Wilder, co-author of Philanthropy Dissected (22 Feb 1877 to the editor of the New York World, n. 3). On 8 March 1877 Wilder replied with a long letter giving details of Duncan’s “knaveries,” enclosing copies of affidavits from seamen defrauded by Duncan, and wishing Clemens “every success in your crusade agst. him” (CU-MARK). Clemens’s “crusade” against Duncan remained dormant until 1883. In June of that year he renewed his charges in an interview printed in the New York Times, which led Duncan to sue the paper for libel. In March of 1884, however, a jury found that he deserved only twelve cents in damages (“Mr. Mark Twain Excited on Seeing the Name of Capt. C. C. Duncan in Print,” New York Times, 10 June 1883, 1; “The Duncan Libel Suit,” Brooklyn Eagle, 8 Mar 1884, 4).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, George W. McCrary Papers, OFH.

Previous publication:

MicroPUL, reel 1.

Provenance:

Opened in 1916, OFH preserves President Rutherford B. Hayes’s “12,000 volume personal library along with archival material from his military and political career, particularly his presidency, 1877–1881.”

Emendations and textual notes:

interfered. This • ~.— | ~