I am now on my way to my own country to run for the
presidency because there are not yet enough candidates
in the field, and those who have entered are too much
hampered by their own principles, which are prejudices.
I propose to go there to purify the political atmosphere.
I am in favor of everything everybody is in favor
of. What you should do is to satisfy the whole
nation, not half of it, for then you would only be
half a President.
There could not be a broader platform than mine.
I am in favor of anything and everything—of
temperance and intemperance, morality and qualified
immorality, gold standard and free silver.
I have tried all sorts of things, and that is why
I want to by the great position of ruler of a country.
I have been in turn reporter, editor, publisher,
author, lawyer, burglar. I have worked my way
up, and wish to continue to do so.
I read to-day in a magazine article that Christendom
issued last year fifty-five thousand new books.
Consider what that means! Fifty-five thousand
new books meant fifty-four thousand new authors.
We are going to have them all on our hands to take
care of sooner or later. Therefore, double your,
subscriptions to the literary fund!
Addressat the dinner of the nineteenth
century club, at
SHERRY’S,
new York, November 20, 1900
Mr. Clemens spoke to the toast
“The Disappearance of Literature.”
Doctor Gould presided, and in introducing Mr.
Clemens said that he (the speaker), when in Germany,
had to do a lot of apologizing for a certain
literary man who was taking what the Germans
thought undue liberties with their language.
It wasn’t necessary for your chairman to apologize
for me in Germany. It wasn’t necessary
at all. Instead of that he ought to have impressed
upon those poor benighted Teutons the service I rendered
them. Their language had needed untangling for
a good many years. Nobody else seemed to want
to take the job, and so I took it, and I flatter myself
that I made a pretty good job of it. The Germans
have an inhuman way of cutting up their verbs.
Now a verb has a hard time enough of it in this world
when it’s all together. It’s downright
inhuman to split it up. But that’s just
what those Germans do. They take part of a verb
and put it down here, like a stake, and they take
the other part of it and put it away over yonder like
another stake, and between these two limits they just
shovel in German. I maintain that there is no
necessity for apologizing for a man who helped in
a small way to stop such mutilation.
