National Review, July 22nd, 1988
FROM SAM CLEMENS TO MARK TWAIN
SAM CLEMENS'S first surviving letter dates from his arrival in New York to see the World's Fair in 1853; it is devoted primarily to the hour he spent watching the two "Wild Men of Borneo," while the "infernal abolitionist" prompt the following: "I reckon I had better black my face, for in these Eastern States niggers are considerably better than white people." The gullible 17-year-old bigot addressed these sentiments to his mother, and they were promptly printed in the Hannibal Journal by his brother Orion. Sam's juvenile racism underwent a radical reversal du...
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