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WELCOME HOME
ADDRESS AT THE DINNER IN HIS HONOR AT THE LOTOS CLUB,
NOVEMBER 10, 1900
In August, 1895, just before sailing for Australia, Mr. Clemens issued
the following statement:
"It has been reported that I sacrificed, for the benefit of the
creditors, the property of the publishing firm whose financial backer I
was, and that I am now lecturing for my own benefit.
"This is an error. I intend the lectures, as well as the property, for
the creditors. The law recognizes no mortgage on a man's brains, and a
merchant who has given up all he has may take advantage of the laws of
insolvency and may start free again for himself. But I am not a business
man, and honor is a harder master than the law. It cannot compromise for
less than one hundred cents on a dollar, and its debts are never
outlawed.
"I had a two-thirds interest in the publishing firm whose capital I
furnished. If the firm had prospered I would have expected to collect
two-thirds of the profits. As it is, I expect to pay all the debts. My
partner has no resources, and I do not look for assistance to my wife,
whose contributions in cash from her own means have nearly equalled the
claims of all the creditors combined. She has taken nothing; on the
contrary, she has helped and intends to help me to satisfy the
obligations due to the rest of the creditors.
"It is my intention to ask my creditors to accept that as a legal
discharge, and trust to my honor to pay the other fifty per cent. as fast
as I can earn it. From my reception thus far on my lecturing tour, I am
confident that if I live I can pay off the last debt within four years.
"After which, at the age of sixty-four, I can make a fresh and
unincumbered start in life. I am going to Australia, India, and South
Africa, and next year I hope to make a tour of the great cities of the
United States."
I thank you all out of my heart for this fraternal welcome, and it seems
almost too fine, almost too magnificent, for a humble Missourian such as
I am, far from his native haunts on the banks of the Mississippi; yet my
modesty is in a degree fortified by observing that I am not the only
Missourian who has been honored here to-night, for I see at this very
table-here is a Missourian [indicating Mr. McKelway], and there is a
Missourian [indicating Mr. Depew], and there is another Missourian--and
Hendrix and Clemens; and last but not least, the greatest Missourian of
them all--here he sits--Tom Reed, who has always concealed his birth till
now. And since I have been away I know what has been happening in his
case: he has deserted politics, and now is leading a creditable life. He
has reformed, and God prosper him; and I judge, by a remark which he made
up-stairs awhile ago, that he had found a new business that is utterly
suited to his make and constitution, and all he is doing now is that he
is around raising the average of personal beauty.
But I am grateful to the president for the kind words which he has said
of me, and it is not for me to say whether these praises were deserved or
not. I prefer to accept them just as they stand, without concerning
myself with the statistics upon which they have been built, but only with
that large matter, that essential matter, the good-fellowship, the
kindliness, the magnanimity, and generosity that prompted their
utterance. Well, many things have happened since I sat here before, and
now that I think of it, the president's reference to the debts which were
left by the bankrupt firm of Charles L. Webster & Co. gives me an
opportunity to say a word which I very much wish to say, not for myself,
but for ninety-five men and women whom I shall always hold in high esteem
and in pleasant remembrance--the creditors of that firm. They treated me
well; they treated me handsomely. There were ninety-six of them, and by
not a finger's weight did ninety-five of them add to the burden of that
time for me. Ninety-five out of the ninety-six--they didn't indicate by
any word or sign that they were anxious about their money. They treated
me well, and I shall not forget it; I could not forget it if I wanted to.
Many of them said, "Don't you worry, don't you hurry"; that's what they
said. Why, if I could have that kind of creditors always, and that
experience, I would recognize it as a personal loss to be out of debt.
I owe those ninety-five creditors a debt of homage, and I pay it now in
such measure as one may pay so fine a debt in mere words. Yes, they said
that very thing. I was not personally acquainted with ten of them, and
yet they said, "Don't you worry, and don't you hurry." I know that
phrase by heart, and if all the other music should perish out of the
world it would still sing to me. I appreciate that; I am glad to say
this word; people say so much about me, and they forget those creditors.
They were handsomer than I was--or Tom Reed.
Oh, you have been doing many things in this time that I have been absent;
you have done lots of things, some that are well worth remembering, too.
Now, we have fought a righteous war since I have gone, and that is rare
in history--a righteous war is so rare that it is almost unknown in
history; but by the grace of that war we set Cuba free, and we joined her
to those three or four nations that exist on this earth; and we started
out to set those poor Filipinos free, too, and why, why, why that most
righteous purpose of ours has apparently miscarried I suppose I never
shall know.
But we have made a most creditable record in China in these days--our
sound and level-headed administration has made a most creditable record
over there, and there are some of the Powers that cannot say that by any
means. The Yellow Terror is threatening this world to-day. It is
looming vast and ominous on that distant horizon. I do not know what is
going to be the result of that Yellow Terror, but our government has had
no hand in evoking it, and let's be happy in that and proud of it.
We have nursed free silver, we watched by its cradle; we have done the
best we could to raise that child, but those pestiferous Republicans have
--well, they keep giving it the measles every chance they get, and we
never shall raise that child. Well, that's no matter--there's plenty of
other things to do, and we must think of something else. Well, we have
tried a President four years, criticised him and found fault with him the
whole time, and turned around a day or two ago with votes enough to spare
to elect another. O consistency! consistency! thy name--I don't know
what thy name is--Thompson will do--any name will do--but you see there
is the fact, there is the consistency. Then we have tried for governor
an illustrious Rough Rider, and we liked him so much in that great office
that now we have made him Vice-President--not in order that that office
shall give him distinction, but that he may confer distinction upon that
office. And it's needed, too--it's needed. And now, for a while anyway,
we shall not be stammering and embarrassed when a stranger asks us, "What
is the name of the Vice-President?" This one is known; this one is
pretty well known, pretty widely known, and in some quarters favorably.
I am not accustomed to dealing in these fulsome compliments, and I am
probably overdoing it a little; but--well, my old affectionate admiration
for Governor Roosevelt has probably betrayed me into the complimentary
excess; but I know him, and you know him; and if you give him rope
enough--I mean if--oh yes, he will justify that compliment; leave it just
as it is. And now we have put in his place Mr. Odell, another Rough
Rider, I suppose; all the fat things go to that profession now. Why, I
could have been a Rough Rider myself if I had known that this political
Klondike was going to open up, and I would have been a Rough Rider if I
could have gone to war on an automobile but not on a horse! No, I know
the horse too well; I have known the horse in war and in peace, and there
is no place where a horse is comfortable. The horse has too many
caprices, and he is too much given to initiative. He invents too many
new ideas. No, I don't want anything to do with a horse.
And then we have taken Chauncey Depew out of a useful and active life and
made him a Senator--embalmed him, corked him up. And I am not grieving.
That man has said many a true thing about me in his time, and I always
said something would happen to him. Look at that [pointing to Mr. Depew]
gilded mummy! He has made my life a sorrow to me at many a banquet on
both sides of the ocean, and now he has got it. Perish the hand that
pulls that cork!
All these things have happened, all these things have come to pass, while
I have been away, and it just shows how little a Mugwump can be missed in
a cold, unfeeling world, even when he is the last one that is left--
a GRAND OLD PARTY all by himself. And there is another thing that has
happened, perhaps the most imposing event of them all: the institution
called the Daughters of the--Crown--the Daughters of the Royal Crown--has
established itself and gone into business. Now, there's an American idea
for you; there's an idea born of God knows what kind of specialized
insanity, but not softening of the brain--you cannot soften a thing that
doesn't exist--the Daughters of the Royal Crown! Nobody eligible but
American descendants of Charles II. Dear me, how the fancy product of
that old harem still holds out!
Well, I am truly glad to foregather with you again, and partake of the
bread and salt of this hospitable house once more. Seven years ago, when
I was your guest here, when I was old and despondent, you gave me the
grip and the word that lift a man up and make him glad to be alive; and
now I come back from my exile young again, fresh and alive, and ready to
begin life once more, and your welcome puts the finishing touch upon my
restored youth and makes it real to me, and not a gracious dream that
must vanish with the morning. I thank you.
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