[Peace-discuss] Fw: Mark Twain 100 Years AD

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From: <moderator at PORTSIDE.ORG>
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Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2010 8:23 PM
Subject: Mark Twain 100 Years AD


> (1) Mark Twain and Imperialism 
> (2) To the Person Sitting in Darkness
> 
> [moderator: April 21, 2010 marked the 100th anniversary
> of the death of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, best known as
> Mark Twain.  Despite Twain's own dictum, "What ought to
> be done to the man who invented the celebrating of
> anniversaries? Mere killing would be too light," the
> entire world has been celebrating this anniversary with
> the publication of several previously unpublished works
> as well as readings, exhibits, plays and petitions
> urging recognition of his life and work.  Portside
> offers this modest crosspost as our contribution . . .]
> 
> (1) 
> Mark Twain and Imperialism
> Jennifer Brainard, BA, MAT, JD 
> HistoryWiz
> retrieved April 25, 2010
> http://www.historywiz.com/about.htm
> 
> "The condition of things in the Congo is atrocious, as
> shown by the photographs of children whose hands have
> been cut off."  -- Mark Twain
> 
> "I am an anti-imperialist. I oppose putting the eagle's
> talons on any other land." -- Mark Twain
> 
> Mark Twain is known the world over for his books and
> humor, but less well known is that he was an active
> anti-imperialist. After his death, his executors
> suppressed some of his more political writings and only
> in recent history have these opinions become more widely
> known.
> 
> He lived during a time when the nations of Europe had
> possessions all over the world, particularly Asia and
> Africa. Imperialism was the norm and generally people in
> the imperialist nations accepted it not just as an
> economic bonanza but as a responsibility to "civilize"
> the world.
> 
> When horrible abuses of imperialism in the Belgian Congo
> came to light, he worked for an international
> investigation. He brought the issue to the public and
> eventually the outcry brought about reforms. He also
> expressed his views in the way he preferred - the
> satire. In King Leopold's Soliloquy, he lambasted the
> Belgian King's policies.
> 
> He became outraged when the United States became
> involved in imperialism. In 1898 the United States
> fought the Spanish-American war. It began with
> intervention on behalf of the Cubans, but the American
> victory in Cuba led to the Spanish surrender of all
> their possessions in the Pacific. The United States had
> to decide what to do with them. This began the American
> experience with imperialism.
> 
> An English author and poet, Rudyard Kipling urged
> America to play the imperialism game. His famous "The
> White Man's Burden," often called the "Anthem of
> Imperialism," appeared in McClure's Magazine in 1899,
> and was written to appeal to America keep the
> Philippines.
> 
> President McKinley decided to keep most of the
> possessions. Most controversial was the Philippines. The
> Filipinos resisted American rule and the Philippine
> American War was the result. Forcing the Philippines to
> accept American rule outraged Twain. He wrote the satire
> "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" and commented often
> to express his "Views on Imperialism." See also "The
> Philippine Mess."
> 
> (2) 
> To the Person Sitting in Darkness 
> by Mark Twain 
> HistoryWiz Primary Source 
> Anti-Imperialist League of New York
> 1901
> http://www.historywiz.com/primarysources/sittingindarkness.htm
> 
> Extending the Blessings of Civilization to our Brother
> who Sits in Darkness has been a good trade and has paid
> well, on the whole; and there is money in it yet, if
> carefully worked -- but not enough, in my judgement, to
> make any considerable risk advisable. The People that
> Sit in Darkness are getting to be too scarce -- too
> scarce and too shy. And such darkness as is now left is
> really of but an indifferent quality, and not dark
> enough for the game. The most of those People that Sit
> in Darkness have been furnished with more light than was
> good for them or profitable for us. We have been
> injudicious.
> 
> The Blessings-of-Civilization Trust, wisely and
> cautiously administered, is a Daisy. There is more money
> in it, more territory, more sovereignty, and other kinds
> of emolument, than there is in any other game that is
> played. But Christendom has been playing it badly of
> late years, and must certainly suffer by it, in my
> opinion. She has been so eager to get every stake that
> appeared on the green cloth, that the People who Sit in
> Darkness have noticed it -- they have noticed it, and
> have begun to show alarm. They have become suspicious of
> the Blessings of Civilization. More -- they have begun
> to examine them. This is not well. The Blessings of
> Civilization are all right, and a good commercial
> property; there could not be a better, in a dim light.
> In the right kind of a light, and at a proper distance,
> with the goods a little out of focus, they furnish this
> desirable exhibit to the Gentlemen who Sit in Darkness:
> 
> LOVE, LAW AND ORDER, JUSTICE, LIBERTY, GENTLENESS,
> EQUALITY, CHRISTIANITY, HONORABLE DEALING, PROTECTION TO
> THE WEAK, MERCY, TEMPERANCE, EDUCATION,
> 
> -- and so on. There. Is it good? Sir, it is pie. It will
> bring into camp any idiot that sits in darkness
> anywhere. But not if we adulterate it. It is proper to
> be emphatic upon that point. This brand is strictly for
> Export -- apparently. Apparently. Privately and
> confidentially, it is nothing of the kind. Privately and
> confidentially, it is merely an outside cover, gay and
> pretty and attractive, displaying the special patterns
> of our Civilization which we reserve for Home
> Consumption, while inside the bale is the Actual Thing
> that the Customer Sitting in Darkness buys with his
> blood and tears and land and liberty. That Actual Thing
> is, indeed, Civilization, but it is only for Export. Is
> there a difference between the two brands? In some of
> the details, yes.
> 
> We all know that the Business is being ruined. The
> reason is not far to seek. It is because our Mr.
> McKinley, and Mr. Chamberlain, and the Kaiser, and the
> Czar and the French have been exporting the Actual Thing
> with the outside cover left off. This is bad for the
> Game. It shows that these new players of it are not
> sufficiently acquainted with it.
> 
> It is a distress to look on and note the mismoves, they
> are so strange and so awkward. Mr. Chamberlain
> manufactures a war out of materials so inadequate and so
> fanciful that they make the boxes grieve and the gallery
> laugh, and he tries hard to persuade himself that it
> isn't purely a private raid for cash, but has a sort of
> dim, vague respectability about it somewhere, if he
> could only find the spot; and that, by and by, he can
> scour the flag clean again after he has finished
> dragging it through the mud, and make it shine and flash
> in the vault of heaven once more as it had shone and
> flashed there a thousand years in the world's respect
> until he laid his unfaithful hand upon it. It is bad
> play -- bad. For it exposes the Actual Thing to Them
> that Sit in Darkness, and they say:
> 
> "What! Christian against Christian? And only for money?
> Is this a case of magnanimity, forbearance, love,
> gentleness, mercy, protection of the weak -- this
> strange and over-showy onslaught of an elephant upon a
> nest of field-mice, on the pretext that the mice had
> squeaked an insolence at him -- conduct which 'no self-
> respecting government could allow to pass unavenged?' as
> Mr. Chamberlain said. Was that a good pretext in a small
> case, when it had not been a good pretext in a large
> one? -- for only recently Russia had affronted the
> elephant three times and survived alive and unsmitten.
> Is this Civilization and Progress? Is it something
> better than we already possess? These harryings and
> burnings and desert-makings in the Transvaal -- is this
> an improvement on our darkness? Is it, perhaps, possible
> that there are two kinds of Civilization -- one for home
> consumption and one for the heathen market?"
> 
> Then They that Sit in Darkness are troubled, and shake
> their heads; and they read this extract from a letter of
> a British private, recounting his exploits in one of
> Methuen's victories, some days before the affair of
> Magersfontein, and they are troubled again:
> 
> "We tore up the hill and into the intrenchments, and the
> Boers saw we had them; so they dropped their guns and
>went down on their knees and put up their hands clasped,
> and begged for mercy. And we gave it them -- with the
> long spoon."
> 
> The long spoon is the bayonet. See Lloyd's Weekly,
> London, of those days. The same number -- and the same
> column -- contains some quite unconscious satire in the
> form of shocked and bitter upbraidings of the Boers for
> their brutalities and inhumanities!
> 
> Next, to our heavy damage, the Kaiser went to playing
> the game without first mastering it. He lost a couple of
> missionaries in a riot in Shantung, and in his account
> he made an overcharge for them. China had to pay a
> hundred thousand dollars apiece for them, in money;
> twelve miles of territory, containing several millions
> of inhabitants and worth twenty million dollars; and to
> build a monument, and also a Christian church; whereas
> the people of China could have been depended upon to
> remember the missionaries without the help of these
> expensive memorials. This was all bad play. Bad, because
> it would not, and could not, and will not now or ever,
> deceive the Person Sitting in Darkness. He knows that it
> was an overcharge. He knows that a missionary is like
> any other man: he is worth merely what you can supply
> his place for, and no more. He is useful, but so is a
> doctor, so is a sheriff, so is an editor; but a just
> Emperor does not charge war-prices for such. A diligent,
> intelligent, but obscure missionary, and a diligent,
> intelligent country editor are worth much, and we know
> it; but they are not worth the earth. We esteem such an
> editor, and we are sorry to see him go; but, when he
> goes, we should consider twelve miles of territory, and
> a church, and a fortune, over-compensation for his loss.
> I mean, if he was a Chinese editor, and we had to settle
> for him. It is no proper figure for an editor or a
> missionary; one can get shop-worn kings for less. It was
> bad play on the Kaiser's part. It got this property,
> true; but it produced the Chinese revolt, the indignant
> uprising of China's traduced patriots, the Boxers. The
> results have been expensive to Germany, and to the other
> Disseminators of Progress and the Blessings of
> Civilization.
> 
> The Kaiser's claim was paid, yet it was bad play, for it
> could not fail to have an evil effect upon Persons
> Sitting in Darkness in China. They would muse upon the
> event, and be likely to say:
> 
> "Civilization is gracious and beautiful, for such is its
> reputation; but can we afford it? There are rich
> Chinamen, perhaps they could afford it; but this tax is
> not laid upon them, it is laid upon the peasants of
> Shantung; it is they that must pay this mighty sum, and
> their wages are but four cents a day. Is this a better
> civilization than ours, and holier and higher and
> nobler? Is not this rapacity? Is not this extortion?
> Would Germany charge America two hundred thousand
> dollars for two missionaries, and shake the mailed fist
> in her face, and send warships, and send soldiers, and
> say: 'Seize twelve miles of territory, worth twenty
> millions of dollars, as additional pay for the
> missionaries; and make those peasants build a monument
> to the missionaries, and a costly Christian church to
> remember them by?' And later would Germany say to her
> soldiers: 'March through America and slay, giving no
> quarter; make the German face there, as has been our
> Hun-face here, a terror for a thousand years; march
> through the Great Republic and slay, slay, slay, carving
> a road for our offended religion through its heart and
> bowels?' Would Germany do like this to America, to
> England, to France, to Russia? Or only to China the
> helpless -- imitating the elephant's assault upon the
> field-mice? Had we better invest in this Civilization --
> this Civilization which called Napoleon a buccaneer for
> carrying off Venice's bronze horses, but which steals
> our ancient astronomical instruments from our walls, and
> goes looting like common bandits -- that is, all the
> alien soldiers except America's; and (Americans again
> excepted) storms frightened villages and cables the
> result to glad journals at home every day: 'Chinese
> losses, 450 killed; ours, one officer and two men
> wounded. Shall proceed against neighboring village to-
> morrow, where a massacre is reported.' Can we afford
> Civilization?"
> 
> And, next, Russia must go and play the game
> injudiciously. She affronts England once or twice --
> with the Person Sitting in Darkness observing and
> noting; by moral assistance of France and Germany, she
> robs Japan of her hard-earned spoil, all swimming in
> Chinese blood -- Port Arthur -- with the Person again
> observing and noting; then she seizes Manchuria, raids
> its villages, and chokes its great river with the
> swollen corpses of countless massacred peasants -- that
> astonished Person still observing and noting. And
> perhaps he is saying to himself: "It is yet another
> Civilized Power, with its banner of the Prince of Peace
> in one hand and its loot-basket and its butcher-knife in
> the other. Is there no salvation for us but to adopt
> Civilization and lift ourselves down to its level?"
> 
> And by and by comes America, and our Master of the Game
> plays it badly -- plays it as Mr. Chamberlain was
> playing it in South Africa. It was a mistake to do that;
> also, it was one which was quite unlooked for in a
> Master who was playing it so well in Cuba. In Cuba, he
> was playing the usual and regular American game, and it
> was winning, for there is no way to beat it. The Master,
> contemplating Cuba, said: "Here is an oppressed and
> friendless little nation which is willing to fight to be
> free; we go partners, and put up the strength of seventy
> million sympathizers and the resources of the United
> States: play!" Nothing but Europe combined could call
> that hand: and Europe cannot combine on anything. There,
> in Cuba, he was following our great traditions in a way
> which made us very proud of him, and proud of the deep
> dissatisfaction which his play was provoking in
> Continental Europe. Moved by a high inspiration, he
> threw out those stirring words which proclaimed that
> forcible annexation would be "criminal aggression;" and
> in that utterance fired another "shot heard round the
> world." The memory of that fine saying will be outlived
> by the remembrance of no act of his but one -- that he
> forgot it within the twelvemonth, and its honorable
> gospel along with it.
> 
> For, presently, came the Philippine temptation. It was
> strong; it was too strong, and he made that bad mistake:
> he played the European game, the Chamberlain game. It
> was a pity; it was a great pity, that error; that one
> grievous error, that irrevocable error. For it was the
> very place and time to play the American game again. And
> at no cost. Rich winnings to be gathered in, too; rich
> and permanent; indestructible; a fortune transmissible
> forever to the children of the flag. Not land, not
> money, not dominion -- no, something worth many times
> more than that dross: our share, the spectacle of a
> nation of long harassed and persecuted slaves set free
> through our influence; our posterity's share, the golden
> memory of that fair deed. The game was in our hands. If
> it had been played according to the American rules,
> Dewey would have sailed away from Manila as soon as he
> had destroyed the Spanish fleet -- after putting up a
> sign on shore guaranteeing foreign property and life
> against damage by the Filipinos, and warning the Powers
> that interference with the emancipated patriots would be
> regarded as an act unfriendly to the United States. The
> Powers cannot combine, in even a bad cause, and the sign
> would not have been molested.
> 
> Dewey could have gone about his affairs elsewhere, and
> left the competent Filipino army to starve out the
> little Spanish garrison and send it home, and the
> Filipino citizens to set up the form of government they
> might prefer, and deal with the friars and their
> doubtful acquisitions according to Filipino ideas of
> fairness and justice -- ideas which have since been
> tested and found to be of as high an order as any that
> prevail in Europe or America.
> 
> But we played the Chamberlain game, and lost the chance
> to add another Cuba and another honorable deed to our
> good record.
> 
> The more we examine the mistake, the more clearly we
> perceive that it is going to be bad for the Business.
> The Person Sitting in Darkness is almost sure to say:
> "There is something curious about this -- curious and
> unaccountable. There must be two Americas: one that sets
> the captive free, and one that takes a once-captive's
> new freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel with him
> with nothing to found it on; then kills him to get his
> land."
> 
> The truth is, the Person Sitting in Darkness is saying
> things like that; and for the sake of the Business we
> must persuade him to look at the Philippine matter in
> another and healthier way. We must arrange his opinions
> for him. I believe it can be done; for Mr. Chamberlain
> has arranged England's opinion of the South African
> matter, and done it most cleverly and successfully. He
> presented the facts -- some of the facts -- and showed
> those confiding people what the facts meant. He did it
> statistically, which is a good way. He used the formula:
> "Twice 2 are 14, and 2 from 9 leaves 35." Figures are
> effective; figures will convince the elect.
> 
> Now, my plan is a still bolder one than Mr.
> Chamberlain's, though apparently a copy of it. Let us be
> franker than Mr. Chamberlain; let us audaciously present
> the whole of the facts, shirking none, then explain them
> according to Mr. Chamberlain's formula. This daring
> truthfulness will astonish and dazzle the Person Sitting
> in Darkness, and he will take the Explanation down
> before his mental vision has had time to get back into
> focus. Let us say to him:
> 
> "Our case is simple. On the 1st of May, Dewey destroyed
> the Spanish fleet. This left the Archipelago in the
> hands of its proper and rightful owners, the Filipino
> nation. Their army numbered 30,000 men, and they were
> competent to whip out or starve out the little Spanish
> garrison; then the people could set up a government of
> their own devising. Our traditions required that Dewey
> should now set up his warning sign, and go away. But the
> Master of the Game happened to think of another plan --
> the European plan. He acted upon it. This was, to send
> out an army -- ostensibly to help the native patriots
> put the finishing touch upon their long and plucky
> struggle for independence, but really to take their land
> away from them and keep it. That is, in the interest of
> Progress and Civilization. The plan developed, stage by
> stage, and quite satisfactorily. We entered into a
> military alliance with the trusting Filipinos, and they
> hemmed in Manila on the land side, and by their valuable
> help the place, with its garrison of 8,000 or 10,000
> Spaniards, was captured -- a thing which we could not
> have accomplished unaided at that time. We got their
> help by -- by ingenuity. We knew they were fighting for
> their independence, and that they had been at it for two
> years. We knew they supposed that we also were fighting
> in their worthy cause -- just as we had helped the
> Cubans fight for Cuban independence -- and we allowed
> them to go on thinking so. Until Manila was ours and we
> could get along without them. Then we showed our hand.
> Of course, they were surprised -- that was natural;
> surprised and disappointed; disappointed and grieved. To
> them it looked un-American; uncharacteristic; foreign to
> our established traditions. And this was natural, too;
> for we were only playing the American Game in public --
> in private it was the European. It was neatly done, very
> neatly, and it bewildered them. They could not
> understand it; for we had been so friendly -- so
> affectionate, even -- with those simple-minded patriots!
> We, our own selves, had brought back out of exile their
> leader, their hero, their hope, their Washington --
> Aguinaldo; brought him in a warship, in high honor,
> under the sacred shelter and hospitality of the flag;
> brought him back and restored him to his people, and got
> their moving and eloquent gratitude for it. Yes, we had
> been so friendly to them, and had heartened them up in
> so many ways! We had lent them guns and ammunition;
> advised with them; exchanged pleasant courtesies with
> them; placed our sick and wounded in their kindly care;
> entrusted our Spanish prisoners to their humane and
> honest hands; fought shoulder to shoulder with them
> against "the common enemy" (our own phrase); praised
> their courage, praised their gallantry, praised their
> mercifulness, praised their fine and honorable conduct;
> borrowed their trenches, borrowed strong positions which
> they had previously captured from the Spaniard; petted
> them, lied to them -- officially proclaiming that our
> land and naval forces came to give them their freedom
> and displace the bad Spanish Government -- fooled them,
> used them until we needed them no longer; then derided
> the sucked orange and threw it away. We kept the
> positions which we had beguiled them of; by and by, we
> moved a force forward and overlapped patriot ground -- a
> clever thought, for we needed trouble, and this would
> produce it. A Filipino soldier, crossing the ground,
> where no one had a right to forbid him, was shot by our
> sentry. The badgered patriots resented this with arms,
> without waiting to know whether Aguinaldo, who was
> absent, would approve or not. Aguinaldo did not approve;
> but that availed nothing. What we wanted, in the
> interest of Progress and Civilization, was the
> Archipelago, unencumbered by patriots struggling for
> independence; and the War was what we needed. We
> clinched our opportunity. It is Mr. Chamberlain's case
> over again -- at least in its motive and intention; and
> we played the game as adroitly as he played it himself."
> 
> At this point in our frank statement of fact to the
> Person Sitting in Darkness, we should throw in a little
> trade-taffy about the Blessings of Civilization -- for a
> change, and for the refreshment of his spirit -- then go
> on with our tale:
> 
> "We and the patriots having captured Manila, Spain's
> ownership of the Archipelago and her sovereignty over it
> were at an end -- obliterated -- annihilated -- not a
> rag or shred of either remaining behind. It was then
> that we conceived the divinely humorous idea of buying
> both of these spectres from Spain! [It is quite safe to
> confess this to the Person Sitting in Darkness, since
> neither he nor any other sane person will believe it.]
> In buying those ghosts for twenty millions, we also
> contracted to take care of the friars and their
> accumulations. I think we also agreed to propagate
> leprosy and smallpox, but as to this there is doubt. But
> it is not important; persons afflicted with the friars
> do not mind the other diseases.
> 
> "With our Treaty ratified, Manila subdued, and our
> Ghosts secured, we had no further use for Aguinaldo and
> the owners of the Archipelago. We forced a war, and we
> have been hunting America's guest and ally through the
> woods and swamps ever since."
> 
> At this point in the tale, it will be well to boast a
> little of our war-work and our heroisms in the field, so
> as to make our performance look as fine as England's in
> South Africa; but I believe it will not be best to
> emphasize this too much. We must be cautious. Of course,
> we must read the war-telegrams to the Person, in order
> to keep up our frankness; but we can throw an air of
> humorousness over them, and that will modify their grim
> eloquence a little, and their rather indiscreet
> exhibitions of gory exultation. Before reading to him
> the following display heads of the dispatches of
> November 18, 1900, it will be well to practice on them
> in private first, so as to get the right tang of
> lightness and gaiety into them:
> 
> "ADMINISTRATION WEARY OF PROTRACTED HOSTILITIES!" "REAL
> WAR AHEAD FOR FILIPINO REBELS!"* "WILL SHOW NO MERCY!"
> "KITCHENER'S PLAN ADOPTED!"
> 
> Kitchener knows how to handle disagreeable people who
> are fighting for their homes and their liberties, and we
> must let on that we are merely imitating Kitchener, and
> have no national interest in the matter, further than to
> get ourselves admired by the Great Family of Nations, in
> which august company our Master of the Game has bought a
> place for us in the back row. Of course, we must not
> venture to ignore our General MacArthur's reports -- oh,
> why do they keep on printing those embarrassing things?
> -- we must drop them trippingly from the tongue and take
> the chances:
> 
> "During the last ten months our losses have been 268
> killed and 750 wounded; Filipino loss, three thousand
> two hundred and twenty-seven killed, and 694 wounded."
> 
> We must stand ready to grab the Person Sitting in
> Darkness, for he will swoon away at this confession,
> saying: "Good God, those 'niggers' spare their wounded,
> and the Americans massacre theirs!" We must bring him
> to, and coax him and coddle him, and assure him that the
> ways of Providence are best, and that it would not
> become us to find fault with them; and then, to show him
> that we are only imitators, not originators, we must
> read the following passage from the letter of an
> American soldier-lad in the Philippines to his mother,
> published in Public Opinion, of Decorah, Iowa,
> describing the finish of a victorious battle:
> 
> "WE NEVER LEFT ONE ALIVE. IF ONE WAS WOUNDED, WE WOULD
> RUN OUR BAYONETS THROUGH HIM."
> 
> Having now laid all the historical facts before the
> Person Sitting in Darkness, we should bring him to
> again, and explain them to him. We should say to him:
> 
> "They look doubtful, but in reality they are not. There
> have been lies; yes, but they were told in a good cause.
> We have been treacherous; but that was only in order
> that real good might come out of apparent evil. True, we
> have crushed a deceived and confiding people; we have
> turned against the weak and the friendless who trusted
> us; we have stamped out a just and intelligent and well-
> ordered republic; we have stabbed an ally in the back
> and slapped the face of a guest; we have bought a Shadow
> from an enemy that hadn't it to sell; we have robbed a
> trusting friend of his land and his liberty; we have
> invited our clean young men to shoulder a discredited
> musket and do bandit's work under a flag which bandits
> have been accustomed to fear, not to follow; we have
> debauched America's honor and blackened her face before
> the world; but each detail was for the best. We know
> this. The Head of every State and Sovereignty in
> Christendom and ninety per cent. of every legislative
> body in Christendom, including our Congress and our
> fifty State Legislatures, are members not only of the
> church, but also of the Blessings-of-Civilization Trust.
> This world-girdling accumulation of trained morals, high
> principles, and justice, cannot do an unright thing, an
> unfair thing, an ungenerous thing, an unclean thing. It
> knows what it is about. Give yourself no uneasiness; it
> is all right."
> 
> Now then, that will convince the Person. You will see.
> It will restore the Business. Also, it will elect the
> Master of the Game to the vacant place in the Trinity of
> our national gods; and there on their high thrones the
> Three will sit, age after age, in the people's sight,
> each bearing the Emblem of his service: Washington, the
> Sword of the Liberator; Lincoln, the Slave's Broken
> Chains; the Master, the Chains Repaired.
> 
> It will give the Business a splendid new start. You will
> see.
> 
> Everything is prosperous, now; everything is just as we
> should wish it. We have got the Archipelago, and we
> shall never give it up. Also, we have every reason to
> hope that we shall have an opportunity before very long
> to slip out of our Congressional contract with Cuba and
> give her something better in the place of it. It is a
> rich country, and many of us are already beginning to
> see that the contract was a sentimental mistake. But now
> -- right now -- is the best time to do some profitable
> rehabilitating work -- work that will set us up and make
> us comfortable, and discourage gossip. We cannot conceal
> from ourselves that, privately, we are a little troubled
> about our uniform. It is one of our prides; it is
> acquainted with honor; it is familiar with great deeds
> and noble; we love it, we revere it; and so this errand
> it is on makes us uneasy. And our flag -- another pride
> of ours, our chiefest! We have worshipped it so; and
> when we have seen it in far lands -- glimpsing it
> unexpectedly in that strange sky, waving its welcome and
> benediction to us -- we have caught our breath, and
> uncovered our heads, and couldn't speak, for a moment,
> for the thought of what it was to us and the great
> ideals it stood for. Indeed, we must do something about
> these things; we must not have the flag out there, and
> the uniform. They are not needed there; we can manage in
> some other way. England manages, as regards the uniform,
> and so can we. We have to send soldiers -- we can't get
> out of that -- but we can disguise them. It is the way
> England does in South Africa. Even Mr. Chamberlain
> himself takes pride in England's honorable uniform, and
> makes the army down there wear an ugly and odious and
> appropriate disguise, of yellow stuff such as quarantine
> flags are made of, and which are hoisted to warn the
> healthy away from unclean disease and repulsive death.
> This cloth is called khaki. We could adopt it. It is
> light, comfortable, grotesque, and deceives the enemy,
> for he cannot conceive of a soldier being concealed in
> it.
> 
> And as for a flag for the Philippine Province, it is
> easily managed. We can have a special one -- our States
> do it: we can have just our usual flag, with the white
> stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the
> skull and cross-bones.
> 
> And we do not need that Civil Commission out there.
> Having no powers, it has to invent them, and that kind
> of work cannot be effectively done by just anybody; an
> expert is required. Mr. Croker can be spared. We do not
> want the United States represented there, but only the
> Game.
> 
> By help of these suggested amendments, Progress and
> Civilization in that country can have a boom, and it
> will take in the Persons who are Sitting in Darkness,
> and we can resume Business at the old stand.
> 
> Mark Twain.
> 
> * "Rebels!" Mumble that funny word -- Don't let the
> Person catch it distinctly.
> 
> _____________________________________________
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