The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Letters Of Mark Twain, Volume 5,
1901-1906, by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

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Title: The Letters Of Mark Twain, Volume 5, 1901-1906

Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

Last Updated: February 18, 2009
Release Date: August 21, 2006 [EBook #3197]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWAIN LETTERS, VOL. 5 ***

Produced by David Widger

MARK TWAIN'S LETTERS 1901-1906

VOLUME V.

By Mark Twain

ARRANGED WITH COMMENT BY ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE

XL. LETTERS OF 1901, CHIEFLY TO TWICHELL. MARK TWAIN AS A REFORMER.
SUMMER AT SARANAC. ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT McKINLEY.

An editorial in the Louisville Courier-Journal, early in 1901, said:
"A remarkable transformation, or rather a development, has taken
place in Mark Twain. The genial humorist of the earlier day is now
a reformer of the vigorous kind, a sort of knight errant who does
not hesitate to break a lance with either Church or State if he
thinks them interposing on that broad highway over which he believes
not a part but the whole of mankind has the privilege of passing in
the onward march of the ages."

Mark Twain had begun "breaking the lance" very soon after his return
from Europe. He did not believe that he could reform the world, but
at least he need not withhold his protest against those things which
stirred his wrath. He began by causing the arrest of a cabman who
had not only overcharged but insulted him; he continued by writing
openly against the American policy in the Philippines, the
missionary propaganda which had resulted in the Chinese uprising and
massacre, and against Tammany politics. Not all of his efforts were
in the line of reform; he had become a sort of general spokesman
which the public flocked to hear, whatever the subject. On the
occasion of a Lincoln Birthday service at Carnegie Hall he was
chosen to preside, and he was obliged to attend more dinners than
were good for his health. His letters of this period were mainly
written to his old friend Twichell, in Har