-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">
</A> -Cui Bono?-
Here's some more from
http://marktwain.about.com/arts/marktwain/library/weekly/aa981208.htm?rf=dp&COB=
home&TMog=13888104965403&Mint=13888104965403
{{<Begin>}}
Mark Twain's Anti-Imperialist Writings: A Guide to Online Resources
By Jim Zwick
The Spanish-American War officially ended on December 10, 1898, with a peace
treaty that ceded Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the United States
and placed Cuba under U.S. control. Hawaii was annexed during the war. The
creation of an empire by the United States in 1898 provoked the most heated and
profound debate about U.S. foreign policy in the country's history, and the
intensity of the debate would not be matched again until the 1960s. "The nation
is divided, half patriots and half traitors, and no man can tell which from
which," Mark Twain commented in a March 1901 speech.
The Most Influential Anti-Imperialist
Mark Twain entered that debate on October 15, 1900, by declaring himself an
anti-imperialist in dockside interviews given upon his return to the United
States from nearly ten years living abroad. "I am an anti-imperialist. I am
opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land," he declared. He
quickly became one of the country's most prominent and outspoken opponents of
imperialism and the Philippine-American War. In February 1901 the Springfield
Republican (Mass.) editorialized that "Mark Twain has suddenly become the most
influential anti-imperialist and the most dreaded critic of the sacrosanct
person in the White House that the country contains."
Mark Twain's rise to prominence in the debate may have seemed sudden but his
views on the subject developed over most of his adult life. He first confronted
the issues involved with annexation of overseas territories when he went to
Hawaii in 1866. At first he saw the islands as a "half-way house on the Pacific
highway" that the United States should annex for their commercial potential,
but he soon changed his mind. By March of the following year his speeches on
Hawaii were highlighting the "disease" of civilization that was wiping out the
islands' original inhabitants. In 1867 he also published a sweeping satire of
the government's plan to buy the Danish West Indies island of St. Thomas.
Internationalist Solidarity
In 1891 Twain became one of the founding members of the American Friends of
Russian Freedom. Its stated object was "to aid by all moral and legal means the
Russian patriots in their efforts to obtain for their country Political Freedom
and Self-Government." It invited "the cooperation of all liberty-loving
American men and women whose sympathies are not restricted by geographical
boundaries and whose hearts can beat for the sufferings of others." The
organization's internationalist pursuit of self-govenment brought together a
number of people who would later join Twain as officers of the Anti-Imperialist
League formed in 1898 to oppose the creation of an American empire. Among them
was Twain's friend Thomas Wentworth Higginson who developed the
internationalist theme in an 1899 essay on the Philippines, "Where Liberty Is
Not, There Is My Country." Twain remained a supporter of the Russian Revolution
until his death, and he would criticize the Czar's imperial policies in a
number of his later writings.
In the mid-1890s Twain made the round-the-world speaking tour through the
British Empire recorded in Following the Equator. "The English are mentioned in
the Bible," he wrote: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."
He saw first-hand the treatment of indigenous peoples in Fiji, Australia,
India, and South Africa. Twain concluded a long description of Cecil Rhodes's
career in South Africa by stating, "I admire him, I frankly confess it; and
when his time comes I shall buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake." In a
December 1900 speech he described England and America as "kin in sin" for their
imperialist wars in South Africa and the Philippines.
Fighting for Freedom
Living in Europe during the Spanish-American War, Twain supported it for the
same reasons he later opposed the war in the Philippines. "It is a worthy thing
to fight for one's freedom," he wrote to his friend Joseph Twichell in June of
1898; "it is another sight finer to fight for another man's." After learning
that the war ended with a treaty that contradicted that goal of liberation,
Twain joined the opposition. Explaining his change of views to the reporters
who met him at the docks in New York, he said, "I have thought some more... and
I have read carefully the treaty of Paris. I have seen that we do not intend to
free, but to subjugate, the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to
conquer, not to redeem."
In 1904, Twain's championship of the anti-imperialist cause led to an
invitation to join the Congo Reform Association founded to end King Leopold's
brutal rule of the Belgian Congo. From 1905 to 1908 Twain served as one of its
vice presidents, wrote the scathing satire King Leopold's Soliloquy, and made
several lobbying trips to Washington, D.C., on behalf of the organization.
Booker T. Washington was also a vice president of that organization, as were
many people with whom Twain was associated in both the American Friends of
Russian Freedom and the Anti-Imperialist League.
Weapons of Satire
Twain remained an officer of the Anti-Imperialist League until he died in 1910,
and the League published a memorial tribute to him in its annual report that
year: Mr. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, author of "To the Person Sitting in
Darkness," employed in the cause of Anti-Imperialism and in behalf of the
Filipino those wonderful weapons of satire which were so absolutely at his
command, and the members of the League were able to appreciate what is not yet
justly understood: that, more than a brilliant humorist, he was a passionate
and zealous reformer. Mark Twain's anti-imperialist writings and activities can
be studied with online resources more fully than almost any other part of his
career. Most of his writings are available, from his 1866 letters from Hawaii
to a late notebook entry on patriotism, and there are numerous biographical and
critical studies. Among the wealth of contextual information about the anti-
imperialist movement are the texts of three petitions he signed and related
writings by some of his close friends. This guide organizes the online
resources by topic in a roughly chronological order. Some writings that deal
with more than one topic are listed under each for the convenience of those
interested in his writings on a specific subject. A thorough bibliography of
manuscript and print resources is also included.
Jim Zwick
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> Subject: [CTRL] Author Twain Relentless in Condemnation of Injustice,
> Imperialism, Gov't ...
A<>E<>R
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