The Autobiography of Mark Twain Mark Twain (best beach reads .TXT) 📖

incapable men who had been political heelers in America, and had been taken care of by transference to consulates, where they could be supported at the government’s expense instead of being transferred to the poorhouse, which would have been cheaper and more patriotic. Mason, in ’78, had been consul-general in Frankfort several years⁠—four, I think. He had come from Marseilles with a great record. He had been consul there during thirteen years, and one part of his record was heroic. There had been a desolating cholera epidemic, and Mason was the only representative of any foreign country who stayed at his post and saw it through. And during that time he not only represented his own country, but he represented all the other countries in Christendom and did their work, and did it well and was praised for it in words of no uncertain sound. This great record of Mason’s had saved him from official decapitation straight along while Republican Presidents occupied the chair, but now it was occupied by a Democrat. Mr. Cleveland was not seated in it⁠—he was not yet inaugurated⁠—before he was deluged with applications from Democratic politicians desiring the appointment of a thousand or so politically useful Democrats to Mason’s place. A year or two later Mason wrote me and asked me if I couldn’t do something to save him from destruction. Tuesday, March 6, 1906

Mr. Clemens makes Baby Ruth intercede in behalf of Mr. Mason, and he is retained in his place⁠—Mr. Clemens’s letter to ex-President Cleveland⁠—Mr. Cleveland as sheriff, in Buffalo⁠—As Mayor, he vetoes ordinance of railway corporation⁠—Mr. Clemens and Mr. Cable visit Governor Cleveland at Capitol, Albany⁠—Mr. Clemens sits on the bells and summons sixteen clerks.

I was very anxious to keep him in his place, but at first I could not think of any way to help him, for I was a mugwump. We, the mugwumps, a little company made up of the unenslaved of both parties, the very best men to be found in the two great parties⁠—that was our idea of it⁠—voted sixty thousand strong for Mr. Cleveland in New York and elected him. Our principles were high and very definite. We were not a party; we had no candidates; we had no axes to grind. Our vote laid upon the man we cast it for no obligation of any kind. By our rule we could not ask for office; we could not accept office. When voting, it was our duty to vote for the best man, regardless of his party name. We had no other creed. Vote for the best man⁠—that was creed enough.

Such being my situation, I was puzzled to know how to try to help Mason and at the same time save my mugwump purity undefiled. It was a delicate place. But presently, out of the ruck of confusions in my mind, rose a sane thought, clear and bright⁠—to wit: since it was a mugwump’s duty to do his best to put the best man in office, necessarily it must be a mugwump’s duty to keep the best man in when he was already there. My course was easy now. It might not be quite delicate for a mugwump to approach the President directly, but I could approach him indirectly, with all delicacy, since in that case not even courtesy would require him to take notice of an application which no one could prove had ever reached him.

Yes, it was easy and simple sailing now. I could lay the matter before Ruth, in her cradle, and wait for results. I wrote the little child, and said to her all that I have just been saying about mugwump principles and the limitations which they put upon me. I explained that it would not be proper for me to apply to her father in Mr. Mason’s behalf, but I detailed to her Mr. Mason’s high and honorable record and suggested that she take the matter in her own hands and do a patriotic work, which I felt some delicacy about venturing upon myself. I asked her to forget that her father was only President of the United States, and her subject and servant: I asked her not to put her application in the form of a command, but to modify this, and give it the fictitious and pleasanter form of a mere request⁠—that it would be no harm to let him gratify himself with the superstition that he was independent and could do as he pleased in the matter. I begged her to put stress, and plenty of it, upon the proposition that to keep Mason in his place would be a benefaction to the nation; to enlarge upon that, and keep still about all other considerations.

In due time I received a letter from the President, written with his own hand, signed by his own hand, acknowledging Ruth’s intervention and thanking me for enabling him to save to the country the services of so good and well tried a servant as Mason, and thanking me, also, for the detailed fullness of Mason’s record, which could leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that Mason was in his right place and ought to be kept there.

In the beginning of Mr. Cleveland’s second term a very strong effort to displace Mason was made, and Mason wrote me again. He was not hoping that we would succeed this time, because the assault upon his place was well organized, determined, and exceedingly powerful, but he hoped I would try again and see what I could do. I was not disturbed. It seemed to me that he did not know Mr. Cleveland or he would not be disturbed himself. I believed I knew Mr. Cleveland, and that he was not the man to budge an inch from his duty in any circumstances, and that he was a Gibraltar against whose solid bulk a whole Atlantic of assaulting politicians would dash itself in vain.

I wrote Ruth Cleveland once more. Mason remained in his place and I think he would have remained in it without Ruth’s intercession. There have been