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

a statement disavowing the action of Assistant Secretary Barnes, who ordered Mrs. Morris expelled, and expressing his regret for the way she was treated. They have also urged him to promise to take action which will make impossible the repetition of such an occurrence.

The President has held out stoutly against the advice of these two Cabinet officers. He authorized Mr. Barnes to make the statement that he gave out, in which the treatment of Mrs. Morris was justified, and it is not easy to take the other tack now. On high authority, however, it is learned that the two Cabinet officers have not ceased their labors. They both look on the matter not as “a mere incident,” but as a serious affair.

The Morris incident was brought up in the House today just before adjournment by Mr. Sheppard of Texas. He was recognized for fifteen minutes, in the ordinary course of the debate on the Philippine Tariff bill, and began at once to discuss the resolution he introduced Monday calling for an investigation of the expulsion. He excused himself for speaking on the resolution at this time, saying that as it was not privileged he could not obtain its consideration without the consent of the Committee on Rules.

He went on to describe the incident at the White House. He had proceeded only a minute or two when he was interrupted by General Grosvenor, who rose to the point of order that the remarks were not germane to the Philippine Tariff bill.

“I will show the gentleman that it is germane,” cried Mr. Sheppard. “It is just as proper for this country to have a Chinese wall around the White House as it is to have such a wall around the United States.”

“Well, if he thinks it is proper to thus arraign the President and his household,” said Mr. Grosvenor, “let him go on.”

“If the President had heard the howl of a wolf or the growl of a bear from the adjacent offices,” retorted Mr. Sheppard, “the response would have been immediate, but the wail of an American woman fell upon unresponsive ears.”

There had been several cries of protest when General Grosvenor interrupted Mr. Sheppard, many of whose Democratic friends gathered about him and urged him to proceed. They applauded his reply to Mr. Grosvenor, and the Ohioan did not press his point.

“These unwarrantable and unnecessary brutalities,” continued Mr. Sheppard, “demand an investigation. Unless Congress takes some action we shall soon witness in a free republic a condition where citizens cannot approach the President they have created without fear of bodily harm from arbitrary subordinates.”

Mr. Sheppard had nearly reached the close of his remarks when Mr. Payne, the titular floor leader of the Republicans, renewed the Grosvenor point of order. Mr. Olmstead of Pennsylvania, in the chair, however, ruled that with the House sitting in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, remarks need not be germane.

Mr. Payne interrupted again, to ask a question.

“If a gentleman has the facts upon which to found his attack,” he said, “does he not think the police court is the better place to air them?”

“The suggestion is a reflection upon the gentleman himself, although he is a friend of mine,” replied Sheppard.

When the speech was finished Grosvenor got the floor and said he had been aware of the rules when he did not press his point.

“But I made the point,” he continued, “merely to call the attention of the young gentleman from Texas in a mild and fatherly manner to my protest against his remarks. I hoped he would refrain from further denunciation of the President. He has introduced a resolution which is now pending before the proper committee. That resolution asks for facts and I supposed that the gentleman would wait for the facts until that resolution is brought into the House.

“I know no difference in proper conduct between the President’s office and household and the humblest home in this Nation, but I don’t believe a condition has arisen such that the husband of this woman cannot take care of the situation.”

A high government official tonight added to the accounts of the expulsion an incident, which he said was related to him by an eyewitness. While the policemen and their negro assistant were dragging Mrs. Morris through the grounds the scene was witnessed by the women servants, some of whom called out, “Shame!” One of the policemen pressed his hand down on Mrs. Morris’s mouth to stifle her cries for help, and at that sight a man servant, a negro, rushed forward and shouted:

“Take your hand off that white woman’s face! Don’t treat a white woman that way!”

The policeman paid no attention to the man, and continued his efforts to stifle Mrs. Morris’s cries.

The reason I want to insert that account of the Morris case, which is making such a lively stir all over the United States, and possibly the entire world, in these days, is this. Some day, no doubt, these autobiographical notes will be published. It will be after my death. It may be five years from now, it may be ten, it may be fifty⁠—but whenever the time shall come, even if it should be a century hence⁠—I claim that the reader of that day will find the same strong interest in that narrative that the world has in it today, for the reason that the account speaks of the thing in the language we naturally use when we are talking about something that has just happened. That form of narrative is able to carry along with it for ages and ages the very same interest which we find in it today. Whereas if this had happened fifty years ago, or a hundred, and the historian had dug it up and was putting it in his language, and furnishing you a long-distance view of it, the reader’s interest in it would be pale. You see, it would not be news to him, it would be history; merely history; and history can carry on no successful competition with news, in the matter of sharp interest. When an eyewitness