Mark Twain’s timely memo to Barry Jantz and “Rostra Administrator”.

I read, and applauded, the comments of Barry Jantz and “Rostra
Administrator” this week about unproven charges against a
few local personalities.

By chance, I’m now reading a collection of Mark Twain’s journalism,
Speeches and Essays. It includes what happened when Twain said that
HE might be a candidate for Governor of the fine state of New York.
Mr. Twain then describes the events which occurred next:

———- MARK TWAIN’S WORDS ———-

“As I was looking listlessly over the Papers at breakfast, I came
across this Paragraph, and I may truly say I never was so con-
founded before:

…PERJURY— Perhaps, now that Mr. Mark Twain is before the
people as a candidate for Governor, he will condescend to explain
how he came to be Convicted of Perjury by thirty-four witnesses,
in Wakawak, Cochin China, in 1863, the intent of which perjury
was to rob a poor native widow and her helpless family of a meager
plantain patch, their only stay and support in their bereavement
and their desolation. Mr. Twain owes it to himself, as well as to
the great people whose sufferage he asks, to clear this matter up.
Will he do it?’

I thought I should burst with amazement! Such a cruel, heartless
charge — I never had SEEN Cochin China! I never had HEARD
of Wakawak! I don’t know a Plantain patch from a kangaroo! …I
did not know what to do. I was crazed and hopless. I let the day
slip away without doing anything at all. The next morning, the same
paper had this — nothing more:

…SIGNIFICANT — Mr. Twain, it will be observed, is suggestively
silent about the Cochin China perjury.’

During the rest of the campaign this paper never referred to me
in any other way than as “the infamous perjurer Twain”.

————————————————————————————–

Barry and Rostra Administrator:

Do the tone and style of Twain’s account sound at all familiar?
The great author penned this in 1870, but he might have Just
e-mailed it to you as a sign of his vigorous Support !