Autobiography of Mark Twain (86 page)

It was at a Fourth of July reception in Mr. Choate’s house in London that I first met Booker Washington. I have met him a number of times since, and he always impresses me pleasantly. Last night he was a mulatto. I didn’t notice it until he turned, while he was speaking, and said something to me. It was a great surprise to me to see that he was a mulatto, and had blue eyes. How unobservant a dull person can be. Always, before, he was black, to me, and I had never noticed whether he had eyes at all, or not. He has accomplished a wonderful work in this quarter of a century. When he finished his education at the Hampton Colored School twenty-five years ago, he was unknown, and hadn’t a penny, nor a friend outside his immediate acquaintanceship. But by the persuasions of his carriage and address and the sincerity and honesty that look out of his eyes, he has been enabled to gather money by the hatful here in the North, and with it he has built up and firmly established his great school for the colored people of the two sexes in the South. In that school the students are not merely furnished a book education, but are taught thirty-seven useful trades. Booker Washington has scraped together many hundreds of thousands of dollars, in the twenty-five years, and with this money he has taught and sent forth into Southern fields among the colored people, six thousand trained colored men and women; and his student roll now numbers fifteen hundred names. The Institute’s property is worth a million and a half, and the establishment is in a flourishing condition. A most remarkable man is Booker Washington. And he is a fervent and effective speaker, on the platform.

CHOATE AND TWAIN PLEAD FOR TUSKEGEE

Brilliant Audience Cheers Them and Booker Washington.

HUMORIST RAPS TAX DODGERS

Says Everybody Swears, Especially Off—Friends of Negro Institution Trying to Raise $1,800,000

To give Booker T. Washington a good start toward collecting the $1,800,000 which he wants to carry back from the North to Tuskegee Institute, Mark Twain, Joseph H. Choate, Robert C. Ogden, and Dr. Washington himself spoke in Carnegie Hall last night. Incidentally, it was a “silver jubilee” celebration, since Tuskegee Institute was founded in 1881.

The big house was crowded to its utmost capacity, and there were as many more outside who would have gone in had there been room. The spectacle reminded one of the campaign days last November, when District Attorney Jerome and his attendant spellbinders were packing Carnegie Hall.

But last night it was by no means a gathering of the “populace” alone. Women in brilliant gowns, resplendent with jewels, and men in evening dress filled the boxes. Despite the avowed object of the meeting—to get money from the audience and others—there was an atmosphere of good humor and light-heartedness. Mark Twain’s “teachings” were met with such volleys of laughter that the man who never grows old could hardly find intervals in which to deliver his precepts. That part of Mr. Clemens’s address which referred to wealthy men who swear off tax assessments was applauded with especial fervor.

The occupants of the boxes included Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Mrs. Henry H. Rogers, Mrs. Clarence H. Mackay, Mrs. Morris K. Jesup, J. G. Phelps Stokes, Isaac N. Seligman, George Foster Peabody, John Crosby Brown, Carl Schurz, Mrs. W. H. Schieffelin, Mrs. William Jay Schieffelin, Mrs. Joseph H. Choate, Mrs. Henry Villard, Nicholas Murray Butler, Mrs. Robert C. Ogden, Mrs. Cleveland H. Dodge, Mrs. Alfred Shaw, Mrs. Felix M. Warburg, Mrs. R. Fulton Cutting, Mrs. Collis P. Huntington, Mrs. Robert B. Minturn, Mrs. Jacob H. Schiff, Mrs. Paul M. Warburg, and Mrs. Arthur Curtis James.

A negro octet sang between the speeches. Their songs were old-fashioned melodies and revival songs, and their deep, full voices filled the whole house.

William Jay Schieffelin opened the meeting by telling its object and urging that all the help possible be given to Dr. Washington. He announced that in April a special train would leave New York for Tuskegee and that the round-trip ticket would cost $50, covering all expenses. On this occasion the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of Tuskegee will be celebrated at the school itself by speeches by Secretary of War Taft, President Eliot of Harvard, Bishop Galloway, and Andrew Carnegie.

Choate Praises Washington.

“We assemble to-night,” said Mr. Choate, when Mr. Schieffelin presented him, “to celebrate the ‘silver jubilee’ of Tuskegee Institute, twenty-five years old to-day, the success of which as a nucleus and centre of negro education in the South is the triumph and glory of Dr. Booker T. Washington. I believe he does not claim to be the originator of it. It began in 1881 in a shanty and with thirty pupils. Now what do we behold? A great educational establishment with 2,300 acres and more than eight buildings, peculiarly fitted for the tasks they are supposed to assist.

“It has sent forth more than 6,000 pupils as examples to and teachers of the negro race. It has now an enrollment of 1,500 pupils and an endowment fund of more than $1,000,000. Like all the other great educational institutions of to-day, the more it has and the more it wants the more it gets and the more it can use.

“I read that in a recent speech Dr. Washington declared that he was proud of his race. I am sure his race is proud of him. And I know I can say that the great mass of the American people, both North and South, are also proud of him. And there are few Americans on whom European nations look with such peculiar interest and sympathy as Dr. Washington. It was my pleasure to see him in my own hired house [laughter] in London, surrounded by English men and English women, who were delighted to make his acquaintance and listen to his words.

Negro Problem a Wide One.

“This tremendous negro problem, which was left when slavery was abolished and will last much longer than slavery lasted, no more rests on the white people of the South than on the negroes or on the white people of the North. It was forced upon the South by the irresistible force of the whole Nation. In the South they, white and negro, have done their part well. I read in a book, which I hope everybody has read, by Mr. Murphy, Secretary of the Southern Education Board, that the illiteracy of the negroes in the South has been wiped away more than one half since the war. How has it been accomplished? Out of the means of the Southern States. They have done nobly. By taxation $109,000,000 was raised between 1870 and 1900 for the education of negroes. How many people in the South—like some people we have had here in New York—stood between the appropriations and the recipients, I do not know, but it was a great achievement.

“None of the Tuskegee graduates is in an asylum. It is not the educated negroes who make themselves enemies to the South; it is uneducated negroes. The desire for these Tuskegee graduates is greater than Tuskegee can satisfy.

Integrity of the Races.

“The maintenance of the integrity of the races, which, with the approval of both races, has formed the basis of Southern civilization, has given opportunity to negro lawyers, negro doctors, and ministers in every profession and industry, and the negroes are making the most of it.” Then Mr. Choate turned toward Mark Twain:

“If I were to present the next speaker as Samuel L. Clemens,” he said, “some would ask, ‘Who is he?’ but when I present him as Mark Twain—”

He could get no further. The applause which broke out lasted a full three minutes.

“I heard him speak at the dinner on his seventieth birthday,” continued Mr. Choate, “and the gist of his speech was that he had never done any work in his life. He said he had never worked at anything he didn’t like, and so it wasn’t work at all. He said that when he had an interesting job before him he lay in bed all day. And to-day, I understand, he has been in bed all day.”

When Mark Twain could be heard he said:

MARK TWAIN’S ADDRESS.

“These habits, of which Mr. Choate has told you, are the very habits which have kept me young until I am 70 years old. I have lain in bed all day to-day, expect to lie in bed all day to-morrow, and will continue to lie in bed all day throughout the year. There is nothing so refreshing, nothing is so comfortable, and nothing fits one so well for the kind of work which he calls pleasure. Mr. Choate has been careful not to pay me any compliments. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to—he just couldn’t think of any.

“I came here in the responsible capacity of policeman—to watch Mr. Choate. This is an occasion of grave and serious importance, and it seemed necessary for me to be present so that if he tried to work off any statements that required correction, reduction, refutation or exposure there would be a tried friend of the public here to protect the house. But I can say in all frankness and gratitude that nothing of the kind has happened. He has not made one statement whose veracity fails to tally exactly with my own standard. I have never seen a person improve so.

“This does not make me jealous. It only makes me thankful. Thankful and proud; proud of a country that can produce such men—two such men. And all in the same century. We can’t be with you always; we are passing away—passing away; soon we shall be gone, and then—well, everything will have to stop, I reckon. It is a sad thought. But in spirit I shall still be with you. Choate, too—if he can.

Nothing to Refute.

“There being nothing to explain, nothing to refute, nothing to excuse, there is nothing left for me to do now but resume my natural trade—which is teaching. At Tuskegee they thoroughly ground the student in the Christian code of morals; they instill into him the indisputable truth that this is the highest and best of all systems of morals; that the Nation’s greatness, its strength, and its repute among the other nations is the product of that system; that it is the foundation upon which rests the American character; that whatever is commendable, whatever is valuable in the individual American’s character is the flower and fruit of that seed.