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Gerald G. Huesken Jr. HIST 502 – US History: 1815-‐1919 Dr. Tracey Weis December 19, 2011
“History as the Unseen Frog”: A Historiographical Journey through the Anti-‐Imperialistic Writings of Mark Twain
Introduction
“To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement,” wrote American author
and humorist Mark Twain in a February, 1868 letter to seventeen-‐year old admirer Emeline
Beach, the daughter of the newspaperman, publisher, and Twain friend Moses S. Beach. “To
condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is
worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself...Anybody can have ideas-‐-‐the difficulty is to
express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one
glittering paragraph.”1 As a true Renaissance man of the Nineteenth and early-‐Twentieth
Centuries, Mark Twain knew his way around words and it is through his fondness for using
them that he has found his way deep into the American literary heart. His wit and satire earned
him praise from both critics and literary peers alike, making his a sought-‐after lecturer and
public speaker. His catalog of writings ranged from full novels to travel digests, essays,
magazine articles, serious journalism, and short stories. He was a friend to presidents, artists,
industrialists, and European royalty and, upon his death in 1910, he was lauded as the "greatest
American humorist of his age,” in a flattering New York Times obituary and fellow American
writer William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature”2
Yet, regardless of all his fame and success, Twain was (and remains today) a man of
deep moral and philosophical convictions that have never really been fully understood or
contextualized by scholars. A staunch supporter of African-‐American civil rights and women’s
suffrage, Twain despised the practice of discrimination of any kind. His glowing endorsements
of labor unions and the working class in some of his more political charged essays shows
1 Twain, Mark, and Mark Dawidziak. Mark My Words: Mark Twain on Writing. New York: St. Martin's, 1996. Print. 2 Faulkner, William, and Robert Archibald Jelliffe. Faulkner at Nagano. Tokyo: Kenkyusha, 1956. Print.
perhaps a genuine connection to the “working man” and his own humble roots as a printer’s
apprentice in antebellum Missouri. And his often misunderstood positions on American
Imperialism during the later part of the Nineteenth and early-‐Twentieth Centuries has
remained one of the most enduring debates of Twain’s final legacy. The purpose of this paper is
to look at the history and circumstances surrounding Twain’s anti-‐Imperialism period and
assess the state of the field in the scholastic study of Twain’s anti-‐Imperialist works. How have
past and present historians studied, interpreted, and treated Twain’s writings from this stage of
his career and over the last century since his death? Has the perception changed or have new
interpretations come to dominate the conversation? Using a variety of historical mortifies and
articles, we will attempt to understand this complex period in Twain’s life and career and how
our peers in the historical community have come to judge it.
Twain’s Anti-‐Imperialism Period: A Quick Biographical Sketch
To understand the makings of Mark Twain, the anti-‐Imperialism writer, one must first
start at the beginning with Twain’s initial literary success, his financial and personal hardships in
the late-‐Nineteenth Century, his 1890’s around-‐the-‐world speaking tour, and his subsequent
return to the United States and the beginning of his involvement in anti-‐Imperialist activities.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (“Mark Twain” was simply a play on an old riverboat measuring
term he picked up during his days working on a Mississippi riverboat) found literary success in
1865 as a humorist at a time when most American were in desperate need of a laugh following
the costly and destructive conclusion to the American Civil War.3 Twain had traveled west
during the war at the invitation of his brother, Orion Clemens, who was serving as secretary to
James W. Nye, the governor of the Nevada Territory. It was while traveling cross-‐country by
stagecoach that Twain experienced many misadventures, which would became the basis for his
early short stories / travel-‐writings Roughing It and The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras
County. These early novellas and travelogues were instantly popular and became the basis for
Twain’s first speaking engagements, helping to build a national reputation for him as a gifted,
3 Twain, Mark. Life on the Mississippi,. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1917. Print.
humorous, and in-‐demand lecturer that would serve him well later on during much more
stressful financial times.4
Between 1876 and 1889, Twain would move away from his original travel-‐based
literature into full length novels that would focus on social and autobiographical topics such as
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), The Prince and the Pauper (1881), The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn (1885), and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889). Most of these
novels were greeted with both critical and popular success and would give Twain and his family
the financial and social standing that would allow Twain to indulge other passions outside of
literature.5 As a young boy, Twain had always had a fascination in science and technology and
that interest continued throughout his life. He would patient three of his own inventions (one
of his earlier inventions included a replacement for modern-‐day suspenders known as the
“Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments”) and would invest heavily in
other’s inventions as well.6 In 1880, Twain was approached by James Paige, an up-‐and-‐coming
American inventor who had designed a new way to set moveable type. His invention was know
as the “Paige compositor” or as the “Paige typesetting machines” and it was designed to
remove the time-‐consuming method of setting printing type by hand by using a mechanical
arm. Twain was enthralled with the machine and its implications for revolutionizing the printing
industry, partly because of this love for science and partly because he had worked as a printer’s
apprentice during his youth.7
Between 1880 and 1892, Twain would invest over $300,000 in Paige’s invention (equal
to about $7,590,000 today), with most of this capital coming from earnings as a writer and from
his wife’s, Olivia Clemens’, family inheritances. In the end, however, the Paige typesetting
machine was a complete disaster and this poor choice of investment, coupled with the eventual
mismanagement of the publishing house Twain had founded, left the author deeply in debt to
several powerful creditors. With the help of his friend, industrialist Henry Huttleston Rogers,
Twain would be avoid most of the legal ramifications of his failed investments and protect his
4 Kaplan, Fred. The Singular Mark Twain: a Biography. New York: Doubleday, 2003. 25-55. Print. 5 Kaplan 22-55 6 Niemann, Paul J., and Kevin Cordtz. Invention Mysteries: the Little-known Stories behind Well-known Inventions. Quincy, IL: Horsefeathers Pub., 2004. 53-54. Print. 7 Gold, Charles H. "Hatching Ruin": Mark Twain's Road to Bankruptcy. St. Louis: University of Missouri, 2005. 35-45. Print.
ownership rights to some of his most famous published works, but the episode left him
depressed and disheartened, feeling as though the American system he had put his faith in had
misused and abandon him.8
In 1894, following the conclusion of his bankruptcy proceedings, Twain accepted an
invitation to undertake a round-‐the-‐world lecture tour at the behest of several prominent
British newspapers and Twain admirers. Twain’s reasoning for accepting such a physically
daunting task, as a global speaking tour, was two fold. First, he wanted to get away from the
memories of his recent unpleasantness with the failed Paige investment and, secondly, he
wanted to make sure that his creditors were paid in full for the money they had lost, even
though he was under no legal obligation anymore to fulfill such debts. It was during this trans-‐
global experience, particularly during his stops across the British Empire in India and South
Africa, that Twain came face to face for the first time with the practice of European Imperialism
and, as he claimed later both publicly and privately, the inhuman effects of this practice on the
native populations of the areas he visited. In interviews given upon his return to the United
States in 1900, Twain admitted that he had had little interest in the idea or politics of
Imperialism prior to the turn of the century and had even admitted to being a supporter of it at
one point, calling for the American annexation of the Hawaiian Islands and even being a early
supporter of American involvement in the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain. For
whatever reason, however, following his round-‐the-‐world speaking tour, Twain’s viewpoint on
Imperialism had radically changed.9
From 1901 until his death in 1910, Twain would work fervently as a writer, social critic,
and activist for the cause of anti-‐Imperialism around the world. He would speak out strongly
against American involvement in the Spanish-‐American War in 1898 and was especially critical
of the American annexation of the Philippines and the ensuing Philippine-‐American War as the
U.S. military attempted the pacify the rebellious natives. He served as president of American
Anti-‐Imperialist League and wrote several pamphlets for the organization that was especially
critical of American involvement in Imperialistic causes in Latin America. His most famous work
8 Kirk, Connie Ann. Mark Twain: a Biography. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2004. Print. 9 Emerson, Everett H. The Authentic Mark Twain: a Literary Biography of Samuel L. Clemens. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1984. 200-34. Print.
as a pamphleteer was the controversial The Incident in the Philippines, posthumously published
in 1924, which was written in response to the Moro Crater Massacre, in which six hundred
Pilipino Moros (including women and children) were slaughtered by American troops. Twain
also wrote a number of short stories and editorial essays that found their way into popular
mainstream newspapers. His most famous tracts included the 1899 short story The Man That
Corrupted Hadleyburg (which tells the story of corruption in a small town community which
mirrored corruption in Imperialistic countries), the satirical essay “To the Person Sitting in
Darkness” (which detailed Twains feelings about the crushing of the Boxer Rebellion in China by
international forces, the outcome of the South African Boer War, and the American war in the
Philippines), and the short pacifist story entitled The War Prayer that was inspired by the
Philippine-‐American War, which makes the point that humanism and Christianity's preaching of
love are incompatible with the conduct of war.
Many of Twain’s anti-‐Imperialist short stories and essays found publication, but a
number were rejected as too controversial for mainstream readers. The War Prayer, for
example, was submitted to the American fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar for publication, but
the magazine rejected it. Eight days later, Twain wrote to his friend Daniel Carter Beard, to
whom he had read the story, "I don't think the prayer will be published in my time. None but
the dead are permitted to tell the truth."10 The Prayer would remain unpublished until 1923
and many of Twain’s neglected and previously uncollected writings on anti-‐Imperialism would
later appeared for the first time in book form in 1992.11 Because of such rejections many of
Twain’s most scathing indictments against the Imperialist powers would remain under lock and
key until historians eventually uncovered them decades later.
Twain was also vehemently critical of Imperialism outside of the United States as well. In
his 1897 short novella Following the Equator, which was based on his experiences during his
round-‐the-‐world lecture tour, Twain expressed "hatred and condemnation of imperialism of all
stripes."12 He highly critical of the British in India and South Africa as well as Belgium king,
10 Scott, Helen (Winter 2000). "The Mark Twain They Didn’t Teach Us About in School". International Socialist Review. 10. pp. 61–65 11 Twain, Mark, and Jim Zwick. Mark Twain's Weapons of Satire: Anti-imperialist Writings on the Philippine-American War. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse UP, 1992. Print. 12 Ibid Scott
Leopold II, for which he wrote his famous 1905 satirical essay “King Leopold's Soliloquy”, a
stinging political satire written from the point of view of King Leopold II himself, in which we
raves about the great things he has done for the people for the Congo, while making light of the
large scale human rights abuses that were taking place in the Belgium colony. Many readers of
Twain’s earlier writings were unsure of how to take his new anti-‐Imperialistic approach,
especially when put into the light of Twain’s many other literary criticisms of the time. Needless
to say, Twain is remembered today as one of the more prominent Americans who spoke out
against the practices and policies of Imperialism, both in the United States and abroad.
Twain, The Anti-‐Imperialist: A Historiography (1940’s-‐1990’s)
Upon his death in 1910, Twain left behind a vast catalog of published and unpublished
work dealing with Imperialism that was deemed too radical or two controversial for the time
period for mass publication. Since the 1940’s, historians have sought over the decades for a
way to catalog, interpret, and draw historical context and lessons from Twain’s anti-‐
Imperialistic viewpoints. One of the earliest historians to take a look at Twain’s anti-‐
Imperialistic writings was William M. Gibson, a scholar who was widely known in intellectual
circles as a Twain historian and had worked on the editing of Mark Twain’s private papers at the
University of California at Berkeley. In 1947, Gibson submitted an article for publication in the
New England Quarterly entitled “Mark Twain and Howells: Anti-‐Imperialists”, which was the
first serious historical attempt to try and put out to the general public the motivations and
reasons for Twain’s anti-‐Imperialistic phase.
In his article, Gibson points to Twain’s friendship with American realist author, Socialist
activist, and literary critic William Dean Howells as his reasoning for why Twain delved into the
realm of anti-‐Imperialism. Howells was a vocal critic of Imperialism throughout much of his life
and his friendship with Twain, which dated back to the 1860’s, was a major influence on Twain
following his experiences in his round-‐the-‐world tour, so states Gibson.13 In particular, Gibson
pointed to the spring of 1899 when Twain’s tone towards Imperialism in his many travel logs
and notebooks changed. As to why this is, Gibson is unsure, but suggests that it might have had
13 Gibson, William M. "Mark Twain and Howells: Anti-Imperialists." The New England Quarterly 20.4 (1947): 435-70. Print.
partly to do with the increased American military presents in the Philippines (which would
become Twain’s main bone of contention), the mass media storm that surrounded the signing
of the 1898 Treaty of Paris (which ended the Spanish-‐American War and brought on the
American occupation of Cuba), and the death of Twain’s favorite daughter, Olivia Susan “Susy”
Clemens, in 1896.14 Gibson goes on in his article to also cite that the reason why a large amount
of Twain’s anti-‐Imperialist writings went unpublished during his lifetime was because Twain
feared that alienating the public too much towards a popularly supported issue would result in
a return of his family to their previous financial woes.15
While Gibson represents the start of serious historical study into Twain’s anti-‐Imperialist
past, it would not be for another decade before a fellow historian would answer Gibson’s
thesis. In 1957, historian Sherwood Cummings wrote his own response to Gibson’s research in
an article entitled “Mark Twain’s Social Darwinism” for a publication of The Huntington Library
Quarterly. In his tract, Cummings acknowledges Gibson’s thesis and commends his opening of
the conversation about Twain’s anti-‐Imperialist thoughts, but disagrees as to the motives of
Twain’s writings.16 In his thesis, Cummings argues that Twain was a man deeply rooted in the
study of science and his personality was an ever-‐growing battle between his belief in the
writings of Charles Darwin and his own feelings of human potential.17 The collapse of his
original fortune in 1880’s and 1890’s through bad investments and bad business, was the
antitheses of Twain’s “science passion”; his belief that the ideals of Social Darwinism could be
applied to modern society and that he had become another example in this evolutionary
lesson. Therefore, Cummings concludes, Twain’s anti-‐Imperialistic writing were a direct result
of his trying to point this social ideal out to others by using an example that everyone was
familiar with at the time and was only visible when Twain was at his wits end (his bankruptcy,
his family issues, etc.). When his life was “cheerful and prosperous”, contends Cummings,
Twain had no interest in the issue of Imperialism thus why he ceased writing about it shortly
14 Gibson 439-443 15 Ibid 470 16 Cummings, Sherwood. "Mark Twain's Social Darwinism." Huntington Library Quarterly 20.2 (1957): 163-75. Print. 17 Cummings 175
before his death.18 To back up his thesis, Cummings pointed to the collection of over twenty-‐
eight book titles in Twain’s personal library that related to a scientific topic.19
The 1950’s also saw the publication of American Marxist labor historian and professor
Phillip S. Foner’s book, Mark Twain: Social Critic (1958). A graduate of City College in New York
City and Columbia University, Foner was renowned through the United States more for his
political affiliations then his scholarly work. He had been removed from his teaching position at
City College in 1941 for his ties to the American Communist Party and his political leanings
seemed to be verified for many when he had begun working as the chief editor for
International Publishers in 1947, a publishing company that specialized in Marxist works of
economics, political science, and history as well was having close working tied to the
Communist Party USA.20 In his book, Foner tried to show Twain’s thoughts on a number of
social issues, including Imperialism, and concluded that had Twain been alive in the 1950’s, he
might have had sympathies for some of Foner’s own Marxist political standings. Throughout his
early writing career, Foner argues, Twain held a long running discussed for individuals who used
their wealth for political means and that this disgust could be traced through many of Twain’s
popular works.21 According to Foner, Twain’s anti-‐Imperialist streak began with the annexation
of the Hawaiian Islands, which Twain had seen as an attempt by American businessmen to fight
off European attempts to invest the islands and feared that American involvement in Cuba and
the Philippines would result in a “war of conquest” around the world.22 In the conclusion to his
book, Foner argues that Twain’s anti-‐Imperialist views were rooted in the belief that the United
State’s democratic heritage was under attack by a “dictatorship of wealth” and that Twain
became involved in anti-‐Imperialist activities as a way to expose and criticize this march
towards bourgeoisie totalitarianism around the globe.23
The 1960’s would see a re-‐interest in Twain’s anti-‐Imperialist writings, particularly by
the anti-‐Vietnam War contingent of American society, who reprinted Twain’s War Prayer was a
18 Ibid 19 Cummings 165 20 Herbert Shapiro, "Philip Sheldon Foner (b. 1910)," in Mari Jo Buhle, Paul Buhle, and Dan Georgakas (eds.), Encyclopedia of the American Left. First edition. New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1990; pp. 232-233. 21 Foner, Philip Sheldon. Mark Twain: Social Critic. New York: International, 1966, p. 86. Print. 22 Ibid 332 23 Ibid 392
symbolic protest towards American involvement in Southeast Asia. The 1960’s also saw another
historian weighting into the discussion from a scholarly point of view on Twain’s anti-‐
Imperialistic writings. In 1962, Duke University history professor Louis J. Budd picked up the
discussion with a book entitled Mark Twain: Social Philosopher (1962). Within this publication,
Budd attempted to answer Foner’s Marxist accusations of Twain and dismissed them outright.24
While Forner might dwell on Marxist philosopher, quibbled Budd, the real reason for Twain’s
seemingly Socialist-‐flavored feelings might be more due to the idea that Twain just hated
individual greed in all aspects of human life, not just in the political realm.25 Twain historian
John M. Durham Jr. tended to agree with Budd when he presented his own interpretation of
Twain the anti-‐Imperialist in the 1965 issue of the Spanish historical journal Revista de Letras
with his article “Mark Twain and Imperialism”. According to Durham, Twain’s reasoning for
becoming an anti-‐Imperials stemmed from his hatred of greed and slavery and that his writings
were not really much more then an average observer who didn’t grasp the full concept of the
issue he was writing about, rather than the all seeing, political-‐savvy Marxist Foner had
depicted.26
Twain was known throughout his life to be an adamant supporter of abolition of slavery
and emancipation for African-‐Americans, even going so far to say “Lincoln's [Emancipation]
Proclamation ... not only set the black slaves free, but set the white man free also.”27 He argued
that non-‐whites did not receive justice in the United States, once saying “I have seen Chinamen
abused and maltreated in all the mean, cowardly ways possible to the invention of a degraded
nature....but I never saw a Chinaman righted in a court of justice for wrongs thus done to
him.”28 With this evidence in toe, Durham makes the argument that Twain’s hatred of
Imperialism was grounded more in his hatred of seeing other African peoples, particularly in
British South Africa, being abused and enslaved and points to the verminous comments Twain
put in his travel notebooks concerning English-‐born South African businessman, mining
24 Budd, Louis J. Mark Twain: Social Philosopher. Bloomington: Indiana Univ., 1962, p. 177-178 Print. 25 Budd 177-178 26 Durham Jr., John M. "Mark Twain and Imperialism." Revista De Letras 6 (1965): 67-80. Print. 27 Foner 200 28 Maxwell Geismar, ed., Mark Twain and the Three Rs: Race, Religion, Revolution and Related Matters (Indianapolis: Bobs-Merrill, 1973), p. 98. Print
magnate, and politician Cecil Rhodes.29 As the founder of the diamond company De Beers,
Rhodes was a major force in British Imperialism in Africa and became the poster-‐child for
everything Twain saw wrong with the European Imperialistic experiment in Africa.
Durham also attempts in his article to explain why only selective works of Twain’s anti-‐
Imperialist period were ever published during his lifetime. One explanation Durham gives is that
Twain was astutely aware of the messy international rivalries and alliances that existed in
Europe prior to the First World War and that he kept some of his harshest anti-‐Imperialist
criticisms out of the media out of political fears of Germany and Russia.30 Durham also believes,
like Gibson, that Twain’s fear of bad publicity would equal a return to the poorhouse for himself
and his family. Referring to American public opinion as a “delicate fabric” in one of his letters,
Twain, Durham concludes, did not publish many of his harshest anti-‐Imperialistic critics out of
fear for his own financial security.31
The debate over Twain’s motivations for his anti-‐Imperialist writings would go through
another cold spell during the 1980’s and would be largely forgotten until 1993 when professor
and head of the University of Southern Florida English department, Hunt Hawkins, reignited the
conversation with a article in the journal American Literary Realism entitled “Mark Twain’s Anti-‐
Imperialism”. Dismissing Foner’s thesis outright and acknowledging that Budd’s reasons might
be, at least on the surface, more believable, Hawkins painted a picture of Twain as a man who
was channeling the spirit of American patriotism and wanting to be seen for posterity among
the great social critics of his generation.32 Through his research, Hawkins had concluded that
Twain was a great admirer of those throughout American history who had stood up to
tyrannical authority.33 Therefore, it was this admiration that pushed Twain to speak out and
actively support anti-‐Imperialist causes even at the fear of his own beleaguered financial past.34
As for Twain’s reasons for not publishing all of his anti-‐Imperialist tracts in the early part of the
Twentieth Century, Hawkins believed it had less to do with Twain’s fear of financial instability
29 Durham 68 30 Durham 69 31 Ibid 75 32 Hawkins, Hunt. "Mark Twain's Anti-Imperialism." American Literary Realism, 1870-1910 25.2 (1993): 31-33. Print. 33 Hawkins 33 34 Ibid 37
and more to do with his slowly forming syndical discussed for humanity as a whole. According
to this theory, Hawkins argues that Twain started to loose faith more and more in the potential
of humanity following the crushing the Filipino insurrection in 1902 and the refusal of American
politicians to decisively act in defense of the abused when it came to European Imperialism in
the Congo.35 In a way, it could be argued that Hawkins draws a bit from Cummings that the
lessons of Social Darwinism were taking their toll on the aging author and humorist.
“Assessing the State of the Field”: Mark Twain, the Anti-‐Imperialist, and Today
Since the turn of the Twenty-‐First Century, almost one hundred years since Twain first
started writing his anti-‐Imperialist tracts, the current state of historical discussion about the
meanings, influences, and narrative about these writings has been influenced by a number of
modern-‐day historians who continue to debate and interpret Twain’s writings in new and
different ways. In 2000, historian Peter West wrote an article for the South Atlantic Review
entitled “To the Reader Sitting in the Dark: Mark Twain’s The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg”.
Based around two of Twain’s most famous anti-‐Imperialists works, the essay “To the Person
Sitting in the Dark” (1901) and the short story The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg (1899),
West argues that Twain specifically chose to have his anti-‐Imperialist views aired in newspaper
serials rather than full-‐fledged novels because he had come to understand the power of the
mainstream media during his round-‐the-‐world lecture tour in the 1890’s. According to West,
while Twain was touring Europe, the author had a stop over in Vienna (the capital of the
powerful Austro-‐Hungarian Empire) and observed first-‐hand the power and influence of public
opinion and the written word on popular opinion.36 West, therefore, argues that Twain was
one of the first true “opinion leaders” of the Twentieth Century as he tried to use his
newspaper connections and his pamphleteering skills to rally public opinion against the
Imperialists.
Probably the most prominent historian to tackle the issue of Twain’s anti-‐Imperialistic
writings in the Twenty-‐First Century was Syracuse University professor and historical Internet
35 Ibid 37-43 36 West, Peter. "To the Reader Sitting in Darkness: Mark Twain's "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg"" South Atlantic Review 65.1 (2000): 59. Print.
pioneer Jim Zwick, who dedicated much of his post-‐graduate study to the scholarship of Twain’s
anti-‐Imperialist writings. In a chapter for Shirley Fishkin’s 2002 book, A Historical Guide to Mark
Twain, on the issue of Mark Twain and Imperialism, Zwick distanced himself from many earlier
Twain historians who cited his round-‐the-‐world lecture tour as the catalyst for his anti-‐
Imperialistic views. Rather, Zwick argued that Twains resentment of Imperialism was rooted in
his childhood experiences during America’s first Imperialistic phase – the Westward expansion
movement of the 1860’s-‐1880’s – as well as his pre-‐fame 1866 trip to Hawaii as a roving
reporter for the California-‐based newspaper The Sacramento Union.37 It was during this first
trip outside the continental United States, argues Zwick, that Twain experienced first hand how
a tropical paradise and innocent native population could be used and abused by American
political and business interests.38 Fellow modern Twain historian Amy Kaplan agreed with
Zwick’s Hawaii connection to Twain’s anti-‐Imperialist views, citing it as a bittersweet episode in
Twain’s career in a chapter on Twain and Imperialist for the 2006 Amy Lang and Cecelia Tichi
book, What Democracy Looks like a New Critical Realism for a Post-‐Seattle World. In her
section, Kaplan further cement’s Zwick’s argument by pointing to Twain’s own dispatches and
letters and makes the assertion that Twain used the thoughts and feelings from his Hawaiian
excursion to form an “allegory for Imperialism” that would influence his later works in the
1900’s.39 Kaplan also tries to relate Twain’s anti-‐Imperialist streak to modern-‐day issues of
“nation-‐building”, claiming that Twain’s satirical writing teaches us much about the future
when we look at issues such as American involvement in Iraq.40
Anther modern-‐day Twain historian who picked up Kaplan’s connection to more
contemporary nation-‐building and Twain’s writings was Augusta College political science and
international affairs professor Joel Johnson, who applied Kaplan’s Iraqi connection to one of
Twain’s most celebrated works A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) for the 2007
issue of the journal Perspectives in Politics in an article entitled “A Connecticut Yankee in
Saddam’s Court: Mark Twain on Benevolent Imperialism”. In the article, Johnson thesis
37 Fishkin, Shelley Fisher. A Historical Guide to Mark Twain. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. Print, p. 227. 38 Ibid 229 39 Lang, Amy Schrager, and Cecelia Tichi. What Democracy Looks like a New Critical Realism for a Post-Seattle World. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2006, p. 70-72. Print. 40 Ibid 69
revolved around the idea that the main character in Twain’s book, industrialist Hank Morgan,
and his incursion into Camelot is similar to the American intervention in Iraq after the
September 11th terrorist attacks and that, by understanding the below the surface lessons
Twain is trying to put out there in this novel, we as American can better understand our
conflicting thoughts and emotions towards modern-‐day nation-‐building.41 Within his work,
Johnson goes on to argue that the character of Hank Morgan grew out of Twain’s frustration
with the greed and neglect of the Industrial Age (could his be his failed investment in Paige
popping up again?) and that Morgan’s character traits of overconfidence and hypocritical view
of social values show this.42 Johnson also claims that this ongoing debate between that of
technological advantage and traditional value play out Twain’s own anti-‐Imperialist views that
can transcend the centuries to our modern issues with the War on Terrorism.43 In his final
analysis of Twain and Imperialism, Johnson feels that Twain did not disapprove of Imperialism’s
end goal as some earlier Twain historians had asserted, but rather despised the “unfair tactics
used” by the Imperialist to accomplish their goal such as subversion of native cultures and
outright military violence. This is why in the end, Johnson argues, Twain choose to join the anti-‐
Imperialist ranks and why he was so vocal about only violent Imperialist topics like the Boxer
Rebellion, the Boer War, and the American-‐Pilipino conflict.44
Conclusion – Where does the Future of Twain’s Anti-‐Imperialists Scholarship Lie?
In the final analysis of Mark Twain, the anti-‐Imperialist crusader, it is hard to settle on
one specific explanation by the dozens of historians who have weighted in the debate over the
decades. It is true, however, that the state of the field in this avenue of American historical
study is anything but cold. In January of 2012, the one-‐hundred and twenty-‐sixth annual
meeting of the American Historical Association while convene in Chicago and some of the
discussions and lectures scheduled for this conference deal with past and present
interpretation of Imperialism that may bring Twain’s anti-‐Imperialist writings once again to the
41 Johnson, Joel A. "A Connecticut Yankee in Saddam's Court: Mark Twain on Benevolent Imperialism." Perspectives on Politics 5.01 (2007): 50. Print. 42 Johnson 53-54 43 Ibid 54-55 44 Ibid 56
historical forefront. On January 5th, a panel discussion of research papers will be held to look at
the issue of the internationalization of American education during the early Twenty-‐First
Century. One of the papers under discussion for this session will be by American University
professor Allen J. Mikaelian, who will be discussion American educational demands during the
Age of Imperialism in the early 1900’s. It is not a stretch of the imagination to see Twain’s
influence becoming a part of the roundtable discussion. Another panel discussion that has
equal opportunity for Twain anti-‐Imperialist scholars is a conversation on the idea of social
progress in Latin America, particularly Argentina, Chile, and Mexico during the late Nineteenth
Century. Latin American has long been a subject of American Imperialistic ambitions from the
Spanish-‐American War, through the Cold War, and to the present so there is a likelihood that
scholars may bring up some of the ideas and criticisms of American Imperialism in this area of
the world as they relate to Mark Twain and his period writings.
Regardless of what is really discussed or not discussed in the historical exchange of this
or any other historical sessions, one thing is beyond doubt. Historians, authors, and scholars
will continue to debate the true meaning and message behind Mark Twain’s animatic anti-‐
Imperialistic writings for many years to come and perhaps the full truth and explanation to
Twain’s motives and meanings will never fully be understood. As the great American writer
himself said in his fictional short-‐story The Secret History of Eddypus: “One of the most
admirable things about history is, that almost as a rule we get as much information out of what
[history] does not say as we get out of what it does say. And so, one may truly and axiomatically
aver this, to-‐wit: that history consists of two equal parts; one of these halves is statements of
fact, the other half is inference, drawn from the facts. To the experienced student of history
there are no difficulties about this; to him the half, which is unwritten, is as clearly and surely
visible, by the help of scientific inference, as if it flashed and flamed in letters of fire before his
eyes. When the practiced eye of the simple peasant sees the half of a frog projecting above the
water, he unerringly infers the half of the frog, which he does not see. To the expert student in
our great science, history is a frog; half of it is submerged, but he knows it is there, and he
knows the shape of it.”45
45 Twain, Mark, and Jim Zwick. Mark Twain's Weapons of Satire: Anti-imperialist Writings on the Philippine-American War. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse UP, 1992. Print.
