Editing Mark Twain (section)

===Politics===
[[File:New York at the Jamestown Exposition, Norfolk, Virginia, April 26 to December 1, 1907 (1909) (14596132187).jpg|thumb|right|250px|Twain (second from right) with [[NSDAR]] President General [[Emily Nelson Ritchie McLean]] at the [[Jamestown Exposition]] in [[Norfolk, Virginia]], in 1907]]
Twain was a staunch supporter of technological progress and [[commerce]]. He was against [[welfare spending|welfare]] measures, because Twain believed that society in the "[[Gilded Age|business age]]" is governed by "exact and constant" laws that should not be "interfered with for the accommodation of any individual or political or religious faction".<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Budd |first=Louis J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G5gNAQAAIAAJ |title=Mark Twain: Social Philosopher |date=1962 |publisher=University of Missouri Press |isbn=978-0-8262-1368-6 |pages=160 |language=en}}</ref> He opined that "there is no good government at all & none possible".<ref name=":0" /> In the opinion of [[Washington University in St. Louis|Washington University]] professor Guy A. Cardwell:

{{blockquote|By present standards Mark Twain was more conservative than liberal. He believed strongly in laissez faire, thought personal political rights secondary to property rights, admired self-made plutocrats, and advocated a leadership to be composed of men of wealth and brains. Among his attitudes now more readily recognized as liberal were a faith in progress through technology and a hostility towards monarchy, inherited aristocracy, the Roman Catholic church, and, in his later years, imperialism.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Cardwell |first=Guy A. |date=1963-09-01 |title=Review: Mark Twain: Social Philosopher, by Louis J. Budd |url=https://online.ucpress.edu/ncl/article/18/2/197/64416/Review-Mark-Twain-Social-Philosopher-by-Louis-J |journal=Nineteenth-Century Fiction |language=en |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=197–200 |doi=10.2307/2932778 |jstor=2932778 |issn=0029-0564 |access-date=July 7, 2022 |archive-date=July 7, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220707173352/https://online.ucpress.edu/ncl/article/18/2/197/64416/Review-Mark-Twain-Social-Philosopher-by-Louis-J |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

====Labor====
Twain wrote glowingly about [[Trade union|unions]] in the river boating industry in ''Life on the Mississippi'', which was read in union halls decades later.<ref>Philip S. Foner, ''Mark Twain: Social Critic'' (New York: International Publishers, 1958), p. 98</ref> He supported the [[labor movement]], especially one of the most important unions, the [[Knights of Labor]].<ref name="helen-scott"/> In a speech to them, Twain said:
{{blockquote|Who are the oppressors? The few: the King, the capitalist, and a handful of other overseers and superintendents. Who are the oppressed? The many: the nations of the earth; the valuable personages; the workers; they that make the bread that the soft-handed and idle eat.<ref>Philip S. Foner, ''Mark Twain: Social Critic'' (New York: International Publishers, 1958), p. 169, cited in Helen Scott's "The Mark Twain they didn't teach us about in school" (2000) in ''International Socialist Review'' 10, Winter 2000, pp. 61–65</ref>}}

Twain further wrote "Why is it right that there is not a fairer division of the spoil all around? Because laws and constitutions have ordered otherwise. Then it follows that laws and constitutions should change around and say there shall be a more nearly equal division."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Twain |first1=Mark |title=Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, and Essays 1852–1890 |date=1992 |publisher=Library of America |page=884}}</ref>

====Imperialism====
Before 1899, Twain was largely in favor of [[American imperialism|imperialism]]. In the late 1860s and early 1870s, he spoke out strongly in favor of American interests in the [[Kingdom of Hawaii|Hawaiian Islands]].<ref>David Zmijewski, "The Man in Both Corners: Mark Twain the Shadowboxing Imperialist", ''Hawaiian Journal of History'', 2006, Vol. 40, pp. 55–73</ref> Twain said the war with Spain in 1898 was "the worthiest" war ever fought.<ref>Paine, ed. ''Letters'' 2:663; Ron Powers, ''Mark Twain: a life'' (2005) p. 593</ref> However, he reversed course in 1899. In the ''[[New York Herald]]'', October 16, 1900, Twain describes his transformation and political awakening, in the context of the [[Philippine–American War]], to [[anti-imperialism]]:

{{blockquote|I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific&nbsp;... Why not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked myself?&nbsp;... I said to myself, Here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the [[Constitution of the United States|American Constitution]] afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves.

But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the [[Treaty of Paris (1898)|treaty of Paris]] (which ended the [[Spanish–American War]]), and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem.

It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.<ref>From Andrew Jay Hoffman, ''Inventing Mark Twain: The Lives of Samuel Langhorne Clemens'' (New York: William Morrow, 1997), cited in Helen Scott's "The Mark Twain they didn't teach us about in school" (2000) in ''International Socialist Review'' 10, Winter 2000, pp. 61–65</ref><ref name=NYHerald19001016>{{cite news |title=Mark Twain Home, An Anti-Imperialist |url=http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%2014/New%20York%20NY%20Herald/New%20York%20NY%20Herald%201900/New%20York%20NY%20Herald%201900%20-%208960.pdf |page=4 |date=October 16, 1900 |newspaper=[[New York Herald]] |access-date=October 25, 2014 |archive-date=October 16, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016211319/http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%2014/New%20York%20NY%20Herald/New%20York%20NY%20Herald%201900/New%20York%20NY%20Herald%201900%20-%208960.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

During the [[Boxer Rebellion]], Twain said that "the Boxer is a patriot. He loves his country better than he does the countries of other people. I wish him success."<ref>{{cite book|last=Twain|first=Mark |title=Mark Twain Speeches |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dhWMWs_7J3UC&pg=PA116|date=2007|isbn=978-1-4346-7879-9|page=116|publisher=BiblioBazaar }}</ref>

[[File:Mark Twain's proposed flag for the American-controlled Philippines (1901).svg|thumb|In 1901, Twain wrote a satirical essay titled ''[[To the Person Sitting in Darkness]]'', in which he expressed his strong anti-imperialist views against ongoing conflicts such as the Boxer Rebellion, the Second Boer War and the Philippine–American War. At one point in the essay, Twain made a sardonic suggestion for a flag of the Philippines under American control; "''And as for a flag for the Philippine Province, it is easily managed. We can have a special one—our States do it: we can have just our usual flag, with the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and cross-bones.''"<ref>{{cite web |url=https://guides.loc.gov/world-of-1898/mark-twain#:~:text=And%20as%20for%20a%20flag,the%20skull%20and%20cross%2Dbones. |title=World of 1898: International Perspectives on the Spanish American War / Mark Twain |author= |date= |work=Library of Congress |access-date=16 October 2024}}</ref>]]

From 1901, soon after his return from Europe, until his death in 1910, Twain was vice-president of the [[American Anti-Imperialist League]],<ref name=zwick>''Mark Twain's Weapons of Satire: Anti-Imperialist Writings on the Philippine–American War''. (1992, Jim Zwick, ed.) {{ISBN|0-8156-0268-5}}</ref> which opposed the annexation of the Philippines by the United States and had "tens of thousands of members".<ref name="helen-scott" /> He wrote many [[Pamphlet|political pamphlets]] for the organization. The ''Incident in the Philippines'', posthumously published in 1924, was in response to the [[First Battle of Bud Dajo|Moro Crater Massacre]], in which 600 [[Moro people|Moros]] were killed. Twain wrote: "In what way was it a battle? It has no resemblance to a battle...We cleaned up our four days' work and made it complete by butchering these helpless people."<ref>{{cite book |title= Comments on the Moro Massacre |isbn = 9788026878148|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o101DwAAQBAJ&q=twain+complete+works+comments+moro&pg=PT5120|last1 = Twain|first1 = Mark|date = 2017| publisher=E-artnow }}</ref><ref>[http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/clemensmoromassacre.html "Comments on the Moro Massacre". by Samuel Clemens (March 12, 1906)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180206080228/http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/clemensmoromassacre.html |date=February 6, 2018 }}. History is a Weapon.</ref> Many of his neglected and previously uncollected writings on anti-imperialism appeared for the first time in book form in 1992.<ref name=zwick />

Twain was critical of imperialism in other countries as well. In ''Following the Equator'', Twain expresses "hatred and condemnation of imperialism of all stripes".<ref name="helen-scott" /> He was highly critical of European imperialists such as [[Cecil Rhodes]] and [[Leopold II of Belgium|King Leopold II of Belgium]], both of whom attempted to establish colonies on the African continent during the [[Scramble for Africa]].<ref name="helen-scott" /> ''[[King Leopold's Soliloquy]]'' is a [[political satire]] about the monarch's private colony, the [[Congo Free State]]. Reports of outrageous exploitation and [[Atrocities in the Congo Free State|grotesque abuses]] led to widespread international outcry in the early 1900s, arguably the first large-scale [[human rights]] movement. In the soliloquy, the King argues that bringing [[Christianity]] to [[Congo Free State|the colony]] outweighs "a little starvation". The abuses against Congolese forced laborers continued until the movement forced the [[Government of Belgium|Belgian government]] to take direct control of the colony.<ref>{{cite book |title=King Leopold's ghost : a story of greed, terror, and heroism in colonial Africa |author=Adam Hochschild |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-395-75924-0 |oclc=39042794 |url=https://archive.org/details/kingleopoldsgho000hoch }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times |title=Into Africa |author=Jeremy Harding |date=September 20, 1998 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/20/books/into-africa.html |access-date=February 11, 2017 |archive-date=February 12, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170212165426/http://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/20/books/into-africa.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

During the [[Philippine–American War]], Twain wrote a short [[Pacifism|pacifist]] story titled ''[[The War Prayer]]'', which makes the point that humanism and Christianity's preaching of love are incompatible with the conduct of war. It was submitted to ''[[Harper's Bazaar]]'' for publication, but on March 22, 1905, the magazine rejected the story as "not quite suited to a [[Women's magazine|woman's magazine]]". 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." Because he had an exclusive contract with [[Harper & Brothers]], Twain could not publish ''The War Prayer'' elsewhere; it remained unpublished until 1916.<ref>{{cite web |title=Harper's |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Harper%27s |website=Wikisource |access-date=December 26, 2021 |archive-date=February 13, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230213165611/https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Harper%27s |url-status=live }}</ref> It was republished in the 1960s as campaigning material by [[Opposition to the Vietnam War|anti-war activists]].<ref name="helen-scott" />

Twain acknowledged that he had originally sympathized with the more moderate [[Girondins]] of the [[French Revolution]] and then shifted his sympathies to the more radical [[Sansculottes]], indeed identifying himself as "a [[Jean-Paul Marat|Marat]]" and writing that the [[Reign of Terror]] paled in comparison to the older terrors that preceded it.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/personal/archive/2011/08/that-older-and-real-terror/244113/|title=That Older and Real Terror|last=Coates|first=Ta-Nehisi|date=August 25, 2011|website=[[The Atlantic]]|access-date=July 29, 2018|archive-date=July 29, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180729230900/https://www.theatlantic.com/personal/archive/2011/08/that-older-and-real-terror/244113/|url-status=live}}</ref> Twain supported the [[Russian Revolution (1905)|revolutionaries in Russia]] against the reformists, arguing that the [[Tsar]] must be got rid of by violent means, because peaceful ones would not work.<ref>Maxwell Geismar, ed., ''Mark Twain and the Three Rs: Race, Religion, Revolution and Related Matters'' (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973), p. 169, cited in Helen Scott's "The Mark Twain they didn't teach us about in school" (2000) in ''International Socialist Review'' 10, Winter 2000, pp. 61–65</ref> He summed up his views of revolutions in the following statement:
{{blockquote|I am said to be a revolutionist in my sympathies, by birth, by breeding and by principle. I am always on the side of the revolutionists, because there never was a revolution unless there were some oppressive and intolerable conditions against which to revolute.<ref>Maxwell Geismar, ed., Mark Twain and the Three Rs: Race, Religion, Revolution and Related Matters (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973), p. 159</ref> }}

====Civil rights====
Twain was an adamant supporter of the [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolition of slavery]] and the [[emancipation]] of slaves, even going so far as to say, "[[Abraham Lincoln|Lincoln]]'s [[Emancipation Proclamation|Proclamation]]&nbsp;... not only set the black slaves free, but set the white man free also".<ref>Philip S. Foner, ''Mark Twain: Social Critic'' (New York: International Publishers, 1958), p. 200</ref> 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&nbsp;... but I never saw a Chinaman righted in a court of justice for wrongs thus done to him".<ref>Maxwell Geismar, ed., ''Mark Twain and the Three Rs: Race, Religion, Revolution and Related Matters'' (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973), p. 98</ref> Twain paid for at least one black person to attend [[Yale Law School]] and for another black person to attend a southern university to become a minister.<ref>Paine, A. B., Mark Twain: A Biography, Harper, 1912 p. 701</ref>

Twain was also a supporter of [[History of women's suffrage in the United States|women's suffrage]], as evidenced by his "[[Votes for Women (speech)|Votes for Women]]" speech, given in 1901.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Mark Twain's Speeches|url=https://archive.org/details/marktwainsspeec00twaigoog|last=Twain|first=Mark|publisher=Harper & Bros.|year=1910|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/marktwainsspeec00twaigoog/page/n117 101]–103}}</ref>

[[Helen Keller]] benefited from Twain's support as she pursued her college education and publishing despite her disabilities and financial limitations. The two were friends for roughly 16 years.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.perkins.org/stories/seven-fascinating-facts-you-probably-didnt-know-about-helen-keller|title=Seven fascinating facts you probably didn't know about Helen Keller|website=Perkins School for the Blind|access-date=March 20, 2019|archive-date=June 11, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190611010555/https://www.perkins.org/stories/seven-fascinating-facts-you-probably-didnt-know-about-helen-keller|url-status=live}}</ref>

Through Twain's efforts, the Connecticut legislature voted a pension for [[Prudence Crandall]], since 1995 Connecticut's official heroine, for her efforts towards the education of young African-American women in Connecticut. Twain also offered to purchase for her use her former house in Canterbury, home of the [[Canterbury Female Boarding School]], but she declined.<ref>{{cite news
|title=Prudence Crandall Champion of Negro Education |first1=Miriam R. |last1=Small |first2=Edwin W. |last2=Small |magazine=[[New England Quarterly]] |volume=17 |number=4 |date=December 1944 |pages=506–529}}</ref>{{rp|528}}

At 62, Twain wrote in his travelogue ''Following the Equator'' (1897) that in colonized lands all over the world, "savages" have always been wronged by "[[White people|whites]]" in the most merciless ways, such as "robbery, humiliation, and slow, slow murder, through poverty and the white man's whiskey"; his conclusion is that "there are many humorous things in this world; among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages".<ref>Twain, Mark. 2008. ''Following the Equator''. pp. 94–98</ref> Describing his travels, Twain wrote, "So far as I am able to judge nothing has been left undone, either by man or Nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds. Where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.amritt.com/india-business-guide/mark-twain-india/ |publisher=Amritt |title=Mark Twain in India |date=2009 |access-date=May 8, 2014 |archive-date=May 9, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140509002821/http://www.amritt.com/india-business-guide/mark-twain-india/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

====Native Americans====
Twain's earlier writings on [[Native Americans in the United States|American Indians]] reflected his view of essentialized [[Race (human categorization)|racial]] difference. Twain wrote in "The Noble Red Man" in 1870: {{blockquote|His heart is a cesspool of falsehood, of treachery, and of low and devilish instincts. With him, gratitude is an unknown emotion; and when one does him a kindness, it is safest to keep the face toward him, lest the reward be an arrow in the back. To accept of a favor from him is to assume a debt which you can never repay to his satisfaction, though you bankrupt yourself trying. The scum of the earth!<ref name=indian_hater>{{cite web | url = http://www.bluecorncomics.com/twain.htm | title = Mark Twain, Indian Hater | access-date = 2008-07-09 | date = May 28, 2001 | publisher = Blue Corn Comics | archive-date = September 15, 2008 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080915133043/http://www.bluecorncomics.com/twain.htm | url-status = live }}</ref>}} In the same tract, Twain advocates genocide, describing the "Noble Aborigine" as :  "nothing but a poor filthy, naked scurvy vagabond, whom to exterminate were a charity to the Creator's worthier insects and reptiles which he oppresses"<ref>Mark Twain, "[https://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDFs/twain-noble-red-man-facsimile.pdf The Noble Red Man] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240506193428/https://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDFs/twain-noble-red-man-facsimile.pdf |date=May 6, 2024 }}", 1870</ref>  This piece sought to undermine the sympathy felt on the "Atlantic seabord" for Native Americans.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Clark |first=Beverly Lyon |title=Mark Twain among the Indians and Other Indigenous People by Kerry Driscoll (review) |journal=Great Plains Quarterly |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/747066 |volume=40 |issue=1 |date=2020 |doi=10.1353/gpq.2020.0004 |access-date=April 21, 2024 |archive-date=May 17, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220517203954/https://muse.jhu.edu/article/747066 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Harris |first=Helen L. |title=Mark Twain's Response to the Native American |volume=46 |issue=4 |date=1975 |pages=495–505 |journal=American Literature |publisher=Duke University Press |doi=10.2307/2924574 |jstor=2924574 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2924574.pdf |access-date=April 21, 2024 |archive-date=March 25, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200325182410/https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2924574.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>  In 1895, Twain was still ridiculing the author of ''[[Last of the Mohicans]],'' saying in "[[Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses]]" that Cooper "[...] was almost always in error about his Indians. There was seldom a sane one among them."<ref>{{cite web |author=Mark Twain |website=Mark Twain in his Times |url=https://twain.lib.virginia.edu/projects/rissetto/offense.html |title=Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses |date=1895 |access-date=April 21, 2024 |archive-date=April 21, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240421173045/https://twain.lib.virginia.edu/projects/rissetto/offense.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

====Political parties====
Twain was a [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] for most of his life. However, in [[1884 United States presidential election|1884]], Twain publicly broke with his party and joined the [[Mugwumps]] to support the Democratic nominee, [[Grover Cleveland]], over the Republican nominee, [[James G. Blaine]], whom he considered a corrupt politician.<ref name=":1">{{Citation |last=Leonard |first=James S. |title=Politics |date=2020 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/mark-twain-in-context/politics/BF35295E23B6F72A15FFCE2ED74B50CB |work=Mark Twain in Context |pages=151–160 |editor-last=Bird |editor-first=John |series=Literature in Context |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-47260-9 |access-date=July 7, 2022}}</ref> Twain spoke at rallies in favor of Cleveland. In the early 20th century, Twain began decrying both Democrats and Republicans as "insane" and proposed, in his 1907 book ''[[Christian Science (book)|Christian Science]]'', that while each party recognized the other's insanity, only the Mugwumps (that is, those who eschewed party loyalties in favor of voting for "the best man") could perceive the overall madness linking the two.<ref name=":1" />