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from here on January 29, 2009:
http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_4.3/twain.htm
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To the Person Sitting in Darkness*
by
Mark Twain
Extending the Blessings of Civilization to
our Brother who Sits in Darkness has been a good trade and has paid well, on the
whole; and there is money in it yet, if carefully worked but not enough, in my
judgment, to make any considerable risk advisable. The People that Sit in
Darkness are getting to be too scarce too scarce and too shy. And such
darkness as is now left is really of but an indifferent quality, and not dark
enough for the game. The most of those People that Sit in Darkness have been
furnished with more light than was good for them or profitable for us. We have
been injudicious.
The Blessings-of-Civilization Trust, wisely and cautiously administered, is a
Daisy. There is more money in it, more territory, more sovereignty, and other
kinds of emolument, than there is in any other game that is played. But
Christendom has been playing it badly of late years, and must certainly suffer
by it, in my opinion. She has been so eager to get every stake that appeared on
the green cloth, that the People who Sit in Darkness have noticed it they have
noticed it, and have begun to show alarm. They have become suspicious of the
Blessings of Civilization. More they have begun to examine them. This is not
well. The Blessings of Civilization are all right, and a good commercial
property; there could not be a better, in a dim light. In the right kind of a
light, and at a proper distance, with the goods a little out of focus, they
furnish this desirable exhibit to the Gentlemen who Sit in Darkness:
LOVE,
LAW AND ORDER,
JUSTICE,
LIBERTY,
GENTLENESS,
EQUALITY,
CHRISTIANITY,
HONORABLE DEALING,
PROTECTION TO THE WEAK,
MERCY,
TEMPERANCE,
EDUCATION,
and so on.
There. Is it good? Sir, it is pie. It will bring into camp any idiot that sits
in darkness anywhere. But not if we adulterate it. It is proper to be emphatic
upon that point. This brand is strictly for Export apparently. Apparently.
Privately and confidentially, it is nothing of the kind. Privately and
confidentially, it is merely an outside cover, gay and pretty and attractive,
displaying the special patterns of our Civilization which we reserve for Home
Consumption, while inside the bale is the Actual Thing that the Customer Sitting
in Darkness buys with his blood and tears and land and liberty. That Actual
Thing is, indeed, Civilization, but it is only for Export. Is there a difference
between the two brands? In some of the details, yes.
We all know that the Business is being
ruined. The reason is not far to seek. It is because our Mr. McKinley, and Mr.
Chamberlain, and the Kaiser, and the Czar and the French have been exporting the
Actual Thing with the outside cover left off. This is bad for the Game. It shows
that these new players of it are not sufficiently acquainted with it.
It is a distress to look on and note the mismoves, they are so strange and so
awkward. Mr. Chamberlain manufactures a war out of materials so inadequate and
so fanciful that they make the boxes grieve and the gallery laugh, and he tries
hard to persuade himself that it isn't purely a private raid for cash, but has a
sort of dim, vague respectability about it somewhere, if he could only find the
spot; and that, by and by, he can scour the flag clean again after he has
finished dragging it through the mud, and make it shine and flash in the vault
of heaven once more as it had shone and flashed there a thousand years in the
world's respect until he laid his unfaithful hand upon it. It is bad play bad.
For it exposes the Actual Thing to Them that Sit in Darkness, and they say:
"What! Christian against Christian? And only for money? Is this a case of
magnanimity, forbearance, love, gentleness, mercy, protection of the weak this
strange and over-showy onslaught of an elephant upon a nest of field-mice, on
the pretext that the mice had squeaked an insolence at him -conduct which 'no
self-respecting government could allow to pass unavenged?' as Mr. Chamberlain
said. Was that a good pretext in a small case, when it had not been a good
pretext in a large one? for only recently Russia had affronted the elephant
three times and survived alive and unsmitten. Is this Civilization and Progress?
Is it something better than we already possess? These harryings and burnings and
desert-makings in the Transvaal is this an improvement on our darkness? Is
it, perhaps, possible that there are two kinds of Civilization one for home
consumption and one for the heathen market?"
Then They that Sit in Darkness are troubled, and shake their heads; and they
read this extract from a letter of a British private, recounting his exploits in
one of Methuen's victories, some days before the affair of Magersfontein, and
they are troubled again:
"We tore up the hill and into the intrenchments, and the Boers saw we had them;
so they dropped their guns and went down on their knees and put up their hands
clasped, and begged for mercy. And we gave it them with the long spoon."
The long spoon is the bayonet. See Lloyd's Weekly, London, of those days. The
same number and the same column contains some quite unconscious satire in
the form of shocked and bitter upbraidings of the Boers for their brutalities
and inhumanities!
Next, to our heavy damage, the Kaiser went to playing the game without first
mastering it. He lost a couple of missionaries in a riot in Shantung, and in his
account he made an overcharge for them. China had to pay a hundred thousand
dollars apiece for them, in money; twelve miles of territory, containing several
millions of inhabitants and worth twenty million dollars; and to build a
monument, and also a Christian church; whereas the people of China could have
been depended upon to remember the missionaries without the help of these
expensive memorials. This was all bad play. Bad, because it would not, and could
not, and will not now or ever, deceive the Person Sitting in Darkness. He knows
that it was an overcharge. He knows that a missionary is like any other man: he
is worth merely what you can supply his place for, and no more. He is useful,
but so is a doctor, so is a sheriff, so is an editor; but a just Emperor does
not charge war-prices for such. A diligent, intelligent, but obscure missionary,
and a diligent, intelligent country editor are worth much, and we know it; but
they are not worth the earth. We esteem such an editor, and we are sorry to see
him go; but, when he goes, we should consider twelve miles of territory, and a
church, and a fortune, over-compensation for his loss. I mean, if he was a
Chinese editor, and we had to settle for him. It is no proper figure for an
editor or a missionary; one can get shop-worn kings for less. It was bad play on
the Kaiser's part. It got this property, true; but it produced the Chinese
revolt, the indignant uprising of China's traduced patriots, the Boxers. The
results have been expensive to Germany, and to the other Disseminators of
Progress and the Blessings of Civilization.
The Kaiser's claim was paid, yet it was bad play, for it could not fail to have
an evil effect upon Persons Sitting in Darkness in China. They would muse upon
the event, and be likely to say: "Civilization is gracious and beautiful, for
such is its reputation; but can we afford it? There are rich Chinamen, perhaps
they could afford it; but this tax is not laid upon them, it is laid upon the
peasants of Shantung; it is they that must pay this mighty sum, and their wages
are but four cents a day. Is this a better civilization than ours, and holier
and higher and nobler? Is not this rapacity? Is not this extortion? Would
Germany charge America two hundred thousand dollars for two missionaries, and
shake the mailed fist in her face, and send warships, and send soldiers, and
say: 'Seize twelve miles of territory, worth twenty millions of dollars, as
additional pay for the missionaries; and make those peasants build a monument to
the missionaries, and a costly Christian church to remember them by?' And later
would Germany say to her soldiers: 'March through America and slay, giving no
quarter; make the German face there, as has been our Hun-face here, a terror for
a thousand years; march through the Great Republic and slay, slay, slay, carving
a road for our offended religion through its heart and bowels?' Would Germany do
like this to America, to England, to France, to Russia? Or only to China the
helpless imitating the elephant's assault upon the field-mice? Had we better
invest in this Civilization this Civilization which called Napoleon a
buccaneer for carrying off Venice's bronze horses, but which steals our ancient
astronomical instruments from our walls, and goes looting like common bandits
that is, all the alien soldiers except America's; and (Americans again excepted)
storms frightened villages and cables the result to glad journals at home every
day: 'Chinese losses, 450 killed; ours, one officer and two men wounded. Shall
proceed against neighboring village to-morrow, where a massacre is reported.'
Can we afford Civilization?"
And, next, Russia must go and play the game injudiciously. She affronts England
once or twice with the Person Sitting in Darkness observing and noting; by
moral assistance of France and Germany, she robs Japan of her hard-earned spoil,
all swimming in Chinese blood Port Arthur with the Person again observing
and noting; then she seizes Manchuria, raids its villages, and chokes its great
river with the swollen corpses of countless massacred peasants that astonished
Person still observing and noting. And perhaps he is saying to himself: "It is
yet another Civilized Power, with its banner of the Prince of Peace in one hand
and its loot-basket and its butcher-knife in the other. Is there no salvation
for us but to adopt Civilization and lift ourselves down to its level?"
And by and by comes America, and our Master of the Game plays it badly plays
it as Mr. Chamberlain was playing it in South Africa. It was a mistake to do
that; also, it was one which was quite unlooked for in a Master who was playing
it so well in Cuba. In Cuba, he was playing the usual and regular American game,
and it was winning, for there is no way to beat it. The Master, contemplating
Cuba, said: "Here is an oppressed and friendless little nation which is willing
to fight to be free; we go partners, and put up the strength of seventy million
sympathizers and the resources of the United States: play!" Nothing but Europe
combined could call that hand: and Europe cannot combine on anything. There, in
Cuba, he was following our great traditions in a way which made us very proud of
him, and proud of the deep dissatisfaction which his play was provoking in
Continental Europe. Moved by a high inspiration, he threw out those stirring
words which proclaimed that forcible annexation would be "criminal aggression;"
and in that utterance fired another "shot heard round the world." The memory of
that fine saying will be outlived by the remembrance of no act of his but one
that he forgot it within the twelvemonth, and its honorable gospel along with
it.
For, presently, came the Philippine temptation. It was strong; it was too
strong, and he made that bad mistake: he played the European game, the
Chamberlain game. It was a pity; it was a great pity, that error; that one
grievous error, that irrevocable error. For it was the very place and time to
play the American game again. And at no cost. Rich winnings to be gathered in,
too; rich and permanent; indestructible; a fortune transmissible forever to the
children of the flag. Not land, not money, not dominion no, something worth
many times more than that dross: our share, the spectacle of a nation of long
harassed and persecuted slaves set free through our influence; our posterity's
share, the golden memory of that fair deed. The game was in our hands. If it had
been played according to the American rules, Dewey would have sailed away from
Manila as soon as he had destroyed the Spanish fleet after putting up a sign
on shore guaranteeing foreign property and life against damage by the Filipinos,
and warning the Powers that interference with the emancipated patriots would be
regarded as an act unfriendly to the United States. The Powers cannot combine,
in even a bad cause, and the sign would not have been molested.
Dewey could have gone about his affairs elsewhere, and left the competent
Filipino army to starve out the little Spanish garrison and send it home, and
the Filipino citizens to set up the form of government they might prefer, and
deal with the friars and their doubtful acquisitions according to Filipino ideas
of fairness and justice ideas which have since been tested and found to be of
as high an order as any that prevail in Europe or America.
But we played the Chamberlain game, and lost the chance to add another Cuba and
another honorable deed to our good record.
The more we examine the mistake, the more clearly we perceive that it is going
to be bad for the Business. The Person Sitting in Darkness is almost sure to
say: "There is something curious about this curious and unaccountable. There
must be two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a
once-captive's new freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel with him with
nothing to found it on; then kills him to get his land."
The truth is, the Person Sitting in Darkness is saying things like that; and for
the sake of the Business we must persuade him to look at the Philippine matter
in another and healthier way. We must arrange his opinions for him. I believe it
can be done; for Mr. Chamberlain has arranged England's opinion of the South
African matter, and done it most cleverly and successfully. He presented the
facts some of the facts and showed those confiding people what the facts
meant. He did it statistically, which is a good way. He used the formula: "Twice
2 are 14, and 2 from 9 leaves 35." Figures are effective; figures will convince
the elect.
Now, my plan is a still bolder one than Mr. Chamberlain's, though apparently a
copy of it. Let us be franker than Mr. Chamberlain; let us audaciously present
the whole of the facts, shirking none, then explain them according to Mr.
Chamberlain's formula. This daring truthfulness will astonish and dazzle the
Person Sitting in Darkness, and he will take the Explanation down before his
mental vision has had time to get back into focus. Let us say to him:
"Our case is simple. On the 1st of May, Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet. This
left the Archipelago in the hands of its proper and rightful owners, the
Filipino nation. Their army numbered 30,000 men, and they were competent to whip
out or starve out the little Spanish garrison; then the people could set up a
government of their own devising. Our traditions required that Dewey should now
set up his warning sign, and go away. But the Master of the Game happened to
think of another plan the European plan. He acted upon it. This was, to send
out an army ostensibly to help the native patriots put the finishing touch
upon their long and plucky struggle for independence, but really to take their
land away from them and keep it. That is, in the interest of Progress and
Civilization. The plan developed, stage by stage, and quite satisfactorily. We
entered into a military alliance with the trusting Filipinos, and they hemmed in
Manila on the land side, and by their valuable help the place, with its garrison
of 8,000 or 10,000 Spaniards, was captured a thing which we could not have
accomplished unaided at that time. We got their help by by ingenuity. We knew
they were fighting for their independence, and that they had been at it for two
years. We knew they supposed that we also were fighting in their worthy cause
just as we had helped the Cubans fight for Cuban independence and we allowed
them to go on thinking so. Until Manila was ours and we could get along without
them. Then we showed our hand. Of course, they were surprised that was
natural; surprised and disappointed; disappointed and grieved. To them it looked
un-American; uncharacteristic; foreign to our established traditions. And this
was natural, too; for we were only playing the American Game in public in
private it was the European. It was neatly done, very neatly, and it bewildered
them. They could not understand it; for we had been so friendly so
affectionate, even with those simple-minded patriots! We, our own selves, had
brought back out of exile their leader, their hero, their hope, their Washington
Aguinaldo; brought him in a warship, in high honor, under the sacred shelter
and hospitality of the flag; brought him back and restored him to his people,
and got their moving and eloquent gratitude for it. Yes, we had been so friendly
to them, and had heartened them up in so many ways! We had lent them guns and
ammunition; advised with them; exchanged pleasant courtesies with them; placed
our sick and wounded in their kindly care; entrusted our Spanish prisoners to
their humane and honest hands; fought shoulder to shoulder with them against
"the common enemy" (our own phrase); praised their courage, praised their
gallantry, praised their mercifulness, praised their fine and honorable conduct;
borrowed their trenches, borrowed strong positions which they had previously
captured from the Spaniard; petted them, lied to them officially proclaiming
that our land and naval forces came to give them their freedom and displace the
bad Spanish Government fooled them, used them until we needed them no longer;
then derided the sucked orange and threw it away. We kept the positions which we
had beguiled them of; by and by, we moved a force forward and overlapped patriot
ground a clever thought, for we needed trouble, and this would produce it. A
Filipino soldier, crossing the ground, where no one had a right to forbid him,
was shot by our sentry. The badgered patriots resented this with arms, without
waiting to know whether Aguinaldo, who was absent, would approve or not.
Aguinaldo did not approve; but that availed nothing. What we wanted, in the
interest of Progress and Civilization, was the Archipelago, unencumbered by
patriots struggling for independence; and the War was what we needed. We
clinched our opportunity. It is Mr. Chamberlain's case over again at least in
its motive and intention; and we played the game as adroitly as he played it
himself."
At this point in our frank statement of fact to the Person Sitting in Darkness,
we should throw in a little trade-taffy about the Blessings of Civilization
for a change, and for the refreshment of his spirit then go on with our tale:
"We and the patriots having captured Manila, Spain's ownership of the
Archipelago and her sovereignty over it were at an end obliterated
annihilated not a rag or shred of either remaining behind. It was then that we
conceived the divinely humorous idea of buying both of these spectres from
Spain! [It is quite safe to confess this to the Person Sitting in Darkness,
since neither he nor any other sane person will believe it.] In buying those
ghosts for twenty millions, we also contracted to take care of the friars and
their accumulations. I think we also agreed to propagate leprosy and smallpox,
but as to this there is doubt. But it is not important; persons afflicted with
the friars do not mind the other diseases.
"With our Treaty ratified, Manila subdued, and our Ghosts secured, we had no
further use for Aguinaldo and the owners of the Archipelago. We forced a war,
and we have been hunting America's guest and ally through the woods and swamps
ever since."
At this point in the tale, it will be well to boast a little of our war-work and
our heroisms in the field, so as to make our performance look as fine as
England's in South Africa; but I believe it will not be best to emphasize this
too much. We must be cautious. Of course, we must read the war-telegrams to the
Person, in order to keep up our frankness; but we can throw an air of
humorousness over them, and that will modify their grim eloquence a little, and
their rather indiscreet exhibitions of gory exultation. Before reading to him
the following display heads of the dispatches of November 18, 1900, it will be
well to practice on them in private first, so as to get the right tang of
lightness and gaiety into them:
"ADMINISTRATION WEARY OF PROTRACTED HOSTILITIES!"
"REAL WAR AHEAD FOR FILIPINO REBELS!"*
"WILL SHOW NO MERCY!"
"KITCHENER'S PLAN ADOPTED!"
Kitchener knows how to handle disagreeable people who are fighting for their
homes and their liberties, and we must let on that we are merely imitating
Kitchener, and have no national interest in the matter, further than to get
ourselves admired by the Great Family of Nations, in which august company our
Master of the Game has bought a place for us in the back row.
Of course, we must not venture to ignore our General MacArthur's reports oh,
why do they keep on printing those embarrassing things? we must drop them
trippingly from the tongue and take the chances:
"During the last ten months our losses have been 268 killed and 750 wounded;
Filipino loss, three thousand two hundred and twenty-seven killed, and 694
wounded."
We must stand ready to grab the Person Sitting in Darkness, for he will swoon
away at this confession, saying: "Good God, those 'niggers' spare their wounded,
and the Americans massacre theirs!"
We must bring him to, and coax him and coddle him, and assure him that the ways
of Providence are best, and that it would not become us to find fault with them;
and then, to show him that we are only imitators, not originators, we must read
the following passage from the letter of an American soldier-lad in the
Philippines to his mother, published in Public Opinion, of Decorah, Iowa,
describing the finish of a victorious battle:
"WE NEVER LEFT ONE ALIVE. IF ONE WAS WOUNDED, WE WOULD RUN OUR BAYONETS THROUGH
HIM."
Having now laid all the historical facts before the Person Sitting in Darkness,
we should bring him to again, and explain them to him. We should say to him:
"They look doubtful, but in reality they are not. There have been lies; yes, but
they were told in a good cause. We have been treacherous; but that was only in
order that real good might come out of apparent evil. True, we have crushed a
deceived and confiding people; we have turned against the weak and the
friendless who trusted us; we have stamped out a just and intelligent and
well-ordered republic; we have stabbed an ally in the back and slapped the face
of a guest; we have bought a Shadow from an enemy that hadn't it to sell; we
have robbed a trusting friend of his land and his liberty; we have invited our
clean young men to shoulder a discredited musket and do bandit's work under a
flag which bandits have been accustomed to fear, not to follow; we have
debauched America's honor and blackened her face before the world; but each
detail was for the best. We know this. The Head of every State and Sovereignty
in Christendom and ninety per cent. of every legislative body in Christendom,
including our Congress and our fifty State Legislatures, are members not only of
the church, but also of the Blessings-of-Civilization Trust. This world-girdling
accumulation of trained morals, high principles, and justice, cannot do an
unright thing, an unfair thing, an ungenerous thing, an unclean thing. It knows
what it is about. Give yourself no uneasiness; it is all right."
Now then, that will convince the Person. You will see. It will restore the
Business. Also, it will elect the Master of the Game to the vacant place in the
Trinity of our national gods; and there on their high thrones the Three will
sit, age after age, in the people's sight, each bearing the Emblem of his
service: Washington, the Sword of the Liberator; Lincoln, the Slave's Broken
Chains; the Master, the Chains Repaired.
It will give the Business a splendid new start. You will see.
Everything is prosperous, now; everything is just as we should wish it. We have
got the Archipelago, and we shall never give it up. Also, we have every reason
to hope that we shall have an opportunity before very long to slip out of our
Congressional contract with Cuba and give her something better in the place of
it. It is a rich country, and many of us are already beginning to see that the
contract was a sentimental mistake. But now right now is the best time to do
some profitable rehabilitating work work that will set us up and make us
comfortable, and discourage gossip. We cannot conceal from ourselves that,
privately, we are a little troubled about our uniform. It is one of our prides;
it is acquainted with honor; it is familiar with great deeds and noble; we love
it, we revere it; and so this errand it is on makes us uneasy. And our flag
another pride of ours, our chiefest! We have worshipped it so; and when we have
seen it in far lands glimpsing it unexpectedly in that strange sky, waving its
welcome and benediction to us we have caught our breath, and uncovered our
heads, and couldn't speak, for a moment, for the thought of what it was to us
and the great ideals it stood for. Indeed, we must do something about these
things; we must not have the flag out there, and the uniform. They are not
needed there; we can manage in some other way. England manages, as regards the
uniform, and so can we. We have to send soldiers we can't get out of that
but we can disguise them. It is the way England does in South Africa. Even Mr.
Chamberlain himself takes pride in England's honorable uniform, and makes the
army down there wear an ugly and odious and appropriate disguise, of yellow
stuff such as quarantine flags are made of, and which are hoisted to warn the
healthy away from unclean disease and repulsive death. This cloth is called
khaki. We could adopt it. It is light, comfortable, grotesque, and deceives the
enemy, for he cannot conceive of a soldier being concealed in it.
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.
And we do not need that Civil Commission out there. Having no powers, it has to
invent them, and that kind of work cannot be effectively done by just anybody;
an expert is required. Mr. Croker can be spared. We do not want the United
States represented there, but only the Game.
By help of these suggested amendments, Progress and Civilization in that country
can have a boom, and it will take in the Persons who are Sitting in Darkness,
and we can resume Business at the old stand.
*New York: Anti-Imperialist League of New York, 1901
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