The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1879-07-19
Mark Twain as a Presidential Candidate.

This is tie way in which Mark Twain an
nounce himself as n candidate for Presiden.
| have pretty much made up my mind TO run
for President. What the country wants is a can.
didate who cannot be injured by investigation Of
his past history, so that the enemies of the party
will be unable to rake up anything against him
that nobody ever heard Of before. If you know
the worst about q candidate to begin with, every
attempt to spring things on him will be check
mated. Now | am going to enter the field with
an open record. L an going to own up in adj
vance to all the wickedness l have done. and if
any Congressional Committee is disposed to prowl
around my biography in the hope of discovering
any dark and deadly deed that L have ~secreted,
why-let it prowl.
In the first place, 1 admit that 1 treed a rheu-
matte grandfather of mine in the winter of 1850.
He was old and inexpert in climbing trees, but
with the heartless brutality that is Characteristic
of me, l ran him out of the front door in his
night-shirt at the point of a shotgun, and caused
him to bowl up a maple tree, where he remained
All night. while l emptied shot into bis legs. l
did this because he snored. l will do it again if
L ever have another grandfather. l am as inhu-
man now as l was in 1850. l candidly acknowl-
edge that L ran away at the battle OF Gettysburg.
My friends have tried to smooth over this fact by
asserting that | did SO for the purpose of imita-
ting Washington, who went into the woods at
Valley Forge for the purpose of saying his pray
ers. 1t was a miserable subterfuge. / struck
out In a straight line for the Tropic of Cancer
because l was scared. wanted to have my coun-
try saved, but l preferred to have somebody else
save it. L entertain that preference yet. If the
bubble reputation can be obtained only at the
mouth, L am willing to go there for it,
provided the cannon is empty. If 1t Is loaded,
immortal and infexible purpose is to get over
the fence and go home. My invariable practice
in war has been to bring out Of every light two
more men than when | went in. This
to me to be NapOleonic in Its grandeur.
My financial views are of the most decided
but they are not likely perhaps to IN
ton. L do not insist upon the special supremacy
Of rag money or hard money. The great tunda-
mental principle of my life is to take any kind L
AN get.
The rumor that l buried a dead aunt under
grapevine was correct. The vine needed fer
nv aunt had to be buried, and l dedi-
,ated her to that purpose. Does that unfit me
or the Presidency? The Constitution OF our
country does not say SO. No other citizen was
considered unworthy of this of6ce because he
enriched his grapeyines with his dead relatives.
Why should be selected as the first yictim>of an
Ibsurd prejudice?
l admit also that j am not a friend oil the poor
nan. | regard the poor man., in the present
condition, as so much wasted raw material. Cut
ip and properly canned, he might be made use
ul to fatten the natives of the cannibal islands
nd to improve our export trade with that region.
shall recommend legislation upon the subject
n my next message. My campaign cry will be:
Dessiccate the poor workingman stuff him In
0 sausages."
These are about the worst parts of my record.
IN them l come before the country. If my coun-
ry don't want me, l will go back again. But
myself as a safe man; a man who starts
rom the basis of total depravIty and proposes TO
fendish to the last.