The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1910-05-06
STORIES OF TWAIN
Famous HumOrist and Author Start
ed Life as a Printers Apprentice
His Duties as a Devil

UdlIlG Vi NAL N vain Ids UScl IllS
key to good laugh.
His career, which has just come to
close, has been one of almost un-
paralleled literary activity, and from
being regarded at the outset as
mere funmaker he has come to be
looked on in many quarters as the
most distinguished American man of
letters in his age. While in his latter
years the quality of his humor has
not kept pace with the quantity of his
production, what he wrote in his
prime is for the most part as enjoy
able today as in the period of it's first
success
Mr.. Clemens was born November
80, 1885, at Florida, Mo-, and after
the brief period of common school
ing given to boys of that day he
learned the printers trade at Hanni-
bal in that state, where the family
had moved. For this reason many
readers of the Wetsern Publisher
will be interested in few of his ex-
periences as a journalist.
Beginning His Career
At the age of 13 he became a
printers apprentice in the Office of
the Hannibal Weekly Courier. Of
this Introduction to journalism he
once told in responding to toast
at a printers banquet in New York:
II built the fire for him (the print
! err in the winter mornings; l brought
his water from the village pump; I
swept out his office; l picked up his
type from under his stand; and, If
he was there to see, put the good
| type in his case and the broken ones
among the hell matter; and if he
wasn't there to see, dumped it all
with the 'pi on the imposing stone
for that was the furtive fashion of
the cub, and | was the cub.
II wet down the paper Saturdays;
| turned it up Sundays-for this was
a country weekly washed the roll
ers, l washed the forms, | folded the
paper, l carried them around in the
disagreeable dawn Thursday morn
ings. The carrier was then an OBJ
ject of interest to all the dogs in
town. If had saved up all the bites
| ever received | could keep M. Past
eur busy for year. | enveloped the
papers that were for the native
had 100 town subscribers and $50
country ones; the town subscribers
paid in groceries and the country
ones in cabbage and cordwood, when
they paid at all, which was merely
sometimes, and then we always stat
ed the fact in the paper and gave
them puff; and if we forgot to they
stopped the paper. Every man in the
town list helped to edit the thing;
that is, he gave orders as to how it
was to be edited, dictated its opin-
ions, marked out its course for it,
and every time the boss failed to con-
meet he stopped the paper.
Received so Cents a Week
Life was easy with us; if we pied
a form We suspended till next week,
and we always suspended every now
and then when the fishing was good,
and explained it by the illness of the
editor--a paltry excuse, because that
kind of paper was just as well off
with sick editor as well one, and
better off with dead one than with
either of them.
Il can see that printing Office of
prehistoric times yet, with it's horse
bills on the walls, its d boxes clog
ged with tallow, because we always
stood the candle in the k box nights;
its towel, which was not considered
soiled until it could stand alone, and
other signs and symbols that marked
| tho oct q h lie bmnnt nf that hind in th a
Mississippi valley"
After three years in the Courier Of
| flee he adopted the life of rowing
compositor, picking up many expert
ences of which he wrote in later
years.
In 1862 Clemens became the editor
of the Territorial Enterprise of Vir-
ginia City, New.
1t was in his work for this paper
that he first made use of his familiar
pseudOnym Mark Twain" 1t had
been used before by New Orleans
writer, but it was peculiarly opposite
to Clemens, because of his fondness
| for and knowledge of the river.
Mark twain!" was cry of the man
heaving the lead on the steamboat
of the time, and signiied particular
depth of the channel.
One of the articles for which Mark
Twain became known all over the Pa
cific coast was his Bloody Massacre"
canard. In order to attract atten-
ton to the illegal actions in mining
company, he published a fictitious ac-
count of murder and suicide on a
grand scale, following revelations of
the company's dishonesty. The story
was copied far and wide; the next
day was published a retraction of the
whole story, except the part about
the company's fraud ut took a
fearful tragedy" he said, Ito get any
truth into San Francisco newspaper
anyhow"
A little later he went to San Fran
cisco, and for time was editor of
the San Francisco Call
A Leisurely Individual
Twain was an inveterate smoker
and one of the most leisurely men in
the world. An old pressman who
was once printers devil in an Office
where Mark was editorial writer, tells
this anecdote of his habits of work: