Arizona republican. [volume] (Phoenix, Ariz.) 1890-1930, 1911-08-08
CLEMENS As A
BUSINESS MAN

That Mark Twain's estate inven-
tories at nearly half a million dol
lars is no natter for wonder Every
body knows that he was practically
a beggar till late in his life great
and good friends in the financial
world came to his aid and put him
in on the ground floor of a lot of
good things. Then, of course, he
couldn't help dying rich. His wealth
proves nothing as to the remunera-
tiveness of modern literature-Prov-
idence Tribune.
Our often interesting Providence
contemporary here affords an illus
tration how easy it is in a news
paper office to sling ink" without
coming within a mile of fact, says
the Hartford Times. We cannot
help wondering a little at the igno-
rance of so many newspaper men
about Mark Twain. He was a news
paper man himself and was PERSONAL
ly acquainted with a host of them.
All the essential facts about his
career are told in the encyclopedia.
What our Providence friend says
everybody knows about him is
something that nobody ever heard of
before.
Mark Twain's impecuniosity when
he was a reporter in Virginia City.
New, and when he was private sec
rotary to Senator Jim" Nye of that
state in Washington in the later six
ties, served to provide an interest
Co. he ffxr
which came to him as soon as In
nocents Abroad" was published. He
came to Hartford to have his books
put on the market, and he was as
poor when he first arrived here as
he was rich very soon thereafter.
His marriage to Miss LangdOn, of
Elmira, allied him with a well-to-do
family, and he was in very cOmforta-
BILE circumstances ever afterward, in
spite of the impression to the con-
trary which was allowed to prevail
for a time after the failure of his
book publishing enterprise-for bust
ness reasons.
The eminent humOrist built his
home in Hartford in the early sew
entities. and he has told in he remin-
the idea Of spending s25. 900 and end
ed by putting six or seven times as
much into the Pennington avenue
establishment now owned by Mr..
Bissell. of the Hartford Fire Insur-
ance company Nothing very beg
carly about that. 1t may be well to
add a few facts about his subse-
quent financial experiences, since
there is so much carelessness in deal
ing with the subject in some of the
newspaper offices.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars
same to Mark Twain in the years he
spent in Hartford-say from 1872 UNI
til 1890. His friend, the late Henry
C. Robinson, was fond of telling of a
game of billiards he played in Mark
Twain's house with the owner of 1t.
During the game a visitor was an
nounced. The servant was told to
show him into the billiard room. Mr..
Clemens talked with him without
delaying a shot on tie billiard ia
BILE. The errand Of the visitor, who
was a publishers agent, was to offer
him $4,000 for a series of short
stories, when as we remember could
be brought out in a single volume,
after being published serially The
amount of. material asked for was
comparatively small. Clemens re-
iected the offer quickly-almost alb
ruptly. Mr.. Robinson ventured, when
the visitor was gone, to express his
surprise that the humorist could turn
down what seemed like a prodigious
sum for a small amount Of copy
But Mark Twain dismissed the Incl
dent nonchalantly.
He had the narrowest kind of an
escape from becoming a mulit-mil-
Iionaire. He missed his chance to
win a great fortune when he put
his money on the wrong horse by
backing the Paige type-setting ma
chine against the linotype. He was
besought by the men who Invented
altogether 100000 in developing the
linotype idea between 1875 and 1890
to come into that enterprise. But he
thought his judgmen was better than
theirs. and he sank s225,000 in the
Paige apparatus for setting up NOV
able types. The macine was not
success. With the same money he
could have had a controlling interest
in the linotype company and the in
vestment would have brought an av-
erage income of 100000 or more
during the past 80 years. With that
income he might have left as large an
estate when he died as that of his
friend, Henry II. Rogers.