The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-11-30
Mark Twain's Birthday
 Recalls Financial
 Blunders of Great Men

This is the eightieth anniversary of the birth of Mark Twain, when the citizens of Hannibal, Mo-, who have erected a fine monument to his mem ory, join in their annual tribute of respect and admiration for the hum or1St and philosopher. There is not a community in the EngIish-spea king world that does not envy the little Missouri city it's re-erninence as the early home of the gifted genius whose contributions to American literature have never been e11ceIIed.
 The birthday of Mark Twain re- calls the fact-recently again confirm ed by the experiences. of Rev. Newell Dwight -HilliS-that men of light and leading in other lines are often but the merest noVices in financial af- fairs. The man of genius is oftener than not tcome-on' and a sucker in business matters. The late pr. Clemens was involved in Lhaany disas- trous business schemes, and first and last he lost a large part of the for tune he had won by the pen The failure of the publishing house of Charles L.. Webster & Co.,, in which he had invested largely, was the greatest of these blows, but by writing assid- uously and making a lecture tour of the world he was able to write Paid in F'uHk-on every one of the accounts against that firm. Later he lost con siderable sums in promoting a type setting machine, and dropped another small fortune in the promotion of a patented food, of the merits of which he had been convinced by personal use. Lloyd George, the great commoner of present day Britain, confessed a few years ago that he had sought to add to his fortune by investments in Marconi stocks Ole Bull. the great Norwegian violfnist and Aeomposer, purchased a large tract of land. in northern Pennsylvania and attempted to found there a Scandinavian colony. The enterprise was a, failure, and &the Paganini of the North" was re- duced to3poverty, and forced to return to the concert stage. l Cervantes, the immortal author of ssDon Quixote, spent most of his fife in abject poverty, from which he was relieved only a short time before his death Daniel Defoe, the author of s.Ro obinson Crusoe'' was unsuccess- ful in nearly all of his many specu1a- tions. The elder Dumas was always in hot water over financial matters, and Balzac lost most of his money in tan unfortunate enterprise for work ing the abandoned mines of Sardinia
 General U.. S.. Grant was another conspicuous example of this Kind. The failure of Grant & Ward left him almost penni1ess, and his autobio- Srdphy was WrlIJengaI the, spur or no- cessity. in order to provide for his family.
 Sir WaIter Scott's failure as a bus .iness man was very similar to Mark Twain'ss attempt to play the role of publisher. The failure of BalIantyne & Co, the great publishing house in which he was largely interested, sad dled him with debts aggregating over $65O, 1000, which he attempted to pay from the earnings sof his pen.
 Dozens of other similar, examples
 might be cited, and against them one can place only one instance, in which a literary man of great genius mani fested an equal capacity as nnan- cier. Voltaire, the Immortal French man, made a fortune with his pen, and conserved and increased it by wise investments. He was at once the chief and the most prosperous of Eu- ropean heretics and authors. His if Financial speculations were almost uni yersAlly crowned with success, and in his latter years he was the patron of a, f1ourishings colony of Swiss watch n1ak CTS