New-York tribune., 1918-06-29
The Cars SoHLoQuv
By Mark Twain

(F'rons The North American Revieau of
March, 1905)
n FTER the Czar's morning bath 1t Is
II his habit to m,editote an hour be-
fore dressing himself. - London
Times Correspondence.
(Viewing himself in the pier-glcss.)
Naked, what am I? A lank, skinny. spider
legged libel on the image of God! Look at
the waxwork head-the face, with the ex-
preston of melon-the projecting ears
the knotted elbows-the dished breast-the
knife-edged shins-and then the feet, all
beads and joints and bone-sprays, an imi-
tation X-ray photograph! There is moth
ing imperial about this, nothing imposing,
impressive, nothing to evoke awe and rev.
erence. Is it this that hundred and
forty million Russians kiss the dust be-
fore and worship? Manifestly not! No one
could worship this spectacle, which is Me.
Then who is it, what is it, that they wor-
ship? Privately, none knows better than
L: it is my clothes. Without my clothes
l should be as destitute of authority as
any other naked person. Nobody could tell
me from parson barber, dude. Then
who is the real Emperor of Russia? My
clothes. There is no other.
Titles-another artifciality-are a part
of his clothing. They and the drygoods
conceal the wearer's inferiority and make
him seem great and a wonder, when at
bottom there is nothing remarkable about
him. They can move a nation to fall on its
knees and sincerely worship an Emperor
who, without the clothes and the title,
would drop to TIE rank of the cobbler and
be swallowed up and lost sight of in the
massed multitude of the inconsequentials;
an Emperor who, naked in naked world.
would get notice, excite no remark and
be heedlessly shouldered and jostled like any
other uncertiied stranger, and perhaps
offered kopek to carry somebody's grip
sack; yet an Emperor who, by the sheer
might OF those NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. and
a title-can get himself worship as deity
by his people, and at his pleasure and un-
rebuked can exile them, hunt them, harry
them, destroy them, just as he would with
so many rats if the accident of birth had
furnished him calling better suited to
his capacities than empering.
There is no power without clothes. 1t is
the power that governs the human race.
Strip its chiefs to the skin, and no state
could be governed; naked officials could
exercise no authority; they would look
(and be) like everybody else - common
place, inconsequential. policeman in
plain clothes is one man; in his uniform
he is ter. Clothes and title are the most
potent thing, the most formidable infu-
ence, in the earth. They move the human
race to willing and spontaneous respect
for the judge, the general, the admiral,
the bishop, the ambassador, the frivolous
earl, the idiot duke, the sultan, the king,
the emperor. No great title is efficient
without clothes to support it.
4 (After a silence.) A curious invention,
an unaccountable invention - the human
race! The swarming Russian millions
have for centuries meekly allowed our
Family to rob them, insult them, trample
them underfoot, while they lived and suf
fered and died with no purpose and no
function but to make that Family COM
Portable! These people are horses-iust
that-horses with clothes and a religion.
A strange thing, when one considers It: to
wit, the world applies to Car and Sya-
tenn the same moral axioms that have vogue
and acceptance in civilized countries! Re-
cause in civilized countries 1t is WRONG
to remove oppressors otherwise than bv
process OF law, it is held that the same
rule applies in Russia. where there il no
such thing as law-except for our Family.
Laws are merely restraints-they have no