DEAR SIR,--As I understand it, the position of the U. S. Government is
this: If a person be captured on the border with counterfeit bonds
in his hands--bonds of the N. Y. Central Railway, for instance--the
procedure in his case shall be as follows:
1. If the N. Y. C. have not previously filed in the several police
offices along the border, proof of ownership of the originals of the
bonds, the government officials must collect a duty on the counterfeits,
and then let them go ahead and circulate in this country.
2. But if there is proof already on file, then the N. Y. C. may pay the
duty and take the counterfeits.
But in no case will the United States consent to go without its share of
the swag. It is delicious. The biggest and proudest government on earth
turned sneak-thief; collecting pennies on stolen property, and pocketing
them with a greasy and libidinous leer; going into partnership with
foreign thieves to rob its own children; and when the child escapes the
foreigner, descending to the abysmal baseness of hanging on and
robbing the infant all alone by itself! Dear sir, this is not any more
respectable than for a father to collect toll on the forced prostitution
of his own daughter; in fact it is the same thing. Upon these terms,
what is a U. S. custom house but a “fence?” That is all it is: a
legalized trader in stolen goods.
And this nasty law, this filthy law, this unspeakable law calls itself
a “regulation for the protection of owners of copyright!” Can sarcasm go
further than that? In what way does it protect them? Inspiration itself
could not furnish a rational answer to that question. Whom does
it protect, then? Nobody, as far as I can see, but the foreign
thief--sometimes--and his fellow-footpad the U. S. government, all the
time. What could the Central Company do with the counterfeit bonds after
it had bought them of the star spangled banner Master-thief? Sell
them at a dollar apiece and fetch down the market for the genuine
hundred-dollar bond? What could I do with that 20-cent copy of “Roughing
It” which the United States has collared on the border and is waiting
to release to me for cash in case I am willing to come down to its
moral level and help rob myself? Sell it at ten or fifteen cents--duty
added--and destroy the market for the original $3,50 book? Who ever did
invent that law? I would like to know the name of that immortal jackass.
Dear sir, I appreciate your courtesy in stretching your authority in the
desire to do me a kindness, and I sincerely thank you for it. But I have
no use for that book; and if I were even starving for it I would not pay
duty on in either to get it or suppress it. No doubt there are ways in
which I might consent to go into partnership with thieves and fences,
but this is not one of them. This one revolts the remains of my
self-respect; turns my stomach. I think I could companion with a
highwayman who carried a shot-gun and took many risks; yes, I think
I should like that if I were younger; but to go in with a big rich
government that robs paupers, and the widows and orphans of paupers and
takes no risk--why the thought just gags me.
Oh, no, I shall never pay any duties on pirated books of mine. I am much
too respectable for that--yet awhile. But here--one thing that grovels
me is this: as far as I can discover--while freely granting that the U.
S. copyright laws are far and away the most idiotic that exist anywhere
on the face of the earth--they don't authorize the government to admit
pirated books into this country, toll or no toll. And so I think that
that regulation is the invention of one of those people--as a rule,
early stricken of God, intellectually--the departmental interpreters
of the laws, in Washington. They can always be depended on to take any
reasonably good law and interpret the common sense all out of it.
They can be depended on, every time, to defeat a good law, and make it
inoperative--yes, and utterly grotesque, too, mere matter for laughter
and derision. Take some of the decisions of the Post-office Department,
for instance--though I do not mean to suggest that that asylum is any
worse than the others for the breeding and nourishing of incredible
lunatics--I merely instance it because it happens to be the first to
come into my mind. Take that case of a few years ago where the P. M.
General suddenly issued an edict requiring you to add the name of the
State after Boston, New York, Chicago, &c, in your superscriptions,
on pain of having your letter stopped and forwarded to the dead-letter
office; yes, and I believe he required the county, too. He made one
little concession in favor of New York: you could say “New York City,”
and stop there; but if you left off the “city,” you must add “N. Y.” to
your “New York.” Why, it threw the business of the whole country into
chaos and brought commerce almost to a stand-still. Now think of that!
When that man goes to--to--well, wherever he is going to--we shan't want
the microscopic details of his address. I guess we can find him.
Well, as I was saying, I believe that this whole paltry and ridiculous
swindle is a pure creation of one of those cabbages that used to be at
the head of one of those Retreats down there--Departments, you know--and
that you will find it so, if you will look into it. And moreover--but
land, I reckon we are both tired by this time.
Truly Yours,
MARK TWAIN.
XXVII. MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF 1887. LITERARY ARTICLES. PEACEFUL DAYS
AT THE FARM. FAVORITE READING. APOLOGY TO MRS. CLEVELAND, ETC.
We have seen in the preceding chapter how unknown aspirants in one field
or another were always seeking to benefit by Mark Twain's reputation.
Once he remarked, “The symbol of the human race ought to be an ax; every
human being has one concealed about him somewhere.” He declared when
a stranger called on him, or wrote to him, in nine cases out of ten he
could distinguish the gleam of the ax almost immediately. The following
letter is closely related to those of the foregoing chapter, only that
this one was mailed--not once, but many times, in some form adapted to
the specific applicant. It does not matter to whom it was originally
written, the name would not be recognized.
*****
To Mrs. T. Concerning unearned credentials, etc.