The reader who has followed these pages has seen how prone Mark
Twain was to fall a victim to the lure of a patent-right--how he
wasted several small fortunes on profitless contrivances, and one
large one on that insatiable demon of intricacy and despair, the
Paige type-setter. It seems incredible that, after that experience
and its attending disaster, he should have been tempted again. But
scarcely was the ink dry on the receipts from his creditors when he
was once more borne into the clouds on the prospect of millions,
perhaps even billions, to be made from a marvelous carpet-pattern
machine, the invention of Sczezepanik, an Austrian genius. That
Clemens appreciated his own tendencies is shown by the parenthetic
line with which he opens his letter on the subject to Mr. Rogers.
Certainly no man was ever a more perfect prototype of Colonel
Sellers than the creator of that lovely, irrepressible visionary.
*****
To Mr. Rogers, in New York:
March 24, '98.
DEAR MR. ROGERS,--(I feel like Col. Sellers).
Mr. Kleinberg [agent for Sczezepanik] came according to appointment,
at 8.30 last night, and brought his English-speaking Secretary. I asked
questions about the auxiliary invention (which I call “No. 2 “) and
got as good an idea of it as I could. It is a machine. It automatically
punches the holes in the jacquard cards, and does it with mathematical
accuracy. It will do for $1 what now costs $3. So it has value, but “No.
2” is the great thing (the designing invention.) It saves $9 out of $10
and the jacquard looms must have it.
Then I arrived at my new project, and said to him in substance, this:
“You are on the point of selling the No. 2 patents to Belgium, Italy,
etc. I suggest that you stop those negotiations and put those people off
two or three months. They are anxious now, they will not be less anxious
then--just the reverse; people always want a thing that is denied them.
“So far as I know, no great world-patent has ever yet been placed in the
grip of a single corporation. This is a good time to begin.
“We have to do a good deal of guess-work here, because we cannot
get hold of just the statistics we want. Still, we have some good
statistics--and I will use those for a test.
“You say that of the 1500 Austrian textile factories, 800 use the
jacquard. Then we will guess that of the 4,000 American factories 2,000
use the jacquard and must have our No. 2.
“You say that a middle-sized Austrian factory employs from 20 to 30
designers and pays them from 800 to 3,000 odd florins a year--(a florin
is 2 francs). Let us call the average wage 1500 florins ($600).
“Let us apply these figures (the low wages too) to the 2,000 American
factories--with this difference, to guard against over-guessing; that
instead of allowing for 20 to 30 designers to a middle-sized factory, we
allow only an average of 10 to each of the 2,000 factories--a total of
20,000 designers. Wages at $600, a total of $12,000,000. Let us consider
that No. 2 will reduce this expense to $2,000,000 a year. The saving
is $5,000,000 per each of the $200,000,000 of capital employed in the
jacquard business over there.
“Let us consider that in the countries covered by this patent, an
aggregate of $1,500,000,000 of capital is employed in factories
requiring No. 2.
“The saving (as above) is $75,000,000 a year. The Company holding in its
grip all these patents would collar $50,000,000 of that, as its share.
Possibly more.
“Competition would be at an end in the Jacquard business, on this
planet. Price-cutting would end. Fluctuations in values would cease. The
business would be the safest and surest in the world; commercial
panics could not seriously affect it; its stock would be as choice an
investment as Government bonds. When the patents died the Company would
be so powerful that it could still keep the whole business in its hands.
Would you like to grant me the privilege of placing the whole jacquard
business of the world in the grip of a single Company? And don't you
think that the business would grow-grow like a weed?”
“Ach, America--it is the country of the big! Let me get my breath--then
we will talk.”
So then we talked--talked till pretty late. Would Germany and England
join the combination? I said the Company would know how to persuade
them.
Then I asked for a Supplementary Option, to cover the world, and we
parted.
I am taking all precautions to keep my name out of print in connection
with this matter. And we will now keep the invention itself out of print
as well as we can. Descriptions of it have been granted to the “Dry
Goods Economist” (New York) and to a syndicate of American papers. I
have asked Mr. Kleinberg to suppress these, and he feels pretty sure he
can do it.
With love,
S. L. C.
If this splendid enthusiasm had not cooled by the time a reply came
from Mr. Rogers, it must have received a sudden chill from the
letter which he inclosed--the brief and concise report from a
carpet-machine expert, who said: “I do not feel that it would be of
any value to us in our mills, and the number of jacquard looms in
America is so limited that I am of the opinion that there is no
field for a company to develop the invention here. A cursory
examination of the pamphlet leads me to place no very high value
upon the invention, from a practical standpoint.”
With the receipt of this letter carpet-pattern projects would seem
to have suddenly ceased to be a factor in Mark Twain's calculations.
Such a letter in the early days of the type-machine would have saved
him a great sum in money and years of disappointment. But perhaps
he would not have heeded it then.
The year 1898 brought the Spanish-American War. Clemens was
constitutionally against all wars, but writing to Twichell, whose
son had enlisted, we gather that this one was an exception.
*****
To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford:
KALTENLEUTGEBEN, NEAR VIENNA,
June 17, '98.
DEAR JOE,--You are living your war-days over again in Dave, and it must
be a strong pleasure, mixed with a sauce of apprehension--enough to
make it just schmeck, as the Germans say. Dave will come out with two or
three stars on his shoulder-straps if the war holds, and then we shall
all be glad it happened.
We started with Bull Run, before. Dewey and Hobson have introduced an
improvement on the game this time.
I have never enjoyed a war-even in written history--as I am enjoying
this one. For this is the worthiest one that was ever fought, so far as
my knowledge goes. It is a worthy thing to fight for one's freedom; it
is another sight finer to fight for another man's. And I think this is
the first time it has been done.
Oh, never mind Charley Warner, he would interrupt the raising of
Lazarus. He would say, the will has been probated, the property
distributed, it will be a world of trouble to settle the rows--better
leave well enough alone; don't ever disturb anything, where it's going
to break the soft smooth flow of things and wobble our tranquillity.