MARK TWAIN ON THE STUMP.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 726, 10 February 1877, Page 3

MARK TWAIN ON THE STUMP.

Samuel L. Clemens '(Mark Twain), presided at a Republican mass meeting m Hartford, Conn., September 30, and made the following opening address as reported m a despatch to the ' Times ' :— .

Ladies and Gentlemen.: I feel very greatly honored m being-chosen to preside at this meeting. This employment is new to me- I never have taken any part m a political ccanvas before, except «fco .vote. The tribe of which I am the humblest member— the literary tribe -is one which is not given to bothering about politics, but there are times when even the strangest departures 'are justifiable, and such a season, I take it, is the present canvass. Someone asked me the other day why it was that nearly all the people who write books and magazines had lately como to the front and proclaimed their political preference, since such a thing had probably never occurred before m America, and why it was that almost all of this strange, new band of volunteers marched under the banner of Hayes and Wheeler-. I think these people have come to the front mainly because they think they see at last a chance to make this Government a good Government.; because they 1 think they see a chance to institute an honest and sensible system of civil service which shall so amply prove its wo_*th and worthiness that j no succeediug President can ever venture to put his foot upon it. Our present civil system, bom of General Jackson and the Democratic ;• party, is so idiotic, so contemptible, so grotesque, that it would make the . very savages of Dahomey jeer, and \ the very gods of solemnity laugh. We will not hive a blacksmith who never lifted a sledge. We will not hire a school-teacher who dees not • know the alphabet. We will not have a man about ns m our business

life, m any walk of life low or high, unless he has served an apprentice ship, and can prove that he is capable of doing the work he offers to do. We even require a plumber to know something about his business that he shall at least know which side of the pipe is the inside. .(Roars of laughter.) But when you, come to our civil service, we serenely fill great numbers of our minor public offices with ignoramuses. We put the vast business of a Custom House m the hands of a flat-head who does not know a bill of lading from a transit of Venus, never having heard of them before. Under a Treasury apponbment we pour oceans of money and accompanying statistics through the hands and brain of an ignorant villager who never before could wrestle with a two week's wash bill without getting thrown. Under our Consular system we send creatures all over the world who speak no language but their own, and even when it comes to that, £0 wading all their clays through floods of moods and tenses,' and flourishing the scalps of mutilated parts of speech. When forced to.it we read a foreign ambassador who is frescoed all over with— with— with— indiscreetnesses I but we immediately send one m his

place whose moral ceiling has a preceptible shady tint to it, and 1 hen he brays when we supposed he was going to roar. We carefully train and educate our nav.al officers and military men, and we ripen and perfect their oapa bilities through long service and experience, and keep hold of these . excellent servants through a just system of promotion. This is exactly what we hope to do with our civil service under Mr Hayes, (applause). We hope and expect to sever that service as utterly from politics as is the naval and military service, and we hope to make it as ; ■ respectable too. We liope to make worth and capacity the sole requirements of the civil service m the place of the amount of party dirty work the candidate has done. By ±he time Gen. Hawley has finished his speech, I think you will know : why we, m this matter, put our trust m Hayes m preference to any other man. lam not going to say anything about our candidates for Slate offices, because you know them, honor them, and will vote for them, i but General Haw ley • being comparatively a stranger, I will say a few words m commendation of him, and it will furnish one of the many • reasons why I am going to vote for him for Congress. I ask you to look seriously and thoughtfully at just one almost incredible .fact. Geneial Hawley, m his official capacity as President of the Cen-\ tennial Commission, has done one thing which you may not have heard commented upon, and yet it is one of the most astounding performances of this decade, an act: almost impossible, perhaps, to any other public officer m this nation. General Hawley has taken as high as 121,000d015, gate money at the Centennial m a single day (pause and applause), and never stole a cent of it. (Great laughter and long continued applause.)