Vol 3 Section 0562
Fatout lists a Mark Twain speech at the Players Club dinner this evening. He offers no particulars and none were found [MT Speaking 668].
March 29 Friday – Sam’s notebook: “Boys’ Debate 576 Lexington Av. Cor 51st. Ask Poultney. 1 Lex; (Park Av. Hot.) Gilder; Exercises begin 8.15 ‘English as She is Wrote.’ In my lower drawer. Miss Margt P. Pascal, Prest. I am to say few words after the Boys’ debate” [NB 44 TS 8]. Note: Margaret Pascal taught primarily immigrant children, and worked with George T. Balch, auditor of NYC’s Board of Education, and author of the 1889 Methods of Teaching Patriotism in the Public Schools.
Frank T. Bayley wrote to Sam: “Where is Mark Twain’s honor that he makes no amend for an unjust accusation when the facts are made clear?” [MTP]. Note: this related to the “13 times” vs. “1/3 times” error in a dispatch relating to Rev. Ament.
March 30 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “Y.M.C.A. 52 E 23d Carriage at 9.45” [NB 44 TS 8]. Sam gave a talk in the evening for the Poughkeepsie Eastman Club at the YMCA. The New York Times, Mar. 31, p.2, reported the talk:
MARK TWAIN TELLS OF HIS BUSINESS VENTURES
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”To Succeed, Avoid My Example,” Is His Axiom, He Says.
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Confides to the Poughkeepsie Eastman
Club His Idea of Diligence, Honesty, and Truthfulness.
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The Poughkeepsie Eastman Club, an organization of alumni of the Eastman Business College at Poughkeepsie, held its second annual banquet last night [Mar. 30] at the Young Men’s Christian Association Hall on Twenty-third Street, near Fourth Avenue. One hundred and fifty guests sat down to the tables.
F. L. Bailey, President of the club, presided. The other speakers were C. C. Gains, President of the Eastman National Business College; Henry D. Dickson, James G. Cannon, Vice President of the Fourth National Bank, and Samuel L. Clemens, (Mark Twain.)
Mark Twain was introduced by Mr. Bailey as a personal friend of Tom Sawyer, who was one of the types of successful business men. He took his text from the speech of Mr. Cannon, who had enunciated some business principles on which the success of young men depended. Mr. Clemens said:
“Mr. Cannon has furnished me with texts enough to last as slow a speaker as myself all the rest of the night. I took exception to the introducing of Mr. Cannon as a great financier. As if he was the only great financier present! I am a financier. But my methods are not the same as Mr. Cannon’s.
“I cannot say that I have turned out the great businessman that I thought I was when I began life. But I am comparatively young yet, and may learn. I am rather inclined to believe that what troubled me was that I got the big head early in the game. I want to explain to you a few points of difference between the principles of business as I see them and those that Mr. Cannon believes in.
“He says that the primary rule of business success is loyalty to your employer. That’s all right—as a theory. What is the matter with loyalty to yourself? As nearly as I can understand Mr. Cannon’s methods, there is one great drawback to them. He wants you to work a great deal.
“Diligence is a good thing, but taking things easy is much more restful. My idea is that the employer should be the busy man and the employee the idle one. The employer should be the worried man and the employee the happy one. And why not? He gets the salary.
“My plan is to get another man to do the work for me. There’s more repose in that. What I want is repose first, last, and all the time.
“I want to tell you of some of my experiences in business, and then I will be in a position to lay down one general rule for the guidance of those who want to succeed in business. My first effort was about twenty-five years ago. I took hold of an invention—I don’t know now what it was all about—but someone came to me
SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.