I ought to explain that the grippe delayed us some weeks, and that we have since been waiting for Mr.Jones.When he was ready, we were not;and now we have been ready more than a month, while he has been kept in Washington by the Silver bill.He said the other day that to venture out of the Capitol for a day at this time could easily chance to hurt him if the bill came up for action, meantime, although it couldn't hurt the bill, which would pass anyway.Mrs.Jones said she would send me two or three days' notice, right after the passage of the bill, and that they would follow as soon as I should return word that their coming would not inconvenience us.I suppose I ought to go to New York without waiting for Mr.Jones, but it would not be wise to go there without money.
The bill is still pending.
The Mergenthaler machine, like the Paige, was also at this time in the middle stages of experimental development.It was a slower machine, but it was simpler, less expensive, occupied less room.
There was not so much about it to get out of order; it was not so delicate, not so human.These were immense advantages.
But no one at this time could say with certainty which typesetter would reap the harvest of millions.It was only sure that at least one of them would, and the Mergenthaler people were willing to trade stock for stock with the Paige company in order to insure financial success for both, whichever won.Clemens, with a faith that never faltered, declined this offer, a decision that was to cost him millions.
Winter and spring had gone and summer had come, but still there had been no financial conclusion with Jones, Mackay, and the other rich Californians who were to put up the necessary million for the machine's manufacture.Goodman was spending a large part of his time traveling back and forth between California and Washington, trying to keep business going at both ends.Paige spent most of his time working out improvements for the type-setter, delicate attachments which complicated its construction more and more.
To Joe T.Goodman, in Washington:
HARTFORD, June 22, '90.
DEAR JOE,--I have been sitting by the machine 2 hours, this afternoon, and my admiration of it towers higher than ever.There is no sort of mistake about it, it is the Big Bonanza.In the 2 hours, the time lost by type-breakage was 3 minutes.
This machine is totally without a rival.Rivalry with it is impossible.
Last Friday, Fred Whitmore (it was the 28th day of his apprenticeship on the machine) stacked up 49,700 ems of solid nonpareil in 8 hours, and the type-breaking delay was only 6 minutes for the day.
I claim yet, as I have always claimed, that the machine's market (abroad and here together,) is today worth $150,000,000 without saying anything about the doubling and trebling of this sum that will follow within the life of the patents.Now here is a queer fact: I am one of the wealthiest grandees in America--one of the Vanderbilt gang, in fact--and yet if you asked me to lend you a couple of dollars I should have to ask you to take my note instead.
It makes me cheerful to sit by the machine: come up with Mrs.Goodman and refresh yourself with a draught of the same.
Ys ever MARK.
The machine was still breaking the types now and then, and no doubt Paige was itching to take it to pieces, and only restrained by force from doing so.He was never thoroughly happy unless he was taking the machine apart or setting it up again.Finally, he was allowed to go at it--a disasterous permission, for it was just then that Jones decided to steal a day or two from the Silver Bill and watch the type-setter in operation.Paige already had it in parts when this word came from Goodman, and Jones's visit had to be called off.
His enthusiasm would seem to have weakened from that day.In July, Goodman wrote that both Mackay and Jones had become somewhat diffident in the matter of huge capitalization.He thought it partly due, at least, to "the fatal delays that have sicklied over the bloom of original enthusiasm." Clemens himself went down to Washington and perhaps warmed Jones with his eloquence; at least, Jones seemed to have agreed to make some effort in the matter a qualified promise, the careful word of a wary politician and capitalist.How many Washington trips were made is not certain, but certainly more than one.Jones would seem to have suggested forms of contracts, but if he came to the point of signing any there is no evidence of it to-day.
Any one who has read Mark Twain's, "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," has a pretty good idea of his opinion of kings in general, and tyrants in particular.Rule by "divine right," however liberal, was distasteful to him; where it meant oppression it stirred him to violence.In his article, "The Czar's Soliloquy," he gave himself loose rein concerning atrocities charged to the master of Russia, and in a letter which he wrote during the summer of 1890, he offered a hint as to remedies.The letter was written by editorial request, but was never mailed.Perhaps it seemed too openly revolutionary at the moment.
Yet scarcely more than a quarter of a century was needed to make it "timely." Clemens and his family were spending some weeks in the Catskills when it was written.
An unpublished letter on the Czar.
ONTEORA, 1890.