"This talk about Mr. Whittier’s seventieth birthday reminds
me that my own seventieth arrived recently — that is to say, it arrived on the
30th of November, but Colonel Harvey was not able to celebrate it on that date
because that date had been preempted by the President to be used as
Thanksgiving Day, a function which originated in New England two or three
centuries ago when those people recognized that they really had something to be thankful for —
annually, not oftener — if they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors,
the Indians, during the previous twelve months instead of getting exterminated
by their neighbors the Indians. Thanksgiving Day became a habit, for the reason
that in the course of time, as the years drifted on, it was perceived that the
exterminating had ceased to be mutual and was all on the white man’s side,
consequently on the Lord’s side, consequently it was proper to thank the Lord
for it and extend the usual annual compliments. The original reason for a
Thanksgiving Day has long ago ceased to exist — the Indians have long ago been
comprehensively and satisfactorily exterminated and the count closed with
Heaven, with the thanks due. But, from old habit, Thanksgiving Day has remained
with us, and every year the President of the United States and the Governors of
all the several States and the territories set themselves the task, every November,
to advertise for something to be thankful for, and then they put those thanks
into a few crisp and reverent phrases, in the form of a Proclamation, and this
is read from all the pulpits in the land, the national conscience is wiped
clean with one swipe, and sin is resumed at the old stand.
The President and the Governors had to have my birthday — the 30th — for Thanksgiving Day, and this was a great inconvenience to Colonel Harvey, who had made much preparation for a banquet to be given to me on that day in celebration of the fact that it marked my seventieth escape from the gallows, according to his idea — a fact which he regarded with favor and contemplated with pleasure, because he is my publisher and commercially interested. He went to Washington to try to get the President to select another day for the national Thanksgiving, and I furnished him with arguments to use which I thought persuasive and convincing, arguments which ought to persuade him even to put off Thanksgiving Day a whole year — on the ground that nothing had happened during the previous twelvemonth except several vicious and inexcusable wars, and King Leopold of Belgium's usual annual slaughters and robberies in the Congo State, together with the insurance revelations in New York, which seemed to establish the fact that if there was an honest man left in the United States, there was only one, and we wanted to celebrate his seventieth birthday. But the colonel came back unsuccessful, and put my birthday celebration off to the 5th of December.
I had twice as good a time at this seventieth, as I had had at Mr. Whittier’s seventieth, twenty eight years earlier. In the speech which I made were concealed many facts. I expected everybody to discount those facts 95 per cent, and that is probably what happened. That does not trouble me, I am used to having my statements discounted. My mother had begun it before I was seven years old. Yet all through my life my facts have had a substratum of truth, and therefore they were not without preciousness. Any person who is familiar with me knows how to strike my average, and therefore knows how to get at the jewel of any fact of mine and dig it out of its blue-clay matrix. My mother knew that art. When I was seven or eight, or ten, or twelve years old — along there — a neighbor said to her "Do you ever believe anything that that boy says?" My mother said "He is the wellspring of truth, but you can't bring up the whole well with one bucket" — and she added, "I know his average, therefore he never deceives me. I discount him 30 per cent for embroidery, and what is left is perfect and priceless truth, without a flaw in it anywhere."
The President and the Governors had to have my birthday — the 30th — for Thanksgiving Day, and this was a great inconvenience to Colonel Harvey, who had made much preparation for a banquet to be given to me on that day in celebration of the fact that it marked my seventieth escape from the gallows, according to his idea — a fact which he regarded with favor and contemplated with pleasure, because he is my publisher and commercially interested. He went to Washington to try to get the President to select another day for the national Thanksgiving, and I furnished him with arguments to use which I thought persuasive and convincing, arguments which ought to persuade him even to put off Thanksgiving Day a whole year — on the ground that nothing had happened during the previous twelvemonth except several vicious and inexcusable wars, and King Leopold of Belgium's usual annual slaughters and robberies in the Congo State, together with the insurance revelations in New York, which seemed to establish the fact that if there was an honest man left in the United States, there was only one, and we wanted to celebrate his seventieth birthday. But the colonel came back unsuccessful, and put my birthday celebration off to the 5th of December.
I had twice as good a time at this seventieth, as I had had at Mr. Whittier’s seventieth, twenty eight years earlier. In the speech which I made were concealed many facts. I expected everybody to discount those facts 95 per cent, and that is probably what happened. That does not trouble me, I am used to having my statements discounted. My mother had begun it before I was seven years old. Yet all through my life my facts have had a substratum of truth, and therefore they were not without preciousness. Any person who is familiar with me knows how to strike my average, and therefore knows how to get at the jewel of any fact of mine and dig it out of its blue-clay matrix. My mother knew that art. When I was seven or eight, or ten, or twelve years old — along there — a neighbor said to her "Do you ever believe anything that that boy says?" My mother said "He is the wellspring of truth, but you can't bring up the whole well with one bucket" — and she added, "I know his average, therefore he never deceives me. I discount him 30 per cent for embroidery, and what is left is perfect and priceless truth, without a flaw in it anywhere."
When Mark Twain Tried to Move Thanksgiving
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/when-twain-tried-to-move-thanksgiving
