Mark Twain and the Colonel: Samuel L. Clemens, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Arrival of a New Century by Philip McFarland (review)

405 Book Reviews as well as for a thoughtfully organized and theologically serious look at one of our greatest lyric poets. Timothy E. G. Bartel Houston Baptist University Mark Twain and the Colonel: Samuel L. Clemens, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Arrival of a New Century. By Philip McFarland. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012. ISBN 978-1442212268. Pp. 520. $28.00. In November of 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt commenced an uproar when he decided to eliminate the phrase “In God We Trust” from a new issue of the ten-dollar and twenty-dollar gold coins. The coins’ designer, Augustus SaintGaudens , had informed Roosevelt that the motto was unnecessary, and moreover that it was an “inartistic intrusion” upon the beauty of his design. This justification was widely ridiculed—especially by those who supported the restoration of the motto. But in a dictation for his autobiography one month later, Mark Twain gave different reasons for dismissing Roosevelt’s thin excuse: “That is just like the president. ... He is very much in the habit of furnishing a poor reason for his acts while there is an excellent reason staring him in the face. ... The motto stated a lie. If this nation has ever trusted in God, that time has long gone by. ... It is not proper to brag and boast that America is a Christian country when we all know that certainly five-sixths of our population could not enter in at the narrow gate.” (Twain knew his Bible well, as this allusion to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount illustrates.) Several months later, in a speech at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York, Twain made his sentiments public: “There is not a nation in the world which ever put its faith in God. It is a statement made on insufficient evidence. In the unimportant cases of life, perhaps, we do trust in God—that is, if we rule out the gamblers and burglars, and plumbers, for of course they do not believe in God.” If America is a Christian country, Twain stated in the privacy of his study, “then so is hell ... [it’s] the only really prominent Christian community in any of the worlds.” I’vegrownfondofTwain’sstatementaboutAmerica’s“Christian”proclamations about itself: “a statement made on insufficient evidence,” he demurred. Mark Twain’s musings on the anti-Christian flavor of empire, as stated in these two snippets, come at the tail-end of his nearly decade-long crusade against America’s quest to attain colonies and rise to the ranks of world imperial power. After a nearly tenyear stay in Europe, Twain returned to the United States in October of 1900, just at the dawn of the so-called “American Century.” Even at that time, there was talk Christianity and Literature 406 about America becoming an elite power among nations, and many of America’s leaders believed that the pathway to that status depended heavily upon establishing colonial enclaves in locations formerly owned by the Spanish empire. Early on, Twain was in favor of such a plan; but as the Spanish-American War developed into what appeared to be a wanton slaughter and power-grab (symbolized by the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1898), Twain became disenchanted with the romance of empire. He referred to the U.S. presence in what is now the state of Hawaii as the “disease of civilization.” And for Twain, nobody represented these evil intentions and subversive interventions more than the youngest president ever sworn into office (by way of McKinley’s assassination in September of 1901): Teddy Roosevelt. Together, Roosevelt and Twain were probably the most famous Americans alive in the first decade of the twentieth century—if not the most famous citizens of the entire world. They had no deep relationship, but they did meet on a number of occasions, including once at the White House and once at Yale University when they both received honorary degrees. They also both attended meetings of the Lotos Club, a gentlemen’s group in New York City, and may have met and conversed on those occasions. Publically they recoiled from provocative criticism of each other (usually, that is); but privately each vented some vitriolic rage...