I am heart and soul in any
movement that will rescue the Congo and hang Leopold, but I cannot write
any more."
His fires were likely to burn themselves out, they raged so fiercely. His
final paragraph on the subject was a proposed epitaph for Leopold when
time should have claimed him. It ran:
Here under this gilded tomb lies rotting the body of one the smell
of whose name will still offend the nostrils of men ages upon ages
after all the Caesars and Washingtons & Napoleons shall have ceased
to be praised or blamed & been forgotten--Leopold of Belgium.
Clemens had not yet lost interest in the American policy in the
Philippines, and in his letters to Twichell he did not hesitate to
criticize the President's attitude in this and related matters. Once,
in a moment of irritation, he wrote:
DEAR JOE,--I knew I had in me somewhere a definite feeling about the
President. If I could only find the words to define it with! Here
they are, to a hair--from Leonard Jerome:
"For twenty years I have loved Roosevelt the man, and hated
Roosevelt the statesman and politician."
It's mighty good. Every time in twenty-five years that I have met
Roosevelt the man a wave of welcome has streaked through me with the
hand-grip; but whenever (as a rule) I meet Roosevelt the statesman &
politician I find him destitute of morals & not respect-worthy. It
is plain that where his political self & party self are concerned he
has nothing resembling a conscience; that under those inspirations
he is naively indifferent to the restraints of duty & even unaware
of them; ready to kick the Constitution into the back yard whenever
it gets in his way.
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