York. One day I enveloped one of these thin batches; and just then I happened to think that twenty-five cents for it was bad economy; so I stuck a two-cent stamp on it, marked it “Authors’ MS.,” and sent it down by a friend. Whereupon ensued a conversation by telephone:
“Postoffice authorities say it must be open at both ends.”
“Very well, open it at both ends.”
Silence for ten minutes. Then—
“Authorities find no proof-sheets with it. Can’t send it.”
“What do they want with proof-sheets?”
“Law extends Author’s privilege to book manuscript only when accompanied by proof-sheets!”
I sat down and waited for this piece of colossal idiocy to sink home and settle securely to its right place among my bric-a-brac collection of unpurchasable mental curiosities; then I said—
“How in the world am I to furnish a proof-sheet of manuscript which has never been printed?”
“I don’t know; but that is what the Post Office Department of the United States requires.”
“The Post Office Department of the United States is an Ass.”
“Second the motion. But the law—or at least the official interpretation of it—is as I have said.”
“Please borrow the book for me. I wish to see the inspired words with my own eyes.”
Here they are. United States Official Postal Guide, for January, 1882. “Ruling,” or interpretation No. 34, page 642:
“Book manuscript, manuscript for magazines, periodicals, newspapers, and music manuscript, are now subject to full letter rates of postage, except they be accompanied by PROOF-SHEETS, or corrected proof-sheets, OF SUCH MANUSCRIPT, etc., etc.”
There it is—read it for yourself. If that isn’t the very dregs of human imbecility and ignorance, where shall you go to find it? Is there another idiot asylum outside the Post Office Department of the United States that can fellow that?
Look at it all around—inspect it in detail—for it is the gem-stupidity of all the ages. You see, they have admitted newspaper MS to the privilege, now; and have added music; and have restored the magazine and the periodical to their early place with book MS.—and by a simple turn of the wrist, and the most miraculous piece of leatherheadedness the world ever saw, the interpreter-idiot has shut every one of them out and made the law an absolute and hopeless nullity!
You think that if you were a law-builder or a salaried law-tinker, and didn’t know anything about a matter which came officially before you, you would go and get advice and information from somebody who did know something about it, before you meddled with it. But I whisper in your ear, now, as I did in the outset, and say to you that those laborious and well-meaning, and complacent, but groping, and shell-headed and inadequate Washington tumble-bugs have not that useful habit.
THE MISSIONARY IN WORLD-POLITICS
T o the Editor of the Times.
S IR : I think you will grant that the source of religion and of patriotism is one and the same—the heart, not the head. It seems established by ages of history that none but the weakest and most valueless men can be persuaded to desert their flag or their religion. We regard as a base creature the man who deserts his flag and turns against his country, either when his country is in the right or when she is in the wrong. We hold in detestation the person who tries to beguile him to do it. We say loyalty is not matter of argument but of feeling—its seat is in the heart, not the brain. I do not know why we respect missionaries. Perhaps it is because they have not intruded here from Turkey or China or Polynesia to break our hearts by sapping away our children’s faith and winning them to the worship of alien gods. We have lacked the opportunity to find out how a parent feels to see his child deriding and blaspheming the religion of its ancestors. We have lacked the opportunity of hearing a foreign missionary who has been forced upon us against our will lauding his
“Postoffice authorities say it must be open at both ends.”
“Very well, open it at both ends.”
Silence for ten minutes. Then—
“Authorities find no proof-sheets with it. Can’t send it.”
“What do they want with proof-sheets?”
“Law extends Author’s privilege to book manuscript only when accompanied by proof-sheets!”
I sat down and waited for this piece of colossal idiocy to sink home and settle securely to its right place among my bric-a-brac collection of unpurchasable mental curiosities; then I said—
“How in the world am I to furnish a proof-sheet of manuscript which has never been printed?”
“I don’t know; but that is what the Post Office Department of the United States requires.”
“The Post Office Department of the United States is an Ass.”
“Second the motion. But the law—or at least the official interpretation of it—is as I have said.”
“Please borrow the book for me. I wish to see the inspired words with my own eyes.”
Here they are. United States Official Postal Guide, for January, 1882. “Ruling,” or interpretation No. 34, page 642:
“Book manuscript, manuscript for magazines, periodicals, newspapers, and music manuscript, are now subject to full letter rates of postage, except they be accompanied by PROOF-SHEETS, or corrected proof-sheets, OF SUCH MANUSCRIPT, etc., etc.”
There it is—read it for yourself. If that isn’t the very dregs of human imbecility and ignorance, where shall you go to find it? Is there another idiot asylum outside the Post Office Department of the United States that can fellow that?
Look at it all around—inspect it in detail—for it is the gem-stupidity of all the ages. You see, they have admitted newspaper MS to the privilege, now; and have added music; and have restored the magazine and the periodical to their early place with book MS.—and by a simple turn of the wrist, and the most miraculous piece of leatherheadedness the world ever saw, the interpreter-idiot has shut every one of them out and made the law an absolute and hopeless nullity!
You think that if you were a law-builder or a salaried law-tinker, and didn’t know anything about a matter which came officially before you, you would go and get advice and information from somebody who did know something about it, before you meddled with it. But I whisper in your ear, now, as I did in the outset, and say to you that those laborious and well-meaning, and complacent, but groping, and shell-headed and inadequate Washington tumble-bugs have not that useful habit.
THE MISSIONARY IN WORLD-POLITICS
T o the Editor of the Times.
S IR : I think you will grant that the source of religion and of patriotism is one and the same—the heart, not the head. It seems established by ages of history that none but the weakest and most valueless men can be persuaded to desert their flag or their religion. We regard as a base creature the man who deserts his flag and turns against his country, either when his country is in the right or when she is in the wrong. We hold in detestation the person who tries to beguile him to do it. We say loyalty is not matter of argument but of feeling—its seat is in the heart, not the brain. I do not know why we respect missionaries. Perhaps it is because they have not intruded here from Turkey or China or Polynesia to break our hearts by sapping away our children’s faith and winning them to the worship of alien gods. We have lacked the opportunity to find out how a parent feels to see his child deriding and blaspheming the religion of its ancestors. We have lacked the opportunity of hearing a foreign missionary who has been forced upon us against our will lauding his
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