book was price-marked twenty-five cents, but the returns from such as were sold went to the cause.  Thousands of them were distributed free.  The Congo, a domain four times as large as the German empire, had been made the ward of Belgium at a convention in Berlin by the agreement of fourteen nations, America and thirteen European states.  Leopold promptly seized the country for his personal advantage and the nations apparently found themselves powerless to depose him.  No more terrible blunder was ever committed by an assemblage of civilized people.]

Various plans and movements were undertaken for Congo reform, and Clemens worked and wrote letters and gave his voice and his influence and exhausted his rage, at last, as one after another of the half-organized and altogether futile undertakings showed no results.  His interest did not die, but it became inactive.  Eventually he declared:  “I have said all I can say on that terrible subject.  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....

But Roosevelt is excusable—­I recognize it & (ought to) concede it.  We are all insane, each in his own way, & with insanity goes irresponsibility.  Theodore the man is sane; in fairness we ought to keep in mind that Theodore, as statesman & politician, is insane & irresponsible.