Matt Seybold: In the Spring of 1864 Twain, while working as a beat reporter for the SF Morning Call, Twain witnessed the murder of a Chinese laborer by a mob that included cops. It radicalized him. He wrote it up, one of the first things he ever authored which he thought deserved to be called “literature”… 2/

In the Spring of 1864 Twain, while working as a beat reporter for the SF Morning Call, Twain witnessed the murder of a Chinese laborer by a mob that included cops. It radicalized him. He wrote it up, one of the first things he ever authored which he thought deserved to be called “literature”… 2/

But his editor scrapped it, telling him the paper could not afford to defend Chinamen or outrage the SFPD. Twain quit & became a freelancer, a position which left him dead broke, houseless, & suicidal, but allowed him to write whatever he pleased. He chose mostly to criticize the SFPD. 3/

He went after them for laziness, brutality, corruption, incompetence, & much else, specifically attacking the longtime Chief, Martin Burke, who came to head the SFPD after he helped organized a violent coup which overthrew the duly elected government of SF in 1856. 4/

Burke introduced to the SFPD uniform a knife specifically for intimidation & racketeering of Chinese & Irish populations. He was extralegal to the extreme. At one point it became so dangerous for Twain that he had to temporarily flee SF for Angel’s Camp, for fear of being murdered by the police 5/

That’s right. “Jim Smiley & his Jumping Frog,” the most viral story of the 1860s, was written while Twain was hiding out from fascist cops. But he didn’t relent. And he brought lots of attention down on Burke, who, in 1866, was finally thrown out of office. 6/

Though not before the SFPD stole the proceeds of Twain’s first stand-up show. I bring this up today merely to suggest that it is not a requirement of the journalist’s trade that they carry water for police. Twain regarded them as the professional antithesis of cops. Their job it was to witness.

Seems like the first post in the thread got disconnected. But here it is: bsky.app/profile/matt...

This is my favorite piece of Twain ephemera, published in the theatrical newsletter that would become San Francisco’s paper of record. Why did the Chronicle offer such “advice” to their freelancer? Why was the SFPD “a laying for” Mark Twain? This is not the Twain anecdote your papaw tells ya. 1/

what a great thread. 👍

Is that a rooster on the light fixture?

Do you know where I can read more about this?

Shocked that Burke doesn't have a Wikipedia page. And TIL about the Sydney Ducks.

I went looking for context and found this gem: www.gocalaveras.com/celebrated-j...

The Celebrated Jumping Frog - Mark Twain's Angels Camp storywww.gocalaveras.com The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras, inspired by his time in Angels Camp, was the humorous short-story that propelled Mark Twain to international fame.

"Chief Burke and his myrmidons." !!

I've always liked Twain, the more so as he radicalized. I love his use of the word Myrmidon for the cops. I don't know if this word was more in common use in the 19th century than in ours, but after watching the cops, like an army of ants, attacking students, I find it appropriate.

He was an absolute boss. My mother's best friend from college was from Angels Camp, and she wrote her dissertation about Twain. He doesn't get enough press these days. Thank you for this

#Alt4This 1/2 THE WICKEDNESS OF THE POLICE. The fearful developments recently made by the /Flag/ clearly show that Police officers are the greatest scoundrels in the community. The /Flag/ proves that citizens are in much greater danger of outrage and extortion from Chief Burke and his myrmidons,...

#Alt4This 2/2 than from the malefactors whom they pretend to guard us against. The following are a few samples of the enormities practised or contemplated by Blitz and his accomplices: [ends like that]

Apropos of nothing except reading this happily reminds me of my freshman year of HS California history teacher, Mrs. Milliken, and her beautiful chalkboard penmanship. We had a section on Vigilance Committee, less on Twain and his SF writings.

#Alt4This 1/5 MARK TWAIN ON THE POLICE—Mark Twain is still on the war-path. He is after the San Francisco Policemen with a sharp stick. In his last letter to the Territorial Enterprise, he says: I have abused the department at large, . . .

#Alt4This 2/5 because I could not find out who were the guilty parties and who were the innocent. I knew there were many honest, upright, reliable and excellent men on the police, but then, on account of the questionable surroundings it would have been a hard thing to prove it!

#Alt4This 3/5 Therefore I refrained from asserting the presence of this virtue—I had a delicacy about making a statement which it would be difficult to substantiate, and perhaps impossible. It was safe enough to say that in general they were rather a hard lot, because that didn’t require any proof!

#Alt4This 4/5 Some of the policemen are very tender about their character—then why do they sit still and see their brethren bring them into disrepute?—why don't they root out the bad element from the force? If they chose to keep their mouths shut and not expose the shortcomings of their brethren,...

#Alt4This 5/5 they must just accept of the natural consequence, and consent to be suspected themselves. Lord! so far from trying to purge their ranks of men who disgrace them, they are ready at a moment's notice to shield such men and hush up their malpractices, if common report be true.

Not much has changed: bsky.app/profile/joab...

Reminder to you all to stop oversimplifying things, its time to #ACACIADCSSTEIVAPSRONAFTAAEIYCUIANGIDCTFOACSBTOTCTMPATAB

This goes so hard holy shit

The fact that you could probably write similar statements about a lot of modern police forces sure says something. How little things have changed.

“Very tender about their character” Brutal

Wow, Mark Twain invented “bad apples” discourse

Can @alttext.bsky.social make this one out?

The more things change??

ACHABB! All Cops Have Always Been Bad!

@alttext.bsky.social

Just imagine the bone-chilling horror as you realize you gave this man an abundance of free time to talk shit about everyone he hated. I would flee the country immediately and go farm dirt in Newfoundland.

Great thread, thanks so much. This Twain quote about the police character holds up today as much as it did 160 years ago.

My kind of hero.

Man, feels like a wasted opportunity to not cast a dude as Mark Twain in Warrior

Warrior was set in the 1870s, Twain was in NY/CT by then.

They took plenty of liberties as it stands. Ah Toy, as one example, left SF entirely in 1857 (Went back to China for a bit). She was in San Jose during the Tong War.

I was just thinking the same thing.

I was thinking the same thing.

These are the kinds of stories that need to be taught to our children, so naturally they are not in our classrooms. Admit that Mark Twain having ACAB proverbially etched on his heart is pretty damned radical!

Mark Twain was such a mensch.

“To the Person Sitting in Darkness” is one of the first anti-imperialist tracts I ever read and I never “recovered” from it.

And later on: thedispatch.com/article/mark...

Mark Twain Understood What Motivated Mobsthedispatch.com Revisiting a 1901 essay on the rise of lynchings.

Great thread! Is this there a single place to get all this info (his autobiography?) I’d love to get more details on this period of his life and the events in SF back then as well. (Apologies if you already answered this and I missed it).

Thread of work in progress talks. I haven’t published essay version yet.

Whoa. This took off. I have told this story in more detail several times. Concisely here: youtu.be/5gVlDbX2pcs?...

Mark Twain, the NYPD, & San Francisco Vigilantesyoutu.be A short mini-doc by Dr. Matt Seybold looks at the antagonistic relationship Mark Twain maintained with municipal police forces. Repeatedly, Twain used his platforms to denounce racialized policing and his public crusade got him harassed and arrested. It also got one Chief fired.

marktwainstudies.com has a lot of information about both the man and his works.

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There is a great book about Twain and his contemporaries: The Bohemians… sadly he took part in some anti-Chinese activities, though overall he was usually on the right side. His condemnation of the US repression in the Philippines stands out to me!

His attitude towards Native Americans was also dubious at best.

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Yes, like most of us a flawed person (lets not even get into his family life!) but sometimes made a difference

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