Traveling to Washington with Mark Twain

SHARON — Mallory Howard and Jason Scappaticci from the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Conn., (the oddly angular red brick American gothic manor that housed Samuel Clemens and his family from 1874 to 1891), stopped by Sharon Town Hall on Friday, June 22. 

The discussion that evening was Clemens and his views and presidential voting habits through his lifetime. Howard and Scappaticci drew from essays and speeches by the American humorist and author who wrote under the pen name Mark Twain and remains best known for “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “The  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

“Throughout our research on what Sam had to say about the presidents, we found that though he typically sided with the Republican party, he did not hesitate to vote Democratic when he felt that the Democratic candidate was better,” Scappaticci explained.

“This is not to say that he would have been a supporter of the Republican party today. In fact, today’s Republican Party would be largely unrecognizable to Sam. We believe today he would most likely be unaffiliated, and probably vote according to whom he thought was the better man — or woman, as the case may be.” 

Scappaticci and Howard conceded that in reviewing their research they occasionally had to make educated guesses on Clemens’ political views, as the record of his voting was accessible, but his motivations for how he voted were not always immediate, even when writing on the subject. 

Though Clemens saw few redeeming qualities in the presidential administration led by Andrew Jackson, Scappaticci and Howard doubted these feelings were spurred by the Indian Removal Act, an 1830 law that granted the government power to forcibly migrate Native American tribes from their homes. This would be too modern a lens through which to examine his views. Scappaticci suggested Jackson’s fiscal politics were at odds with Clemens’, as his writing  generally showed little sympathy for America’s indigenous people. 

It was with Theodore Roosevelt that Clemens seemed to have the deepest, and therefore most complicated, relationship. He cited “Teddy” as the worst president the country has ever had, and later called him, “the Tom Sawyer of the political world,” and truly did not intend it as a compliment. 

Yet they were both progressively minded Republicans, and Roosevelt remained an admirer of Clemens’ writing, despite the often outlandish criticism.