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AMERICAN_DEPTHS

                                             October 12, 2010


 A Mark Twain quote:

   "The funniest thing was when at the close of the
   Spanish-American War the United States paid poor
   decrepit old Spain $20,000,000 for the
   Philippines. It was just a case of this country
   buying its way into good society. Honestly, when
   I read in the papers that this deal had been
   made, I laughed until my sides ached. There were
   the Filipinos fighting like blazes for their
   liberty. Spain would not hear to it. The United
   States stepped in, and after they had licked the
   enemy to a standstill, instead of freeing the
   Filipinos they paid that enormous amount for an
   island which is of no earthly account to us; just
   wanted to be like the aristocratic countries of
   Europe which have possessions in foreign
   waters. The United States wanted to be in the
   swim, and it, too, had to branch out, like an
   American heiress buying a Duke or an Earl."

     -- interview "Mark Twain in Clover / Joseph in
        the Land of Cornbread and Chicken."
        Baltimore Sun, 10 May 1907, p. 14

        http://www.twainquotes.com/Philippines.html

      I am fantasizing about etching this onto a
      brass plate, and during the dead of night
      installing it in San Francisco's Union          How can it be that
      Square, where that spike with a statue on       San Francisco has no
      top of it (or a woman brandishing a             tribute to one of it's
      pitchfork and an aerobie) is actually a         most famous citizens?
      tribute to the Philippine-American war...
                                                      San Francisco *needs*
                                                      a Mark Twaine plaque.



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