W HEN the Clemenses returned home on October 15, 1900, Mark
Twain soon discovered that he had managed to create a new
image of himself. As the result of having succeeded in paying his debts,
he was greeted as "one who has borne great burdens with manliness
and courage." ¹ As the result of such recent serious writing as "The
Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg," he was hailed as a "critic and cen-
sor" who had become "more philosophical" and was now dedicated
to "justice, absolute democracy, and humanity." ² If his readers had
been given access to what Mark Twain had just been writing, they
would have found that he had indeed developed a strong interest in
justice, democracy, and humanity -- all over the world. He had be-
come especially interested in conflicts involving Western nations out-
side their natural sphere of influence: the Boer War, the Boxer Rebellion,
the war between the United States and Spain over possessions in the
Pacific and the Caribbean. In "The Chronicle of Young Satan," he had
Satan prophesy in chapter 8: "The Christian missionary will exasper-
ate the Chinese; they will kill him in a riot. They will have to pay for
him, in territory, cash, and churches, sixty-two million times his value.
They will exasperate the Chinese still more, and they will injudi-
ciously rise in revolt against the insults and oppressions of the in-
truder. This will be Europe's chance to interfere and swallow China,
and her band of royal Christian pirates will not waste it." To his friend
Twichell, Clemens had written that he hoped the Chinese "will drive
all foreigners out and keep them out for good." ³

On his return to America, more than a dozen newspapers pub-
lished accounts of Mark Twain's comments. He described how he had
become an anti-imperialist as a result of his travels: "I left these shores,

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