MARK TWAIN IN THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC CHRONICLE
1865
HOW DARE YOU?
The little Call is down on "the boys in blue" -- very down. It is most egregiously prejudiced against them. It doesn't understand the rights of "the boys in blue," and therefore it abuses them. It is systematically pursuing them with outrageous accusations. It accuses them of prodding inoffensive citizens with bayonets and things, of going a great way out of the way to steal divers property, of waylaying school children and confiscating their grub, and of getting caterwampously drunk. Now who ever knew of soldiers doing thus as aforesaid? Moreover, even if they do do thus, what then? Didn't they fight for their country, and haven't they saved the country! Well then. Very well then. After having saved the country, ain't they entitled to help themselves to just as much of it as they want? Don't the "spoils belong to the victors?" They should think so! The secret of this persecution of "the boys in blue" lies just here -- they don't advertise in the little Call, and the little Call don't allow people to do as they "darn please," unless they advertise in it. Then it is all right. Don't you think now, little Call, that you had better sling away that subject and tackle a fresh one -- "The Blue Laws of Connecticut," for instance, if you must "chaw up" something blue?
[published in Early Tales & Sketches, Volume 2, 1864-1865,
University of California Press, 1981, p. 512.]
