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Text 13
RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR

Mark Twain

A few months ago I was nominated for Governor of the great
State of New York, to run against Mr. Stewart L. Woodford and Mr.
John T. Hoffman on an independent ticket. I somehow felt that I had
one prominent advantage over these gentlemen and that was — good
character. It was easy to see by the newspapers that, if ever they had
known what it was to bear a good name, that time had gone by. It was
plain that in these latter years they had become familiar with all
manner of shameful crimes. But at the very moment that I was
exalting my advantage and joying in it in secret, there was a muddy
undercurrent of discomfort "riling" the deeps of my happiness, and
that was — the having to hear my name bandied about in familiar
connection with those of such people. I grew more and more
disturbed. Finally I wrote my grandmother about it. Her answer came
quick and sharp. She said:
"You have never done a single thing in all your life to be
ashamed of — not one. Look at the newspapers — look at them and
1
comprehend what sort of characters Messrs Woodford and Hoffman
are, and then see if you are willing to lower yourself to their level and
enter a public canvass with them."
It was my very thought. I did not sleep a single moment that
night. But after all I could not recede. I was fully committed, and
must go on with the fight.
As I was looking listlessly over the papers at breakfast I came
across this paragraph, and I may truly say I never was so confounded
before:
"PERJURY.— Perhaps, now that Mr. Mark Twain is before the
people as a candidate for Governor, he will condescend to explain
how he came to be convicted of perjury by thirty-four witnesses in
Wakawak, Cochin China, in 1863, the intent of which perjury being
to rob a poor native widow and her helpless family of a meagre
plantain-patch, their only stay and support in their bereavement and

1
Messrs ['messz]: an abbreviated form of messieurs