Tim Rutton on Mark Twain
He also was aware that few of his readers were prepared to accept his advanced political views, which were all the more remarkable in that he'd been born in the divided border state of Missouri, served a couple of desultory weeks as a Confederate irregular, then became one of the few Americans to sit out the Civil War as a neutral in Nevada.
Once he moved to Connecticut and married, his wife, Olivia, introduced him to a dazzling set of radical American thinkers, including Howells and Frederick Douglass. Twain became a passionate defender of racial equality, an early champion of women's suffrage, a fervent anti-imperialist -- even during the Spanish-American War -- and, as is less known, an advocate for organized labor, who once told a gathering of the radical Knights of Labor:
"Who are the oppressors? The few: the King, the capitalist, and a handful of other overseers and superintendents. Who are the oppressed? The many: the nations of the earth; the valuable personages; the workers; they that make the bread that the soft-handed and idle eat."
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