The Realm of an Empire and the Reach of Empathy: Reconsideration of Humanism in Mark Twain's 'the War-Prayer'

Abstract

New Perspectives on “The War-Prayer” Essays on “The War-Prayer” The Realm of an Empire and the Reach of Empathy: Reconsideration of Humanism in Mark Twain’s “The War-Prayer” ARIMITSU Michio In December 1925, The Crisis, the NAACP’s ofcial organ, carried a short article en- titled “Philippine Mulattoes.” The unsigned article quoted a cable sent by General Leon- ard Wood (1860-1927), the then governor of the Philippines, in which he had called for  nancial assistance from home: The American people have been so generous in their responses to the cries of children all over the world that I have no hesitation in appealing to them for children of their own blood who are in need of help. Especially do I have profound condence, as the problem involves the honor of the American nation. (61) By “the children of their own blood,” Wood meant 18,000 hapless children, who had been born to GIs and Filipino women, and subsequently abandoned by their American fathers. Criticizing the hypocrisy involved in the appeal “to support these illegitimate victims of white men’s lust” (61), the article nevertheless asked the readers for help: Send, in God’s name, America, two million dollars . . . and send simultaneously two million protests to Washington to lambaste the heads of Congressmen who permit the holding of the Philippines as a house of prostitution for American white men under the glorious stars and stripes. (61) In their indictment of the “American white men,” African-Americans’ segregated lives are here implicitly united with those of half-American, half-Filipino children. The article’s scathing rhetoric, directed at the (white) government’s imperial actions abroad as it is, reects African-Americans’ frustration at its racist policies at home. The Philippine-American War, leading eventually to the birth of the Filipino mulat- toes, drew as much attention from Mark Twain as from African-Americans. Just as the latter, seeing suffering images of themselves in the Filipinos, loudly voiced their rage at Washington and its injustice committed overseas, Twain took his political stand by writing “The War-Prayer” ( 1905), a satire harshly criticizing his country’s imperialism. Although Twain and African-Americans pursued a common political goal to end the