Published: March 24, 2008 09:55 am         

Getting it right: Century looks familiar through Twain's eyes

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — After lecturing nearly an hour, a wily economics professor from my college days would turn to the class and ask us, “Is that right?”



Sometimes he’d analyze an issue from a liberal viewpoint, and the next time as a conservative, with both discreetly shrouded. Then came that vexing question: “Is that right?” We were dismissed and left to figure it out on our own.



By “right,” he didn’t always mean, “Is that correct?” Often, he intended for us to decide “Is that the just or honorable path?”



I thought of my old prof two Fridays ago, as my wife and I (also one of his former students) watched Hal Holbrook perform his famed “Mark Twain Tonight!” one-man show in the stately Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts in Illinois. Holbrook was nearly as old as the historic hall, which was built in 1921. But the 83-year-old just received his first Oscar nomination this year, and his masterful portrayal of America’s greatest writer brought to life Twain’s razor-sharp wit, humor and philosophy.



Many times, Holbrook paused and stood absolutely still, except for the cigar teetering between his fingers. Then, his Twain broke the silence and thought aloud, leaving an idea hovering over the enraptured audience. Twain formed his opinions more than a century ago. Yet during Holbrook’s re-enactment, Twain’s comments forced the 21st-century crowd to wonder if we still haven’t gotten it “right.”



Holbrook’s characterization, which he has performed more than 2,000 times since debuting it 54 years ago, is set in 1905. Twain was 70 at the time, a literary icon on a worldwide speaking tour. He’d been born in 1835 as Halley’s Comet passed over tiny Florida, Mo. Twain died, as he’d hoped, when the comet returned to the skies in 1910. Since then, Halley’s Comet has come and gone again, in 1985, and the world has changed, some.



This month in our nation’s capital, the Republican White House and the Democratic Congress are accusing each other of creating the current economic malaise. While most Americans simply want those politicians to address the soaring fuel prices, tight housing market, home foreclosures and job cuts, the public officials instead position their actions and statements according to the upcoming election.



Twain’s comment: “All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it. None but the Republicans. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats can perceive it. The rule is perfect: In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.”



The sixth year of the Iraq war began Thursday. So far 4,000 American troops have been killed and another 30,000 wounded since March 20, 2003. An Associated Press report last week estimated the U.S. administration’s goal of the Iraqis handling their own national security could take another eight years. In terms of economics, the new book predicts the conflict will become the “three-trillion-dollar war” before it ends.



Twain’s comment: “To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, ‘Our country, right or wrong,’ and urge on the little war. Have you not perceived that that phrase is an insult to the nation?”



A governor who carved his reputation by boldly busting high-rollers for corruption and white-collar crimes wound up resigning for the very same misbehavior. With his pained wife standing at his side, New York’s action hero Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced his resignation and quit after getting caught in a prostitution ring by a federal wiretap.



Twain’s comment: “It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.”



The elected serve as Twain’s favorite targets — “Washington is a stud farm for every jackass in the country,” and “Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” Nonetheless, the storyteller’s ruminations prompt all listeners to take stock of our own flawed pursuits. In the one-man show, Twain doesn’t let himself off the hook either, recalling his aversion to almost all forms of work, except for his boyhood dream of piloting a riverboat.



Twain’s comment: “That California get-rich-quick disease of my youth spread like wildfire. It produced a civilization which has destroyed the simplicity and repose of life, its poetry, its soft romantic dreams and visions, and replaced them with a money fever, sordid ideals, vulgar ambitions and the sleep which does not refresh. It has created a thousand useless luxuries and turned them into necessities, and satisfied nothing. It has dethroned God and set up a shekel in his place. Oh, the dreams of our youth — how beautiful they are, and how perishable.”



Apparently, Americans in 1905 struggled just as mightily as our generation with choices in their lives.



Once the wisecracks and reflections ended, Holbrook exited, cigar in hand, to a standing ovation from the packed auditorium in a city on the Illinois prairie. As we walked out, you couldn’t help but think the real Twain would’ve been amazed at how right he still is.







Mark Bennett writes for The Tribune Star in Terre Haute, Ind. He can be reached at mark.bennett@tribstar.com .