1 May 1880 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 01798)
I want to go to Washington, but it ain’t any use, business-wise, for Congress
won’t bother with anything but President-making. My publisher got me to send a letter
of his to Blaine a month or two ago,
in which our grievance was fully set forth. I didn’t believe Blaine would interest
himself in the matter, & I was
right. You 
just get that letter from Blaine, & cast your eye over it, & try to arrive at a realizing
sense of
what a silly & son-of-a-bitch of a law the present law against book-piracy is. I believe it was framed by
an
goddamd idiot, & passed by a Congress of goddamd muttonheads.
Now you come up here—that is the thing to do. I,Ⓐemendation also have Scotch whisky, certain lemons, & hot water, & struggle with the same every night.
If you want to see how thoroughly foolish section 4964 is, just read it & substitute
the words
“U. S. treasury note” for the w “copy of such “counterfeit U. S. treasury
note” for the words “copy of such book.”
My books sell at $3.50 a copy, their Canadian counterfeit at 25
& 50 cents. If I could siezeⒶemendation
all the Canadian counterfeits I could no more use them to my advantage than the Government
could use bogus
notes to its advantage. The only desirable & useful thing, in both cases, 
is
the utter suppression of the counterfeits. The government treats its counterfeiters as
criminals, but mine as erring gentlemen. What I want is that mineⒶemendation shall be treated as criminals too.
Hon. R. M. Daggett, M. C. | Washington | D C
postmarked:
hartford conn. may 1 6pm
References
- University of California, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, Berkeley
- Machlis, Paul, ed. Union Catalog of Clemens Letters. Edited by Paul Machlis. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. [In some cases, UCCL catalog numbers cited in this volume supersede those assigned in 1986 and reflect corrections or additions to the catalog since publication. An updated version of the catalog can be consulted via the Letters Search page at MTPO.] 1986
- Microfilm Edition of Mark Twain’s Manuscript Letters Now in the Mark Twain Papers. Prepared by Anh Quynh Bui, Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, Robert H. Hirst, Lin Salamo, and Harriet Elinor Smith. 11 vols. Berkeley: The Bancroft Library. 2001
MS, CU-MARK.
MicroML, reel 4.
See Tufts Collection in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.