Running for Governor

The sketch “Running for Governor” was originally published in the Buffalo Express in November 1870 and in The Galaxy in December 1870 (10:6, 878-880).

The Library of America’s Story of the Week article on the sketch elaborates on the historical context:

The 1870 New York gubernatorial election pitted the Democratic incumbent, John T. Hoffman, against the Republican, Stewart Lyndon Woodford, a decorated Civil War veteran and former lieutenant governor. Previously the mayor of New York City (the last to become governor of the state), Hoffman was closely connected with Boss Tweed’s Tammany Hall political machine and won the election with over 52% of the vote. Two years later, however, Hoffman would be drummed out of office after The New York Times ran a series of exposés on Tweed’s corrupting influence over regional politics and the embezzlement of tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds.

What’s not as well known about the 1870 election is Mark Twain’s brief entry into the race for governor—at least in an imaginative piece published shortly after the election. ‘Running for Governor’ appeared as his monthly column for Galaxy magazine and in the local Buffalo Express newspaper, and it was thereafter widely reprinted. (In some versions, the names of the major party candidates were changed to ‘John T. Smith’ and ‘Blank J. Blank.’) It would not be the only time Twain mocked Governor Hoffman in his writing. The following year he published Mark Twain’s (Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance, which included illustrations that had nothing to do with the text: caricatures of various robber barons and politicians (including Hoffman) captioned with lines from the nursery rhyme ‘The House that Jack Built.’ Two years later Twain had second thoughts about the book as a whole, considering it one of his lesser efforts, and had the plates destroyed.
(Story of the Week: Running for Governor)

Many years after the text's first circulation in the US, it became the cause of some confusion in the German press. A number of German journalists had difficulties understanding the satirical tone of the piece and mistook fiction for factual reporting. The partial translation and commentary printed in the Berliner Börsen-Zeitung, 11 Sep 1880, 8, provides the reader with little assistance in determining the reliability of Mark Twain's descriptions. An article in Baltimore's Der Deutsche Correspondent on October 7, 1880, (MD-035) complains about the "fabelhafte Dummheit" (fabulous stupidity) with which some of Germany's larger newspapers treat the election satire as a true story.

Article Pages

linked to Running for Governor (2)

• MD-034 • Eine amerikanische Wahl-Candidatur • 2 Oct 1880
• MD-035 • [German newspapers mistaken] • 7 Oct 1880