Pearl River      Here’s a treat, as well as a bit of déjà vu.  Here in the age of Mamdani in New York City and the many years that ACORN alone and via the Working Families Party was in the middle of elections in the city, I stumbled onto an ACORN forbearer with a similar success story, but this time with taking down the Tammany Hall political machine.

I was listening to Ron Chernow’s Mark Twain published to strong praise last year on the public library’s audiobook app, Libby, as I drove across Lake Ponchartrain to check on whether pipes had broken at the camp.  All of a sudden, two-thirds through this Chernow-typical lengthy book, Twain was being feted after an election at the ACORN headquarters.  I’m not sure that the ACORN political club was capitalized or closer to the nut, since I was listening, not reading, so be patient with me.

Twain at the time had returned to America after a lengthy stay in Europe and Britain to wider fame and notoriety.  Well-known for his humor, essays, and literary efforts, he was at the apex of his fame as a celebrity.  Older now, than when he had left, he was freer in in his opinions and willing to take stands and be controversial, whether criticizing US imperialism in the Philippines or sticking his nose in local politics with reformers now that he was living in New York City.  Humorously, he had written an essay proposing to found the Doughnut Party.  Then, as now, he was poking at the way various politicos would pass out doughnuts at the polls and to the police to win favor or votes.  He was arguing that in this party no one would take a doughnut from either party, but would “vote for the best man.”

Long and short of it, he ended up supporting a reformer against Tammany Hall with the ACORNs, or so I thought I heard.  Sure enough, I went on the internet matching Twain, ACORN, New York City election, and Tammany Hall, and up popped an article in the New York Times from November 7, 1901, about 125 years ago, entitled, “THE ACORNS” HOLD AN ELECTION JUBILEE; Mark Twain Delivers a Mock Eulogy on Tammany. Then They Parade Up Broadway to Forty-second Street and Burn Richard Croker in Effigy.”  How great is that?

I’ll share some flavor of the moment,

“The Acorns,” …held a boisterous triumph …in which not less than 5,000 people participated before it was all over. Mark Twain was the central figure, and delivered mock eulogies over those to whom he referred as the “dear departed” of Tammany Hall. As the noisy parade passed the headquarters of that organization, …the Old Guard Band, which led them, played the melancholy music of “Go Waaa-y Back and Sit Down,” before the almost deserted hall…. The …celebration closed immediately after with the cremation of an effigy of [Tammany boss] Mr. Croker borne aloft on a long pole, before the Metropolitan Opera House. This proceeding the police vainly tried to prevent. A number of bluecoats made a rush with drawn clubs toward the flaming figure, but somebody at that moment created a diversion by calling for three cheers for Mark Twain, and when the effect of this had passed there was not enough left of the image of the ruler of Wantage to make it worth anybody’s while to start the riot that seemed imminent. The policemen threw the effigy on the pavement. Some of the newcomers who had been attracted by the show tried to attack the men who had held it, but the leaders of the Acorns averted the trouble by hustling these threatened men off into the main body of the paraders, and the policemen and Tammany sympathizers were free to stamp out the fire in the burning mass, which they did with vigor. Brooms hung all about the Acorns’ home and a line of them stretched across Broadway above the traffic before the door, and all the men on the platform wore little brooms on hats or coats.

Mark Twain, ACORN, New York City, mayoralty elections, marches, and reform make it seem like the whole gang is together again now, like it has been before and was then.  Nothing funny about any of that.  We just need to keep carrying that banner and step to the march.