Our country has a long history of comedy and our constitution and the first amendment right to freedom of speech has combined to give wide latitude to people who want to voice their opinion about all sorts of diverse subjects from politics to sports, religion and business. Before the days of David Letterman and Johnny Carson skewering American culture and politics on late night television, we had radio and vaudeville personalities like Will Rogers to do the job of bringing this special form of American humor before the public.
Looking even earlier, there were threads of stand-up social comedy in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Friars Club, now famed for its “roasts” was founded in 1904 and, while the roasts didn’t start under that name till the 50’s, as early as 1910, the group was famed for sending up its members: .” ‘FRIARS KID MR. HARRIS: Veteran Theatrical Manager Butt of Jokes at Dinner,’ read the headline of the December 10, 1910 issue of the New York Tribune.”
During the nineteenth century the fine art of lampooning an audience was largely left to smaller venues – vaudeville houses like the Rose Theater in Port Townsend, social halls and fraternal organizations. A few of these acts received sufficient exposure through writing in newspapers or magazines to make them renowned. One of the best known was Mark Twain a humorist known as much then for his appearance on the lecture circuit as for his books. Indeed, it appears that despite Twain’s success in selling books, he hit the lecture circuit to bail himself out of some bad investments. He also seems to have invested widely and one of his investments was in the Hartford Accident Insurance Company where he became a Director. That was why on October. 12, 1874 he found himself in Hartford, Connecticut addressing a number of insurance people at a dinner for an insurance dignitary from London. Hartford at the time was a growing industrial and service center. In addition to the insurance industry – Hartford Accident Insurance was there along with Travelers Insurance and it was the home of the Colt Arms Company and a major gravestone and monument business owned by the Batterson family.
Mark Twain was the speaker at an insurance company dinner in honor of their London visitor and in the nature of comedians everywhere, he seized the opportunity to create a memorable evening in praise of the industry. Given the nature of Mark Twain, we can be reasonably sure they knew what they were getting into. What follows is the full text of Mark Twain’s introduction of Mr. Cornelius Walford of London:
GENTLEMEN: I am glad, indeed, to assist in welcoming the distinguished guest of this occasion to a city whose fame as an insurance center has extended to all lands, and given us the name of being a quadruple band of brothers working sweetly hand in hand–the Colt’s Arms Company making the destruction of our race easy and convenient, our life insurance citizens paying for the victims when they pass away, Mr. Batterson perpetuating their memory with his stately monuments, and our fire-insurance comrades taking care of their hereafter. I am glad to assist in welcoming our guest first, because he is an Englishman, and I owe a heavy debt of hospitality to certain of his fellow-countrymen; and secondly, because he is in sympathy with insurance and has been the means of making many other men cast their sympathies in the same direction.
Certainly there is no nobler field for human effort than the insurance line of business–especially accident insurance. Ever since I have been a director in an accident-insurance company I have felt that I am a better man. Life has seemed more precious. Accidents have assumed a kindlier aspect. Distressing special providences have lost half their horror. I look upon a cripple now with affectionate interest–as an advertisement. I do not seem to care for poetry any more. I do not care for politics–even agriculture does not excite me. But to me now there is a charm about a railway collision that is unspeakable.
There is nothing more beneficent than accident insurance. I have seen an entire family lifted out of poverty and into affluence by the simple boon of a broken leg. I have had people come to me on crutches, with tears in their eyes, to bless this beneficent institution. In all my experience of life, I have seen nothing so seraphic as the look that comes into a freshly mutilated man’s face when he feels in his vest pocket with his remaining hand and finds his accident ticket all right. And I have seen nothing so sad as the look that came into another splintered customer’s face when he found he couldn’t collect on a wooden leg.
I will remark here, by way of advertisement, that that noble charity which we have named the HARTFORD ACCIDENT INSURANCE COMPANY–[The speaker is a director of the company named.]–is an institution which is peculiarly to be depended upon. A man is bound to prosper who gives it his custom.
No man can take out a policy in it and not get crippled before the year is out. Now there was one indigent man who had been disappointed so often with other companies that he had grown disheartened, his appetite left him, he ceased to smile–life was but a weariness. Three weeks ago I got him to insure with us, and now he is the brightest, happiest spirit in this land has a good steady income and a stylish suit of new bandages every day, and travels around on a shutter.
I will say, in conclusion, that my share of the welcome to our guest is none the less hearty because I talk so much nonsense, and I know that I can say the same for the rest of the speakers.
Mr. Walford was actually a highly regarded member of the English insurance world. His obituary included the following observation: “His (Walford’s) name was even better known in America than here in connexion with insurance questions; and during a business visit to America several years ago he was presented with a handsome testimonial from members of insurance societies on the other side of the Atlantic. “ It was a handsome testimonial indeed.