Someone asked off-list if "The Case of Rev. Dr. Ament, Missionary," was the letter Mark Twain published in the New York Tribune on February 15, 1901. It isn't. I don't have a copy of the manuscript of "The Case of Rev. Dr. Ament, Missionary," and quoted it only very briefly in the introduction to "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" in Mark Twain's Weapons of Satire: Anti-Imperialist Writings on the Philippine-American War. That book was published in 1992 so my memory of the whole manuscript is very sketchy at this point. The quote (or paraphrasing), though, goes like this: "In 'The Case of Rev. Dr. Ament, Missionary,' an unpublished article written in February 1901, he stated that there was 'no difference' between the missionary's assessment of fines thirteen times the value of property damaged by the Boxers and McKinley's goal of Benevolent Assimilation of the Philippines." The citation listed the article as "The Case of Rev. Dr. Ament, Missionary," manuscript, Mark Twain Papers. Since then, a microfilm edition of Mark Twain's manuscripts has been published. See the bottom of the page at: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/MTP/publications.html The letter to the New York Tribune was published in response to a letter by Rev. Judson Smith of the American Board of Foreign Missions. The two letters were published under the headline "Mark Twain Says Not I" with a subheading of "Mark Twain's Answer" for his part. Twain says in the letter that if necessary he will respond at length in the North American Review. I think "The Case of Rev. Dr. Ament, Missionary," was the first version of that longer response intended for publication in the North American Review. It referred to the "thirteen times" extra indemnity so his response had to be revised or rewritten after Ament said the indemnity was only "one-third" extra. "To My Missioanry Critics," published in the April North American Review, includes a long discussion discounting the difference between the two amounts. Neither the letter to the Tribune nor "To My Missionary Critics" contains a direct statement connecting missionary activities in China and the conquest of the Philippines like what he made in "The Case of Rev. Dr. Ament, Missionary." The New York Sun (the source of Twain's quotes about Ament) and New York Tribune for this period are available online at the Library of Congress's newspaper collection at: Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers http://www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/ The New York Tribune seems to be available either as a partial run or is not indexed properly, but "Mark Twain Says Not I" is available at: http://www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/lccn/sn83030214/1901-02-15/ed- 1/seq-3 That and other newspaper collections are also useful for gauging the influence of Twain's writings on the subject. In some of the newspaper reports of the return from China of Minister Conger, Ament, and other missionaries, their photos were accompanied by photos of Mark Twain, or there would be accompanying headlines about Twain's criticism of the missionaries. Those writings had "legs" and were kept before the public throughout the year. Jim Zwick [log in to unmask]