Mark Twain Quotes
A country which cannot afford Ambassadors' wages should be ashamed to have Ambassadors.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910. At the time, America only paid $17, 500 a year to its ambassadors who had numerous expenses they had to bear personally. The practice was to only appoint very wealthy people as ambassadors but an average, very qualified person, could not afford to take the job. There was no shortage of rich people and many of them would “pay” with various bribes and campaign contributions. Even in the 21st century, the American ambassadors to the most prestigious nations had to donate large sums to the President’s campaign in order to be considered for the appointment. Twain lobbied for a salary of $75,000 per year. There was no change made then.
Mark Twain, Writer, Founder, Anti-Imperialist League, Quoted in New York Times, March 26, 1899
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The highest court in New York.
The $250,000 sum would come to over $1 million in 2001 dollars. Nixon was not the first President who would only appoint an Ambassador if they made a large campaign donation, but he was the most explicit and overt.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was lauded as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," and William Faulkner called him "the father of American literature". His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), the latter often called "The Great American Novel".
