[In the following essay, Ferguson critiques Mark Twain's utopian story “The Curious Republic of Gondour.”]

“The Curious Republic of Gondour” was published anonymously in Atlantic Monthly for Oct. 1895. It was a time when Mark Twain was actively concerned with politics. He was not a party politician, though his sympathies were generally Republican. The 1876 Presidential campaign was the first in which he was deeply involved emotionally: he believed intensely in Hayes's commitment to clean government, and thought that Tilden's election would be a disaster.

Mark Twain's political thinking was in fact independent. He was firmly a republican, and a disbeliever in monarchy, and took satisfaction in the collapse of the thrones of Europe: “There never was a throne which did not represent a crime.” He was in some sense a democrat. He recognized and acknowledged that civilization depends upon the labour of the common man. Indeed he said—though perhaps his precise meaning drifts into epigram—“There are no common people except in the highest spheres of society.” He never questioned the existence of a ruling group, a power structure. He objected to the existence in some countries of a ruling class. Even in America the trouble was that the wrong people reached the top. The power of money was too great, too absolute, and led to corruption. Hence the Equator aphorism, “It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress,” and his warning to burglars that if they continued their present lines of criminal activity they might end up in the Senate.

“The Curious Republic of Gondour” is Mark Twain's Utopia, an early one, for though he has Plato, More, Campanella and others behind him, it comes early in the queue of late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century ideal states, just after Samuel Butler's satirical Erewhon and just before W. H. Mallock's The New Republic. The fact that he published it anonymously shows that he took it seriously: he did not want it to be dismissed as a flight of humorous whimsy, though we can detect the author's distinctive style in a minute.

He elected to give this Utopia a semi-dramatic form. He did not, like Plato, use the dialogue. He implies a voyage or journey to a strange and distant land. The origin of this lies in The Odyssey; it was taken up in the Hellenistic Utopias of Euhemerus and Iambulus, and their satirical echo in Lucian; it was found again, influenced by Vespucci's voyages, in More. The symbolism of the journey or quest is appropriate enough. But, unlike his predecessors, Mark Twain makes nothing of the journey, and plunges straight on.

Universal suffrage delivers power into the hands of the ignorant and non-taxpaying classes. So Mark declares his values at the outset—education and money. His answer is not to limit the suffrage, which would be psychologically impossible, but to “enlarge” it. Starting from the basis of one man one vote, additional votes were acquired in Gondour on the basis of education, and, to a lesser extent, property. “Therefore, learning being more prevalent and more easily acquired than riches, educated men became a wholesome check upon wealthy men, since they could outvote them. Learning goes usually with uprightness, broad views, and humanity; so the learned voters, possessing the balance of power, became the vigilant and efficient protectors of the great lower rank of society.”

Twain now imagines that voting-power became the great object of emulation. Votes based on money were “mortal,” votes based on learning were “immortal.” Gambling almost died out, because there was too much to lose (surprisingly poor psychology here). Young men became good “catches” in proportion to their vote-power. Courtesies were shown in similar proportion (The hand of the author is visible through the anonymity here as he speaks of greeting someone with a “four-vote bow”). Competitive examinations, as in ancient China, were the rule in all official grades. Ignorance and incompetence had no place in government. “Brains and property ruled the state.” Payment for office was liberal. The head of state was elected for twenty years, but his office was titular and he was liable to impeachment for misconduct. Mark has a touch of slightly patronizing feminism: there had been some women heads of state and cabinet ministers (He was in fact somewhat ambivalent to women in politics: in 1867 he declared “I never want to see women voting, and gabbling about politics, and electioneering,” but by 1901 he was saying “I should like to see that whiplash, the ballot, in the hands of women.”) Education was free but not compulsory; there was no need to make it compulsory when it was the pathway to power.

Mark Twain's Utopia is thus a meritocracy. Like most Utopian writers he lays great stress on education; from Plato onwards this is a feature of Utopianism. It is a partially justified conclusion only. Our experience of West Africa suggests that university graduates, though more sophisticated, are not necessarily politically wiser than technically and formally illiterate peasants, who are often politically shrewd and experienced. Even in Britain the most intellectually brilliant member of the House of Commons, Enoch Powell, does not seem to many of us the wisest counsellor. Richard Crossman was intellectually more brilliant than Clement Attlee, but far inferior to him as a statesman. Further (though no one questions Enoch Powell's integrity) there is no evidence that learning goes with uprightness, and it is frequently accompanied by narrow views and an absence of humanity. On the other hand, if there is to be representative government, then those in office are inevitably exposed to a great deal of paper work. Emergent nations might be well advised to stick to “One man one vote” but to apply some sort of educational test for office-holders.

A second point of criticism might be that Gondour places undue value on property. Curiously, there is no indication in the sketch as to whether property is inherited. If so, there could be little justification for the condition. The overt reason for it is clearly stated. Management of property is equated with political competence. A successful business man is plainly competent at something, though it is difficult to say at what, except business. The skills he exercises are not necessarily those of government, nor are they necessarily the best training for those of government. Furthermore the management of property is essentially and primarily self-interested, government ought to be essentially and primarily altruistic. Worse, the accumulation of votes in the hands of those who have property does nothing to ensure that the skills of property [are] available in government, only that those with property will vote to put into office people who will protect property. The best that can be said for this provision is that it might be an initial limitation of the power of wealth which the wealthy would accept.

It is interesting to contrast Mark Twain's formula for avoiding corruption with Plato's. Plato saw that bad government comes from corruption and nepotism, exactly the two forces which destroyed the past Republic of Nigeria, and so allowed his ruling-class access to neither property nor families. The solution seems fantastic (though the diagnosis is unerring) until we remember that he demanded of them no more than the mediaeval church demanded of its monks, whom in many ways they resembled. Mark Twain does not touch on nepotism, and assumes that adequate pay will eliminate corruption. There is at least a negative truth here: an underpaid police force will soon breed corruption. But it is not the general experience of mankind that the poor are more corrupt than the rich, or that having plenty of money is a barrier to acquisitiveness. On the contrary.

Mark Twain's Utopia is thus a piece of conservatively progressive thinking. Aristotle had affirmed that a “mixed” constitution was best. This is Mark's conclusion.