Export Trade Quotes
At the time, the Chamber of Commerce represented the small and medium business which were being decimated by the large businesses and their monopolies. A century later, the Chamber became a creature of the large business and their money and by 2010, the Chamber had virtually become the representative of the large businesses outside of the high technology field and had become a campaigning arm of the Republican Party, In 1880 however, they called public attention to the abuses of the large corporate monopolies.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910. This is a great example of extreme political sarcasm. One big political issue of the day was poverty and the poor. Most of the politicians condemned poverty but offered to do nothing about it or take actions that would even make life worse for the poor. So Twain, writing as a “presidential candidate” made this suggestion which would reduce the number of poor and improve our export trade. He then proposes his campaign slogan, today called a sound bite. Real politicians were faced with this absurd idea, were then challenged to come up with an idea that was not absurd.
