After Kuan Chung-ming was selected as National Taiwan University’s new president and the DPP obstructed him through various means, we discover in a letter written by literary master Mark Twain titled “Campaigning for Governor” that the practice of murdering character through political power for bloated authority has never ceased. Evil politicians are like malignant tumors continuously devouring the nation, whether it’s the Education Ministry’s eight documents interfering with Kuan or the great villain Qin Hui sending twelve gold plaques to appeal Yue Fei’s death.
There seems to be no way to escape such attacks. Deeply humiliated, I prepared to “respond” to that heap of groundless accusations and those vile slanderous rumors.
But I never completed that work. The next morning, another newspaper published a new horrific story, again maliciously attacking me, severely accusing me of burning down a lunatic asylum, incinerating all its patients, merely because it obstructed my home’s view. This threw me into panic.
Then came another accusation that I had poisoned my uncle to seize his property, with urgent demands to exhume the body for autopsy. This nearly drove me mad.
That wasn’t enough—another charge was added, saying when I worked as director of a foundling hospital, I had employed toothless, aged, incompetent relatives as cooks. I began to waver, completely waver.
Finally, partisan hatred and shameless persecution targeting me reached its natural climax: nine small children, various complexions and poverty-stricken appearances, were coached to rush on stage at a public assembly, grab my legs, and call me “Daddy!”
I abandoned the campaign. I lowered my flag and admitted defeat. I was unfit for New York’s gubernatorial race. Thus I issued my withdrawal statement, signing it in regret:
“Your faithful friend—once an honest man but now converted into a perjurer, burglar, body-snatcher, drunkard, swindler, and blackmailer—Mark Twain.”
—Mark Twain, “Campaigning for Governor,” 1870.