Reference

"To the Person Sitting in Darkness" is an essay by American author Mark Twain published in the North American Review in February 1901. “To the Person Sitting in Darkness,” which Mark Twain published in the North American Review in 1901, attacks Western imperialism as it was manifesting itself in South Africa, China, Cuba, and the Philippines. In Europe and Elsewhere (1923), Twain's literary executor, Albert Bigelow Paine, altered "To the Person Sitting in Darkness," a work that Twain himself had seen through the press, by removing the controversial section on William Ament and the indemnities issue in China in the aftermath of the Boxer Uprising.[12]

According to Twain biographer Albert Bigelow Paine, "Twain, of course, was fiercely stirred. The missionary idea had seldom appealed to him, and coupled with this business of bloodshed, it was less attractive than usual. ... the Czar - and their instruments, especially the Reverend William Scott Ament, a Congregationalist minister who was

It names its villains - William McKinley, Joseph Chamberlain, the Kaiser, the Czar - and their instruments, especially the Reverend William Ament, a Congregationalist minister who was affiliated with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. According to Twain biographer Albert Bigelow Paine: [39]