Emperor Norton and the Art of Adaptive Begging
New Documentation Appears to Corroborate Mark Twain’s Observation That the Emperor Engaged in Street Panhandling in the Early 1860s
THE TITLE is a little provocative.
Indeed, one might well object to the characterization of Emperor Norton as a beggar. After all: Did the Emperor not provide real value in, arguably, serving as the conscience of San Francisco for 20 years — sometimes single-handedly, during the period of his reign, setting out the values of fairness, tolerance, self-determination, and the common good that came to be so strongly associated with his adopted city. And did this value not far exceed any material tributes the Emperor received from his subjects?
Of course, this is true. And yet: Between his self-declaration in September 1859 and his death in January 1880, Emperor Norton did make his way, in large part, by asking for — and receiving — cash and other benefits without providing in exchange anything that answered to the traditional marketplace definition of a good or a service.
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ACROSS MUCH OF this period, the Emperor received certain basic necessities and other amenities that he apparently did not formally request — for example:
daily rent quietly paid by Masonic brothers and other friends (mostly 1860s)
free passage on ferries and trains
saloon “free” lunches that actually were free — either a friend bought him the drink that was the standard ticket to a pass at the lunch table or the saloon simply waved him through
free laundry service from his landlady
We could call these gifts charity.
But, what of Emperor Norton’s own efforts to raise money to support himself? How are we to classify these?
The received story breaks the Emperor’s approaches to personal fundraising more or less equally across the two decades of his reign:
1860s — Collecting “taxes”
Emperor Norton paid monthly private visits to friends and former business associates, (a) reminding them of their obligations to pay “taxes” to the Imperial Government of Norton I — typically assessed at 50 cents per month — and (b) collecting these “taxes” from the more sympathetic members of this group.
It’s not difficult to imagine that the Emperor’s regular visits to…
saloons frequented by Mark Twain and his circle
cultural institutions like the Mechanics’ Institute — where he could see members like Eadweard Muybridge and Andrew Smith
any number of political forums and theatrical events
…could have provided him with additional opportunities to discreetly collect “taxes” from these friends and associates.
1870s — “Selling” signed promissory notes
Emperor Norton sold these notes — generally at 50 cents per — to the general public, including (a) residents of San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Sacramento, and other places on his California travels, and (b) tourists visiting San Francisco from near and far.
The notes were backed by the same “Imperial Government of Norton I” in whose name he collected “taxes.”
The Emperor’s primary living expenses amounted about a dollar a day…
50 cents a night for his room at the Eureka Lodgings
15–25 cents for a “free” lunch
25 cents or so for dinner at an inexpensive restaurant
…meaning that he needed to sell only two or three 50-cent notes per day to stay above water.
According to some accounts, Emperor Norton continued his “tax collecting” activities during this period and simply incorporated the promissory notes into his protocol.
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A COMPARISON of photographs of the fleshy Emp of the 1870s with the gaunt Emperor of the 1860s suggests that the promissory note strategy worked.
But, both the promissory notes and the tax collecting are examples of Emperor Norton’s ingenuity in preserving his dignity by creating forms of begging that did not look like…begging.
This is what I am calling adaptive begging.
The obituary of Emperor Norton — possibly written by Ambrose Bierce — that appeared in The Argonaut of 17 January 1880 notes that the Emperor
was a beggar, and sought alms from his old acquaintances; not an ordinary mendicant who with extended palm sat by the way-side or tramped from door to door, but an artful, ingenious beggar, who asked of his subjects such support as was denied him by reason of the fact that his government, like many others, was not recognized, and his crown, like that of many others, was but an ornament.
In a similar vein, Norton biographer William Drury writes in his 1986 account:
The Emperor was hardly a beggar, certainly not in the ordinary sense. He had never solicited coins on street corners, humbly, cap in hand, but levied his “tax” like imperial Caesar exacting tribute. If he was a beggar, he was surely the only one ever accorded the distinction of an obituary in The New York Times.
Drury is responding to the following passage in the 3 September 1880 letter Mark Twain wrote to his editor William Dean Howells — 8 months after Emperor Norton’s death:
O, dear, it was always a painful thing to me to see the Emperor (Norton I., of San Francisco) begging; for although nobody else believed he was an Emperor, he believed it.
But, this comment by Twain — who would have had ample opportunity to “see the Emperor” while living in San Francisco between 1864 and 1866 — lends itself to the interpretation that he witnessed the Emperor soliciting in an open, public, and general way, i.e., “in the streets” — not just discreetly reminding specific individuals of their “tax” obligations and doing so within the confines of a saloon or a library reading room.
Not just “adaptive begging,” in other words, but also garden-variety street panhandling — something that Emperor Norton would have regarded as being beneath his dignity, making it that much more “painful” for the Emperor to have to engage in than it was for Twain to see.
It may be difficult for those of us who are fond of Emperor Norton to contemplate that he ever was reduced to such circumstances. But there is at least some anecdotal evidence to suggest that he was — that the Emperor didn’t always have a strategy in place, wasn’t always in control, wasn’t so exceptional that he magically avoided the brutest facts of his life-situation.
Recently, I found my way “back” to a humorous editorial than I’d seen before — but that I never had considered for its insight into the Emperor’s fundraising practices.
The editorial, “The Good Weather Coming,” appeared in the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin of 10 September 1863. Remarking on a recent spate of pleasant weather in the city, marked by the retreat of wind and fog — and the promise of more such days to follow — the writer observes that
there is a singular sensation experienced when we first miss the fog. One gets so wonted to see it rolling in from seaward, plunging down hills by its own gravity, and gathering over the naked sand beaches and ridges like full flowing drapery, that the local picture seems incomplete without it….Probably as many will complain of the blue sky, pure and unadulterated, as, we are told, complained of the white milk when the milkman, having put on honesty of a sudden, furnished customers such a beverage, instead of the beautifully blue fluid to which they had so long become accustomed.
But there are at least five of our permanent population who enjoy fine weather, if no more. Emperor Norton, Bummer and Lazarus, Candidate Coombs [Freddy Coombs a.k.a. George Washington II] and the tattered, willowy-looking old Frenchman who sleeps under a tree and lives altogether under a metaphorical rose, all these understand what constitutes good weather and how to make the most of it.
Elaborating on the Emperor, the writer continues:
L’Empereur Norton is too busy with affairs of state, the Japanese imbroglio above all others, to pay much attention to the air, or for that matter to water — having apparently neglected the Imperial washbowl, it may be for years, and it may be forever — but he still shows that the weather has a relaxing influence on the grimness of his rule by abating the rigor of his decrees and accepting half-dollars with more alacrity than usual.
Here’s the full editorial:
“The Good Weather Coming,” editorial, San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, 10 September 1863, p. 3. Source: Genealogy Bank
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NOTE THAT the Bulletin editorialist is writing in September 1863 — fully seven years before the earliest extant example of a signed Norton promissory note in November 1870.
In other words: In late summer 1863, the Emperor Norton still is some years away from providing anything tangible in exchange for financial contributions to the Empire.
Beyond this, I offer two sets of observations — one general and one specific.
First, the general.
The Bulletin writer comments, in part, on how good weather shapes the attitudes and activities of Emperor Norton and other characters who were associated with the outdoors.
The writer notes that the weather has a “relaxing influence” on the Emperor that has him “accepting half–dollars” — outdoors, apparently — “with more alacrity than usual.”
“Alacrity.” A word that Webster’s defines as “promptness in response : cheerful readiness.”
If the Emperor was “accepting half–dollars with more alacrity than usual,” this suggests that there already was a “usual” practice of “accepting” against which to measure the Emperor’s alacrity.
One way of seeing this…
The better the weather, the greater the number of people on the street — and the better the odds for finding those willing to part with a half-dollar.
“Accepting” does not necessarily mean “asking for.” But, given the light-hearted tone of the column and the satirical norm for newspaper writing during this period, it stands to reason that “accepting” was intended as a euphemism for “panhandling.”
At the very least, it probably was meant to convey that — especially in good weather — the Emperor Norton of the streets “made himself available for donations” in a very obvious way: with alacrity.
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NOW, the specific…
“Half-dollars.”
Nearly all of the promissory notes that Emperor Norton “issued” and “sold” from 1870 until his death in in 1880 were in the denomination of 50 cents.
The “half-dollars” detail in the September 1863 editorial could be seen as an early indicator of the Emperor’s preferred “ask” — and as a sign that, in fact, he was panhandling at a rate of “four bits per” in 1863.
1863.
The editorial is from September 1863.
It’s reasonable to guess that it took Emperor Norton a few years after declaring himself in September 1859 to establish a “tax-collecting” protocol that was sufficient to meet even his minimal financial needs.
During this early period of his reign, the Emperor might have had no choice but to resort to traditional street panhandling.
What I wouldn’t give to hear a tape recording of the Emperor’s most elegant Montgomery Street pitch in 1863.