Certain themes come up again and again in the Proclamations of Emperor Norton. The Emperor’s demand for revised or completely new national and California state Constitutions, for example. Or his insistence on being provided with accommodations or clothing better suited to his status as Emperor.
Most often, when the Emperor returns to an earlier theme, he simply issues a fresh iteration of the imperative that reads as though he is stating it for the first time.
Sometimes, though, he makes a point of referencing his original Proclamation on the subject, as if to say: “I shouldn’t have to repeat myself, but your inaction on the matter leaves me with no other choice.”
In at least one documented case, the Emperor issued a Proclamation on a matter more than a decade after he initially stated his policy on it.
This latter practice suggests that Emperor Norton had a good memory. It also raises interesting questions about what kind of records the Emperor might have kept about his Proclamations and their publication history.
Presented here are three examples, together with a few concluding thoughts on the question of imperial record keeping.
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In 1936, the San Francisco News ran a profile of 75-year-old "pioneer bartender" Jimmy Giusto in which Giusto claimed that Emperor Norton preferred a bag of candy to a drink.
This prompted a letter from a George Murphy calling out Giusto for exaggerating his pioneer bona fides. Murphy claimed to be "a gentleman who drank with 'Emperor' Norton" and went on to assert that the Emperor could not have frequented candy stores, as that would have made the Emperor a "sissy."
We disagree with Murphy on the last point, as there is a practical reason why Emperor Norton could have had a fondness for candy.
But, the whole episode illustrates how slippery memory can be.
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In early 1850, Joshua Norton was brought before San Francisco Alcalde John W. Geary on charge of assault — and was found guilty and fined.
That’s how a “Pioneer” eyewitness remembered it in 1887, in the pages of The Overland Monthly.
Corroborating — preferably contemporaneous — evidence would be needed in order to give this story full credence. But, IF the story is true, it could be seen as providing an early anchor and baseline for later documented reports that Emperor Norton could be prone to having a short fuse, if he felt he was being disrespected.
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