Imagine for a second, a Hunger Games-type scenario where the great empires of the world (Great Britain, Germany, the United States, etc.) were thrown into an arena with the nations that they imperialized (South Africa, Cameroon, the Philippines, etc.) to play a game characterized by violence and domination.

Rules don't exist, while alliances can be made or broken. And spectators sit in the dark, like total creeps, waiting to see what happens.

This is the gist of Mark Twain's essay, "To the Person Sitting in Darkness."

Twain wrote this essay as a satirical critique of imperialism. He likens the world of empires to a game of sorts. A game where the U.S. tries to play by European rules but fails miserably in the process. Ultimately, it's a harsh criticism. And he's not afraid to name names, calling out folks like William McKinley and Joseph Chamberlain of England for basically ruining the world.

It's easy to remember Twain for his more lighthearted works like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer but he also spent a significant chunk of time writing dark-themed essays like this one criticizing American imperialism.

Compared to Twain's anti-imperialism stuff, Bryan's speech looks like sparkle rainbows and happy sunrays. Despite Twain's disturbing imagery though, the messages of the two were pretty much the same: don't act like a European empire when the American way of doing things is so much better.