SIDELIGHTS ON FRANK M C GLYNN $4.00 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN by FRANK McGLYNN On the night of November 24, 1919, the first American performance of John Drinkwater's play, Abraham Lincoln, was given at Stamford, Connecticut. Frank Mc- Glynn was cast in the title role, and he played it for the three years that the pro- duction toured the country. Everywhere the response was the same: a packed house, an ovation for the play and for the man who "made Lincoln live again." Many of the people who saw the play had lived in Lincoln's time and had vivid memories of the great man. They went to the play reluctantly, half fearing that McGlynn's characterization would conflict with their own impressions of Lincoln's character. But their fears were soon dis- (Continued on Back Flap) LINCOLN ROOM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY MEMORIAL the Class of 1901 founded by HARLAN HOYT HORNER and HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/sidelightsonlincOOmcgl :^m^A- %mS? PKotograpK of an oil painting of Lincoln by Frank McGIynn. SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN h Eminent American character actor whose outstand- ing work was his portrayal of the title role in John Drinkwater's classic drama, "Abraham Lincoln, 3 ' Wetzel Publishing Co., Inc. Los Angeles • California COPYRIGHT. 1947 BY WETZEL PUBLISHING CO., INC. 5 6. Lincoln's endorsement on a petition for the reprieve of a young soldier, showing Lincoln's character- istically merciful attitude. SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN How I Knew I Was to Play Lincoln In the early fall of 1919, I was playing "Tims", a farcical character in a comedy entitled Double Har- ness. I had taken this engagement after a long period of unemployment, caused mainly by the first World War and the subsequent strike of the actors, through both of which I had had the responsibility of main- taining my wife and six children. To say the least, I was not very jubilant when, after a three weeks' run, the managers announced that they could not secure a theatre in New York in which to house the play and that the company would close in Allentown, Pennsyl- vania. On the closing night I was standing in the wings about to make my entrance in the last act of the play when Howard Sloat, our stage manager, approached me, holding out a telegram. As he handed it to me, he said, "It's an unusual thing, Frank, to give tele- grams before the end of the play, but I know it's all right with you." I opened the telegram, but because of the poor light 19 20 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN and the fact that I did not have my glasses with me, I was unable to read it. "What's the signature?" I asked Sloat. Glancing at the telegram, he replied, "Georgia Wolfe." I knew that Georgia Wolfe was a dramatic agent in New York. Calling my friend, Charles Dow Clark, the principal actor in the play, who was also waiting to make an entrance, I asked him if he had time to read the wire to me. We stepped over near one of the off- stage lamps and he began to read very slowly. "Will you consider through this office fine engage- ment " "Oh, quit your kidding, Charley," I said. "Read the telegram." "No, it's here. It's here!" he protested, then con- tinued to read : "Am authorized to wire you in regards same. If so, please phone tonight midnight Bryant eight one three. Ask for Lester Lonergan. Very Impor- tant." Charley laughed. "Will you be there, Frank?" he asked. "Will I be there? I'll be there with bells on!" So at midnight Charley Clark, John Hendricks, an- other member of the cast and I went to a public tele- phone booth. I called the number given in the wire and Lester Lonergan answered. Immediately, Mr. HOW I KNEW I WAS TO PLAY LINCOLN 21 Lonergan asked me, "Have you read Abraham Lin- coin?" For a moment I was puzzled. "Do you mean the life of Abraham Lincoln?" "No, no, the play — the play — John Drinkwater's play, Abraham Lincoln!" I had to admit that I hadn't. Then Mr. Lonergan started to tell me something about the play. In the midst of all this, probably be- cause of my having had to pinch pennies, I interrupted him, saying, "I don't want to cause you any great ex- pense for this message, Mr. Lonergan. We're closing here tonight and I'll be in New York tomorrow at one o'clock." "Fine," said he. "Come to my home on your ar- rival," and he gave me his address. My train was an hour late arriving in New York, consequently, my interview with Mr. Lonergan was postponed until seven o'clock that evening, at which time he, Mrs. Lonergan and I met and discussed the possibility of my playing the title role in "Abraham Lincoln." Because of many conflicting published accounts of how I came to secure the role of Lincoln, I want to re- late the exact circumstances. From my experiences during this episode in my life, I have come to the con- clusion that many of the statements made about Abra- 22 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN ham Lincoln were just as erroneous as were the numerous items published in the papers as to how Mr. Harris had "discovered" me. They were extravagant yarns and were absolutely without any foundation. Here are the facts : Mr. Lonergan told me how my name had been brought to his attention. Mr. Robert Conness, a well- known Broadway actor and a very dear friend of mine for many years, was a great friend of his also, and dur- ing the previous summer had occupied a cottage be- longing to Mr. Lonergan at Lake Sabago, Maine. Near by lived a Doctor Barry of Providence, Rhode Island, who was also a very good friend of Mr. Lonergan. Mr. Lonergan had given him a copy of the Drinkwater play to read. Meeting Bob Conness one evening, Doc- tor Barry told him about the play which Lonergan was to direct for William Harris, Jr., and said that he would like him to read it. Conness took the play home and read it aloud to Mrs. Conness (known to the stage as Helen Strickland), a very splendid character ac- tress. Both were enthralled by it and when he returned the manuscript to Doctor Barry the following morn- ing, Conness said, "Doctor, it's a great play and there's but one actor in this country who should enact the role of Lincoln and that's Frank McGlynn." The reason for this suggestion on his part was that when Conness and I had been members of the Edison HOW I KNEW I WAS TO PLAY LINCOLN 23 Motion Picture Stock Company in the Bronx in 1914 he had seen me in the make-up of Abraham Lincoln in a picture which was in the process of production. This, by the way, was the first time I had ever made up as Abraham Lincoln, or had had any idea that I was ca- pable of doing so, although years before, James W. Castle, well-known stage director, when he saw me in the part of "Hiram Green" in The Butterflies, has re- marked, "Frank, you could make up for Lincoln." When Mr. Harris decided to look over the field of character men, Lester Lonergan asked Conness where he could find me, Doctor Barry having repeated to him Bob's statement, and eventually things evolved as stated. I knew that I would have to impress Mr. Lonergan with the idea that I had some of the peculiar physical characteristics of Mr. Lincoln, so I deliberately as- sumed certain postures which I attributed to Lincoln. I feel positive that that interview was what convinced him, and also his wife, that I was the actor who should play the part, but never, in my later close association with him, did I tell him of the little trick I had played on him. A few days later I was called to the office of Wil- liam Harris, Jr., who was the producer of Abraham Lincoln, and there I was introduced by Mr. Lonergan to Mr. Harris. Nothing developed at that time. Our 24 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN meeting was the usual interview between a manager and an actor who was being considered for a part. However, I soon received a message from Mr. Lon- ergan requesting that I meet him again, which I did. He handed me a printed copy of the play, and, indicat- ing the scene in the second episode between Lincoln, Seward and the Southern Delegates, pointed out a speech two pages long. "I'd like you to read this for me, tomorrow," he remarked. I committed the lines to memory overnight, not wishing to have to read them from the text, which al- ways has a tendency to make the effort appear less nat- ural. At the conclusion of the reading, Mr. Lonergan said, "Well — I think that is a great reading — and I think the world will say so." I hesitate to write this, but it is the recording of a fact, and under the condi- tions at that time it made me feel as if I were at last on the road to recognition. All I could say was, "Thank you." Mr. Lonergan arranged to have me give the same reading for Mr. Harris, so one evening at about five o'clock, after having been more or less on tenterhooks all day, waiting for Mr. Harris to conclude some im- portant business, I found myself on the stage of the Hudson Theatre, on 44th Street, with Mr. Lonergan holding the book, cueing me, Mr. Harris somewhere out in the dark auditorium and no light in the theatre HOW I KNEW I WAS TO PLAY LINCOLN 25 except that which came from a stand-lamp on the darkened stage. I read not only the lines I had read for Mr. Loner- gan, but many others. Mr. Harris would say, for in- stance, "Now, would you mind reading the scene be- tween Mrs. Otherly and Lincoln?" "Would you mind reading the Chronicler?" "Would you mind reading the scene between Lincoln and the boy?," until finally the thought came to me that if I didn't get the Lincoln role, I might get the part of the Chronicler. In fact, he had me read pretty nearly the entire play. At the conclusion of the reading, Mr. Harris walked down toward the stage. "Mr. McGlynn, I've been wonderfully entertained, as much so as when I first saw the play in England," he exclaimed. "Tired?" I wasn't very truthful when I replied, "No, not very." "Would you like a drink?" he asked. "I wouldn't mind." So we went into the cafe adjoining the Hudson Theatre and had a little refreshment. All the while, I was anxious to know whether I was going to get the job, but all Mr. Harris said when we raised our glasses, was, "Well, there's nothing sure in this world, but I'm for you." And I replied, "That should be enough. Good health." And we parted. 26 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN The next ordeal came with the reading for Mr. Drinkwater, which, because of the fact that the stage was in use for a rehearsal, had to be held in the smok- ing room below the foyer of the Hudson Theatre where one's voice seemed to be confined in a barrel. After being introduced to the author, I was cued, and I again read the scene which I had previously read for Mr. Lonergan. Then Mr. Drinkwater wanted me to read the scene between Lincoln and the boy, Scott. He read the lines of the boy, and I the lines of Lincoln. After finishing that scene there was a decided silence in the room. Finally, I rose from my chair and quoted a line from the play: "You may have something to say now not for my ears," and with that I excused myself. Imagine my consternation when, a few days later, I read an announcement in the paper that another actor, and an excellent one, had been selected to play the part, for in the interim I had refused a very fine en- gagement with another management at a flattering salary, "gambling", as we actors say, on the chance of an outstanding and magnificent role. I hurried to the Harris office and showed Mr. Harris the article, but all he said in reply was, "Oh, don't be- lieve everything you read in the papers." He made no commitment, however, as to an engagement, so I sought out Lester Lonergan. "What is this?" I asked. HOW I KNEW I WAS TO PLAY LINCOLN 27 "Well," he replied, "that actor was tentatively promised the part some months ago, not a positive en- gagement, mind you, but now that the play is coming along to production, it has been felt that all those who might be suitable for the part, and are available, should be given the opportunity to read it." About a week later, I received another telephone call from Mr. Lonergan and I went immediately to his office where he was sitting chatting with Mr. Sam Jan- ney, who was later our assistant stage manager for the play. Lonergan said to Janney, "Are you going to lunch?" "Eventually," Janney replied. Then Lonergan remarked, "Well, you know what they say, 'eventually, why not now? 5 " Janney took the hint and left the office. Mr. Lonergan then arose, extended his hand and with a smile said, "Congratulation, boy, it's all yours." And that is how I knew I was to play "Lincoln." II My Conception of What Constitutes Acting So it became my duty to present to the American pub- lic a conception of Abraham Lincoln. The responsibil- ity would have been stupendous, even for an actor who had already established himself as a public favorite, but there was I, true, with long years of experience be- hind me, but certainly not "established" insofar as the New York critics and the world at large were con- cerned. It may, therefore, be well to ask a question here and to try to answer it, and in so doing to give an idea of my conception of what constitutes acting. What is acting? Can any one analyze it? Yes, and no. The mechanism of the art can be, and is, understood, but the subtle, mysterious something which is the great essential is very difficult either to comprehend or to ex- plain. There is a quality possessed by every human being, in greater or lesser degree, which is developed by the actor to its fullest. Even a child at play gives evidence of the truth of the first part of this statement. The little girl playing "lady" in the girl's game of "keeping 28 MY CONCEPTION OF WHAT CONSTITUTES ACTING 29 house" or "teacher" in the game of "school" and her playmates, playing either guests or pupils, frequently give amazing characterizations when they are not con- scious of the presence of an audience ; but let the play- ers of these games realize that their elders, or persons outside the game itself, are observing them and they immediately become self-conscious; their actions are either restrained or stilted, the enjoyment of the game is lost and their play is quickly given up. Acting, there- fore, is the development of this primary dramatic in- stinct to its fullest, and the overcoming of that self- consciousness caused by the presence of an audience. The whole technique of the stage, which in our day has been greatly changed, has been developed through the centuries. Many of the old-time methods of vocal- ization and carriage, and rules for moving about the stage have been cast aside. It is not my purpose to dis- cuss whether or not this has been entirely for the bet- terment of dramatic entertainment. What I am trying to do is to give an answer to the question: "What is acting?" Does any one know? What, for instance, is the indescribable power which is possessed by an actor, who, without lines, but by the execution of silent "busi- ness" of the play, compels all his audience to think the same thought? It is a well-known fact that two actors, playing the same role with the same business, and assuming the 30 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN same attitudes, usually achieve varied results. Out- standing proof of this statement, so far as my own ex- perience is concerned, was in Mr. Drinkwater's play, Abraham Lincoln, in the scene in the farmhouse at Appomattox where Charles Bates played the bit of "Dennis," the corporal who brings coffee and biscuits into the room at dawn. Lincoln is sleeping with his feet on one chair and his body in another and he is wrapped in his overcoat and shawl, as well as Grant's cloak which the General had placed over him in the previous scene. Secretary Hay is asleep on the bench upstage. Dennis enters quietly. He is dressed in the blue uniform of the Federal soldier with the regula- tion cap. After raising the shade, he crosses the stage and places the tray and its contents on the table near which Lincoln is asleep. Mr. Lonergan had directed Bates briefly to realize that this was a great man and to remove his cap; then to indicate that he didn't know how to awaken him ; then to offer him coffee and help him with his wraps. When the part was played by Bates, as he crossed to Lincoln, he reverently re- moved his cap as he stood upstage of Lincoln, and looking down upon the sleeping figure, he invariably whispered in a voice that was inaudible to any person not within three feet of him, "God Bless Him." The effect of this piece of business was to intensify the profound silence in the audience, the onlookers MY CONCEPTION OF WHAT CONSTITUTES ACTING 31 having instantly sensed the emotion of the humble soldier standing in the presence of one whom he re- vered beyond measure. In the next few seconds, Bates, with his cap still in his right hand, used his little finger to scratch his head. That was the bare business; but the thought behind it was that he was puzzled as to just how he was going to awaken the President. This was received with a delightful titter from the audience, not exactly with the laugh which would have been accorded to a low comedy piece of business. Bates then set his cap upon his head, and approached the figure as if to touch it. Then, realizing that that would not do, he went around the table and very lightly shook the tray so that the rattling of the crockery might have the desired effect. It didn't. Finally, he jostled the tray which caused the cups to make a loud racket and this awakened Lincoln. The whole scene as played by Bates was a high comedy portrayal due to his fine sense of light and shade. Just before his exit, he awakened Hay with a complete reversal of the spirit with which he had ap- proached Lincoln. He took him by the coat collar and violently shook him and when this didn't have its effect, he picked up a ruler from the table and gave him the "hot foot." This brought an uproarious re- sponse from the audience, and again demonstrated 32 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN Bates's ability to distinguish between high and low comedy. Other actors followed in this character of Dennis after Charles Bates had passed on, but none of them, although they gave acceptable and good perform- ances, ever succeeded in getting the same reactions from their audiences as did the late Charles Bates. This artistry of Bates's before the usual audiences cer- tainly had its effect. They undoubtedly sensed the per- fection of the acting but never recognized it with that appreciation which is demonstrated by applause. However, at a professional matinee given on May 3, 1920, which was attended by practically every actor then in New York City, when Charles Bates made his exit at the conclusion of the scene above described, his work received a round of applause which almost "stopped the show." Incidentally, this audience of my fellow actors was the most remarkable one before which I have ever appeared. Their generous reception of me when I first came on the stage almost broke me up. I think it must have lasted for fully five minutes and it was very difficult for me to go on with my lines. Of course, an actor should never allow himself to get out of char- acter and acknowledge a reception, which I didn't, but it awakened in me a tremendous emotion which TP c as ■ 1 *" ' J> % J » ">> JUfe? < - ga WK>»~ 4 ^ C *T^ -, <% I s c •• •'"' JW luJiii *2 tb fllPl 11 o / I W' J t -S o BY DFATH OLN u . • ( 1 | 1733 RAN LINC UJ CO 3 fc;°s U- o wu JI u ABOl R.-GR RAHA Is HOoa u~ v -*yiL^!! \ 1 g _> .2 BUIL OLN NT A 1 ,. f- 11 < u fe 'iMR1 • *■>■ 1 Slj^ 5 1*1 O u w o tr i. u Q 1 ii J * O ■P *- J o. s DHpP* « t eg Shb * f rf fc * 1 2 o 00 3 o £ m 1 1 . VI ^1 wm* R ^ fc *;'il «t*i Si ©"I ** .-5 £ OB ffl 4) _* .Si ^ •- c£ ffl © lie qb « e MS . s UJ MY CONCEPTION OF WHAT CONSTITUTES ACTING 33 I fear, must have shown in my voice for a few words after I was permitted to go on. Another instance bearing upon the effect on audi- ences of the portrayal of identical roles by different actors was the characterization of the role of Seward by John S. O'Brien, who passed away many years ago. The prime requisite of this characterization was that it should convince the audience that Seward felt him- self superior to Lincoln in the early scenes in which that character appeared. O'Brien, with the same lines and business as used by actors who followed him in the part, put over this idea with greater conviction than did any of the others. This could be felt in play- ing the scenes with him. Opposed to O'Brien, one felt that he had to overcome something. The other actors, and they were good actors, seemed invariably to be unable to put aside the respect for the character of Lincoln (which they personally had) when they assumed the role of Seward. The effect of this was to weaken the situation in those scenes in which the argu- ments of Seward and Lincoln clashed and to reduce the value of the climax which is occasioned by Sew- ard's recognition of Lincoln's superior judgment. A man or woman of great magnetic force will en- dow his or her work with a quality which causes the audience to forget the theatre and to be carried wholly absorbed into the realms of illusion, whereas another 34 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN without that quality will fail. We may attempt to an- alyze this from various points of view. Some may argue that it is a perfection of technique; others, that it is the constant spontaneity of the individual actor's work. No doubt it is both, but beyond that there must be something in the artist which compels attention and wins the unrestrained mental submission of the audi- ence. That quality of magnetism is undoubtedly a thing apart from the vocal equipment of the actor. Unquestionably, we have had men and women in the silent drama, or motion pictures who possessed it, and for that matter we still have actors in the present form of talking pictures ( which are largely silent ) who pos- sess it in a remarkable degree. I have frequently been asked if actors feel the emo- tions which they portray. That so-called feeling the part is probably the same sort of emotion which fills the little girl who imagines herself a teacher in the game of "school"— or the boy who imagines himself a policeman in the game of "cops and robbers." It is my belief that an actor in the height of a tremendous emotional scene does not actually feel the emotions in- volved in the true sense of the word. What he does feel is that he is properly simulating them. He is in a peculiar mental condition over which he has absolute control; in other words, his is a synthetic emotion, not the "real thing," otherwise, he would be temporarily MY CONCEPTION OF WHAT CONSTITUTES ACTING 35 demented and would become in some scenes, which may well be imagined, a very dangerous being to his fellow players, as for instance, in a contest with broad- swords. Acting cannot be said to be simply the art of being natural. It is the art of convincing people, removed from the artist, that the character portrayed is natural, and this requires a gift of genius, combined with years of study and experience. Before the camera, much of this art seems unnatural, therefore, it is limited. The camera being very close, as well as the microphone, makes the work of the "picture" actor an art apart from that of the stage actor although he also requires and is benefited by a knowledge of the legitimate theatre. Study, experience and unremitting effort, even with- out genius, together with the natural instinct which is in every one of us, will produce a worthwhile actor or actress; but never, without extraordinary dramatic instinct, will it produce a great artist. If naturalness be the criterion in judging the quality of acting, we should always keep in mind that which would be natural to the character presented, under the conditions given and in the period in which the play is laid. An actor who would portray a Roman gladiator with the same suppressed manner as he would an American general would be very wide of the 36 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN mark. Most people believe naturalness to be the ability to project one's own personality. This is proper in many modern society plays, but where strong, ele- mental emotions are required, or where characteriza- tion is necessary, this idea is, in my opinion, entirely erroneous. An actor who "plays himself" is the same in every role and is, therefore, not an actor at all, but merely a person who has acquired stage technique and the ability to appear completely at ease— without any understanding of how to bury his identity in a char- acter not his own. The ideal actor is the one who por- trays the character he assumes as it would be natural in his opinion for that character to act; the depth of his knowledge and imagination gauging the degree of his greatness. In doing this, he must be permitted cer- tain dramatic license to avoid monotony and to keep his audience entertained for the duration of the play. Now that we have tried to analyze the art of act- ing, let us ask ourselves this question : How would any one of us feel if he were suddenly called upon to pre- sent as a character in a play, the revered, idealized, and may I say, sanctified character of Abraham Lincoln? Ill The Voice and Mannerisms of Lincoln I was appalled by the enormity of my responsibility. After years of striving and hoping that it might be my good fortune to be cast for a part which I could orig- inate, I had reached the realization of that ambition. The task of presenting to the American people a char- acterization which would convince them of the living presence of Abraham Lincoln was mine. I recall the words of a dear friend of mine, the late William Haworth, author of many plays, including The Ensign, Mr. Haworth said, "Frank, my Lincoln was a success because he did not speak. The audiences accepted the presentation because their ideals were preserved, but any actor, who attempts to speak as Lincoln will fail." So, nearly twenty years after this conversation, I happened to be the man whose career depended upon his ability to present a Lincoln char- acterization in which the public would believe. In 1921, the same William Haworth saw the play in Cleveland. When he came backstage after the per- formance, I said to him, "Bill, I remember that you 37 38 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN said that any actor who attempted to speak as Lincoln would fail." He replied, "Well, Frank, that was twenty years ago and the world has changed." "What did you think of the play?" I asked. Now, Bill was addicted to monosyllabic speeches in conversation when he was particularly earnest, so he replied laconically, "Peculiar— it gets you." "Did it get you, Bill?" "Yes— yes, it did— peculiar." And that was the extent of his criticism of the play. He then spoke of the scene in which Lincoln par- dons the boy, Scott, played by Wallace Ford, now prominent in motion pictures. He said, "That boy gave a great performance." He never met Wally, and little did he dream that that same boy would marry his daughter and oldest child, Martha, about a year or so later, after he, Haworth, had gone from this life into the great beyond. I had no thought of casting off the burden, for op- portunity was at last knocking at my door. I felt no fear of my ability to assume the character, provided I could fully grasp it. For instance, had I been selected to present a mountaineer preacher of the Tennessee Mountains, I would have known that my knowledge of the dialect and of the personality of such a man would have carried me along to public approval because the THE VOICE AND MANNERISMS OF LINCOLN 39 public, not having a preconception of the character, would accept my characterization as being authentic. While such a character would be indefinite in a meas- ure, it would be easier to convince an auditor of its reality than it would be to do the same thing when the audience had its own preconceived idea of the exact appearance, manner, personality, ideality and spirit- uality of the man. So the task I had assumed was not to present an indefinite personage, but to convince an audience (an American audience), that it was see- ing, hearing the voice of, and coming in touch with the personality of Abraham Lincoln. What was the first essential? To convince the eye. This was the easiest of all. I was tall, being six feet, one-half inch in height (not as tall as was Lincoln, who was nearly six feet, four inches in height) and I knew how to "build up". Aside from this, I had fea- tures which, with the aid of makeup, lent themselves to the semblance of the man so that I knew I could satisfy the eye. The difficulty was to satisfy the ear and the imagi- nation of the audience. What was the quality of Lincoln's voice? I began a research which left me in doubt. Some accounts were vague. Few, indeed, were to be found. Histories deal with the actions and ac- complishments of men and detailed information as to voice, gesture and manner are not easy to find. The 40 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN consensus of opinion seemed to be that Lincoln's voice was of high-pitched quality. To find anyone who re- membered his voice would have taken considerable time and I did not have it at my disposal. However, I could not believe it to be true that there was a vocal quality in Lincoln that could be rasping, tiring or mo- notonous for he was a "spellbinder"— so much so that after hearing him speak at Bloomington, eleven news- papers reporters, whose duty it was to report his speech, failed to do so because they were carried away with the personality and eloquence of the man. Out of these re- porters wrote, substantially, "I became so interested that I forgot to make notes; and, turning to one of my confreres from another paper, asked if I might copy his. To my amazement, he replied that he had none— and so it was with all eleven of us." This speech, re- covered in part of its substance from those who heard it, is known as Lincoln's "Lost Speech". And so, largely by deduction, I concluded that Lincoln must have had a voice which, in its principal tones at least, was pleasing. I recalled men, members of the San Francisco Bar, whom I had heard in that, my native city; men, who were well on in years and many of whom had lived in the days of the Civil War, whose oratorical method was to begin with a high- pitched, somewhat nasal, almost tenor quality (a "trick", to use a stage expression) of tone to attract THE VOICE AND MANNERISMS OF LINCOLN 41 the attention of the court or jury; then, once having secured undivided attention and the expectation of what their forthcoming argument might be, they would descend vocally into their natural and often- times deep and resonant tones. This, I assumed, must have been the method of Lincoln. Those who have listened to an orator are apt to re- member the quality of his voice by recalling his first utterances because often, if the speaker is presenting an interesting discourse, they become absorbed in the matter of the speech; and the tones of the speaker, while they are heard, are not the main object of inter- est. So my decision as to Lincoln's vocal qualities was largely determined by remembering the effect on his hearers of the voice of Rev. Father Cook, a great Catholic priest of the Redemptorist Order, whom I had heard when I was a young man. His method of at- tracting the undivided attention of his hearers was to speak the introductory part of his sermon in a high- pitched voice, with a staccato tempo, then his voice came to its natural key and a richer bass voice with more beautiful resonant tones would be difficult to find; yet when I asked about the quality of Father Cook's voice, ninety per cent of those whom I questioned answered unhesitatingly— "tenor". My own voice is of bass quality, but fortunately for my work in the theatre, it is flexible, so I decided to adopt the method 42 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN of the old-time lawyers and of Father Cook, believ- ing that this had also been Lincoln's method. This de- duction was verified when I met Mr. Edward O. Skel- ton of Boston, which meeting I will describe later. The question of pronunciation, I arbitrarily de- cided. It is a fact that Lincoln spoke with a tinge of the dialect of the men among whom he was reared. He said "thar" for "there"-"wal" for "weU"-"fel- ler" for "fellow"-"scairt" or "skeert" for "scared" —"Mr. Cheermun" for "Mr. Chairman", and so on, but to adopt these, or to try to present Lincoln as speaking in the dialect which he probably used would surely antagonize the public for the reason that any such presentation would appear to be a caricature and not a characterization. After all, it is not how a man pronounces his words, but the words themselves and the depth of their meaning that count, so I de- cided that the Lincoln I would present should speak English without dialect; and in this Mr. Lonergan concurred. The wisdom of this decision was borne out by the fact that a year or two after I had concluded the long run of the Drinkwater play, I was cast for and played the part of President Andrew Jackson in the play That Awful Mrs. Eaton. History tells us that Andrew Jackson in his cool moments had used very excellent and flowery English, but that when he was angry or THE VOICE AND MANNERISMS OF LINCOLN 43 excited, he had reverted to a North of Ireland brogue. (He had been reared among his people and their associates who came from the North of Ireland and had not left them until he had gone into Tennessee.) As Jackson at nearly all times throughout the course of the play was excited or angry, at such times I did use a slight North of Ireland accent, blended with a southern inflection which I had concluded must have been characteristic of Jackson, he having lived the maturer years of his life in Tennessee. I never rolled an "R" as an Irishman would have done; still, my char- acterization was adversely criticized because of the fact that it was thought that I had used a brogue. Evi- dently, the critics had not made the same research that I had made before assuming the role, nor had they stopped to consider that the dialogue of the play was written by the author in the lilt of the Irish. Now there arose the question of satisfying the imag- ination or, in other words, of convincing the audience of the actuality of the character. I had the great mas- terpiece of John Drinkwater as a vehicle and my hope was that I could infuse into my portrayal something of the aura of Lincoln— something which would con- vey to the audience his sturdiness, kindliness, force, humor and human sympathy. This I could only hope would be achieved because of my years of experience in the theatre during which I had assumed scores of 44 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN varied character parts; I also had the hope that in me resided some of that intangible, innate quality which every actor who expects to achieve success, must possess. The next step in building up the character was nat- urally to learn something of the proper dress of the period, and, if possible to get authentic information as to the mannerisms and gestures of the man, Lincoln. I knew of no better authority within my reach than my own father, who had not only lived in Lincoln's time, but had had the privilege of meeting him. So, I wrote him, asking for whatever information he could give me. I received the following reply: "I saw Abraham Lincoln in 1856. It was in September or October. Your uncle Andrew was born on February 11, 1835. The presidential election in 1856 was Andrew's first vote. He was an Abolishionist, at that time very unpopular. We lived on the south side of 32nd street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. Andrew asked me to go with him to the meeting. He was a member of the party and was afraid to go alone." (My father was then a boy of fourteen years of age, and it might be supposed that he was no protection for Andrew; but he was a remarkable lad for his years, very big and sturdy, whereas Andrew was delicate.) "We walked down 32nd Street to Sixth Avenue, I should say not farther than 23rd Street; then we THE VOICE AND MANNERISMS OF LINCOLN 45 turned off Sixth Avenue to the meeting place. It was not a very large hall; there were no lights outside and the door was closed. Andrew said, 'This is the place.' He opened the door and we went in, closing it behind us. At that time there were very few Abolishionists in New York. The meeting was for General John C. Fre- mont for President. I do not think it was advertised. It was a long time ago, but my impression is that Lincoln was very tall, thin, straight, serious and no fool. He said what he meant and used few, if any gestures." This, I feel, is a summary of a boy's impressions of Lincoln. Lincoln must have been telling some funny stories, but my father's analytical mind realized that while he was a humorist, there was method in his hu- mor; he was not clowning, but wanted to illustrate to his hearers the point he was making. (I have found no reference in history to the effect that Lincoln was in New York during the year 1856, although there may be such a record; however, it is reasonable to suppose that he probably made the trip incognito with the idea of bringing the Abolitionists into the fold of the then new Republican Party in sup- port of John C. Fremont, candidate for the Presidency in 1856.) Henry J. Raymond, in his work published in 1865, speaking of Lincoln's visit to New York says, among other things, "A prominent member of the Young 46 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN Men's Republican Association, who was thrown much in Mr. Lincoln's company during his brief stay, writes : 'During the day, before the delivery of the address, a friend of Mr. Lincoln called at the Astor House, where he was staying, and suggested that the orator be taken up Broadway and shown the city, of which he knew but little, stating, I think, that he had been here but once before. 5 " After receipt of my father's letter, I found authority for his statement that Lincoln made few gestures. In his early life he did use a great many gestures, even to the extent of causing his great height to rise from a stooping posture and of emphasizing his words; but in later years he abandoned that and made only such ges- tures as were effective. Probably the greatest of all his gestures was used at his first inaugural. One writer, in describing this, said substantially that when he came to the words, "will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be," he raised his arms slowly, and the words, "by the better angels of our nature" apparently flowed forth from the very tips of his outstretched fingers. I was also greatly helped in deciding what gestures of Lincoln's to use by a description which I found in a small history book and which covered this point. It quoted an article from a New York newspaper, which described Lincoln at the Cooper Institute meeting in THE VOICE AND MANNERISMS OF LINCOLN 47 1860. It stated that he made few gestures, but that those which he did make were effective. It described how, when he first came upon the stage and sat in a chair waiting for his introduction, he twined his foot around the rung of the chair, tilted it back and sat rather awkwardly. When he arose, he seemed some- what nervous at first; then, as he warmed up to his subject, he was not awkward, but had the grace that comes from great physical strength. The twining of the foot about the rung of the chair was my authority for using that position in the third episode of the play; in fact, I used scarcely a gesture in the Drinkwater play for which I did not have some authority, either from books or from persons whom I had met who had either seen or heard Lincoln and who had lived in his day. The gesture of driving the clenched right fist into the palm of the left hand was an authentic one. At the time I was rehearsing, I had not read Hern- don's Life of Lincoln, but I learned later that it bore out the meager facts which I had found time to gather during the strenuous days of that period and gave practically the same account as did the description in the article on the speech at Cooper Institute. In speak- ing of Lincoln during the Douglas debates, Herndon says : ". . . After having arisen, he generally placed his hands behind him, the back of his left hand in the palm 48 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN of his right, the thumb and ringers of his right hand clasped around the left arm at the wrist. For a few mo- ments he displayed the combination of awkwardness, sensitiveness, and diffidence. As he proceeded he be- came somewhat animated, and to keep in harmony with his growing warmth his hands relaxed their grasp and fell to his side. Presently he clasped them in front of him, interlocking his fingers, one thumb meanwhile chasing another. His speech now requiring more em- phatic utterance, his fingers unlocked and his hands fell apart. His left arm was thrown behind, the back of his hand resting against his body, his right hand seeking his side. . . . He never sawed the air nor rent space into tatters and rags as some orators do. He never acted for stage effect . . . His style was clear, terse, and compact . . . There was a world of meaning and em- phasis in the long, bony finger of his right hand as he dotted the ideas on the minds of his hearers . . . some- times, he would raise both hands at an angle of about fifty degrees, the palms upward, as if desirous of em- bracing the spirit of that which he loved." Lincoln had very large hands, but contrary to the usual belief, his feet were not large for a man of his extreme height. He wore a number ten boot. His hands were extremely large due to the fact, no doubt, that as a growing boy he had found it necessary to use them in extraordinary physical effort. They were well- THE VOICE AND MANNERISMS OF LINCOLN 49 shaped, however, as may be seen from the life casts of his hands. In order to convince the audience of the large hands, my own being of average size, I used a trick. I had the sleeves of my coat made a trifle short, giving the appearance of length to the hands below the cuffs; then at certain times, I would stretch my fingers, placing my hands upon my knees so that from the point of view of the audience they actually gave the appearance of large hands. It was gratifying to read one of the critics who said, "Mr. McGlynn even has the large hands of Lincoln." IV Profound Reverence at the First Rehearsal The first rehearsal of the play made a tremendous impression upon me. The usual atmosphere of a re- hearsal was missing. The actors seemed to approach the play with profound reverence; in other words, they stepped into the rehearsal room under the Astor The- atre stage as though they were entering the vestibule of a church. For many years, I had been known to my fellow actors as a responsible person in the theatre, although I was practically an unknown quantity in so far as Broadway was concerned. Notwithstanding this fact, I was escorted into the presence of the company by Mr. Lonergan with the same degree of deference as might have been shown David Garrick, for instance, had he been alive at that time. After the formal intro- duction, we began the rehearsal of the play. Up to that time, having only read the play, I had no proper conception of its magnitude. To read the cold print had no such effect as to hear the words uttered and co-ordinated with the spoken lines of the other actors. 50 PROFOUND REVERENCE AT THE FIRST REHEARSAL 51 For example : In the scene in the first episode where "Lincoln" asks "Mrs. Lincoln" if she is sure about the course he should take regarding the acceptance or re- jection of the nomination for the Presidency, the printed scene is in very brief phrases, and some speeches consist of only one word. Read quickly, these speeches would seem quite ordinary, but when spoken in the rehearsal of the scene, the pauses came instinc- tively, their import became apparent and the realiza- tion of it built the situation to tremendous heights. The long silence after "Lincoln" uttered just one word, which indicated inward interrogation, justified a deliberate walk across the stage, around a table, standing in front of the fire-place, a few moments, then crossing and standing back of a chair, still without a spoken word, and brought out the intention of the playwright to hold the audience in suspense. That suspense emphasized the keynote of the episode, which was the acceptance of the nomination. This "silence" became one of the most effective of the play. "The situation showing uncertainty on the part of Lincoln was untrue to history, but John Drinkwater, being a poet, an actor and a playwright, took liberties with history in order to make the acceptance of a great responsibility apparent to the audience. We know, as a matter of fact, that Lincoln sought the nomination 52 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN for the Presidency, but at some time before seeking it, he must have had the same mental debate indicated by the play as to whether or not he would seek a position filled with such tremendous responsibility. I think that this illustrates the point I make that the play in its written form gives no idea of its actual presentation with all the weighty thoughts which are suggested by what is known in the theatre as "silences". This, of course, was in the mind of the playwright who had the vision of what the effect of his play would be when properly presented. It is a strange thing that, while the play is largely a discussion of subjects long disposed of, and is not altogether in emotional lan- guage, it has the effect, almost from its beginning, of moving audiences to sympathetic tears. Long after they had left the theatre, many of them would stand on the sidewalk, even in midwinter, discussing the play. The first line of the play proper, after the first chron- icle, has to do with the name 'Abraham' and its great- ness. The actor who read that line at the first re- hearsal was a native of Springfield, Illinois, and had a rather decided twang in his voice. I thought that he was excellent and that he was absolutely portraying an Illinois farmer, yet he, with a majority of the people selected for the first rehearsal, was not retained in the part. I must give credit to Mr. Harris for his mana- gerial ability. I asked him why he had dismissed this PROFOUND REVERENCE AT THE FIRST REHEARSAL 53 actor because I had thought he was very good. "Yes, he was," he replied, "from a character standpoint, but that's not what I want. It's the first note of the play proper and I want it to be most poetic; therefore, I've selected Thomas Irwin." Thomas Irwin, a very excellent character actor, made no attempt at a dialect, twang or anything of the sort. He read the word "Abraham" as though he were contemplating the great Biblical character. Just before the dismissal of most of the people called for the first few rehearsals, Mr. Lonergan came to me and said, "Don't be worried about anything, Frank, but unfortunately I have to wield the axe. Go on home and I'll telephone you when we have the cast assem- bled again." On that day, I know that several of the actors thought I had been given my conge, as was evi- denced by their sympathetic expressions. However, I was not at liberty to allay their fears at that time. In a day or so, I returned to the rehearsals to find that, with few exceptions, the entire cast had been re- placed. An unusual thing about the rehearsals was this : The newspapers were very anxious to know who would be the American actor to play Abraham Lincoln. They knew, of course, that Mr. Rhea, an Irishman, had played it in the London production and that he, be- cause of his accent, although a very excellent actor, 54 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN would not satisfy the American mind. The fact that I was to play the part was kept secret; even the other actors in the company were given the impression that I was merely rehearsing it and that another man would really play the part. Not until the first opening of the play was my name announced. On the reassembling of the company, I met most of the people who were finally to go through the rehears- als to the presentation of the play. Here, I wish to pay tribute to Mr. Lester Lonergan who had been a well- known actor and a popular member of The Lambs, and who had been held in high regard by his confreres. However, he had refused to join the actors in their strike that year and had become affiliated with Ac- tors 9 Fidelity Association, an organization opposed to Actors 3 Equity Association. Consequently, he had lost the friendship of a great majority of actors. Now, I was a member of the Actors' Equity, yet Lester Loner- gan treated me with the utmost consideration. His di- rection was masterful and most helpful. From the few corrections which he made in my readings, I knew that he was right. For instance, when I first read the lines without holding the part and came to Lincoln's speech to Seward, I read the first few words without giving them any particular stress, feeling that there were so many others which had to be stressed that these words should be thrown away as actors express it. {Thrown PROFOUND REVERENCE AT THE FIRST REHEARSAL 55 away is a very misleading expression. We don't throw anything away. We simply do not give it great em- phasis when there is something more important to be brought out.) So, I threw these lines away, giving them no great value, but merely indicating a period of time, as it were. Lonergan said to me, "Frank, think. That was a very important step. Don't throw it away." And he was right. Not only did Mr. Lonergan's courtesy extend to me, but it extended to every member of that cast. Very sel- dom did he become excited and never did he try to "bully" any person. The only outburst I can remember occurred one day when some of the people failed to know their lines and he simply stated emphatically, "You must come here with your lines !" Lester Lonergan has since passed on, but I shall al- ways cherish the memory of his kindly consideration of me. V Lieut. General Miles Attends Play in Washington The first performance of the play in America was given at Stamford, Connecticut, on the night of No- vember 24th, 1919. It was an eventful occasion for me because it meant either a tremendous success and rec- ognition, or a failure which would have been disas- trous, in so far as I was concerned. Mrs. McGlynn and some of my older children wanted to come to the theatre on the opening night, but I told them not to do so as I did not want to be conscious of their presence, feeling that they might be more or less nervous, and that sympathetic feeling for your own is not a helpful thing to have predominating when your mind should be riveted on the task in hand. A friend of mine, M. J. Tansey of San Francisco, had accompanied me from New York to Stamford and we dined together. In the dining room, I introduced him to Miss Florence Johns, who was playing the part of Susan, and who, in turn, introduced the young gen- tleman who was with her. When Mr. Tansey took his seat in the theatre, he found himself seated beside the young man who had 56 LIEUT. GENERAL MILES ATTENDS PLAY 57 accompanied Miss Johns to dinner. After the first act of the play, in which Susan was quite important, the young man turned to Mr. Tansey and remarked, "She's a fine actress, isn't she?" "Yes, she is," Tansey replied. Then the young man volunteered, "I came all the way from Pittsburgh to see that girl act." "Yes?" said Tansey. And the young man nodded. So, after the second act, when the audience had taken me to its bosom and the curtain had descended, Tansey turned to the young man. "Pretty good actor, isn't he?" said Tansey. And the young man replied, "Yes, he is." Then Tansey remarked, "Well, I came all the way from San Francisco to see that boy act." The young man turned to Tansey in surprise. "The hell you say !" he exclaimed. And Tansey nodded. The success of the play is, of course, theatrical his- tory. The theatre was packed to capacity. Stamford turned out en masse for a second performance two weeks later, before the play was presented to New York. I remained in Stamford that night as the play was not over in time for me to leave the theatre before the last train had left for New York. On arriving home next day, I was informed by Mrs. McGlynn that she had 58 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN been in Stamford, had seen most of the play and had caught the last train for home, so that after all, she had been in the audience. I asked her how she liked the play. "I don't know. I guess it's all right," she replied. "I was too busy watching the reaction of the audience to know whether the play would click and whether the job would last." One of the stands we played prior to the New York opening was Atlantic City. Quite an odd thing oc- curred after that presentation. A lady came to my dressing room with an armful of original cartoons drawn by her father during the Lincoln administra- tion. They were terrible things — I don't mean in their lack of artistic merit, for they were very wonderfully drawn — but they lampooned Lincoln and represented him as a sort of baboon dancing with a lot of negroes. I was so incensed when I opened the package in my hotel room that I tore the contents into bits and threw them into the wastebasket. No doubt, they would have been of some value to collectors as giving evidence of the bitterness that existed against Lincoln at the time, and of the horrible manner in which he was maligned. However, they are gone and forgotten as is the name of the lady who presented them to me. If any one thing contributed to the immense demand for seats at the New York opening, it was the Associ- ated Press reports of the Washington presentation of LIEUT. GENERAL MILES ATTENDS PLAY 59 the encomiums of prominent men, some of whom had known Lincoln, notably the Hon. Joseph Cannon, who was quoted as saying : "The Abraham Lincoln I saw at the theatre last Sunday night was as vivid and as true a por- trait of the man I knew at the zenith of his ca- reer as could be painted fifty-five years after his passing." Nearly every high official in the government was present at that Washington opening as were many members of the House of Representatives and the Sen- ate. The day following the first performance in Wash- ington, my friends, Hon. Julius Kahn of California and Hon. Frank Greene of Vermont, invited me and other members of the cast to visit the capitol. We were in- troduced to many of the senators and congressmen, but the outstanding recollection I have of that occasion was of my meeting with the late Hon. Joseph Cannon. Mr. Cannon was the District Attorney of Sangamon County, Illinois, when Lincoln was President. He had also been a member of the Illinois State Convention which met to consider the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Lincoln at Washington. He stated that it was one of the tense moments of his life, inas- much as the Illinois committee on resolutions had ignored the proclamation, the acceptance of which was 60 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN only due to the quick wit and eloquence of a preacher delegate who forced an indorsement of the proclama- tion. Mr. Cannon knew Mr. Lincoln very well. In speaking of him, he uttered words which stamped themselves indelibly on my mind. In that deep bass voice of his, he said, "Oh, he was a great man. He was a plainsman, he came from the soil and he knew men." This sentence is to me an epitome of the life of Abra- ham Lincoln. "He came from the soil." That speaks a volume. In other words, he delved into Mother Earth to help wrest a living for the family. He absorbed all those things which come to a sensitive soul from close contact with nature, and the irresistible conviction of the Provi- dence of God in the seasonal recurrence of the mys- teries of creation. He acquired that love of helpless things which marked his character throughout life. He learned the dignity of laboring with his hands. When he was President, he remarked in refuting a certain argument, "I am not ashamed to say that I hired out as a day laborer and that I mauled rails." In the words of Edwin Markham : "The strength of virgin forests braced his mind; The hush of spacious prairies stilled his soul" "He knew men" Those three words tell the secret of his success. "He knew men!" You can see him in LIEUT. GENERAL MILES ATTENDS PLAY 61 his early days as a practical politician in Illinois, ad- vocating the proper placement of men in office and 'building his fences', to use the political term. You can see him in his debates with Douglas, his swaying of the crowds by his insight into their minds and his knowledge of their emotions — and right down the line after he came to the Presidency, his domination of Se- ward and his gradual winning of the love and respect of those about him, despite their first feeling of oppo- sition. This same knowledge of men and their value is evidenced in his placing Salmon P. Chase in the Su- preme Court of the United States, although Chase, to use the words of Mr. Cannon, was always more or less of a thorn in his side while a member of the cabinet. "Lincoln had a very wonderful faculty of acquiring knowledge quickly," Mr. Cannon continued. "If he didn't know something of his own knowledge he would read up on it and investigate. For instance, before the end of the Civil War, Lincoln became well-informed on military tactics. He had no great knowledge of in- ternational law; but after he became President he dug deeply into its principles and his decision in the Mad- ison-Slidell incident, which was in keeping with the best traditions of international law, came in very aptly as a precedent in World War I. Lincoln decided that we had no right to hold Madison and Slidell as we could not exercise authority on an English ship. That 62 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN was used as an argument against England's using au- thority on American ships in the World War." To digress for a moment, the facts of the Mason- Slidell incident were as follows: Mason and Slidell were taken from the British mail steamer Trent by Captain Wilkes of the United States frigate San Ja- cinto, and with two other men were taken aboard the San Jacinto against the protest of the British officers. Mason and Slidell were rebel commissioners on their way from Havana to St. Thomas. The American pub- lic was enthusiastic over the action of Captain Wilkes, but the British government demanded instant redress and ordered troops to Canada and ships to be out- fitted for war. They also demanded an apology and the liberation of the four men taken prisoners. On the 26th of December, 1861, the secretary of state, by di- rection of the President, sent a reply to the English dispatch in which the whole question was discussed at length and with considerable ability. The United States government decided that the detention of the vessel and the removal from her of the emissaries of the rebel confederacy, were justifiable by the laws of war and the practice and precedents of the British gov- ernment; but that, in assuming to decide upon the lia- bility of these persons to capture for himself, instead of sending them before a legal tribunal where a regu- lar trial could be had, Captain Wilkes had departed LIEUT. GENERAL MILES ATTENDS PLAY 63 from the rule of international law uniformly asserted by the American government, and forming part of its most cherished policy. The government decided, there- fore, that the four persons in question would be "cheer- fully liberated". This decision was heartily approved both in the United States and in England. Mr. Cannon also told me a story bearing out the fact that Lincoln was most merciful toward those sol- diers who had been court-martialed for various of- fenses. "A very remarkable thing happened recently," he said. "During the Civil War there was a boy who had been sentenced to be shot for some offense and it seems that the matter was brought before the President by the boy's sister. A few years ago there was a Grand Army encampment at Erie, Pennsylvania, and Gen- eral Keiffer was the commandant at the encampment. He was talking to a group of officers one day when a letter carrier came toward him and said, 'General Keiffer, I have a letter for you from the dead letter of- fice.' General Keiffer opened the letter and read it; then he turned to the officers about him and said, 'Gentlemen, this letter arrived just fifty years too late.' It was a reprieve for the boy who had been executed and General Keiffer, then Colonel Keiffer, was the of- ficer whose duty it had been to carry out the decree of the military court." The sequel to this story is that about a year later 64 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN General Keiffer himself called to see me in my dress- ing room after having witnessed the play. He was a magnificent type of man, I should say about eighty- five or ninety years of age, tall and broad-shouldered. He wore a white beard, and had a finely shaped head and a charming manner. I told him that I had had the pleasure of hearing a story from the Hon. Joseph Can- non concerning him, and I repeated the story. "Yes, that was a very remarkable thing." General Keiffer replied. "The boy's name was Hicks. He had deserted. He was patriotic enough and didn't mean to be a deserter, but some fellow who was a 'bounty- jumper' had told him that he could make fifteen hun- dred dollars if he would desert and re-enlist in place of some one who was called in the draft and either had to go himself or engage a substitute. Hicks was caught, court-martialed and sentenced to be shot. His sister wrote me a letter in which she said that she had the matter up before the President and was greatly en- couraged in the belief that he would extend clemency toward her brother. She pleaded with me to use every effort to hold off the execution until word could come from the White House. Well, time went along and I kept delaying the thing until finally word came to me that if I didn't have that boy executed they would court-martial me, so I had to give the order and just as Mr. Cannon told you, at that encampment came the LIEUT. GENERAL MILES ATTENDS PLAY 65 letter which was a reprieve, signed by Abraham Lincoln. How it was delayed all those years, I don't know. Probably, it fell behind some desk in the war department and was only found in the moving of the cabinet or whatever it might have been." General Keiffer, in discussing some of the incidents of the war, told me this : "Once, when I was commanding a position, we had taken our stand on a promontory overlooking a valley. Scouts brought word that the Confederates were flanking me on both sides and were preparing to at- tack on my front. Their men greatly outnumbered mine. Old Glory was flying on the staff and our guns were pointed toward the enemy, but I had barely time to act and I knew that our entire force would be captured and made prisoner despite any resistance we might put up, so I gave the order to retreat and left the flag flying to give the impression that the position was not abandoned, thus delaying the advance of the enemy. The ruse worked and I saved my entire army by forced retreat. That flag was lowered by the Con- federates and thirty-four years later was returned to me by the lady who, as a girl, had discovered the loca- tion of the flag and had secretly gained possession of it." Now, to get back to the engagement at Washington. It was at that time that we were taken to the war de- 66 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN partment and given the privilege of seeing the Booth relics preserved there in a safe. There was the dagger carried by John Wilkes Booth, a long coil of rope with which the plotters had planned to bind the President, the derringer with which Booth had killed the Presi- dent, and the flattened bullet which had been extract- ed by the surgeons from the skull of Lincoln, as well as pieces of the skull bone. The bullet and the particles were contained in a case very much like that of a watch and it was a gruesome object to hold in one's hand, as was also the little derringer. These relics are not available to the public view, but can be seen only by special order of the war de- partment. Rather an odd incident occurred regarding that same little derringer. I was playing some years later in Louisville, Kentucky, when a newspaperman came to me and asked if he might have a moment with me aside. I consented and he took from his pocket a der- ringer, very similar to the one preserved in the war department, but a little larger. The Booth derringer could be hidden in the hand, whereas this was a little too large for that. The man said that it had been loan- ed to him and stated that it was the derringer with which Lincoln had been assassinated. I told him that it was all nonsense as I had seen the real one in Wash- ington. LIEUT. GENERAL MILES ATTENDS PLAY 67 The reason I mention this is that it bears out the fact that many of the statements and stories about Lincoln are untrue; for instance, the log cabin in which he was born is said to have been located in three or four widely separated places, and all the other myths which have grown up and have been uttered and published as truths, are just as false as was the statement that the weapon was the one used in one of the greatest tragedies of all time. On Saturday night of that week, Al Conway, my dresser, brought me a card, saying, "This gentleman asked me where you live. I think he's intending to see you at your hotel, tomorrow morning." I looked at the card on which was inscribed the name, Lieut. General Nelson A. Miles. I asked Conway why he had not shown General Miles to my dressing room and he re- plied, "He didn't want to see you tonight. He was in a hurry, but he asked me where you live. I told him you are staying at the Shoreham Hotel." The following morning, Sunday, I was most anxious to meet General Miles, so when I left for church a little before nine o'clock, I told the clerk that if Gen- eral Miles were to call to see me, he should tell him that I'd be back at ten o'clock. Of course, I didn't know whether or not he actually intended to come, but as I walked into the lobby and went toward the 68 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN desk, the clerk said, "Mr. McGlynn, General Miles is waiting for you over there." I stepped across the room. Of course, I knew Gen- eral Miles, from having seen him, and as I stood be- fore him I smiled. "General Miles? My name is Mc- Glynn.' 5 "Oh, yes, Mr. McGlynn," and with that the Gen- eral arose, smiled graciously and extended his hand. I was very much impressed with his fine bearing and genial manner. He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment, then spoke. "This is most interesting. I knew Mr. Lincoln. We looked upon him as a father. He used to come down to the Army camp on the James River. I knew him and I talked with him. Not many men liv- ing can say that." Then he looked at me curiously and said with a humorous smile, "I don't know where they dug you up, but you're Lincoln. He then went on to analyze the contour of Lincoln's head and this is what he told me: "You know, it's a remarkable thing. Julius Caesar, Abraham Lincoln and you have the same shaped heads, large at the top and comparatively small at the base." After quite a lengthy chat, during which, among other things, the General told me that he was in line as a subaltern in the surrender at Appomattox, hav- ing been a young officer at that time, we parted to meet again after the New York opening. It was my LIEUT. GENERAL MILES ATTENDS PLAY 69 privilege to meet General Miles on two later occasions shortly before his death. When that happened I felt that I had lost a friend. After General Miles's statement I had no fear of what might be said of my characterization by the critics, following the New York opening, for if I could convince a man of as keen an intellect as General Miles that I was Lincoln— the man he knew and to whom he had talked— why should I worry about the opinions of men who had not had that privilege? VI Lincoln As An Advertiser After three weeks on the road, we opened at the Cort Theatre on 48th Street, New York, December 15th, 1919. The reports from out of town by the Associated Press and newspaper correspondents, together with the prominence which the play had achieved in Eng- land, had put seats for the opening at a terrific pre- mium. The house was crowded with a paid audience. I can't say that I was nervous, the tension which comes from first performances having become pretty well relieved on the road. Of course, I was deeply con- cerned about making a success, but I think that Lester Lonergan was far more excited and nervous than I. When, upon my entrance, the audience very kindly burst into applause, and on my first exit gave me a "round", Lester was standing off stage. "Frank, don't let that disturb you," he said. I don't know why he thought applause should disturb me, because I took it as an approval by the audience of what I had already done and it was a great encouragement to go on. Of course, if an actor permits applause to give him the 70 LINCOLN AS AN ADVERTISER 71 feeling that he is "some punkins," he is far from right; but if applause is taken as an approval of his efforts, that's another thing. So far as I am concerned that performance marked the top note of my career as an actor. And the critics gave practically unanimous ap- proval to both my efforts and the play. Almost immediately began the intense interest which characterized the entire three years' run of the play. Shortly after the opening, I received a letter from Mr. R. H. Davis of the Frank A. Munsey Company, in- viting me to come down to his office for the purpose of seeing the life mask of Lincoln given to him by Douglas Volk, son of Leonard Volk, who made it in 1860. The mask referred to is, according to Mr. Davis, the only one which shows the two moles upon Lincoln's face. In his letter, Mr. Davis wrote: "See Abraham and let him look down on you and in some mute, in- tangible way thank you for your understanding . . . Every American should see John Drinkwater's Abra- ham Lincoln at least once, and every foreigner, twice." A few days later I went to Mr. Davis's office and spent considerable time with him. This was the first time I had ever seen the life mask of Lincoln; and the one in his possession was a splendid specimen. Mr. Davis told me, and he is the first person who ever said so with conviction, that Lincoln chewed tobacco and 72 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN his contention was that, if one looked closely at the life mask, he could see the impression on the cheek which seemed to indicate that Lincoln was holding a small quid below the corner of his mouth. Mr. Davis then introduced me to one of the staff writers of the Munsey Magazine, the result of which was the article which was published in the next issue about my personal history and my performance of the part in the Drinkwater play. Many years after this interview, I was asked by Mr. Gay Lombard of San Francisco to come to his office and see a desk which had belonged to his father, who had practiced law in Illinois at the same time as had Lincoln. He had ridden the circuit with Lincoln. Mr. Lombard's father had told him that Lincoln used to sit at that desk, and with his jackknife whittle nicks in the edge of the front panel while he chewed tobacco and at the same time told humorous stories. He quoted his father as saying: "He wasn't very careful where he let the chips fly, but that didn't make any difference, for we all loved him and appreciated his greatness of soul." Unfortunately, Mr. Lombard's father had had the original panel removed and a new one placed in its stead. The desk was an old-fashioned walnut with an upright back, small shelves and a few drawers for papers. A quaint old piece of furniture, it bore all the LINCOLN AS AN ADVERTISER 73 earmarks of antiquity, except for this one panel, which, by comparison, was new. I was a guest at many functions in honor of John Drinkwater, the author of the play, and myself as the actor who portrayed Lincoln. One of the first invita- tions I received as a speaker was from the Advertising Club of New York City. Mr. H. H. Charles, chairman of the committee of the Advertising Club asked me what subject I intended to choose for my address. "Well, I don't know," I replied. "Advertising Club? How about Lincoln as an advertiser?" Mr. Charles thought that a good idea and made the announcement that I would speak to the club on Abraham Lincoln as an advertiser. On second thought, it seemed almost sacrilegious to discuss Lincoln in that manner, as I told the members of the Club at the luncheon; but, notwithstanding, I followed that state- ment with the query, "What is advertising? It is a presentation to the public for its consideration of a commodity or a personality. It is necessary to excite curiosity and to win approval. "The very first public appearance of Abraham Lincoln shows that, unwittingly, he was a marvelous advertiser. He made a brief speech which is a sample of a very good form of advertising. As a young man, Abraham Lincoln had convinced himself that he had a great truth to put forth and that he was called to 74 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN perform a great mission and to serve his fellow men. With this in mind, he got up on the platform and made the following short speech : " 'My friends, I presume you all know who I am.' Now, I ask you gentlemen who write advertisements or sell if that is not a sentence to excite curiosity? 'I presume you all know who I am. 5 Those who didn't know who he was would say to themselves, 'Well, who are you?' He would then reply, C I am humble Abra- ham Lincoln. I have been solicited by my many friends to run for the legislature. My policies, like the old woman's dance, are short and sweet. I believe in the National bank and in the internal improvement system !' "He concluded by saying, c If elected, I shall be grateful. If not, it will be all the same.' Now I ask you if that is not a splendid piece of advertising? It was. Lincoln was defeated, but his words caused men to ask, 'Who is this Abraham Lincoln?' and two years later, at the age of twenty-five, he was elected to the legisla- ture of the state of Illinois." After giving other examples from speeches of Lin- coln, I said in conclusion: "From the political bonfires that were kindled throughout all these prairie states in the campaign of 1858 was cast upon the skies in letters far brighter and more brilliant than had they been placed there by millions of incandescent lamps, a magic LINCOLN AS AN ADVERTISER 75 name, 'Abraham Lincoln'. It was reflected to the east and the wise men of the east saw it and in February, 1860, they called Abraham Lincoln to the east to talk to them. He chose a political subject and he delivered at Cooper Institute the famous speech which made him a national figure. He stood the people of New York on their toes and they marveled at this great 'Sycamore from the Sangamon', who had the power to thrill them and later on to make them fight in his cause. "So great was that advertisement of Abraham Lin- coln that when, after the first ballot, at the Wigwam convention in Chicago, a great man was asked, 'What shall we do?' he said, 'Gentlemen, on your second bal- lot, vote for Abraham Lincoln.' He had heard him speak at Cooper Union. After some balloting, Ohio swung to Lincoln assuring his nomination, and it was then made unanimous. We know the pandemonium that reigned in the hall. . . . and how the west came into her own and Abraham Lincoln's name was flashed from one side of the continent to the other. "There was no longer any necessity for his advertis- ing himself. He was elected during the stormiest period in the history of this country. He took the wheel of the ship of state and piloted it through the nation's four years of darkness and in all the stress of storm he held steadfast, selecting for his mates the brains of the coun- 76 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN try, irrespective of party; and when the ship, her sails rent and with many a scar, but still whole, thank God, came into the harbor of peace and was about to cast her anchor there, the great captain was struck down. "His name needs no monuments of stone or bronze. It is engraved forever in the hearts of his countrymen. Yes, gentlemen, Abraham Lincoln was an advertiser. He advertised the truth and he delivered the goods !" During the rendition of this speech, I was somewhat dubious as to its reception, but at its conclusion, the members of the club rose and gave me a great round of applause. The chairman informed me that in my concluding words I had struck upon the motto of the Advertising Club which was, "The Truth in Advertis- ing. VII Lincoln Makes Amends for An Unintentional Slight fi Many people called upon me after the conclusion of each performance. I doubt if ever there was a night when I could get away from the theatre before mid- night; and frequently I was detained until one A. M. because of the fact that there were so many people who either wanted to tell me some little anecdotes about Lincoln or to secure copies of my photograph in make-up, all of which took up a great deal of time, and, although it was a strain on my health because it deprived me of necessary rest, I did not begrudge it. The outstanding person who knew Lincoln as a young man was a Mrs. Hart, whose granddaughter brought her to my dressing room one day after a matinee. Mrs. Hart told me a little story which I have always felt to be replete with the characteristic kind- liness and humanness of Lincoln toward children. Mrs. Hart was, I think, about ninety years of age. She was a tiny woman with snapping black eyes and an alert brain; and she was very vivacious. As she stood before me, she seemed to be inspecting my cos- tume which had not yet been taken off because of 77 78 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN lack of time. Presently she spoke: "I knew Mr. Lin- coln very well. He was a great friend of my father. When I knew him, he didn't dress as well as you are dressed now." "No," I replied, "in the circuit riding days he wore homespun trousers, a linen duster . . ." "Yes, and a straw hat and low-cut quarter shoes laced with leather thongs. The first time I met Mr. Lincoln, I didn't know who he was." There was quite a pause, and in rather a wistful voice, she continued. "My family lived on the road between Springfield and Decatur at the time Mr. Lincoln was riding the circuit, practicing law. The country was very wild. There were no railroads and the people traveled by stagecoach, on horseback, in wagons or afoot. In front of our house was a picket fence. Do you know what a picket fence is, Mr. McGlynn?" "Oh, yes, I know what a picket fence is," I replied and smiled. "We had a well of excellent water in our garden to which passers-by were welcome and the stage coach always stopped there so that people might get a drink. One day as the coach stopped, two men descended from it, one of whom was a small man dressed in the height of fashion. He carried a gold-headed cane, the first gold-headed cane I had ever seen. He was a very bad man. Then another young man stepped from the MAKES AMENDS FOR AN UNINTENTIONAL SLIGHT 79 coach, a tall, a very tall man whom I afterwards knew as Mr. Lincoln. The little man came along the path- way where I was playing with my rag dollies. I had one favorite doll that I called Mrs. Cracker. I don't know why I called her Mrs. Cracker, but that was her name, and she was keeping house for the other dollies. Mrs. Cracker was in the pathway and the little man came along and struck her a blow with his gold- handled cane and said, 'Take your brats out of the way. 5 Then the tall young man reached his long arm over the picket fence. He picked Mrs. Cracker up, dusted her off with his handkerchief and placed her in my arms. As he put his hand on my head, he said, 'There, little bright eyes, I don't think your dolly's much hurt. 5 " I couldn't help but visualize the young, stalwart Lincoln, looking at that whippersnapper who had hurt the feelings of a child and indicating by his expression, "If you want to hit something around here, why don't you take on something bigger than a rag doll !" The other incident referred to was a letter which I received from Mrs. Carrie H. Gehrmann of Bloom- field, New Jersey, which is again an indication of Lin- coln's kindliness toward children. Mrs. Gehrmann wrote : "I lived in Springfield, Illinois, during Lincoln's time and we were neighbors and friends. Although I 80 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN was a child, I remember Mr. Lincoln distinctly. He passed our house daily to go to his office; and early in the morning, before school time, I would meet him in the meat market and he would always greet me. The day before he was to leave Springfield for Washing- ton, I met him in the post office. He passed me by without speaking. After he had gone out, I stood in the doorway looking after him; when he reached the cor- ner a half block from the post office, he turned around and saw me. Then he returned, put out his hand and said, 'Goodbye, little sister,' thus showing the kindli- ness of his heart. I was too far away for him to see my first expression of disappointment, but he had remem- bered the little girl whom he saw almost daily." Subconsciously, perhaps, the man realized that he had hurt the feelings of a child and, despite the tre- mendous problems which must have been weighing upon his mind, he went back. Many men, many a good man, would merely have pushed the matter aside as trivial, but not so Abraham Lincoln. He went all the way back to make amends for an unintentional oversight; and throughout all these years this woman has cherished the memory of that sweet action. Mrs. Gehrmann's letter continued as follows: "Another pleasant recollection is that, when we heard the cannon booming as we were returning from school, a boy shouted, 'Mr. Lincoln has been elected MAKES AMENDS FOR AN UNINTENTIONAL SLIGHT 81 President and is holding a reception in the State house.' There were about fourteen of us girls together and one said, 'Let's go, too!' We made a rush and ran as fast as we could; then when we reached the State house, we decided to march in single file. As the gover- nor's daughter was with us and happened to be carry- ing a flag, we told her to go first. As we entered the ro- tunda, we found Mr. Lincoln standing in the center with only a few men around him. When he saw us, he laughed. Then, just as he was going to shake hands with the governor's daughter, a man shouted, 'Don't shake hands with her, Mr. Lincoln, she's a Democrat.' This made Lincoln laugh again and he gave her a little extra pat on the shoulder. "The Illinois governor at that time was a most ar- dent Democrat and an intimate friend of Stephen A. Douglas. . . . During the famous Lincoln and Douglas debates just as he was seated before the camera, to the horror of the photographer, Mr. Lincoln ran his fingers through his hair and said, "No one would know me with my hair plastered down like this. I want to look natural.' . . . Mr. Lincoln's election to the Presidency was a tremendous surprise to the people of Springfield. No one thought he would have any show with so dis- tinguished a man as Judge Stephen A. Douglas as his opponent. When he visited the governor it was almost as if royalty had come to town. He was arrogant and 82 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN grand in his bearing, and was always handsomely dressed — the distinguished city gentleman — while poor Mr. Lincoln, who did not care for clothes and who wore the same old shabby tall hat year in and year out, made a poor comparison. "We did not know we had so great a man in our midst. Lincoln's famous deeds had not yet been done, nor had the wonderful Gettysburg Speech been writ- ten; but one thing I do remember, although he was not attractive in personal appearance on the street, he v/as dynamic on the stage and when he was delivering a speech he stood erect and was a forcible speaker. He had so much magnetism that it was wonderful to see an audience of thousands held spellbound by the magic of his tongue. I was too young to understand him, but I could comprehend his power." About a year after I had received Mrs. Gehrmann's letter, I was invited by the Women's Catholic Club of Montclair, New Jersey, to address its members upon the spiritual side of Abraham Lincoln. In the course of my talk, I began to tell the story of Mrs. Gehrmann, when to my amazement, a little woman, dressed en- tirely in black, rose in the audience and said, "Mr. McGlynn, I'm Mrs. Gehrmann. Would you mind if I tell the story?" "No, Mrs. Gehrmann, I wish you would. I'll be de- lighted," and, stepping down from the platform, I led MAKES AMENDS FOR AN UNINTENTIONAL SLIGHT 83 her before the audience and introduced her. Had I planned this first meeting with Mrs. Gehrmann for this occasion, I could not have succeeded in striking such a dramatic note. VIII Lincoln's Famous Shawl Shortly after the opening of the play, many com- ments upon both the play and my characterization of Lincoln were made by public men and were quoted in the press; but the outstanding comment on my por- trayal was given in a letter to me by a Mr. Robert Brewster Stanton (no relation to Secretary of War Stanton), whose father was a contractor and builder of bridges during the Civil War. He wrote me as fol- lows: "At the first night's presentation of Mr. Drink- water's Abraham Lincoln, I was one of your large au- dience, and I feel and know that every one of the friendly critics in the next morning's papers, came far short of giving you the just and adequate praise which your wonderful impersonation of our greatest Amer- ican deserved. "I know this because I knew Mr. Lincoln person- ally, and, in some respects, intimately from 1861 to the time of his death. I was quite a young man then; but I had the honor of spending long hours with him in the White House and elsewhere, at times and in a way in 84 LINCOLN'S FAMOUS SHAWL 85 which I could study at close range his manner, his every word and action when speaking and every ges- ture and movement of his body. "Allow me to tell you the effect that your acting, in two particular scenes of the play, had upon me be- cause of my personal knowledge of the man you repre- sented. "In the scene with the two ladies, as Mr. Lincoln comforts the one and rebukes the other, and in one of the scenes with the cabinet, when, after rather gruffly admonishing his secretaries, he rises from his seat and continues to speak in an entirely different manner — in both these scenes, your impersonation of the great man was so lifelike and so absolutely perfect in pose, manner, gesture and facial expression that it put me in a trance. I lost all knowledge of time, of the theatre, of the audience, even of other actors on the stage and, for the moment, I was transplanted back to the days of the Civil War, and I sat spellbound, seeing and hearing my beloved Lincoln in the very flesh as I had so often done nearly sixty years ago. The effect upon me was so real that, as each scene came to a close, I was shocked and set to trembling when I came to myself and real- ized where I actually was. "It is not surprising, but only natural, that in other parts of the play (with my intimate knowledge) some of your words, your manner and your movements 86 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN seemed to me to fall short of, and in other cases to overstep the spirit of the kind, gentle, earnest, deter- mined and at times sad, as well as humorous emanci- pator. Of these, I need not speak. They, in themselves, aside from the real Lincoln as I knew him, were beau- tifully done, and I doubt if any one else in your audi- ence saw or judged them as I could not help doing . . " Aside from the compliment of Mr. Stanton to my performance, I felt that this was uncanny. The thing which was most gratifying to me was that I had the faculty of making people believe in the actuality of the character which I was presenting, even those who had known Lincoln. Mr. Robert Lincoln, son of the famous man, made this statement : "I, of course, could not attend the per- formance of the play as it would revive some very sad memories, but I understand that Mr. McGlynn gave a very respectful portrayal. The only criticism I would make from what I have heard is that Mr. McGlynn scarfed the shawl. My father never scarfed his shawl." The shawl I wore in the play was a very picturesque, but not an accurate example. Rev. William E. Barton, Pastor of the First Congregational Church of Oak Park, Illinois, who has written books on Lincoln, took great exception to the fact that I wore the shawl as I did. He took pains to have me go to the historical mu- seum of Illinois where he draped Lincoln's shawl^ LINCOLN'S FAMOUS SHAWL 87 which was on exhibition there, on my shoulders as he said Lincoln had worn it. The shawl was ten feet long, a sort of Scotch weave, light brown in its peculiar color and should be worn, according to Dr. Barton, laid over the left shoulder, and then dropped down front to be- low the left knee. The shawl was then draped across the back, brought over the right shoulder, thrown across the chest and the other end thrown back over the left shoulder. At the place where the shawl crossed itself just above the left breast, it was pinned with a large shawl pin somewhat resembling our present day safety pin. After my visit with Dr. Barton, he wrote me the fol- lowing letter : "... All questions of costume and so on are subordi- nate, as I fully understand, and yet I could have wished that Mr. Drinkwater had been a little more accurate in some of his history and, especially, that he had omitted those features which, I think, are not true to history and which lower our ideal. Is there any good reason why the whiskey bottle should not disappear from the Appomattox scene; or the words, 'By God 5 and £ Gol Darn 5 be deleted? Grant was not an habitually profane man and he certainly would not have used an oath in the presence of Lincoln with whom he was not well ac- quainted. They had never met until the day Grant became lieutenant general. 88 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN "The question of the shawl is a very minor one. If, however, you were to wear the kind of shawl which Lincoln actually wore, you would, I suppose, naturally carry it in upon your arm folded the long way so as to give a perpendicular line. On a warm April evening in Virginia, Lincoln would have carried it that way; he would not have come in wearing it upon his shoulders when taking active exercise. When he sat down to sleep, he would have wrapped it around him. The shawl would not need to interfere with the free use of the arms when such use is required. "The short scarf made of heavy yarn with longitud- inal stripes is about as unhistoric as would be a wo- man's hat. If the clothing is correct as to the tall hat, why is not the long shawl also correct? They were equally characteristic of Lincoln. A Panama or a golf cap might conceivably fit better into the stage business and would be no more out of keeping. ..." Dr. Barton was the one person who took offense at the manner in which I wore the shawl. I told him that while it may not have been accurate, nevertheless there must be some little license in the theatre. The shawl I wore was certainly picturesque. With reference to the hat, I told him: "I do not wear the same style of stove-pipe hat that was worn by Lincoln. We know that it was an odd looking hat; and that if I were to wear and make an entrance in it, LINCOLN'S FAMOUS SHAWL 89 considering the audiences of today, it might create a laugh which would bring some little ridicule to the character. The hat I wore in the Appomattox episode was really a French type of hat somewhat resembling the stove-pipe of Lincoln, but having a little bell in the crown and a bit of sweep in the rim which took away the appearance of eccentricity characteristic of the old-time stove-pipe, and instead of being a comedy hat, which it would be considered in our day, it was becoming." In contradiction to Dr. Barton's statement that Lin- coln never wore a shawl in the manner in which I did in the play, it might be well to quote from a letter which I received from Mr. H. R. Robinson, of Hay- ward, California, in which he says : "I was very much interested in seeing you wear the shawl in the fifth act, it being the custom of Mr. Lincoln to wear one of his wife's shawls to cover his face and throat when he vis- ited the telegraph office some distance from the White House. I know you will be interested to learn that the original shawl used by Mr. Lincoln has been preserved all these years. Mrs. Lincoln, many years after the war, presented the shawl to one of her neighbors who was at the time living in the suburbs of Chicago. His name was Harvey W. Fowler ... I believe that his widow, who has since remarried, has the shawl in her posses- sion. I met her a year or more ago and at that time she 90 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN told me that it was her intention to present the shawl to Mr. Fowler's son, William. . . . There is no ques- tion about the authenticity of the shawl." For instance, if an actress, were to step upon the stage today and play some celebrated character of a period in which the dress was more or less grotesque, she would have to take some license; and, while sug- gesting the style of the period, she would instruct the costumer to use some judgment in avoiding anything which might be suggestive of comedy. There is no question in my mind that the old-time, straight stove-pipe hat, while accepted as the fashion of Lincoln's day, would have had the same effect upon an audience as would the comedy wig. Robert Lincoln was not pleased with the fact that General Grant was represented as smoking a cigar in the presence of the President. Incidentally, Robert Lincoln was on General Grant's staff toward the end of the war. To quote him, "General Grant was pri- marily a gentleman and he would never have been guilty of smoking a cigar in the presence of the Presi- dent." Robert Lincoln and General Miles, as well as Doctor Barton, objected to the use of the whiskey bottle in the Appomattox scene, General Miles saying, "Grant never drank on duty." The General also said of Grant that he was a silent man and never used profanity. LINCOLN'S FAMOUS SHAWL 91 Again referring to the shawl which had been used by Lincoln during his four years in the White House, Mr. Frank G. Logan to whom the shawl was given after Lincoln's passing, was able to get me a piece of it for the reason that moths had in some way gotten into the glass case in which it was kept and were destroying the fabric. Mr. Logan's sisters were weaving worsted over the spots which had been eaten. "Oh, I would dearly love to have a piece of that," I said to Mr. Logan, and he replied, "I'll get it for you." So he clipped a small piece of the shawl from a damaged spot and gave it to me, together with a letter telling its history and certi- fying that the piece in my possession was authentic. This shawl that Mr. Logan had was evidently Mr. Lincoln's personal garment and was not the shawl men- tioned by Mr. H. R. Robinson as having belonged to Mrs. Lincoln, but which was frequently worn by Lin- coln, according to his letters. In a letter to the Chicago Historical Society, in speaking of the shawl which he had, Mr. Logan says: "February 12, 1924, on the 115th Anniversary of Mr. Lincoln's birth, it gave me pleasure to present to the Society, President Lincoln's famous shawl, which I had obtained in 1890 from Charles Forbes, the President's personal attendant at the time of his death. "This shawl, together with the other objects of the Logan collection of Lincoln and John Brown 92 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN possessions, for a time had been kept in a box in my old home at 2919 Prairie Avenue, Chicago, into which receptacle, most disastrously, moths entered, working havoc with the shawl and ne- cessitating its extensive repair. "This was done by one of Mrs. Logan's sisters, Mrs. William Harvey, Jr., of Glendale, Cali- fornia, who at that time was visiting us, assisted by a maid, Ida Cruickshanks, a capable needle worker then in our employ — restoring it to its present condition. "Several remnants were left after the repairing was complete, and it is because of the disposition of these, and to account for the mended condition of the shawl that I feel it proper to address you. "One of the pieces or remnants I presented on December 21, 1920, to Mr. Frank McGlynn, the actor, at that time playing the part of the mar- tyred President, at McVicker's Theatre, Chicago, in the play 'Abraham Lincoln 5 by John Drink- water — and who, with my permission, wore the shawl during an evening performance. "Another remnant I have given to Mrs. Har- vey — aforementioned — and I am presenting a remnant to each of my four sons: Stuart, How- ard, Spencer and Waldo, and to my daughter Rhea — now Mrs. Charles A. Munroe, who, with her family, lives in Chicago in the former home of the President's late son, Mr. Robert T. Lincoln, which I purchased from him before his removal to Washington, D. C, as a wedding present to her. "The remaining pieces I am myself preserv- ing. All these pieces, like the shawl from which they were taken, are sacred and, I am sure, will LINCOLN'S FAMOUS SHAWL 93 be so treated and handed down by their respec- tive possessors." Mr. Logan unquestionably believed that I wore the shawl at a performance of the play, but I feel certain he is mistaken. If such a thing had happened, I would no doubt remember it, as my memory is very keen. That Mr. Logan's account is not as reliable as it might be is evidenced by the fact that he says the play was produced at McVicker's Theatre in Chicago, when as a matter of fact it appeared at the Blackstone. I did wear the shawl I have mentioned, in the rooms of the Historical Society. I also had it in my hand at the Marshall Field Lincolniana which adjoined the Library of the famous department store at about the same time. Here, I also met Dr. Barton; and whether it was here or at the Historical Society or at both places that he draped the shawl on me, I cannot be positive; however, it did happen at one of these places. At the time of my visit to the Chicago Historical So- ciety, I also put on Lincoln's overcoat and hat and held his umbrella. The hat was size seven and an eighth, just a little too small for me, as I wear a seven and a quarter. I have noticed a divergence in the statements written in several books regarding the size of Lincoln's hat— one writer even stating that it was six and an eighth. (Although this may be a typographical error, nevertheless it appears in the book. ) 94 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN The overcoat from the front view was not much too large across the chest, but in the back, across the shoulders you could have inserted another McGlynn, which bears out the conclusion to which one must come after looking at the life cast of Lincoln's torso in the same museum, that, contrary to many statements, Lincoln was not narrow through the chest. He had enormous development over the shoulders and upper part of his back and in the deltoid muscles and biceps. From all I can gather after reading and talking with people who knew him, Lincoln did stoop when stand- ing and talking to people, but that is only natural in a man who is six feet four inches in height. A consider- ation of his photograph will bring any one to the con- clusion that he was not flat-chested, but as a matter of fact, was full-chested. In those pictures in which he is shown with his arms folded, he had evidently straight- ened himself up, since the fullness of his chest is plain- ly noticeable. We all knew men during the late war who, before enlisting, had had the habit of stooping, as did Lincoln, in the posture of farm workers who had long followed the plow. After having been put under the instructions of their drill sergeants and made to straighten their shoulders and throw out their chests, these men showed surprising chest development, and, I think, this was perhaps true of Lincoln. IX Imitating Lincoln's High-Pitched Voice After the play had been before the public for some little time, I began to meet an occasional person who had some recollection of Lincoln's voice, and many let- ters also came to me bearing upon the subject. Among those whom I met was a Mr. Edward O. Skelton, of Boston. Mr. Skelton had known Lincoln in the days when he was a practising lawyer, and as a boy had been an attendant in the law library at Chicago to which Lincoln frequently went to write his briefs. I asked Mr. Skelton whether or not he remembered Lincoln's voice and his answer was that he did; he added the information that he had heard him in court and also on the rostrum. He said that Lincoln began his addresses in a high-pitched, almost falsetto tone of voice and that he gradually "descended into a rich baritone which he could project for vast distances." That statement of Mr. Skelton's is at variance with the accepted idea that Lincoln's voice was not of an agreeable quality and was the first confirmation from any person that I had had of my deductions as to Lin- coln's method of speaking, or as to the actual quality 95 96 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN of his voice. Later, I asked numerous veterans of the Civil War about it. Some could not remember; others, after witnessing the play, would simply say, "Well, very much like yours." Bearing out Mr. Skelton's statement that Lincoln could project his voice for great distances was the statement of one of the old veterans whom I met and who was at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettys- burg on the occasion of Lincoln's immortal speech. This man, whose name unfortunately I have forgotten, told me that he was one of the vast number of soldiers assembled there and that he had heard Lincoln very distinctly. This I have also read in an account given by another who was present at that time, all of which is contradictory to the general impression that Lincoln delivered the speech in a quiet tone of voice. I feel that any actor or person reading the Gettysburg Address should read it in the manner in which he believed Lincoln had given it when speaking to an enormous crowd and having to project his voice so that he might be heard by all. This has not been the method of any person whom I have heard render the speech. While at the Cort Theatre in New York, I received a letter from a Rev. Arthur B. Patterson, pastor of the Central Congregational Church of Torrington, Con- necticut. Among other things, he wrote, "I have been told by one who claims to know that when Lincoln IMITATING LINCOLN'S HIGH-PITCHED VOICE 97 spoke at Gettysburg, his great words, 'Government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth, 5 were not spoken with the pri- mary accent on the three prepositions, 'of, 'by' and 'for'." Mr. Wayne Whipple who compiled the "Story Life of Lincoln", in repeating to me the account given to him by his father, of what had happened at Gettys- burg, said that Lincoln held a paper in his hand which he did not read, and that when he came to the words, "of", "by" and "for" he distinctly said, moving his hand with each preposition, "of the people, by the people and for the people"— which is a direct contra- diction of the account given in the letter of Dr. Pat- terson. It is more than likely that neither of these state- ments is absolutely correct. The words, "of", "by" and "for" are not original with Lincoln, but were used by him as the best method of conveying his thought. In reading these lines, which are used as part of the final speech in the Drinkwater play, I accented the prepo- sitions "of" and "by" and the final use of the word "people" as I felt that that must have been the manner in which Lincoln had spoken them. Accounts of Lincoln's voice differed greatly and to decide what had been the tempo of his speech was dif- ficult. Mr. Horace White in his address before the Chi- 98 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN cago Historical Society in February, 1914 (which has since been published) made this statement: "Lincoln began to speak in a slow and rather awk- ward way. He had a thin tenor, or rather falsetto voice, almost as high-pitched as a boatswain's whistle. It could be heard farther and it had better wearing qualities than Douglas's rich baritone, but it was not too impressive to the listeners. Moreover, his words did not flow in a rush, or an unbroken stream like Doug- las's. He sometimes stopped for repairs before finish- ing a sentence, especially at the beginning of a speech. After getting fairly started, and lubricated, as it were, he went on without any noticeable hesitation, but he never had the ease and grace and finish of his adver- sary." It is hard to reconcile this analysis of Lincoln's method of speaking and the tones of his voice with many other statements made to me personally, notably the one by a prominent newspaperman whom I met during the course of the run of the play. He asked me, "How did you acquire the method of speaking that was Lincoln's?" My reply was, "Largely by deduction." "Well," he replied, "you have it. Lincoln began slowly and then spoke rapidly. He went on to say, "After he had planted his first idea, he seemed to gather speed. It is a fact that Lincoln spoke during the Lincoln- Douglas debates at the rate of 165 words a minute, IMITATING LINCOLN'S HIGH-PITCHED VOICE 99 whereas Douglas spoke at the rate of 120 words a minute. 5 ' It was very gratifying to me to have General N. P. Chipman, whom I met in San Francisco, write me a letter in which he acknowledged some photographs I had sent him and in commenting, said: "Your make-up is very like Lincoln as I knew him. Much more like him than I had thought it possible to achieve. When I saw you at the Columbia last summer I was not able, because of my impaired vision, to get your facial ex- pression either from a front or a side view, but your movements on the stage and your voice and general manner were strikingly reminiscent of Lincoln." It would have been impossible for me to present what I actually believed to have been Lincoln's vocal quality. From all the evidence, I concluded that, as I have said before, he began in a false tone and then as he progressed, descended to his natural voice which was of baritone, and not of tenor quality, as many writers would have us believe. I tried to indicate the baritone quality by using for the greater portion of my portrayal the higher tones of my voice, which, fortun- ately for my effort, is flexible, but the predominant tone of which is of a bass quality. For dramatic effect, however, I did occasionally descend into the lower tones of my voice, which, no doubt, are of a deeper quality than were those of Lincoln. This is legitimate, 100 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN just as it is legitimate for me to have used English without any attempt at dialect. X Lincoln s Quick Thinking Saves Soldier in Jeopardy I previously referred to Mr. Edward O. Skelton in speaking of the tones of Lincoln's voice. It was during the first presentation of the play in Boston that I met him. A few years before the Civil War, Mr. Skelton had given up his position in the law library in Chicago to join his family who were moving to Pennsylvania. When the war broke out, he enlisted in a Pennsylvania regiment and, by an odd chance, was eventually sta- tioned in Washington for a short period. During this time, while he was off duty one day, he was passing the White House when he saw a long line of people moving slowly through the gate and toward the main entrance. He asked a soldier on guard what the crowd was doing and was told that this was reception day. "The President is receiving. Get in line and shake hands with him." Mr. Skelton's words are these : "And so I did. After a considerable time I found my way to the President. Mr. Lincoln was standing and shaking hands with peo- ple after their names had been announced by the guard. When it came my turn, the guard asked, 'What's your 101 102 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN name?' 'Skelton,' I replied and then he announced loudly, 'Soldier Skelton'. Mr. Lincoln's face was turned from me and as he continued to talk with the person who had preceded me, he extended his hand without turning. But I wasn't going to let him not see me, so I said, 'How are you, Mr. Lincoln?' Turning, he re- plied, 'Oh, hello, Eddie. Where did you come from? Sit over there, I want to talk to you.' So I was seated in a chair and I waited for a long time, in fact, until the reception was over. Then Mr. Lincoln came over and sat beside me. He slapped me on the knee. Now, Mr. Lincoln had a very heavy hand and it made me wince a bit and that made him laugh. He asked, 'What are you doing in a Pennsylvania uni- form, Eddie? Why didn't you get into an Illinois uni- form?' I told him that my family had moved to Penn- sylvania a number of years before and he said, 'Oh, yes, I remember now. I missed you.' Then he asked me about my people and after a few general questions, finally ended by saying, 'Now, Eddie, come and see me again.' I never did, not realizing what such a visit would have meant to me in after life. "The next and the last time I saw Mr. Lincoln was when I was one of the army under McClellan. Mr. Lincoln was reviewing the troops and was riding on horseback with General McClellan and his staff. As you see, I am rather short, and I didn't want Mr. Lin- LINCOLN'S QUICK THINKING SAVES SOLDIER 103 coin to pass by without seeing me, so as he came almost abreast of me I committed a breach of military eti- quette. It was spontaneous so far as I was concerned and I couldn't help it. I called out at the top of my voice, 'Hello, Mr. Lincoln!' General McClellan scowled and the officers scov/led, but Mr. Lincoln looked over and when he saw me, waved his hand at me and shouted back, 'Hello, Eddie, how are you?' Of course, nothing was done to me after that." This, to me, illustrates the quick thought of Lincoln for those in jeopardy. He must have realized instantly that the boy, Skelton, had placed himself in a bad po- sition and have immediately righted him with a friendly wave of the hand. One piece of advice which Lincoln gave to Skelton and which he remembered beyond all others, was this : "Don't ever form your opinions merely from appear- ances." This was given after Skelton had told Mr. Lincoln that he was of the opinion that he was going to lose a certain case which had just been decided in favor of his client. At about the same time, I met Mrs. Benjamin M. Sherrill, who was in Joshua Speed's family, and she dictated to me what she termed Lincoln's favorite poem. Joshua Speed, as we all know, was a very close friend of Abraham Lincoln, and their correspondence is a matter of history. Mrs. SherrilPs statement that the 104 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN following was Lincoln's favorite poem contradicts the popular impression that the poem "Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud 33 was his choice, although I believe it must have been, because he made a copy of it for a friend as a poem of which he was very fond. The poem that Mrs. Sherrill dictated is as follows: YOUR MISSON If you cannot journey up the mountain— Up the mountain steep and high, You can stand within the valley As the multitudes go by. You can chant in happy measure As they slowly move along, Though they may forget the singer They will not forget the song. If you cannot in the battle, Prove yourself a soldier true, If where fire and smoke are thickest— There's nothing you can do, When the battlefield is silent You can move with solemn tread, You can bear away the wounded, You can cover up the dead. Do not then sit idly waiting For some greater work to do. Fortune is an idle goddess, She will never come to you. It was also in Boston that the entire company was invited to a luncheon at the headquarters of the Mitt- LINCOLN'S QUICK THINKING SAVES SOLDIER 105 tary Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. This organization, composed of Civil War officers of the Army and Navy, was organized shortly after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln for the purpose of perpetuating his principles and for the additional pur- pose of guarding the lives of public officials. After the luncheon, speeches were in order. It was a very impressive affair. Those men, all toward the close of their earthly careers, were filled with the spirit that had been theirs in '61. Their vigor, both physical and mental, was remarkable. One old gentleman, ninety-six years of age, whose name I have forgotten, but who, as I recall it, was a surgeon general during the war, on being invited to see the play that evening, said, "I would like very much to go, but I have an en- gagement to go to a dance." I was told afterwards that, prior to the luncheon, he had attended a major oper- ation at one of the hospitals. Henry M. Rogers, Chairman of the Committee on History of the Legion, delivered a speech which, to me, seemed impromptu. When I told him afterwards what an impression it had made on me, to my amaze- ment he informed me that he had written and mem- orized it. I asked him for a copy and here it is : "Ladies and Gentlemen: It is my privilege, as Chairman of the Committee on History, to bid you welcome to the home of the Commandery of Massa- 106 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLiN chusetts, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. "The great Order was the first fruit that sprang from the grave of Abraham Lincoln, for his death-day, April 15, 1865, was the birthday of our Order. "On that day of unspeakable horror, when a para- lyzed world stood aghast at his cowardly assassination, a few officers of the Union Army came together in Philadelphia and declared their determination to pro- ceed forthwith to Washington to act as a bodyguard to their great chieftain till he was laid to his rest in Springfield, Illinois. They took their place by his coffin and bore it tenderly to its final home ; and then, return- ing to Philadelphia, instituted the Order of the Loyal Legion to keep alive the memory of Abraham Lincoln and to disseminate the principles for which he lived, worked, suffered and died. "Nearly 18,000 Union Officers of the Civil War and their descendants have worn the insignia of the Loyal Legion and have done what they could to keep the lamp burning and the ideals alive that the Order at its birth promulgated. "The principles of Abraham Lincoln are still the basic principles of our Republic, to be driven into the hearts of our people till they awaken to a knowl- edge of what they really mean, what they stand for, where they lead. LINCOLN'S QUICK THINKING SAVES SOLDIER 107 "We who followed Lincoln, Grant and Meade, Sherman and Sheridan, Hancock and Farragut and Porter and the hundreds of other leaders in war, wel- come you, ladies and gentlemen of the 'Abraham Lincoln Company 5 as comrades and fellow workers with us in our great propaganda. "It is your privilege to make Abraham Lincoln — the man — to live again in bodily presence and his principles to seem once more burning realities. Through John Drinkwater you are conscripted — which to us means consecrated— to the cause of Abra- ham Lincoln. "And we, about to die, salute you and bid you God- speed in your noble and ennobling work." The sentiment of this speech gave me one of the greatest emotional thrills I have ever experienced, and I know that the other members of the company were similarly affected. It was a memorable occasion in all our lives. I am sure that none of us who saw that line of aged patriots — standing at salute to us — as Henry M. Rogers spoke those concluding words will ever forget that most impressive scene. It was living drama. Shortly after my meeting with Mr. Skelton, I received a letter from John Dodge asking me to call and see him. I didn't know who John Dodge was except that he wrote me that he had known Mr. 108 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN Lincoln and would like to have a talk with me about the play, so one day I called at his lodgings on Carver Street in Boston. As the landlady opened the door, she said, "Oh, yes, it's Mr. McGlynn. Mr. Dodge has been expecting you." At her direction, I went up a long flight of stairs and entered a small attic room in which I met John Dodge. For a second I stood looking at him and his almost blind eyes searched my face questioningly. He was old, quite old; but as he spoke there was no doubt that his mind was still keen. All about the room were pictures of Lincoln and as he saw me gazing at them, he told me this story : "Yes, Mr. McGlynn, Abraham Lincoln was my idol. I loved Mr. Lincoln. I was his bodyguard at the White House during the war. I belonged to a Pennsylvania regiment which was nicknamed 'The Bucktails 5 , so called because we wore buck's tails in our caps. Mr. Lincoln wasn't anxious to have a bodyguard; but Stanton insisted upon one. Mr. Lincoln finally told him, 'Well, if I have to have a guard, give me some of those Bucktails. I like the caps they wear.' So I was one of the regiment selected to spend certain hours of each day guarding the president. When I first met Mr. Lincoln, he asked me how old I was. 'Eighteen, sir,' I replied. He looked at me and said, 'Guess again'. LINCOLN'S QUICK THINKING SAVES SOLDIER 109 'Well, I'm seventeen,' I answered. 'You don't look it,' he came back at me. But I was seventeen. "Naturally, I became acquainted with everybody in the household of the White House. One day when there was to be a state dinner, I was helping the serv- ants decorate the state dining room. Mary Gorman was the cook and she called me into the kitchen. She made wonderful pastry and asked if I wanted some pie. I was sitting in the kitchen eating a piece when Mr. Lincoln came to the door and called out, 'John, I think they want you in the state dining room and not in the kitchen.' That was his diplomatic way of putting it. I asked Mr. Hay about it afterwards and he said there had been some little discussion." This little incident indicates the simplicity of the White House in Lincoln's time. There was Lincoln helping Mrs. Lincoln while the servants were decor- ating the room and, evidently, Mrs. Lincoln had made some complaint about the bodyguard's being in the kitchen. (Incidentally, John Dodge is authority for the statement that Lincoln's favorite flower was the lily of the valley. ) Dodge then told how Mr. Lincoln, at the insistence of Stanton, had finally consented to have a military escort when living at the Soldiers' Home just outside of Washington during the summer time. The escort 110 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN consisted of a number of cavalrymen from the Black Horse Cavalry. Frequently, Mr. Lincoln would de- liberately wait until the men had dismounted, not knowing just when he would appear; then he would steal quietly to his horse, mount quickly and dash away with the entire escort frantically trying to catch up with him all the way to the Soldiers' Home. Dodge said that Lincoln loved this prank. Once Dodge broke into his own story by suddenly looking at me and saying, "You know, Mr. McGlynn, you actually were Lincoln in certain parts of the play?" I smiled, "Now, where were they?" "Do you know where you said 'good night' to those men in the first act of the play? That was Lincoln. And where you upbraided that woman, the wife of the northern profiteer? That was Lincoln!" "But would he have been so severe?" I asked. "Yes," he insisted, "yes, indeed. He could com- mend; but he could also condemn!" Dodge's approval of my saying "good night" was rather gratifying because I had no idea that while I had said it in a light way, I had used Lincoln's actual manner. I had, of course, presumed that it might be, but to have it brought out by a man who actually knew him and had heard him under such circumstances was somewhat remarkable. LINCOLN'S QUICK THINKING SAVES SOLDIER 111 John Dodge went on to say that he was off duty the night of the tragedy at Ford's Theatre. However, he had read in the newspaper that the President intended to be at the theatre that evening and that he had gone there and was in the audience. When he heard the shot and saw Booth jump to the stage, he immediately dashed out of the theatre and reported to his superior officer, exclaiming, "John Wilkes Booth has shot the President!" I asked Dodge if he was sure that it was Booth and he said, "Oh, yes, I knew him by sight." Then he told the following story: "I was im- mediately detailed to go to Vice President Johnson's hotel. Some one had been trying to reach him, too, for the purpose of killing him, but had either been frightened away or had weakened at the last moment. Learning this at the hotel, I immediately went back to my colonel and was then detailed to go to the Seward home. The house was a shambles, the man who had attempted the assassination of Seward having es- caped." At this juncture, old John Dodge paused for a mo- ment, then he looked up at me with indescribable questioning, horror and sadness. "Mr. McGlynn, would you believe this? Would you believe that on the night when President Lincoln was assassinated, a man stood on the steps of a hotel in Washington, and 112 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN watched the commotion in the street below and asked the cause of the trouble and upon being told that President Lincoln had been shot, replied, 'Damn him, he ought to be shot !' Would you think, Mr. McGlynn, that any man could say that?" "What did the crowd do?" I asked. "Did the others tear him to pieces?" John Dodge looked at me for a long time with an expression of astonished horror in his eyes, and then he dropped his head into his hands as though he were undergoing some mental anguish. He held this posi- tion for, I should say, ten or twenty seconds. Finally, he recovered himself and began to talk about some other phase of his experience in the White House, never again referring to the incident of the man on the hotel steps. About a year after this interview with John Dodge, I was visited in the theatre by a distinguished looking elderly gentleman who had been a surgeon during the Civil War. I regret that I do not remember his name. Among other things, he said, "Mr. McGlynn, a very remarkable thing happened the night of President Lincoln's assassination. A man was standing on the steps of the Willard Hotel in Washington and when he saw the commotion he asked what it was all about. Some one told him that the President had been shot, and this man remarked, 'Damn him, he ought to be LINCOLN'S QUICK THINKING SAVES SOLDIER 113 shot.' A young soldier standing near by ran his bayonet right through the man !" When I heard this, I could not help but recall old John Dodge in his attic room on Carver Street in Bos- ton, with pictures and mementoes of Lincoln all about him, as he gazed at me and asked the question: "Would you think that any man could say that?" I remembered seeing his venerable head drop into his hands in anguish, and I wondered. XI Lincoln Beloved for His Humaneness Lincoln is revered for his statesmanship; he is com- mended for his emancipation of the slaves; but he is beloved because of his humaneness. Before I essayed the role of Lincoln in the Drinkwater play, I had, of course, a belief that he was a very kindly man; but until I came into contact with those who had had actual experience with him and until incidents were called to my attention which emphasized this endear- ing quality in the man, I had no proper conception of its depth. Mr. R. J. Emmonds of Kansas City, Missouri, told me that he had been a soldier in the Civil War; and that upon one occasion, when a number of troopers were assembled, President Lincoln had singled him out. "What's your name?" he had asked. "Emmonds, sir." "You have a father and mother living?" "Well, my father isn't living, sir," said Emmonds, "but my mother is, although she isn't in very good health." "That's too bad," replied Lincoln. "I'm sorry." 114 LINCOLN BELOVED FOR HIS HUMANENESS 115 Shortly after this incident, young Emmonds was sent to the White House by his commander, with a message which had to be delivered personally to the President. As Emmonds was standing in the hall just outside of the door which led into the room in which the cabinet was in session, President Lincoln came through the door. Emmonds stepped up to him to de- liver the message, but before he could speak, the Presi- dent said : "How are you, Emmonds and how's your mother?" "She's very much better, thank you, sir," replied Emmonds. "I'm glad to hear that," Lincoln said, and smiled. Mr. Emmonds told me the above story as a sample of the remarkable faculty which Lincoln had for re- membering names and faces, but I could see it as a reflection of the great kindliness of the man to those in subordinate walks of life. Mr. Emmonds said that, just preceding this incident, according to the guard on duty in the hallway, Lincoln had signed the emancipation proclamation, so, he said, "I felt that I was the first man, other than the members of the cabinet, who had the privilege of shaking hands with President Lincoln after the signing of that document." Then there was Mrs. H. E. Thompson of Toledo, Ohio, who wrote me the following: ". . . It came to my mind when you were telling us 116 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN the story of 'Mrs. Cracker' and the one of 'Eddie' as illustrative of the greathearted Lincoln, that my father had often told me this when I was a little girl. "My father, Franklin Osborne, served in the Civil War in the 64th New York Volunteers and was wounded at the Battle of Chancellor sville. He was finally sent to a convalescent hospital in Washington and was there for some time. "On a certain day each week President Lincoln was in the habit of going through the wards, helping to distribute flowers or dainties and always stopping to speak a word of cheer to each soldier. They all adored him. "On the cot next to my father's lay a lad not yet sixteen, a young bugler who had been badly wounded. He had made a brave fight and was on the road to recovery; but he was so homesick for his own people that the nurses and boys in the wards feared that he might not live. "Near his own home was a convalescent hospital and he begged to be transferred to it. The physicians had recommended this, but because of a tangle of red tape his name had not been slated to be transferred — although men were being changed every day. "One day, as President Lincoln paused at my father's bed to grasp his hand and inquire, 'Well, my LINCOLN BELOVED FOR HIS HUMANENESS 117 boy, how are you, today? 5 father told him about the homesick lad. "Mr. Lincoln passed to the boy's side. Before he had a chance to speak, the boy caught his hand and ex- claimed, 'Oh, Mr, Lincoln, won't you please have me sent to hospital right near my home? If my mother can only come to see me, I know I'll get well.' "Tears came to the eyes of the big-hearted man as he patted the lad's shoulder and said, 'My boy, I have no authority to transfer you, but be a brave boy and we'll see.' After asking his name and a few particulars, he went on to the next patient. "The following day, a special messenger brought a letter to the hospital signed by the proper authority and ordering the officials to cut all red tape and trans- fer the young bugler immediately. The order was car- ried out without a moment's delay. All the men who had grown to love the noble little fellow rejoiced with him and blessed the man who, despite his weighty cares, had brought about an answer to one boy's prayer." Somewhat along the same line was the incident related by my father in his letter which I have already mentioned. He wrote : "You might put this incident in your play. During the war a boy from Vermont was sentenced to be shot for sleeping on duty. His mother 118 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN called upon President Lincoln and he went down to the prison or military camp where the boy was held prisoner, pending his execution. When Lincoln found that the boy was ill, he immediately pardoned him and appointed his mother as nurse to care for him." My father had neither seen nor read the Drink- water play and he didn't know what it was all about. Of course, he failed to realize that I had no authority to insert anything in the work of the author; however, the incident is of interest because it is the recollection of an actual happening and is quite similar to the story of William Scott which Drinkwater used in the next to the last episode of his play in order to show the humaneness of Lincoln. Of course, the incident as por- trayed is not true to history. As related by Mr. Drink- water, Lincoln asks Grant whether or not there are any "shootings," and Grant informs him that a boy, William Scott by name, is to be shot for sleeping on post. Lincoln then asks to see the boy and Grant in- structs a subaltern to have him brought into the room. This is done. In a very pathetic scene, in which Lincoln questions the boy about his mother, and looks at her photograph, he informs Scott that he is not to be shot and straightway writes a note to General Meade pardoning and reinstating him. This was a most affecting scene with the audiences who attended the presentation of the drama, and it demonstrated LINCOLN BELOVED FOR HIS HUMANENESS 119 the assertion that the greatest hold that Lincoln's memory has upon the American public is the love which he had for his fellow man. In the next scene in the play, word comes that Scott has been killed in action just before the surrender of Lee. Actually, a William Scott was sentenced to be exe- cuted for having fallen asleep while on duty and the record of the trial is on the books of the War Depart- ment; but there is no record of this sentence having been fulfilled, and no record of his having been par- doned. However, there is a record of a William Scott, a native of Groton, Vermont, Private Company "K", Third Regiment, Vermont, having died on the field of honor, April, 1862, at Lee's Mills, of a gunshot wound in the chest received in action April 16. The man tried by the court, convicted and sentenced to be executed was undoubtedly the same William Scott, as the record shows that the trial was of William Scott of Company "K", Third Vermont Volunteers. The following information was given me in a letter written by the war department. I quote: 120 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN "War Department, Office of the Judge Advocate General Washington. "Mr. Frank McGlynn, The 'Abraham Lincoln' Col, New York, N. Y. "Dear Sir: "I am enclosing copies of some papers, includ- ing the record of trial, concerning William Scott, Pvt., 3rd Regt. Vt. Vol., which may be of interest to you or Mr. Drinkwater. "The papers show that the incident, so ably portrayed in your play, is founded on fact, and would appear to have happened about as indi- cated — or we would have had a record of the President's pardon." This letter was signed by Mr. F. G. Munson, Major, Judge Advocate Assistant Executive Office. At the same time I received this letter from the war department, I also received photostatic copies of a letter from Samuel Breck to Hon. Charles Sumner and two endorsements thereon, one of which was written by Summer. The final action indicated in the endorse- ment below Sumner's, was written by the President, himself. The letter reads as follows : "Hon. Charles Sumner. Dear Sir: We have an unpleasant report that George C. Alden of Company K, Capt. Reed, 7th Mass. Reg., a native and resident LINCOLN BELOVED FOR HIS HUMANENESS 121 of this town, is on trial, under ar- rest or sentence for being found sleeping on his post whilst on guard. I know nothing about the fact, but if it was true that he was so found there are abundance of mitigating circumstances that should at least modify, if not entirely supersede any severity of punishment. He is himself and is of a family thor- oughly loyal and every way respect- able. He has for many years, prob- ably from his birth, been subject to a lethargy occasionally so that he would fall asleep even when per- sons were in conversation with him. This has afflicted him for many years. For some time previous to his enlistment, he was supposed to have recovered entirely from the difficulty, but for three or four days previous to his being set on guard we understand that he was overcome with his old lethargic dif- ficulty. The accompanying certifi- cate or affidavit of one of the phy- sicians who has practiced in the family for many years will give you the necessary assurance of the fact. "I would not trouble you with this matter if my son who is on McDowell's Staff was so situated that he could attend to it. But knowing your prompt sympathy in all such circumstances I take the 122 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN liberty of requesting that you will be good enough to lay this letter be- fore the President with the request that all proceeding may be delayed until the facts in relation to this young man can be fully investigated and his widowed mother may have no grounds to reproach the Gov- ernment with sacrificing her son in hot haste. '"Will you be good enough to as- sure the President that my position and standing are such as will justify the request I made." The Hon. Charles Sumner laid this before the Presi- dent with the following endorsement : "I ask attention to this letter from an estimable citizen, hoping that proceedings should be delayed against George C. Alden, Co. K, 7th Mass., for sleeping at his post." And just four days after the letter had been written, President Lincoln made this note below the endorse- ment of Sumner : "I know nothing of this case — know not where Mr. Alden is — whether any proceedings are on foot against him — I should not knowingly let him be pun- ished, if shown he has the infirmity stated in the affi- davit; though the infirmity may be sufficient reason for dismissing him from the services, (signed) "A. Lincoln." LINCOLN BELOVED FOR HIS HUMANENESS 123 The records are full of incidents in which Lincoln pardoned soldiers who had commited breaches of military discipline. To use his own words, 'in a larger sense/ may we not feel that had the great tragedy of the 14th of April, 1865, not happened, the bitterness engendered thereafter, which has lasted almost to our day, would never have been generated; and the heart strings of that great American would have wound themselves about the prostrate South and gathered it with loving fatherliness back into the family of re- United States. XII Lincoln Had a Sense of Humor Among the outstanding traits of Lincoln were his ab- solute honesty and his adherence to the truth at all times. However, at a dinner at the Brevoort Hotel, New York City, in honor of John Drinkwater and me, Col- onel Roberts told a story which he prefaced by saying that there was one time when Lincoln deviated from the truth. During the days of the Civil War, crinoline and hoops were the vogue for women. Upon one occasion, the wife of a farmer who did not dress in the height of fashion, but instead wore a simple skirt without hoops, called at the White House to wait on the President for the purpose of having him give her a permit to go to see her son who was in a hospital somewhere at the front. Evidently, she had been refused admission, and as a consequence she was making quite a commotion in the anteroom. Upon hearing her, Lincoln asked his secretary, "What does that woman want? What's the trouble?" "She wants to see you," answered the secretary. "Tell her to come in," said Lincoln. 124 LINCOLN HAD A SENSE OF HUMOR 125 The woman was brought to him, and was asked to tell her story. Lincoln, at its conclusion, said, "Well, that's in the hands of the War Department. However, I'll give you a litde note to Mr. Stanton and you may take it to him." With much consternation, the woman exclaimed, "Oh, do I have to see that terrible man again?" "Well, you take this to him," Lincoln smiled. "I guess the secretary will recognize my signature." Shortly after the woman had left, Stanton rushed in to see the President. He was greatly upset and de- manded of Lincoln, "Why did you give that woman a pass? Don't you know we've made a rule that women are not to be permitted to go through the lines? So many of them want to go, that we're swamped with requests of that sort." "Do you really want to know why I gave that woman a pass?" Lincoln asked rather casually. "Yes, I'd like to know," retorted Stanton. After a slight pause and with a bit of a twinkle in his eyes, Lincoln answered, "Well, if you must know, I gave it to her because she didn't wear hoops!" This humorous reply of Lincoln's must have awak- ened Stanton to the fact that what Lincoln really in- ferred by his evasive and whimsical answer was: "Don't forget, Stanton, I'm still President of the 126 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN United States and if I want to give a pass that's my privilege." It must be a fact that many of Lincoln's stories were spontaneous. Bearing out this conclusion, I recall Mr. Edward Skelton's reference to the days when he met him so often in the law library. "After Mr. Lincoln would finish several hours of work in the library, reading and compiling his briefs, he would come over to me and, sitting near me, would say something like this: 'Eddie, did you ever hear the story about the farmer who had a pair of oxen. . . .?' And then he would tell me some story which I thought at the time he was telling to entertain me, but in the light of later years, I feel that he created these yarns for the purpose of entertaining himself as relaxation and relief from the heavy work he had been doing. He would laugh when he'd come to the point of the story and I'd laugh, too, because he was laughing — even though I didn't always fully appreciate the yarn." In addition to being the originator of humorous stories, Lincoln also had the faculty of showing his sense of humor in action. We all know the anecdote of his swapping horses and of his trading a saw horse to the amusement of the persons involved. The same clever wit is evidenced by a story that was passed on to me by Mr. Robert A. Mills of Mill Valley, Calif- fornia, who knew Lincoln personally from 1844, and LINCOLN HAD A SENSE OF HUMOR 127 met him frequently until the year 1860, when he bade him good-bye. The story goes something like this: A large pocketknife was presented to a well-known citizen of Illinois because he was the homeliest man in the county. Later, when this man met Lincoln, he promptly handed the knife over to him as going him one better insofar as looks were concerned. Lincoln carried the knife for many months until he met "Long John" Wentworth. Whereupon he forthwith passed the knife over to him, conceding to him the honor of being the homeliest man in the country. "This knife," said Mr. Mills, "was found and turned in as an asset in Wentworth's estate." Another incident passed on to me by Mr. Mills had best be quoted from his letter of July 19, 1921: "In the November election of 1852, Mr. Lincoln and I voted side by side ... we crossed political swords. He supported Scott and I voted for Pierce. On that elec- tion night, Mr. Lincoln and I were the only passengers on a Frink and Walker Company mail coach going east from Springfield. He was going to Shelbyville and my destination was Charleston, Cole County, about twenty miles farther east. At each relay, we changed horses and drivers; and when the stage slowed up at the Post Office, we both made a jump and ran for the telegraph office, but as his legs were much longer than mine, he invariably 'beat me to it'. Neither of us slept. 128 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN "Next morning, we reached Shelbyville for a late breakfast and when we shook hands and said good-bye, Mr. Lincoln remarked, 'Young man, from the tenor of the dispatches so far received, I think your man has won. 5 " This to me was strictly Lincolnian. I can mentally picture Lincoln's droll way of having said this and imagine the twinkle in his eye. It was also in keeping with the humor expressed in his letter to a lawyer friend who was unable to present his side of the case in a suit because he had to attend court elsewhere. Lin- coln agreed to present both sides of the issue which was satisfactory to his friend. In due course, this lawyer received a communication which read : "I regret to in- form you that you have won your case. A. Lincoln." Many years before I came to the Lincoln role, I was well acquainted with the veteran actor, Harry Linson. In his youth, he had been the leading man of the old Bowery Theatre in New York. He was handsome and vigorous and when I met him at the age of seventy- four, he had the appearance of a man of fifty. At the opening of the Civil War, Linson enlisted in a New York regiment. His father was the colonel of the regi- ment and one of his brothers a lieutenant. At the batde of Chickamauga, Linson saw both his father and his brother killed. He, himself, served through the entire four years of the war and at one time he was critically LINCOLN HAD A SENSE OF HUMOR 129 wounded and lay in a base hospital near Washington where Lincoln was accustomed to visit the wounded. There, he met the President for the first time. Evi- dently, there was a mutual attraction, which I can readily understand having known Linson. He was a very interesting conversationalist and a magnetic type of man. One day, after a brief conversation with Lin- son, Mr. Lincoln asked him to go to see him at the White House when he was convalescent, which Linson did. At the time of his visit to the President he was a sergeant, but the President kept addressing him as "Lieutenant". "No, Mr. President, I'm a sergeant, not a lieuten- ant," Linson protested. "Do you smoke?" asked Lincoln. "Yes, Mr. President, I do." Linson explained that Lincoln did not smoke, him- self, but that he always had cigars for his friends. "Have a smoke, Lieutenant." Linson reached into the box and took a cigar. "Here, Lieutenant," said Lincoln, "that's no smoke for a soldier," and he took a fistful of cigars and stuffed them into the pocket of Linson's blouse. After a brief chat, realizing that the President's time was not to be taken up unnecessarily, Linson rose and said, "I'll be going now, Mr. President." "Well, good-bye, Lieutenant," said Lincoln. 130 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN Again Linson protested that he was a sergeant, but Lincoln countered by saying, "I ought to know, Lieu- tenant. Go over to the War Department and you'll find your commission." And that's how Harry Linson became a lieutenant. At the end of the war, he was acting major. During the course of his service he had been a dispatch bearer between the army in the field and the war department at Washington and had had occasion to meet the Presi- dent frequently after that. Harry Linson is my authority for using the gesture of the clenched right fist driven into the palm of the left hand in emphasizing a point. XIII Lincoln Honest As a Public Official and Shrewd As a Politician Like all truly great men Abraham Lincoln was easy to approach. He had no inferiority complex which would impel him to surround himself with a host of unnecessary subordinates for the purpose of impress- ing others with his greatness. Although he was easy to approach, there was nothing soft or yielding about him when it came to a question of right or wrong, as is shown by the following two incidents : Mr. Addison G. Procter (whom I think I met in Chicago) was the youngest delegate to the convention of 1860 which nominated Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency. Mr. Procter told me that he was one of a committee of three which waited on Lincoln to en- deavor to have him reconsider the dismissal of Gen- eral Blount as commander of the army of Kansas. The General's dismissal was caused by some scandal about a beef contract. A Mr. Palmer, as I recall, was chair- man of the committee. These are the words of Mr. Procter: "We were received by Mr. Lincoln just as if we 131 132 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN were visiting him in his office in Springfield. He made us right at home. After a few pleasantries, Mr. Lin- coln turned to Mr. Palmer and said, 'Well, Palmer, what's on your mind?' "Mr. Palmer held in his hand a large package of petitions folded and encased in a series of rubber bands. As he spoke, he started to remove these bands, one by one, saying, 'Mr. President, I have here peti- tions for the reinstatement of General Blount." "At this point, the President interrupted him. 'Palmer', he replied, 'you needn't remove any more of those rubber bands. I know all about this case. I've gone into it fully and I'm satisfied that General Blount had guilty knowledge. I can do nothing about it." " 'But, Mr. President,' protested Palmer, 'what are we going to tell our people in Kansas? I have here pe- titions from judges of the Supreme Court of Kansas, members of the legislature of Kansas and 25,000 sig- natures from our people who admire General Blount and are anxious for his reinstatement. What are we going to tell them?' " 'You can tell them just what I've told you — that I will not appoint to an office of trust a man whose in- tegrity is questionable.' And then Mr. Lincoln added, 'And I don't think that you want to go on record as having asked me to do so/ LINCOLN HONEST AS A PUBLIC OFFICIAL 133 "Then Palmer concluded, 'I presume there is noth- ing more to be said,' and we made our adieus. "Palmer didn't get his breath back until we got to the hotel and then he said, 'Procter, he's a great man and he's the best politician of us all.' " This whole incident impressed me greatly as it bore out the belief which I had always had that Abraham Lincoln was an astute politician, and by this I do not mean any adverse criticism. In the words of Joe Can- non, "He knew men," and in the brief statement which he made to Palmer on this occasion he demonstrated his honesty as a public official and his shrewdness as a politician; in other words, he "passed the buck" to Palmer in a way that could not be resented and which convinced Palmer of the futility of his mission. I received a letter from Mr. Cornelius H. Patton, corresponding secretary for Foreign Missionaries, Bos- ton, Massachusetts, a portion of which bears out Mr. Procter's statement as to Lincoln's method of receiving visitors. Mr. Patton wrote : "In September, 1862, my father, Rev. W. W. Pat- ton, then pastor of the First Congregational Church of Chicago, headed a deputation to Washington in the interest of the issuance of an emancipation proclama- tion. The President sat in a roomy armchair and at first remained in a straight and dignified posture, as though he were officially receiving a delegation, but as 134 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN the conversation proceeded, he forgot all about him- self, began to show deep interest in the discussion and evidently warmed up to us personally as if we were friends. Gradually, he unbent in his manner, and feel- ing perfectly at ease, became humorous or pathetic, as the mood took him. He turned his face more and more toward us, quite in earnest and yet informal in his manner. He carelessly threw one leg over the arm of the huge chair, and then the other, gesticulating freely and looking us intently in the faces. It was amusing to see and would have shocked European ideas of official propriety; but to us it only indicated the simplicity, frankness and sturdy honesty of his nature, and the un- reserve with which he dealt with those who had his confidence.' " XIV In Lincoln's Home Town, Springfield, Illinois Several weeks prior to the presentation of the play in Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln's stamping ground, we looked forward to the event with intense interest. At Fort Wayne, Indiana, Mr. Samuel Freefield, company manager, whom we affectionately called "Uncle Sam", inasmuch as he was an uncle of Mr. Harris's, informed me that the Chamber of Commerce at Springfield had been told by our advance man that I would be willing to make up on the train and upon arrival at Spring- field greet the old people who had known Lincoln. I also learned that the Pathe News cameraman would be on the job to take motion pictures and that alto- gether it would be a fine piece of publicity. This was the first inkling I had that anything of the sort was being contemplated and I told Uncle Sam that I would do nothing of the kind. As I recall it, a representative of the Chamber of Commerce came to Ft. Wayne and was astonished at my refusal. I wrote a statement for him, giving the reasons why I could not conscientiously do this thing, so that it might be published in the Springfield papers as exonerating the 135 136 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN Chamber of Commerce of any blame for having made an announcement that could not be fulfilled. When we arrived in Springfield, the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce met our company at the train and, after being introduced to Mrs. McGlynn and me, said, "Mrs. McGlynn, we're going to steal your hus- band. You take another cab with Mr. Freefield and he'll meet you at the hotel; meanwhile, I want to take him," and we went together in a cab to the hotel. He then said to me, "Mr. McGlynn, I have a telegram here from Mr. Harris which consents to this thing and I'd like you to meet these people at the hotel or some- where in make-up." He handed me the telegram which read in substance that I might appear in the streets of Springfield in make-up. Without hesitation, I turned and said, "This doesn't say that I must do this thing; and even if it did, I'm not under contract to Mr. Harris to appear on the street as Lincoln. My contract is simply to play the part on the stage, and the only way you'll ever get me to do otherwise is to throw me down and hog-tie me. I don't think you're going to do that." Naturally, he was disappointed, but that was the end of the matter for the time being. At noon that day, the entire company was invited to a luncheon at the principal hotel. The Mayor of Springfield presided and on the dais were assembled all the old people who were then living in Springfield IN LINCOLN'S HOME TOWN, SPRINGFIELD, ILL. 137 and who had known Mr. Lincoln, together with Mrs. McGlynn and myself. The large dining room was filled to capacity with prominent ladies and gentlemen of Springfield. After the luncheon, when speeches were the order of the occasion, the mayor rose and made a very affecting talk, concluding somewhat as follows : "Mr. McGlynn, to you, as to no other living man has been given the key to the tomb of Abraham Lincoln, with the command to bring him forth." You may imagine my feelings when these words were uttered as a preliminary to my introduction to this assemblage. Here was I, in the home town of Abraham Lincoln, seated with the remaining links that joined him to the living present. I rose to my feet, filled with an emotion which I cannot describe. Knowing that I had refused to do a favor for the Chamber of Commerce of that city, I spoke : "Your Honor, honored guests, members of the Chamber of Commerce of Springfield, ladies and gen- tlemen: I want to thank you for tendering this mar- velous reception to Frank McGlynn, an actor. If you will consult those of our company who are here today, and on whose behalf I also want to thank you, I think that they will tell you that I am not a self-seeker or an egotist. I have refused, as you know after reading the morning papers, to appear upon the streets of Spring- field in the character which it is my duty to present 138 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN upon the stage. I am not justified in feeling that I am in any way other than as an actor identified with the great man whom you all revere. There comes a time when every man must stand on his own two feet, so I want to speak to you as Frank McGlynn, an actor, and to tell you that I have so much reverence for the mem- ory of Abraham Lincoln, aside from the great and overwhelming reasons for its being cherished by the nation, that to walk about the streets of this city, sacred to his footsteps, made up as an effigy of the man — that I could not do." Much to my surprise and delight, because I had felt some uneasiness about the situation, the audience rose to its feet and spontaneously and vociferously expressed its approval of my stand. An Associated Press man happened to be there, who later wrote an account of this incident which was tele- graphed to various papers throughout the country. The result was amazing. The approval of the press was ex- pressed in many communities through editorials which lauded my action in the highest terms. Rather an odd incident, and a sort of sequel to this affair occurred a few weeks later, when I received a letter from a man who signed himself Jedediah Tingle. It read as follows : "I want to express my appreciation of your courage — no, your good taste, in refusing to carry your won- IN LINCOLN'S HOME TOWN, SPRINGFIELD, ILL. 139 derful 'make-believe' of our beloved President into the streets of Springfield. "There was something really beautiful in this re- fusal ; in a way it explains your power to make Lincoln so real, or to make yourself so really Lincoln. "I lived as a neighbor of Lincoln's mother in the hills of Kentucky back in the early part of the Nine- teenth century, and have always followed the career of the rail-splitter with profound interest and admira- tion. "Please buy something with the check for $5.00 en- closed — something that will keep alive in your noble heart the desire to be worthy of the man you imper- sonate. "Sincerely yours, (Signed) Jedediah Tingle, 1750-1820. "His bones lie under the blue grass that borders Kentucky, but his soul goes marching on" Enclosed with this letter was a copy of the reprint of an article written by Christopher Morley, which ap- peared in the Bowling Green Column of the New York Evening Post, followed by the comments on it of Jede- diah Tingle. "Occasionally, in recent years, various people have been startled to receive a letter, most charmingly 140 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN phrased, expressing gratitude for something they have done or painted or written or said, and signed Jedediah Tingle. These people have justly suspected that Jede- diah Tingle is a pseudonym, but they have found that the check was perfectly valid and cashable. "Now one of the most pleasing adventures we have had lately was a call from Mr. Tingle, himself. He did not come, we must explain, to exert his benevolence upon ourself , but to consult us about a certain phase of his recreation of secretly rewarding, in a modest way, those whose work had appealed to him. He did not tell us his real name, and we have no desire to know who he is, other than that he is a thoughtful business man, who has found great delight in these mysterious ges- tures of helpfulness. To identify him would not only necessarily put an end to this cheerful hobby, but would also deprive the situation of its unique charm. "The sacred circle of those who have received these letters from Jedediah Tingle is a curiously assorted one. We have had some of the letters shown us, in the past, by those who have received them. These letters have gone to Cabinet Ministers and to obscure, struggling poets, to great writers and to unknown heroes. But the point is this — while Mr. Tingle tells us he has greatly enjoyed the occasional acknowledgments that have come to him by being addressed to the banks on which his checks are drawn, certain individuals and IN LINCOLN'S HOME TOWN, SPRINGFIELD, ILL. 141 newspapers have made determined attempts to un- mask his innocent secret. We would like to ask all Managing Editors and others to be good sports and not spoil this admirable innocent generosity by trying to discover its source. "Christopher Morley" "The undersigned feels mildly indignant at being called a 'pseudonym'— neither does he agree that James Lane Allen was justified in dubbing him an 'onward, marching, spiritual being. 5 He harbors a strong suspicion that he is still on earth, a living reality, incarnate in the person of his own great grandson— a sort of composite of generations of Abou Ben Adhems. "In 1820 they placed his bones in a country grave- yard in the Middle West, now an abandoned tangle of grasses, briars and broken trees, but that event was merely an episode in his life's mission, which is to bring smiles and tender thoughts to the great in heart — in high and low places. To comfort and cheer those who do exceptional things, or suffer." (signed) Jedediah Tingle. Also enclosed was the usual five dollar check, which I acknowledged by writing to the bank address of Mr. Tingle. I thanked him for it and told him that, not quite knowing what to do with it, I had passed it on to 142 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN a charitable organization. I have wondered, and still wonder, who this Jedediah Tingle is, but have never found out, and shall never attempt to do so. It was a very wonderful afternoon for all of us in Springfield. We were escorted to the various places which are suitably marked as having been prominent in Lincoln's career. We visited the spot at the railroad station at which Lincoln made his farewell address to the people of Springfield, and then we went to the Lincoln home. To me, the most interesting things there were the letters of Lincoln's son, Willie, which are preserved in frames on the wall of the house. They are remarkable evidence of the really exceptional genius of a boy of his years. The descriptions of the trip to Washington with his father, of the rooms in the hotel and of other incidents are interspersed with bits of humor which show the amazing promise of the lad. Small wonder that Abraham Lincoln grieved so deeply when this brilliant boy was taken from their life, during his occupancy of the White House. From Lincoln's home, we were conducted to the Lincoln tomb, which is surmounted by a magnificent monument on the crown of the knoll of Oak Ridge Cemetery, After being escorted through the portion of the monument set aside for mementoes of Lincoln and being shown the numberless items of interest there, we went around to the tomb which is beneath the mon- IN LINCOLN'S HOME TOWN, SPRINGFIELD, ILL. 143 ument. The attendant unlocked the iron gateway and our party was conducted into the room where stands the sarcophagus, beneath which, buried under a mass of concrete, lies the body of Abraham Lincoln. I had been requested to place a wreath upon the tomb and this visit was the occasion of my so doing. I could not help but realize what a trifling thing this was, my plac- ing a tribute on the tomb of this great soul, as com- pared with the undying homage to his memory which is given by all the people of this great nation, whether they have ever visited his tomb or not. In contradistinction to my action in Springfield, there was one occasion some years later on which I made an exception to my resolution never to appear in public outside of the theatre made up as Lincoln. This occurred at Galesburg, Illinois, at the time the Drinkwater play was presented by the faculty of Knox College, in commemoration of the seventieth an- niversary of the Lincoln-Douglas debate held on the campus of that institution, and for which I had been engaged to play the part of Lincoln. The students of the drama class of the college were cast in the other roles. Shortly after my arrival in Galesburg, the president of the college called me into his office. "Mr. Mc- Glynn," he said, "I am going to ask a special favor of you. We are having a pageant in commemoration of 144 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN the debate in which practically the entire population will participate and we are giving a short scene, as closely as we can do so, which will show Douglas and Lincoln on the rostrum. We would like you to appear as Lincoln." I hesitated a long time before I consented to this, because it seemed a violation of the very strong resolu- tion I had made in Springfield. But I finally decided that this affair was of an entirely different nature and that the people of Galesburg were doing something which was very fine. So I appeared as the Lincoln of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Probably ten thousand people were assembled on the campus. A lawyer of Galesburg, who greatly resembled Stephen A. Douglas, read some of his lines and then when I arose as repre- senting Lincoln, the response in the way of applause from the people was overpowering and I felt justified in having consented to appear. The lines which I read are inscribed upon a bronze tablet on the face of the col- lege as having been uttered by Lincoln during the de- bate. They were a quotation by Lincoln, however, from Henry Clay and not as fitting, in my opinion, as would have been some paragraph giving Lincoln's own language. At this celebration, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Carl Sandburg who was one of the speakers at the outdoor celebration given in front of the college. IN LINCOLN'S HOME TOWN, SPRINGFIELD, ILL. 145 I also met a Dr. Emanuel Hertz, author of Lincoln and the Synagogue. In speaking of my characteriza- tion in the Drinkwater play, Dr. Hertz said, "I saw your Lincoln, Mr. McGlynn, and enjoyed it, but I missed the homely, quiet, conversational Lincoln." My reply to this was, "Of course, we believe, and it must have been true that Lincoln was quiet in ordi- nary conversation; however, you must remember that Mr. Drinkwater selected six or seven of the outstand- ing dramatic moments of Lincoln's career as the basis for his play and, had I read my speeches which oft- times were from one to two octavo pages of printed matter in length in a monotone, my audience would have forsaken me. The business of an actor is primarily to entertain and he must play on all the 'stops' to use a musical term." Then, I happened to say, "I know, for instance, that Lincoln chewed tobacco, yet I didn't chew tobacco in the play." This rather incensed Doctor Hertz and he said, "Oh, Lincoln didn't chew tobacco." "I believe he did," I replied. "In the first place it was the habit of nearly every man of his day, and further than that I have the statement of Mr. R. H. Davis, Bob Davis to his intimates, that Lincoln did chew tobacco, and I have also seen a desk which was used by him." And here I related the incident which 146 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN Mr. Gay Lombard had told me, to which Doctor Hertz could give no refuting argument. I continued, saying, "Why, Doctor Hertz, I don't care whether Lincoln chewed tobacco or not; I don't care whether he ever wore socks; that isn't the point. What I do believe is that he was a great human soul and whether he spoke with a twang, whether he chewed tobacco, or whether he had certain personal idiosyncrasies are matters of no consequence. The thing that is important is what he stood for and what he accomplished." The belief that Lincoln neither smoked, chewed, nor drank may have come from a story which he told on himself, during one of his campaigns. To bring out some point in the discussion, he related this incident. "I was making a stage coach trip between two towns on the circuit, and I sat beside a stranger who, after a while, offered me a cigar. I said, 'Thanks, I don't indulge'. A little later in the journey he offered me a quid of tobacco. I said 'Thanks, I don't indulge 5 . Then toward the end of the journey he produced a flask of whiskey. Again I said, 'Thanks, I don't in- dulge', and the stranger replied, 'A man that has no vices, has durn few virtues'." My belief or theory is that Lincoln did not intend to convey the impression that he was a total abstainer from tobacco or liquor, but rather that he took the IN LINCOLN'S HOME TOWN, SPRINGFIELD, ILL. 147 legitimate license of making a good story — a practice with many public speakers. XV Lincoln Interested in the Preservation of the Union One day, as I was standing in the lobby of an hotel in St. Louis, Missouri, a gentleman approached me. "This is Mr. McGlynn, isn't it?" he asked. "Yes, sir," I replied. "Well, I saw your play last night. I'm a northern man, although I've been living in the south for many years and I object to that scene where Lincoln shakes hands and is so gracious to that colored man. I don't think that was a true presentation of Lincoln's attitude toward the negro." I did not argue the point with the gentleman, but it is a known fact that Lincoln did receive Frederick Douglas, a negro preacher, and it is my opinion that Mr. Drinkwater took this as the basis for a scene in which he had Lincoln receive Mr. Custis, the negro preacher who came to him in the play for the purpose of insisting on retribution against the officers and men of the Confederate Army. The object of the scene is to show Lincoln's attitude toward this request and also indicate his mention of emancipating the slaves. It 143 LINCOLN INTERESTED IN PRESERVATION OF UNION 149 shows his abhorrence of executing innocent men for the crimes of others— and his refusal to do so. An actual statement of Lincoln in real life, shows the same spirit of fair play. I cannot name the book and chapter where the fact may be found in the record, but I have read the state- ment that when Lincoln was importuned to punish some of the leaders of the Confederate Army as crim- inals, he said substantially, "No. These men are not criminals. They believe in their cause, and consider themselves patriots. It is largely a question of geog- raphy. If I were a Southerner, I might be on that side of the fence myself." To digress: A very remarkable incident in the pre- sentation of the above-mentioned scene in the play, which shows how, sometimes, an actor is not given credit for originality, was evidenced by at least one re- view of the play in which Mr. Drinkwater was credited with showing that "Lincoln" had a premonition that he would not live to be an old man. As a matter of fact, when I rehearsed the line in which "Lincoln" tells "Custis" that he hopes he will look as young when he is Custis's age, the thought struck me to indicate by pause and inflection that sud- denly "Lincoln" felt he was not destined to live that long. I asked Lester Lonergan if I might do so, and he consented. 150 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN Mr. Drinkwater, after hearing my reading at the dress rehearsal, said to Mr. Lonergan: "I didn't know I had that in my play." Lester told me this by way of commendation. Lincoln's attitude toward the negro is a matter of history and there is little or no conflict among his- torians. Any student of history knows that the ques- tion of giving the negro the franchise was a tremen- dous problem to Lincoln. The record of his letters on this subject fully demonstrates this point. So far as Lincoln's attitude toward the negro is concerned, I be- lieve that he did not consider the negro as being on the same social plane as himself, but that he did have the same feeling toward him as did many of the people of the South. He was kindly, courteous, and, I might say, fatherly. The story is told that there was an old negro drayman in Springfield, who used to drive by Mr. Lin- coln's home and that frequently he would jump upon his wagon, and, patting the driver on the back, would ask, "Well, are you going my way?" or some similar question, and then he would ride with him until they came to the spot where he had to get off. This in- dicates that Lincoln certainly was not prejudiced against the negro. His own statement bears out this contention, for in the Lincoln-Douglas debates he made this declaration: "I have no purpose to introduce political and social LINCOLN INTERESTED IN PRESERVATION OF UNION 151 equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living to- gether upon the footing of perfect equality; and inas- much as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior po- sition. "I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that, notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Inde- pendence — the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects — certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread without the leave of any- body else, which his own hands earn, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man." The foregoing and many other statements made by Lincoln bear out the belief that, primarily, he was not so much concerned with the negro or with slaves as he was with the preservation of the Union. That he de- plored the condition of the negro slaves is evidenced in 152 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN his letter to Joshua Speed in 1855, from which the fol- lowing is an excerpt. "... You know I dislike slavery, and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it. So far there is no cause of difference. But you say that sooner than yield your legal right to the slave, especially at the bidding of those who are not themselves interested, you would see the Union dissolved. I am not aware that any one is bid- ding you yield that right; very certainly I am not. I leave that matter entirely to yourself. I also acknowl- edge your rights and my obligations under the Consti- tution in regard to your slaves. I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down and caught and car- ried back to their stripes and unrequited toil; but I bite my lips and keep quiet. In 1841, you and I had to- gether a tedious low-water trip on a steamboat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were on board ten or a dozen slaves shackled together with irons. That sight was a continued torment to me, and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio or any other slave border. It is not fair for you to as- sume that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miser- able ..." I think this clearly shows Lincoln's horror of slavery; and yet, notwithstanding this, he had no intention of LINCOLN INTERESTED IN PRESERVATION OF UNION 153 asking freedom for the slaves at the expense of any violation of the Constitution. There is no clearer state- ment illustrating his stand on the question of slavery and emancipation than that which was made in his letter to Horace Greeley in August, 1862 : "I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed to myself through the New York 'Tribune'. If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not now and here, con- trovert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not, now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptive in it an im- patient and dictatorial tone, I wave it in deference to an old friend whose heart I have always supposed to be right. "As to the policy I 'seem to be pursuing', as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. "I would save the Union. I would save it the short- est way under the Constitution. The sooner the na- tional authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be 'the Union as it was'. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy 154 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. "I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every- where could be free." While an actor on the stage should never deliber- ately look at his audience, his effort being always to make the spectators feel that they are looking at some- thing apart from the theatre, nevertheless, there are times when he cannot be oblivious to some unusual movement in the audience. This happened to me in Louisville, Kentucky, during the scene in which Lin- coln, seated upstage, is turned directly toward the foot- lights. He is stating to the southern delegates the posi- tion of the south on States Rights and Slavery. On this LINCOLN INTERESTED IN PRESERVATION OF UNION 155 occasion, I could not help but observe a man and a woman in the auditorium rise and deliberately walk out of the theatre. Whether or not their departure was occasioned by some cause extraneous to the play, of course, I don't know, but my thought was that they had taken offense at the argument on the stage; and if that were the case, I feel sure that, had they re- mained to see the entire play, they would have changed their attitude and realized that Mr. Drink- water had placed in the language of Lincoln, senti- ments which showed his great love for the people of the South. I refer particularly to the scene between Lincoln and Mrs. Blow. Mrs. Blow is a character introduced to show the flip- pant, insincere and self-seeking sentiments of the wife of a northern contractor. Lincoln has been nettled by her pettiness throughout the scene. After he has shown his sympathy for Mrs. Otherly, a woman who has lost a son in the war and offered his condolence, Mrs. Otherly leaves the scene with "Mrs. Lincoln". "Mrs. Blow" then rises to leave, and makes some bitter re- marks about the people of the South— "Lincoln" stands her tirade as long as he can, and then utters a scathing rebuke to her and those like her who belittled the cause of the North by their unjustified prejudice against the people of the South. I have always had the feeling that the play should 156 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN have been routed through the south. It might have caused some argument, but on the other hand I think it would have filled the people of the southern states, who still have some prejudice, with a kindlier feeling toward Lincoln. The question of secession and slavery has, of course, been forever settled by the Civil War and the men who participated in the struggle have all but disappeared; however, there remains a little back- wash of adverse sentiment in the hearts and minds of the third generation. This is not evidenced in their general contact with those of us who come from the north because we are all now of one nation, but if the question of States Rights, or of the right or wrong of the War of '61 is brought up, then you will find, not in all, but in many Southerners, a pretty obvious resent- ment of what they conceive to have been the senti- ments of Lincoln, whereas an unbiased presentation of them would do much to obliterate this feeling. To show the attitude of some of the men who fought on the southern side, this little experience of mine may be of interest. In Charlottesville, West Virginia, I was made a guest of honor at a luncheon which was largely attended by men of the south and which was presided over by a lawyer who had a very decided southern ac- cent. He told me that he was very sorry that a certain old veteran of the Confederacy who had fought under Joe Moseby was not able to be present. The remark- LINCOLN INTERESTED IN PRESERVATION OF UNION 157 able thing about this man who had gone through many sanguinary battles in opposition to the Union was that of all men in history he had come to look upon Abra- ham Lincoln as the greatest. If we read the debates in Congress for many years prior to and up to the date of the Civil War, we find it very difficult to determine which side had the better of the argument. It is not my object to go into a discus- sion of the merits of the question here, but I do feel that Lincoln's primary object was not to free the slaves. His re-entry into the political arena came after the re- peal of the Missouri Compromise. He felt that the bars had been let down and that slavery would be taken into the territories and would gradually spread throughout the land, eventually disrupting the Union. Hence his statements, which even his own party con- sidered ill-advised, that "a house divided against it- self cannot stand" and that "this Nation cannot live half slave and half free". In his play, Drinkwater makes Lincoln very much more of an Abolitionist than does history, his object evidently being to increase the dramatic possibilities. For example, when he uses the story of Lincoln's hav- ing seen the slaves sold on the auction block in New Orleans, and quotes his description of what occurred there. This story, it is true, is quoted in certain books, but it is largely legendary. 158 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN Lincoln's attitude toward the right to secede was the attitude of a lawyer. The claim was made that the makers of a contract had the right to break it; or in other words, that the power that created had the right to revoke. Lincoln's answer to this was that the makers of a contract might violate that contract, but that, un- less all the parties to a contract consented, they could not rescind it. Mr. Drinkwater does bring out the fact that Lincoln was "all for the Constitution" and that he disagreed with John Brown's methods. We hear much today about the Constitution and about the Supreme Court and its decisions. There is nothing unconstitutional about criticizing the decision of a court. That is the privilege of any person who has reason on his side of the argument. Abraham Lincoln criticized the courts in speaking of the Dred Scott decision, and his atti- tude was evidenced in the following words: "It's a strange thing that the courts will hold that a man may recover his stolen property wherever he may find it and at the same time hold that a man may not re- cover his liberty when it has been stolen." Mr. Mills, in one of his letters to me, refuting the statement that Lincoln was the cause of the Civil War, wrote: "Recently at the Confederate convention at Rich- mond, Virginia, a positively false resolution was passed LINCOLN INTERESTED IN PRESERVATION OF UNION 159 by that body in which it was charged that Lincoln was solely responsible for the Civil War, and as proof posi- tive of this fact, it would only have been necessary for that convention to have read President Lincoln's in- augural address delivered before the joint session of Congress, March 4, 1861, in which he declared, 'I have no intention of interfering with slavery where it now exists. I have no legal right to do so and I have no desire to do so.' Another great reason why Mr. Lincoln did not intend to interfere with slavery was that in 1844 he voted for Henry Clay (a Whig) who was born in Virginia and owned slaves in Kentucky; in 1848 he voted for Zachary Taylor (a Whig) who was born in Virginia and owned slaves in Louisiana; and in 1852 he voted for Winfield Scott (a Whig) who was born in Virginia and owned slaves." Mr. Mills has struck a note which I shall dwell upon later. In his letter, he hit upon the same conclusion regarding Lincoln's stand on slavery as I have re- corded in this book, judging Lincoln as I have re- peatedly said he should always be judged, by what I consider the finest speech he ever delivered, his first inaugural address. A rather amusing outlook on Lincoln was brought to my attention long before I had appeared in the Drinkwater play. I was on tour with Officer 666, when I met a gentleman in Atlanta, Georgia, who said: "I 160 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN think Abraham Lincoln was the greatest friend the south ever had and I'll tell you why. My sisters never got out of bed before nine o'clock in the morning. They had a colored mammy bring their breakfast in to them. They didn't know anything about how to main- tain themselves and had no sense of responsibility, whereas today, conditions are entirely reversed." XVI California Loyal to Lincoln and the Union Twenty-six years before the production of the Drinkwater play in San Francisco on July 22, 1922, I had left my native city, having forsaken the practice of law and having turned over what practice I had to my partner, John J. Toole, at the present writing City Attorney of San Francisco, I then went to New York City to begin an entirely new career. I did this against the advice of the great majority of my friends, who felt that, had I continued to practice law and had I entered the field of politics, I would have had a great future. Whether or not this would have eventuated, of course, I don't know. I had made up my mind. The law interested me purely as a theory. It had not been my personal wish to become a lawyer in the first place, but I had yielded as a youngster to the wishes of my father and some of my relatives. When it came to the final analysis, I decided that while I still had youth I had better adopt a profession for which I felt more fitted— so, I became an actor. It is not my purpose to go into the history of my 161 162 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN personal struggle during all the years up to the time I was cast for the part of Abraham Lincoln. When I learned that the company was booked to play San Francisco, I was thrilled at the prospect. I had no idea that any extraordinary demonstration awaited me until I received a wire at Portland, Ore- gon, informing me that a luncheon was to be given in my honor and asking me what members of the com- pany I wished to invite. I replied that every one in the company was my friend and that I would not feel it right to invite any particular one; that it was entire- ly up to the committee either to invite all or none of them. The result of this was that our advance man met the company at Benecia, a station between Sacra- mento and San Francisco and extended an invitation to the luncheon to each member of the entire cast, as well as to each of the technical staff. Mrs. McGlynn and my children, who had preceded me from the east to San Francisco, met me before our arrival there, as did my father, sister and brother-in- law. I did not suspect what they knew, that a public demonstration was to be held when the boat arrived at the Oakland Ferry in San Francisco. As the boat approached the pier on the San Francisco side of the bay, I was astonished to see an enormous sign stretched across the ferry building, displaying these words: "Welcome home, Frank McGlynn." How they sensed CALIFORNIA LOYAL TO LINCOLN AND THE UNION 163 it, I don't know, but every person on that boat seemed to realize that something was "in the air" and to be aware of my identity, because they all held back. There was not the usual rush to get off the boat and I was, more or less, pushed to the front with my family immediately behind me. In another second, I was greeted by about two hundred of my personal friends, many of whom were prominent professional and busi- ness men. It was a grand and glorious moment, and, despite the forecast of what it seemed I might expect, I was again totally surprised upon being led to the street entrance of the building, to see a police escort on mo- torcycles under the direction of my good friend, the late Dan O'Brien, Chief of Police. I was escorted to an open car, the leader of twenty others, and we went up Market Street enroute to the St. Francis Hotel amid a screeching of sirens. The traffic of the city along the route was stilled; not a wheel of regular traffic turned from the time we left the ferry until we reached the hotel, which of course, was not a very great distance, the trip being accomplished in about five minutes. We had arrived at nine-thirty in the morning, which made the demonstration of my friends, who had left their respective business and professional engagements at that early hour on a Monday morning, all the more affecting. 164 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN At twelve-fifteen, we were taken to the Palace Hotel where were assembled about six hundred San Francis- cans. They were seated at tables in the famous gold ballroom. Flowers and smiling faces of old friends greeted me as I was led to the dais, to take my place among those who represented the best the city had to offer. The Mayor's representative, Supervisor George Gallagher presided (Mayor Rolph being out of town that morning). The following is an account of the af- fair from the San Francisco Call of the next day : "Frank McGlynn had a glorious welcome home yesterday when he arrived in San Francisco to play in John Drinkwater's 'Abraham Lincoln 5 at the Columbia Theatre. A committee of distinguished citi- zens met him at the ferry and took him to the hotel, and at noon the ballroom of the Palace Hotel was filled with friends and admirers, who came to lunch with the actor and listen to speeches in his praise. "It was a cheery crowd, represen- tatives of the professions, society and business, and when the tall, thin figure of the actor appeared there were applause and cheers. "At the speakers' table friends of his boyhood were seated— his old law partners, the clergy, men from the bench; George E. Gallagher at CALIFORNIA LOYAL TO LINCOLN AND THE UNION 165 McGlynn's left hand, chairman of the day; Archbishop E. J. Hanna at his right, and a little further along Bishop William Ford Nichols of the Episcopal church; Judge Frank Murasky and Congressman Julius Kahn; Mrs. McGlynn, sit- ting by the Archbishop, and beam- ing on her husband, and their family seated at a round table, directly in front of them with Frank's father. "During the meal McGlynn and Mrs. McGlynn were kept busy waving their hands at friends in the throng at the small tables, and occasionally someone would go up to shake hands with them. "There was a big banner across the room 'Welcome, Frank Mc- Glynn' and a plaster bust of the actor in the character of Lincoln on the mantel back of him. "Gallagher struck the keynote of the hour when he said, in his open- ing remarks: 'This is a family gathering to welcome one of us back home', a thing further em- phasized by Bishop Nichols in his speech in which he called the meet- ing an 'alliance of the church, the stage and the family.' "And that was the atmosphere of the occasion— freedom, infor- mality, genial friendship and a real 166 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN welcome for the returned native son, who comes back with honors thick on him. "Bishop Nichols talked of the spiritual needs of the day and spoke of Lincoln's influence. He had heard him as a child make a speech from the rear end of a train as he went to Washington for his first inauguration, and he had seen the pallid face in its coffin lying in state in Springfield, Illinois, await- ing burial. "Judge Murasky extended the city's welcome to McGlynn saying he must feel the c soul of San Francisco reaching out to him in greeting'. He quoted and adopted for our city the Syracuse Baptist minister's prayer, 'Oh, Lord, we thank Thee for Frank McGlynn.' Congressman Julius Kahn spoke of the actor's great triumphs in the East; of the greatness of his im- personation of Lincoln and of the many times he had seen the per- formance in Washington, where he has a framed picture of Mc- Glynn as Lincoln on the wall of his office, a picture that Senators and Congressmen mistake for that of the great emancipator himself. "Archbishop Hanna, talking to the toast, 'Lincoln, the Man of Faith', arose to eloquent heights called on the people to preserve the CALIFORNIA LOYAL TO LINCOLN AND THE UNION 167 Lincoln ideals; his faith in God and his faith in men. "John H. Barrett hit at Mc- Glynn's law days and gave him news of his old friends among the lawyers, tilting at humor for a time and then growing serious. "Everybody stood to greet the actor when he arose to respond to the speeches and there was a rous- ing 'Three cheers for Frank Mc- Glynn' proposed by some one back in the room, and Frank, his voice husky from the emotions of the hour, talked briefly of his joy at be- ing again among his own people; paid tribute to his wife, who, he said, was his inspiration; pointed with pride to his good looking family and recited some lines of Eugene Field's." In addition to those mentioned in the above article, there were present Honorable Matthew I. Sullivan (in whose office I had studied law) ; Mr. John J. OToole; Dr. A. P. O'Brien; Colonel Pippy; John J. Cunningham; Joseph Murphy; Fred Koster, Presi- dent of the Chamber of Commerce; and M. J. Tansey, Chairman of the Committee. This affair was the most unexpected outpouring of affection from a large gathering that I have ever experienced and when it came my turn to respond to 168 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN the toast as guest of honor, I was unable to give ex- pression to the actual emotions which I felt in my heart, so, in order to hide them, I tried to be a bit humorous and began my brief talk by saying, "I have come into this city in many ways. My first appearance was of interest only to my mother and father, and of course, to the doctor and nurse in attendance and im- mediate relatives. Since that time, I have walked into this city; I have ridden in on horseback; I have come by train and boat; I have even swum the shores of North Beach; but this is the first time in my life that I have entered my native city in the custody of the police." The statement in the article just mentioned that I recited lines of Eugene Field's is true, but it doesn't give my reasons. I didn't actually recite Eugene Field's lines, but in the concluding words I said something of this sort: "It is very difficult to express one's feelings on oc- casions of this kind without becoming maudlin, but I know when I look about me into the faces of my friends and when I miss others who are not here be- cause they have gone on, that you will understand the emotions that I really feel when I attempt to para- phrase the concluding lines of Eugene Field's poem, Conversazzhony on Red Hoss Mountain. It's a fact that twenty-six years ago I left this city to become an CALIFORNIA LOYAL TO LINCOLN AND THE UNION 169 atom in the busiest city in the world; and now that I am back home this paraphrasing seems most apt : "For in that wondrous twenty-six years* Has come a mighty change And most of these old pioneers Have gone across the range Way out into the silver land Behind the peaks of snow The land of rest and sunshine Where all good friends must go. I reckon they love to look From out that silver haze Upon this God's own country Where they spent such happy days Upon this noble city That has risen since they went, Upon the mills and factories All prosperous and content. And best of all upon these hills That stretch into the air As if to clasp the loved ones That are waiting over there." On the night we opened, my friends through the Committee had bought out the entire house, and for * (Italicized words are different from those used in poem.) 170 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN the first time in front of the theatre and in electric lights on the marquee my name was starred above that of Abraham Lincoln. This was done by the local management in appreciation of the fact that my friends were responsible for the enthusiastic premiere of the play in that city. The boxes in the auditorium were draped with the national colors. All those who had attended the luncheon and hundreds of others were present, in- cluding Mayor Rolph, who had just returned from a trip, and was seated in a box with my very dear friend, Hon. Matthew I. Sullivan (in whose office I had studied law ) . In another box was the Command- ant of the Army Post at the Presidio and in still an- other was the Admiral of that portion of the Pacific fleet then in port. This gave sort of a national tinge to the evening. My father, then eighty years of age, sat in a box with my family. At the conclusion of the performance, the audience remained seated and kept applauding until I had to respond by making a brief speech. The audience that night, at the opening perform- ance in New York City and the audience of actors and actresses at the professional matinee at New York were the most affecting before which I have ever appeared or ever hope to appear. CALIFORNIA LOYAL TO LINCOLN AND THE UNION 171 Mr. George C. Warren, well known critic, began his article in the San Francisco Chronicle as follows: — "John Drinkwater opened the pages of history for an audience that filled the Columbia Theatre last night, and from the annals of the terrific struggle of brother against brother, which was the Civil War in America, stepped out the greatest man of the Nation's history— Abraham Lincoln. "The occasion had treble signi- ficance. It introduced to San Fran- cisco a dramatist of vision and imagination; it brought vividly to the mind that interesting and vital period of American history that mayhap has faded a little in our own thoughts because of the op- pression of the great World War, and it gave us our own Frank Mc- Glynn, glorified and honored as the impersonator of Lincoln, a char- acterization that has won praise from the severest critics and has been acclaimed by the people wherever the drama has been seen. "Seldom does one find in our theatre an audience so attentive as that of last night. The rustle of a program sounded like a storm sweeping through a forest, so still were the people, so intent on every word spoken on the stage. There 172 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN was much enthusiasm, although no curtain calls are allowed during the play's progress, but the audi- ence sat without moving when the final word was spoken, applauding until McGlynn came out to speak to them, and speak he did in simple phrase and with the shy awkwardness of a college lad be- fore a jury of examiners, telling of the three greatest audiences he had ever played to— the first night in New York; at a professional matinee of the piece, and last night's." It is not generally promulgated or commented upon, but it is a fact that California, with its great wealth of gold and its voluntary sending of men and money (there was no military draft in California during the Civil War) had much to do with the success of the Union's cause. San Francisco, then the metropolis of the Pacific coast and the center of agitation did her share. I doubt if the following story can be found recorded. My father told it to me, and therefore I know it must be true. Just prior to the Civil War, and at about the time of the election of Abraham Lincoln, there was tremen- dous turmoil in San Francisco. Many of its citizens CALIFORNIA LOYAL TO LINCOLN AND THE UNION 173 were southern men, high in social and political circles, who were trying to swing the state to the confederacy. There was even an attempt to create a Republic of the West. While this feeling was at fever heat, the San Francisco Bulletin printed what was called by men of that day, "A Secesti 3 editorial. There had been secretly organized a society of men who were strong for the Union. My father's brother, John A. McGlynn, a prominent San Franciscan, was president of that society. My father, Frank, also a member, was a young man of about nineteen years of age. There was high feeling regarding the Bulletin editorial, and the question arose at John's home about issuing a circular calling the boys to assemble. My father volunteered to sign this paper, arguing that he was practically unknown, whereas if John came out as the sponsor, for the moment he would be a target for political animus. So, the circular, calling the men to assemble was signed by my father as secretary of the organization. They called themselves The Broom Rangers for the reason that they carried, when on parade, a ship's broom which could be used, should the necessity arise, as a very perfect weapon of de- fense, to say nothing of offense. On the evening of the day on which this editorial appeared in the Bulletin, three thousand young men marched down Market Street singing at the top of 174 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN their lungs, "The Union, Right or Wrong!" They turn- ed into Montgomery Street and marched north to- ward the Bulletin office, then at Montgomery and Commercial Streets. My father told me that a "Front Street merchant" (at that time a designation of financial standing, Front Street being the wholesale mercantile thoroughfare) a very tall, raw-boned man, marched at the head of the parade. He carried a sack filled with gold pieces and whenever he saw a southern sympathizer, and there were many among the by-standers on the side- walks, he would ask my father to get a couple of the boys and to have them secure any weapon which might be concealed by the person spotted. When one or more of the huskies were called to the front, this man would slip each one a gold piece from the sack, over which, by the way, my father was guardian, and would say, "Get that man's weapon." You can imagine better than I can describe their method of doing this. There was pandemonium along the line of march. One of the men who was divested in this manner was none other than Albert Sydney Johnson, afterwards a commander in the Confederate Army. "I'll say this for Johnson," said my father, "he put up a game fight and before he was forced to run for his life his clothes were in tatters and he was a bloody sight." The intention of the paraders was to tear down the CALIFORNIA LOYAL TO LINCOLN AND THE UNION 175 Bulletin building as a climax to the evening's adven- tures. However, some wise member of the Bulletin staff, sensing the purpose of the mob now congregated before the office, slipped through the building to the roof and raised Old Glory to the top of the flag pole. This was taken by the crowd as a token of surrender and the boys dispersed with three cheers for the Stars and Stripes and for Abraham Lincoln. The next day, the Bulletin issued a "union" editorial. My father was always emphatic in declaring that that night's demonstration on the part of the vigorous youth of San Francisco was what had settled any ques- tion of California's loyalty to the Union. Judge David S. Terry was one of the prominent Southern sympathizers who had lived in California. The famous duel in which he killed Senator David C. Broderick, while supposedly for a personal reason, was undoubtedly the result of the bitterness which grew up from the agitation in California over the issues just before the Civil War. Judge Terry, a pioneer of California, was a man of strong secession principles, whereas David Brod- erick, a senator from California, was a very staunch supporter of Abraham Lincoln. Incidentally, my uncle John A. McGlynn, was a great friend of Broderick and was named by the latter as one of the executors of his will. The spot on which this duel was fought has 176 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN been variously stated as being on the shores of Marin County or at other spots adjacent to San Francisco. As a matter-of-fact, it was fought on the edge of Lake Merced, very near the county line which divides San Francisco County from San Mateo County, and with- in a very short distance from the ocean beach. On the bridle path which traverses this section south of Golden Gate Park is a marker which indicates the location. In California, I met several people who had come into personal contact with Abraham Lincoln, includ- ing General Chipman, whom I have already men- tioned; Mr. Mills of Mill Valley, California; Bishop Nichols, an Episcopal Bishop of San Francisco (who had seen and heard Lincoln) ; Senator Cole of Los Angeles; my father; and several veterans, whose names, unfortunately, I did not note. General Chipman was a young officer, who had been sent to the President as a man who could be trusted with secrets. He was given the mission of lo- cating General Hunter who, with his command, was out of touch with the War Department, having been surrounded by the Confederates. In reply to the Presi- dent's question as to whether he would undertake the task, Chipman said, "Yes, Mr. President, I'll do my best." Lincoln then placed his hand upon Chipman's shoulder and told him, "Remember, young man, in the CALIFORNIA LOYAL TO LINCOLN AND THE UNION 177 bright lexicon of youth, there is no such word as fail!" Chipman started out on horseback with a squad of men under his command. At one point they got into a woods where the Confederate scouts sighted them and beat a retreat, as did Chipman and his escort. He discovered afterward that the Confederate scouts and his own squad had been under the same mis- apprehension when they had believed that they were in contact with the skirmishers of a large force and were in danger of capture. Had this not been the case, Chipman and his small force would undoubtedly have been defeated by the larger body of Confederate scouts and his mission would have ended on the spot. Coming to a river, he found that the bridge which had spanned it had been burned. The flooring had been completely destroyed and there was no way to get across except to "coon" the timbers. This, young Chipman did. He located General Hunter and, after a perilous return journey, delivered a message from Hunter to the War Department. General Chipman died some years ago in San Fran- cisco where he had lived for a great many years. One of the books I have in my library is his work on the An- dersonville prison. General Chipman was the judge advocate of the military court that tried Henry Wirz, keeper of the prison, who was convicted and exe- cuted. 178 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN I met Senator Cole of Los Angeles when he pre- sided at a luncheon given by the City Club of Los Angeles, at which I was the speaker. The Senator was within one day of being one hundred years of age and despite this fact he was as clear-minded as a man of sixty. His remarks were witty and apropos of the oc- casion. He spoke of having known Mr. Lincoln and made a comparison between the characterization of the Lincoln which he had seen at the Mason Opera House and the man as he had known him. His comparison, as I recall it, was very much like that given by General Chipman. Senator Cole, having long been a prominent figure in Los Angeles, was deeply mourned after his death a year later. XVII Statues and Paintings Depict Lincoln's Characteristics A natural result of studying Lincoln or of traveling the country portraying him was the interest which was aroused in the various works of art that represented him. Several artists requested me to pose for them in the character of Lincoln. This, I declined to do because I knew that I would not have time to devote to the try- ing task of posing. Notable among the artists who made such requests was Mr. Douglas Volk, son of the man who made the life masks of Lincoln. Mr. Volk was en- gaged in painting a picture of Lincoln and it was with great reluctance that I declined to pose for him, but as I had refused other artists, I felt that I could not make an exception in his case. In company with Mrs. McGlynn and my oldest daughter, Mary Rose, I visited Mr. Volk at his studio. Mary Rose became very much interested in the life mask which Mr. Volk showed us and which was one of the originals made by his father. Suddenly she placed the life mask beside my face and said, "Dad, you think your ears are smaller than Lincoln's were, but you're 179 180 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN mistaken. They're exactly the same length." This brought about the question of actual measurements and to my astonishment we discovered that the meas- urements of my face were practically identical with those of the life mask — with the exception of the dis- tance from the line of the lower lip to the point of the chin. During the presentations prior to this visit to Mr. Volk's studio, the fact that Lincoln had prominent ears which show in his photographs as having pro- truded from his head, impelled me to comb my wig over the top of my ears to give the illusion of greater length. After Mary Rose's discovery, I invariably combed the wig back of my ears and the result was to increase the Lincolnian resemblance. The width of my ears is by no means the same as the width of Lincoln's ; nor do my ears protrude from my head as did his; but by the trick of high-lighting the outer edges of the ears the appearance of width was increased. The paintings of Lincoln which are extant are so numerous that to go into an analysis of them would require a volume in itself. There is one, however, which stands out particularly in my memory and that is the life-sized full figure oil painting in the State House in Boston. This, to use the common phrase, is, in my opin- ion, a speaking likeness. I was particularly interested in the statues of Lin- coln. Of course, I had seen many during my life, but STATUES AND PAINTINGS DEPICT LINCOLN 181 after getting the Lincoln role I had an added incentive for studying them. The first statue ever erected to the memory of Abra- ham Lincoln stood for twenty-four years in front of the old Lincoln Grammar School on Fifth Street, below Market, in San Francisco. Of plaster, it was designed by a California artist, P. Mezzara, and was unveiled on the first anniversary of President Lincoln's death. Later, it was cast in bronze which, and unfortunately, was destroyed in the great fire of 1906. The index finger of the extended hand of the statue was recovered from the ruins after the catastrophe and later the bronze was fashioned into the gavel which is now the property of the Lincoln School Association. The marble slab bearing the inscription is also treas- ured by this same association. During the run of the play in San Francisco, I was a guest at an affair given by the Lincoln School Associ- ation, and at that time I was made an honorary mem- ber thereof. The requisite for regular membership in the Association was that the applicant must have been a scholar at the old Lincoln School. While I had not attended that school as a pupil, I felt that I was some- what connected with its history as my uncle, Andrew McGlynn, was one of its first teachers. Also, I had been present at assemblies of boys from other public schools which had been held there on several occasions in patri- 182 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN otic singing. At the time of my admission to member- ship, I was the only honorary member of the association. The impressions I received while standing in the ro- tunda of the Capitol in Washington and studying the face of Lincoln carved from a solid block of marble by Gutson Borglum are indelible. I have stood before it for long moments in rapt admiration. To me, it is the work of a master hand. It was my privilege to meet Mr. Borglum through Mr. Edward Marshall, of Edward Marshall Syndicate, Inc., New York, whom I met shortly after the New York opening and who brought about the meeting between us at his office. It was a most interesting occasion for me. Mr. Marshall's ob- ject in arranging it was to develop a series of articles on Lincoln from data which was to be supplied by Mr. Borglum and myself. However, these articles were never written, for it developed that Mr. Borglum had as little time to devote to anything but his work as I had. I nave never seen a comparative account of Lincoln's physical prowess printed in any history, but Mr. Borg- lum made the statement that Abraham Lincoln was one of the strongest men who had ever held public office in this country; that the only one stronger than he phys- ically was George Washington; that Lincoln could lift eight hundred pounds dead weight from the floor and Washington could lift one thousand pounds, both with- STATUES AND PAINTINGS DEPICT LINCOLN 183 out harness. Of course, it has been stated that Lincoln could lift six hundred pounds from the floor. Where Mr. Borglum got his information, I don't know; nor did I question him at the time, feeling that he wouldn't have made such a statement if he had not had suf- ficient authority to warrant it. In New York, I also met the well-known sculptor, George Grey Barnard. He invited me to The Cloisters which is the name of his studio and museum in Wash- ington Heights, New York, and I spent most of one Sunday afternoon with him going through his collec- tion and studying some of his Lincoln sculpture. One bust of Lincoln had a most peculiar character- istic. Mr. Barnard placed it on a table near a window and by raising or lowering the window shade and thereby changing the lighting, he could produce upon the face a variety of expressions. A great deal of our discussion pertained to Mr. Bar- nard's now famous statue of Lincoln which stands in Cincinnati, Ohio. Some of the critics were very severe and seemed to feel that Mr. Barnard had maligned Lincoln by showing him to have had tremendous hands and feet. Mr. Barnard assured me that the hands on his "Cincinnati Lincoln" were accurate to the fractional part of an inch as measured from the life mask. In the statue, of course, they were proportionately enlarged. As to the feet of this statue, they are not at all out of 184 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN proportion. This I know for I personally measured them while playing in Cincinnati. The statue is between twelve and thirteen feet high. It represents Lincoln as he must have appeared in his younger days when a circuit lawyer in Illinois. The clothes are of the homespun type worn during that period. He is hatless. His feet are encased in brogans or quarter shoes and measure from the impression of the large toe to the back of the heel exactly twenty- four inches. It is a known fact that Lincoln wore a size ten boot, which was not a large foot for a man six feet, four inches in height. Twenty-four inches on a statue of double life size would bring us to the conclu- sion mathematically that the actual foot measured twelve inches in length, and any one who would go to the trouble of measuring the foot of a man who wears a number ten boot would know that it should measure about twelve inches. This "Cincinnati Lincoln" is among those statues which I greatly admire. There is in it a world of sug- gestion: Lincoln's feet in the clay indicate that he was a man from the soil; his huge hands, made so by the labor of his youth, rest at ease; his eyes look up- ward and suggest the spiritual quality of the man and his ambition to rise to great things. Viewed from a point close to its base, the statue is not nearly as im- pressive as it is from a distance of a block or more, STATUES AND PAINTINGS DEPICT LINCOLN 185 from which vantage point the symmetry of the work may be better appreciated. This same effect of distance on the expression of a statue is most marked when visiting the French statue of Lincoln in the Memorial at Washington. That statue, placed in the center of the building, shows Lincoln seated in a chair. When it is observed from the floor, its proportions are more or less grotesque, but when seen from a distance, looking toward the memorial and through the portal, a very much better impression is gained. My thought on visiting the Lincoln Memorial in Washington was that the in- terior of the building should have been in the form of an arena with the statue so placed that the observer could view it on a level with his eye instead of hav- ing to look up at it. Even in viewing it from the out- side of the Memorial building one has to stand at a distance and still look up. The statue itself is unques- tionably a great work of art. In contradistinction to this is the view obtained at Springfield of Andrew O'Connor's magnificent statue of Lincoln which depicts him as he appeared when he gave his farewell address to his friends in that city. The expression of the face, as conceived by Mr. O'Connor, gives the observer the feeling that he is seeing the emotions which must have filled the heart of Lincoln at that time. It is truly beautiful; and to 186 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN me, it represents the outstanding sculptured portrayal of Lincoln as the lover of his fellow man. Mrs. McGlynn and I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. O'Connor and his wife at his home and studio in Worcester, Mass. And so, Barnard's statue gives us Lincoln, the dreamer; Borglum's Newark Lincoln portrays the man of the common people; O'Connors's Springfield Lin- coln depicts the lover of his fellow man; French's in Washington, shows the pensive administrator; the Lin- coln School statue brings to life the great emancipator; and finally, in the Saint-Gaudens statue in Lincoln Park, Chicago, we are shown a combination of all these qualities. We see the orator, the lawyer, the statesman, and the leader of men, all represented in that com- manding figure which stands in a beautiful sylvan location and which will inspire the thousands who have the pleasure of contemplating it so long as it shall be preserved. XVIII Birthplace of Lincoln Ancestors Controversial In many histories, and notably in the work of Ida Tarbell, we find the statement that the Lincoln family originated in England, emigrated to New England, drifted into Pennsylvania and then went on to Virginia. I have never seen an authenticated tracing of the genealogy of this family, but the statement seems to be made dogmatically. Lincoln, himself, said in his auto- biography: "My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emi- grated from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Ken- tucky about 1781 or 1782, when a year or two later he was killed by Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest. His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County, Pennsylvania. An effort to identify them with the New England family of the same name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity of Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and the like." The evidence which bears out part of Lincoln's statement stands in the roadway in front of the home 187 188 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN built by Mordecai Lincoln. On a great slab of brown stone is carved the statement that the house was erect- ed in 1733 by Mordecai Lincoln, great-great-grand- father of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States. At Reading, Pennsylvania, Mr. Carson Davenport, a member of our company, introduced me to a Mr. Shaeffer, who was anxious that I should meet Mr. Thomas Lincoln, third cousin of Abraham Lincoln. This meeting was arranged and Mr. Shaeffer took us in his automobile to the old homestead of the Lincoln family. During the drive I was very much interested in Mr. Thomas Lincoln, who was a man well along in years, I should say eighty-five years of age. He spoke English with a Pennsylvania Dutch accent. He had somewhat of the Lincoln countenance and wore a chin whisker, not a full beard but a sort of goatee. He said: "I en- listed in the War, but I never got into battle because I became ill and had to go to the hospital." His principal recollection of "Cousin Abe", as he called him, was that he was a great joker; and, while I didn't ask him the names of his paternal ancestors, I feel that he was a genuine descendant of Mordecai Lincoln. We finally arrived at the Lincoln Homestead in Berks County, Pennsylvania, about fifteen miles from BIRTHPLACE OF ANCESTORS CONTROVERSIAL 189 Reading. The house is a remarkable structure consider- ing its type. When I saw it in 1921 it was in a perfect state of preservation. It was then occupied by a family of tenants who conducted a farm and there was no evidence of the slightest attempt on anyone's part to preserve it as a monument. I was told that eighty-one acres still remained in the farmstead, but that the original tract was a very large one, I think about one thousand acres in size. Why the old home, which marks the origin, so far as we positively know, of the Lincoln family in the United States is not preserved as a national shrine, is some- thing which I have never been able to understand. To my knowledge, very little mention is made of it any- where. All I can say is that I was deeply impressed as I stood in the roadway. I didn't go into the house; to have done so would have been intruding on the privacy of the occupants, but the thought came to me that this place should be better known. Why was it not cared for properly and preserved as a national shrine, instead of being used by a farmer who permitted the hogs and poultry to run loose around the place, without any restrictions? The house showed other evidence of neglect and a lack of any sense of reverence for the place which should be maintained by the public because of its historic significance, as well as an example of its par- 190 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN ticular type of architecture. It is a stone house, solidly built, as I remember it, of some sort of rubble stone, but very substantial in appearance. It would not be considered remarkable if it were built today, but when one recalls the fact that it was built in 1733, it is out- standing. Another spot in this country which should be better taken care of is the site of the old redoubt, on the northern side of the city of Washington, where Lin- coln stood in the line of battle when Early's troops were attacking the Capital. All that marks the spot today is an open square in the back yard of some little cottages where a bronze tablet has been placed on an old and dying apple tree. It tells the fact that Lincoln stood at that spot during the battle. My friend, James A. Emery of Washington, D.C., took me to see this spot. A soldier had been killed standing at Lincoln's side and he had picked him up. The commander of the position insisted that he withdraw as sharpshooters were evidently trying to pick him off. The trunk of the tree still holds many "minnie balls" and bullets em- bedded in its bark which were fired during that en- gagement, giving evidence as to how hot was the fire where Lincoln had stood. Mr. Emery made the remark that Lincoln was the only President of the United States who had ever stood in the line of fire in battle during his tenure of office. XIX Many Legends About Lincoln Have No Authoritative Source Every stuoent of Lincoln is confronted with a great number of legends and stories which cannot be traced to any authoritative origin. Probably, the principal one of these is the statement that, at the trial of Arm- strong for murder, in which Lincoln represented the defendant, he used a trick, a thing which as an honest man and a conscientious member of the bar he would never have done. Armstrong was one of the early acquaintances of Lincoln during his youth. His mother had been very kind to the struggling Lincoln. My recollection of the facts is that Lincoln gave his services gratis. The whole question of the guilt or innocence of Armstrong de- pended upon the truth of the story of one witness who said that he had seen the defendant strike the deceased with a club. The action occurred during the nighttime. When Lincoln cross-examined this witness he asked him how he had been able to see the distance stated at night, and the witness replied, "By the light of the moon." Lincoln then produced an almanac which 191 192 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN clearly showed that, on the night in question, there could have been no moonlight at the hour indicated. Now, the story has grown up somewhere that Lin- coln used an almanac not of the year in which the crime was committed. This whole fabrication has been refuted by historians and has been pronounced false even by writers antagonistic to Lincoln. In the rooms of the Historical Society of Chicago on the occasion of my visit there, Miss Caroline Mcllvaine showed me an old almanac, apparently of the year 1857. The "seven" on the outside of the almanac had been printed in ink over the figure which had been obliterated. The alteration was obvious. This very fact proves the ridiculousness of the whole story, for any lawyer knows that when evidence of a written nature, or any exhibit, is presented it is submitted to the scrutiny of opposing counsel and no man could possibly be deceived by this atrocious alteration. "That almanac," said Miss Mcllvaine, "is the almanac which Lincoln used at the trial of Armstrong to contradict the testimony of a witness who said he saw Armstrong kill a man." Then, showing me the alteration on the almanac, she said, "That was a very clever thing which Lincoln did, to show the court an old almanac which was not really correct." My reply to her was, "I think that's a libel on Lin- coln. I'm a lawyer and have practiced as a lawyer, William Ferguson. Frank McGIynn and Mrs. Evans, photographed at the Blackstone Theatre, Chicago, in 1920, during or just after, one of the per- formances of "Abraham Lincoln." Mr. William Ferguson, famous actor, was the assistant stage manager (call boy) at Fords Theatre the night of Lincoln's assassination. Mrs. Evans was a member of the company and the soubrette in the play, "Our American Gousin," which was given on that fateful night. The Edwards home, in which Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd were married. Interior of the room in which Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd were married on November 4. 1842. LEGENDS HAVE NO AUTHORITATIVE SOURCE 193 and I'm sure no lawyer would be guilty of such an act, much less Abraham Lincoln. He was a man of honor and he had taken an oath never to deceive the courts, therefore, he would not have been guilty of such decep- tion. He did get Armstrong acquitted by showing an almanac and by proving that there was no moon on the night in question. Evidently, some one, to make a good story, had originated the tale that Lincoln had used an old almanac and had altered it. That book should be destroyed as it is undoubtedly a fake." About a year later, I visited the museum again and met the gentleman in charge. I told him about the incident of the almanac. He asked me whether I had seen that almanac when I was there and I replied that I had. "When was that?" he inquired. I told him. Then he said, "That greatly relieves my mind. That almanac disappeared mysteriously and we thought a certain young lady who had been working here in the office had taken it, but the fact that you saw it long after she left, completely exonerates her." Some day that same almanac will probably be pre- sented for sale by some wily person who will originate a legend that Lincoln had used it at the trial of Arm- strong. If such a thing should happen, I hope that whoever is about to purchase it will have the same view that I have and that it will never be preserved as 194 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN evidence of an act on Lincoln's part of which he could not have been guilty. Another question which has provoked various claims refers to determination of the actual place of Lincoln's birth. On the occasion of our second engagement in Washington, I met a Mr. W. J. Moore who presented me with a piece of wood that had been taken from the log cabin in which he claimed President Lincoln's par- ents were married and in which Lincoln himself was said to have been born. He told me that the cabin was located in his old home place in Harrodsburg, Mercer County, Kentucky. Previously, he had sent me a kodak picture of the cabin. He went on to say that the cabin was originally located in Washington County in an isolated spot off the public highway, but that the Mercer County Historical Society had had it moved to its present location. When the United States Government erected the memorial in Hardin County, Kentucky, the place which Lincoln himself said was his birthplace, and preserved the old cabin, an exhaustive search must surely have been made to determine the authenticity of the location. Consequently, the idea that this cabin in which Mr. Moore said Lincoln's parents were married and in which Lincoln was supposed to have been born is evidently erroneous; however, this claim and others LEGENDS HAVE NO AUTHORITATIVE SOURCE 195 like it are illustrative of the numerous mythical stories which are told of Lincoln. I think I may safely state as a fact that many stories are evoked from dreams, so vivid that as the years pass by, the dreamer believes them to have actually hap- pened. While the following has no connection with Abraham Lincoln, I give it as bringing out the state- ment I have just made, without any intention of ques- tioning the veracity of Harry Linson, the Civil War veteran whom I have already mentioned as my author- ity for certain gestures of Lincoln. Here is the story substantially as I heard it. "I was the captain of my company after one of the major battles down south and one of my men named Devereaux had been killed and buried in the burial ground some distance below the log cabins in which the troops were quartered. In the cabin which had been occupied by Devereaux and quite a number of other soldiers, was a gun rack, and Devereaux's gun was stacked there with the others. The story came to me that at midnight Devereaux would walk into the cabin and look at his gun; then, when he was spoken to or approached, he would exit and go toward the cemetery. I didn't believe this, so one night I went to the cabin and sat up with the men. I saw Devereaux enter the cabin at midnight, stand before the gun rack and look at his gun. To my amazement, when he was 196 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN spoken to he went through the door and on his way without a word. The following day, I told the Colonel and the surgeon of the regiment what I had seen. "Oh, so you're going crazy, too!" they exclaimed, but their curiosity got the better of them and one night they came and sat up with the boys. To their astonishment, Devereaux walked into the room at midnight, stood before the gun rack and looked at his gun. After he had left in the usual way, the surgeon said, "There's something about that gun. Has it been examined?" We told him that we had already looked it over. "Let me see it," he insisted. We took the gun down from the rack and started a thorough search. Just as we were about to give up, the surgeon noticed the plate at the end of the stock of the gun where it rests against the shoulder. "Let's get a screw driver and unscrew this plate," he suggested. This we did, whereupon we discovered that a hole had been dug out of the stock and that in it were placed several bills of quite large denominations. After looking up Devereaux's record, the money was forwarded to his mother and we never saw Devereaux again." You may believe this story or not, as you choose. Personally, I would say that it's likely that in some fever or in the aftermath of an illness during the war, Harry Linson may have dreamed all this, and the LEGENDS HAVE NO AUTHORITATIVE SOURCE 197 dream may have been so vivid that, after a lapse of forty years, he had come to believe it to be a fact. Maybe I'm wrong, but I give it here as an illustration of the improbability of many of the mythical tales about Lincoln which are related and given as fact, but which are not borne out by the findings of investi- gators. As an example of this, we have the dispute as to whether or not Booth, after jumping to the stage at Ford's Theatre, uttered the word, sic semper tyrannis, and whether or not he was the man who was killed in Garrett's barn. Following a matinee in Chicago, Mr. William Ferguson, veteran comedian and character actor of the American stage, visited me in my dressing room at the Blackstone Theatre. He was accompanied by Mrs. Katherine M. Evans. Mrs. Evans and Mr. Ferguson were then among the few survivors of the cast of Our American Cousin which had been played at the Ford Theatre on the night of Lincoln's assassination. I had known Mr. Ferguson for a number of years. Mr. Ferguson took very strong exception to Mr. Drinkwater's having Lincoln speak from the box in the theatre in the final act of the play. He said, "Mr. Lincoln would never have done anything like that." Of course, we know from history that he did nothing of the kind, but I must disagree with Mr. Ferguson's 198 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN point of view insofar as the play is concerned. Mr. Drinkwater stated specifically that he was not follow- ing history. He evidently had Lincoln utter words at the climax of his play which would show his happiness that the war was concluded and his intention to be generous and merciful. He selected parts of one of Lincoln's letters to Speed, various phrases from the second inaugural address and two from the Gettysburg speech and co-ordinated them in such a manner that they seemed to be one and the same speech. He used Lincoln's famous line, "Government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth", as Lincoln's final utterance before meeting his tragic end. This, to me, showed the genius of Drink- water in bringing to a startling climax the whole scheme of the drama. I cannot comprehend why Mr. Ferguson, as an actor, would not have sensed this. Mr. Ferguson is also responsible for his oft-repeated statement that Booth never uttered the words, sic semper tyrannis. Time and again he declared this to be so. Ferguson was the assistant stage manager, or call boy, on that eventful evening. He was standing off- stage at what we term "the prompt entrance" back of the proscenium arch when the shot was fired and, un- questionably, for the moment he was unaware of what had happened. Booth, also an actor, probably stood facing the audience at some distance from Ferguson; LEGENDS HAVE NO AUTHORITATIVE SOURCE 199 and he could easily have uttered the words, sic semper tyrannis without having been heard by him. I feel positive that this must have been the case, although I know that Ferguson would not willfully have made any statement which he did not believe to be the absolute truth. I am of the opinion that he was perfectly sincere in his declaration. Some time after I had talked with Mr. Ferguson, I met in Alston, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, a Mrs. Wright who was also present in the audience on the night of the assassination. Mrs. Wright was the widow of the man who had been the stage manager of Ford's Theatre. I went to her home one afternoon and was ushered into her presence. I learned that she was completely blind, but her statements were clear and forceful. She told me that she had known Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln very well; in fact, she said, "I looked very much like Mrs. Lincoln during my girlhood. I sat in about the fifth row and after the President en- tered the theatre, naturally, I frequently looked toward the box. At times, he would sit with his arms resting on the rail of the box and I thought that occasionally he would glance in my direction. When I heard the shot, I looked toward him and I saw Booth jump from the box, then fall on the stage. Finally, getting up hippety- hop, he shook something in his hand. I couldn't see what it was." 200 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN (The object described was undoubtedly the knife with which Booth had stabbed Major Rathbone, the derringer having been dropped before he made his escape from the box. ) I asked Mrs. Wright whether or not she remem- bered having heard Booth say "Sic semper tyrannis!" and remarked to her that there were some people who maintained that he had not uttered these words. Then this blind woman raised her hand and replied with dignity, "I could swear that I heard Booth say "Sic semper tyrannis'" The dramatic pose of Mrs. Wright and her intense earnestness were tremendously impressive and con- vinced me of the truth of her statement. She told me further that a pack of scenery that had stood for some time in a certain spot on the stage had been shifted so that a door which it had previously hidden was disclosed. The inference was that some one about the theatre and in league with Booth had cleared an exit for him. The fact that Booth did say "Sic semper tyrannis" as he leaped to the stage was further confirmed by Cap- tain Andrew J. Huntoon, of the United States Civil Service Commission in Washington, who was a mem- ber of the \2th N. H. Volunteers during the Civil War, in a letter written to me in which he stated, " . . . I was present at Ford's Theatre on the night of the LEGENDS HAVE NO AUTHORITATIVE SOURCE 201 assassination and witnessed in the minutest detail every movement of the assassin. Sitting opposite the President, I could observe him closely, and as he was carried from the theatre, I was so near that I could have touched his hand." After receiving this letter, I met Captain Huntoon and asked him if he had heard what Booth had said after assassinating the President. "He said, 'Sic semper tyrannis/ " was the reply. Recently, the claim has been made that John Wilkes Booth was not killed and that he lived for many years, having passed away only a comparatively short time ago. Just after the assassination of Lincoln many stories originated which cast a mystery over the facts con- cerning Booth. All this has been gone into extensively by many writers; but notwithstanding their conclu- sions, the late Joseph Hazelton, a veteran actor and a very fine gentleman, promulgated the story that Booth was not the man who was killed by the firing squad at Garrett's barn, but that he had escaped into Mississippi and had died in Oklahoma where he, Hazleton, had seen the remains and had identified them as being those of John Wilkes Booth by a pecu- liar break in one of the thumbs and the faint tracing of the initials which had been tattooed on one of the wrists. Mr. Hazleton used a pamphlet telling this tale, which he distributed after his lectures. I knew Mr. Hazleton, and am certain that he believed what he 202 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN said. Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that his con- clusions were erroneous. Positive proof of the fact that it was John Wilkes Booth who was killed at Barrett's barn came to me through a meeting at Great Falls, Montana, with Mr. D. F. Smith, who had been a member of Company "D 33 20th Regiment of Maine during the Civil War. Mr. Smith who had been a dispatch bearer had assisted in carrying the wounded Abraham Lincoln from Ford's Theatre to the little room across the street where he passed away. Smith was a member of the firing squad that sur- rounded Garrett's barn at the killing of Booth. He said to me: "I saw Boston Corbett kill Booth. Corbett got himself generally disliked by posing as the man who killed the assassin of Lincoln and by making capital for himself out of it. It is not a fact that he killed Booth on impulse. If he hadn't killed Booth, Booth would have killed him, because Corbett simply beat him to the draw." I asked Mr. Smith if he were certain that it was Booth he had killed, and he stated most emphatically: "I am sure it was Booth." After reading various books on this subject and after hearing Mr. Smith's story, I am convinced that John Wilkes Booth was the man who was killed in Garrett's barn, and I quote this statement of Smith's LEGENDS HAVE NO AUTHORITATIVE SOURCE 203 for two reasons: first, as a substantiation of the fact, and, secondly, to give the statement of an eye-witness to the effect that Boston Corbett fired and killed Booth in self-defense and not because of his fanatical emo- tions, although Corbett is quoted in one book I read as having said, "Some one told me that Booth was aiming at me," which quotation bears out Mr. Smith's statement as written above. The belief still exists that Lincoln left Springfield in the course of his trip to Washington before his in- auguration, and travelled from Harrisburg to Wash- ington wearing a shawl, a bonnet and a veil to give him the semblance of a woman. It is a strange thing how fiction will live and be believed in the face of written testimony. The only answer to this is that people are not prone to search for the truth, but will readily be- lieve anything which has the tang of mystery about it. In Chicago, I met Mr. William A. Pinkerton, head of the celebrated detective agency, and we had a very lengthy and interesting talk about Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Pinkerton's father had been the Chief of the Secret Service during the Civil War and had frequently accompanied the President on his various trips. Pinkerton presented me with a book depicting the trip of Abraham Lincoln from Harrisburg to Wash- ington, which completely refuted the statement that Lincoln was disguised for fear of assassination on that 204 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN memorable journey. The actual facts as set down by Pinkerton, Sr., were that information had been re- ceived to the effect that there might be an attempt on the life of the President, and that, by changing the usual route and time schedule, he had been amply pro- tected. Pinkerton told me that his father, who had origin- ally been a blacksmith, one day said to him, "Son, I'm going to take you to see one of the most remark- able men in the world." Pinkerton then said that his father had taken him down by the lake front where there was a little old- fashioned hotel and had introduced him to John Brown. Brown had with him fifteen other men all of whom were being sought by the United States Secret Service for having liberated slaves and taken them by devious routes through the United States into Canada where they were secure in their freedom. XX At the Deathbed of Lincoln Many letters I received criticized Mr. Drinkwater for having taken liberties with actual history, but the writers failed to consider the fact that John Drink- water wrote his play primarily for entertainment and used the life of Lincoln as a basis, which fact he frankly admitted in his foreword to the printed work. In a speech which he delivered at the Brevoort Hotel on the occasion of a dinner there, the author said that he wrote about Abraham Lincoln because he wanted to write a drama around the character of a public official and he believed Abraham Lincoln to have been "the greatest hero as a public officer of all time." The outstanding letter criticizing Mr. Drinkwater, was written to me February 1, 1921, by Mr. James Tanner, Registrar of Wills, Washington, D. C. It reads as follows: "Some months ago when Mr. Drinkwater's play, Abraham Lincoln, was presented here, I had the great pleasure of witnessing your admirable presenta- tion of the character of Abraham Lincoln. I think in the natural order of events it must have been more in- 205 206 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN tensely interesting to me than to any other person in the audience you appeared before, for the simple rea- son that I was present at the deathbed of Abraham Lincoln. So far as I know there are only two persons other than myself yet living who were witnesses to the final scene of that tragedy. One of them is our mar- tyred President's son, Robert T., the other a doctor in New York by the name of Leale. Leale, I have reason to believe, remembers very much more than he saw during that awful night. "I write because there is one little mistake in Mr. Drinkwater's rendition of the matter. I refer to Secre- tary Stanton's utterance in the last moment of the play. It consists simply in the transition of the final word in his sentence and makes it the first word. As the representative of Secretary Stanton gives it, it runs 'Now he belongs to the ages! 5 It startled me when I heard it when you were here before and the thought flashed over my mind, why, my God, I heard Stanton utter those words. My mind is very clear on the matter. His exact expression put the 'now' at the end of the sentence, namely: 'He belongs to the ages now!' I was standing at the head of the bed looking over, and with my gaze fixed directly on Stanton's face. He sat in a chair near the foot of the bed on the left hand side as I stood looking over the bed. "I had been called in to the house from my apart- AT THE DEATHBED OF LINCOLN 207 merits next door at the request of Secretary Stanton as I had some knowledge of shorthand, and he wanted me to take down the evidence that was being given be- fore Secretary Stanton and the then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, by various witnesses. This evidence I took seated at a little table in the rear parlor, on the other side of which sat Secretary Stanton and at my right at the end, Chief Justice Carter. A chair between him and me was oc- cupied by various witnesses. Stanton had been a man of steel throughout the night. I have every incident that occurred there burning into my brain. "When I had finished recording the evidence given, Mr. Stanton passed back into the death chamber. I sat there and wrote out a longhand copy of the short- hand notes, finished, I think, somewhere in the neigh- borhood of six o'clock. Afterward I went back into the death chamber, stood at the side of the bed and gazed upon the features of the martyred President; then I passed around to the head of the bed and stood lean- ing on the head-board with Robert Lincoln in elbow touch with me, sobbing on the shoulder of Senator Charles Sumner. My attention soon became fastened upon the face of Secretary Stanton, who was gazing intently upon the countenance of his dying chief. When the Reverend Doctor Gurley began his brief prayer, Stanton buried his face in the bedclothes and 208 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN his great frame shook with sobs as he realized that the end had come. I have seen many men die on the battle field and in hospitals, many of them in great physical agony, but I never saw more agony displayed on the human countenance than was pictured on Stanton's face when, as Doctor Gurley's 'Amen' sounded in that little chamber, Stanton raised his face, wreathed in agony and with the tears coursing down his cheeks, sobbed out the words, 'He belongs to the ages now !' "Retiring to my apartment next door I sat down and at once made a copy of my transcription of my notes as Mr. Stanton had asked me to furnish him a copy and I had an idea that I would like personally to keep the original shorthand notes and the first copy I made of them in that rear parlor. This copy I de- livered at his house that afternoon, but as his butler answered my bell and told me he was asleep, I did not see him. I gave my original copy to my eldest son, who is a lawyer in Philadelphia. He mounted the notes on muslin and had them appropriately bound in book form and they are now in the Lincoln Memorial Room in the Union League Club of Philadelphia." While Mr. Tanner's letter gives the actual speech of Stanton, he should have allowed the writer of the play a certain liberty. "He belongs to the ages now," contains the same thought as "Now he belongs to the ages," but from a dramatic and poetic point of view, c < 8 -S-J s g> 2 E w ffl d . -S 8.S -I & Is* Joo.£ — no 2 c ffcf r - — to Abraham Lincoln. This photograph was made after many months of study and work, from a small faded one, bearing no name. During the demolition of a hotel in Brooklyn, N. Y., the small one came to light and fell into the hands of Gertrude Kasebier, the noted photographer, who made this copy. On the back of the original was written in illiterate German, "The president Lincoln he gave me this." Beyond this, nothing is known of the history of the photograph from which the present beau- tiful result was obtained. AT THE DEATHBED OF LINCOLN 209 to utter the word "now" first, presents the picture of the actual time with all the things which had gone before; therefore, to say "now" first presents a picture to the listener, more vivid, more impressive than to place the word at the end of the sentence. To stand in the little room opposite the old Ford's Theatre in Washington in which Abraham Lincoln died, and to retrace in one's thoughts that tragic time produces in any one who reveres the memory of Lin- coln indescribable emotions. To me, who had been at- tempting to impersonate him, this was doubly true. I met there Mr. Oldroyd, the custodian, who is also the writer of several books on Lincoln, and who showed me the pitiful souvenirs of that awful occasion. I was greatly impressed with the letter written by the young man who had occupied the room prior to Lin- coln's death. His description of the events in this let- ter to his mother is most affecting. Mr. Oldroyd's efforts were devoted, at the time I met him, to having the government preserve the build- ing and the room as a national shrine. An illustration of the difference between the play and the actual history is shown in the fact that, in the play, the impression is given that Lincoln has been instantly killed. It was unquestionably more dramatic to have treated the tragedy in that way than to have 210 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN described the incidents of the play in the exact order in which they occurred. XXI Civil War Veterans Pay Tribute to Lincoln's Memory During the entire run of the play and in various cities, matinees were given at which veterans of the Civil War were welcomed as guests of the manage- ment. Invariably, numbers of them would be brought to my dressing room and would recount experiences of theirs during the War. Many had either seen or met President Lincoln. The remarkable thing about meet- ing them was the fact that, in conversing with me some of them behaved as though they were actually speaking to Lincoln. I attribute the reason for this to the fact that they had been so impressed with the play that it had put them back in spirit to the trying days of the Civil War, and coming back and seeing me still in make- up, for I had had no time to remove it, the illusion still remained with them. Of course, this was not true in every instance, but it was true in many instances, par- ticularly with very old and feeble men. As a rule, any disturbance in an audience or any sign of unrest or inattention is aggravating to an actor who is conscientiously striving to create an illusion, 211 212 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN but in the case of these old men who were so carried away with the play that they would talk to each other, there was no feeling of resentment among the members of the company. I remember several occasions upon which decided exclamations could be heard by the entire audience, although they were probably not be- lieved to be heard by the speakers. One such incident occurred during the scene be- tween Lincoln and "Hook", a fictitious cabinet mem- ber put into the play to illustrate the enmity toward Lincoln in his own party. The scene was suddenly broken into by an old veteran in the audience re- marking to his friend in a high-pitched, falsetto voice, tremulous with age, "He's got the old man wor- ried." While this had a certain degree of humor, the strange part of it is that it did not cause the audience to laugh or distract them from the play any more than it did Mr. William Norton (who was playing "Hook") or me. Another instance of the same sort occurred at a dif- ferent time, when we were interrupted during the scene between Lincoln and the boy, Scott, at what we called the Appomattox scene. In the very middle of this sympathetic episode which demanded silence in the extreme, an old veteran evidently seated beside a deaf friend who, because of his deafness, did not get the exact meaning of it and probably had turned his CIVIL WAR VETERANS PAY TRIBUTE 213 ear to him to get information, said in a loud, rather piercing voice, "Young fellow— was sleeping on post— having a hard time, poor devil". This almost took Wally Ford, who was playing the boy, and me off our feet, but we managed to preserve our equilibrium and I hope there was no apparent deflection from the scene. In speaking of Civil War veterans, I am reminded of the veterans of the first World War. In the winter of 1920 in Chicago, I was asked to speak to a body of disabled veterans of the World War. I should say that about two or three hundred men were assembled, all bearing some evidence of the ordeal through which they had come. As a rule, there is some temerity when one is about to deliver a speech which is more or less impromptu. Of course, my knowledge of the chrono- logy of Lincoln and of the events which I would emphasize in speaking of him was somewhat stereo- typed after having made many speeches, but on this occasion for some reason I experienced no feeling of temerity. I cannot remember what I said, but I do know that I had never before addressed so receptive and attentive an audience and I had never found it easier to feel the inspiration which comes to one who is addressing a gathering and which makes him feel that his every word is having the desired effect. There seemed to be a bond between us. These men who had been "tried in the fire," and I who had never experi- 214 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN enced the shock of battle, but was filled with a patriotic ardor and the desire to properly illustrate in words what was meant by devotion to one's country and one's flag, seemed to be in absolute accord, fused as it were in an ecstasy of thought. It was one of the most re- markable experiences of my life. A strange incident happened in New York at one of the matinees. My daughters were students at Mount St. Mary's Academy at Newburgh, and Mrs. McGlynn and I had invited the nuns from that institution to at- tend a matinee performance. As a rule, nuns are not frequenters of the theatre; but on this occasion, the Archbishop, due to the quality of the Drinkwater play, gave them permission to attend. Among them was a Mother Blanche, a highly cultured and excep- tionally brilliant woman. She sat directly behind Mrs. McGlynn and was so carried away with the realism of the play that, when the actor portraying John Wilkes Booth entered the box occupied by Lincoln, Mother Blanche reached forward, and grasping Mrs. McGlynn by the shoulder, exclaimed, "Oh, Mrs. Mc- Glynn, don't let him shoot the President !" This to me is an outstanding demonstration of the cumulative ef- fect of Drinkwater's play. A reverence for Lincoln and his memory was emphasized in Wilmington, Delaware, by General William Henry Harrison, who called at the stage door CIVIL WAR VETERANS PAY TRIBUTE 215 of the theatre some little time before the rise of the curtain of the play. As I entered the stage door, I heard him demand, "Where are these actors? I want to see these actors". He was a comparatively short man, well set up and evidently very prosperous. I was told that he was very rich, and had, of course, retired. The tone of his voice indicated that, had he met the actors, he would have told them that he would not for one moment tolerate anything disrespectful to Abraham Lincoln. As I stepped through the door, some one said, "Gen- eral, this is Mr. McGlynn. He plays the part of Abra- ham Lincoln". The General extended his hand and remarked in a sharp, staccato voice, "My name is William Henry Harrison. I'm the sole surviving Corps Commander under Grant". "I'm very glad to know you, General," I said, "I have very little time to talk now, as I have to make up, but I want you to see the play and I'd like to have your opinion, so I hope you'll come back and have a chat after the performance." "Very good," agreed the General in strictly military manner. After the play was over, the General came back to my dressing room, evidently deeply affected. He had lost his briskness and aggressiveness and seemed to 216 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN be perfectly satisfied that full justice had been done to the memory of Abraham Lincoln. In the course of our brief conversation, I remarked, "General, when I was a boy, I used to hear discus- sions about the merits of the various generals in the war, particularly of Lee, McClellan and Grant. Just what is your opinion of those men?" "Well," he replied, "I'll tell you. Lee-great tacti- cian; McClellan— great engineer; Grant— great soldier. As Joe Moseby said, 'I don't know much about military tactics, but my idea is to get there fust with the greatest number of men'." He did not mean by this to disparage Grant in any way for as I remember it, he considered that Grant was not only an aggressive General but a man who knew his profession. However, he gave this as an il- lustration of Grant's forcefulness as a soldier. It is difficult to believe that any one living in this period would not know about Abraham Lincoln, but when we presented the Drinkwater play on the Swarthmore Chautauqua circuit in 1926, after the per- formance at Grand' Mere in the Province of Quebec, our manager related an amusing incident. As the audi- ence was leaving, he heard the following dialogue be- tween two French Canadians. CIVIL WAR VETERANS PAY TRIBUTE 217 " 'e ees a poory gud actor, dat Linkkon. "oo ees Linkkon?" "You don' know 'oo ees Linkkon?" "No, 'oo ees Linkkon?" c 'e's the mans wat mak dee beeg Ford car !" XXII The Early Life of Lincoln Despite the varying claims of some people as to the place in which Lincoln was born, there is no doubt but that he was born, as he himself says, in Hardin County, Kentucky. Lincoln was the second child of Thomas Lincoln and his wife, Nancy, who, as stated in Lincoln's auto- biography, was "of a family named Hanks' 3 Thomas Lincoln, a man of great physical strength, was a car- penter and, as shown by certain court records, had been a contractor for work at his trade. Having been blessed with a wandering spirit, he had sold his farm in Kentucky and went down the Ohio River to the southern part of Indiana. In making a landing there, his raft was overturned and a great deal of the cargo was lost, but Thomas Lincoln did save the whiskey— which incident is some- times recorded in a derogatory way against him. As a matter of fact, whiskey was really the medium of exchange in those early pioneer days, which was un- doubtedly the reason why Thomas Lincoln saved in this emergency the one thing which would secure for 218 THE EARLY LIFE OF LINCOLN 219 him and his family provisions and other necessities of existence. After selecting a farm site he returned to Kentucky and brought his wife and children to In- diana. He may have been a dreamer and no doubt he was; but that he was illiterate is not a fact. He was not an educated man in the sense of having had great ad- vantages, but he could read and Write, probably with greater facility than could Nancy Hanks. That he was shiftless, I greatly doubt. He had the vision of empire and he was a pioneer. That characteristic seemed to have been in his blood. He was possessed of a quick temper and, while some accounts say that he was very harsh with the growing boy, Abraham, I think we should take these statements with a grain of salt. The first cabin which he built in Indiana was a very crude affair. I need not go into its description as it is to be found in many histories. He cleared some land and the young Lincoln, Abraham, had to do his share of the work which today would be considered beyond the capabilities of a boy of nine. No abject poverty or starvation menaced the growing Lincoln. True, he had to become inured to the severities of the weather and to live on coarse food, but it was such food as produced the gigantic and powerful body that was his. Shortly after their arrival in Indiana, Nancy Lin- 220 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN coin was taken down with a fever and died. She was buried in a coffin hewn from the timbers of the forest by her husband; and not until long after her death did any minister offer a funeral service for her. This sad burial in the then Primeval forest must have made a tremendous impression upon the boy whose nature was deeply sympathetic, for he said of his mother: "All I am, or hope to be, I owe to my mother. God bless my angel mother. 5 ' This, without question, referred to Nancy Lincoln and not to his stepmother, Sarah Bush Johnson, who later was responsible for most of what little schooling the boy received. Whatever else may be said of Thomas Lincoln, he must be given credit for having had one noteworthy faculty and that was the ability to select a good wife. In the first place, he chose the mother of Abraham Lincoln, of whom the latter has spoken as noted above. In the second place, he married Sarah Bush Johnson, a kindly, motherly woman who loved his children and whose eulogy of Abraham Lincoln, which is to be found in the records, indicates that a very great affec- tion existed between them. After his second marriage and the usual struggle of the pioneer to hew a homestead out of the wilderness, Thomas Lincoln decided to move on to Illinois, where he settled. The boy, Lincoln, was then a sturdy youth and his own story of his early life could be summed THE EARLY LIFE OF LINCOLN 221 up in the words quoted by him from Gray's Elegy — "The short but simple annals of the poor." We know that during the period between his having left the farm in Indiana and his having gone to Spring- field, he worked as a hand on a flatboat, clerked in a store, purchased an interest in it and became popular with his neighbors. During this period, a romance sprang up between him and Ann Rutledge, a girl whose father kept a tavern and who had been engaged to a man named McNamar, who had gone east to visit his people and whose letters became more and more infrequent. There is little doubt, but that there was some sort of an engagement between Ann Rutledge and Lincoln and that just before her death he had paid her a visit, but of what was said, there is no record. After her death, Lincoln became very morose and the story goes that his friends feared that he might attempt self-destruc- tion. It is more than reasonable to suppose that the epidemic which carried of! Ann Rutledge had been contracted by Lincoln himself and that, having a rugged constitution, he was actually suffering with a "walking fever". This is the conclusion of some of the writers on this phase of Lincoln's life. He reached the home of Bowling Green and was there cared for until he regained his composure; or, in other words, his health. 222 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN Long before his marriage to Mary Todd, his court- ship of Mary Owen, to whom he wrote a letter of proposal worded in such a way as naturally to induce the lady to reject him, has been dwelt upon at some length by adverse critics. At that time, Lincoln was still a very young man and no doubt when writing these letters, which were never intended for public consump- tion, he was acting under an impulse of the moment which he most certainly would have regretted had he weighed the pros and cons. No man, however great or however respected by his fellowmen, would want to see all the actions of his life and the expressions of his thoughts revealed to the eyes of the world and from this point of view such incidents as have been recorded should bear no weight in judging the real greatness of Lincoln. During his lifetime, Lincoln had had the experience of acting as a hand on a flatboat which plied far down the Mississippi, and we have the story elaborated in the Drinkwater play (for which Dennis Hanks's reminiscences are responsible) of Lincoln's attend- ing the sale of slaves in New Orleans. When the first steamboat came up the Sangamon River, it was piloted by Lincoln who in his earlier days learned the channel and knew how to avoid the shoals in the river. That he had an inventive mind is evi- denced by the model of a river barge for which he ob- THE EARLY LIFE OF LINCOLN 223 tained a patent. This model is preserved in Washing- ton. His knowledge of currents and his ingenuity made him a hero when he rescued a man who was caught on a snag in mid-stream. Lincoln had some of the by- standers go up the river bank and hold one end of a long rope, the other end of which was attached to his waist. Swinging himself out from the bank astraddle of a log, he propelled himself into mid-stream; then, per- mitting the log to run down with the current, he grasped the man in his powerful grip and called to his friends to hold tight on the slack rope. The rope im- mediately became taut and the natural action of the water swung the two men on the log into the river bank. While helping his father, as a farmer, Lincoln maul- ed rails; but during all those laborious days, his ambi- tion was for higher things. Like his father, he too was unquestionably a dreamer, but he possessed an ambi- tion to lift himself to higher places and with that in mind, he read what books he could obtain. He said of himself, "I had in all my life about a year's schooling." When we consider that this man became one of the greatest masters of concise English that this country or any other has ever produced, we are forced to the conclusion that he was an ardent student. So we find him, after having left his father and the rest of his family, coming to Springfield with the ambi- 224 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN tion to follow the practice of law. His interest in public affairs and his knowledge of the people among whom he lived, impelled him to enter the political field. Un- questionably, he aspired to the holding of office, but this was no matter for censure. Participation in govern- ment is a laudable ambition when the aspirant is honest. Much has been written about the romantic side of Lincoln's life prior to and about the time he married Mary Todd. The statement is dogmatically made by some writers that he left Mary Todd awaiting his ap- pearance at the Edwards home where they were to have been married ; in other words, the bride was wait- ing, but the groom did not appear. This story is refuted by other writers, notably Mr. Henry B. Rankin in his Recollections of Lincoln. Unquestionably, there was some reluctance on the part of Lincoln to enter into a marriage in which he did not feel that he could make the prospective bride happy. He did go into Kentucky and spend some time with the family of his friend, Speed. After his return and his meeting with Mary Todd, according to some writers, with the intention of breaking off the engagement, he did not do so. The result of the meeting was instead an engagement to marry, and so Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd were wed in Springfield on November 4, 1842, at the home of N. W. Edwards. THE EARLY LIFE OF LINCOLN 225 Mary Todd had been courted by Stephen A. Doug- las, who was Lincoln's political rival in many cam- paigns and whom he finally defeated for the Presi- dency. As a lawyer, he rode the circuit of Illinois. His greatest forte was arguing before a jury. Some writers attempt to disparage the ability of Lincoln as a lawyer, but even from their writings one must come to the conclusion that he had quite a practice inasmuch as he had cases on appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, which cannot be said of many lawyers, even though they be prominent. Futhermore one of the largest fees for legal services up to Lincoln's time was paid to him for acting as attorney for the Illinois Cen- tral Railroad, i.e. five thousand dollars. That he had a keen sense of humor and was always welcome at gatherings as a most entertaining mimic and story teller is certain. This faculty of humor un- doubtedly gained him many friends; but had he not possessed other and more admirable qualities, he could never have retained their love and affection. That he did gain the love and affection of all men with whom he came into personal contact is evidence that he possessed a great soul. He had a rugged honesty, so much so that "Honest Abe" became a campaign slogan. While he was probably called "Abe" by his early associates, it is a fact that none of his colleagues ever 226 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN called him "Abe". The only persons from whom he tolerated that were the frontiersmen who had known him in his youth. On one occasion, an audience which he was addressing was astounded to see an old man rise near the rostrum and to hear him call out, "Hello, Abe, how are you?" The audience was much more surprised when Lincoln responded, "Hello, Uncle Joe, how are all the folks?" as he helped the old gen- tleman to the platform and seated him in a chair. Lin- coln did not resent the nickname from one who was entitled to call him by it, but there was "an aura about the man" which, without a word spoken, forbade any such familiarity. He was called Mr. Lincoln by every- one prior to his becoming President. As a member of Congress his creed was not partic- ularly outstanding, except that he voted for measures which had as their objective the restriction of slavery. While he deplored the Mexican war and felt that there was no justification for it, nevertheless, since the coun- try was in it, he always voted in favor of supplies and equipment for the army. Evidently, Lincoln, the Con- gressman, was biding his time. There was a lapse of several years in Lincoln's politi- cal career during which time he devoted himself solely to the practice of law. In moments of relaxation he was very fond of music although he had no ability in that direction. He THE EARLY LIFE OF LINCOLN 227 also loved poetry and was himself something of a poet. Under a nom-de-plume, he contributed articles to the Springfield newspapers, some of which were instru- mental in bringing about the famous duel between Lincoln and Shields which ended in a laugh. Lincoln had been an "old line Whig" but when that party was in a state of dissolution, he had become one of the organizers and members of the Republican Party. The thing which had impelled him to take this course was the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and he had decided at that point to re-enter the political arena. While he had not been in favor of the nomina- tion of John C. Fremont, having preferred another candidate, he had espoused the cause of Fremont as the nominee of his party and in 1856 had campaigned vigorously in his behalf. The question of the right of the Southern States to secede, brought about by the growing agitation against slavery, had awakened in Lincoln all his love for the Union and had governed his own course of conduct from that period on through the Lincoln-Douglas De- bates, up to the time of his inauguration, and until he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. His loyalty proved that his impelling motive was not the freeing of slaves, but was primarily the preservation of the Union. He was not an Abolitionist. He believed that, were slavery not restricted, it would become a menace 228 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN to the life of the nation; but he realized that neither he nor any other man, had a right under the Constitution, without the consent of the people, to abolish the right of property in human beings, no matter what his opin- ion as to the right or wrong of that institution might be. He deplored slavery and hoped for its restriction and by restriction that it would eventually decrease and disappear. His stand was aggressive as contrasted to that of Douglas which was that of a compromiser. Douglas's great fear was that the agitation of slavery would produce disaster. Lincoln, on the other hand, saw that the agitation was inevitable and that disaster could be avoided only by restriction. When he stood before the people, after all the turmoil during the Senatorial campaign between him and Douglas, and after the exciting years prior to his receiving the nom- ination at Chicago and his going to Washington, he delivered what was perhaps the most momentous speech that has ever been delivered in this nation— his first inaugural address, in which he made state- ments plainly showing his attitude toward the Nation. By this speech, he should ever be judged ! The years of his life, from the day of his in- auguration to. the day of his passing, are the years which have stamped upon our minds the greatness of this man. That he came to this great responsibility as an accident or as a man unknown, is not true. Like all THE EARLY LIFE OF LINCOLN 229 men of his time, the business of the nation was the business of his fireside. The period that produced Lincoln also produced Douglas, a true patriot and a man with bigness of heart and character so great that although he was de- feated by him, he stood behind Lincoln at the inaug- ural, holding his hat and cane, and made the state- ment, "Well, if I cannot be President, at least, I can hold the President's hat and stick !" A man, who, when called upon by Lincoln to keep in line the people of the southern part of Illinois, whose allegiance was waning, said to the official who carried Lincoln's message to him, "Please tell the President that I will do anything he wants me to do." And Douglas went and accom- plished this great patriotic mission. Unfortunately, the Grim Reaper removed him from the stress of human activities shortly thereafter or, no doubt, Lincoln would have selected him as one of his trusted advisers. That period also produced Stanton who was a great executive, despite his radicalism. He had been antag- onistic toward Lincoln, but had learned to love him after close association with him. No man could in- spire such respect and affection if he were as cold and as self-seeking as some critics of Lincoln have accused him of being. It is unnecessary to go into the long list of great public men who were produced during the era just 230 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN preceding the Civil War. Their names are on record. It is a fact, though, that this period did produce men whose love of country was paramount and who were not carried away by the sordid greed which seems to characterize many of the men of our own time. And towering above them all was one great giant— Abra- ham Lincoln. XXIII Lincoln an Excellent Story Teller It has been said that Lincoln excelled in telling a certain type of story. If we go deeply enough into it, we must conclude that he told stories by way of illustra- tion, not merely for the purpose of entertainment. That Lincoln was not a man of carnal mind is unquestioned, even by those who have been his most severe critics. He was even diffident in the presence of women. His hesitancy about entering the marriage state, fear- ing he could not make any woman happy, shows that he was not considering himself, but the woman who might be willing to share his lot. He did tell some very shocking stories in illustrating some points in his speeches. One writer said that he heard Lincoln tell the story of a woman who liked eels and whose husband had been drowned in the river. On seeing him laid out upon the land, she cried out to the men about him, "Get him a-gape, get him a-gape!— His mouth is full of eels." Lincoln told this story for the purpose of show- ing how a great number of people forget the main issue in their desire to win some minor point. The writer 231 232 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN who related this incident said that he was not shocked at hearing Lincoln repeat this story because of the way in which he did it, but from the mouth of any other person it would have sounded unspeakably vulgar. Had Lincoln been a vulgarian, or had there been any truth in the many statements which have grown up about him since his passing, we must believe that they would have been brought up against him during the campaign prior to his election to the Presidency, but the worst they could and did say of him was that he was a clodhopper and that he was untutored in the finer social qualities, but there was no word against his integrity or his honor. As an instance of Lincoln's ready wit, Ward Hill Lamon, in his Recollections of Lincoln gives the fol- lowing example: "Mr. Lincoln was from the beginning of his cir- cuit-riding days the light and life of the court. The most trivial circumstance furnished a background for his wit. The following incident, which illustrates his love of a joke, occurred in the early days of our ac- quaintance. I, being at the time on the infant side of twenty-one, took particular pleasure in athletic sports. One day, when we were attending the circuit court which met at Bloomington, 111., I was wrestling near the court house with some one who had challenged me to a trial, and in the scuffle made a large rent in the LINCOLN AN EXCELLENT STORY TELLER 233 rear of my trousers. Before I had time to make any change, I was called into court to take up a case. The evidence was finished. I, being the Prosecuting Attor- ney at the time, got up to address the jury. Having on a somewhat short coat, my misfortune was rather ap- parent. One of the lawyers, for a joke, started a sub- scription paper which was passed from one member of the bar to another as they sat by a long table fronting the bench, to buy a pair of pantaloons for Lamon,— 'he being,' the paper said, c a poor but worthy young man. 5 Several put down their names with some lu- dicrous subscription, and finally the paper was laid by some one in front of Mr. Lincoln, he being engaged in writing at the time. He quietly glanced over the paper, and, immediately taking up his pen, wrote 'I can con- tribute nothing to the end in view'." I remember having heard my uncle, the late Rev. Doctor Edward McGlynn of New York, who lived in Lincoln's time, say, "Frank, Lincoln probably told some broad stories, but because he happened to do so has been the excuse of many people for prefacing their telling of some yarn not of nice quality with these words: 'Lincoln used to tell this story,' They then pro- ceed to tell some vulgar story which Lincoln probably never heard." This statement of my uncle's indicates to me the thing which I really believe and that is, that people who want to cloak their own utterances place 234 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN the responsibility on another and greater soul by using this method. Was Lincoln a politician? Unquestionably, yes. The incident told me by A. G. Procter, as related in Chapter XIII, exemplifies his political sagacity. The study of politics and of the men of his day was evidently the thing which put him in the limelight, and it is only reasonable to suppose that this was all worked out by Lincoln, himself. There is noth- ing derogatory about this. His motives were honest, his ambition was laudable and his intentions were never venal. He foresaw, because of his political vision, the splitting of the Democratic Party in the campaign of 1860, largely caused by the position into which he had forced Douglas during the Debates in 1858. He fore- saw victory for the Republican Party, not realizing at that time that he would be the nominee. That came about by a logical sequence of events, of which, when they arose, Lincoln no doubt took advantage. What was Lincoln's religion? I am convinced that it is true that Lincoln had little or no denominational religious training. He was a Bible reader. He was a subscriber to no particular re- ligion, although he did attend the New York Presby- terian Church in Washington while he was President, but he was a believer and had faith in Almighty God. In his private letters, some of which are still in exist- LINCOLN AN EXCELLENT STORY TELLER 235 ence, as well as in his public utterances, this fact is evident. John Dodge, to whom I have referred at several points in this narrative, when asked by me if he had ever seen President Lincoln praying, replied: "I never saw him on his knees, if that is what you mean, but I did see him once in the attitude of prayer. He was sitting at his desk with the Bible open in front of him, and with his head bowed in his hands before the Book." This is the only first-hand testimony I have had related to me personally by a living witness on the at- titude of Lincoln insofar as faith in God is concerned. To me, it speaks volumes. So, taking all the statements, pro and con, I would say that Lincoln either believed in and relied upon God, or was a monumental hypo- crite. No one has sufficient temerity to make the latter assertion. Some of his critics, however, have insinuated that he was a non-believer and have gone into the stories of his alleged heretical views which were made an issue during one of his campaigns for the legislature of Illinois. I believe that Rev. Peter Cartwright was re- sponsible for this at that time. In connection with this subject, a very beautiful episode is quoted by Mr. Rankin in his Personal Recol- lections of Abraham Lincoln. In referring to a dinner party given by some eastern captains of finance who 236 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN were opposed to Lincoln's policies and had invited the Rev. Peter Cartwright as a speaker, believing that he would share their views, Mr. Rankin says : "Cartwright said that he 'felt like a cat in a strange garret' on meeting so many celebrated men for the first time. . . . Having succeeded in diverting attention from himself, he lapsed into silence in order that he might learn the attitude of such a representative company of New York men toward Abraham Lincoln and his ef- forts along civil and military lines to crush the rebellion. ... To Cartwright's great surprise, he heard nothing but criticisms of President Lincoln's course since his in- auguration. . . . 'The consciences of the entire crowd,' said Cartwright— to use his exact words— 'were choked with cotton and cankered with gold.' He waited in vain to hear some one speak in defense of the use of force for preserving the Union of the States. . . . Look- ing at his watch, he saw that it was nearly time for him to be on his way to Brooklyn ... he addressed the toast- master, asking to be excused. " 'No, no, Father Cartwright, not until after the next course, which is the best and rarest to be served, and it was procured specially to give you a surprise and to honor your presence with us tonight.' "Cartwright inquired what it was; and when told . . . that it was prairie chicken from the prairies of Iowa, the doughty divine, with a disdainful wave of his LINCOLN AN EXCELLENT STORY TELLER 237 hand, replied that he had such a plenty of prairie chickens at home that he was cloyed with them long ago, and did not need to come to New York to feast on them. . . . " 'Well, if you must leave so soon, remain a little longer at any rate and see the relish your eastern broth- ers have for your western game bird ... so sit down, sit down, Father Cartwright.' "Cartwright replied : That is very kind and consid- erate . . . very kind indeed and I thank you for your forethought. But instead of sharing the next course with you, I beg your attention before I leave to hear from me a few parting words of admonition and coun- sel.' "He prefaced his speech at this point by a statement somewhat as follows: 'I was born in a canebrake where my mother was hastened to avoid the toma- hawks of savages. I was rocked in a bee-gum for a cradle and lulled to sleep by the thunders of the skies.' Giving this as a reason for his failure to mince words, he continued, 'I am an old man; the sands in the hour- glass of my life have nearly finished their flow. What I can say and what I can do in this world, if accomplished at all, must be done promptly. So I wish to speak very plainly to you tonight the last words I may ever ad- dress to you. If I had known I would meet such a nest of Tories and traitors here, I would never have put my legs under your board, nor sat down and broken bread 238 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN with you at this table. ... As the crow flies, I have lived within a score of miles of Abraham Lincoln for a third of a century ... I stand here tonight to commend to you the Christian character, sterling integrity and far- seeing sagacity of the President of the United States, whose official acts you have, in your blind money-mad- ness, so critically assailed tonight . . . He has a cool- headed, God-fearing, and unselfish love of his country, and knows from top to bottom the life and spirit of men both North and South. . . . Why stand ye here, idle critics? May God send patriotic light into your stingy souls!" 5 Any one who reads the utterances and speeches of Lincoln cannot fail to conclude with certainty that he believed in and relied upon the will of God. To give just one example, here is an excerpt from a letter to his step-brothers, written in Lincoln's own handwriting, and which I have seen in the collection of Oliver B. Barrett : "I sincerely hope Father may yet recover his health; but at all events tell him to remember to call upon, and confide in, our Great, and good, and merciful Maker, who will not turn away from him in any ex- tremity. He notes the fall of a sparrow, and numbers the hairs of our head, and He will not forget the dying man, who puts his trust in Him." Was Lincoln a superman? In the actual use of the word, there was only one LINCOLN AN EXCELLENT STORY TELLER 239 Superman on the Earth, Jesus Christ, for he was Di- vine; but if we consider the word "superman" to mean a man above the usual run of men, then Lincoln was a superman. He arose from a very lowly walk of life be- cause of the force of his character. His efforts to real- ize the dreams that impelled him to see constantly the betterment of his own condition were coupled with the desire to help solve the problems which concerned the betterment of his fellowmen. With little advantage of education and against all opposition he achieved these two purposes. If we read Lincoln's utterances, our conclusion must be that he was superlatively great. If we follow the reci- tation of the little things which happened in his life, we conclude that he had some weaknesses, which only proves that he was human. When he had time to delib- erate upon a subject and to give it proper thought, be- yond any question, his was one of the greatest minds the world has ever produced. Is it correct to give the special designation of The Great Emancipator to Abraham Lincoln? Other rulers have emancipated slaves in their coun- tries and have not gone down in history as "great eman- cipators." True, Lincoln did emancipate the slaves in the States that were in rebellion against the United States; but that action was purely the result of condi- tions. He did this as a war measure, which was the only 240 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN authority he had for so doing. Under the Constitution in times of peace his action would have been null and void, but as Commander-in-Chief of the Army, with the right conferred upon him under the Constitution to dictate war measures, he emancipated the slaves. He had been urged to do so long before he issued the proclamation and had refused. At the time of the issuance of the proclamation he had been urged to free the slaves in Kentucky and had refused, and rightly so because Kentucky was a loyal state and he had no right under the constitution, to free the slaves in Kentucky. If we read the proclamation itself we will see that, had the states then in rebellion against the Union, taken advantage of the wording of the document and returned to the fold before the day men- tioned for freeing the slaves, they would have retained their property and no slaves would have been emanci- pated. Lincoln's reply to Horace Greeley, previously quoted, shows his position distinctly. By what title then should we designate Abraham Lincoln, if not by the title of The Great Emancipator? The answer is, Let us designate him The Preserver of the Union. From the time of his entering the conflict which eventually brought about his election, Preserva- tion of the Union was his slogan and in all his public acts he consistently hewed to the line. While he ab- horred slavery as an institution, and while he realized LINCOLN AN EXCELLENT STORY TELLER 241 that it would eventually disrupt the Union if it were not confined, the abolition of slavery was not his objec- tive. The question of the disposition of the colored race in the United States was a tremendous puzzle to Lin- coln as can be seen by any one who cares to look up his letters on the subject which are recorded in history. There is no argument or question about the fact that he was deeply interested in his country and in preserv- ing its unity ; that it took four years of bloody war to ac- complish this was a torture to the soul of Lincoln, but to his mind, it was inevitable. In the conduct of that war his actions showed that he was not impelled by the motives of a conqueror, but that he behaved as one placed in the position of the father of a family who was forced by circumstances to use harsh means to keep within the circle some of his erring children — those children who had unwittingly broken the family ties. His letter to Speed after the surrender of Lee indi- cates what his course would have been had he lived. The pity of it is that he did not live, for had he lived there would have been no carpetbagging or sacking of the South. The question of franchise which was set- tled by the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution would then have been given wider consideration, to say the very least, because the problem was a great one to 242 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN Lincoln as is again evidenced by his letters on that sub- ject. Lincoln is justly revered as a man who came from the soil and, despite all obstacles, surmounted the heights. His gaunt figure stands out against the eternal skies as the preserver of this, our United Country. The Gettysburg Address Frank McGlynn's Interpretation of the Historic Speech by Abraham Lincoln. I have met people who heard Lincoln deliver the Gettysburg Address to a vast assemblage, and have been told by them that they could hear every word dis- tinctly. Knowing that Lincoln composed the speech and delivered it as an oration, and also knowing that he was probably one of the greatest stump speakers of that time and that there were no amplifiers in those days, I do not think that Lincoln delivered the speech as would a college graduate reading the valedictory in a small hall, but rather in the manner which was his own and was that of the outdoor orators of his day. Of course, it is hard to put into writing the exact directions for a reading, except to indicate the words emphasized, but the whole speech should be delivered as if it were being "put over" to a vast crowd in the open air. The beginning of the speech should be deliv- ered in a high key and then gradually the voice should descend to as close to a natural baritone as possible, never becoming conversational, but always speaking in a declaratory manner. 243 244 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN The address follows, with words italicized, which, according to my interpretation, should be emphasized : "Fourscore and seven years ago— our fathers brought forth on this continent — a new nation — conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created — equal. "Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure (with an upward inflection and a questioning tone on the word 'endure' ) . We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives (these last four words should be read with emotion) that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. "But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we can- not consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or de- tract. ( The word 'add' with upward inflection and 'de- tract' with downward.) The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never for- get what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task re- THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS 245 maining before us (particularly emphasize the words 'before us' ) — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they gave the last full measure (right out of the man's heart) of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain (the words 'in vain' to be read on expulsion of breath and with a very deep tone to indicate inward emotion) — that this nation, under God (with reverence) shall have a new birth of free- dom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." (The words 'perish from the earth') not to be said dogmat- ically, but with the feeling that it would be a horrible thing if the government should perish from the earth. ) Lincoln, the Man of the People Edwin Markham When the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour Greatening and darkening as it hurried on, She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down To make a man to meet the mortal need. She took the tried clay of the common road- Clay warm yet with the genial heat of Earth, Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy; Tempered the heap with thrill of human tears; Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff. Into the shape she breathed a flame to light That tender, tragic, ever-changing face, And laid on him a sense of the mystic powers Moving all hushed behind the mortal veil. Here was a man to hold against the world, A man to match the mountains and the sea. The color of the ground was in him, the red earth; The smack and tang of elemental things: The rectitude and patience of the cliff; The good-will of the rain that loves all leaves; The friendly welcome of the wayside well; The courage of the bird that dares the sea; 246 LINCOLN, THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE 247 The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn; The pity of the snow that hides all scars; The secrecy of streams that make their way Under the mountain to the rifted rock; The tolerance and equity of light That gives as freely to the shrinking flower As to the great oak flaring to the wind — To the grave's low hill as to the Matterhorn That shoulders out the sky. Sprung from the West, He drank the valorous youth of a new world. The strength of virgin forests braced his mind, The hush of spacious prairies stilled his soul. His words were oaks in acorns. His thoughts Were roots that firmly gript the granite truth. Up from log cabin to the Capitol, One fire was on his spirit, one resolve — To send the keen ax to the root of wrong, Clearing a free way for the feet of God, The eyes of conscience testing every stroke To make his deed the measure of a man. He built the rail-pile as he built the State, Pouring his splendid strength through every blow. The grip that swung the axe in Illinois Was on the pen that set a people free. 248 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN So came the Captain with the mighty heart; And when the judgment thunders split the house, Wrenching the rafters from their ancient rest, He held the ridgepole up, and spiked again The rafters of the Home. He held his place — Held the long purpose like a growing tree — Held on through blame and faltered not at praise. And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down As when a lordly cedar, green with boughs, Goes down with a great shout upon the hills, And leaves a lonesome place against the sky. [From Lincoln and Other Poems," by Edwin Markham, with additions and changes made by the poet in the copy of the poem that he gave to Frank McGlynn.) [Doubleday, 1917.] Reprinted here by permission. Poems Eulogizing Lincoln While many beautiful poems have been written about Lincoln-including Walt Whitman's "Captain, Oh! My Captain"— my favorite poem is Edwin Markham's, and next to that, the portion of the first verse of John Gould Fletcher's, which follows : (The following is an excerpt from a poem on Lin- coln by John Gould Fletcher. ) LINCOLN By John Gould Fletcher "Like a gaunt scraggly pine Which lifts its head above the mournful sand-hills; And patiently, through dull years of bitter silence, Untended and uncared for, starts to grow. "Ungainly, laboring, huge, The wind of the North has twisted and gnarled its branches ; Yet, in the heat of mid-summer days, when thunder clouds ring the horizon, A nation of men shall rest beneath its shade 249 250 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN And it will protect them all, Hold everyone safe there, watching aloof in silence . . ." (Printed by permission of the poet, John Gould Fletcher, and Rinehart & Company, publishers.) Letters Concerning Lincoln's Characteristics During the run of the play at the Cort Theatre in New York and also at theatres in many other cities, I received countless letters from people who had seen the play and who had written to say that some one connected with them had known Lincoln. So many such letters did I receive that I had no opportunity to answer them all, due to the demands on my time not only in the theatre, but in attending functions where I had to speak, and in trying to get a little outdoor exercise, but I laid some of them aside until I could find an opportunity. This opportunity came when I took my first vacation after playing seventy-seven weeks. I had a trunkful of correspond- ence which, with the assistance of my oldest daughter, I attempted to answer. But after spending two weeks of my vacation answering letters in chronological order, the task became so enormous that the purpose of my vacation would have been entirely lost had I continued. It might be well to explain to many of those whose letters I failed to answer that, after the strenuous work of a long run, my physical strength was pretty well reduced. As a matter of fact, my physician told me to 251 252 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN go to some place where I could relax and not even try to think of anything; he explained that I needed to rest and eat, that there was nothing physically wrong with me, but that I was just tired out. My weight had been tremendously reduced, having played through the heat of a very warm summer of 1920, and on up to May 1st, 1921, when the company went on vacation. I spent the three months of the summer of 1921 with my family at Peakes Island, Maine, and am happy to say that I regained my normal weight before con- tinuing the run of the play, which stretched itself out into another two years. From all the letters and telegrams I received, the ones which follow have some interest other than mere congratulations to me, as, with few exceptions, they refer in a greater measure to Abraham Lincoln. # * * U. S. Civil Service Commission 1724F. St.,N.W. Washington, D. C. Jan. 16, 1922 Mr. Frank McGlynn Dear Sir: Having purchased two tickets for your representa- tion of Abraham Lincoln— for Tuesday night of this week— I am anticipating much pleasure— probably be- LETTERS CONCERNING CHARACTERISTICS 253 cause I was present at Ford's Theatre on the night of the assassination, when I witnessed in the minutest detail every movement of the assassin, and, sitting opposite President Lincoln, observed him closely; and as he was carried from the theater, I was so near that I could put my hand upon his head. I saw President Lincoln many times, heard his Sec- ond Inaugural Address and the last speech he made. I saw him in the Army of the Potomac and in the Army of the James and, upon occasions, in the White House. The seats I have obtained are in Row A, seats 2-4. Very respectfully, (Signed) Capt. Andrew J. Huntoon Co. D. 12th N. H. Volunteers (Note: I met Captain Huntoon after receiving the above letter and he told me that Booth did say, "Sic semper tyrannis.") ■* * # Liberty Bank Bldg. San Francisco, Calif. July 11, 1922 Mr. Frank McGlynn Columbia Theatre San Francisco, Calif. 254 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN Dear Mr. McGlynn: In 1859, I was a boy attending school at Indian- apolis, Indiana. My father was president of the state fair, and Lin- coln and Douglas each made speeches on the same day, with my father introducing them. Douglas was a dude in dress— handsome, polished, eloquent and highly educated. Lincoln was the opposite, in ill-fitting garments, long, lanky, homely and dressed in homespun— not an orator, but a droll, good-natured story-teller. One story I remember ran about this way: "Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Douglas is a handsome man; I am homely and for this reason I feel handicapped, especially with the ladies, for they like a handsome man. Mr. Douglas was born handsome and can't help it — I was born homely and can't help it. I am re- minded of a story : When I was a boy, living in South- ern Indiana, I concluded I'd see the world. I went down to New Orleans on a flat boat. At a sailors' lodging house in New Orleans I first saw myself in a looking glass (you would call it a 'mirror' nowadays) and I was surprised at my ugliness. I was so shocked and disgusted that I made a vow then and there that if I ever saw a man as ugly as I was, I would kill him on the spot, for he oughtn't to live and propagate his LETTERS CONCERNING CHARACTERISTICS 255 kind. Years afterward, I was out squirrel-and-deer- hunting in Southern Indiana and was following a trail up the hills in the woods, far removed from civilization, when I saw approaching me a strange man. As he came near, I found that he was the man I had vowed I would kill, for he was homelier than I was. I drew my rifle to kill him, and he shouted and enquired what he had done to be killed. I told him of the vow I had made years before, that if ever I saw a man uglier than I, I was going to kill him. The stranger put his hands over his eyes, looked at me for a time very closely and then said resignedly, 'If I am uglier than you are, shoot away. I don't want to live.' " The next time I saw Lincoln was in the State House in Indianapolis in 1865. He was in his coffin, en route from Washington to Springfield, 111. He had now be- come immortal— his face was black from the assassin's bullet, but the same sweet placid look was on his fea- tures as in life, and over him seemed to be a glow of saintliness as he peacefully lay in his coffin while the whole world was weeping. Marion Thrasher, M.D. P. S. I would like to meet you. You are doing a noble work in portraying the world's noblest character. 256 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN 63 Carver St. Boston, Mass. February 15, 1920 Mr. Frank McGlynn Holies Street Theatre Boston, Mass. Dear Sir: While I have never had the pleasure of seeing your play, Abraham Lincoln, from the press notices and from those who have seen it,— I am glad to know that you are presenting this wonderful man so that the common people may know him better and love him as I have. I was in Ford's Theatre the night of the president's assassination. I had guarded Mr. Lincoln many times and had often accompanied him to the Soldier's Home, where he went in the summer, and to the New York Advanced Presbyterian Church in Washington, D. C, then presided over by Dr. Gusbey. To me, Mr. Lincoln seemed the most generous, humane, tender-hearted, pure-minded, patriotic man I ever knew. I learned to love the very ground he stood on. He was my idol. I would like to see you in the play, Abraham Lincoln, LETTERS CONCERNING CHARACTERISTICS 257 but I am very lame now, almost a cripple. May God bless you in Abraham Lincoln. Yours truly, (Signed) J.H.Dodge John Dodge is the same man whom I interviewed in Boston. * * * 31 West 51st Street 27th December My dear Mr. McGlynn : We had the pleasure and privilege of seeing you in Abraham Lincoln last Wednesday evening and I can hardly express to you the emotion you created for us all, spiritually and intellectually, by the dignity and simplicity of your interpretation of that great leader, so truly and so simply drawn by the English playwright. A lay training in continental drama and the superb tradition of Mounet — Sully — Bernhardt — Duse — has not moved me as deeply as did your acting the other night. . . . I do not hesitate to place you in that memorable galaxy of noble interpreters of a noble art. It would give me sincere pleasure to meet you, and in turn to have you and my very gallant son, Captain Paul Iaccaci of the Royal Flying Corps, meet and really talk together. He was one of my box party the 258 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN other evening— not alone because it was a great play portrayed by a great actor— but also because my son's grandfather— my father— was a personal friend of Lin- coln's—was chaplain of a famous Boston regiment and a great and unafraid abolition preacher during those tumultuous days. Very sincerely and appreciatively yours, (Signed) Mabel Thayer laccaci Mr. Drinkwater, Mrs. McGlynn and I were guests of Mrs. laccaci some time later at a reception given by her at her home in New York. * * * 6133 Prairie Ave. Chicago December 16 Mr. Frank McGlynn My Dear Sir : I was very much in doubt, after carefully reading the text of the "Abraham Lincoln" play, as written by Mr. Drinkwater, that any one could be found who could present that character before an American audi- ence with success. Your artistic presentation on last Tuesday evening, dispelled all doubt. You were able to push aside so many of those non-essentials that "Lincoln" biog- raphers have indulged in so freely, and to give to us LETTERS CONCERNING CHARACTERISTICS 259 a forceful presentation of Lincoln, the man, just as we want to remember him. It was a fine piece of work on your part, instructive and ever inspiring. As one who knew Lincoln, I heartily congratulate you. I want to express my own satisfaction and that of those with me, in meeting you after that performance, divested of the "theatrical" and in finding you, your- self, in complete harmony with the character you so faithfully portrayed, and so thoroughly American. With great respect, Yours, ( Signed ) A . G. Procter* *Mr. Procter was the youngest delegate at the Wig- warn Convention in Chicago. * * * 280 Broadway New York City Feb. 25, 1920 My dear Mr. McGlynn : Really, the portrait of the great martyr as expressed through Frank McGlynn is so Lincoln-like that in fifty years from now it will be difficult to separate Frank from Abraham. I shall give your picture a proper frame and hang it beside the mask. It is impossible for a man to look so much like the 260 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN rail-splitter and not have some of his attributes. Long life and prosperity to you. Ever sincerely, (Signed) R. H. Davis. ( Editor of Munsey's Magazine. ) Frank McGlynn, Esq. 610 Riverside Drive New York City •* * * (Congratulatory telegram sent to Mrs. Frank Mc- Glynn following the tremendous ovation given her husband. ) Washington, Nov. 30, 1919 To Mrs. Frank McGlynn 138 E. 235th Street New York City, N. Y. May I thank you for having a husband who brings so great distinction to my play?— John Drinkwater. And as one of the audience and a reformed dramatic critic may I add the thanks of the thousands who will be stimulated by this superb characterization?— R alp h Graves. Under these circumstances what could a mere man- ager say?— David H. Wallace. LETTERS CONCERNING CHARACTERISTICS 261 All that I need say now is love and kisses— play a tremendous hit.— Frank McGlynn. 248 West 45th St. My dear Mr. McGlynn : Permit me to congratulate you upon your great per- formance of Abraham Lincoln which I had the pleas- ure of seeing last week. As a child, I saw President Lincoln frequently in Washington and your make-up is wonderful! I am so glad that California has an- other artist like yourself. She has reason to be proud of her son ! I do not know whether you will recall my name; it used to be known in the west. Wishing you very good fortune and hoping soon to see your name in large type. Very cordially, (Signed) Ethel Brandon* July twenty-second. (*Ethel Brandon, a prominent actress, greatly be- loved in California.) * * # The Players Sixteen Gramercy Park May 3, 1920* My dear Mr. McGlynn: 262 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN You and your confreres gave us a great treat of a most artistic and human kind today, and I am writing my part of the thanks due all for it. As I sat there, a part of the hushed audience, I could not but think what a wonderful art is the drama to be able to give such exalted pleasure to mankind. What years at school or university could have im- parted the virile, throbbing impression "Lincoln 55 gave and gives of that most vital period of American history ! How inestimable— I mean, how impossible to esti- mate the loss to us, as a community, as a country, in not having under control in some civic way, this great power of emotion, the great force of the theatre for the control of public mind and morals. It was fine to see a man of your artistic work come at last into his own. I rejoice with you— with the pub- lic—that this is so. Thank you a thousand times ! Very sincerely, Frances Wilson *(May 3, 1920, was the date of the Professional Matinee in New York. ) LETTERS CONCERNING CHARACTERISTICS 263 George S. Dougherty 31 Broadway New York December 29, 1919 Mr. Frank McGlynn Cort Theatre Dear Mr. McGlynn: At last, on Saturday evening, I had a chance to see you in the play, Abraham Lincoln. It is one of the most marvelous theatrical performances I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing, and your work is abso- lutely wonderful. I am having my sister go to see the play on Saturday afternoon. The peculiar part of this drama is that it takes you out of the theatre as soon as the curtain rises. There is no effort to spiritualize the play, but the spectator imagines he is present with the real characters. Yours truly, ( Signed ) Geo. S. Dougherty Ex-Police Commissioner, City of New York. ■k- * # THE PLAYHOUSE 141 West 48th Street Direction of WILLIAM A. BRADY December 16, 1919 264 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN Mr. Frank McGlynn My Dear Sir : As a fellow Californian, may I offer my congratula- tions to you for the magnificent performance of Lincoln you gave last night? We rarely see things so good, and that must account for this from a stranger. Sincerely yours, ( Signed ) William A . Brady (In 1925, Mr. Brady engaged me to play "Andrew Jackson" in the Broadway production of The Awful Mrs. Eaton, in which part I was featured. It was a great part— but the play had only a short run. ) * # # (The following letter from Mrs. Grace Esther Dibble contains a statement in regard to Lincoln made by a friend of hers, Mrs. Sands-Brun, daughter of Admiral Sands, First Admiral of the Navy. ) 2725 Channing Way Berkeley, Calif. July 20 Mr. Frank McGlynn Columbia Theatre San Francisco LETTERS CONCERNING CHARACTERISTICS 265 Dear Sir: I wished repeatedly, as I watched your wonderful performance yesterday, that I had beside me an eld- erly lady, whose friendship I formed here in Cali- fornia less than two years ago. She knew the Lincolns very intimatey at the White House and was frequently in their family circle. This Mrs. Sands-Brun was the daughter of Admiral Sands, First Admiral of the Navy, and was the wife of a man in diplomatic circles, a mes- senger to the Court of St. James during the Civil War. I was wishing that you could know her, for you might get many ideas from her to make your representation even more nearly perfect. Last summer she told me of an incident in which she figured, similar to that of Scott in the play. In regard to Mr. Lincoln's appearance, Mrs. Sands- Brun also told me that his clothes never fitted his un- gainly figure, but that he was careless about his person was untrue; his shirt cuffs were always immaculate and his boots carefully polished. Mrs. Sands-Brun might think it impertinent of me to write this, without her knowledge, but I felt that you might want to meet her. She went to a resort in the Santa Cruz mountains — Rest Haven — four miles above Los Gatos, and was not able to leave it. It is on the Raymond Road. The place is kept by Mrs. Martin. If you could arrange to meet her, you could go there 266 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN and back from San Francisco easily in a day. The place can be reached by telephone. Best wishes to you in your invaluable work. Yours truly, ( Signed ) Grace Esther Dibble * * * San Francisco, Calif. 972 Bush Street, Apt. I August 25, 1922 Frank McGlynn St. Francis Hotel San Francisco, Calif. Dear Mr. McGlynn: I am sending you a copy of my address on Abraham Lincoln which I mentioned to you when you so kindly made me a visit with Mr. Ruddick. I cannot hope that you will obtain any new or addi- tional view of Mr. Lincoln's character by reading what I have said of him; but you may find enough in the speech to justify the few minutes it may take to glance through it. There seems to be a revival of interest in everything relating to Mr. Lincoln and I attribute much of this enthusiasm to the wonderful delineation of his char- acter which you are giving the public. LETTERS CONCERNING CHARACTERISTICS 267 With kindest personal regards, I am Sincerely yours, ( Signed ) N. P. Chipman * * * (The following is from Mr. Pinkerton, whom I met while playing in Chicago : ) W. A. PINKERTON 137 South Wells St. CHICAGO October 6, 1920 Mr. Frank McGlynn Blackstone Theatre Chicago, 111. Dear Mr. McGlynn: I am enclosing a copy of an extract from the Chris- tian Advocate of Feb. 9, 1911, sent me by a friend, which, I believe, may prove interesting to you. With best wishes, I am, Sincerely yours, (Signed) Wm. A. Pinkerton FROM THE CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE Feb. 9, 1911 ABRAHAM LINCOLN I do hereby certify that by authority of license issued from the clerk's office of Washington Co., I have sol- 268 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN emnized the rites of matrimony between Thomas Lin- coln and Nancy Hanks, June 12, 1806, A.D., agreeable to the rites and ceremonies of the Methodist Episcopal Church witness my hand. Jesse Head, D.E., M.E.C. The above certificate, which bears the signature of the Rev. Jesse Head, one of the Methodist circuit riders of Kentucky, was brought to light a few years ago. Its discovery cleared up the so-called mystery of Thomas Lincoln's marriage to Nancy Hanks, and dispelled the cloud upon the parentage of their famous son. (Miss) Harriet M. Miller 1702 East Henesee St. Syracuse, New York November 7, 1921 Actor Frank McGlynn : The splendid young minister of the First Baptist Church in Syracuse, N. Y., of which I am a member, wrote the enclosed article about you. To send it to you, I feel will make you happy and keep you true. Mr. Bernard Clausen also urged his congregation to attend the performance. I love the fine arts, especially English literature. I am literary, but loyal Americans are having a hard time in our own country. Charles Dickens's work was LETTERS CONCERNING CHARACTERISTICS 269 my first love in English literature; and I consider "Les Miserables" the best of all books, next to the Bible. Please read the book, Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe by Annie Fields. In it, you will discover much that will interest you just now. It seems that an American woman discovered that Abraham Lincoln asked Harriet Beecher Stowe when she called to see him, ". . . and is this the little woman who brought on the war?" Upon receiving an affirmative answer, he said, "I greet you. Welcome to the United States of America." ( Signed ) Harriet M. Miller Following is the article referred to in Miss Miller's preceding letter, A Prayer ; by Bernard Clausen, Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Syracuse, New York: "Our Father, we thank Thee for Frank McGlynn. We thank Thee for the courage of soul with which he left the quiet safety of a comfortable position, and sallied forth to play Abraham Lincoln for the sake of the mission of the part. We thank Thee for the gifts of beauty which he brought to Syracuse last week. Wilt Thou grant that some day these praying lips may be counted worthy to preach as surely, as movingly, as tenderly, as he preached last week through the lines of his play? Wilt Thou grant that some day this con- gregation may go from this place as tearful, as glad, 270 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN as high-hearted, as soul-inspired, as his audiences went from his gaudy play-house during those wonderful days. Meanwhile, forgive the man or the institution which blackens the stage with scornful words, and has no eyes for the sheer and mighty beauty of true drama. We pray Thee for Thy blessing upon Frank McGlynn tonight, wherever he is. And for all men and women who like him strive in the face of sneers and rebuke and neglect to keep the wonder of the play-world clean and true. Help us to say 'Yes 5 to the fine things as enthusiastically as we say 'No' to the unworthy things. In the name of Jesus, Amen." (From the evening service, October 30.) (The four letters which follow show the effect that the play had on soldiers of the Civil War who knew Lincoln. I think that I received at least fifty letters of somewhat similar import, but these are representative. ) UNITED STATES VETERANS' BUREAU San Francisco, California July 26, 1922 Mr. Frank McGlynn Columbia Theatre San Francisco, Calif. LETTERS CONCERNING CHARACTERISTICS 271 My dear Mr. McGlynn : I want to take this opportunity to say to you how much we of the Veterans' Bureau appreciated the splendid performance of Tuesday afternoon. I have been busy ever since answering the phone and talking to various disabled ex-service men and women who were present, hearing how much they enjoyed the play, and how great an inspiration your own interpretation of the part of Abraham Lincoln was to them. Mrs. Sherrill and I saw the play during your first week here. We saw it again on Tuesday. It seemed to both of us that your own work and the work of your company was of an even higher order on Tuesday than it was before,— if that were possible. We felt the inspira- tion of the presence of the old veterans from the Civil War and the new veterans of the last war, as I know you and your company must have felt it. I am writing today to each one of your cast, as well as to the other people who made this production possible. Of the 2,000 disabled ex-service men and women who were present in the audience, very few probably showed on their faces the scars of war; but we who know them and know their sacrifices, keenly appre- ciate those who by a definite contribution helped us in our efforts to bring these men back to normal life. Such a play, so well given, brought them joy and in- 272 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN spiration, and I know will count for much as they con- tinue their educational work. With very kindest regards to you and Mrs. McGlynn, Sincerely, (Signed) Elmer L. Sherrell Chief, Rehabilitation Division U. S. Veterans' Bureau By authority of the District Manager. * * * Boston, Mass. February 25, 1921 Mr. Frank McGlynn Hollis Theatre Boston, Mass. Dear Sir: For over five years, I studied the life of Abraham Lincoln, and for a number of years lectured on the personality of Lincoln. During that time I very nat- urally came to admire his character in almost a spirit of worship. Last year, I refused an invitation to see your play in New York City because I feared the impersonation of Lincoln might be very unsatisfactory. The other night, I saw it in Boston and I take this opportunity to tell you that I feel you have done a wonderful piece of work in representing not only the appearance of Lin- LETTERS CONCERNING CHARACTERISTICS 273 coin, but also a great deal of the fineness of his char- acter. I sat beside a Civil War Veteran who knew Lincoln and who was just living over those days when every once in a while he would quietly say, "My, how like the man." Please accept this simple word of appreciation. Very truly yours, ( Signed ) H. B. Converse # * # PHIL SHERIDAN POST 615 Department of Illinois Grand Army of The Republic Oak Park, Illinois October 25, 1920 Mr. Frank McGlynn "Abraham Lincoln" Dear Sir: Having been closely identified with Abraham Lin- coln as a military telegraph operator during the Civil War, and having witnessed your representation of Mr. Lincoln, I must say that in my humble opinion you are the best living representative of the man whose memory we veterans love. I wish to thank you for the many times I have wit- nessed your truthful portrayal of this great character. I knew General Grant personally, as his Field Op- erator, and also knew others of the old timers. / wish 274 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN to thank every one who has made this GAR afternoon at the Blackstone one long to be remembered with pleasure. Yours in F C and L, ( Signed ) Z. P. Hotchkiss Past Junior Vice Commander * # * THE G. R. MANCHESTER CO., INC. 530 W. 123rd St., N.Y. City August 7, 1920 Mr. Frank McGlynn Cort Theatre 48th St., City My dear Mr. McGlynn : As a veteran of the Civil War who was in close per- sonal contact with Mr. Lincoln part of that period of terrible stress and trial, I wish to personally compli- ment you on your wonderful portrayal of the char- acteristics of our martyred president. When you appeared in the second act, it seemed as though you were he as I last saw him. No living person has ever presented so artistic a portrayal of Mr. Lincoln as he was in those days— his gestures— his coolness under apparently great mental strain— his deliberateness— in fact, himself as we knew him. LETTERS CONCERNING CHARACTERISTICS 275 I thank you for one of the most wonderful evenings I have ever experienced. Yours truly, (Signed) Aaron W. Manchester * * * San Francisco July 18, 1922 Mr. Frank McGlynn Columbia Theatre San Francisco, Calif. Dear Sir: Last night, I attended your "Abraham Lincoln," and a wonderful pleasure it was to be so completely transported to my boyhood days and to the inspiring events of that period. You will see by the enclosed Lincoln School card that I was one of the boys of 1865 and was a pupil of the esteemed and honored teacher, Mr. A. E. McGlynn.* While I had heard all about you some time ago, yet I had not associated your name with that of my honored teacher and it was a surprise to me to learn from the remarks you made at the close of the per- formance that you were a relative of the teacher I so well remember. As I did not catch clearly the rela- tionship you mentioned, I do not know whether he was your father or your uncle. However, the thought 276 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN occurred to me at the moment that I would hunt up one of those cards that certify to my having been a good boy once in my life and send it to you, thinking that it might interest you if you had not come across one of them before. I hold three of them and you may keep the card if you see fit, as a memento from one of your admirers. The predominant thought in my mind last night was that this country is fortunate in having the great and dramatic events of our Civil War period brought back to our minds for our instruction and entertain- ment by a company so well qualified as yours. Espe- cially at the present time are we greatly in need of some of the teachings of that period as portrayed in the character of our wonderful Abraham Lincoln. I believe that you are doing a wonderful work in presenting them to the American people, and believe that our statesmen and leaders in public life will be inspired and taught by your truthful interpretation of the mind of Lincoln, as presented and conceived by the dramatist. With best wishes for your happiness in the great work you have undertaken, I am Yours very sincerely, ( Signed ) Horace E. Sexton *The A. E. McGlynn mentioned in the above letter was my uncle. LETTERS CONCERNING CHARACTERISTICS 277 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES U. S. WASHINGTON, D. C. December 17, 1919 Mr. Frank McGlynn Cort Theatre New York City My dear Mr. McGlynn: Chick Clark has just sent me a bundle of the press notices of Abraham Lincoln and I am as happy as a boy with a new kite to see what the New York critics say of you and your performance. I congratulate you upon this great metropolitan triumph after your many years of uncomplaining patient and artistic endeavor to realize the possibilities of your profession. It must be a glorious day for you and yours, and I am sure the happiness that is in it is abundantly shared by your host of friends. Sincerely yours, ( Signed ) Frank L. Greene (The late Mr. Frank L. Greene, who at that time was Representative in Congress and afterward, I be- lieve, served as senator from the state of Vermont, was a close friend of my friend, Charles Dow Clark, through whom I met Mr. Greene. ) 278 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN (In advance of our company, our special representa- tive, Mr. Harris, sent one of my photos to Calvin Coolidge, then governor of Massachusetts, and Mr. Coolidge's acknowledgment was as follows : ) THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT State House, Boston December 24, 1920 Mr. Frank McGlynn Blackstone Theatre Chicago, Illinois My dear Mr. McGlynn : I wish to thank you for your courtesy in sending me your photograph in the character of Lincoln. The resemblance is very striking. Very truly yours, ( Signed ) Calvin Coolidge Mrs. E. A. Brink 223 W. Pearl Street Pomona, California Mr. Frank McGlynn Dear Mr. McGlynn: Very dubiously, I came to see and hear your rep- LETTERS CONCERNING CHARACTERISTICS 279 resentation of Lincoln. If this reaches you, it means that I am glad that I came. In my childhood I knew Lincoln. I heard one of his debates with Douglas, and have a memory of one beautiful bit of his kindness to a child. Lest my recol- lection become blurred, I had previously refused to see any personation of Lincoln; but my family had been so impressed by the Lincoln you portrayed, so sure that this was the Lincoln of whom I had told them, that I was persuaded to come and am writing this in the rest room of the theatre in the hope that I may leave it and say that I am glad. Before my day, my father lived for three years next door to Mr. Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois. Father was pastor of the Baptist Church. Their wood-piles were opposite each other, and many an anecdote have I heard of the discussions out there. My father's affec- tion and respect for Lincoln were very pronounced. I have Lincoln's signature and that of general mem- bers of the Hay family in a subscription book for the Ch. in Pekin, Illinois. If by any chance you should motor through Pomona, it would be a delight to share my memories with one who would appreciate them. I have tried to keep out of newspapers, but if you 280 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN help me to see again the Lincoln of honored memory, I should indeed be glad to see you. Sincerely, ( Signed ) Eulalia A . Brink I am glad I came. Thank you, earnestly. ROBERT ANDERSON POST 394, G.A.R. Post Hdqrs. 301 Eighth Ave. Cor. 25th St. NEW YORK, N. Y. April 3, 1922 Mr. Frank McGlynn Abraham Lincoln Co. En Route Dear Sir: Per N. Y. Clipper, Mar. 29th, '22, Page 4, we noted your refusal to be filmed in character of Abraham Lincoln in the streets of Springfield, Illinois, the home town of Mr. Lincoln. At meeting of the Post on April 1st, '22, the subject was commented on and I was instructed by the Commander to express our most hearty approval of your action, and that the thanks of the Post are tendered to you for your patriotic esteem for a great American. Sincerely yours, ( Signed ) Major Burk Post Commander, R. Anderson Post G.A.R. LETTERS CONCERNING CHARACTERISTICS 281 1902 N. High St. Columbus, Ohio Dear Sir: I have just come from witnessing your play at the Hartman theatre and, while the spirit is still on me, I want to tell you of my appreciation of the play. I was affected by it to the point that I hadn't the heart to stay for the last scene. Perhaps you can understand the spirit that prompted such an unusual feeling. If you do, you will know better than I can put into words just how much I appreciated the play. I am, sir, Sincerely yours, ( Signed ) Joseph F. Haskins * * * John M. Bailhache San Francisco, Calif. July 10, 1922 Mr. Frank McGlynn San Francisco, Calif. Dear Mr. McGlynn: I have been greatly interested from time to time concerning your great portrayal of the life of Lincoln, and more recently by the account in The Chronicle in which it was stated that many of the incidents of his life were incomplete and were liable to become lost, as those who knew him passed away. 282 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN I was born in Springfield and my father, Maj. Wm. H. Bailhache, was a very close personal friend of Lin- coln, as was my grandfather, Major General Mason Brayman. Father was owner and publisher of the State Journal, the leading paper of central Illinois, and his report of the Bloomington convention in 1856, when Lincoln's eloquence first welded together the opposi- tion to the Democratic party, was published through- out the country and became historical. I remember reading only a few years ago a letter from my grand- mother to my mother describing the events of the night of Lincoln's election. At that time, Diller's Drug Store on the public square had over it a large room in which the intimate friends of Lincoln gathered to hear the returns as they came in. This room had been provided with chairs, tables, and sundry refreshments in the shape of coffee and sandwiches, and preparations had been made to make a night of it. There was very lim- ited means in those days for getting wire returns, so most of the news came through my father's of- fice, direct to the paper, and was sent to Lincoln as it came in, or was handed to him. About two in the morning the news came that New York, the pivotal state, had gone for Lincoln, and the news was brought over to the assembly, personally, by my father, and the assembly went wild. The staid church people and friends forgot their dignity and acted like children, LETTERS CONCERNING CHARACTERISTICS 283 some of them jumping on the tables where the refresh- ments were, and others throwing their hats in the air, while several of the women wept. After Lincoln was elected, the whole country was on edge to learn his attitude, and the agents of the south and the money interests made great efforts to find out his policy, as it meant a fortune to know. As there were no typewriters or other means of having several copies made of his inaugural address, and as it was necessary to have a number of copies, Mr. Lin- coln asked my father to have it done and gave him the manuscript. Father took one of his trusted men into a private room and stayed with him until the address was all set up and printed. He waited until all the type had been redistributed and then took the twenty or more copies, with the original manuscript, back to Lincoln. Father was approached with offers of large sums to divulge the contents. He told me that he could have had a hundred thousand dollars for it, which was a large sum in those days. He always regretted that he did not ask to keep the original manuscript, which Lincoln would have given him readily, as Lincoln completely trusted those in whom he had confidence. I have been told that Lincoln once had me on his knees, and that, after he went on to Washington, we lived in the Lincoln house for a while. At the family 284 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN home at Coronado, we have a few Lincoln relics left of the many we had originally, among which are sev- eral old photographs of the Lincoln family, and also an engraving of Lincoln used at the time of the cam- paign, the frame being made of fence-rails split by Lincoln. Many other articles that would now be val- uable have been lost in the family's wanderings, and some of the old letters have been sold to historical and other associations. Father died in 1905; but up to the time of his death he was always fond of telling incidents of Lincoln's life. His very close association with him politically and also as a friend, made him familiar with many inter- esting phases of Lincoln's character. Although his character might be called homely, yet it was a very lovable one and he had a wonderful insight into human nature. I hope that I have not burdened you with this brief information, and that you can make out this letter written on the old typewriter. Yours truly, ( Signed ) John M. Bailhache ■* * * FORDHAM UNIVERSITY Fordham, New York May Eleventh LETTERS CONCERNING CHARACTERISTICS 285 My dear Mr. McGlynn : Permit me to interrupt you for a few moments, to gratify a sincere desire I have, of expressing my deep appreciation of your wonderful portrayal of the char- acter of the Liberator. Thanks to the kindness of your son, the pleasure of seeing you impersonate Lincoln was afforded me last Wednesday afternoon. And truly, although the theme of the play and the perfect support of your excellent cast contributed much to the afternoon's entertain- ment; yet, what I liked best of all was your presenta- tion of the at once simple and powerful character of Lincoln. I conceive it to be an easy thing to be made- up like and to enact the outward actions of so great a man; but to be able to bring out and maintain the noble mind and kindly heart of so unique an American requires an artistry and a deep study of the man and of the times in which he lived, uncommon today. In these respects, I thought you excelled. The play itself is most ennobling. It thrills and truly stirs one. And of this, be assured, your presentation of Lincoln as a man, as a statesman, and as an American, inspires a love of country, an appreciation of honest, fearless, high principled political life and an ambition to attain the lofty refinement of a noble soul. That continued success may crown your efforts to 286 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN make Honest Abe better known, loved and imitated, is the heartfelt wish of Yours most sincerely, ( Signed ) Daniel H. Sullivan, S.J. Moderator of Dramatics # # * 2963 Pacific Avenue San Francisco 11 July, 1922 My dear Mr. McGlynn : I was much impressed last evening by your visualiza- tion of Mr. Lincoln, as I had his personality fixed upon my memory. As a boy not in my "teens." I heard him speak when he was on his way to Washington for his inauguration. The likeness was almost startling. But still more deeply did I realize that of which feature is only the instrument, and that is the atmos- phering of what have been called "indefinable inward harmonies" of a great soul that seemed to me to ex- plain Lincoln's captivation of the imagination of the modern world. His influence is indeed indefinable; but somehow we recognize its qualities at sight. It is im- possible to appreciate, without childlike faith in God and without big-heartedness to humanity. There must have been something like it when the people took knowledge of the apostles "that they had been with Jesus." And allow me to say that to express it in drama LETTERS CONCERNING CHARACTERISTICS 287 seems to me to be inconceivable other than out of an experience in which that same personal reliance upon God and that same disposition for "sweetness and light" to our fellow man stand out not only in the part but in the possession of the one who acts, as I felt it was in evidence last night. It is that which makes a play a preachment. It is that which divines both the opportunity and the secret of the uplift of the stage, as it seems to me, today. Many no doubt have borne like testimony to you, but none more spontaneously nor sincerely with con- gratulations than, Yours faithfully, (Signed) William F. Nichols Bishop of Episcopalian Church of San Francisco, Calif. * * # THE PLAYERS Sixteen Gramercy Park May 21, 1920 My dear Frank : I'm sorry I wasn't able to attend your professional matinee. I sent my next best representative, my father, who was a young man during the time of the period of your play and remembers Lincoln very clearly. He sends his heartiest congratulations for your lifelike portrayal. I saw your performance last night and I 288 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN offer my sincerest congratulations to you for what I consider about the most perfect characterization that I have ever seen on the stage. Many thanks for a very happy evening, (Signed) Edwin Nicander Frank McGlynn refers to Edwin Nicander as one of the greatest actors with whom he has been associated. # # # SAINT PATRICK'S CHURCH Glen Cove, N. Y. Mr. Frank McGlynn New York City, N. Y. Dear Sir: I cannot help writing a line to tell you how much I appreciated your wonderful impersonation of Lin- coln. I attended a matinee performance last Wednes- day and I am certain that the memory of those few hours will be with me until I die. This artistic miracle of your creation impressed me as has nothing that I have ever seen before. I don't know exactly how to express what I wish to say to you. If I could utter the most heartfelt congratulations, the sincerest admira- tion and a real sense of honest gratitude all in one breath, or one word, I might come near realizing the original purpose of this letter. A note of this kind is an everyday trifle to you. You receive, I suppose, a LETTERS CONCERNING CHARACTERISTICS 289 great many of them. But if it would serve to emphasize my sincerity, I might tell you that I have seen many great actors and dramas in my day, and that I have not only never written such a letter before, but I have never had the slightest inclination to do so. You have presented the character of the great and beloved President in a way that causes me instinctively to dislike using the words "acting" and "playing" in ref- erence to it. You have done more than a thousand histories (as they are and must be written) or biog- raphies or romances could ever do to make him better known and better loved. I wish that every American could see Lincoln as you alone can portray him! . . . Better written tributes than this you have already read and received. Suffice it for me to add that you have breathed a living soul into what in others' hands would be a stodgy and intolerable undertaking. And if I may trespass further on your time, you brought tears to at least one pair of rather cynical eyes, by the manner in which you said, "Oh, thank you" when the cup of coffee was given to you and when other little favors were done for you in the Appomattox scene. A mighty soul, in sweet humility spoke those simple words. I wish you, dear sir, health and benediction. May you long be spared to us all. And know this, sir, that your memory will be a treasured and a hallowed one when the names now blazoned above the "bed-room 290 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN comedies" of Broadway shall have been forever for- gotten. Sincerely yours, ( Signed ) (Rev.) Thomas S cardan Jan. 12, 1920 * * * HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Committee on Military Affairs Washington, D. C. February 8, 1921 Mr. Frank McGlynn c/o Montauk Theatre Brooklyn, N. Y. My dear Friend : Having just returned to Washington, I want to take this opportunity to tell you how thoroughly Mrs. Kahn and I enjoyed your performance of Abraham Lincoln. Yours is one of the greatest impersonations I have ever witnessed. In fact, you do not impersonate Lincoln— you are Lincoln as the great mass of Americans of this day picture him through their studies of the history of their country. I am sure the play is destined to live for many years, and I hope you will be spared to continue the wonder- ful performance, so that as the generations of young Americans grow up they will be able to visualize some of the incidents through which the Great Emancipator LETTERS CONCERNING CHARACTERISTICS 291 lived during the stormy days of the Civil War period. Permit me to thank you, too, for the wonderful photograph of yourself as Lincoln which you sent me. May I reciprocate by sending you, under separate cover, a picture of myself which was taken in front of the Hotel Crillon, Paris, during the days when the Peace Conference was in session there. I hope you have fully recovered from the cold. With my very best wishes, believe me, Sincerely your friend, ( Signed ) Julius Kahn (Julius Kahn was Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs at the time this letter was written.) * * * Warren Ryder Mill Vallev California July 19, 1922 My dear Sir : I cannot tell you how your impersonation of Abra- ham Lincoln affected me, for words at best are but clumsy, faltering things when put to attempted expres- sion of real emotions. But it is no fulsome praise- rather it comes deeply and sincerely from my heart when I say that in your impersonation of Lincoln you have created a living character nearer to the Lincoln 292 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN I have always known and loved, and an effect nearer to revealing the divine qualities of his make-up— with- out destroying the humanness of the man— than I could have believed possible. It is a truly great play; and you, my dear sir, are a great actor. Not that you display what some may per- haps choose to consider the fine technique of dramatics, but that you have caught the true spirit of a great character and are able to reveal it glowingly to others. And it is a splendid work in which you are engaged. In this day when we as a people incline to think more of money than of men, more of idols than of ideals— when we have to a startling degree apotheosized com- mercialism—a portrayal such as yours of the tender- ness, the magnanimity, the humility, the spirituality and the attainable nobility of Lincoln, may do much to set our hearts and minds again aright and turn us from false gods to true. Sincerely yours, (Signed) Warren Ryder Mr. Frank McGlynn Columbia Theatre San Francisco Lincoln and the William Scott Case (The following copies of correspondence from the files of the War Department were sent to the author by request.) Oak Park, Illinois May 25, 1922 To the Adjutant General War Department Washington, D. C. Dear Sir: I thank you for your courteous favor of May 23. May I now trouble you further? In "Recollections of President Lincoln and His Ad- ministration" by L. E. Chittenden, Register of the Treasury of the United States in Lincoln's administra- tion, is contained in detail a statement of President Lincoln's pardoning of a soldier named William Scott, from Company K of the 3rd Vermont Regiment, and of his subsequent death on the field of battle. Mr. Chittenden tells this story at great length and with much particularity. He gives the time of the pardon- ing as September, 1861. This story has been told with various modifications over and over again. So far as I 293 294 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN am aware, it is without the slightest foundation of fact. I have been officially informed by the War Depart- ment that no man of that name was pardoned under those conditions. One does not like, however, to think that Mr. Chittenden would have made the incident out of whole cloth. I, therefore, should be glad of accurate information which I may use in my Life of Lincoln that will answer some such questions as these : (1) Up to the end of September, 1861, was any soldier of the Union Army condemned to death for sleeping while on duty as a sentinel, or were such of- fenses at that stage of the war punished by a lighter penalty? (2) What incident, if any, up to the end of Sep- tember, 1861, could have served as the basis of that story? There is in the National Museum of the Smithsonian a document which shows one soldier to have died hon- orably in battle after having been pardoned by Presi- dent Lincoln. Can you give me the record of this incident in form available for use in a Life of Lincoln? Are there any other such incidents? I shall appreciate your courtesy. Sincerely yours, ( Signed ) William E. Barton A. G. 201 Scott, William (5-25-22) ORD LINCOLN AND THE WILLIAM SCOTT CASE 295 June 19, 1922 Rev. William E. Barton Pastor, First Congregational Church Oak Park, Illinois Dear Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter embodying an inquiry about the alleged pardoning by President Lincoln of William Scott, Company K, 3rd Regiment Vermont Infantry, in Sep- tember, 1861. You also ask (1) whether up to the end of September, 1861, there was any pardon of a soldier sentenced to death for the offense of sleeping on post, and (2) as to the probable basis of the story about the pardon of Scott. The records of this office show that one William Scott, a native of Groton, Vermont, served as a pri- vate in Company K, 3rd Regiment Vermont Infantry. He was enrolled at Montpelier in the summer of 1861, and died April 17, 1862, at Lee's Mills, in the vicinity of Yorktown, Virginia, of a gunshot wound in the chest received in action April 1 6. Nothing has been found on the muster rolls of said company to show that this soldier had been charged with any offense or had been sentenced or pardoned for any. However, there is on file in this office a manu- script which is a petition of members of the 3rd Ver- mont to Brigadier General Smith, dated at Camp 296 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN Advance, Virginia, September 7, 1861, praying "that the life of William Scott, private of Company K, now under sentence of death, may be spared." It bears the signatures of most of the commissioned officers of the regiment and of numerous enlisted men. This office is not in position to advise you definitely on the two specific questions asked. Your communica- tion has this day been referred to the Judge Advocate General of the Army, who has the custody of records relating to courts martial and pardons, and it is not improbable that at an early day this office may be able to furnish you further information in regard to the soldier William Scott and in answer to your specific questions. Very truly yours, ( Signed ) Robert C. Davis Acting The Adjutant General (COPY) CASE NUMBER 2 Proceedings of a general Court Martial which con- vened at Camp Lyon, D. C, pursuant to the follow- ing order, viz. : Headquarters Army of the Potomac Washington, Sept. 2, 1861 Special Order) No. 23 ) LINCOLN AND THE WILLIAM SCOTT CASE 297 A General Court Martial is hereby appointed to meet at the Camp of Smith's Brigade at 10 o'clock A. M. on Tuesday the 3d day of September, 1861, or as soon thereafter as practicable for the trial of such prisoners as may be brought before it. The court will sit without regard to hours. Detail for the Court Col. B. N. Hyde . . 3d Regt. Vermont Vols. Lt. Col. G. J. Stannard 2d " >j )> Lt. Col. W. G. Veazey 3d " >5 )> Major R. J. Mann . 33d " New York " Major T. O. Seaver . 3d " Vermont " Major Frank Pierce . 6th " Maine " Capt. J. W. Corning . 33d " New York " Capt. G. M. Guion . 33d " 5J >> Capt. A. J. Blanchard 3d " Vermont " Capt. J. Frazier . . . 6th " Maine " Capt. T. P. Mott . . New York Artillery Capt. T. C. Devin . . New York Cavalry Capt. E. McK. Hudson, 14th Infantry, is appointed Judge Advocate of the Court. No other officers than those named can be assembled without manifest in- jury to the service. By command of Major General McClellan: (Signed) S. WILLIAMS Asst. Adjt. General 298 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN Camp Lyon, D. C, Sept. 3d, 1861 The Court convened pursuant to the above order. Present : 3d Regt. Vermont Vols. Col. B. N. Hyde . . Lt. Col. G. J. Stannard Lt. Col. W. G. Veazey Major R. J. Mann Major Frank Pierce Major T. O. Seaver Capt. T. P. Mott . Capt. G. M. Guion Capt. J. W. Corning Capt. J. Frazier . Capt. T. C. Devin 2d 3d 33d " New York 6th " Maine 3d " Vermont New York Artillery 33d New York Vols. 33d " " " Capt. A. J. Blanchard 3d Regt. Vermont Vols. 6th " Maine " New York Cavalry The Judge Advocate also present and proceeded to the trial of Private William Scott, Co. K, 3d Vermont Vols. The accused was brought before the court and the order convening it was read to him. He was then asked if he objected to any member of the detail to which he replied "No". The court was then duly sworn by the Judge Advo- cate and the Judge Advocate by the President in pres- ence of the accused. Private William Scott, Co. K, 3d Vt. Vols., was then arraigned on the following charge and specifications: LINCOLN AND THE WILLIAM SCOTT CASE 299 CHARGE Violation of the 46th Article of War. SPECIFICATION In this that he Private Wm. Scott, Co. K, 3d Vt. Vols., being a regularly posted sentinel, did go to sleep upon his post, this at the hour between three and four a. m. on the 31st day of August, 1861, while on picket guard, near Camp Lyon, D. C. To which the prisoner pleaded as follows : To the Specification .... Not Guilty To the Charge Not Guilty Captain Thomas F. House, 3d Ver. Vol., a witness for the prosecution being duly sworn, testified as fol- lows: "On the 30th of August last I was Officer of the Grand Guard which went up the Potomac, and on the morning of the 31st I started about three o'clock, to make my rounds; and when I came to the post where Scott and his two comrades were stationed, I found them all asleep. The prisoner was a member of my Guard and regularly posted." Question by Prisoner : "What did I say to you after you waked me up?" Answer: "When I found them all asleep, I tried to find out whose duty it was to have been awake at the 300 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN time. They all said it was Scott's, and Scott also ad- mitted it was his duty." Question by a Member of the Court: "Did you posi- tively wake him, and know it was his guard?" Answer: "Yes." The prosecution here closed. The prisoner having no witness to produce and no defense to make; the court was closed. After mature deliberation on the evi- dence the Court find the Accused as follows : Of the Specification, Guilty; of the Charge, Guilty. And the Court does sentence him, Pvt. William Scott, Co. K, 3d Regt. Vermont Volunteers, "to be shot to death" — two-thirds of the members voted for the sentence. B. N. HYDE Col. 3d Regt. Vt. V. Edw. McK. Hudson Capt., 14th Inf. Judge Advocate The proceedings in the foregoing case, having been laid before the Maj. General commanding in accord- ance with the 65th Article of War, the following are the orders thereon. The proceedings, finding and sentence in the case are approved, the sentence is confirmed, and Pvt. Wil- liam Scott, Co. K, 3d Regt. Vermont Volunteers, will LINCOLN AND THE WILLIAM SCOTT CASE 301 be shot to death on Monday the 9th of September, 1861, at such hour and place as the Brigade com- mander may determine. Famous Sayings of Lincoln Reason, cold, calculating, impassioned reason must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense. Let these materials be molded into general intelligence and sound morality. Upon this, let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the rock of its basis and as truly as it has been said of the only greater institution "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." With malice toward none— with charity for all. No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty, none less inclined to take aught which they have not honestly earned. Let us have faith that right makes might and in that faith do our duty as we see it. The Lord must love the common people— that's why He made so many of them. No man is good enough to govern another man with- out that other man's consent. 302 FAMOUS SAYINGS OF LINCOLN 303 Freedom is the last best hope on earth. Come what will, we will keep faith with friend and foe. There is no pleasure for me in triumphing over anyone. At a Fair in Washington in March, '64, speaking of the women of America, Lincoln said, among other things : "I have never studied the art of paying compli- ments to women; but I must say that if all that has been said by authors and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct during this war. I will close by saying, 'God bless the women of America.' " Some Speeches by Lincoln Farewell Words in Springfield My friends, no one, not in my situation, can appre- ciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place and the kindness of this people I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century and have passed from a young man to an old man. Here my children have been born and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him I can not succeed. With that assistance I can not fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me and remain with you and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell. * -x- * The "House Divided Against Itself 3 Speech If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and con- 304 SOME SPEECHES BY LINCOLN 305 fident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation not only has not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself can not stand." I believe this government can not endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall ; but I do expect that it will cease to be di- vided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate ex- tinction ; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South. Have we no tendency to the latter condition? Let any one who doubts carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combi- nation—piece of machinery, so to speak— compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Put this and that together, and we have another nice little niche, which we may ere long, see filled with an- other Supreme Court decision, declaring that the Con- stitution of the United States does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits. And this may espe- cially be expected if the doctrine of "care not whether slavery be voted down or voted up," shall gain upon the 306 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN public mind sufficiently to give promise that such a decision can be maintained when made. Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being lawful in all the States. Welcome or unwelcome, such decision is probably coming, and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present political dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free, and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State. To meet and overthrow that dy- nasty is the work before all those, who would prevent that consummation. That is what we have to do. How can we best do it? There are those who denounce us openly to their own friends, and yet whisper to us softly that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with which to effect that object. They wish us to infer all, from the fact that he now has a little quarrel with the present head of the dynasty; and that he has regularly voted with us on a single point, upon which he and we have never differed. They remind us that he is a great man and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted. "But a living dog is better than a dead lion." Judge Douglas if not a dead lion, for this work, is at least a caged and toothless one. How can he oppose the advance of slavery? He does SOME SPEECHES BY LINCOLN 307 not care anything about it. His avowed mission is im- pressing the "public heart" to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas's superior talent will be needed to resist the revival of the African slave-trade. Does Douglas be- lieve an effort to revive that trade is approaching? He has not said so. Does he really think so? But if it is, how can he resist it? For years he has labored to prove it a sacred right of white men to take Negro slaves into the new Territories. Can he possibly show that it is less a sacred right to buy them where they can be bought cheapest? and unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in Virginia. He has done all in his power to reduce the whole question of slavery to one of a mere right of property; and as such, how can he oppose the foreign slave trade? How can he refuse that trade in that "property" shall be "perfectly free" unless he does it as a protection to the home production? And as the home producers will probably ask the protection, he will be wholly without a ground of opposition. Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser today than he was yesterday— that he may rightfully change when he finds himself wrong. But can we, for that reason run ahead, and infer that he will make any particular change, of which he him- self has given no intimations? Can we safely base our 308 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN action upon any such vague inference? Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge Douglas's position, ques- tion his motives, or do aught that can be personally offensive to him. Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on principle, so that our cause may have assistance from his great ability, I hope to have inter- posed no adventitious obstacle. But, clearly, he is not now with us— he does not pretend to be, he does not promise ever to be. Our cause, then, must be entrusted to, and con- ducted by, its own undoubted friends— those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work— who do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of resist- ance to a common danger. With every external circumstance against us, of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all then to falter now?— now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent! The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail— if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it; but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come. SOME SPEECHES BY LINCOLN 309 Lincoln and the Theatre Where he saw injustice, Lincoln was quick to offer his services to the wronged party. A pleasant example of this is related by Joseph Jefferson in his "Autobi- ography." In 1839 Jefferson, then a lad of ten years, traveled through Illinois with his father's theatrical company. After playing at Chicago, Quincy, Peoria and Pekin, the company went in the Fall to Spring- field, where the sight of the Legislature tempted the elder Jefferson and his partner to remain throughout the season. But there was no theatre. Not to be daunted they built one. But hardly had they completed it before a religious revival broke out in the town, and the church people turned all their influence against the theatre. So effectually did they work that a law was passed by the municipality imposing a license which was practically prohibitory. "In the midst of our trouble," says Jefferson, "a young lawyer called on the managers. He had heard of the injustice, and offered, if they would place the matter in his hands, to have the license taken off, de- claring he only desired to see fair play, and he would accept no fee whether he failed or succeeded. The young lawyer began his harangue. He handled the subject with tact, skill and humor, tracing the history of the drama from the time when Thespis acted in a cart, to the stage of today. He illustrated his speech 310 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN with a number of anecdotes, and kept the council in a roar of laughter. His good humor prevailed, and the exorbitant tax was taken off. "The Young Lawyer was Lincoln." (From Abraham Lincoln, The Ideal Christian, by E. F. Rudeen. Privately printed in Los Angeles, 1921.) # ■* * One of Young Lincoln's Speeches General Mills called my attention to a speech of Lincoln's which I have since quoted many times, but which he at that time truly stated was not widely read. I am quite sure it is not widely read at the present day, but it is certainly worthy of deep study by all lovers of this country of ours. The language, it will be noted, is more flowery than that which he used in his later years, but it is logical, and the astonishing part of it is that it shows the tre- mendous amount of arduous work he must have done to have acquired, at the age of twenty-eight, such command of English, when we consider that, to use his own words, he had little more than one year's schooling. This speech was delivered by Lincoln when he was twenty-eight years of age at the Young Mens Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois, and was as follows : "In the great journal of things happening under the sun, we, the American people, find our account SOME SPEECHES BY LINCOLN 311 running the date of the nineteenth century of the Christian era. We find ourselves in the peaceful pos- session of the fairest portion of the earth as regards ex- tent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubriousness of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions conducing more es- sentially to the ends of the civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, found our- selves the legal inheritors of these fundamental bless- ings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establish- ment of them; they are a legacy bequeathed to us by once a hardy, brave and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of our ancestors. Theirs was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess them- selves, and through themselves us, of this goodly land, and to uprear upon its hills and it valleys a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; 'tis ours only to transmit these— the former unprofaned by the foot of an invader, the latter undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation— to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task of grati- tude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to pos- terity, and love for our species in general, all impera- tively require us faithfully to perform. "How then shall we perform it? At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means 312 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some trans- atlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never ! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point is the approach of danger to be ex- pected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruc- tion be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. I hope I am not overly wary; but if I am not there is even now something of ill omen amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country— the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions in lieu of the sober judgment of courts, and the worse than savage mobs for the ex- ecutive ministers of justice. This disposition is fearful in any community; and that it now exists in ours, though grating to our feelings to admit, it would be a violation of truth and an insult to our intelligence to deny. Accounts of outrages commited by mobs form the everyday news of the times. They have pervaded the country from New England to Louisiana; they are SOME SPEECHES BY LINCOLN 313 neither peculiar to the eternal snows of the former nor to the burning suns of the latter ; they are not the crea- tures of climate, neither are they confined to the slave- holding or the non-slave-holding states. Alike they spring up among the pleasure-hunting masters of Southern slaves, and the order-loving citizens of the land of steady habits. Whatever then their cause may be, it is common to the whole country. It would be tedious as well as useless to recount the horrors of all of them. Those happening in the State of Mississippi and at St. Louis are perhaps the most dangerous in example, and the most revolting to hu- manity. In the Mississippi case, they first commenced by hanging the regular gamblers— a set of men cer- tainly not following for their livelihood a very useful or honest occupation, but one which, so far from being forbidden by the laws was actually licensed by an act of the legislature passed but a single year before. Next, negroes suspected of conspiring to raise an insurrection were caught up and hanged in all parts of the State; then, white men supposed to be leagued with the negroes ; and finally, strangers from neighboring States, going thither on business, were in many instances sub- jected to the same fate. Thus went on this process of hanging, from gamblers to negroes, from negroes to white citizens, and from these to strangers, until dead men were seen literally dangling from boughs of trees 314 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN upon every roadside, and in numbers almost sufficient to rival the native Spanish moss of the country as a drapery to the forest. Turn then to that horror-striking scene at St. Louis. A single victim was only sacrificed there. This story is very short, and is perhaps the most highly tragic of anything of its length that has ever been witnessed in real life. A mulatto man by the name of Mcintosh was seized in the street, dragged to the suburbs of the city, chained to a tree, and actually burned to death; and all within a single hour from the time when he had been a free man attending to his own business and at peace with the world. Such are the effects of mob law, and such are the scenes becoming more and more frequent in this land so lately famed for love of law and order, and the stories of which have even now grown too familiar to attract anything more than an idle remark. But you are perhaps ready to ask, "What has this to do with the perpetuation of our political institu- tions?" I answer, "It has much to do with it." Its di- rect consequences are, comparatively speaking, but a small evil, and much of its danger consists in the prone- ness of our minds to regard its direct as its only con- sequences. Abstractly considered, the hanging of the gamblers at Vicksburg was of but little consequence. They constitute a portion of population that is worse SOME SPEECHES BY LINCOLN 315 than useless in any community; and their death, if no pernicious example is set by it, is never a matter of reasonable regret by anyone. If they were annually swept from the stage of existence by the plague or smallpox, honest men would perhaps be much profited by the operation. Similar, too, is the correct reasoning in regard to the burning of the negro at St. Louis. He had forfeited his life by the perpetration of an out- rageous murder upon one of the most worthy and re- spectable citizens of the city, and had he not died as he did, he must have died by the sentence of the law a short time afterward. As to him alone, it was well the way it was as it could otherwise have been. But the example in either case was fearful. When men take it into their heads today to hang gamblers or to burn murderers, they should recollect that in the confusion usually attending such transactions, they will be as likely to hang or burn someone who is neither a gam- bler nor a murderer, and that, acting upon the example they set, the mob of tomorrow may, and probably will, hang or burn some of them by the same mistake. And not only is this so; but the innocent, those who have ever set their faces against violations of law in every shape, alike with the guilty, fall victims to the ravages of mob law; and thus it goes on, step by step, 'til the walls erected for the defense of the persons and prop- erty of individuals are trodden down and disregarded. 316 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN But all this, even, is not the full extent of the evil. By such examples, by instances of the perpetrators of such acts going unpunished, the lawless in spirit are en- couraged to become lawless in practice; and, having been used to no restraint but dread of punishment, they thus become absolutely unrestrained. Having ever re- garded government as their deadliest bane, they make 3 jubilee of the suspension of its operations, and pray for nothing so much as its total annihilation. On the other hand, good men, men who love tranquillity, who desire to abide by the laws and enjoy their benefits, and who would gladly spill their blood in the defense of their country, seeing their property destroyed, their families insulted, their lives endangered, their persons injured, and seeing nothing in prospect that forebodes a change for the better, become tired of and disgusted with a government that offers them no protection, and are much averse to a change in which they imagine they have nothing to lose. Thus, then, by the opera- tion of this mobocratic spirit which all must admit is now abroad in the land, the strongest bulwark of gov- ernments, and particularly of those constituted like ours, may effectually be broken down and destroyed— I mean the attachment of the people. Whenever this effect shall be produced among us; whenever the vicious portion of population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn SOME SPEECHES BY LINCOLN 317 churches, ravage and rob provision-stores, throw print- ing-presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure and with impunity, depend on it, this government cannot last. By such things the feelings of the best citizens will become more or less alienated from it, and thus it will be left with- out friends, or with too few, and those who are too weak to make their friendship effectual. At such a time, and under such circumstances, men of sufficient talent and ambition will not be wanting to seize the opportunity, strike the blow, and overturn that fair- fabric which for the last half century has been the fondest hope of the lovers of freedom throughout the world. I know the American people are much attached to their government; I know they would suffer much for its sake; I know they would endure evils long and patiently before they would ever think of exchanging it for another,— yet, notwithstanding all this, if the laws be continually disregarded and despised, if their rights to be secure in their persons and property are held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob, the alienation of their affections from the government is the natural consequence ; and to that sooner or later it must come. Here, then, is one point from which danger must be expected. 318 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN The question recurs, "How shall we fortify against it?" The answer is simple. Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity swear by the blood of the Revolution never to violate in the least particular the laws of the country, and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declara- tion of Independence, and so the support of the Con- stitution and laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor— let every man re- member that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap ; let it be taught in schools, in seminaries and in colleges; let it be written in primers, in spelling-books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay of all sexes, tongues and colors sac- rifice unceasingly upon its altars. While ever a state of feeling such as this prevails universally or even very generally throughout the nation, vain will be every effort, and fruitless every attempt, to subvert our national freedom. SOME SPEECHES BY LINCOLN 319 When I so pressingly urge a strict observance of all the laws, let me not be understood as saying that there are no bad laws, or that grievances may not arise for the redress for which no legal provisions have ever been made. I mean to say no such things. But I do mean to say that although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still, while they continue in force, for the sake of example, they should be religiously observed. So also in unimproved cases. If such arise, let proper legal provisions be made for them with the least possible delay, but 'til then let them, if not too intolerable, be borne with. There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law. In any case that may arise, as for instance, in the promulgation of abolitionism, one of two posi- tions is necessarily true— that is, that the thing is right within itself and therefore deserves the protection of all law and good citizens, or it is wrong, and is there- fore to be prohibited by legal enactments; and in neither case is the interposition of mob law either necessary, justifiable or excusable. But it may be asked, "Why suppose danger to our political institutions? Have we not preserved them for fifty years: And why may we not for fifty times as long? 55 We hope there is no sufficient reason. We hope that all danger may be overcome; but to conclude that no 320 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN danger may ever arise would itself be extremely dan- gerous. There are now, and will hereafter be, many causes, dangerous in their tendency, which have not existed heretofore, and which are not so significant as to merit attention. That our government should have been maintained in its original form, from its estab- lishment until now, is not much to be wondered at. It had many props to support it through that period, which are now decayed and crumbled away. Through that period, it was felt by all to be an undecided experi- ment ; now it is understood to be a successful one. Then, all who sought celebrity, fame and distinction expected to find them in the success of that experiment. Their all was staked upon it; their destiny was inseparably linked with it. Their ambition aspired to display before an admiring world a practical demonstration of the truth of a proposition which had hitherto been consid- ered at best no better than problematical — namely, the capability of a people to govern themselves. If they succeeded, they were to be immortalized; their names were to be transferred to counties, cities, rivers and mountains; to be revered, sung, and toasted through- out all time. If they failed, they were to be called knaves, and fools, and fanatics for a fleeting hour ; then to sink and be forgotten. They succeeded. The experi- ment is successful, and thousands have won their death- less names in making it so. But the game is caught; I SOME SPEECHES BY LINCOLN 321 believe that the catching ends the pleasures of the chase. This field of glory is harvested, and the crop is already appropriated. But new reapers will arise, and they will seek a field. It is to deny what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambi- tion and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion as others have done before them. The question then is, can that gratifica- tion be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it can- not. Many great and good men, sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found whose ambition would aspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle. What ! think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon? Never! Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks re- gions hitherto unexplored. It sees no distinction in add- ing story to story upon the monuments of fame erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is a glory to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the foot- steps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves or en- slaving free men. Is it unreasonable, then, to expect 322 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time spring up among us? And when such an one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and gen- erally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs. Distinction will be his paramount object, and al- though he would as willingly, perhaps more so, acquire it by doing good as harm, yet, that opportunity being past, and nothing left to be done in the way of building up, he would set boldly to the task of pulling down. Here is a probable case, highly dangerous and such an one as could not well have existed heretofore. Another reason which once was, but which to the same extent, is now no more, has done much in main- taining our institutions thus far. I mean the powerful influence which the interesting scenes of the Revolu- tion had upon the passions of the people as distin- guished from their judgment. By this influence the jeal- ousy, the envy, and avarice incident to our nature, and so common to a state of peace, prosperity and conscious strength, were for the time in a great measure smoth- ered and rendered inactive, while the deep-rooted prin- ciples of hate, the powerful motive of revenge, instead of being turned against each other, were directed exclu- sively against the British nation. And thus, from the force of circumstances the basest principles of our na- SOME SPEECHES BY LINCOLN 323 ture were either made to lie dormant, or to become the active agents in the advancement of the noblest of causes — that of establishing and maintaining civil and religious liberty. But this state of feeling must fade, is fading, has faded, with the circumstances that produced it. I do not mean to say that the scenes of the Revolu- tion are now or ever will be entirely forgotten, but that like everything else, they must fade from the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time. In history, we hope, they will be read of, and recounted, so long as the Bible shall be read; but even granting that they will, their influence cannot be what it heretofore has been. Even they cannot be so universally known nor so vividly felt as they were by the generation just gone to rest. At the close of that struggle, nearly every adult male had been a partici- pator in some of its scenes. The consequence was that of those scenes in the form of a husband, a father, a son, or a brother, a living history was to be found in every family — a history bearing the indubitable testi- monies of its own authenticity in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the very scenes related — a history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned. But those histories are gone forever. They can be read no more. They were a fort- 324 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN ress of strength; but what invading foeman could never do, the silent artillery of time has accomplished —namely, the leveling of its walls. They are gone. They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-restless hurricane has swept over them, and left only here and there a lonely trunk despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few more gentle breezes, and to combat with muti- lated limbs a few more rude storms and then to sink and be no more. They were pillars of the temple of liberty; and now that they have crumbled away that temple must fall unless we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober rea- son. Passion has helped us, but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason — cold, calculat- ing, unimpassioned reason — must furnish all the ma- terials for our future support and defense. Let those materials be molded into general intelligence, sound morality, and, in particular, a reverence for the Consti- tution and laws; and that we improve to the last, that we remained free to the last, that we revered his name to the last, that during his long sleep we permitted no hostile foot to pass over or desecrate his resting-place, shall be that which, to learn, the last trumpet shall awaken our Washington. Upon this let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the SOME SPEECHES BY LINCOLN 325 rock of its basis; and as truly as it has been said of the only greater institution, "the gates of hell shall not pre- vail against it". Sayings of Lincoln "Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by men- aces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us dare to do our duty as we un- derstand it." "Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm." "When you have written a wrathful letter — put it in the stove!" "Never get between the woman's skillet and the man's axhelve." "Shakespeare was the best judge of human nature that ever wrote." "It is better only sometimes to be right than at all times to be wrong." 326 SAYINGS OF LINCOLN 327 "If men never began to drink they would never be- come drunkards." "Don't shoot too high — aim low and the common people will understand." "I do not think much of a man who is not wiser to- day than he was yesterday." "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it, it must not break our bond of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the bet- ter angels of our nature."— From First Inaugural Ad- dress. "I desire to see the time when education, by its means, morality, sobriety, enterprise, and integrity, shall become much more general than at present, and should be gratified to have it in my power to contribute something to the advancement of any measure which might have a tendency to accelerate the happy period." 'Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of pro- 328 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN tection as any rights nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital, producing mutual benefits. ... No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty — none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned." "In regard to the Great Book, I have only to say that it is the best gift which God has given man. All the good from the Saviour of the world is communicated to us through this Book. But for this Book we could not know right from wrong. All those things to man are contained in it." "Give the boys a chance." "We cannot escape his- tory." "I can bear censure, but not insult!" "Don't swap horses in crossing a stream." "Let us have faith that right makes might." "Public opinion in this coun- try is everything." "I know I am right because I know Liberty is right." "Is a man to blame for having a pair of cowardly legs?" "That some are rich shows that others may become rich." "Come what will, I will keep my faith with friend and foe." SAYINGS OF LINCOLN 329 "Faith in God is indispensable to successful states- manship." "There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law." "My boy, never try to be President ! If you do, you never will be." "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present." "The Lord must love the common people — that's why he made so many of them." "Keep that (temperance) pledge and it will be the best act of your life." "Familiarize yourself with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them." "A man has no time to spend in quarrels. If any man ceases to attack me I never remember the past against him." "The importance for man and beast of the pre- scribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian sol- 330 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN diers and sailors, a becoming deference to the best sen- timents of a Christian people, and a due regard for the divine will, demand that Sunday labor be reduced to the measure of strict necessity." "I know there is a God, and He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming. I know His hand is in it. If He has a place and work for me — and I think He has — I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but truth is everything." "I shall try to conduct myself as a gentleman in sub- stance at least, if not in outward polish. The latter I shall never be, but that which constitutes the inside of a gentleman, I hope to understand." "This is a world of compensation. He who would be no slave must be content to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it." "Gold is good in its place; but loving, brave patriotic men are better than gold." "Would you undertake to disprove a proportion in Euclid by calling Euclid a liar?" SAYINGS OF LINCOLN 331 "I am like the boy that stumped his toe: hurt too much to laugh and too big to cry." "Meet face to face and converse together — the best way to efface unpleasant feeling." "I want it said of me that I plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow." "Let not him who is homeless pull down the house of another, but let him labor diligently to build one for himself." "If all that has been said in praise of woman were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice . . . God bless the women of America !" "Work, work, work !" "Hold on with a bull-dog grip." "It's all in that one word, Thorough." "Freedom is the last, best hope of earth." "Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time." 332 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN "I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep up doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference." "Our political problem now is, 'can we as a nation continue together permanently — forever — half slave and half free', the problem is too mighty for me. May God superintend the solution." "When the white man governs himself, that is self- government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-govern- ment — that is despotism." "No man is good enough to govern another without that other's consent." "Repeal the Missouri Compromise, repeal all com- promise, repeal the Declaration of Independence, re- peal all past history, still you cannot repeal human na- ture." 'We must make this a land of liberty, in fact as it is in name." SAYINGS OF LINCOLN 333 "Is slavery wrong? It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever con- tinue to struggle. The one is the common right of hu- manity, and the other the divine right of kings." "To the salvation of the Union there needs but one thing, the hearts of a people like yours. Of the people when they rise in a mass in behalf of the Union and the liberties of their country, truly may it be said 'the gates of hell cannot prevail against them!' " "I have said nothing that I am not willing to live by, and if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, — to die by!" "How hard it is to die, unless I can make the world understand that I would be willing to die if I could be sure I am doing my work toward lifting the burdens from all mankind !" "My poor friends you are free — free as air. You can cast off the name of slave and trample upon it; it will come to you no more. Liberty is your birthright. God gave it to you as He gave it to others Let the world see that you merit it, and are able to maintain it by 334 SIDELIGHTS ON LINCOLN your good works. . . . There, now let me pass on. 55 — Said by Lincoln to the Negroes who surrounded him on his entering Richmond. 'Calling a sheep's tail a leg doesn't make it so." 'Wealth is superfluity of what we don't need." 'Many have got into a habit of being dissatisfied." 'Disenthrall ourselves, then we shall save ourselves." 'When you can't remove an obstacle, plough around it!" "Discourage litigation. There will still be business enough." "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a mas- ter. This expresses my idea of democracy and whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy." "I am nothing — but Truth is everything. I know I am right because I know that liberty is right, for Christ teaches it and Christ is God. I have told them that a SAYINGS OF LINCOLN 335 house divided against itself cannot stand, and Christ and reason say the same." "Public sentiment is everything. With public senti- ment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can suc- ceed." "The way for a young man to rise is to improve him- self in every way he can, never suspecting that any one wishes to hinder him. . . . Suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in any situation." "The cause of liberty must not be surrendered at the end of one or even one hundred defeats." "Though I now sink out of view and shall be forgot- ten, I believe I have made some marks which will tell for the cause of liberty long after I am gone." □□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□ (Continued from Front Flap) pelled and they stayed to marvel at the fidelity of Frank McGlynn's portrayal. No actor before or since has so thor- oughly satisfied the American public with his impersonation of Abraham Lincoln. Letters poured in to the star, praising him for the way in which he had man- aged to capture the very spirit of the great emancipator, commenting on little gestures that were so characteristic of Lincoln and that they had not expected to see duplicated. Even the critics were surprised and thrilled by McGlynn's work, and the tremendous success of the Drink- water play is now a matter of theatre history. In this book Mr. McGlynn tells us how he managed so thoroughly to "get into" his part, and he shares with us his own and his audiences' reactions to the great play. Some of the letters and interviews with people who knew Lincoln that are recorded here contain personal data on Lincoln that has never before been made public. ******************** WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT FRANK McGLYNN IN 1919, WHILE HE WAS PLAYING THE TITLE ROLE IN JOHN DRINKWATERS FAMOUS PLAY ABRAHAM LINCOLN Burns Mantle: "Linked with the author's success is that of the actor who plays the titular role. Frank McGlynn is practically unknown to Broadway audiences. . . . But what he has accomplished for the role stamps him a finely sensitive actor. Not only is his makeup exceptional . . . but the heart, the great human heart, of the man shines through the characterization. ... It was a great night for Frank McGlynn, but it was a great night for us, too, because of Frank McGlynn." Alexander Woollcott: "Mr. McGlynn's embodiment is unexpectedly fine and convincing — far beyond our fondest hopes. The stature, the patience, the quizzical humor, the homespun benignancy, something of the sweetness, something of the glory of Lincoln, are .in this authentic and impressive performance. The spell of all his scenes is a potent spell, and he makes possible that which the play tries to achieve. He brings you wondering into the presence of Lincoln." Charles Darnton: "Mr. McGlynn, long, lank and engagingly awkward in his movements, gave a truly great performance of Lincoln. It was not only in outward appearance that he realized the character; he got to the soul of it." Albert Phillips: (Who played General Grant) j "There's one thing you'll notice among us, and that is that we're all proud of Frank McGlynn's showing as Abraham Lincoln. That man McGlynn never did a wrong thing in his life. People who see the play comment on the fine imagination he puts into the part. Those of us who know McGlynn know that it's more than imagination. It's a fine understanding of Lincoln, gained right from his own experience of life. We're all proud to see a man like that succeed." Frank McGlynn: "If my portrayal of Abraham Lincoln has any merit, it is because I feel as if I were called upon to perform a sacred task. No man could undertake the part merely to talk, and pose, and otherwise handle himself as he imagined Lincoln did. The very words the man speaks would lift any actor out of himself. They say that the play casts a spell over the audience. It does that because it has cast a spell on all of us who present it. We don't feel as if we were enacting a play. We're all sobered by the conviction that we are reproducing some of the greatest pages in American history." Wetzel Publishing Co., Inc. Los Angeles 13, California