973.7L63 
 B3HUU 
 
 Hertz, Emanuel. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln: His In- 
 ventive Mind* 
 
LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 and 
 
 HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER 
 
Abraham Lincoln: 
 His Inventive Mind 
 
 By 
 EMANUEL HERTZ 
 
Abraham Lincoln: 
 His Inventive Mind 
 
 By 
 
 EMANUEL HERTZ 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/abrahamlincolnhiOOhert 
 
$ 313,7 
 
 
 Abraham Lincoln: His Inventive Mind 
 
 By E manual Hertz 
 
 There are few phases of Abraham Lincoln's career which are 
 so rarely referred to as his first invention, and comments on his 
 inventive mind are almost completely absent. But few have 
 delved into the records of the Patent Office or refer to his 
 conferences with his partner Herndon, about his invention. 
 His appearance in 1859, in the MacCormick reaper case, is oc- 
 casionally referred to by lawyers, but only by reason of his 
 strange and unpleasant experiences upon meeting Stanton for 
 the first time. But that there was a strain in his mental make- 
 up which had a tendency to invent and to appreciate a new 
 invention, has not been considered of sufficient importance by 
 his many biographers, to induce them to allot a page or two to 
 that subject. And yet this little known quality of mind, which 
 made him examine with care a new invention and discourse 
 about it understanding^, turned the scales against the Confed- 
 eracy and practically turned the tide in favor of the Union. 
 
 On March 9, 1862, occurred a great fight between the Merri- 
 mac and the Monitor in Hampton Roads, which saved New 
 York Harbor from such destruction as would have meant 
 speedy recognition of the Confederacy in Europe. For that 
 actual defeat, though not destruction, of the Confederate ram, 
 Lincoln was responsible not less than the famous inventor 
 Ericsson, who had already made the scow propeller. Lincoln 
 had been a flatboatman ; he had even made an invention for 
 lifting flatboats over shoals — the model may be seen in the 
 Patent Office. 
 
 No. 6469 — Improved Method of Lifting Vessels over Shoals. 
 "What I claim as my invention and desire to secure letters 
 patent, is the combination of expansible buoyant chambers, 
 placed at the sides of a vessel, with the main shaft or shafts 
 C, by means of the sliding spars or shafts D, which pass down 
 through the buoyant chambers, and are made fast to their bot- 
 toms and the series of ropes and pulleys, or their equivalents, 
 
 787442 
 
4 ABRAHAM LINCOLN I HIS INVENTIVE MIND 
 
 in such a manner that by turning the main shaft or shafts in 
 one direction, the buoyant chambers will be forced downwards 
 into the water, and at the same time expanded and filled with air 
 for buoying up the vessel, by the displacement of water, and 
 by turning the shaft in an opposite direction, the buoyant cham- 
 bers will be contracted into a small space, and secured against 
 injury. 
 
 A. Lincoln." 
 
 Appearing as though it had been whittled out of a shingle and 
 a cigar box, the model is about eighteen or twenty inches long, 
 and bears the inscription "6469, Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, 
 Illinois. Improvement in lifting vessels over shoals. Pat- 
 ented May 22, 1349." 
 
 The idea for this device probably originated when he built 
 a boat to take produce to New Orleans. After reaching New 
 Salem the boat stuck on a mill-dam, the bow in the air and the 
 stern in the water, the cargo slowly settling backward and ship- 
 wreck almost certain to follow. Lincoln unloaded the boxes 
 and barrels, and tilted his craft. Then, by boring a hole in the 
 end extending over the dam, the water was let out. It was 
 this experience which inspired Lincoln's first invention. 
 
 On a journey between Niagara Falls and Springfield, part 
 of the trip was by boat. For a while the boat was stranded in 
 shallow water and had to be pried loose. First a large pole 
 was driven into the mud, and then a winch and a rope were 
 attached to it to pull the steamer free. When the future Presi- 
 dent returned to Congress, he took his invention with him and 
 showed it to Z. C. Robbins, a patent lawyer, who said: "I 
 speedily came to the conclusion that his idea was of value and 
 procured a patent." 
 
 Lincoln also interested himself in balloons, and was one of 
 the first persons to receive a telegraphic message from a balloon 
 sent up to make observations on an enemy's works across the 
 Potomac River. 
 
 When Ericsson first appeared in Washington, secretaries, 
 Senators, Congressmen — all made fun of the proposed turret 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: HIS INVENTIVE MIND D 
 
 ironclad; but Lincoln told Ericsson to go ahead. With this 
 encouragement the ingenious Swede got help from a Connecti- 
 cut capitalist and Congressman ; and Lincoln himself accepted 
 the strange craft for the Navy. His experience, insight and 
 persistence, in the face of ridicule, saved the seas to the Union. 
 Lincoln was ever interested in inventions, in patents, as he 
 saw them, read about them or which were brought to his atten- 
 tion. A war always brings a flood of inventions and an army 
 of inventors to the various heads of the various departments. 
 A good many of these came to Lincoln himself. Some old 
 friend, some prominent officeholder — elected or appointed — 
 would manage to arrange for an appointment and for a hearing 
 before the President would refer the inventor to the proper de- 
 partment head who was to look into the merits of these inven- 
 tions. Here is one who came from Montreal "who wishes to 
 exhibit a discovery for the protection of wooden structures 
 against fire." 
 
 And now he is interested in an invention which is to detect 
 objects under water — like his great prototype, Jefferson, who 
 was also interested in a model of a submarine. On July 21, 
 1813, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Robert Fulton as follows: 
 
 "Immediately on receipt of your favour of July 8 I 
 forwarded it to the President, and had no hesitation in 
 expressing my own wish that it should be tried, in fact 
 as we cannot meet the British with an equality of Physical 
 force we must supply it by other devices, in which 1 know 
 nobody equal to yourself, and so likely to point out to us 
 a mode of salvation, accordingly I hope this honor is re- 
 served for you, and that either by subaqueous guns, tor- 
 pedoes, or diving boats you will accomplish it by the aid 
 of government, the New York Evening post has given 
 us a quiz on this subject, hoping, I presume, to draw a 
 flimsy veil of jest over his habitual lies, and wishing us to 
 suppose all those were but jests. I confesse I have more 
 hopes of the mode of destruction by the submarine boat, 
 than any other, no law of nature opposes it, and in that 
 
6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN : HIS INVENTIVE) MIND 
 
 case nothing is to be despraised of by human invention, 
 nor particularly by yours. Accept the juste tribute of an 
 American citizen. . . ." 
 
 So Lincoln writes to Captain, afterwards Rear Admiral, John 
 A. Dahlgren, as follows : 
 
 "Jan. 9, 1864. 
 Admiral Dahlgren, 
 My dear Sir : 
 
 Capt. Lavender wishes to show you a contrivance of his 
 for discovery and aiding to remove, under-water obstruc- 
 tions to the passage of vessels, and has sufficiently im- 
 pressed me to induce me to send him to you. He is 
 sufficiently vouched to me as a worthy gentleman ; and this 
 I know, it needs not my asking for you to treat him as 
 such. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 A. Lincoln." 
 
 He thus anticipated the submarine and the weapons with 
 which to fight them. With no other Naval officer was Lincoln 
 so intimate ; and Lincoln kept him in his post against every 
 attempt to remove him. He would write, asking him for a 
 drive or to dine with him at the White House, and constantly 
 sought his advice upon naval matters. 
 
 Dahlgren's diary for the years 1861-1863 is very valuable 
 because of his close association with Lincoln. It shows Lin- 
 coln's progress in the study of military and naval affairs. He 
 was especially interested in ordnance and ammunition. He was 
 seen firing at a target with a Spencer gun. The diary of Dahl- 
 gren is full of reference to Lincoln's interest in naval ordnance. 
 He drives to the Navy Yard to see a 150 pounder fired off. He 
 examines ''guns, iron plates, etc." He goes to the Bureau of 
 Ordnance "to see about some new powder." 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN I HIS INVENTIVE MIND / 
 
 Of great importance was Lincoln's interest in the Spencer 
 repeating rifle. Among the many inventors who came to 
 Washington during the War, was Christopher N. Spencer, a 
 young machinist from New England. He had invented a 
 repeating rifle which was destined to have a large share in the 
 success of the Union armies and was to become used throughout 
 the world. At the age of twenty-four Spencer conceived the 
 idea of building a repeating- rifle with the magazine running- 
 down through the inside of the stock. He obtained his patent 
 on March 6, 1860. His employer, Charles Charey, knowing- 
 Secretary Welles, introduced him. The proper tests having 
 been satisfactory, a thousand guns were ordered by the Navy 
 Department. But he could make no further progress until 
 through the intercession of Congressman James G. Blaine the 
 President became interested, and the War Department ordered 
 ten thousand, and before the end of the War the government 
 purchased two hundred thousand more "which did great execu- 
 tion at the Battle of Gettysburg and in other important battles 
 of the War/' 
 
 Mr. Spencer's account of his meeting the President, as re- 
 lated to us by himself, is full of interest and is characteristic 
 of the great directness and simplicity of Mr. Lincoln's char- 
 acter. 
 
 "Among my most pleasing recollections of the war times was 
 a shooting match which I engaged in with President Lincoln. 
 I had been delegated by our company to present the President 
 with one of the rifles, which I did on August 17, 1863. On my 
 arrival at the White House I was ushered immediately into the 
 reception room, with my repeating rifle in my hand, and there 
 I found the President alone. T took the rifle from its cloth 
 case and handed it to him. He examined it carefully and han- 
 dled it like one familiar with firearms. He requested me to 
 take it apart and show the 'inwardness of the thing.' After 
 carefully examining and approving- the gun, he asked me if I 
 had any engagement for the following day, and requested me to 
 come over about 2 o'clock, when, he said, 'we will go out and 
 see the thing shoot.' 
 
8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN I HIS INVENTIVE MIND 
 
 "The next day we started on time for the shooting place, 
 which was about where stands the Washington Monument. 
 With us was the President's son Robert and an official of the 
 War Department. 
 
 "On the way the President stopped in front of the War De- 
 partment and sent Robert to ask Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of 
 War, to come with us. While we were waiting Mr. Lincoln 
 told us some good stories, and, noticing that one of the pockets 
 of his black alpaca coat was torn, he took a pin from his 
 waistcoat and proceeded to mend it, saying, laughingly, Tt seems 
 to me that this does not look quite right for the chief magis- 
 trate of this mighty Republic' Robert reported that Mr. 
 Stanton was too busy to accompany us. 'Well,' said the Presi- 
 dent, 'they do pretty much as they have a mind to over there.' 
 The target was a board about 6 inches wide and 3 feet long, 
 with a black spot painted at each end. The rifle contained six 
 50-caliber, rim-fire, copper cartridges. Mr. Lincoln's first shot 
 was to the left and 5 inches low, but the next shot hit the 
 bullseye and the other five were placed close around it. 
 
 ' 'Now,' said Mr. Lincoln, 'we will see the inventor try it.' 
 The board was reversed and I did somewhat better than the 
 President. 'Well,' he said, 'you are younger than I am and 
 have a better eye and steadier nerve.' ' 
 
 Dahlgren's account of his visit to the White House on De- 
 cember 22, 1S62, affords an excellent view of the variety and 
 vexation of Lincoln's tasks : 
 
 "The President, glad to drop such troublesome business 
 (accepting one of Chase's resignations) and relaxing into his 
 usual humor, sat down and said, 'Well, Captain, here's a letter 
 about a new powder,' which lie read, and showed the sample. 
 Said he had burned some, and there was too much residuum. 
 'Now, I'll show you.' He got a small sheet of paper, placed 
 on it some of the powder, ran to the fire, and with the tongs 
 picked up a coal, which he blew, specs still on nose. It occurred 
 to me how peaceful was his mind, so easily diverted from the 
 great convulsion going or. and a nation menaced with disruption. 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN I HIS INVENTIVE MIND K J 
 
 "The President clapped the coal to the powder, and away it 
 went, he remarking, 'There is too much left there.' He handed 
 me a small parcel of the powder to try. * * *" 
 
 He is next interested in a new model of a gun, and writes 
 to Dahlgren about the advisability of buying a large supply of 
 these guns : 
 
 "Jan. 10, 1861. 
 Capt. Dahlgren, 
 My dear Sir : 
 
 You have seen Air. Blunt's new gun. What think you 
 of it? Would the Government do well to purchase some 
 of them? Should they be of the size of the one exhibited, 
 or of different sizes? 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 A. Lincoln." 
 
 The Monitor, of course, was the greatest of these inventions 
 in which Lincoln immediately became tremendously interested. 
 News was reaching the Navy Department in Washington as to 
 what was transpiring in the Navy Yard at Norfolk. It was to 
 become a race of days, if not of hours. If by some misfortune, 
 the time was prolonged and the battleship ironclad in Norfolk 
 conld have leeway of a month, she would not only destroy 
 the entire Navy made up of wooden ships but would lay waste 
 the principal cities on the Atlantic seaboard more than sufficient 
 to secure recognition, if not participation by foreign powers, 
 and thus end the War and establish the Confederacy. There- 
 fore, the need of a ship to stop the Merrimac became an agon- 
 izingly self-evident necessity. 
 
 Lincoln, through Welles and his assistant, Fox, was kept 
 constantly advised as to what progress was being made on the 
 Monitor. How the work was being done, how the government 
 payments lagged and delayed the work, how Ericsson's in- 
 domitable will and energy and determination forced the rapid 
 construction of the boat within one hundred working days, is a 
 
10 ABRAHAM LINCOLN I HIS INVENTIVE MIND 
 
 matter of history. How a few slight defects at her launching 
 brought down the condemnation and ridicule of a hostile press, 
 and the suggestions of substitutions of new parts or repairs, 
 which would occupy the precious days, which meant doom or 
 victory to the North, have also been adequately recorded. How 
 the Monitor was completed and ordered to join Farragut in the 
 Gulf of Mexico, and just in the nick of time diverted to Hamp- 
 ton Roads, was another one of those providential events which 
 make and unmake nations. She came to Hampton Roads in 
 the night, which was illuminated by the burning vessels of the 
 Union Navy — a navy which was just about passing out of 
 existence and which was the slender reed upon which the North 
 was attempting to keep the South within a three thousand mile 
 blockade, and which the Merrimac was even then beginning 
 to destroy and break up. The Monitor appeared on the 8th of 
 March, 1862, and fought the memorable fight on the 9th . 
 
 While the contest in Hampton Roads served to direct the 
 attention of all the world to the necessity for making a complete 
 change in naval armaments, it did not fully illustrate the possi- 
 bilities of the monitor system. When his vessel had passed 
 from the hands of Ericsson, it was beyond his control. He had 
 done his part in furnishing an impregnable floating battery, 
 carrying guns that were equal to the task of destroying the 
 enemy's vessel; he could do no more. The wave of rejoicing 
 which swept over the North was due not so much to the achieve- 
 ment of the Monitor, fought 'as she was, as to the sense of 
 relief at the discovery that the Government had under its control 
 at least one vessel that could not be destroyed by the Merrimac. 
 The timid counsels prevailing at Washington prevented the 
 contest from being brought to the issue which Ericsson intended. 
 Though the necessities of the time may have required this, the 
 result was not less disappointing to him. 
 
 ' 'The Monitor only appears upon the scene,' says the Con- 
 federate writer here quoted, 'after we have been on the rampage 
 for a whole day ; have cleared out everything in the Roads — 
 men-of-war, transports, traders, and have done the enemy all 
 possible injury, material and moral. Stocks fall ten per cent. 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: HIS INVENTIVE) MIND 11 
 
 in an hour, gold rises faster, and such a panic prevails as was 
 never known before or since.' 
 
 "Secretary Welles, describing a cabinet meeting called by 
 Mr. Lincoln on receipt of the news of the first day's disaster, 
 says : 'Mr. Stanton said : "The Merrimac will change the whole 
 character of the war; she will destroy, seriatim, every naval 
 vessel ; she will lay all the cities on the seaboard under con- 
 tribution. I shall immediately recall Burnside; Port Royal 
 must be abandoned. I will notify the governors and municipal 
 authorities in the North to take instant measures to protect 
 their harbors. I have no doubt that the monster is at this 
 minute on her way to Washington, and" — looking out of the 
 window which commanded a view of the Potomac for many 
 niiles — "not unlikely we shall have a shell or a cannon-ball 
 from one of her guns in the White House before we leave the 
 room!" Mr. Seward, usually buoyant and self-reliant, over- 
 whelmed with the intelligence, listened in responsive sympathy 
 to Stanton, and was greatly depressed, as indeed were all the 
 members.' 
 
 "It is true that the Confederate writer claims the victory 
 for the Virginia (Merrimac) in this battle: a battle described 
 by him as 'revolutionizing in an instant the whole science of 
 naval warfare ; more memorable than any sea-fight of history, 
 more pregnant of consequences,' and one to be 'remembered 
 to the latest posterity as the prominent naval event of our 
 times.' This is not worth disputing over. The prestige of 
 victory was with the Monitor, and it is that vessel, and not the 
 Merrimac, that revolutionized naval ideas and influenced naval 
 construction. The one was a rude machine hastily improvised 
 to meet an emergency; the other the expression of the carefully 
 matured plans of the Ablest and most experienced worker in the 
 field of naval construction. The Virginia (Merrimac), a few 
 weeks later, and without doing further damage, sank beneath 
 the waters of Chesapeake Bay, to be thenceforth remembered 
 only as the antagonist of the Monitor; Ericsson's Battery 
 established a type whose influence upon naval construction has 
 not yet passed away. 
 
12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN : HIS INVENTIVE MIND 
 
 1 'The Monitor,' said Admiral Luce, in a paper read before 
 the Naval Institute, April 20, 1876, 'was the crystallization of 
 forty centuries of thought on attack and defence, and exhibited 
 in a singular manner the old Norse element of the American 
 Navy; Ericsson (Swedish, son of Eric) built her; Dahlgren 
 (Swedish, branch of a valley) armed her; and Worden (Swed- 
 ish, wordig, worthy) fought her. How the ancient skalds 
 would have struck their wild harps in hearing such names in 
 heroic verse ! How they would have written them in "immortal 
 runes !"' 
 
 " 'So of the Monitor, Minotaur old Mr. Quincy said to me it 
 should have been, in its appearance in part of the great megalo- 
 saurus or deinotherium, which came out in scaly armor that 
 no one could pierce, breathing fire and smoke from its nostrils ; 
 is it not the age of fable and of heroes and demigods over 
 again ?' 
 
 "Mr. Newton's statement concerning the defensive role of 
 the Monitor is fully confirmed by Assistant Secretary Fox. In 
 a letter to Captain Ericsson, he said : 'I wrote the order for- 
 bidding the Monitor going into the upper roads to meet the 
 Merrimac. Why? Because I had pledged McClellan that the 
 Mcrriniac should not disturb his military manoeuvres, and to 
 that obligation all naval operations were subordinate. We ful- 
 filled our duty, and kept her in until she committed "Hari Kan." 
 President Lincoln had also given orders that the Monitor should 
 take no risks that could be avoided. 
 
 "March 10, 1862. 
 Hon. Sec. of Navy 
 My dear Sir 
 
 I have just seen Lieut. Worden, who says the 'Moni- 
 tor' could be boarded and captured very easily — first, after 
 boarding, by wedging the turret, so that it would not turn, 
 and then by pouring water in her & drowning her Machin- 
 ery — He is decidedly of opinion she should not go skylark- 
 ing up to Norfolk. ^ r 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 A. Lincoln" ' 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: HIS INVENTIVE MIND 13 
 
 In his Annual Message to Congress, in December, 1863, Lin- 
 coln, after referring to the arrangements with the Czar of 
 Russia for the construction of a line of telegraph from our 
 Pacific Coast through the Empire of Russia, to connect with 
 European systems, urged upon Congress favorable consideration 
 of the subject of an international telegraph across the Atlantic 
 and a connection by telegraph between Washington and our 
 forts, and posts along the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mex- 
 ico. He had a number of conferences with Cyrus W. Field, 
 the chief exponent of Atlantic cables. The enormous expense 
 involved and the fear of damage by Confederate blockade 
 runners prevented the adoption of Lincoln's cherished plan 
 of coast cable from Fort Monroe to New Orleans. Had 
 Field's plan been adopted and Lincoln's recommendation acted 
 upon by Congress, the War would have been brought to a close 
 months earlier. Again Lincoln's farsight and prophetic mind 
 were far ahead of his contemporaries. 
 
 And so it came to pass, when the mind and heart and body 
 of Abraham Lincoln were being endowed with the strength and 
 vitality required by the unprecedented task which was his ; 
 when his mind was endowed with the ability to analyze the situ- 
 ation in which his country found itself after seventy years of 
 hectic existence, and came to understand both the problems and 
 the only solution ; when he was endowed with a power of ex- 
 pression and lucidity and clearness of thought to translate the 
 problem and its solution so that all his countrymen could under- 
 stand it, and follow his advice and his orders ; when that great 
 heart was endowed with qualities which enabled him to sympa- 
 thize with his Southern brothers and appreciate the struggle 
 which was theirs and the predicament from which they could not 
 disentangle either themselves or their states — qualities of heart 
 and mind and body which are rarely, if ever, found in one 
 man; and all of these were certainly combined in Lincoln to a 
 most remarkable degree; we are confronted with an additional 
 endowment with which this superman was gifted. We find 
 that the great emergency has found in him a latent strategist 
 which the travail of his country brought out in the most glor- 
 
14 ABRAHAM LINCOLN : HIS INVENTIVE MIND 
 
 ious manner. We find him a student of war. He masters 
 the war maps, tactics and raising of armies and their movements. 
 He turns out to be an adept at diplomacy, and when the most 
 certain doom is about to snuff out the life of the Union, when 
 the Merrimac booms her guns and begins what the Cabinet in 
 Richmond thought confidently to be the last act of the war, 
 the destruction of the Northern Navy, to be followed by the 
 sacking and burning of every city on the Atlantic seaboard, 
 Lincoln, the inventor, had hastened the hand of that other 
 inventor of the Monitor and kept his eye on the building of the 
 diminutive ironclad which was to save the day and the nation. 
 Lincoln, the inventor of the contrivance to raise boats over 
 shoals, Lincoln who had examined new guns, Lincoln who had 
 listened to the balloon and its first messages, Lincoln who had 
 been talking of a cable along the entire coast — this same man 
 stepped forward and helped Ericsson to work upon his inven- 
 tion, which resulted in the revolution and regeneration of battle- 
 ships for the first time in four thousand years. 
 
 And yet there are those who persist in denying him his just 
 place in the drama which resulted in the transformation of the 
 wooden sailing vessel of which the Union Navy was composed 
 when he came to the helm, to the practically indestructible iron- 
 clad Union Navy, which Phenix-like came out of the fire which 
 ignited a battlefront of a thousand miles and which blockaded 
 a seaboard of three thousand miles. 
 
 To those who refuse to see, who refuse to understand, who 
 refuse to acknowledge, who persist in their hallucinations about 
 the 'Veal" Lincoln ; to those who still quote the libels of the 
 press which was hired to villify him — nothing can be said. Our 
 children, however, will see what the blinded eyes of their elders 
 failed to see and which they failed to understand. 
 
 A short Italian story, in its translation, will clarify the last 
 statement : Once upon a time there lived in Pisa an elderly 
 gentleman whose windows looked on the famous tower. 
 Through long gazing on this striking object during a tedious 
 convalescence he conceived the idea (which deepened into a de- 
 lusion) that the tower was perpendicular and all other buildings 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: HIS INVENTIVE MIND 15 
 
 were leaning. To the amusement of his friends, he had the 
 floor of his room relaid so that the furniture was tilted into 
 lines parallel with those of the tower. He was dilating on his 
 fixed idea one afternoon when he had visitors ; one of the 
 party, a kindly old priest, seeing a grandchild of the invalid 
 playing along the corridor, called out to him : "Beppino ! Come 
 to me." The boy was a special favorite of the old man. Placing 
 the boy on the table with his face to the tower, the priest said : 
 "Carissimo Signor Conte ! Are you content to let Beppino 
 decide?" "Dear little man," said the grandfather, kissing the 
 brown locks. "You shall settle it!" "Look, Beppino, at the 
 tower!" said the priest laying his hands lightly on the child's 
 shoulders; "is it straight?" "E certo che, s'inchina!" "Of 
 course, it leans," said the child without the slightest hesitation. 
 
 February 12th, 1930. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 973.7L63B3H44A C001 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN: HIS INVENTIVE MIND 
 
 2 031796813