975. 7L6^ 
 
 Starr, John 
 
 GSt2s 
 
 Some facts concerning 
 
 
 Linccln the versatile, 
 
 
 Address Feb. 3 2, \92I4 
 
LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 and 
 
 HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER 
 
Some Facts 
 
 Concerning 
 
 Lincoln 
 
 The Versatile 
 
 Remarks before the Lincoln Day 
 
 Luncheon of Millersburg Chapter 
 
 No. 326, Order of the 
 
 Eastern Star 
 
 February 12, 1924 
 By John W. Starr, Jr. 
 
 BE Fifty Copies Printed 1 SB 
 

 Madam Toastmistress, 
 
 Members of the Order of the Eastern Star 
 
 and Fellow-Guests: 
 
 While Abraham Lincoln has not been generally regarded as 
 a versatile man, yet it is in that light that we wish to present a 
 few facts for your consideration this evening. 
 
 In his youth and early manhood, he served as farmhand, 
 flatboatman, ferryman, railsplitter, storekeeper, soldier, survey- 
 or, postmaster and legislator, before he took up the study of law 
 at the age of twenty-five, after contemplating blacksmithing. 
 
 During his public career he served four terms in the Illinois 
 Legislature; was a United States Senatorial aspirant twice and 
 defeated both times; received 110 votes on the first ballot for 
 Vice President at the first National Republican Convention held 
 in Philadelphia in 1856, and finally in 1860 and again in 1864 re- 
 ceived the highest honor it is possible to receive in the gift of 
 the American people. 
 
 It is interesting to note that in 1836, when a candidate for 
 the legislature, he declared in favor of woman suffrage — a state- 
 ment far in advance of his times. 
 
 In the Black Hawk Indian war he received a commission of 
 Captain which he was afterwards entitled to U3e, but his was not 
 the nature to make use of an empty military honor. 
 
 During his Presidency he received the degree of Doctor of 
 Laws from Princeton University, which he greatly appreciated. 
 
 While Abraham Lincoln was always ready to defend the 
 widow and the helpless, yet it would be entirely appropriate to 
 refer to him as a corporation lawyer, for during the height of 
 his legal career, he served the leading corporations of his own 
 and near-by States as attorney, including the Illinois Central 
 Railroad, the leading corporation of the State of Illinois in his 
 
day. In the capacity of attorney for the different transportation 
 systems he was entitled to and used the free passes issued by the 
 various roads. 
 
 He was a sagacious politician, in the best use of the term, 
 but acted always for what he felt were for the best interests. 
 
 His statesmanship and diplomacy were second to none, and 
 in the frequent clashes he had with the greatest minds of his 
 own and the opposing political party during his Presidency, he 
 never came out second best. 
 
 While knowing practically nothing of the technicalities of 
 warfare, yet he has been pronounced by military writers as a 
 great military strategist; he also kept himself well posted on the 
 naval operations. 
 
 As President, he had on foot a colonization scheme for the 
 American negro; was looking forward to the construction of a 
 Panama Canal, and there is reason to believe that he contemplat- 
 ed the prohibition or at least drastic regulation of the liquor 
 traffic at the time of his assassination. 
 
 This man, who had less than a year's schooling all told, be- 
 came a master of the English language. 
 
 There hangs on the walls of Oxford University, as an ex- 
 ample of English prose, a copy of a letter he wrote while Presi- 
 dent to the mother of five sons who had been reported slain in 
 battle. 
 
 Of his address at the battlefield of Gettysburg, it has been 
 said that there is nothing to surpass it in simple eloquence in all 
 history, ancient or modern; and his Second Inaugural has been 
 compared to the Sermon on the Mount. 
 
 He is noted as a man of letters. 
 
 For his day and generation, he traveled more or less exten- 
 sively as he had opportunity, and enjoyed sight-seeing. He had 
 been to the New Orleans slave market, saw the mighty Nigara, 
 knew Broadway, New York; Broad Street, Philadelphia, and had 
 visited many of the other leading cities of the east. 
 
In his younger days he tried his hand at poetry; had the 
 poetic instinct, and from what we have on record today would 
 probably have made a fair success had he chosen to go further 
 along this line. 
 
 He was more familiar with the Bible, and on almost any 
 occasion could quote therefrom more readily than we will venture 
 to say can any of our public men of today. 
 
 While not a member of any church, yet in his later years he 
 was a regular attendant upon church services and believed thoro- 
 ly ill the efficacy of prayer. During the days of the Civil War 
 period he even attended the mid-week prayer service as oppor- 
 tunity permitted. 
 
 He was not a member of any fraternal organization, al- 
 though it is claimed that he must have had some knowledge of 
 Freemasonry. The only lodge so far as it is known authentically 
 that he ever joined, was the Sons of Temperance, and after join- 
 ing there is no evidence he ever attended. 
 
 He had a good mind, and could digest mentally everything 
 he read which was worth while. When forty years of age, after 
 his single term in Congress, he studied and mastered the book of 
 Euclid. He intensively read religious philosophy, science and 
 mathematics. 
 
 He was interested in inventions, and there is today in the 
 Patent Office at Washington the model of a patent he took out 
 after leaving Congress, for lifting vessels over shoals. 
 
 Lincoln was a lover of good literature, could quote from 
 Burns, Byron, Holmes and Shakespeare, and could declaim at 
 length from the Bard of Avon very creditably in private. 
 
 He enjoyed attending the theatre: be it a minstrel show or 
 a Shakesperian play. 
 
 Flowers he adored. In the social line he played chess and 
 checkers fairly well, danced as well as could be expected when 
 the occasion required, but billiards, a game which he enjoyed, he 
 played but poorly. 
 
Abraham Lincoln had a wonderful memory and the faculty 
 of making everyone feel at ease in his presence, even while hold- 
 ing the highest office in the land. 
 
 Contrary to common belief, there was nothing uncouth or 
 unsymmetrical in his appearance. 
 
 He was personally a brave man, both morally and physically. 
 
 There was a strain of the supernatural in his make-up and 
 he believed more or less implicitly in dreams. 
 
 He loved children and was an indulgent father. 
 
 He could comport himself with ease in the presence of the 
 biggest men of the nation politically, and delighted in lengthy 
 interviews with such eminent scientists as Prof. Joseph Henry, 
 of the Smithsonian Institute, and Prof. Louis Agassiz. Yet he 
 could keep high dignitaries cooling their heels in the ante-room, 
 while he performed an act of mercy for some one of his hapless 
 constituency. 
 
 His mind could readily grasp any mechanical problem and 
 he had a faculty for comprehending and understanding ma- 
 chinery. 
 
 A story illustrating his interest in things mechanical is told 
 by an associate at the Bar, and with this we close. 
 
 During the course of a patent case in the Federal Court at 
 Springfield, in which Abraham Lincoln appeared as attorney for 
 one of the contending parties, several models representing differ- 
 ent machines were introduced and placed on the floor before the 
 jury. 
 
 In the course of the presentation of Lincoln's argument, he 
 knelt down to get a better view of the models, and the jurors in 
 their interest also got on their knees. 
 
 Seeing this, one of the opposing attorneys said to his as- 
 sociate in a voice loud enough to be heard by those near-by: 
 
 "Williams, I guess our case has gone to hell ; Lincoln and the 
 jury are on their knees together/' 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILUNOIS-URBANA 
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