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Show THE PAYSON CHRONICLE. PAYSON. UTAH Fine Town Hall Is Also a World War Memorial This is the handsome town hull at Mass., which whs completed recently at the cost of more than hnlf a million dollars. It was erected ns a memorial to the towns dead in the World war. Norwood, n Big French Liner Bums By ELMO SCOTT WATSON NLY about once In the blue moon" proverbial Is there published a book which Is so Im- portant as to justify us Its appearance as ?news.',In ordei to deserve attention as a news event, it usually ; has to reveal some hith erto unknown facts about a subject which Is of considerable Interest to a large number of people. In some cases a new biography will measure up to that standard, but it Is a com paratively rare occurrence for anything, both new and of vital importance, to be discovered about a man great enough to answer the qualifies tlon of considerable interest to a In America large number of people. about the only men of whom this would be true would be Washington and Lincoln. There have been so many hooks written about Abraham IJncoln the number runs into the hundreds and the whole field of Lincolniana has been so thoroughly combed that It does not seem possible to discover anything new about him. Nor Is It likely that a new Lincoln book would ordinarily excite more than' casual interest and discussion. However within recent months there has np pea red a new work on Lincoln which has been news. in that news stories have been written about It. This ad ditlon to the store of knowledge about the Great Emancipator is the two volume work written by the late Albert J. Beveridge, former United States senator from Indiana, under the title of Abraham Lincoln, and published by the Houghton Mifflin company. It Is a striking fact about this Lincoln that the literary critics have been unanimous in pronouncing It the most Important study of Lin coin that has yet been written and newspaper devoted no less thnn page to a review of ll by a national prominence. He wns Claude G. Bowers, keynoter, at the Democratic nntlonal convention, at Houston, last year, a friend of Beveridge and himself a biographer and historian of renown. In his review he said: It seems incredible that we have had to wait for almost seventy years for a biography of Lincoln deal ing adequately with the first fifty years of his life. The monumental biography of Nlcolay and Hay was written with frank partisanship and. worse still, tinder the critical eye of Robert Todd Lincoln, who. until the end of his long life, appeared more prone to concealment than to revaluation. The Herndon biography was unquestionably the most starkly honest but Its very honesty damned it In the eyes of those who preferred to deify rather than to explain Its By that time we had entered upon the period, followed with a Hood of biographies written in the spirit of extravagant praise, and the result lias been that the Lincoln who lived before the de bate has been comparatively unknown until now, So we have had the great number of books on Lincoln written by every type of person by biographers and professional historians, by teachers and preachers, by lawyers, by poets and by novelists. And. as one re viewer has nointed out Hitherto every new book on Lincoln has hpen in regarding -- 18H0-185- sub-Ject- . myth-makin- g conception of Lincoln Senator Beveridge, however, undertook to present, not Beveridge's Lincoln. but Lincoln . . . What is more, Beveridge did what he started out to do. How does it happen then that the real Lincoln has at last been revealed by a biographer? Perhaps the answer can be found in a statement by Mr Bowers in which he commented upon the fact that Beveridge does justice to the true greatness of Stephen A. Douglas as it has never been done before. He writes-Therby historian was probably a psychological reason for the Beveridge understand ing of Douglas for there are some striking resemblances in both the gilts and careers of the two men. Both were orators, fighters, possessed of dash and a certain masterfulness of manner; both won renown early; both were chairmen of the senate committee on territories and helped mold legislation that made states; both incurred the enmity of powerful In elements In their own party. the same way it may be said that Beveridge had an understanding of Lincoln because both were skills! politicians who became statesmen In the truest sense of the word and In his own disappointment in the arena of politics, Beveridge could appreciate the disappointment which came to Lincoln early In his political career. So it seems entirely plausible that when a statesman looks at Lincoln, especially at the period In Lin coins life when the evolution of the politician into the statesman was taking place, as it was in the period which Beveridge covers In bis two volumes, there should result an adequate understanding of the forces wldch were shaping his life and which were to make him the great man that he was. The story of how this latest Lin coin biographer set about and accomplished his task Is in itself a romantic one. Several years ago Beveridge noted principally as a brilliant orator and one of the outstanding- personalities In the United States senate amazed the literary world with his e Life of John Marshall. It was hailed by scholars not as only one of the finest biographies that had ever been written by an American, but as a noteworthy contribution to American history because Beveridge had made a sweeping and mngnlflcent Interpretation of the early days of the republic through the life oft the When in 1022 great chief Justice. Beveridge suffered his flnnl dlsnp pointment in politics and saw that he had missed a promised greatness In this field of activity, he again turned to writing and determined to take up again the thread of the American story Interpreting a later phase of it than the Marshall phase In terms of the career of a man greater even than Marshall Abraham Lincoln. Of that ambitious project and what It Invoked. Bowers says: e two-volum- Needless to soy, Mr Beveridge did not approach his colossal task In the spirit of an Iconoclast, nor In that of a blind worshiper, willing to prostitute h.s art as a biographer to the preser. vation of a myth We have heard him aay that he would hardlv have had the courage to undertake the task at all had hq had the slightest conception of the superficiality with which the field had been searched before It meant It was a tremendous task weary months with musty manuscripts searching the long deserted avenues that promised the possibility of new light, examining thousands of old let ters, turning the Innumerable pages ol old, yellowing newspapers and traveling over the continent on many a fruitless, as well as fruitful. Journey Scarcely had he begun, when he was appalled at the discovery of how Inadequately the work had been done before. Myth after myth faded out before hia seaichlight. Thus, quite early, he said to the writer that If he were asked to speak on Lincoln be would decline. I do not know Just now what I think of Lincoln. As he proceeded, the task grew In magnitude until, at times, be felt so utterly discouraged that he hnlf wished to abandon it. Instead of having befose him the not too laborious mission of a new Interpretation, he found himself confronted with the necessity of subjecting himself to the hardships of pioneering for facts and be grimly buckled down to his Job One day he half seriously told Justice Holmes, a neighbor at Beverly farms, that should he hear of the finding in the woods of a haggard old man, dead from exhaustion, he would know that It was a friend of his who had been foolish enough to attempt a Life of Lincoln. One instance of the painstaking la bor which Beveridge gave to his monumental task Is that wherein be obtained his Information about Liu coin's career as a member of the III! nois legislature. Other biographer have hurried over this period parti) because the only in forma tion on it is contained in the legis latlve reports which are included in several huge volumes, primed in small type and having no Index. What Bev eridge did was to go to Springfield volume dig out these and with the aid of a magnifying glass go over them all. The result was, instead of a few hasty para graphs such as other biographers have written about Lincoln the legts lator, Beveridges study devotes 137 pages to this period which had a vital importance In shaping the cbaractei and later career of Lincoln. Another instance lies In the statement Hint he wrote and rewrote the clmptera of his books, not once, nor twice, but many times. One of them was rewritten 15 times before he was satisfied with it! At this point the pen of the writer stopped, leaving the chapter in its first draft. Such Is the statement made at the eud of the chapter on The Great Debate" In the second volume of Beveridge's Lincoln. At Mr. Beveridges elbow were the vol umes of the Debates and Schurzs autobiography, open at the pages whence be had taken the last quota tlons or references. On the table, near his hand, were the heaps of notes prepared for the chapter, extracts from letters, newspapers, proceedings of conventions and legislatures, and photostats of the more important manuscripts he had found in public and private collection. For Dealt had stayed the hand of the great blog rapher of a great man. in April, 1!27 Albert J. Beveridge died suddenly In the prime of Ids life with Ids story half told. Barton, another noted l.io coin blograph , has well said of Bev eridge8 "Lincoln" It ends like Kehu bert's Unfinished Symphony." This Is one of the greatest tragedies In literary history." says Bowers who pays this final tribute to Beveridge: However, we may rejoiee In the realization that lie has done for (lie first fifty yenrs (of Lincoln's life! that wldch has never been done before, ano no other could do so well He has raised in his Marshall and IJncoln a which will out monument to hlin'-ei- f last marlde and before which future generations will pay homage to his genius as an Interpreter of the Amer lean spirit" first-han- d at Its Pier Scene at the docks in Marseilles, France, while the big French liner Paul Lecat was being destroyed by fire. WILL BE RESTORED Where the Hoovers Will Worship dust-covere- The Orthodox Friends' meeting house at Irving and Thirteenth streets. attend aenricea during their occupancy of the White House. Old bell tower which was erected in 1824 in the Capital square of Richmond, Va., and which is to be restored by the Daughters of the American Revolution. The tower was erect- N. V., Washington, where Mr. and Mrs. Hoover will Night Club at ed to house Virginia's first standing army, the public guard, which was maintained in the Capital square to keep order. The bell in the tower was used to summon the members of the troop to the defense of the commonwealth. lido-Veni- ce PRIZE WINNING BOB An unusual picture of the attractive, Excelsior club at exclusive and famous tloutiug Lido-Venic- Adopted Elephants It is a well known fact In the ele camps of India that a calf, w lien left an orphan for any reason. Is looked after by the herd and, If a suckling. Is taken over by a foster mother. Tills has happened Hgaln and again and on one occasion in oar ex perience at ,a teak wood logging amp a ealf that lost Iis mother at Hostage when It was being weaned was taken over by a tusker of urn ei lulu pliant temper, to he brought up by him He allowed it to tie suckled by a female until weaned, and so strong did his affection for the calf become that he refused to work except w It it the calf at heel -- MaJ. A W Smith. In Atlantic Monthly. Dried Human Heads Grewsniiie little dried up human heads ure appearing In London. These heads have long heen treasured as spoils of hatile by certain South American tribes, and contracted by a special process of their own Inven tion till they are doll like in size These heads are much valued b col lectors of queer relics In London luji an expert stivs that there are a number of fakes going about It up pears that medical students at (Juito have discovered the drying process and are now helping themselves to heads which have not fallen In battle Bewards offered by the Indian gov era men t for Rnake killing resulied in 57, (XX) snakes being killed last year. ITEMS OF INTEREST Glasgow. Scotland, Is abolishing Miss loving New York Dorothy Slewurt with the huge cup whlih was awarded liei Yoik lll'J'.i" bob nl I lie New ia'Inu com Hairdressers petition ul Us annual convi ntimi. one-cen- t street car fares. Skim milk contains all the valuable food elements of whole milk except fat. The Iri; li Free State lists 29,305 women engaged iu "professional occu aliens." One fourth of the nation's entire .lopul-itiois engaged In either getting a giving education. I India possesses mote dairy cow than any other country. . Billboards have heen abolished from the highways of Hawaii. The practice of removing snow fra it highways first received organized attention in 1921. A machine to test the fustness of d.ved fabrics during laundry processes has heen invented. The tensile strength of leather from the common nurse shark is six to lea limes the strength of oxhide. |