Show I f d r LX s sr r kf tr x A R 4 1 j 1 I I red v y yI I n fJ I By ELMO SCOTT WATSON about once olle In the Hie proverbial pro blue bue mown f Is there published a adr a n sti Bg 1 1 book Look which Is so Im J dr fc as us to justify u us us-J us r 1 It ItIn i In regarding Its appear appear- j n pop n 1 Y ance as news In order to deserve attention as asa asa U U Uto a news event It usually tins has to reveal cal some filth hith hitherto erto unknown facts about a 8 subject which Is Js ot of considerable Interest to toa toa toa a large number of people In some cases a n new biography will measure up to that standard but hut It l Is a II corn com rare occurrence for tor any anything thing both new and of ot vital Imor Importance tance to be discovered about a man great enough to answer the of ot considerable Interest to a 8 large number of people In America about the only men of ot whom this would he true Irue would be Washington and Lincoln There ha have ve tJ been en so many hooks written about Abraham the Lincoln Lincoln number rung rums Into the hundreds and hundreds the whole field of has hns been so thoroughly combed that It does not seem possible to discover anything new about him Nor Is it II likely that a ne new Lincoln honk book woul t ordinarily excite more than casual Interest and discussion However within thin recent months there has appeared ap appeared a 8 new work on Lincoln which In la that stories has been heen news news have hate been heen written n about It This ad addition to the tile store of or knowledge e about tile the Great Creat Is the tile two volume work written n bv by the lie late Albert J e former former Unite States senator train from Indiana under thE title of ot Abraham Lincoln 1 SO 1354 and published by the Houghton company about this It Is a striking fact Lincoln that the literary critics have baoe been unanimous In to pronouncing It the most Important study of LIn coIn that has hns yet t been en written nod and andone andone one newspaper devoted no nn less Iss than thana of ot it by hy n a aman amail ft a full tull pa page e t to s a review re man mau of prominence e lie was waZ Claude 0 O Bowers ke keynoter at the Democratic J national convention com at last year a friend of nev Bev Beveridge Bev and and himself a biographer historian of ot renown In his review re that we Incredible he said It seems have had to wait walt for almost seventy years for a biography of n of Lincoln dral dealIng tag Int adequately with the first years of or his Ills life Ilfe The monumental NIcolay and Hay flay was biography of ot written n wit frank partisanship und nod the critical rye eye r e of worse still under Robert odd Lincoln who whom until the end of his Ion long life app appeared more prone to concealment than to re ela biography was The unquestionably the most starkly hon hon- honest hon honest lIone damned It inthe In Inthe honesty ty e est t but Its very who tho ho preferred to the e eyes es Jf of those t v sub suh subject Its rather than Iban to explain deity deify entered we had enl time By tint period fol fol- fol followed tile the myth mth lowed upon with n a Hood flood of till Hirt of ot nt written In the tile sp spirit result tins hns been tint thul and tile the lie praIse the de debute debate debate time the Lincoln who 11 heed ed before comparatively I unknown a bate bute has lias lIa been until now had the grout great number o we have hate Lincoln written by er e every books on of nf and hlo by person person-by type professional ot of person hy by teachers preachers by law ItI by hy poets and ond And as IIII r re reviewer reviewer non novelists and by hy 1 viewer r has ond out book end on Lincoln ninI ling b rl ii n every enry new Strand sos sos so's conception of Lincoln Senator B however howe under under- undertook took to 10 present not nul Ue Lin- Lin Lin Lincoln coin coln hut but hut LIncoln What Is more e Beveridge I did id what lie he started out nut to do How doe does It happen then that the thereal thereal real Lincoln has tins at last been revealed re ly by a biographer Perhaps the answer cnn can be found In a statement by Mr Ir Cowers Gowers in which he lie commented upon the fact fact that Ge Beveridge e does justice to the true greatness of Stephen A A Douglas as It has hns never ne been done b by historian before He ne writes writes There There There was probably a 8 psychological reason for or the e understand understandIng In log of for Douglas Douglas for thc there re ar are some striking resemblances In both the gilts gifts and ond careers of the two men Both were orators lighters possesse possessed of dash and a certain of manner both won renown early both buth were chairmen of the senate committee on territories and helped mold legislation legislation that ma made e states both holh Incurred the enmity of powerful elements In their own o 0 0 party In Inthe Inthe Inthe the same way it may be he said that Beveridge had hud an understanding of Lincoln because both buth were skillful who became statesmen In Inthe Inthe the true truest t sense of the lie word and In hIs own disappointment In the arena of politics ne erl i ge could appreciate appreciate ate the disappointment which came cameto cameto cameto to Lincoln early In 10 his political Ca- Ca Career ca career reer reel So It seems entirely plausible that when a statesman looks at nt IAn Lin Lincoln coin coln especially at the period In Lin Lincoln's coins coln's life when the evolution e of ot the politician Into the statesman was taking as It was In fn the period which Be covers In his two volumes there should result an ade nde- adequate quate understanding of the forces which 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 accomplished accomplished his Ills task is In Itself a romantic one Several years ears ago oro noted principally as liS a brilliant orator and one of ot the outstanding person person- personalities personalities In the United States senate amazed mazed o the literary world with his volume volume two Life Iffe of John Marshall It was hailed hulled by scholars not as only one of the finest blu biographies that hUd had ever been heen written by hy an on American hut but as os a 11 noteworthy contribution to American history because e I had harl made n I sweeping and ma magnificent lent interpretation of the early days of the republic through the life of ot the great reat chief Justice just When in 10 ne e Ter su suffered d his final ap In politics s and saw that he had missed a n promised Inthis greatness In inthis this field of activity he lI again aln turned to writing and determined to take up again the thread of the American story Intel Interpreting r a 8 Inter later pha phase e of It than the Marshall phase se In terms of the career er of a man greater grealer even than Ihan Marshall Abraham Abraham Lincoln 01 f that ambitious project and what It Involved 01 1 Bowers says nys Needless to tn ft any Bay Mr Beveridge dlo not a approach PI roach his colossal task In the of If an Iconoclast nor In that of ofa oa a blind worshIper willing to prostitute has hs art a ne a biographer to th the of a myth We Wl have heard h him Mm say lIay that he would hardly have had the lire courage courne to undertake the Ihl task nt at all had he had the he slightest 1 conception n of 01 the with the held had bun been b n h d before II It was WIlS a task It meant weary eary months month with musty lil the long IoniC tt that thaI the of new of old let tern tel'S turning the Innumerable pages page of old yellowing newspapers and tra travel traveling vel ing over the continent on many II a fruitless as well 81 as fruitful journey Scarcely had he be begun when he was appalled at nt tho the discovery of how hO In- In Inadequately In Inadequately adequately the work had been done before Myth after myth faded out before his searchlight Thus quite ear eary he be said to the writer that thaI It If Ithe he Vere vera asked to speak on Lincoln he would decline I 1 do not know Just now what whitt I 1 think of ot Lincoln As he proceeded the task taRk grew In magnitude until at t limes times he be felt so 80 utterly discouraged that Hint he halt half wished to abandon It It Instead of or hav hay having ing leg before him the not too labori labori- laborious la laborious borl- borl Oil ous mission of ot a new Interpretation he be found himself confronted with the necessity of ot subjecting himself to the of ot pioneering for facts and he grimly buckled down to his Job ob One day he half halt seriously told Justice Jus Jus- Justice Justice tice Holmes a neighbor at Beverly erly farina that thai should he hear of ot till the and Ond Ing log Ing In the woods of or a haggard old man dead from exhaustion he would know lenow that It was a friend of his who had been foolish enough to attempt a aLite Life LiCe of ot Lincoln One Instance of the tUe painstaking labur la labor bur which Ue Beveridge e gave aH to 10 his hI monumental task ts Is that wherein he obtained his in Information about Un coins coin's career as a II member of the till lilt legislature Other biographers c Im e hurrle hurried o er this tills period because the only hand first on It Is contained In the Hie laU e r reports ports which are Included In several huge hue volumes printed In small t type pe and having ha no Index What hat Bev Beveridge ev e did was as to go to Springfield dl dig out ut these dust covered volumes and with the aid of u a glass go over o them all The result was Instead of ot a few hasty busty para paragraphs paragraphs paragraphs graphs such as other biographers have written about Lincoln the legis- legis legislator legis legislator lator Beveridge's study devotes Otes pages to this period whIch had bad a II vital Ilal importance In shaping the character and later career of ot Lincoln Another Instance lies Iles In the statement that thaI he wrote and rewrote the chapters of his books not once nor twice but many times One of them was le 15 times before he was wag satisfied d with It At this point the Hie pen of the writer stoPp stopped d lea ln leaving the chapter In Its first draft Such Is the statement made at the Hie end of ot the chapter on The fie Great Debate In the second volume of ot e Lincoln At the vol volumes Mr Ue elbow were umes of ot the Debates and Schurz's autobiography phy olen open at the pages es whence hence he tie had hind taken the last lust quota or references On the table n near ar notes his hand were the heaps of prepared for the chapter exl from rom letters newspapers s of conventions and 1 legislatures unit photostats of the more Impel lant manuscripts he lie had find found In lIu and private collection colle Fur For t hind stayed the hand of the great greal rn rapper lher of a n great t man In A April Ii l Albert Alhert J Be Bc Cil ridge died suddenly In Inthe inthe Inthe the prime of his life lite with his hits story half hulf told Barton noted 1 cola oln e has his well said of nt Rev Rev- s 's Lincoln Liac oln It U ends like t berts bert's Unfinished Symphony I I one of the greatest I tragedies in 10 literary history SIl says S 'S lowers Bowers who viii tribute fi to I I Beveridge pa pays s 's tills this final 1111 I the However we may rejoice e In realization that Ihal he lie tins liis tr ir or till the I first fitly fifty years of ot Lincoln's life that t which luis has never r been leen done doue before and I He lie IIII tins no other could do so 0 well and Lincoln U a I raked ral erl In III Ills his himself which will out outlast monument to tn last marble and anil before li his generations will pay homage hm to of line Ilie emus II as an un Interpreter lean spirit spirit- |