Show ea by ELMO SCOTT WATSON about once to the proverbial blue moon is there published a book which Is am as to justify us in regarding ats appear ance as news in order to deserve attention as a news event it usually has to reveal some hith arto erto unknown facts about a subject which Is of considerable interest to a large number of people in some casee a new biography will measure up to that standard but it Is a corn rare occurrence for any thing both new and of vital tance to be discovered about a man great enough to answer the alon of considerable interest to a large number ef people in america about the only men of whom this would be true would be washington and lincoln there have been so many books written about abraham lincoln the number runs into the hundreds and the whole field of LIncoln lana has been so thoroughly combed that it does not seem possible to discover anything new about mm nor Is it likely that a new lincoln bool woula ordinarily excite more than basuil interest and discussion however within recent months there has appeared a new work on lincoln which has been news in that news stories have been written about it this ad dialon to the etore of knowledge about the great emancipator Is the two volume work written by the late albert J beveridge Beverl dge former states senator from indiana ander the title of abraham lincoln and published by the houghton company it Is a striking tact 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 one newspaper devoted no ess than a full page to a review of t by a roan ef prominence lie wa claude G bowers re moter at the democratic national convention at houston last year a friend of bev 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 bis life the monumental biography of mcclay and was written with frank partisanship and worse still under the critical eye of todd lincoln who until the end of his long life appeared more prone to concealment than to cevela atlon the biography was unquestionably the most starkly hon est but its very honesty damned it in the eyes of those who preferred to deify rather than to explain its subject by that time we had entered upon the myth a period fol lowed with a flood of biographies written in the spirit of extravagant praise and the result has been eliat the lincoln who lived before the debate has been comparatively unknown until now so we have had the groat 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 reviewer has out hitherto every new bok on lincoln has been so and so s conception of lincoln senator beveridge Beverl dge however under took to present not lan coin but lincoln hat Is more beveridge Beverl dge did what he started out to do now does tt happen then that the real lincoln has at last been revealed bv a biographer perhaps the answer can be found in a statement by mr bowers in which he commented upon the fact that beveridge Beverl dge does justice to the true greatness of stephen A douglas as it has never been done by historian before writes there was probably a psychological reason for the beveridge Beverl dge understand ing of douglas for there are sume resemblances in both the gifts and careers of the two men both were orators fighters possessed of dash and a certain of 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 elements in their own party in the same way it may be said that had an understanding of lincoln because both were politicians who became statesmen in the truest sense of the word and in his own disappointment in the arena of politics beveridge Beverl dge could ate the disappointment which came to lincoln early in his political ca reer so it seems entirely plausible that a hen a statesman looks at lin coin 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 Beverl dge covers in his two volumes there should result an adequate understanding of the force which were shaping his life and which were to make him the great min that be was the story of how this latest lin coin biographer set about and accola his task Is in itself a romantic one several years ago beveridge Beverl dge noted principally as a brilliant orator and one of the outstanding person in the united states senate amazed the literary world with his two volume life of job marshall it was hailed by scholars not ai onla one of the finest biographies that had ever been written by an american but as a noteworthy contribution to american history because beveridge Beverl dge had made a sweeping and magnificent interpretation of the early days of the republic through the life of the areat chief justice when in 1022 beveridge suffered his final in politics and saw that he had missed a promised greatness in his 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 marshill marsh ill abraham of that ambitious project and what it involved bowers says needles to eay clr ata not approach hie colossal task tn the cirit of an iconoclast nor in that of a blind worshiper willing to prostitute h art as a biographer to the preservation of a myth we have heard him eay that be would hardly have had hi courage to undertake the task at all had he had the conception of the with which the held bad been before it waa a tremendous task it meant weary months with musty manuscript searching the long deserted venues that promised the of new light examining thousands of old let turning pages 01 old yellowing newspapers and travel ing over the continent on many fruitless as well as fruitful journey scarcely had he begun when he waa appalled at the discovery of how in adequately the work had been done before myth after myth faded out before his searchlight thus quite early he said to the writer that if he vere asked to on lincoln he would decline 1 I do not know lust now what I 1 think of lincoln aa he proceeded the task grew in magnitude until at times he felt so utterly discouraged that he halt wished to abandon it instead of having before him the not too laborious mission of a new interpretation be found himself confronted with the necessity of subjecting himself to the hardships of pioneering tr facts and he grimly buckled down to his job one day be half seriously bcd jus tice helmts a neighbor at beverly farms that should be hear of the find ing in the woods of a haggard old man dead from he would know that it was a friend of his who had been foolish enough to attempt a lite of lincoln one instance of the painstaking la bor which beverlee Beverl de gave to his monumental task is that herein be obtained his information about lin coins career as a member of the 1111 legislature other biographer have hurried over this period partly bt cause the only first hand In forina alon on it Is contained in the legis reports which are included in several huge volumes printed in small type and having no index what bev erade did was to go to springfield dig out these dust covered volume 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 have written about I 1 lincoln the legis lator study devotes pages to this period which had a vital importance in shaping the character and later career of lincoln another instance lies in the statement that be arote and rewrote the chapters of bla books not once nor twice but many times one of them was rewritten 15 times before he was satisfied with at this point the pen of the writer stopped leaving the chapter in its first draft such Is the statement made at the end of the chapter on the great debate in the second volume of lincoln at ur elbow were the vol umes of the debates and schulze ze autobiography open at the pages whence be had taken the last quota alons 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 photo stats of the more important manuscripts he had found in public and private collection for death and stayed the hand of the great blog anpher of a great man in april 1027 albert J beveridge Beverl dge died suddenly to the prime of hia life with his story half told barton another noted un coin bolograph blo graph r has well said of bev s I 1 lincoln it ends tike berts unfinished symphony this Is one of the greatest tragedies in history says bowers who pays this final tribute to beveridge Beverl dge however we may rejoice in the realization realisation that he has done for the first fifty years of lincoln s life that which has never been done before and no other could do so well lie has raised in his marshall and lincoln a monument to himself which will out last marble and before which future generations will pay homage to his genius a an interpreter of the amer lean spirit |