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Show : 1 j , v fv sj? V ASfi" W-J :'V-x jVVi -uyrXCayy xjOut focj?S,fas7 Stiff Jin Cbn-3rty i By ELMO SCOTT WATSON yN NLY about once in the ft v a proverbial "blue nioou" w vlw i3 tnere published a i My book which Is so Im- M portunt as to justify us irtrof M ln regarding Its appear-lfinnnr' appear-lfinnnr' ance as "news." In order I to deserve attention as .yyiJiJ a neW3 event, it usuully has to reveal some hitherto hith-erto unknown facts about a subject which Is of considerable Interest to a large number of people. In some 'ases a new biography will measure up to that standard, but It Is a com puratlvely rare occurrence for anything, any-thing, both new and of vital Importance, Impor-tance, to be discovered about a man great enough to answer the qualiflca tion of "considerable Interest to a large number of 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 Lincolniana has ) been so thoroughly combed that it !'es 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 lias been "news." In that news stories have been written about It. This ad l!linn to the store of knowledge about the Great Emancipator Is the two volume work written by the late Albert J. Keverldge, former Unlter" States senator from Indiana, under the title of "Abraham Lincoln, 1S09-3SriS," 1S09-3SriS," and published by the Houghton Mimin company. It Is a striking fact about this "Lincoln" that the literary critics have been unnnlmous ln pronouncing II the most Important study of Lin coin that has yet been written and one newspaper devoted no less than a full page to a review of It by a man of national prominence. He was 'Uiude O. Bowers, "keynoter," at the Pemocratlc national convention, at Houston, last year, a friend of Bev-pridgp Bev-pridgp and himself a biographer and hlslorlnn of renown. In his review he said: "it seems Incredible that we have had to wait for almost seventy yp;irs for a biography of Lincoln deal big adequately with the first fifty years of his life. The monumental bio-rraphy of Nlcolny and lay was written with frank partisanship and, worse still, under the critical eye of Ucliert Todd Lincoln, who. until the end of his long life, appeared more prone to concealment than to revela nil-Mi. The Ilerndon biography was UMlticstlonahly the most stnrkly hon-et hon-et hut lis very honesty damned It In the eyes of those who preferred to ilelfy rattier than to explain Its sub-Jeel. sub-Jeel. By that time we had entered upon the myth-making period, fol-low'd fol-low'd with a flood of biographies written In the spirit of extravagant praise, and the result has been that the Lincoln who lived before the de h"te has been comparatively unknown until now." S we have had the great number ol books on Lincoln written by every t.Me of person by biographers and professional historians, by teachers and preachers, by lawyers, by poets mid by novelists. And. as one re viewer has pointed out "Hitherto cery new book on Lincoln has boon So-and-so's conception of Lincoln. Senator Beveridge. however, undertook under-took to present, not Beverldge's Lincoln, Lin-coln, 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 by historian before. He writes : "There was probably a psychological reason for the Beveridge understand Ing of Douglas for there are some striking resemblances ln both the gifts 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 elements In their own party." In the same way it may be said that Beveridge had an understanding of Lincoln because both were skillful politicians who became statesmen In the truest sense of the word and in his own disappointment In the arena of politics, Beveridge could appreciate appreci-ate the disappointment which came to Lincoln early In his political career. ca-reer. So It seems entirely plausible that when "a statesman looks at Lincoln," Lin-coln," especially at the period In Lincoln's Lin-coln's life when the evolution of the politician into the statesman was taking place, as It was ln the period which Beveridge covers In his two volumes, there should result an adequate ade-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 accom-plished his task Is tn itself a romantic one. Several years ago Beveridge noted principally as a brilliant orator and one of the outstanding personalities person-alities In the United States sennte amazed the literary world with his two-volume "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 magnificent Interpretation of the early days of the republic through the life of the great chief justice. When in 11122 Beveridge suffered his final dlsap polntment ln 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 Inter phase of It than the Marshall phase In terms of the career of a man greater even than Marshall Abraham Lincoln. ()T that ambitious project and what it Involved. Bowers says; Needless to say, Mr. Beveridge did not approach his colossal task In the spirit of an Iconoclast; nor In that of a blind worahiper, willing to prostitute h,s art as a biographer to the preservation preser-vation of a myth We have heard him say that he would hardly have had lh conraife to undertake the task at all had he had the slightest conception of the superficiality with which the field had been searfhed before. tt was a tremendous task It meant weary months with musty manuscripts searching the long deserted avenues that promised the possibility of new light, examining thousands of old lt- The American association Is the only baseball league that has re miiined Intact since Its organization It was orminled 'JT years ;n Toledo dropped out tor three years, bill re turned. Karl Harry (Dutch) Clark. I'uehlo iiiartcrhnck. whose ball carrying aliil ilj made the mediocre Colorado col lec fool!. nil team feared i tircnhoui i lie Uockv .Mountain conference for two --ie.-isotiN lois heen named captain ol he l'.'J'.i eleven. ters, turning the Innumerable pages ol old, yellowing newspapers and traveling travel-ing 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 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 were asked to speak on Lincoln he would decline. '"1 do not know Just now what I think of Lincoln." As he proceeded, the task grew in magnitude until, at times, he felt so utterly discouraged that he half wished to abandon it. Instead of having hav-ing before him the not too laborious labori-ous mission of a new Interpretation, he found himself confronted with the necessity of subjecting himself to the hardships of pioneering for facts and he grimly buckled down to his Job. One day he half seriously told Justice Jus-tice Holmes, a neighbor at Beverly farms, that should he hear of the finding find-ing ln 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 he obtained his Information about Lincoln's Lin-coln's career as a member of the 1111 nois legislature. Other biographers have hurried over this period partly because the only first-hand informa tion on It Is contained in Che legislative legis-lative reports which are included in several huge volumes, printed in small type and having no Index. What Bev erldge did was to go to Springfield, dig out these dust-covered volumes 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 legislator, legis-lator, Beverldge's study devotes 137 pages to this period which had a vital Importance In shaping the character and Inter career of Lincoln. Another Instance lies In the statement that he wrote and rewrote the chapters of his books, not once, nor twice, but many times. One of them was rewritten 15 times before he was satisfied with it I "At this point the pen of the writer stopped, leaving the chapter In Its first draft." Such Is the statement niade at the end of the chapter on "The Great Debate" tn the second volume of Beverldge's Lincoln. "At Mr. Beverldge's elbow were the vol umes of the Debates and Schurz's autobiography, open at the pages whence he had taken the last quota tions 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 lie had found In public and private collection." For Deatt. had stayed the hand of the great biog rapher of a great man. In April, 1!:V7 Albert J. Beveridge died suddenly In the prime of li is life with his story half told. Barton, another noted I. In coin blograph r, has well said of Bev erldge's "Lincoln" "It ends like Schu bert's Unfinished Symphony.' "This Is one of the greatest tragedies In literary history," says Bowers whe pays this final trllmie to Bever'nlu; "However, we may rejoice In the realization that he has done for the first fifty years (of Lincoln's life) thai which has never been done before, and no other could do so well He 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 as an Interpreter of the Aomr lean spirit"" |