Show t nancy N cy hanks hears news of her son by ELMO SCOTT WATSON released Belea jed by western newspaper union the countless tributes paid to abraham lincoln are several written by newspaper men which have become newsy newspaper aper classics i 1 e pieces of prose that so caught the public fancy as to result in frequent requests that they be reprinted in the newspaper in which they originally appeared outstanding among these is an imaginary conversation between Lincol ns mother nancy hanks lincoln and a personification of the present it was written in 1914 for the boston herald by robert lincoln obrien at that time editor of the herald from 1931 to 1937 chairman of the united states tariff commission and now publisher of the cape cod colonial at hyannis mass it reads as follows nancy hanks I 1 see the calendar says it is 1914 nearly a con cen tury after my life in the world ended pray tell me a spirit P irit of the present whether anyone mortal remembers that I 1 ever lived or knows my place of burial the present oh yes there is a monument over your grave at pigeon creek A man named studebaker of south bend ind went there in 1879 and spent 1000 in marking it nancy hanks what do you mean more money than I 1 ever saw in my life spent on my grave more than sixty years after I 1 had made it I 1 was he a rich descendant of mine the present he was no relative of yours As a matter of fact citizen he thought your grave ought to be marked twenty three years later the state of indiana erected a massive monument in your honor school children marched in procession when it was dedicated the governor of the state now one of the great commonwealths of the union was there while a distinguished general from afar delivered the principal oration this monument cost a larger fortune than you ever knew anyone to possess more people than you ever saw together at one time assembled and on the pedestal in raised letters one may read nancy hanks lincoln can there be any mistake about that nancy y hanks what is this wonder of wonders I 1 realize that my mortal remains in a rough pine box were buried under the trees at pigeon creek and that no minister of religion was there to say even a prayer I 1 supposed that it if anybody in all this earth of yours would be surely forgotten and soon forgotten it would be nancy hanks the plain woman of the wilderness my life was short of only years and in it I 1 saw little of f the great world and kne knew w little of it and on going out had little further to expect from it so I 1 pray break to me the meaning of this appalling my mystery steryl the present this is the of february nancy hanks that was the birthday of my little boy a slender awkward fellow who used every night to climb a ladder of wooden pins driven into a log up into a bed of leaves in the loft and there to dream whatever became of that sad little boy lie he was not very well when I 1 left him all that winter he seemed alling ailing I 1 hated to go away I 1 was afraid his father could not give the care that the frail little fellow needed did you ever hear what became of my little nine year old boy out aut in the woods of pigeon creek the present of course I 1 have heard what became of him few have not the people who could answer your question number hundreds of minions millions today there is no land and no tongue in which the information you seek could not be supplied and usually by the man in the street actual millions of people know that the of february was the day you welcomed into your cabin in the frontier wilderness that little boy his birthday in twenty two states of the union including the imperial state of new york has become a legal holi holiday dayi most atthe others hold some commemorative exercises when the great financial market barkei of the world opened in london this morning it wis was with the knowledge that the united states of america the great republic over the seas 0 would record no stock transact eions this day T the e words no market Lincol L C 0 ns birthday travel on ocean cables under every sea and business in the great buildings forty stories high of new york city has paused today so it does at ft dearborn you remember on lake michigan now one afi of the foremost cities of the world nancy hanks pray tell me more of the miracle mirable of my little J el 1 IN 6 X 1 at 1110 R f am i ik I 1 0 K 1 R I 1 V it 1 fr 0 A 1 0 Z ga rj jal f aw ANY mews DOWN T VI llave p F SQUIRE Mci eAN cone T T see SON IN AN OC 01 SPELLMAN 0 0 TELLS BONAPARTE FELLA HAS CAPTURED MOST moar d 0 SPA SPAIN I 1 ra NEW OUT UT NEI T NUTH IN ATALL A TALL nuthie i auff capt A ri new ew basy aown r TOM LIN LINCOLN edep happens our BY r abut fasy P rd aj riad cb Y this cartoon titled hardin county 1809 is also a newspaper New classic drawn by n H T webster it was first printed in 1918 in the th kansas cansas city star and other newspapers receiving the syndicate ice ce of the press publishing company new york world every year yea since ince then it has been reprinted in the star at the request of readers boys life I 1 cannot wait to hear what it all means t the present if y you ou had one copy of every book that has been written about him you would have a larger library than you ever saw in your mortal life if you had visited every city which has reared his statue you would be more widely traveled than any person that you ever saw the journey would take you to several european capitals every possible work that he ever wrote every speech he ever made every document he ever penned h has s been collected and these have all been printed in sets of books with a fullness such as has been accorded to the die works of only a few children of men you could count on the fingers of two hands and perhaps of one the men in all S A 1 ma il 1 41 1 P 1 a I 1 ROBERT LINCOLN OBRIEN secular history who so vitally appeal P eal to the imagination of mankind today nancy hanks and so my little boy came carne into all this glory in his bis Iffet lifetime imel the present oh no he died at fifty six as unaware of how the world would eventually regard him as old christopher columbus himself A few months before his death he expected soon to be thrown out of the position he be was holding and so he wrote a letter telling how he should strive to help his successor to carry out the unfinished work your little boy saw so little to indicate the place that time has accorded him his widow was was hardly able to get from congress a pension large enough for comfortable support and yet that same body in less than a half century appropriates two million dollars stop to think of that for a national monument in his honor and on plans so elaborate as to call eventually for far more than this surn sum but I 1 could tell you only half the story men have retired from business to go into solitude to study his life others have been madi made famous by reason of having known him adnew a new york financier who had known the high life of the world mini min i gung gling with the princes and states men 0 of nearly every land nd on his seventieth birthday his friends gave him a complimentary din ner he chatted to them of what he had seen and where he had been but he dismissed an all the honors of the big world by saying that the one thing that remained most worth while in his threescore years and ten was that he had shaken hands and conversed in private audience with your little boy whom this cosmopolite pictured as leading the procession of the immortals down the centuries nancy hanks this is beyond me I 1 am lost in mystery and amazement what did my bo boy y that earnest sad little fellow of the woods 2 and nd streams stream do to make men feel this way how did it all come about the present that might be as s hard for you to understand without a knowledge of what has taken place in the meantime as the skyscrapers and tie the ocean cab cables es and railroad trains that I 1 have spoken about but I 1 will try to tell you something of what whai he has done nancy hanks 1 I am hanging banging on your words I 1 long loag to hear the story the present we have in the united states a great democracy we are making a great experiment for the nations your little boy gave friends of democracy the world over the largest measure of confidence in its permanency and success of any man that haseker ha has sever ever lived more than a million people a year now pour into the united states from lands beyond the seas most of them unfamiliar with our language and our customs and our aims when we americans who are older by a few generations go out to meet them we taki take as the supreme example of what we mean by our great experiment the life of abraham lincoln and when we are ourselves tempted in the mad complexity of our material civill civilization to disregard the pristine ideals of the republic we see his gaunt figure standing before us and his outstretched arm pointing to the straighter and simpler path of righteousness foche for he was a liberator of men in bondage he was a savior of his country he w was as a bright and shining light he became president president of the united states but that affords small clue to his real distinction few Ar americans ns ever refer to him as president lincoln in the idiom of our people he is abraham lincoln called bythe name you gave him in the wilderness gloom to that name of your choosing no titles that the vain world knows could add anything of honor or distinction and today from the atlantic to the pacific seas and in places under distant skies children win will recite in their schools hi swords men will gather about banquet boards to refresh their ideals by hearing anew soine some phase of h his s wonderful story our nation could get along without some of its territory without millions of its people without masses of its hoarded wealth but it would be poor indeed were it to wake up on en t this his morning of abe th twentieth century without the memory of abraham lincoln one of the really priceless possessions of the republic to the list of newspaper classics associated with Lincol ns birthday should bearded be added another true it appeared first ina in a book but it hits has been reprinted by request in the papers so many times that it rates as a newspaper classic it was written by rosemary to and stephen vincent benet and was included in their A book of americans published by farrar and rinehart in 1933 its subject is NANCY HANKS it if nancy hanks flanks came back as a ghost seeking news of 0 what she loved most shed ask first t wheres my son W what h ai ha happened opened to abe w h he done poor little abe left all alone except tor for tom chos a rolling roiling stones stone he was only nine the y year e a r I 1 I 1 died I 1 remember the still asole died H how w h hard a r d he c cried scraping along in a little shack with hardly a shirt T to cover his back and ad scover a prairie wind to blow him down or pin chirs times time it if he ha went to town you know about my son did he grow tall did he have fun on did he learn to read did he get to town do D you know his name did he get on soon son after A book of americans appeared and the reprinting of nancy hanka began D R graff a contributor to franklin P adams column the conning tower then appearing in the new york herald tribune wrote this v REPLY TO THE GHOST of NANCY NANCT HANKS I 1 remember your son whose bony hands lett left a pow plow to rest red in prairie sands lends and c came e to town in hi hla alu sunday aday suit wearing torn toms hat and shirt to boot he got a job in a grocers store W eichin ln out beans A and d sweep w ln th the 0 floor then he bo bought leather boots boon 0 for o r his awkward awkward feet and practiced law in the county seat he studied hard almost every night till the pages blurred beneath be n eath the candle light yo ud have smiled in your pioneer way to see him sn about henry clay and hear him talk in a low pitched tone to a bed and a table in ina a room all alone when hed think of you before goin to sleep hed pray the lord your soul to keep and hed see your face when the drip through that the quiet biet hours hour ot of a flatboat trip r P did he have fun yes in his youth and hed often laugh in a way uncouth but in later years when his road was steep he kept his laughter way down deep did he grow tall A goodsil good six feet with a roomy chest where a stout heart beat with hairy hands to 9 grip r P a plow and a b blacksmiths fists that cd stun at un a cow did he get on it if what you mean mea n Is a white frame fearn house ho in a yard of green green or money to buy A bottomland bott bottons land farm or store bought clothes to keep him warm or the extra horse so he could ride along country roads with his village bride well gettin on like that his way he gauge success by the bales of hay Is y or the cords of wk wood A man can buy or ac acres es he owns in W wheat h eat or rye he d ant care for wealth in gold but tor for wealth in love that a heart could hold bold your son abe was of different clay hed forget to ask i his HI rightful pay As a lawyer should wh when en he wins a case and the right prevails prevail against the base he made his way by a different road and his shoulders carried A heavy load while cannon belched and generals led gaunt gray troops troop of marching dead while tear fear crazed boys boy slogged clogged through mud and were flecked with blood while sherman rode through a southern street and anda a drummer rummer died in a field of wheat wheal yes abe got on though few can ten how he h ever lived through the I 1 w wars rs black hell bell and d he be died a at it last in a presidents bed while the nation mourned its it departed dead so if youre tie the ghost of nancy hanks find abe there where armor clanks blanks and see sea his face it if you cere care to look for nil his eyes will on smile ondie die with a godlike god like look another poem dedicated to nanc nancy y hanks which is frequently frequez aly reprinted was written by kate mcvey park and first appeared in the christian advocate it is MOTHER OP OF LINCOLN mother of lincoln in thy lonely sleep rest thou content with what thy brief life wrought rest for colonger no longer thou vainly weep w ee P bereft bere ft of fortune and to sorrow morrow brought what though strange yearnings filled thy hungering soul in the blind struggle of those years forlorn fate hath bath revealed the glory of thy goal for what immortal purpose thou wert w eja born rest though men honor not thy lonely grave conte content tornow to know to oo tribute of thine own handmaid hand maid mald of destiny to whom ye e ga gave flesh of thy flesh and bone if of thi thine 11 Is own bone would that thy silent UPS lips could ten tell us when this needy earth shall know thy like agaibi |