# The Lincoln–Douglas debates of 1858/Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV
REPORTING THE DEBATES
MR. HORACE WHITE
Mr. White, the official reporter of the Debates for the Chicago Press and Tribune, was born in New Hampshire in 1834. When three years of age, he was taken with the family to Wisconsin Territory, where the city of Beloit now stands. In 1849, Horace entered Beloit College, was graduated in 1853, and became a reporter on the Chicago Evening Journal. In 1857 he spent a short time in Kansas, returning to Chicago to become an editorial writer on the Chicago Press and Tribune. While holding this position, he was designated as chief correspondent to accompany Abraham Lincoln in 1858 on his campaign against Stephen A. Douglas for the United States senatorship.
The notable features of this campaign were given to the public chiefly through Mr. White's letters to the Chicago Tribune, and were subsequently condensed by him at the instance of William H. Herndon and published in the latter's Life of Lincoln (2d ed., D. Appleton & Co., New York). In 1861 Mr. White was sent to Washington as correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, and while there he filled successfully the places of clerk of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs and clerk in the War Department. In the latter capacity he was assigned to the special service of P. H. Watson, assistant secretary of war, and later of Edwin M. Stanton, secretary. In 1865 he became part owner and chief editor of the Chicago Tribune, which place he filled until September, 1874, ​when he resigned and was succeeded by Joseph Medill; he spent the year 1875 in Europe. In 1877 he removed to New York and became associated with Henry Villard in the latter 's railroad enterprises, especially that of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Co., of which he was treasurer for the next few years. In 1881 he joined with Mr. Villard in the purchase of the New York Evening Post, of which he became the president and one of the editors, in conjunction with Carl Schurz and Edwin L. Godkin. Mr. Schurz retired in 1884, Mr. Godkin in 1899, and Mr. White in 1903. Mr. White is best known by his contributions to the various campaigns for sound money that have been fought in the political arena since the close of the Civil War. In addition to his editorial work he has been a frequent contributor to the magazines and pamphlet literature of that period. He resides (1908) in New York City.
It was my good fortune to accompany Mr. Lincoln during his political campaign against Senator Douglas in 1858, not only at the joint debates but also at most of the smaller meetings where his competitor was not present. We traveled together many thousands of miles. I was in the employ of the Chicago Tribune, then called the Press and Tribune. Senator Douglas had entered upon his campaign with two short-hand reporters, James B. Sheridan and Henry Binmore, whose duty it was to "write it up" in the columns of the Chicago Times. The necessity of counteracting or matching that force became apparent very soon, and I was chosen to write up Mr. Lincoln's campaign.
HORACE WHITE
From a photograph made in 1854, and loaned by Mr. White, now a resident of New York City.
​who, after taking down the speech as carefully as Mr. Hitt had done, had gone to bed intending to write it out the next day, as was then customary.
All of the seven joint debates were reported by Mr. Hitt for the Tribune, the manuscript passing through my hands before going to the printers, but no changes were made by me except in a few cases where confusion on the platform, or the blowing of the wind, had caused some slight hiatus or evident mistake in catching the speaker's words. I could not resist the temptation to italicise a few passages in Mr. Lincoln 's speeches, where his manner of delivery had been especially emphatic.
Here [Ottawa] I was joined by Mr. Hitt and also by Mr. Chester P. Dewey of the New York Evening Post, who remained with us until the end of the campaign. Hither, also, came quite an army of young newspaper men, among whom was Henry Villard, in behalf of Forney's Philadelphia Press.
MR. ROBERT R. HITT
Robert Roberts Hitt was born in Urbana, Champaign County, Ohio, January 16, 1834. In 1837, the Hitts moved to Illinois and with their following settled in Ogle County, and established what became the village of Mount Morris. Educated at the Rock River Seminary at Mount Morris, an institution founded by his father and uncle, and later graduated from the Asbury (now Depauw) University of Indiana, the subject of this sketch trained himself in the art of phonography and in 1856 opened an office in Chicago and established himself as a court and newspaper shorthand reporter, the first expert stenographer permanently located in that city. His work as a stenographer first brought him into the notice of Abraham Lincoln, then practicing law, and later as a newspaper reporter in reporting the campaign speeches of Lincoln and other prominent orators of the day, including Douglas, Logan, Lovejoy, and indeed of all the great speakers of the Middle West of that time. During the Lincoln-Doug​las debates he was the verbatim reporter, receiving the highest praise from Mr. Lincoln for the accuracy of his work.
During the sessions of 1858, 1859, and 1860, Mr. Hitt was the official stenographer of the Illinois legislature, having the contract for both the senate and the house. In 1867 and 1868 he made a tour of Europe and Asia, daily taking down in shorthand notes his impressions of the peoples and conditions of the countries and places visited. Upon his return he was again employed by the government in confidential cases, including missions to Santo Domingo and to the southern states to investigate the Ku Klux Klan, after which he became private secretary to Senator O. P. Morton, and in December of the same year was appointed secretary of legation at Paris, by President Grant, which position he held for six years.
In 1880, upon the request of Mr. Blaine, then secretary of state, President Garfield appointed him assistant secretary, which position he resigned to become a candidate for Congress, to which he was elected in 1882. He served continuously from the Forty-eighth to the Fifty-eighth Congress. While serving his twelfth term, Mr. Hitt died on September 20, 1906 at Narragansett Pier, Rhode Island.
[Phonographic Magazine, VII, 205; June 1, 1893]
AN INTERVIEW WITH HON. R. R. HITT
When I was a lad of nearly fifteen, I saw some little pamphlets which were handed me by a man named Pickard, in 1850, in advocacy of phonetic reform, and it was through the advertisements in them that I procured the phonographic manuals. From these works I obtained enough knowledge of the principles and rules of shorthand to begin to use it.
ROBERT R. HITT
From a daguerreotype made in 1858, and loaned by Mrs. Hitt, of Washington, D C
​court cases. In 1858 the contest between Stephen A. Douglas and Mr. Lincoln for the Senate brought Mr. Lincoln into national view. Seven debates were arranged between them and I was employed to report them on the Republican side.
There was no one to assist in reporting but a young man named Laraminie from Montreal, who was a skillful reader of shorthand and could transcribe my notes with perfect accuracy. At Quincy, Illinois, where one of the debates was held, he took the train for Chicago, which left before the debate was finished, carrying with him my notes of the earlier part of the debate, and I first saw the work printed in a newspaper. Mr. Lincoln never saw the report of any of the debates. I mention this as it was often charged at that time in the fury of partisan warfare that Mr. Lincoln's speeches were doctored and almost re-written before they were printed; that this was necessary because he was so petty a creature in ability, in thought, in style, in speaking when compared with the matchless Douglas.
[New York Herald, May 29, 1904]
To tell the story of Mr. Hitt's public career with anything like completeness would require columns of space. He first came into the public eye just after he left college. He had learned the system of shorthand then in use and was probably the only stenographer in the West at that time who could take a speech verbatim as it was delivered from the rostrum.
Abraham Lincoln had heard of his rare accomplishment and made a requisition on the young man to report the Lincoln-Douglas debate at Freeport, Illinois. It is chronicled that when the debate was about to begin, Mr. Lincoln lifted his long form from a chair, looked out over the immense audience, and shouted, "Where's Hitt? Is Hitt present?"
The future representative and possible vice-president was far out on the edge of the crowd.
"Here I am, Mr. Lincoln," he cried, "but I can't get through this crowd to the stand". Whereupon strong men lifted the frail, slender young man into the air and passed him along over the heads of the crowd to the platform. Mr. Hitt took complete notes of the speech and afterward transcribed most of them himself. Some of Mr. Lincoln's political enemies, who had brought an indictment of illiteracy against the gaunt Illinois statesman, charged Mr. Hitt with "doctoring" the English of the speech, but he denied that he had taken any liberties}} ​with Lincoln's phraseology. . . . . His notes of the Lincoln-Douglas debates would be invaluable literary documents today, but he did not preserve them. . . . Because of the prestige growing out of his services in the Lincoln-Douglas debate, he was selected to make the official report of the trouble that arose in 1860 in the Department of Missouri under General Fremont.
HENRY BINMORE
Henty Binmore was born in London, England, September 23, 1833; educated in the schools of England and at Wickhall College, and came to Montreal, Canada, at the age of 16. He at once entered the profession of journalism and invented a system of phonographic reporting peculiar to himself. With it he was able to attain a desirable speed, but could not exchange reading with other systems. He continued at newspaper work in Montreal, New York, and St. Louis for several years, including a term as reporter in the Missouri state senate. In 1858 he was employed on the St. Louis Republican, a Douglas organ, and was sent to Illinois to report the triumphant home-coming of the senator. His reports appearing in the Republican showed such skill in his art that he was employed by the Chicago Times, the official newspaper of Douglas, to report the set debates with Lincoln. He shared this task with James B. Sheridan, a regular phonographic reporter, brought from Philadelphia.
HENRY BINMORE
From a contemporary photograph in the possession of the family, Chicago
JAMES B. SHERIDAN
The art of phonography was early developed in Philadelphia where was located a prominent school. Among its early disciples was Mr. Sheridan, who became a prominent reporter on Forney's Philadelphia Press. Forney espoused the cause of Douglas in his breach with Buchanan and when the senator entered upon his great canvass for re-election, Forney sent Sheridan to Illinois to follow the campaign. It was not the original intention to have him remain throughout the autumn, but the value of his services as a reporter was so evident that he was employed to take the debates for the Democratic Chicago Times, in connection with Mr. Binmore. He continued to write descriptive articles for the Press, many of the quotations from that paper printed in this volume being no doubt contributed by him.
At the close of the campaign, Sheridan went to New York, enlisted as a northern Democrat in the Civil War, attained the rank of colonel, and later became the official reporter of the New York Supreme Court. In 1875, he was elected justice of the Marine Court of New York City. He died about 1905.
Owing to the prevalent partisan feeling, there was complaint on both sides of unfairness in reporting the debates. Immediately after the appearance in print of the speeches in the first debate, each side accused the other of misrepresenting the ideas expressed by its spokesman. The Republican press claimed that Lincoln was not given a fair report, and the Democratic editors replied that Lincoln was by nature ungrammatical and uncouth in his utterances. It is true that the variations to be noted in Mr. Lincoln's speeches as reported in the Republican and in the Democratic papers decreased steadily throughout the ​campaign. Quite naturally the Democratic reporters did not exercise the same care in taking the utterances of Mr. Lincoln as with those of Mr. Douglas, and vice versa. Mr. White described later the difficulties under which the reporting was done—the open air, the rude platforms, the lack of accommodations for writing, the jostling of the crowds of people, and the occasional puffs of wind which played havoc with sheets of paper.
[Chicago Times, August 25, 1858]
LINCOLN'S SPEECH
We delayed the issue of our Sunday morning's paper some hours in order that we might publish in full the speeches of Lincoln and Douglas, at Ottawa. We had two phonographic reporters there to report these speeches. One of them (Mr. Sheridan) we have known personally for years, and know him to be one of the most accomplished phonographers in the United States Senate. The other (Mr. Binmore) is reputed to be a most excellent reporter, and having had occasion to mark the manner in which he has on several occasions executed his duty, we are satisfied that he is not only a competent but a most faithful reporter. These two gentlemen reported the two speeches, and they, shortly after their arrival in Chicago from Ottawa, commenced transcribing the speeches from their notes. We publish both speeches as they were furnished us by the reporters.
THE SPEECHES AT OTTAWA
Another Gross Charge.—Dialectics, Logic, and Other Things
JAMES B. SHERIDAN
From a photograph in the possession of Mrs. Sheridan, New York, made about 1857
​there is no earthly probability—he will have to do that; in the congressional arena, the words of debaters are snatched from their lips, as it were, and immediately enter into and become a permanent part of the literature of the country. But it seems, from the difference between the two versions of Lincoln's speech, that the Republicans have a candidate for the Senate of whose bad rhetoric and horrible jargon they are ashamed, upon which before they would publish it, they called a council of "literary" men, to discuss, re-construct and re-write; they dare not allow Lincoln to go into print in his own dress; and abuse us, the Times, for reporting him literally.
We also printed Senator Douglas literally. Our accomplished reporters alone are responsible to us for the accuracy of our version of both speeches. There is no orator in America more correct in rhetoric, more clear in ideas, more direct in purpose, in all his public addresses, than Stephen A. Douglas. That this is so, is not our fault, but rather it is the pride of the Democracy of Illinois and of the Union.
[Galesburg, Ill., Democrat, October 13, 1858]
OUTRAGEOUS FRAUDS
One Hundred and Eighty Mutilations Made in Lincoln's Speech by The Chicago Times! !
{{smaller block|We had heard of the numerous frauds to which the Douglas party resort to mislead the public mind, beginning with the forgery of the platform at Ottawa and ending with Douglas' declaration that Mr. Lincoln is hired by the Illinois Central Railroad Company, at $5,000 per year, to cheat the State of its 7 per cent, dividends of the earnings of the Road (the very post occupied by Mr. Douglas), but were not prepared for such rascality as is exhibited in the Times' report of the debate in this place. There is scarcely a correctly reported paragraph in the whole speech! Many sentences are dropped out which were absolutely necessary for the sense; many are transposed so as to read wrong end first; many are made to read exactly the opposite of the orator's intention, and the whole aim has been to blunt the keen edge of Mr. Lincoln's wit, to mar the beauty of his most eloquent passages, and make him talk like a booby, a half-witted numbskull. By placing him thus before their readers they hope to disgust the people with Mr. Lincoln, and at least keep them at home if they do not vote for Douglas. Even that beautiful apostrophe, quoted from the "Revered ​Clay," as Douglas hypocritically called him at the Bancroft House, could not go unmutilated.
We have taken the pains to go over the reports of the speeches carefully and note the material alterations—saying nothing of long passages, where the Times' Reporter appeared to aim only at the sense, without giving the language—and find that the number One Hundred and Eighty!
We believe that an action for libel would hold against these villians, and they richly deserve the prosecution.
[Chicago Times, October 12, 1858]
GARBLING SPEECHES.—THE OLD CHARGE
We do not mean, by this remark, to cast any imputation of unfairness on Mr. Hitt, the reporter for the Press and Tribune; such imputation would be unjust, as we have reason to believe. Our controversy is not with the reporter at all; for even if he should maltreat Senator Douglas' speeches, he would do so under instructions; he being the employee of our neighbor, he could not relieve the editors of the odium of the fact. But such are the facts; we give them, not because we feel very deeply on this point, but to put the public right with regard to them. We can prove their proof by Mr. Hitt himself, if he will go upon the stand under oath. Even, however, after Senator Douglas' speeches are marred—by striking out words, here and there, by mangling sentences to hide their meaning, by mis-punctuations, etc. etc.—and after re-writing and polishing the speeches of Lincoln, those of Douglas so much excelled those of his opponent, in all respects, that we cannot find it in our hearts to complain much. Poor Lincoln requires some such advantage—though it be mean—in his contest with the irresistible advocate of liberal principles—the acknowledged champion of living principles in Illinois.
[The Daily Whig, Quincy, Ill., October 16, 1858]
Douglas carries around with him a reporter by the name of Sheridan whose business it is to garble the speeches of Mr. Lincoln, and amend and elaborate those of Douglas, for the Times. As almost everybody present on Wednesday could hear Mr. Lincoln distinctly, and not a hundred in the crowd could understand Douglas, we are curious to see the report that this fellow Sheridan will give of the speeches. Our word for it, he will serve his master to the best of his ability, and lie about the whole proceedings.
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