The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-09
THE LINCOLN ESTATE.
A BIT OF HISTORY ON vExED QUESTION

The Washington correspondent of the Pitts
burg Chronicle publishes the following in re-
ference to Mr.. Lincoln estate and the cir
cumstances which made his widow SO urgent
for pension:-
The schedule Of the administrator, filed in
the Office of the Clerk of the county of San
canon, in the State of Illinois, shows an ag-
gregate of eighty-fve thousand dollars. Fiji
ty-seven thousand dollars in registered bonds,
bearing six per cent. in coin. In temporary
loan, bearing six per cent. in currency, two
thousand eight hundred and seventy-One, In
Treasury warrants, issued to him for
salary and not paid, nearly eight
thousand dollars. Deposits in bank, about
eighteen hundred dollars; several thousand
dollars in collections; added to which the
salary appropriated by Congress after his
death makes a total showing of about
$1,000 of cash assets. Then there we're the
homestead at Springfield, some unpaid notes,
and some unproductive lands. All this was
the result of Mr.. Lincoln's prudence. Some
of it he had accumulated before he became
President, but the bulk of it was saved from
his Executive emoluments. There were three
rightful inheritors of this property: Mary
Lincoln, his widow; Robert Lincoln and
| Thomas Lincoln, his children. The third part
of it, the widows legal share, amounted to
nearly $37, 900 in money, besides her interest
in the real property, which was not imme-
diately available. What troubled some men,
bers of Congress, and a great many persons
who were only possessed of these bare facts
was that Mrs. Lincoln should not regard her
| self as a happy and somewhat afiuent
woman, with such sum Of money
at her disposal. Very soon after Mr.
Lincclns DEATH great pains were
taken to show how provident he had been,
and the Springfield Republican, printed at
his Illinois home, took the pains to make
somewhat imposing exhibition of the prospe-
rous condition of his estate, for the purpose,
as it piousy expressed it, mot of deterring
Congress from making further appropria-
ton for her support, but simply in order that
the people of the nation may not suppose
that Mrs. Lincoln is in anything like destitute
circumstances"
Yet by the death of her husband Mrs. Lin
coin was placed not only in destitute but ex-
ceedingly embarrassing circumstances. She
was in debt to far greater amount than her
share of the property could pay, and she pre-
ferred to sacrifice all she had to bringing re-
proach upon her husbands memory by
her own financial delinquency. To what
extent she was censurable for this ex-
isting state of affairs is question
that need not be criticised with fastidious
exaction. Her personal expenses, if we
may Judge from her predecessors and from
her immediate successor, were necessarily
|
| spending her husbands money, because what
| he had accumulated before he became Presi-
dent was kept intact, and his subsequent
revenues were carefully boarded. 1t was
not, therefore, extraordinary that, in the
course of a four years experience as
mistress of ceremonies at the Presi-
dental mansion, she should incur debts
for want Of better way to supply the indis-
pensable demands of fashion, based, as they
! dam IoI1x hot lao
slime -honored CUSTOM" She had reason to
hope that the revolving machinery of time
would turn something up that would avail to
her relief; but the premature death of the
President frustrated all her plans for extri-
cation from financial difficulty. IL
may have been, or we will admit
without qualification was, wrong for her to
incur obligations without her husbands
knowledge; but she had no other alternative
to make respectable appearance as the wife
of the President, which she could not do
without comparatively an immense cost. 1t
is barely possible, too, that he was cognizant
of all the facts, and that there was a conf
Dental understanding between them that
would have avoided scandal and difficulty but
for the sacrifice of his life.
1t is but just to Mr.. Lincoln, who had
always lived in anity with his wife, and who
claimed that she possessed some qualities that
take this charitable view of subject that
has been freely discussed, and that mainly to
the advantage of the surviving party.
When Mr.. Lincoln was elected he was in
moderate circumstances He was not en-
riched by fabulous gratuities and his term
of Office extended through years that imposed
such burden upon him as no other Presi-
dent of this Republic has ever borne. While
he was oppressed with anxious care, the
shoddyites were enrichlng themselves, and
inaugurating q system of eXtravagance, the
blighting consequences of which it will take
the country years TO recover from All the
tom-foolery that il was possible to devise was
enacted at Washington; the White House was
the headquarters tor the most eXtravagant
exhibitions, and the men who have most
severely condemned Mrs. Lincoln were actors
in them. If she was extravagant she was
tempted and driven to it, and her fault al
last seems to have been that she surrendered
her last dollar in payment for her folly
With all her excessive outlays for wardrobe:
! she never imported garment, aud abou
the most imprudent thing she did was Il
employ as her dressmRker garrulous negro
woman, who treasured her secrets and found
somebody mean enough to make book o.
them.
In view of the fact that this unfortunate
lady has been charged with being Rebel
, which she was not-with carrying off tn,
household valuables of the White House, whicl
she did not-and with trying to pay he
. debts by the sale of her clothes, which tn
hue and cry prevented-it is but REASONABLY
to hope that she viii be allowed 20 enjoy tn
, little pension Congress has grudgingly given
= and that Congress, in seeking to avoid mis-
! anplicalions of its appropriations will in al