Devils Lake inter-ocean. (Devils Lake, Ramsey Co., Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1905, 1885-04-11
Handwriting Of Presidents.

In the executive Office of the senate,
writes a Washington correspondent to
The NeV York san. there are preserved
all the executive messages of presidents
of the United States from the founda-
ton of the government. Though not
often referred to, some Of these docu-
ments are becoming worn, and recent
ly Gen. McCook, the secretary of the
senate, caused selections to be made
from the files, with a view to prcserv-
ing some of the interesting autographs
in a cabinet by themselves. 1t appears
from this collection hat none of the
presidents, with the exception of Wash
ington and Jefferson, would be marked
above 50 for %penmanship by a civil
service commission. Washington's first
contribution to the collection embodies
nominations for judges, marshals, and
attorneys for the districts of New York
and New Jersey; and at the end of the
same documents are the nominations
of Thomas Jefferson, Edrnund Ran
dolph, and Samuel Osgood for sccre-
tary of state, attorney general, and
postmaster general, respectively. The
signature is written i'll a fair legiblc
hand, which would pass today for that
of a man not entirely caroless of APP
p%carances, yet having confidence
enough in his own work to let the de-
tails of penmanship lake care of them
selves.
MIR. Jefferson pennod his signature
with easy grace, but his economy of
space was such that his documents, as
a whole fall below the present standard
of clerical excellence. He wrote most
of his messages with his own hand.
In all of John Adams signatures the
small letters are more than an inch
long. In his message of July 2, 1898,
nominating Washington to b. lieutenant
general, an unsuccessful attempt APP
| pears to have been made to write the
whole document on the same ample
scale.
Mr. Madison wrote an irregular
hand, devoid of marked peculiarities.
Mr.. Monroe used a coarse pen and
wrote hesitatingly.
Andrew Jeckson's first message, da-
ted March 6, 1929, is an autograph do
cument throughout. and more than
any other ono of the series its style
seems characteristic of its author. Its
letters are angular and unsymmetrical,
but they are legible, and there is an air
of se~lf-assertion about the document
which eliminates in the emphatic un-
derscoring of the signature.
Martin Van Buren's hand was un-
steady when he penned his first mes
sage, but he wrote better the next day.
James X. Folks contribution to the
collection is an autograph message
penned in what would be taken for a
feminine hand, yet with few of the
graces of penmanship. His autograph
is rather ~pretentious, with a row of
dots and several cramped 1ourishes
beneath it.
Harrison's and Tyler's signatures
have no distinguishing characteristics.
Taylor and Lincoln each wrote firm
ly and legibly, but with extreme SIM
plicity and without any superfuous
marks. Willard Fillmore's signature
is very similar to theirs in character,
but rather smoother.
James B%uchanan's hand trembled
when he signed his first message, and
he made a failure of the elaborate
scroll-work attachment to his first
initial. Franklin Pierce wrote a sprawl
ing, ~schoolboy signature. Andrew
johnson started fairly upon the line,
tnen fell a little below it, but recovered
| himself at the end.