The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-05-08
vILLARp oN LrNcoLN.


 Henry Willard in his Memoirs as a Journalist and Financier has sundry recollections of Lincoln. The nature df the revelations he makes have been none too cordially received at the North. villards critics seem to think he told some things that might have been better left unsaid. It was in this way that Ward Lannon's book on Lin- coin was received. We have heard even, Lamon did not dare finish his biz ography because of the hostility the first and only volume aroused. We be- lieve though the better opinion is that William H. Herndon. Lincoin's former law partner at Springfield, had no more material for sale and so perforce La- mon left the life incomplete. It re- mains the most satisfactory biography of Lincoln for the period 1t covers, pre- cisely because 1t sets down the plain unvarnished truth. We have some times thought Lincoln when under stood at all, is better understood by Southerners than by Northerners. He was . Southern man transplanted to a Western prairie soil. Growing up amidst the meanest and most improv- ident surroundings. he gradually through one make-shift after another shaped his career into that of coun- try lawyer. When he had acquired some distinction at the bar he was willing at any time to form partner ship with younger man in some other County than his own. if there was g. promise of getting few more trial causes on his fee book. This type was a thoroughly familiar one all through the South during that period. Lamon reveals Lincoln. as an antithesis to the romantic character the fulsome and iong-winded eulogy of Nicoiay ahd Hay declares him to have been. Lamon aids one's understanding of the man; Nicolay and Hay confuses the under standing.
 Henry Willard in telling what he has done about Lincoln during the period of his struggle with Douglas for su- premacy in Illinois. severly taxes the comprehension of the Northerner. We believe any Southerner can instantly. for example, grasp the true inward ness" of the freight car symposium be- tween Lincoln and Willard. Here 1t is:
 He and I met accidentally. about g o'clock on a hot, sultry evening, at a flag railroad station about twenty miles west of Springfield. on my return Menard County. He had been driven to the station in a buggy, and left there alone. I was already there. The train that we intended to take for Springfield for half an hour for its arrival, a thun- derstorm compelled us to take refuge in an empty freight car standing on g. sny sort at be no a % down on the floor of the car and fell to talking on all sorts of subjects. It was then and there he told me that store, his highest political ambition was to be member of the State Leg islature. Since then. of course" he said. laughingly. T have grown some. ness (meaning the canvass.) I did not consider myself qualified for the Uni ted States Senate. and 1t took me a was. Now. to be sure" he continued. with another of his peculiar laughs, T am convinced that I am good enough for 1t: but. in spite of it all. l am say big a thing for you; you will never get 1t, Mary (his wife) insists. how ever, that I am going to be Senator and President of the United States. too" These last words he followed with roar of laughter. with his arms around his knees, and shaking all over with mirth at his wife's ambition, Just think" he exclaimed, ''of such a sucker as me as President"
 He then fell to asking questions re garding my antecedents, and expressed some surprise at my fluent use of Eng fish after so short a residence in the know whether 1t was true that most os the educated people in Germany were "infidels." I answered that they were not openly professed infidels. but such conclusion might be drawn from the fact that most of them were not churchgoers, .s~x do not wonder at that" ts.'rejoined: "my own inclination IS tr ar way" I ventured to give ex- IFession to my own disbelief in the doc Urine of the Christian church relative to the existence of God. the divinity of Christ ana immortality. This led him to put other questions to me to | draw me out. He did not commit him self, but l received the impression that | ne was Of my own way of thinking.