The Alaska citizen., 1911-04-17

SblHe county 'il't. anu Nd9 ''tt- siderably interlined with pencil marks.
 Two hours later found mysel. in the senate chamber. witnessing the oath of office administered tn Vice ce-President-EleCt Hannibal Ham lin. and listening to his brief speech. Then. keeping close 10 Mir. Lincoln. l followed the cortege through the long passageway and across the TO. tunda to the east pOrticO. where a special wooden platform had been erected
 Mir. Lincoln was tall and ungain- ly. wearing a black suit. black lie beneath a turndOwn collar. and a black silk hat He carried gold or silver headed walking cane. A We came out into the open and upon the temporary stand. where there was table containing a Bible. a pitcher and glass of water. he drew from his breast pocket the manuscript l had seen him reading at the hotel, laid this before him, placing the cane upon 1t as a paper weight. removed from their leather ease his steel-rimmed spectacles, and raised his hand he was exceedingly deliberate aEd composed-to remove his hat.
 As he did so. I lifted my hand to receive il; but Judge Douglas. who stood at my side, reached over my arm. took the hal, and held f during the delivery of the inaugural address. which followed.
 Ills gelf.possessiCn vas perfect. Dignity herself could not have be n more unexcited His voice was a little high.pitched. but resonant reaching to the outer friuges oI the serious to the point of gravity, not a sCintillatiOH of hunUr.
 Notwithstanding the campaign pictures showing Lincoln Hs bCor was prepared to expect much Judge Douglas had said to me, upon his return to Washington after the famous campaign or iHGJ for the Illinois senatorship, from which the Little Giant" had come off victor He is the greatest debatcr l have ever met. either here or anywhere else
 He delivered that inaugural ad dress as if he had been delivering inaugural addresses all his life. To me II meant war.
 As the crowd upon the portica dispersed back into the capitol was wedged between John Bell, oi Tennessee. and Reverdy Johnson, oi Maryland each tcok me by the arm and We sat down upon bench just inside Of the rCtunda. They were very optimistic. There would be no war, no fight; the Ir@uhle- would be tided over; the country was still safe.
 was boy. just one and tWeH'! They were the two ablcst and most renowned of the surviving Whi5 leaders Of the school Of Clay and Webster, one of them just defeated for president in the preceding cleo tion. Their talk made me marvel greatly, for to my mind there seem ed no escape from the armed col lision of the sections.
 There Is in youth prophetic ln stinct which grows duller with adj vancing years. As lcok behind | not only bear this ill mind, illus trated by the talk of those two veteran statesmen that day in the rOtunda of the capitol at Washing ton, but I feel it and realize II, so that I am much less confident with lifetime of experience 10 guide me. than l was when buoycd by II hr4Na:-I lnr 1let the inspiration of youth.
 The next three months l saw and heard MT Lincoln often In public and on several occasions was thrown with him in private companies. lie looked the picture Of health. Ser entity, however, not levity, was the prevailing mood with him.
 To me he seemed a wholly reso- lute man. There was in his habit ual kindness most unfaillng and very firm note. do not believe that at any turning he hoped for a reconciliation between the leaders Of the North and the South. He had carefully measured the sources oI combat and made up his mind both as to his duty and the situation.
 It will be remembered that MT. Lincoln was but 52 years of age. His practical knowledge of national affairs had been limited to q single term in Congress. His nominat ion and election to the presidency were regarded as accidentalEhe was an untutored, a very homely and aWk- ward child of fortune.
 Seward and Chase, Fessenden and Trumbull, Simon Cameron and Zachariah Chandler were. each in his way, the accepted authorities of the time There was not mem Der of his cabinet who did not con slider himself a bigger man than his master. Even so keen an ob- server as Seward wholly missed the dominating features of the chief he had reluctantly come to serve until he got his answer in that queer letter of April 1, 1861. which, as by a flash of lightning, revealed the truth and brought Seward to his intellectual knees, never to rise again. Somehow l had a great inn precision of MT. Lincoln from the first, and during the four succeeding years of war, although I was serv- ing on the opposite side, this never left me.
 No man can read the documentary history of Abraham LincOln's ad- ministration, especially his letters and State papers, and doubt that he was among the few r. ally great men who have lived in the world.
 It is hard to write either justly or wisely of Audrey Johnson.