Perth Amboy evening news., 1920-05-01
Fiue Minutes A Day
With Our Presidents
By JAMES MORGAN.


The First American.
other Presidents than Abraham
Lincoln have risen from a log
other Presidents also we're of
humble birth; but none other has
walked so humbly in high places. No
honor. no power, could exalt him
above his native simplicity; a COM
mon man who could walk with kings
nor lose the common touch.
Lincoln was cast in a new mold.
The first President born beyond the
boundaries of the Is original states,
with no traditions OF a colonial or
old World origin he was in truth.
New birth of bur new soil the first
American.
Although he is believed now to
have been descended from the New
England Lincoln, so far as he him
self knew-or cared-he entered life
in a Kentucky log cabin. 'unprivi-
legged, unrestricted, unknown with
his mothers arms his only cradle,
the lonely forest his playground. His
father-'a wandering l3borlng boy"
learned to write his name and to
spell his way through the Bible only
from his wife. Nancy Hanks, a poor
orphan like himself who sank into
an eorly grave under the crushing
| ~hardships of home-making in the
Il ilNltIti MAllttIAGSo ~ MIAtIA liAt ~
lily had moved. The good woman
who came to take her place and who
sanctified the name of stepmother
| found that the 1~0-year-Old boy. grow
ing up like a weed, had forgotten
how to write and hat there never
had been a book or a newspaper in
the cabin.
Lincoln never attended school a
, year all told. Life was his school
| and he was his own teacher, doing his
sums with a piece of charcoal on a
| wooden shovel and borrowing all the
books for many miles around. Read
ing while he plowed, he recited TO
his horses and acclaimed from u tree
~lstuinp his fellow field hands.
A youthful giant in strength and
stature-he was 6 feet 4 at 19-he
was hired out by his father to more
prosperous neighbors. He swung the
axe and the scythe. welded the fail,
slaughtered hogs or poled fat boats
on the great rivers. But already he
stood apart and alone In the midst
of the crowd with whom he tciled
| and joked. His thoughts and dreams
had borne him out OF their forest
world and far away from the days
work.
Going with his father to the newer
frontier In Illinois he helped him
build another log cabin. clear another
farm and he split the rails for fencing
1t in. He was now past 81. and he
started out in the world for himself,
with an axe over his shoulder and all
of his belongings tied up in a red
/ bandana handkerchief. Mauling
rails ~fatboating, surveying. captain
ing a company In the Black Hawk
War. keeping store, choring about
New Salem, a log hamlet on the San
CANON river-where for q time he
- - -, .,.fNTa hi hat for n
Postomce-he remained a homeless
man of odd Jobs until his 2Sth year.
The sympathetic hearts OF New
Salem had been touched by a great
sorrow that came to him in the death
of his sweetheart. Ann Rutledge, an
authenticated daughter of the tavern
keeper. Lincoln grieved for her until
his friends feared for his mind. He
confessed tina he did not dare for
months to trust himself with a pocket
knife. Slowly he emerged from his
despodnency but the shadow In
gered.
Lincoln remained ever a primitive
man in his emotions and sympathtes
never arising superior to the pangs
and appeals Of the heart. He could
always cry.
Although New Salem reckoned him
a failure eh had always paid his way
land ever had stood ready to help
others. whether it was to put his
powerful shoulder to the wheel of a
stalled wagon: to cut frewood for a
widow; to watch the sick or to rock
the cradle for a weary mother.
| Through his seeming s~hiftliness, a
moral dignity shone. and too all the
villagers the quaint, testing clean
living. kindly man was Honest Abe"
The busting planters n builders
of New Salem did not suspect that
this dreamer who loitered i'm their
lanes was planning nd building for
all time and that their village would
be remembered only because 1t had
CHANGED to be a station in his prog
ress. For, like Peter the Great. who
stepped down from his throne and In
disguise went to work among the
masses, Abraham Lincoln in those APP
parently aimless years was in reality
Though unconsciously an apprentice
in the leadership of the people whose
life he was living. There out of pow
erty and toll and sorrow. the char
acter of the man was woven.
Once in a while you'll find a man
who is so busy Dragging abou his
Ifamoua Ancestors tina he hasn't time