The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1920-05-12
BY JAMES MOAGAN

before the victories of Antietam.
Gettysburg and Vicksburg?
In the evening he sat in a box at
Ford's theatre, enjoying a comedy.
when John Wilkes Booth stole up-,
on him. The handsome but ungift-
ed young actor, who was a prey TO-
dark moods and whose had hostil-
ity to the union had upset a never
well-balanced mind, peeped
through a hole in the door Of the
box and observed the position Of
his illustrious victim. Could he have
! looked into Lincoln's face with
its simple benignity. his better ma
ture might have turned him back.
, from the threshold of his awful
| crime
While the curtain was down be-
tween the acts. the president and
Mrs. Lincoln fondly talked over
plans for the future when they
should be free from the heavy cares
OF the White house. AS they
planned the travels they would en-
| joy he said there is no place 1
should like so much to see as
tJerusalem." These were his last
words. The play began again and
the assassin, noiselessly opening
the door, fired his cowardly shot
Lincoln rose from his chair under
the impulse of the shock and then
sank back into it, his head dropped
and his eyes closed, not TO open
again this side of that mysterious
shore toward which he had sailed
in his dream ship.
The frenzied murderer pushed his
way through the beWildered party
! in the box and leaped over its rail-
| ing. But the folds OF the flag that
draped it tripped him and he fell
upon the stage. Although the fall
| had broken his leg, he rose with the
melodramatic cry Of Sic temper
tyrannis." Making his escape from
the stage, he rode away through the
night, but only to be shot down Two
weeks afterward as he stood at bay
, in Virginia barn.
To spare the stricken president
ride over the cobblestones to The
White house, he was carried to the
simple home Of tailor across the
street from the theatre. There MS
giant strength battled with death
until the morning. Then the great
heart stopped and Stanton hoarse-
ly whispered, NOW, he belongs 10
the ages"
The day that Lincoln died stands
alone among days. A war-weary
people awoke to continue the week
of rejoicing over their release ana
their victory. In an hour the iahu
was filled with grief and rage.
| No other death ever touched So
many hearts. Millions mourned q
friend. AS the body was borne back
to Springfield Borrowing hundreds
of thousands along the way looked
upon the face which had been me
mirror of a peoples sacrifice anu
of peoples hope.
At Springfield simple men anu
women brought from humble nome.
! in the countryside their tribute OF
tears, not to the dead president, nut
: to the good neighbor who had heiP
, ed them in counsel, i'll the feid. IN
: the forest or on the highway, when
he shared with them the crust oi
, poverty. In the place OF honor De
i, hind his funeral car in the procss,,,
sion to the tomb walked "Old BOZ
; the faithful horse that had cafrleu
him in his travels around the ID"
! circuit. Above his prairie grave q
, lofty monument was raised anu
out of the earnings of their ffee
, labor thousands OF freedmen. Wloa'
| shackles he had broken, contrlOu'-
! ed to its buildings.
published by special arrangement
newspaper Syndicate.