Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-04-12

mo squeamish notions filled his breast
The Union was his theme,
No surrender and no compromise
His day thought and nights dream
His country has her part to play,
lords those he left behind;
His widow and his children all
She must always keep in mind"
MARY LINCOLN was human and she wept
as any other affectionate mother would
have done under like conditions when her SON
Willie died. Her grief knew no bounds. Mrs.
Lincoln never entered again the guests room
in which he died, nor the green room, where
his body lay while awaiting burial
This was not all of Mrs. Lincolns sorrows by
any means. But let us go back and look at
her early life that we might better pass judg-
ment on the Mrs. Lincoln as she was known in
Washington during wartime.
Robert Smith Todd, her father, was for many
years clerk of the Kentucky State House of
Representatives; was State Senator and pres
ident of the Lexington Branch of the Bank Of
Kentucky from its establishment, IN 1886, until
his death, in 1S49, and it was in that city he
married Eliza Ann Parker at her parents home,
in Short street. From this union there we're
seven children: Levi, Elizabeth, Frances, Mary
(born December 49, 1918, and who became Mrs.
Lincoln) Ann Robert Parker and George.
born, and in due course of time her husband
took unto himself another wife Elizabeth Hum
phreys who bore him nine additional children;
SO Mary Todd was not lonesome for brothers
and sisters during her childhood, though this
fact contributed largely to her sorrow during
the great strife between the States, for which,
however, her people were not to blame-at least
not primarily. These brothers and sisters of
the half blood included Robert Smith, Samuel,
David Alexander, Margaret, Martha, Emile,
Eodie and Katherine
From early childhood Mrs. Lincoln was am
bilious, and this indeed, is one of the few
truthful statements made by her defamers
Where can we find or a woman in the
United States today interested in the affairs
of his country and wishing for its success who
is not constituted?
MRS. LINCOLN early acquired a liking for
politics. Like her distinguished husband,
she was originally Wing and was especially
fond of Henry Clay. She hoped some day to
see her father President, and when she mar
ried Lincoln, she did all she could to inspire
him in reaching the goal that it should be
every Americans ambition to reach or to be
Of some higher service at least.
How dismal would be our lives if we did not
have desire to better our conditions, to make
something more of ourselves to elevate our
minds and our morals, to better equip ourselves
for our own and the publics good. Indeed am
of the Anglo Saxon race; 1t made Great Britain
what 1t Is, and it made the greatest republic
on earth today and as long as there enough
ambitious people in this country it will be
sustained.
And yet ambition is one of the Grimes
charged against the woman who shared Linz
coins trials in the White House; who in her
early married life did all of her own Homework;
made all of her own clothes and the better part
of Mr.. I.incoln's, and besides made her chill
drens wearing apparel; and this, for an edu-
Gated woman, reared in luxury and refinement
surely stamps her as having been of the high
est American ideals. Had 1t not been for Mary
Todd the chances are that Abraham Lincoln
would never have been President and the world
would have accordingly been the loser
Indeed, when she and Lincoln were married
on Friday the fourth of November, 1872 he
did not have money enough to go to house
keeping with, but boarded for while at the
Globe Tavern, in Springfield for the modest
sum of 81 week before going to their own
Jackson streets, to which they subsequently
added another story.
p BOARDING this period of their married life,
Miss Katherine Helm, niece of Mrs.
Lincoln, tells us:
Although such surroundings could not fail
to be anything but distasteful to Mary, reared
as she had been, she never murmured; nor did
she utter a single complaint, even to any
member Of her own family. Indeed, they assert
she seemed very happy. Mr.. Lincoln also
seemed satisfied and had lost some Of the deep
gloom which had affected him all his life, and
for which historians have tried in vain 70
account.
Mary knew of this deep and settled melan-