White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1933-01-26


nations history and his worldwide renown as
great humanitarian, portray him as the bearded
man of mature. years and benign countenance,
the Great Emancipation, the 'Man Of Sorrows,
the martyr.
In recent years, however, there has been
tendency to perpetuate in bronze and stone GER
tain incidents in his earlier life which will mem
orialize those formative years when the charac-
ter of the future American immortal was be-
ing shaped and nodded So have the "Rail-
Splitter" statue in Garfield park in Chicago, the
"Black Hawk War Captain statue in Dixon, Ill.,
the candidate" statue in Cincinnati, Ohio, and
the young Statesman" statue in Louisville, KY
The newest of these youthful Lincoln" sta
tues is the one which erected last year on
the plaza of the Lincoln National Life Insurance
company at Fort Wayne, Ind, and which por-
trays Lincoln the Hoosier Youth" 1t is the
work of the famous sculptor, Paul Manship.
The main facts of Lincoln's earlier years are
well known to most Americans thanks to the
painstaking labor of such biographers as Rev.
William E. Barton, Senator Albert j. Beverage
and Carl Sandburg and others who seem to
have brought to light every single fact which
was significant in making Lincoln the man that
he became. But it is doubtful If anything more
interesting has ever been written about that pc
riod of Lincoln's life than the report of an
overlooked interview" with Dennis #. Hanks,
a cousin and close companion of Lincoln, which
Of NATION, ILL.,, in May, 1892, copy Of which
has recently come into the hands of the author
Of this article. The interview in part follows:
found him hale and erect, ready to recount
for the benefit of younger generation, the in
cidents which marked the youth Of the martyred
President. His name Is Dennis r. Hanks, and
he is cousin to Lincoln Uncle Dennis, as he
is called. is typical Kentuckian, born in Har-
din county, 1893. His face is sun-bronzed and
p1oru xxyith f11rrO If inn n1rfo
with firm grip of the jaw; broad forehead above
q pair Of unweariable eyes. The eyes seem out
Of place, in the weary, faded face; they glow
and flash like two diamond sparks, set in ridges
of dull gold. The face is serious one, but
the play of light in the eyes, unquenchable by
time, betrays the nature full of sunshine and
elate life sidewise glance at the profile shows
face strikingly Lincoln-like. prominent cheek
bones, temples, nose and chin; but best of all
that twinkling drollery in the eye that flashed
in the White House during the dark days of
the Civil war; To my query he replied cheerily:
Certainly, certainly sir, I'll talk to you about
Abe. kin talk, too. bein as am the only livin'
man that knows all about him."
GLOW old was Mr.. Lincoln when you first
met him?"
"About "a hours, hardly that; rekolect ran
all the way over two miles. to see Nancy Hanks
boy baby Twas common then for connexion to
gether in them days to see new babies. Her
name was Nancy Hanks before she married
Thomas Lincoln. held the wee one minnit.
was ten years old, and 1t tckled me to hold the
pulpy, red, little Lincoln
when did you move to Indiana"
"When Abe was about nine Mr.. Lincoln moved
first, and built a camp of brush In Spencer coun-
ty. We came out year later, and ne then had
cabin up and he gave the shanty. On this
spot Abe grew to manhood"
How far apart your cabinSv
about fifteen rods Abe killed a turkey the
day we got there, an couldn't get thro tellin'
about 1t. The name was pronounced Linkhorn