Part 107

“Give the flags to the winds! Set the hills all aflame! Make way for the man with The Patriarch’s name! Away with misgivings--away With all doubt, For Lincoln goes in when the Quakers are out!”

Speaking of this song (with which he was greatly pleased) one day at the White House, the President said: “It reminds me of a little story I heard years ago out in Illinois. A political campaign was on, and the atmosphere was kept at a high temperature. Several fights had already occurred, many men having been seriously hurt, and the prospects were that the result would be close. One of the candidates was a professional politician with a huge wart on his nose, this disfigurement having earned for him the nickname of ‘Warty.’ His opponent was a young lawyer who wore ‘biled’ shirts, ‘was shaved by a barber, and had his clothes made to fit him.

“Now, ‘Warty’ was of Quaker stock, and around election time made a great parade of the fact. When there were no campaigns in progress he was anything but Quakerish in his language or actions. The young lawyer didn’t know what the inside of a meeting house looked like.

“Well, the night before election-day the two candidates came together at a joint debate, both being on the speakers’ platform. The young lawyer had to speak after ‘Warty,’ and his reputation suffered at the hands of the Quaker, who told the many Friends present what a wicked fellow the young man was--never went to church, swore, drank, smoked and gambled.

“After ‘Warty’ had finished the other arose and faced the audience. ‘I’m not a good man,’ said he, ‘and what my opponent has said about me is true enough, but I’m always the same. I don’t profess religion when I run for office, and then turn around and associate with bad people when the campaign’s over. I’m no hypocrite. I don’t sing many psalms. Neither does my opponent; and, talking about singing, I’d just like to hear my friend who is running against me sing the song--for the benefit of this audience--I heard him sing the night after he was nominated. I yield the floor to him:

“Of course ‘Warty’ refused, his Quaker supporters grew suspicious, and when they turned out at the polls the following day they voted for the wicked young lawyer.

“So, it’s true that when ‘the Quakers are out’ the man they support is apt to go in.”

HAD CONFIDENCE IN HIM--“BUT--.”

“General Blank asks for more men,” said Secretary of War Stanton to the President one day, showing the latter a telegram from the commander named appealing for re-enforcements.

“I guess he’s killed off enough men, hasn’t he?” queried the President.

“I don’t mean Confederates--our own men. What’s the use in sending volunteers down to him if they’re only used to fill graves?”

“His dispatch seems to imply that, in his opinion, you have not the confidence in him he thinks he deserves,” the War Secretary went on to say, as he looked over the telegram again.

“Oh,” was the President’s reply, “he needn’t lose any of his sleep on that account. Just telegraph him to that effect; also, that I don’t propose to send him any more men.”

HOW HOMINY WAS ORIGINATED.

During the progress of a Cabinet meeting the subject of food for the men in the Army happened to come up. From that the conversation changed to the study of the Latin language.

“I studied Latin once,” said Mr. Lincoln, in a casual way.

“Were you interested in it?” asked Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State.

“Well, yes. I saw some very curious things,” was the President’s rejoinder.

“What?” asked Secretary Seward.

“Well, there’s the word hominy, for instance. We have just ordered a lot of that stuff for the troops. I see how the word originated. I notice it came from the Latin word homo--a man.

“When we decline homo, it is:

“‘Homo--a man.

“‘Hominis--of man.

“‘Homini--for man.’

“So you see, hominy, being ‘for man,’ comes from the Latin. I guess those soldiers who don’t know Latin will get along with it all right--though I won’t rest real easy until I hear from the Commissary Department on it.”

HIS IDEA’S OLD, AFTER ALL.

One day, while listening to one of the wise men who had called at the White House to unload a large cargo of advice, the President interjected a remark to the effect that he had a great reverence for learning.

“This is not,” President Lincoln explained, “because I am not an educated man. I feel the need of reading. It is a loss to a man not to have grown up among books.”