Chapter V: Honesty in Politics (3)

So different, in truth, was Lincoln’s manner from the breezy, bumptious swagger not seldom seen among the public personages of his day, that only an observer of rare discernment would have taken him, at first glance, for a prominent politician. Even nimble-witted members of the guild themselves “smelt no royalty,” as he once quaintly expressed it, in his presence. And one of them has handed down an amusing tale which relates how the big man’s modest bearing hoaxed a brace of jocund statesmen to the top of their bent. Here is the story, as Thomas H. Nelson of Terre Haute, tells it on himself:--

“In the spring of 1849 Judge Abram Hammond, who was afterwards Governor of Indiana, and I arranged to go from Terre Haute to Indianapolis in the stage-coach. An entire day was usually consumed in the journey. By daybreak the stage had arrived from the West, and as we stepped in we discovered that the entire back seat was occupied by a long, lank individual, whose head seemed to protrude from one end of the coach and his feet from the other. He was the sole occupant, and was sleeping soundly. Hammond slapped him familiarly on the shoulder, and asked him if he had chartered the stage for the day. The stranger, now wide awake, responded, ‘Certainly not’; and at once took the front seat, politely surrendering to us the place of honor and comfort. We took in our traveling companion at a glance. A queer, odd-looking fellow he was, dressed in a well-worn and ill-fitting suit of bombazine, without vest or cravat, and a twenty-five-cent palm hat on the back of his head. His very prominent features in repose seemed dull and expressionless. Regarding him as a good subject for merriment we perpetrated several jokes. He took them all with the utmost innocence and good-nature, and joined in the laugh, although at his own expense.

“At noon we stopped at a wayside hostelry for dinner. We invited him to eat with us, and he approached the table as if he considered it a great honor. He sat with about half his person on a small chair, and held his hat under his arm during the meal. Resuming our journey after dinner, conversation drifted into a discussion of the comet, a subject that was then agitating the scientific world, in which the stranger took the deepest interest. He made many startling suggestions and asked many questions. We amazed him with ‘words of learned length and thundering sound.’ After an astounding display of wordy pyrotechnics the dazed and bewildered stranger asked, ‘What is going to be the upshot of this comet business?’ I replied that I was not certain, in fact, I differed from most scientists and philosophers, and was inclined to the opinion that the world would follow the darned thing off!

“Late in the evening we reached Indianapolis, and hurried to Browning’s Hotel, losing sight of the stranger altogether. We retired to our room to brush and wash away the dust of the journey. In a few minutes I descended to the portico, and there descried our long, gloomy fellow-traveler in the center of an admiring group of lawyers, among whom were Judges McLean and Huntington, Edward Hannigan, Albert S. White, and Richard W. Thompson, who seemed to be amused and interested in a story he was telling. I enquired of Browning, the landlord, who he was. ‘Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, a member of Congress,’ was the response. I was thunderstruck at the announcement. I hastened upstairs and told Hammond the startling news, and together we emerged from the hotel by a back door and went down an alley to another house, thus avoiding further contact with our now distinguished fellow-traveler.”[v-49]

As these two wags sneak sheepishly away from their recent butt, they present a comical reminder of that time-honored aphorism: “The world receives an unknown person according to his appearance; it takes leave of him according to his merits.” True, our crestfallen Hoosiers did not themselves sense the worth concealed under Lincoln’s homespun manners; yet for this the man who had so neatly gulled them could hardly be blamed. He paid the merry jesters in their own coin, so to say; and if they failed to notice the twinkle of his keen gray eyes as he made change, no one was at fault but themselves. The ethics of practical joking had been observed fairly enough. At all events, the gentlemen from Indiana, so far as is known, set up no claim to the contrary.

Lincoln’s energies were not confined, however, to such encounters. Within the party itself occasionally arose contests between rival leaders that differed widely from the usual election campaigns against the common enemy; and it is of interest to see how “Honest Abe,” under these more delicate circumstances, conducted himself. A typical instance was that of his canvass for Congress. This began as early as 1842 when, upon the completion of a fourth term in the Illinois House of Representatives, he declined the proffered renomination, but not because he wished to retire from public life. “His ambition,” as one intimate friend declared, “was a little engine that knew no rest.” It seemed always speeding him toward higher levels. A seat in the National House had now become his goal; and with characteristic directness, he announced himself as a candidate for the promotion. An attempt, obviously not so direct, was made to turn him aside; for we find among his letters this word of warning, addressed at the time to a correspondent in Cass County: “If you should hear any one say that Lincoln don’t want to go to Congress, I wish you, as a personal friend of mine, would tell him you have reason to believe he is mistaken. The truth is I would like to go very much.”[v-50]

In those days the Springfield District, as it was sometimes called, had become a Whig stronghold to such a degree that whoever received the endorsement of the party there on the Congressional ticket might well feel assured of his election. Naturally the prospect attracted other ambitious young politicians besides Lincoln. He found himself strongly opposed for the nomination by Edward Dickinson Baker, of his own county, and General John J. Hardin, of Black Hawk War fame, from Morgan County. The preliminary canvass was uncommonly warm. It appears to have reached a white heat, at almost the very outset, between Lincoln and Baker in their struggle for the control of the delegation which Sangamon should send to the nominating convention. Both men were popular, but Baker’s longer residence in the State, his charm of manner, his dashing personality, and his remarkable talent for impromptu oratory gave him an advantage, which enthusiastic friends sought still further to improve by tactics manifestly open to criticism, especially when employed in a party contest. For, strange to relate, a personal campaign of an abusive nature was waged against the man from New Salem. His recent faithful leadership on the floor of the Legislature had, for the moment, in some quarters at least, apparently been forgotten; while his marriage during the year to Mary Todd, whose religious affiliations--unlike those of the Bakers--were not with the potent Campbellite Church, became by cunningly contrived suggestion an adverse issue of seeming importance. Moreover, his own alleged irreligion, slyly hinted at, a duel that had been talked of but had never been fought,[v-51] an unpopular temperance address recently delivered, and, above all, his connection through the young wife with her prominent, perhaps too self-satisfied, relations, were severally urged in various directions as good reasons for withholding the desired support.

What particularly pained Lincoln was this last count in the indictment. For one who had so recently been a “friendless, uneducated, penniless boy working on a flat-boat at ten dollars per month,” to be “put down”--we are quoting his own protest--“as the candidate of pride, wealth, and aristocratic family distinction,” must have felt odd beyond measure.[v-52] It is not surprising that, with all his political acumen, he was at a loss for an adequate reply. What reply, indeed, can one make to such a charge! He tried to laugh it off, meeting the story of those high-bred relatives with the whimsical remark: “Well, that sounds strange to me. I do not remember of but one who ever came to see me, and while he was in town he was accused of stealing a jew’s-harp.”[v-53]

Still the canard persisted, though the fact that it ever received serious attention must be counted among the mysteries of Illinois politics; unless perhaps a faint suggestion of an explanation is to be found in Lincoln’s own demeanor. He was, it is true, a commoner, a man of the people, if there ever has been one in American public affairs. His democratic ways, unpretentious garb, and homely fashion of speech were as truly expressive of the man as were his sympathetic dealings, in all the essentials of life, with the plain citizens around him. But he neither flattered them nor catered to their prejudices. Lincoln was no demagogue. Coming upon the scene with a generation of pioneers whose antipathy toward the so-called aristocrats naturally had its corresponding reaction in a fondness for men of their own kind, he made it a point, nevertheless, to ask for support wholly on his merits; and practiced none of those crude arts whereby politicians of that day too often courted popular favor.[v-54] In fact, he went at times as far the other way, and bluntly declined so to cheapen himself.

A case in point occurred on the occasion of his address before an agricultural society, when he said: “I presume I am not expected to employ the time assigned me in the mere flattery of the farmers as a class. My opinion of them is that, in proportion to numbers, they are neither better nor worse than other people. In the nature of things they are more numerous than any other class; and I believe there really are more attempts at flattering them than any other, the reason for which I cannot perceive unless it be that they can cast more votes than any other. On reflection, I am not quite sure that there is not cause of suspicion against you in selecting me, in some sort a politician and in no sort a farmer, to address you.”[v-55]

These words--we must add--were uttered some years later, but they nicely illustrate the speaker’s bearing throughout his political career. The compelling candor which led him to speak so was, in truth, the very essence of the man. He could not do otherwise. And therein, perhaps, lay some explanation of why it was difficult for him, during this congressional contest, to meet the charge of having joined the so-called privileged class,--particularly as the accusation came from members of his own party.[v-56]

That Baker himself had anything to do with the misconduct of these overzealous partisans, Lincoln refused to believe.[v-57] Still he could not close his eyes to the inroads which their attacks made upon his strength in the county. And when the Sangamon Whigs met, in the spring of 1843, to elect delegates for the District Convention, Baker was clearly their choice. The meeting so voted. But its confidence in the rejected candidate was evinced, to a noteworthy extent, by his selection as a member of the delegation, instructed to cast Sangamon’s ballot at the convention for his successful opponent. This placed Lincoln in an embarrassing position; and he tried, though without avail, to be excused. Commenting on the singular occurrence to his absent friend Speed, he wrote: “The meeting, in spite of my attempt to decline it, appointed me one of the delegates; so that in getting Baker the nomination, I shall be fixed a good deal like a fellow who is made a groomsman to a man that has cut him out and is marrying his own dear ‘gal.’”[v-58]

There was this difference, however. The groomsman usually renounces his hopes at the church door; whereas Lincoln, for a time at least after the meeting, still considered himself, in some degree, a candidate. Expecting his old neighbors in the New Salem-Petersburg vicinage to instruct a Menard County delegation for him, he figured out a combination whereby they might, under certain conditions, cast the deciding votes in the convention. “It is truly gratifying to me,” he wrote Martin M. Morris, one of these supporters, “to learn that while the people of Sangamon have cast me off, my old friends of Menard, who have known me longest and best, stick to me.”

After outlining the situation, with the terse, firm strokes of a skilled politician, he continued: “You say you shall instruct your delegates for me, unless I object. I certainly shall not object. That would be too pleasant a compliment for me to tread in the dust. And besides, if anything should happen (which, however, is not probable) by which Baker should be thrown out of the fight, I would be at liberty to accept the nomination if I could get it. I do, however, feel myself bound not to hinder him in any way from getting the nomination. I should despise myself were I to attempt it. I think, then, it would be proper for your meeting to appoint three delegates, and to instruct them to go for some one as a first choice, some one else as a second, and perhaps some one as a third; and if in those instructions I were named as the first choice, it would gratify me very much.”[v-59]

This letter furnishes another revelation of how tight a grip Lincoln’s ambition, carrying him along at top speed, had upon his movements; and by that same token, of how tight a grip he meant to keep, in any event, upon the restraining brake, which was so rarely allowed to leave his watchful hand. Whether he could have maintained his moral equilibrium, however, in the District Convention, as a delegate instructed for one candidate while he permitted his friends to support another candidate, and that candidate himself, raises, under all the circumstances, a delicate question in political ethics. Happily, Lincoln was not called upon to try it out. By the time the delegates gathered at Pekin, he and Baker were both outdistanced by General Hardin, who promptly became the choice of a far from harmonious convention.

Then ensued an incident which, besides having a controlling influence toward the shaping of local politics for some years to come, caused controversies later of more than local importance. This is how it came about. No sooner had the vote been taken than Lincoln walked across the room to James M. Ruggles, one of the Hardin delegates, and asked him whether he would favor a resolution recommending Baker for the succeeding congressional term. Ruggles, who was fond of that gentleman, readily consented, so Lincoln said: “You prepare the resolution, I will support it, and I think we can pass it.”[v-60]

The motion is said to have “created a profound sensation, especially with the friends of Hardin.” Some of them warmly objected, but it was passed, nevertheless, by a very close vote. The proposition should, indeed, have been well received. It belonged to that class of convention devices which is sometimes designated as “good politics.” The contest had stirred up much feeling, and Lincoln, like the alert party leader that he was, took this means of placating a disgruntled faction. “So far as I can judge from present appearances,” he declared, “we shall have no split or trouble about the matter. All will be harmony.”[v-61] And when the nominee wrote a letter, after the convention, expressing some doubt as to whether the Whigs of Sangamon would support him, Lincoln replied: “You may, at once, dismiss all fears on that subject. We have already resolved to make a particular effort to give you the very largest majority possible in our county. From this, no Whig of the county dissents. We have many objects for doing it. We make it a matter of honor and pride to do it; we do it, because we love the Whig cause; we do it, because we like you personally; and last, we wish to convince you, that we do not bear that hatred to Morgan County, that you people have so long seemed to imagine. You will see by the _Journal_ of this week, that we propose, upon pain of losing a Barbecue, to give you twice as great a majority in this county as you shall receive in your own. I got up the proposal.”[v-62]

This magnanimous treatment of Hardin, like the resolution in Baker’s favor, is noteworthy. Yet here again--of a truth, in neither case--did Lincoln wholly neglect his own aspirations. Though he regarded both these men with sincere good-will, and stepped aside for them with unruffled temper, it was in the hope that his turn would come next. Some of the party leaders, in fact, eventually worked out an arrangement whereby John J. Hardin, Edward Dickinson Baker, Abraham Lincoln, and Stephen Trigg Logan succeeded one another in the Whig nomination of the district, for a single congressional term each. That this bargain or deal--to use familiar political expressions--existed has been vehemently denied. And in the nature of such affairs, it may well be doubted whether there was a definite agreement to which the parties in interest gave their formal approval. The Hardin following, for one, appears to have acquiesced unwillingly, if indeed it actually assented at all. Still, no less an authority than Lincoln himself tells us of “an understanding among Whig friends,” whereby each of these men received the nomination in turn.[v-63] And this understanding, in part at least, had its public ratification, if not its origin, as we have seen, with his resolution endorsing Baker. Although politicians usually conceal such transactions, because they are looked upon by the voters with disfavor, and although some through-thick-and-thin eulogists, trembling for the fair fame of their hero, have refused to believe that Lincoln did anything at this point which savored of intrigue, he himself manifestly made no secret of the matter nor of his hand in it. A thoroughgoing candidate from start to finish, this man, honorable as he was, played his game according to the standards of the aggressive political school in which he had been bred. But he played it openly. He saw no harm in that group of aspirants “making a slate,” as the process is sometimes called; and under all the circumstances, neither do we.

The Sangamon chief, true to his pledge, loyally supported the nominee of the convention. General Hardin, triumphant at the polls, went to Congress. And when, by reason of a change in the time for holding the next election, it became necessary, during the following year, to name his successor, he gave way in Baker’s favor, as the Pekin resolution had provided. Naturally Lincoln, the father of that measure, did likewise. In fact, he worked no less faithfully for rival number two than he had for rival number one, and Baker was duly chosen.[v-64] Then at last, in 1846, came Lincoln’s turn. Expecting to reap the reward of his patience, he struck out vigorously for the nomination. But to his chagrin, Hardin, ready to make the race for another term, threatened again to block the way; while Judge Logan, the remaining claimant on the slate, had also entered the field, demanding precedence over Lincoln on the ground of seniority as well as of valuable services to the party. Whether this latter candidature was entirely sincere, or whether it should be deemed one of those back-firing devices to head off other aspirants, so often employed by political strategists, cannot, at this late day, be determined. True, the dissolution of partnership at law between Logan and Lincoln, several years before, had been due, in a degree at least, to the conflicting congressional ambitions of its members. Still, nothing that then took place was rasping enough, so far as is known, to keep them from entering into an “understanding” for their mutual benefit. At all events, Logan can hardly be said to have made a very vigorous start and, after a brief reconnoissance of the district, he withdrew gracefully in Lincoln’s favor.

Hardin was not so easily disposed of. Denying that there had been any agreement personally on his part to rest content with one term, he declared himself betimes a candidate for another nomination. Lincoln’s rejoinder was the maxim,--“Turn about is fair play.” He called this his “only argument,” and proceeded in effect to make it the slogan of an energetic campaign. A less inspiring issue on which to ask for political support is not often presented. Yet this was the issue, and Lincoln candidly said so. With a freedom from the customary cant of “public servants” that is really refreshing, he canvassed the party on personal grounds, but without personalities. His supporters were cautioned against saying anything unkind about Hardin; and when he himself made any reference to his adversary, it was in terms of friendly appreciation. Lincoln wanted that office. He wanted it badly. But his ever-present sense of fairness saved him from resentment toward the Bakers and Hardins who wanted it, too. They were entitled to a place in the sun. And even the fact that one who had basked in its warmth for a season was trying now to elbow him back when his turn came, did not ruffle the man’s good humor. Yet he stood his ground firmly, while insisting, with winsome naïveté, on “a fair shake.” So when General Hardin made a crafty suggestion that the candidates should agree respectively to “remain in their own counties,” Lincoln promptly declined, with the obvious explanation: “It seems to me that on reflection you will see, the fact of your having been in Congress has, in various ways, so spread your name in the district, as to give you a decided advantage in such a stipulation.”

His reasons, given in the same letter, for refusing to walk into the general’s other cunningly contrived pitfalls, were equally cogent; while the temper of the missive, as a whole, may be inferred from the pretty little apology: “I have always been in the habit of acceding to almost any proposal that a friend would make, and I am truly sorry that I cannot in this.”[v-65]

Hardin, on his part, was apparently not so amiable. The general’s supporters were allowed to assail Lincoln in somewhat the same manner that Baker’s friends had done three years before. Indeed, they may have been even less scrupulous. For one of Lincoln’s youthful lieutenants, G. W. Harris, tells us how, disheartened by their methods, he went to his chief in the heat of the canvass, and declared that it was useless to proceed any further unless the object of these assaults was willing to adopt similar tactics. Without any show of feeling, Lincoln replied: “Gibson, I want to be nominated; I should like very much to go to Congress; but unless I can get there by fair means, I shall not go. If it depends on some other course, I will stay at home.”[v-66]

“That settled it,” Harris adds. But things hardly went as he had predicted. Not long thereafter his leader’s scruples were vindicated, on even the politician’s narrow ground, by Hardin’s withdrawal from the contest, in a generous letter, which left the field to our Springfield friend unopposed. So it came to pass that when the Whig District Convention met early in May, 1846, the name of this sole remaining candidate was duly presented by Judge Logan and Lincoln received a unanimous nomination.

The Democrats put forward as their candidate the well-known Methodist circuit-rider, Peter Cartwright. He gave promise of making a formidable antagonist. Few men had more friends throughout the district, and indeed, throughout the State. His robust ministry, as he traveled on horseback undaunted by frontier hardships from place to place, brought him into intimate, at times even sacred, relations with the people. They cherished, in their rough way, a fondness for the man whose piety and never-failing human sympathy had made him through all the shifting years, whether at weddings, christenings, sick-beds, or funerals, the dependable partner of their joys and their sorrows. A preacher, moreover, of the church-militant, he compelled respect among these sturdy pioneers by his physical, no less than by his spiritual, qualities. As became one who patrolled in autocratic fashion “the country of superior men,” he was wont, when occasion served, to pound out a sermon or knock out a service-disturbing brawler, with equal force, and--if the truth must be told--with equal relish. But the aggressive elements in Cartwright’s make-up found still freer vent on the several occasions when he sought to transmute all this popularity into votes. For somewhat after the manner of the high priests in Israel, the “Apostle of the West,” as he was sometimes called, aspired to combine religion with statecraft. A Jacksonian Democrat of the uncompromising type, his politics like his theology belonged to the hard-shell variety; and few campaigners could give a better account of themselves on the stump. If rugged eloquence failed to produce the desired effect, a certain nimble-witted humor might be depended on to carry the day for him. He had, in fact, been elected or, more precisely speaking, reëlected, to the State Legislature when Lincoln suffered his first, his only, rebuff at the polls, fourteen years before; and with the two men now pitted against each other again--this time on a larger field--the Democrats naturally expected to bring about a repetition of that defeat.

But the Lincoln who faced Cartwright in 1846 was a different adversary from the comparatively unknown novice who had gone down before the famous preacher in 1832. Since then the younger man must have learned many practical lessons in the school of politics, and learned them well, for his congressional canvass is described as a model of skillful electioneering. It left unturned, in all the district, no stone beneath which might lurk a favorable vote; while it met, with similar alertness, every issue raised by the enemy, or more accurately speaking, every issue but one--that of religion.

The charge of impiety, covertly made in former primary contests, as we have seen, by Lincoln’s own Whig associates, was now publicly urged against him with far greater earnestness by his Democratic opponents. What ground they had for their accusations cannot conveniently be considered at this point. The assailed candidate himself shrewdly refrained from taking any public notice of the matter, and he impressed upon his lieutenants the wisdom of exercising similar forbearance. Here was one of those rare junctures in which your true leader may be recognized, not so much by what he does as by what he omits to do. Lincoln confidently left this issue in the hands of the people. They have on repeated occasions been known to meet it with appropriate vigor, yet nearly every generation of politicians must be taught the lesson anew. The man who lays Religion by the heels, and drags her through the mire of a political campaign for the votes that may adhere to the soiled vestments, usually bends so low over his narrow course that he does not see, until too late, the shocked devotees, on the one hand, deserting him because he has profaned a sacred thing, nor the indignant citizens on the other, turning from him because he would obtrude sectarian influences where they have no business--in purely secular affairs. Even the popularity of a Cartwright sags under such a strain. Moreover, his sterling character gave him no countervailing advantage in that particular contest. For when it came to the weighing of these opposing candidates--cleric against skeptic, saint against sinner--by almost any voter’s own work-a-day standards, the rectitude of Lincoln’s life at the bar, no less than the notable honesty of his politics, dressed the balance between the two champions, so far as practical ethics went, to a nicety. This left the revulsion from bigotry that touched broad-minded men in both parties, together with the normal preponderance of the Whigs and the superior campaigning tactics of their leader, to tip the scales finally in his favor. As the canvass drew near its close, not a few of the Democrats are said to have looked upon him with kindly eyes. But party feelings ran so strong in those days that to support a candidate on the opposing side involved a wrench to cherished traditions from which these alien well-wishers, these friends the enemy, naturally, for the most part, recoiled. One of them, doubtless a typical instance, coming to Lincoln in such a dilemma, declared himself willing to cast a Whig ballot if it were needed to defeat Cartwright. The sacrifice, he thought, should be required only in the event of a very close struggle; and the Whig captain, accepting this view, agreed to let him know how the contest stood. Accordingly, right before election-day, Lincoln having made one of those clever forecasts for which he was noted, released his provisional recruit with the announcement: “I have got the preacher, and don’t want your vote.”[v-67]

He certainly did have the preacher. When returns came in, it was found that a considerable number of Democrats, setting public spirit above partisan prejudice, after all, had given their adherence to the Whig nominee. Lincoln led Cartwright at the polls by 1511 votes. How splendid a victory this was, and how much of it may be credited to Democratic defections, will be understood when it is recalled that the same district had, in the preceding presidential campaign, given electors for Henry Clay, the popular Whig standard-bearer, a plurality of but 914. “Lincoln’s election by the large majority he received,” said Governor Reynolds, commenting on the congressional contest some years later, “was the finest compliment personally and the highest political endorsement any man could expect, and such as I have never seen surpassed.”[v-68] These superlatives hardly overstated the case. No previous Whig campaigner of the district had in fact achieved such results; and so fully did they justify Lincoln’s persistent demands upon his party for the nomination that his election must have brought him a double measure of gratification.

Then, however, came the all but inevitable reaction. That triumph, so long deferred and so patiently wrought out, fell short of what his ambitious fancy had pictured. The sub-acid tang, which detracts too often from our complete enjoyment of life’s sweetest morsels, entered into the victor’s spirit at the moment of achievement, and left him disappointed. Addressing his sympathetic friend Speed--the other self of those days--in much the same vein as the great Roman politician Cicero was wont to employ toward his intimate Atticus, when eclipsing shadows of depression marred the joy of some brilliant exploit, Lincoln wrote: “Being elected to Congress, though I am very grateful to our friends for having done it, has not pleased me as much as I expected.”[v-69]

THE END

ALONZO ROTHSCHILD

The morning that my father finished that concluding paragraph--the last that he ever wrote--he called mother into the study. With an air of mysterious solemnity, belied by the twinkle in his eye, he beckoned her to the desk.

“Meta, if you promise not to tell a soul, I’ll tell you a state secret,” he said. “I’ve got Lincoln to Congress at last.” Then more earnestly he continued: “It wasn’t an easy job either. I’ve fought all his battles side by side with him, and the world will probably never know how hard we toiled and moiled together.”

These words exactly expressed his relationship to his work. During the twenty-three years that he devoted to the study and interpretation of Abraham Lincoln, he lived with him in spirit as the great novelists have lived with the children of their fancies. Lincoln’s sorrows and triumphs and defeats were as real to him as those of his own life. It is small wonder, therefore, that when men who had known Lincoln read _Lincoln, Master of Men_, they frequently mistook its author for an intimate contemporary of the great President.

Though not of the same generation as Lincoln, my father’s life was, in a trivial way, associated with it at the start. He was born in New York City on the evening of a Lincoln rally at Cooper Union, October 30, 1862. The family physician was at the meeting when the time became ripe for his services, so my grandfather followed him there, somehow found him in the vast crowd, and worked upon his sense of duty so that he consented to forego the speeches, and returned with my grandfather to the Rothschild home.

One is tempted to speculate whether or not, as the doctor looked down at the boy whose birth had prevented him from hearing eminent men discuss the President,--whether or not some confiding Fate whispered to him a half-articulate prophecy that that same boy was one day to be among the most deep-seeing interpreters of Abraham Lincoln.

Interesting as this coincidence is, in the light of succeeding developments, it is, of course, quite devoid of significance. Not until some years later did Abraham Lincoln actually become an influence in my father’s life.

Probably it was his father who first planted the seed of admiration for Lincoln in his mind, for John Rothschild came to America with an influx of German revolutionists--men of the Carl Schurz stamp--and to him, as to so many of those who came in that wave of immigration, “Lincoln became an ideal,--a prophet.”

Just as some knowledge of my father’s parentage helps to an understanding of his interest in Abraham Lincoln, it enables one better to comprehend several of his personal characteristics. The thoroughness that fortified all his undertakings may be attributed to his unmixed German blood. For his mother as well as his father was German. She was known as “Beautiful Kate,” but a remarkable amiability that poverty and the raising of a large family never impaired was her outstanding characteristic. The evenness of disposition that my father inherited from her combined strangely with a certain fiery impetuosity and violence of temper that was of paternal origin, so that his ordinary mildness and long-suffering sometimes blazed out into a Jovian wrath. From both parents equally, he derived a sturdy honesty, common sense, and humor, while to his father in particular he owed a ready wit and skill in repartee.

Beyond the excellence of his parentage, there was nothing particularly auspicious about the conditions of my father’s early life. John Rothschild was an invalid, and his various attempts to get on in the world were unsuccessful. Furthermore, there were six complications in the bread-and-butter problem of which my father was the fourth. But nature had equipped him splendidly for the upward battle that those must wage who would rise from the ranks. While there cannot have been much suggestive of the fighter in the frail little chap who was “Lonny” Rothschild, yet a cool sureness of purpose and virile resourcefulness often won him the palm in unequal encounters with bullies as well as in the subtler battles of school and daily life.

There is a story that testifies to his resourcefulness and at the same time indicates his literary instinct. “Lonny’s” family lived on Fifty-fourth Street and his school was at Thirteenth Street, two miles away. He could afford the horse cars only on his way to school, and used to return afoot. His chum, however, whose parents were in better circumstances, received two car fares daily and was expected to ride both ways. One day, by the promise of a story, “Lonny” inveigled the youngster into walking home with him. The story proved to be an exciting serial that never ended, so that henceforth the author always had company on these journeys. And what is more, not only were his spirits fortified by company, but his inner being was regaled with the refreshments that he persuaded young Crœsus to buy along the way with the misappropriated car fares.

Generally speaking, “Lon” did not care much for the company of his schoolmates or for their games. He preferred a book to a game of ball. In fact he used habitually to get his one pair of shoes wet so that he might be allowed to curl up in an armchair before the kitchen stove with a biography or some standard novel.

There was a periodical shop in the neighborhood, where he spent part of his spare time, helping the proprietor and, in lieu of pay, gorging himself indiscriminately on the literature that lined the walls. Heterodox as it may be to say so, “Jack Harkaway” and the other yellowbacks which he read there, had a beneficial effect on his style. They developed the virility and feeling for dramatic sequences that later constituted his main literary charm.

But perhaps the most germinal of all these early literary habits was his daily custom of reading the newspaper to his invalid father. Those were the Reconstruction days, when the blunders of certain of Lincoln’s successors called forth constant editorial comment on “How Lincoln would have done it.” The spirit of reverence and admiration for the great President that the press exhaled must have stimulated tremendously the hero-worship that had already taken root in the enthusiastic mind of the lad.

Somewhat of an idealist, as this would suggest, almost from the first, Alonzo Rothschild was never a mere dreamer. The same balance that contributed so to his success throughout later life was already ingrained in his make-up. He was earnest, but fun-loving; frail, yet red-blooded; youthful, and still mature; idealistic, but none the less practical.

His practical powers had an opportunity to expand as soon as he was old enough to run errands. From that time on until he left college, his summer vacations were spent in the employ of some firm, earning a little money and learning something of business methods. The first of these summer positions was with a leather importer, who, largely in jest, set him the task of making a cable code. What the merchant meant in fun, my father took in earnest, and some time thereafter he handed his employer a code so well worked out, and so beautifully written, that for weeks the man proudly exhibited it to every member of the trade who entered the office.

Such precocity often engenders superficiality, but his was the rare brilliance that does not catch at sunbeams, but is content to labor. This appeared in school as well as in his summer work, for the abstract desire to do effectively whatever might come to hand was reinforced, in school, by ambition and directed by a passion for knowledge.

At the age of fourteen he entered the College of the City of New York, where he took his first independent step into journalism. One of his summer positions had been with an art magazine which employed him as “office boy, devil, and General Utility,--his only military distinction.” The force was small and the office boy’s functions corresponded with the range of his abilities. He ran errands, received visitors, read proof or compiled articles for publication, as occasion demanded.

With this varied experience, as a background, the lad started a college publication called _The Free Press_. The paper was intrinsically modest, but when one considers that the bulk of the work was borne by one boy and that the publication was successful enough to pay that boy’s expenses, the matter appears in a wholly different light.

He did almost everything connected with _The Free Press_ save the printing. He wrote the jokes, editorials, stories, and news items. But so effectively did he attack certain obnoxious faculty measures that he was compelled to work behind a mask of anonymity, thus forfeiting the prestige that his achievement would normally have given him in the eyes of his fellow students.

Although his connection with the paper remained a secret during his college years, it caused his downfall. So much of his time did the undertaking absorb that in his junior year, he failed to pass his examinations. This slump from honors to failure, however, did not destroy the confidence that his teachers had in his inherent worth, for when he decided to finish at Cornell, the president of the College gave him a warm letter of introduction to the president of the other institution.

The plan to transfer to Cornell was never consummated. His brother Meyer, who favored it strongly and who was furnishing him the means, went to Europe that summer on business, and in his absence my father decided that the hour had come for him to assume a share in his brother’s burdens. Acting upon this decision, he turned to newspaper work, and his brother upon his return found him reporting for the _Commercial Advertiser_. Yet, even with the college doors closing behind him and the bitter, dubious, financial battle ahead, my father determined to return to college in ten years. His first news assignment cannot have cast much of the sunshine of hope upon his ambitions. It was a dog-show. But he soon demonstrated his ability so conclusively that it became the rule to billet him for important assignments. And a few months later he was selected to interview Thomas A. Edison.

He had notable success as an interviewer, a success that he owed to his scrupulous accuracy. He recognized two obligations,--an obligation to the newspaper and an obligation to the person who had entrusted him with the publication of his opinions. But it did not take him long to discover that in the newspaper world faithful service such as his waits long for even meager rewards, so after a few months with the _Commercial Advertiser_, he turned his back on journalism and entered the employ of a wholesale gem company. There his promotion was steady and he even learned the business well enough to travel for the firm. After several years, however, he decided that early financial independence and consequent freedom for literary pursuits could not come to him if he remained a “hireling.” He therefore cast about until he found what seemed an opportunity, and having matured his plans with the precision of a military strategist, he started out at the age of twenty-two to be his own employer.

His new venture carried him back again into the field of journalism. The jewelry trade publications of the day were monthlies or semi-monthlies and though better than the common run of their contemporaries in trade journalism, they were contemptible when judged by twentieth-century journalistic standards. Their only aim was to sell advertising space and they subordinated everything to that one purpose. Their pages were given over to “puffs” and inadequate news items, and to dull technical articles. They published the news or suppressed it at the will of powerful advertisers.

Mr. Rothschild planned a weekly which was to publish the jewelry news with the impersonal completeness of a daily newspaper; whose editorial comment was to be “brief, conservative and absolutely independent of advertisers”; and in which “puffs” were to be confined to a single column where brevity and moderation were to obtain. As a partner in the enterprise, he chose a man whose previous experience in the field led him to value his services.

A class publication conducted on such principles was an innovation and the graybeards shook their heads. Their belief that the whole thing was the disordered dream of a Don Quixote and his Sancho was strengthened into certainty when it became known that Mr. Rothschild allowed none of his agents to treat customers. In the light of their experience it was as necessary to clinch a contract with a drink as it was to ingratiate one’s self by a judicious suppression of news, and a lavish use of “puffs.”

Had the founder of _The Jewelers’ Weekly_ been merely an idealist, their prophecies would have been justified. But so completely did his new paper cover the activities of the jewelry world that no jeweler could keep abreast of the trade without reading it. Such an indispensable organ was logically a valuable advertising medium, and before long disgruntled advertisers came trooping back with contracts, quite willing to let the young editor determine his own policies. What those policies were may be inferred from a law which owes its presence on the statute books of New York to the activities of _The Jewelers’ Weekly_. The law is that which forbids a pawnbroker to receive a pledge from any one under sixteen years of age. The need for it was first revealed by an exposé in _The Jewelers’ Weekly_ and its passage was due largely to Mr. Rothschild’s efforts.

Not only was the _Weekly_ a power for good, but its editor, though not much more than twenty, became the recognized “guide, philosopher, and friend” of the trade. He took a friendly interest in the affairs of all his customers, particularly the small men whom it was his delight to nurse along with advice and assistance, helping them often to achieve great success.

In this respect and in several others, Mr. Rothschild showed himself to be no mere seeker after wealth. It is true that he was in business with the avowed purpose of making a competency rapidly, but while in the game he played it as much for its own sake as for the prize. Writing in his diary concerning the famous “Birthday Number,” the finest thing of its day in trade journalism, he said: “My ambition is to make this the handsomest and most readable volume ever issued by a trade publication.” That and similar utterances indicate that his interest in the _Weekly_ was not focused entirely on its money-getting powers.

Because of ill health, his partner withdrew from the firm after a few years, leaving him a free hand in all departments, editorial and financial, and he was able to test his theories to the limit. In the six months following he made the _Weekly_ a landmark in trade journalism besides increasing its value five times. The principle which built his success at this time will surprise most business men. It was: “Give the other fellow a chance to make something too.” In testing this thesis, he worked out what was probably one of the first profit-sharing plans, which, like his other attempts to humanize business, justified itself in dollars and cents.

It was partly this policy of liberality and partly his desire to pave the way for his farewell to business that induced him, at the zenith of his success, to take his one-time partner back into the firm, and with him two other men.

The Jewelers’ Weekly Publishing Company, as it was called, with Mr. Rothschild as president, then took over _The Jewelers’ Weekly_ and the allied publications that he had either started or projected. As long as he remained an active member of the firm, success continued to crown its undertakings, but after he ceased to have a hand in its conduct the splendid publication of which he was so proud, languished.

The failure of his colleagues to continue the work he had so successfully carried on almost single-handed, throws into strong relief his achievements. He had attained financial independence in six years--an independence won at cost to no one else and with incidental benefit to many; he had shown that profits and ethical principles are not at opposite poles of human endeavor; he had proved the feasibility of the profit-sharing plan; he had elevated the tone of the jewelry trade; and he had set new standards in trade journalism.

One would ordinarily feel safe in concluding that a young man who in six years accomplished so many things had not been able to do much else. Yet Alonzo Rothschild found opportunity, also, to keep alive his intellectual interests, to do literary work, and to take an active part in city politics.

While still in newspaper work he had begun making an elaborate card index of his reading in the belief that it would be useful in later literary undertakings. This he continued to enrich during the years that he was building up the _Weekly_, finding time somehow to do a vast amount of general reading. His active literary work comprised a very excellent monograph on Nathan Hale which appeared subsequently in _America_, a patriotic journal of the day. The research requisite for the work was considerable and it was only by dogged persistence that Mr. Rothschild could make any headway. All through his chronicle of those busy days one comes across references to the Hale manuscript, triumph at having found time to progress or chagrin at being delayed. One of these passages throws so much light upon his character that it is worth quoting. He writes: “The Hale notes hardly seem to move. I get so little time for them. I am tempted to discontinue them for the present, but I have never yet failed in anything I started to accomplish and I will not begin now. We’ll crawl ahead as best we can.”

Despite the conflicting interests that he complains of, he still found time to do his part in politics. He was one of the founders of the Good Government Movement--“Goo-Goos,” as they were called--and the youngest member of its Executive Council. When the organization was forming, a body of naturalized Germans asked to be affiliated, proposing to designate their branch as German-American. Without any heed to the possible political consequences of such a course, Mr. Rothschild argued against affiliation with any society that maintained a hyphenated character. He said: “There is no such thing as a German-American. These men are either American or they are not. If their patriotism is equivocal and they persist in tying strings to it, we must have nothing to do with them.” Such an attitude in one whose tenderest associations were all in some sense German is strikingly indicative of an unbiased, logical mind.

Mr. Rothschild’s activities were not even confined to politics, study, and literary work. He was also prominent among the younger members of the Society for Ethical Culture. He had a way of giving an original turn to a discussion or of putting a question in a clearer, more spiritual light that attracted Dr. Adler and the latter asked him to write a book on the _Morals of Trade_ and to become a member of the society’s lecture staff.

Few young men would have been dissatisfied with a lot so varied and rich as his, yet this many-sided man longed for something different. Neither was this a vague dissatisfaction. Ever since he left college he had hoped, one day, to make good the deficiencies of his education. Somewhere in these days came also the ambition to write about Abraham Lincoln.

One of the marvels of his career is that he should have realized his ideals. Other men have tried to do what he did and have failed because money, instead of remaining a means to them, became the object. Yet at no time did he let the brilliant present loom large enough in his mind to shut out the future. At the flood-tide of his success, one finds this passage in his diary: “How I long for the day when, free from business cares, I can give my whole time and attention to literary work!” Another, further on, shows that with increased prosperity he grew even more restive. It reads: “Five more months of my last money-grubbing year have passed. They were more agreeable than I expected them to be. I long for the day when some other sound than the chink of the golden guinea will charm my ear. It is siren music.... Let me steer my bark through the high seas of moral and intellectual progress toward--well, we shall see! How I long for the day of my freedom!”

Finally the day of freedom did come and then my father made good his old vow to return to college, entering Harvard University as a special student at the age of twenty-eight. His year there was one of almost cloister-like tranquillity and yet it was marked by achievement. In addition to his studies he found opportunity to write a series of newspaper articles on the Elective System, then being introduced by President Eliot. The latter evinced great interest in his work and went far out of his way to furnish him with data.

Shortly after his return to New York from Harvard, Mr. Rothschild met Miss Meta Robitscheck, who subsequently became his wife. She was heartily in sympathy with his aspirations and agreed with him that the work he planned could be done better away from the distractions of the metropolis. Accordingly, they went, immediately after their wedding, to Cambridge, wrenching themselves away from lifelong associations. This action seemed to others even more unjustifiable than my father’s premature withdrawal from business, but neither he nor his partner in the enterprise ever regretted their course.