Evening Star Newspaper, February 9, 1930, Page 100

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D_ E',, FEBRUARY 9, 1930. Rare Lincoln Letter Comes Written Shortly A fter He Assumed the Presidency, to the Regent Captains of the Republic of San " Mario, It Has Since Escaped the Notice of All Biographers. HITHERTO unknown letter written by Abraham Lincoin shortly after he assuined the presidency has just been made public here. The letter was written May 7, 1861 —two months after the first inauguration and was addressed to the regent captains of the Republic of San Marino.. It thanks them for conferring upon Mr.meolnflnectumshlpdtmmgy. Did Lincoin disqualify himself for the presi- thanks in accordanee with the etiquette of that day? i These, and other questions, are suggested by 8 reading of the letter, a photograph of which appears on this page. ‘The act of the regent caplains had practic- ally escaped the notice of Lincoln’s biographers. Nowhere in any of the voluminous life histories of the great can any reference be found to it or to the letter of acknowledgment. Smumuwmcnmm Rimini, the fashionable Italian watering place, and is entirely surrounded by Italian territory. . Its people claim that it is the oldest republic in the world. It was founded by St. Marinus of Dalmatia in the fourth century, is half a mile sbove the level of the sea, has an area of only 30 square miles and a population of 13,013. It has no public debt. Being well nigh impreg- nable it has escaped the ravages of war. Even Napoleon cmitted it from his conquest of prac- tically all texritory surrounding it. ‘The letter from President Lincoln was dis- covered by Representative Ernest R. Ackerman of New Jersey, who is said 0 be the most wide- ly traveled member of Congress, while in San Marino. He has a penchant for leaving the beaten paths of tourists and when visiting some of the officials of the quaint republic he was told about the Lincoln letter. He obtained a photograph of it and upon his return to the United States he was surprised to find that no record of the San Marino letter was available in the files of the White House, the archives of the Department of State or the Library of CBrhgress. Mr. Ackerman plans to present President Hoover with one of the photographs of the letter. It reads as follows: ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the Uniled States of America To the Regent Captains of the Republic of San Marino, Great and Good Friends: I have received and read with great sensibility the letter which as regent captains of the Republic of San Marino you addressed to me on the 29th of Meldetly Bt anit Boistlts i di hove concfuncdl, ifione o (/l/,w Kave Kouly atratit, ¢ty biat gl wkid, s Bofuttn st snitfafy JFit ns of i oo, Hortins & quusitie whidic o Bfostn Tt Nefblcs, cxlividist, auudls eppromidigels I wisse 4t Zole tfe afocitfrop. susnied mm...bmg/fmaé Oasport of domects fectm, S ot o ftles aizs, Shiay &k@fimmb@&, W.«.,;a(z bt Fluct... ¥oce o .o March last. I thank the Council of San Marino for the honor of citizenship they have conferred upon me. Although your dominion is small, your state is, nevertheless, one of the most honored in history. It has by its ex- perience demonstrated the truth so full of encouragement to the friends of hu- manity, that government founded on re=- publican principles is capable of being so to Light administere. ~s to be secure and en- during, You have kindly adverted to theé trial through which the republic is now pass+ ing. It is one of deep import. It in- volves the question whether a represent- ative republic extended and aggrandized so much as to be safe against foreign enemies can save itself from the dangers of domestic faction. I have faith in a good result. Wishing that your interesting state may endure and flourish forever and that you may live long and enjoy the confidence and secure the gratitude of your fellow citizens, I pray God to have you in his holy keeping. Your Good Friend, ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Washington, May 7, 1861, By the President, WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. The regent captains of San Marino are really its presidents. Two serve together for six months, then two others are inaugurated. believed to have been prompted by then manifest greatness of the man height of statsmanship to which he tined to attain. (Copyright, 1990, by the Independent Synd! “When in the Navy.™ Hobson looked for a long moment at the res- olute Donlin. Then he nodded. “Diving stations!” he barked. “Pull speed ahead on both motors.” HE motors whirred and hummed. The iron hull quivered and shook. A sharp, sputter- ing, crackling sound came from the circuis breaker, and a bright dassling glow. The carbon contacts, protesting at being held together by human force, were sending up a bright, white- hot flame—a flame that struck Donlin’s clench- ed fists with pitiless force, that turned them black, that licked along his wrists, sending = sickening odor through the narrow compart< ment. Donlin stood motionless, silent, his eyes tiny cracks in his wrinkled face. The irom hull of the Y-27 throbbed and shook. Lieut. Hobson was standing at the depth gauge, watching it with desperate eyes. The needle remained motionless; then it flickered, wavered—and finally, suddenly, began to swing. Slowly at first, then faster, the needle swung back—past 290, past 280, up to 260, up, up, up ~—200—170— “Blow all ballast tanks!” yelled Hobson sud- denly. They had reached a depth where this could be done at last. Tommy spun his wheels—the right wheels this time. The boat shot upward. Hobson ran forward, and just as Donlin collapsed and let go of the eircuit breaker the officer caught him in his arms. The Y-27 came to the surface. Her motors settled down to a steady hum as Griffin swung her head about and set his course for the home port once more. Donlin lay on a bunk. His hands and arms were black and shriveled. They would have to be amputated, obviously. His dark face was pallid, under its weathered bronze, with the agony he had endured. Tommy Sherman, relieved from duty by the fact that the ship was now running awash, edged timidly toward the bunk. Donlin’s eyes g;:tered open, rested on Tommy, recognized “You gotta be hard, kid, in the Navy," he said. (Copyright, 1930.) Historians Find Life Story of Forgotten 'Noted Pioneer and Pathfinder Continued from Tenth Page ness was brief. On the morning of February 7 he passed away. The adventurous wanderer "‘l}'” had braved every peril of the wilderness, whose nightly couch had been a bundle of poughs or the naked earth, and whose roof canopy of the stars, was fated to die peace! in bed in a metropolitan hotel. “It would been a fitter end for him,” as Fremont so ingly said of Jean Nicollet, “to have died th: open sky, and been buried rolled blanket, by the side of some stream mountains.” His old-time friend, Robert Cam had trapped with him in the Rockies W) fat:r had become one of the leading merchant of St. Louis, was in the Capital at a21 as his executor took charge of aff: °T": funeral was held on the morning of 8.1, and the burial was in the C metery. “We understand that nearly ccanected with the Indian Bureau his; funeral this morning,” saild the Daily C ;she, which gave a brief but highly laudatory troute to his memory. The National Inteili- g acer and the Daily National Era, also briefly niiiced his death, and so, a little later, did the Tiwsouri Republicn of St. Louls. Through & me unexplained negligence he rests in an uconarked grave. Pitapatrick, Carson and Bridger were close friends, and in many a daring adventure they were comrades. Though they had much in common, and though in many respects their histories were closely parallel, they were strong- ly marked with individuality of character. All three had the photographic mind—the ability to register a scene once viewed and to describe it in terms of amazing exactness. Though they were equals in courage, Carson was the most impetuous, Bridger the most wary, Fitzpatrick the most cool and balanced in judgment. Fitz- patrick and Carson had in a high degree the special technique of the ‘“‘mountain man,” but it likely that in native shrewdness, in the ability to outguess his savage foes or to surmise where danger most threatened, Bridger may somewhat have excelled them. It is cer- tain that of the three Carson had the most appealing personality. Carson won the affec- tion of men, Bridger their interest, Fitzpatrick their admiration and regard. In all-around capabilities, however, Fitz- patrick was much their superior. He had all that they had, and much more besides. He was better fitted to command, and in time of war might well have risen to high rank. One of the essential qualities of a successful “moun- tain man”—the ability to avoid an unnecessary fight—he had in a high degree. He was an adept at “palaver”—that interchange of ques- tion and answer, of friendly protestation and defiant bluff, that often passed between bands of red men and white in their chance en- counters. The red men over & vast range of territory came to know Broken Hand; they had an exceptional respect for his word and no less for his prowess as a captain of men, and thus he not infrequently argued them out of fighting even when victory would surely have been theirs. Also he had education, which his two com- rades had not. Bridger was illiterate all his life, and Carson until his last six or seven years; but Fitzpatrick, though he left school at 16, was one who read and reflected, who knew something of history and statecraft, . whose letters and reports in the Indian Office show a disciplined and well-stored mind. No one of his time and place wrote better English. His work as an Indian agent was important .and distinguished. The Indian problem con- cerned him deeply. Though not an admirer of the savage character, he believed in treating the Indians with strict and undeviating fair- ness and of gradually weaning them from the pursuit of the chase to the practice of agricul- ture and stock raising. That they did not fol- low his counsel was perhaps inevitable, but they remembered him with gratitude. The Arapahos, said Chief Little Raven, in 1865, had had “but one fair agent; that was Maj. Fitzpatrick”; and Chief Black Kettle of the Cheyennes, three years later, with his village, to be “rubbed out” by Custer's men in the battle of the Washita, gave similar testimony. The praise of Fitzpatrick is written large by Father De Smet, by Senator Benton, by Fre- mont, Kearny and Abert, by T. H. Harvey, for a time head of the central Indian superintend- ency; by Percival G. Lowe, who wrote an in- teresting and valuable book of the time, “Five Years a Dragoon,” and by others. It is now possible, by reason of many discoveries of ma«- terial, to dispel the obscurity that has sur- rounded the man and to restore him to the rank he bore in his lifetime. Hog Chooses Its Food. T}mhochnotsohouhhuhlsnnmeh\- plies. His table manners, perhaps, are not 80 nice as they might be, but he is by no means an indiscrimate feeder. - ' The results of feeding barley that has beem attacked by the scab disease indicate that the hog will not eat barley in which more than about 10 per cent of the kernels are affected. Cows and sheep, however, will eat the low- grade grain without harmful results.