Evening Star Newspaper, February 14, 1932, Page 75

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, FEBRUARY 14, 1932, 3 Ida Tarbell Dispels the Lincoln Myth BY CAROL BIRD. A man "of insatiable curiosity about all manner of things, from midgets to the solar system. A man with a humorous type of mind, who had a passionate tendermess jor children and who displayed in- difference for the social whirl and everything pertaining to sociely. A mystic. A man’s man. A self-cor- rective, analytical realist. A sed human being, because of too pro- Jound understanding of this imper- fect world; a gay one on occasion, and one who possessed a fund of first-class stories. A self-educated individualist, of slow, sound judg- ment and independent thought, who stuck to his guns once he had made up his mind on a course o? action he deemed right. A man with a clear sense of his own han- dicaps, but one who rgfused to a’- low this knowledge to cripple his progress in life. A forthright man, without affectations, married to a socially superior woman who was not averse to “rubbing in” the fact of her social superiority. HIS is the picture of Abraham Lincoln, as etched by Ida Tarbell, writer, historian, publi- cist and “trust-buster.” Miss Tarbell is a Lincoln biographer, but she does not ad- here to “the Lincoln myth,” as she calls it, which depicts Abraham Lincoln as an inspired and in- fallible creature. She draws him as more warmly human; a man of earth who lived, learned, suffered and struggled after the fashion of most people, but one who, in addition, possessed and exercised “a divine curiosity” and a dogged perseverence which carried him ahead of the proces- sion. Miss Tarbell also explodes the theory that Lincoln was pain- fully homely and frightfully mor- bid, and describes him as possess- ing an arresting type of face, of marvelous contour and wide range of expression, and the sort of tem- perament which made him appre- ciate perfection in life and grieve over existing evils. It is difficult to write only of Lincoln after interviewing Ida Tar- bell, his biographer. The urge is to write about her, too. She recently celebrated her T4th birthday anni- versary, and although a long life of achievement—more than half a century of it—stretches behind her, she is still immersed in big jobs. \ HE does all her work in her siu- dio apartment near Gramercy Park in New York City and rests week ends on her farm in Fairfield County, Conn. This interviewer found her in her workshop in New York, beside two desks piled high with papers and manuscripts, sur- rounded by phones, books, dictaphones and waiting for her secretary to arrive to begin the day’s stint. She spoke affectionately of Lin- coln, after the manner of a friend. “There is what you might call a Lincoln myth,” she said, “which makes him out a superman. Those who cling to this cannot tolerate any criticism of their idol. They ap- parently want to view Lincoln as one inspired, possessing an inspired mind. He was not this sort of person at all. The marvel, as far as Lincoln is concerned, is that a man with his background, handicapped as he was by having no external help in the way of family, property, formal education and making his way from childhood in a pioneer country, should have achieved what he did. “Taking his handicaps into consideration, it was remarkable that he should have developed sound ways of thinking and of attacking prob- lems, and then to have developed the kind of character which enabled him to stick to the conclusions he had reached, to adhere to them in face of difficulties and opposition. That to me is the marvel of Lincoln—the way in which he developed his mind and character and held to his personality all the way through. He was always himself. Neither his thinking nor his conscience nor his social life nor his deal- ings with men were tinged with another’s personality. Nothing that he ever did was anything but Abraham Lincoln. 01| |E was stable. You always found him right there. He was unusual. I do not subscribe to the effort of making Lincoln somethirig other than a man who wrestled with great problems and who never deserted one he had taken on. He had persistence and perseverance. Lincoln had a favorite say- ing regarding this quality of tenacity, and that was: ‘Hanging on like a dog at a root.’ “He got the idea very early in life that a man should get an education somehow, some way. He never had the cheap idea that if you merely acquired a degree or got a college course that you were educated. He knew that the educated man was always studying, always adding to his store of knowledge. “I think that Lincoln was, to a large degree, self-corrective. He did not believe he was infallible. He did not think he was the great- est man in the world. He knew that he was not. He became a great man by observing things and people and the ways of life. He was never content with just knowing a great man; he wanted also to know why that man was @8 he was. And he felt this way about all Lincoln had a striking face. 2 It showed great vitality, was mobile and ran the whole gamut of moods from the deepest melancholy to the greatest gayety. This etching was made by F. B. Carpenter in 1864. “The Great Emancipator” Just a Human Being—Not a Superman—Who Lived, Learned, Suf fered as Other Mortals; Contends EEminent Biographer, Who Explodes Theories About His Supposed Morbidity. people he met. This was also the case regard- ing natural objects. “Lincoln’s mastery of this very thing was one reason for his greatness. He began as a boy to think, and to think about everything, but he not only did a prodigious amount of thinking; he did the kind of thinking which re- duces a problem to simple terms, and he em- ployed these in passing on his hard-won knowledge to others. As for his curiosity, even as President, he kept this fresh about all kinds of things. “One of the secrets of Lincoln’s greatness was that he was never superficial about any- thing. That gave him power. He used to carry a thought with him until it ripened and matured in his mind. That was the strength of his great argument with Douglas, the his- torical Lincoln-Douglas debate over the exten- sion of slavery. He mulled over the proposi- tion of saving the Union in the same way. He seems to have asked himself: Is it worth sav- ing? If so, how can it be done? “Some people called Lincoln slow. They thought him ponderous in reaching decisions. He was. He was not a fly-by-night-judgment sort of man. Lincoln took time for thought. He wanted to be certain that his course of action was right before he embarked on it. When he finally did make a move he knew why he made it and he was usually right. “Lincoln was a man of exceptionally strong affections. He had great respect for women, He was a little bit afraid of them, I have always thought. But he had enormous respect for them, and he married one who was hysteri- ‘“Honest Abe”’ Did you know that Lincoln was an inventor? There is a patent in Wash- ington for a device he made for getting boats over shoals. He was superstitious about dreams and liked to interpret them or have them interpreted. At parties the girls called him their rival, because men would leave them to talk and joke with this “man’s man.” He was conscious of his own lack of culture, but never let this knowledge cripple him nor cramp his progress. cal. Mary Todd, his wife, had s9= cial aspirations. Socially she was Lincoln’s superior. She came of a fine Kentucky family, and she didn’t hesitate to ‘rub in’ this fact. She thought a great deal of doing the ‘proper thing.’ She liked to make a show. “I have always believed that Mary Todd was greatly in love with Abraham Lincoln. Otherwise she would not have married him. I think hers was the greater love, that Lincoln was less in love with her. He was a trial to her, and certainly she was to him. They had four boys. One died in Spring- field when he was about 3; another, Willie, in the White House. The death of this son was a great blow to the father. 1"NUT Lincoln was not with< out attachments He wag fond of a great many kinds of men. Most of his friends were men. Ha was not a ‘ladies’ man’ as most people interpret that phrase. Howe ever, when he was a young man he had three or four older women wha were his friends, and he used to talk over his problems with them; made confidants of them. The hus- bands of these women were gens erally older men with whom he was associated. He was welcome in these family circles. There was one woman whose husband was a member of Congress when Lincola was there. The husband's name was Senator Browning. Lincoln had known the Brcwnings back in the days when he first went into the Legislature of Illinois. “Mrs. Browning had been very good to him. She had taken him in tow and coached him"in social matters. Lincoln was courteous and respectful where women were con- cerned, but his popularity was strongest with men. They were de- voted to him. In Springfield the girls used to say that he was their rival. When he came to a party the men would leave them and migrate toward Lincoln. They would go off in a corner with him, get into a huddle and talk end- lessly. “Lincoln had a strong attraction for men. He had humor, he was a good conversationalist and he pos- sessed a tremendous fund of stories. He was a keen politician and he liked to talk politics. “As for Lincoln’s personal ap- pearance, I have always thought he had a striking face. The con- tour of it was extraordinary. The face itself showed great vitality. He had a wonderful nose, deep-set eyes. And he possessed a great range of expression. His face was mobile, and it revealed a whole gamut of moods from the deepest melancholy up to the greatest gayety. His face shows a most autocratic determination and pow- er. Sometimes it shows utter de- spair, at other times great resolu- tion. Lincoln’s face is remarkably expressive. I have a collection of different photographs of him. They could be combined in a book ‘which would tell the story of Lincoln as vividly, per- boomk more so, as a different type of descriptive “Lincoln was great enough to build a sound position for himself and then stick to it re- gardless of criticism by those who might appear to be more important than he was. He had a great sense of values. He did not think it was necessary to go out and struggle to get certain kinds of clothes of fine fixings. He knew that the real things, the things that count in the making of a man were superior qualities of heart and mind. These things he wanted; these he went ocut to get. And when he g0 them, in crude form, he whipped them inte shape. But his lack of the superficial attaine ments, the ability to dress in the mode and ss on, brought him ridicule and criticism, par- ticularly during political campaigns. Even Mrs. Lincoln made him appear a fool in this connection. 11 CHE succeeded in making him wear whit® gloves to the opera. He was a spectacle, His great hands were accentuated as to size in the white gloves which he wore so clum- sily, because he was unaccustomed to them. At other times he was observed wearing them at the Whité House, and people remarked o® his awkwardness, his lack of ease. “Lincoln was profoundly religious. He had a deep faith in God, in a Divine Providence which guided one and, in the end, triumphed. He was not an orthodox churchman, but he went to church and prayed. He read the Bible regularly in the White House. He was a mystic. He had superstitions about dreams and liked to interpret them or have them interpreted. He had an open mind about everything; he never scoffed at any one’s re- ligion. He realized that there were more things in heaven and earth than were dreamed of, and so he never closed his mind to any- thing. “Some people draw an analogy between Lincoln and Washington. I cannot do this. They were alike, however, in this respect: They both accepted problems, wrestled for a solution of them, and when they had the_right one, stuck to it. Washington saw the only way out for us was a union of the Colonies. Lincoln believed the only way out was to preserve the union of the States.” (Copyright, 1932.)