Tracing Lincoln’s fame through a century of change

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Lincoln Memorial and reflecting pool. May 2, 1923. (Library of Congress)

Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial will mark its 99th Lincoln Day Ceremony this Sunday, February 12, setting the Spencer County tradition on course for its centennial next year. While this solemn occasion has become synonymous with our observance of Lincoln’s Birthday, there was plenty of Lincoln love to go around before that. 

Every generation has its share of defining moments. The Assassination of President John Kennedy has long been a uniting memory for those who shared it, or experienced the surge of popular media focusing on the tragedy. A century ago, the same could be said of those who entered adulthood under President Abe Lincoln and came to lead post-bellum America. Sensing the not-too-distant future where there would be no living memory of the Great Emancipator, newspapers across the country made it a point to seek out those with close connections to the man, much as they now do with the few remaining veterans of the Second World War.

The February 12, 1923 edition of The Indianapolis Times carried a series of interviews from the Newspaper Enterprise Association. Sarah Whitney of Akron, Ohio recalled serving in the volunteer relief corps tending to the sick and wounded of General Grant’s Army of the Potomac. One night in August of 1864 she was absorbed in her work when a tall stranger approached unnoticed, stooping down to whisper “Little Mother” and kiss her before moving on. It took Whitney some time to process that she just met the President himself. 

Cornelius Savage of New York shared his own run-in with the Railsplitter. Savage spent the Civil War serving in the Ordinance Department, practically in Lincoln’s backyard. He and the other younger boys would often join each other in a field behind the White House to unwind with some baseball.

“Frequently we would look up and observe the tall figure of the President watching us from the White House,” said Savage.

One day, these regular games ran afoul of a recently appointed commissioner of public buildings, who ordered the youths away. According to Savage, it was Lincoln himself who came to sort out the matter.

“Now, look here,” said Lincoln. “You just consider me a member of that ball team and don’t go away until I tell you to.”

Savage notes, “The order [to effectively get off the President’s lawn] never came.”

Another interviewee was former Congressman Cornelius Cole, a close associate of Abraham Lincoln and 101 years old at the time he sat down with journalists. Cole spoke of the President’s indifference to his own safety, a topic of some contention between the two.

“I remonstrated with Lincoln about his carelessness,” said Cole. “Saying I feared the rebels might try to procure his assassination to throw Washington into confusion.”

“I resolved when I came here,” responded Lincoln. “That I would not always be dying.”

While the President refused to let the danger of death worry him, Cole said he took his fears to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who seems to have been more amenable.

“I noticed that sentries were regularly stationed at the White House thereafter,” recalled Cole.

Cole passed away a year after giving his account, at the age of 102.

The Rockport Journal went all out honoring Lincoln in its February 9, 1923 edition as well. The local paper was particularly keen on sharing details on the new Lincoln Monument, dedicated in May of 1922, as well as other artifacts of the now-famous Spencer County native. Captions from these snippets include duly celebratory language, declaring the new memorial as “world famous” and “massive in design,” remarking that “The Whole World Came to Admire the Genius of Abe Lincoln” and “Years but Add Luster to Name Fame of Martyred President.”

Amphibian aircraft on reflecting pool in front of Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C. in 1923. (Harris & Ewing / Library of Congress)

The Rockport Journal, being the local Republican paper of record at the time, also took time to emphasize old rivalries. One headline reads, “Southern Journals Bitter” in reference to hard-line secessionists that never quite came to terms with their defeat. Another recalls Lincoln’s northern enemies, such as the Copperheads who opposed the war from the outset, or came to oppose the Union’s later goals of abolishing slavery outright.

By 1923, however, most of Lincoln’s most committed detractors had either died out or switched gears. Within a decade, both Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt would claim the role as spiritual successors to Lincoln’s legacy during their election contest. Indeed, even the fringes of American politics tended to make an effort to cash in on Lincoln’s growing popularity, especially in Indiana.

The Second Wave of the Ku Klux Klan spread fast and far, rising particularly high in the state politics of Lincoln’s boyhood home. The KKK’s targets were quite varied, ranging from Catholic immigrants and opponents of Prohibition to its more traditional rivals in the social movements of the time. 

There was a growing push to end racial segregation in Indiana. Though reformers would not see major success for quite some time, it was enough to spark anxiety among the self-appointed arbiters of Americanism in the Klan. Conscious of the political leanings of their Midwestern stronghold, the Klan’s influencer cadres were careful to avoid any criticism of the Great Emancipator. Indeed, they often sought to co-opt Lincoln as their own.

Pamphlets distributed by the United Klans of America, operating in Greenwood, put Lincoln square on the front with a series of quotes attributed to him. All these carefully curated statements were conveniently taken from before his election as President. This neatly sidestepped discussing his actual policy record and the seismic shifts in personal and public opinion that took place during the Civil War, not to mention the intervening lifetime between then and the 1920s. 

Still the KKK’s recruiting and influence proved particularly strong in Indiana, and even here. The June 29, 1923 edition of The Rockport Journal contains two references to Klan activity in Spencer County. The funeral of a prominent and well-regarded citizen was organized by the organization, alongside the Knights of Pythias. 

Meanwhile, a Ku Klux Klan Parade reportedly drew “several thousand” to Rockport.

“Two explosions of dynamite were heard to the west and immediately a fiery cross appeared west of the end of Main Street,” according to the report. “Soon the Rockport band far down the street started playing and began the march toward the courthouse square. Immediately following the band were several robed horsemen. Those were followed by footmen, also robed. The footmen marched by two and each carried a torch. There were 200 of the robed Ku Kluxxers.”

The local paper noted the affair was quiet, without a word uttered as the procession moved up and down local streets before disappearing. The marchers’ identities were unknown, but The Rockport Journal noted the presence of several out-of-town cars that spirited many of them away after the event. Evansville was considered the likely source for many of these visitors. 

This seems likely, as the paper also noted the presence of Joseph Huffington, a Klan organizer in Evansville. Huffington spoke at length on the Spencer County Courthouse steps where he “stressed the moral question and lamented that the morals of our country are not what they should be. He said the Klan was for upholding of the constitution, including the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment.”

The Klan would begin to fall apart only two years later when its leader, DC Stephenson, was convicted of rape and murder. 

Abe Lincoln’s legacy was also critical to one of the Klan’s most hated rivals in Indiana, militant labor organizer and perennial Socialist candidate for President Eugene Debs. The Klan’s pamphlet directly associated integration with Debs, and the socialist movement of the 1920s as a whole, saying “Enforced equality is a principle of Marxism.”

To be sure, Debs had become a vociferous supporter of integration and equal rights, especially after his incarceration for opposing America’s entry into the First World War. After returning home to Terre Haute, Debs began to shift his messaging to more directly address racial discrimination, in response to his experiences in prison. Debs penned a May Day Address to black workers in 1923 for a Harlem-based magazine, a notable expression of solidarity between white and black reformers of the time.

John Swinton, a journalist who came to fame during the Civil War years as a writer at The New York Times, went so far as to practically conflate Debs and Lincoln. In an 1895 essay, Swinton recalled seeing Lincoln’s February 27, 1860 Cooper Union Address. Thirty-four years later, Swinton watched Debs speak on the same platform. 

“As they spoke, it was easy for a New Yorker to discern that they were both men of the west,” said Swinton. “In the speeches of both westerners there was cogent argument; there were apt illustrations; there were especially emphatic passages; there were moments of lightning; there were touches of humor, and there were other qualities which produce conviction or impel to action. Each speaker was as free as the other from gross eloquence. I confess that I was as much impressed with the closing words of Debs’ speech as I was with those of Lincoln, when he exclaimed, “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty, as we understand it.”

Swinton’s obvious personal feelings aside (not to mention his blind spot for Indiana being a home to both his heroes), he offers an interesting perspective on how Lincoln’s legacy carried forward into the 20th Century. By the time the Lincoln Monument in Washington was dedicated, and Lincoln Day began being regularly observed in his boyhood home, the people who got the chance to see him first hand were leaving the world stage. Swinton was nearing the end of his life when he saw, or hoped to see, a resurgence of the great cause of his youth. Others remembered Lincoln as a colleague, as a kind figure who didn’t mind watching youths at play from his office or as a tall stranger unrecognized until he had gone. Even his detractors, or the descendants thereof, had consigned themselves to navigating the world he built.

Some monuments, however, are closer to home. The Rockport Journal reported in March 25, 1923 that Lincoln’s boyhood home would soon sport a new highway to carry future residents near and far.

“The state highway commission has added sixty miles to its building program for 1923 in the southwestern part of the state. This program includes several stretches of in which citizens of Spencer County are interested. One of the stretches includes the road from Gentryville to Lincoln City. This road is to be known as the Lincoln Memorial Highway. The right of way for this road will be 100 feet wide, thus permitting trees and shrubbery to be planted on both sides.”

Story by Don Steen

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