USA > Wisconsin > Milwaukee County > Milwaukee > History of Milwaukee, city and county, Volume I > Part 16
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"Mr. Lincoln was royally entertained that afternoon, and it is said he enjoyed the attractions as much as any man at the fair. There were the ordinary county fair attractions of that time, the races, and all was followed by a big fireman's parade. Ile did not get much opportunity to see Milwaukee. He viewed the city in his carriage as he rode to the grounds and again on his way back to the hotel. He saw many of the improvements that had occurred sinee the time more than twenty years before when he had thought of settling in the city as a young lawyer.
"Ile may have remained around the fair grounds for a while after that speech. No one remembers. He was just the 'Ilon. Mr. Lincoln.' Ile had given his speech and he might go. Perhaps some crowded around to shake his hand and tell him of their sympathy in the new cause.
"The next we know of him in his visit to Milwaukee was that night at the Newhall house. Train service was erude in those days. There was no two-hour schedule to Chicago, and no trains running every two hours. There was no railroad commission to appeal to for better service. Automobiles had not made their appearance and Mr. Lincoln was obliged to remain in Mil- wankee until the next day.
"Peter Van Vechten, Jr., then a youngster working in his father's store adjoining the Newhall house, tells a picturesque story of the night of Septem-
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ber 30, 1859, at the Newhall house. 'He arrived at the hotel rather late from the Fair grounds. Many local politicians had gathered at the hotel. Some remained around to talk to him, or gathered in the lobby to talk over his speech. Slavery was a great question in those days, more important than the tariff question of today, and caused more discussion than the Canadian reciprocity treaty.
". After supper a mimber of Mr. Lincoln's friends prevailed upon him to make a short speech,' said Mr. Van Vechten. 'There was not much of a crowd there, not over fifty men. He consented.
"."What shall I stand on?" he asked.
". . There was nothing there, so I ran back to the store and got a dry goods box. This we placed in a corner in the lobby. I don't remember much of that speech. I know it was on the slavery question. One sentence stands out prominently in my mind, however, a sentence which has often since been quoted.
" . "I do not believe, " he said, "that this nation can exist half free and half slave."
"Those words became a part of the campaign issue when he was nominated for president and proved to the South that the time had come to make or break when Mr. Lincoln was elected.
" Little more of Mr. Lincoln's visit can be learned. That was the last time he ever visited Milwaukee. In the campaign which followed there was no use of his spending time in Wisconsin. The Badger State was strongly for aboli- tion, and it was in this state that Republicanism and Mr. Lincoln's policies had their birth. He spent the time fighting the question out in the east and on the border states, where the battle for votes was to be followed by the battle of blood.
"Then came his election, his inauguration, lapping almost into the period of the war. There was no traveling and little speech-making for him after that. lle was confined to a ghastly business which ended in his own death by an assassin's bullet, after he had piloted the country to the freedom for which he pleaded in his only Milwaukee address."
Walter Distelhorst, president of the Milwaukee Historical Society, in an address delivered before that body on February 8th, 1922, gave a most inter- esting account of "Lincoln in Milwaukee, " which we republish herewith :
If the Milwaukee newspapers in 1859 had told with the same richness of detail the story of Lincoln's visit to this city as they do today whenever some celebrity comes to town, we might have a very interesting picture of the incident and of the period. But the art of quick photography and of photo- engraving were not discovered until many years later, so that no illustrations appear in the papers of the day upon which we must depend for the printed record of Lincoln's visit : and furthermore, there did not seem to be at that early time that intense curiosity on the part of the newspaper-reading public for the intimate details that obtains at the present day. If it did exist. the journalists of 1859 did not cater to it. For their reports are extremely brief, not to say barren, of such facts as we today would like to read.
As to Lincoln's personal appearance, we are safe in saying that Milwan-
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kreans of this early day did not see the Lincoln with whom we are familiar. for the MeClure portraits show that he was smooth-shaven in 1859. His pictures do not show him as wearing a beard until 1861.
There is a story to the effect that while he was riding on the train to Washington a little girl, his fellow passenger, suggested that whiskers would improve his appearance, and that it was her suggestion upon which he acted when he let his beard grow.
The Milwaukee Public Library has on file only the Milwaukee Sentinel and the Daily News of this particular period. Both were morning papers of four pages, eight columns wide (as is the present width of the Milwaukee dailies), the length being about four inches more than now. The editors must have been umusually busy with their "blue pencils" on the Lincoln "copy," or the papers may have been short-handed of compositors (all type being at that time set by hand). for it does seem that in view of Lincoln's participation in the epoch-making debates with Douglas only a short time be- fore. which served to make him a national figure, somewhat more extended mention should have been made of his address in Milwaukee.
In connection with these debates, it may be of interest to quote from an Associated Press report which appeared in the daily papers of the country on October 7, 1921, under a Galesburg, Ill., date line. My quotation is taken from the Milwaukee Journal, the item in full reading as follows:
Standing where Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas stood on the same day in 1858, in front of "Old Main, " the historie building of Knox college, Dr. William E. Barton, Chicago, spoke on the emancipator at a celebration commemorative of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
The celebration was under the auspices of Knox college, which conferred on Lincoln the honorary degree of doctor of laws.
"Lincoln's high title to honor in that notable series of debates lies in the fact that he d'd not rest his case on the opportune split in the party of his opponents, but forced the moral issue, and would not permit even so astute an opponent as Douglas to evade it, " said Doetor Barton. "Standing in this spot, Lincoln said to Douglas:
" "Judge Douglas declares that if any community wants slavery, they have a right to it. lle can say that logically if there is no wrong in slavery ; but if you adm't that there is wrong in it, he cannot logically say that anybody has a right to do wrong. Now; I confess myself as belonging to that class of society who contemplate slavery as a moral, social and political wrong. Ile is blowing ont the moral lights around us when he contends that who- ever wants slaves has a right to hold them.'
"On that platform Lincoln lost the senatorship of Illinois in 1858 and on that platform he won the presidency in 1860."
It is not unlikely that these debates were largely influential in inducing the Wisconsin Agricultural Society to invite Lincoln to deliver the annual address at the State Fair. Yet in its announcement in the Sentinel running during Fair Week, Lincoln's name was not given. Evidently this was a paid advertisement, similar to our present-day display advertisements, for it ap- peared in a 91% inch single-colinm space on the front page and presented the
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program for the Fair in a way similar to that followed today. It was headed "Ninth Annual State Fair of the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, Sep- tember 26, 27, 28, 29 & 30, 1859." Lincoln's speech was mentioned as the "ammal address" which was to be delivered on Friday at 10 a. m.
In the issue of Monday morning, September 26th, the Sentinel article on the opening of the Fair had these words :
"Hon. Abram (note the spelling of the first name) Lincoln, of Illinois, will deliver the annual address.'
In the issue of Friday morning, September 30th, substantially the same words were used- and that was the day of the address.
No more space was given in the Monday issue to Lincoln and his forth- coming address than to "Professor Steiner" who was scheduled to make a balloon ascension on the Saturday following.
On Tuesday the Sentinel in referring to the speaker said: "No better orator for the occasion could have been found in the whole Northwest."
This is not waxing unduly enthusiastic, in the light of similar mention of our publie men today by a journal that is of the same political faith as the man referred to.
We learn also from the news columns that the schools closed on Thursday and Friday to permit "scholars and teachers" to visit the Fair. An announce- ment appeared for several days to the effeet that the banks would elose at 1 o'clock on Thursday afternoon, to permit their employees to visit the Fair also, and it bore the signature of a number of banks, but nothing was said about the following day, the day on which Lincoln was scheduled to give his address.
Henry W. Bleyer, a veteran Milwaukee newspaper man. who died in Madison on January 19th, 1922, at the age of 86 years, recalled that Mr. Lincoln's train was late when he reached Milwaukee on Friday, September 30th, so that Lincoln did not arrive until late in the forenoon. These recol- lections are included in a letter which was written at Mr. Bleyer's dictation by his nephew, Prof. Willard G. Bleyer, of the University of Wisconsin, at Madison, where he resided. The date of the letter is October 3rd. 1921. Owing to his advanced age, Mr. Bleyer was himself unable to write.
Mr. Bleyer, the unele, recalls that the distinguished visitor was driven in a carriage to the Newhall House, and from there to the fair grounds. It was probably after his speech that he made the rounds of the fair grounds with the president of the Wisconsin Agricultural Society, Elisha W. Edgerton.
George Richardson, a Milwaukee pioneer, who was a boy at the time of Lincoln's visit, told the writer (in a personal reminiscence at the Old Settlers ('lub in the fall of 1920) that Lincoln walked over to the scene of the plow- ing contest, in the course of his rounds. the contest being held somewhere in the vicinity of what is now about Twelfth and Clybourn streets, outside the Fair Grounds proper, and that his homely comments on the contest were enjoyed by the by-standers quite as much as his more formal words a few minutes before.
The address has until very recently been practically unknown. Prof. Julius E. Olson, of the University of Wisconsin, writing in the quarterly
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of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the "Wisconsin Magazine of History," Volume IV, Number 1, for September, 1920, says that the only place in which he found it was in the C. S. Hammond & Company edition of Lincohi's works, which was published in 1907, and in none of the other biographies of Lincoln, so far as he knows. A page of the manuscript was reproduced in connection with this article, the page being among Professor Olson's treasured possessions.
On October 1, 1859, the "Sentinel" printed Lincoln's address in full on the front page. It ran several columns. For this journalistie feat the writer had been led to believe that the paper was indebted to Henry Bleyer, as the writer had understood from Julius Bleyer, a brother of Henry and a Milwaukee newspaper man, too, but the letter already referred to (now in the collection of the Milwaukee Historical Society) explains that "the manuscript was secured from Lincoln by a 'Sentinel' reporter "-obviously not Mr. Bleyer-"'and the speech was set up in the Sentinel' composing room," of which another unele of Professor Bleyer, Louis Bleyer, was foreman.
This letter also correets another mistaken impression on the writer's part (and this was generally shared because it was repeated in the press at the time of Mr. Henry Bleyer's death), that during the Civil war, after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation had been issued, that Mil- wankee negroes visited the "Sentinel" office and begged Mr. Henry Bleyer for bits of the manuscript penned by their beloved Lincoln's own hand.
Professor Bleyer writes :
"Lonis Bleyer kept the original manuscript and later gave it to my uncle, Henry W. Bleyer. After Lincoln became prominent, Henry W. gave away pieces of the manuscript to various persons, entting it up for the purpose. Another unele, George, gave Lathrop E. Smith, of Beloit, the page of the manuscript reproduced in the 'Wisconsin Magazine of History,' while Smith and George Bleyer were working together on one of the Beloit papers.
"The story about Henty Bleyer distributing some of the pieces of mann- script to negroes from the steps of the 'Sentinel' office is ineorreet. My unele (Henry) says that he recalls giving some pieces to some of the leaders among the negroes in Buffalo, New York, after he moved to Buffalo in 1860, but not to any negroes in Milwaukee."
The manuscript, Mr. Bleyer says, was in large part written in ink on legal cap paper, "but apparently on the train Lincoln had written a page about the importance of the steam plow, in lead peneil."
Referring to the page of the manuscript reproduced in the Historical Society quarterly, Professor Olson says in his article that "a 'Sentinel' printer" gave it to Mr. Smith that same year (1859), and ultimately it came into his (Professor Olson's) possession.
The headline over the artiele in the "Sentinel" on the day after the address was a single line of small blackfaced type-" Hon. Abram Lincoln's Address." The introduction follows:
In another column we publish in full the very able address of Abram Lincoln, of Illinois, before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. It is in every sense a practicable and readable effort and will receive attentive
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perusal. Yesterday a high wind combined with the dust rendered the day somewhat unfavorable but there was a large attendance at the Fair Grounds nevertheless. At 11 o'clock the plank auditorimon at Brockway's was filled with an expectant crowd waiting with commendable patience the appear- anee of Abram Lincoln who had been annonneed to deliver the address at 10 o'clock. It was not far from noon when the distinguished gentleman made his appearance and he was immediately welcomed with clapping of hands and a stamping of feet on the raised seats which caused the afore- mentioned Broekway to show considerable nervousness. Upon being in- troduced Mr. Lincoln waited a few minutes for the applanse to subside and spoke as follows.
Just before the opening of the Wisconsin State Fair late in August. 1921, the Milwaukee "Journal" ran a considerable portion of Lincoln's address delivered at the Fair sixty-two years before, under title of "Here's Lincoln Message to Wisconsin Fair in 1859." two lines of type across two columns, the letters being half an inch high.
The address in full can be found at the Public Library, so only two excerpts will be given :
"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 are really more attempts at flattering them than any other, the reason of 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.
"But farmers being the most numerous class, it follows that their interest is the largest interest. It also follows that that interest is most worthy of all to be cherished and cultivated-that if there be inevitable conflict between that interest and any other, that other should yield.
"In all this, book learning is available. A capacity and taste for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems. And not only so: it gives a relish and facility for successfully pursuing the unsolved ones. The rudiments of science are available, and highly available. Some knowl- edge of botany assists in the dealing with the vegetable world-with all growing crops. Chemistry assists in the analysis of soils, selection and ap- plication of manures and in numerous other ways. The mechanical branches of natural philosophy are ready help in almost everything, but especially in reference to implements and machinery.
"The thought recurs that education-cultivated thought-ean best be combined with agricultural labor, on the principle of thorough work ; that careless, half-performed, slovenly work makes no place for such a combination : and thorough work, again, renders sufficient the smallest quantity of ground to man: and this. again, conforms to what must oceur in a world less inclined to wars and more devoted to the arts of prace than
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heretofore. Population must increase rapidly, more rapidly than in former times, and ere long the most valuable of all arts will be the art of deriving a comfortable subsistence from the smallest area of soil, No community whose every member possesses this art can ever be the victim of oppression in any of its forms. Such community will be alike independent of crowned kings, money kings and land kings."
In the Sentinel ait'ele, after the text of the address we find the following :
"At the conclusion of the address three hearty cheers were given for the 'Kentucky boy' and the Secretary proceeded to read the awards of the premiums."
In the Daily News of the same date we read that the speaker occupied an "elevated stand"-and the article does not contain much else, the editor going on to explain the reason for the brevity of the mention (the article also appeared on the front page) in these words:
"Mr. Lincoln's address was a written one and will doubtless be pub- lished, hence we refrain from giving a synopsis of it. * Mr. Lincoln spoke about an hour and was listened to with attention by the large auditory. Ile is a man of ability and is possessed of a stentorian voice which could be distinetly heard by every person in the vast assemblage."
The Daily News, which was democratie, made another mention of the occasion on its editor'al page. This was headed "In Questionable Taste" and refers to the short speech made by Lincoln the evening before at the Newhall House. Some of Lincoln's friends had gathered there after dinner and insisted on his addressing them.
We read :
"There is some diversity of opinion as to the propriety of bringing black republican speakers here to make political speeches under the auspices of the State Agricultural Society."
Peter Van Vechten gave some reminiscences of this Newhall House ad- dress in an article written for the Milwaukee Free Press of February 12. 1911, by J. E. Moriarity. Mr. Van Vechten worked in his father's store adjoining the Newhay House at the time, and brought a box from the store for the speaker to stand on. (This is corroborated in Professor Bleyer's letter.) Mr. Van Vechten's recollection as here given is that abont fifty persons heard this talk, but the Daily News, from which the foregoing quotations were taken, was probably nearer right when it gave the number as 250.
(Newhall lonse, which was located on the northwest corner of Michigan Street and Broadway, was on January 10th, 1883, the seene of one of Mil- waukee's greatest tragedies, when it was destroyed by fire and sixty-four persons lost their lives. In Lincoln's day it was the largest and finest hotel in the West, being of brick, six stories high and having 300 rooms, accord- ing to the "History of Milwaukee," 166% pages, published by the Western Historieal Company, of Chicago, in ISSI. The hotel was built by Daniel Newhall and his associates in 1857 (p. 1426), and the property, inchiding building, site and furnishings, represented an outlay of $270,000. Messrs. M. Kean and A. M. Rice Were the landlords at the time of Lincoln's visit. ) Vol. 1-11
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A letter from W. P. Powers, of Los Angeles, Cal., appeared in the Mil- waukee Journal of September 4th, 1921, which throws considerable light on Lincoln's visit to Milwaukee. David J. Powers, mentioned in the letter, was the secretary of the Agricultural Society, under whose auspices Lincoln spoke. The letter follows:
" In 1859 my father, David J. Powers, in arranging for the State Fair at Milwaukee, invited Abraham Lincoln, a lawyer of Springfield, Illinois, to deliver the address.
"Mr. Lincoln had beeome widely known through the debates between himself and Stephen A. Douglas.
"To the first letter of invitation, written in July, no answer was ro- ceived, and a second letter written a few weeks later brought the following reply :
" . Dear Sir :- Reaching home after an absence of nine days I find yours of the twelfth. I have also received that of July 27th : and to be plain, I disliked to decline the honor yon tendered me. Two difficulties were in the way-first. I could not well spare the time from the courts; and secondly, I had no address of the sort prepared, and could scarcely spare the time to prepare one; and I was waiting, before answering yours, to determine whether these difficulties could be surmounted. I will write von definitely on the first of September, if you can safely delay so long.
". . Yours very truly, A. LINCOLN.
"Upon receipt of the letter my father, reading between the lines, thought he saw the real reason for the stand-off when he remembered that he had said nothing about compensation in either of the previous letters. He there- upon wrote him again, saying he had neglected to mention in his former letters that there would be a compensation of $100, which appeared to strike him favorably, as in a few days a letter came to the effect that he was pleased to say that he had so arranged matters in the courts that he could come.
"He came and delivered the address, and it appears in some of the lives of Lincoln, interested as he was in the absorbing topics of the day, he was little adapted to a talk to farmers, and the address gave slight promise of the wonderful heights to which his genius later on attained.
"His address was largely devoted to the desirability of steam plows, a want that is now so happily filled by the modern tractor of which he seemed to have a vision.
"He was careful in his address to avoid anything of a political nature. but in the evening at the old Newhall House, to a select company of those of his own fa'th, he freely held forth on the subject that was next to his heart.
"My father said he had given the letter to the Illinois State Historical Society, and it is now in the Lincoln Memorial Collection at Springfield, Illinois.
"Now comes to the writer. the interesting part of this matter. At the San Francisco Exposition in 1915, entering the Lincoln Memorial room in the Illinois Building. my attention was attracted to a frame over which
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was the inscription, 'Letters of Abraham Lincoln previous to 1860.' Re- membering the story often told by my father, I intuitively looked at the letters under the glass in the frame and to my surprise and delight the first one I saw was addressed to D. J. Powers."
There is more to the letter, but the rest is of a personal nature and has no special bearing on this particular subject.
At the time of Lincoln's visit Milwaukee had a population of abont forty-six thousand .. The edge of town was at about Twelfth Street, and the stand from which Lincoln spoke was probably close to what is now the corner of Twelfth Street and Grand Avenue, or perhaps a little to the north of this spot.
Mr. Lincoln on leaving the grounds was driven about the city. Accord- ing to Mr. Richardson's recollection, he attracted comparatively little atten- tion, and Mr. Richardson himself, with others, did not stay for more than a part of the address at the Fair, little realizing that they were in the presence of a later president of the United States and one of the greatest figures of all time.
On October 4th, following Lincoln's address in Milwaukee, he gave an address during the afternoon at Beloit and during the evening at Janes- ville, both being political addresses.
In view of the manner in which the Milwaukee papers handled Lincoln's speech, it is unlikely that he was at that time considered seriously as a candidate for the presidency. This reminder is found in the Carl Sehurz essay, "Abraham Lincoln" (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1891) :
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