975.7L65 
 BWhUtg 
 
 Hertz, Emanuel 
 
 L i nco !n and 
 Street Boys 
 
 the Grand 
 
LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 and 
 
 HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER 
 
LINCOLN 
 
 and 
 
 THE GRAND STREET BOYS 
 
 By 
 EMANUEL HERTZ 
 
 (Notes of an address delivered before the Grand Street Boys 
 on February 4, 1930) 
 
1 
 
 Lincoln and the Grand Street Boys 
 
 BY EMANUEL HERTZ 
 
 NE often wonders what Lincoln would have done about 
 a great many matters of import were he here today. 
 It has occurred to me repeatedly when I observe the work 
 this, our Organization is doing, what Lincoln would have done 
 with respect to it and its membership. Would he have joined 
 our ranks? Would our objects have appealed to him? Would he 
 have felt at home in our gatherings? What would he have thought 
 of the cosmopolitan character of our membership? What would 
 have been his reaction to the perfect equality which reigns in our 
 ranks — where Chief Executive of our City, Justice of the Supreme 
 Court, merchant-prince, scholar, jurist, physician, artisan, office- 
 holder and retired man rub elbows, meet on a perfect level of 
 equality, and talk over old times — the good old times — as we are 
 in the habit of referring to them, but which were really times of 
 toil, of want, of privation, of youthful effort under conditions 
 and circumstances which were anything but hopeful. 
 
 What would he have had to say about the acts of charity 
 which emanate from our organization, and above all to the helping 
 hand which is ever extended to him who needs assistance or sup- 
 port, or an opportunity for a new start in life? 
 
 To one who has followed the career of the rail-splitter, the 
 Indiana farmhand, the Illinois flatboatman, the village grocer, the 
 surveyor, the postmaster, the country lawyer, the legislator, the 
 Congressman, the debater, the lecturer, and the President — in all 
 the arduous and tortuous courses through which that great life 
 unwound itself, the answer is self-evident. This man knew the 
 poverty, the privations, the trials, the tribulations which were 
 
 Notes of an address delivered before the Grand Street Boys on February 4, 1930. 
 
our lot in youth better than any man in high place in our history. 
 Hence, his great love, his great sympathy, for the common people. 
 He was one of them. And had his lot been cast in New York 
 of the 80's or 90's of the last Century, he would certainly have 
 been one of us in more than one sense; he would have felt at 
 home, he would have unbosomed himself to our boys even as he 
 did to his friends in Springfield and on the Circuit, in the Court 
 House and in the tavern. 
 
 See what happens when he comes to New York to deliver his 
 great speech at Cooper Union which echoed and re-echoed from 
 one end of the land to the other. The intellectual and financial 
 aristocracy of the land were in Cooper Union that night to hear 
 the lawyer from Illinois, to take his measure, to see that if New 
 York failed to nominate Governor Seward and needed a second 
 choice, whether Lincoln would be the proper man. When he 
 looked about him and observed the representatives of the East, 
 he was not very happy nor comfortable — the atmosphere and the 
 attitude of the audience were anything but what would make him 
 feel at home. That afternoon he had been in Wall Street and 
 was impressed with the great wealth of the city. He never thought 
 that there was that much wealth anywhere. His ill-fitting new 
 suit of clothes — "store clothes" — as compared with the well- 
 groomed Bryant and David Dudley Field — did not make him any 
 happier, either. But he came through this great ordeal as he did 
 all others. A new Abraham Lincoln was revealed to the East after 
 he had concluded his address. The "wise men" of the East had 
 met a new leader. After he had concluded his address, the Com- 
 mittee who had charge of Lincoln proposed to walk to his hotel, 
 but his new boots were rubbing his foot and he could not walk, 
 so the Committee took him to a Fourth Avenue street car — 
 Cephas Brainard and Charles C. Nott — and at Spring Street they 
 left him and told him to remain in the car until the car came to 
 a final stop at the end of the trip, in front of the Astor House, 
 where he remained during his stay in the city, — frigid hospitality, 
 to say the least; but then they never expected to see or meet him 
 again. 
 
 The next day he walked over to Five Points — a spot not half 
 as important then as it is today. He evidently wanted to see the 
 
poorer side of New York. He had seen the representatives of the 
 upper stratum the night before, and as he walked into the Mission 
 School to the assembly room the assembled children attracted him. 
 His presence was immediately felt, the occupants of the small 
 benches became conscious of the presence of a superior being. The 
 Headmaster stepped over and asked him to speak to the children: 
 
 "Mr. Pease — the head master of the school — wanted me 
 to speak. Washburne spoke and then I was urged to speak. 
 I told them I did not know anything about talking to 
 Sunday Schools, but Mr. Pease said many of the children 
 were friendless and homeless, and that a few words would do 
 them good. And so I arose to speak — but I didn't know 
 what to say. I remembered that Mr. Pease said they were 
 homeless and friendless, and I thought of the time when I 
 had been pinched by terrible poverty. And so I told them 
 that I had been poor, that I remembered when my toes stuck 
 out through my broken shoes in winter; when my arms were 
 out at the elbows; when I shivered with the cold. And I 
 told them there was only one rule; that was, always to do 
 the best you can. I told them that I had always tried to do 
 the very best I could and that if they followed that rule 
 they would get along, somehow. That was about what I 
 said. And when I got through Mr. Pease said it was just 
 the thing they needed. And when the school was dismissed 
 all the teachers came up and shook hands with me and 
 thanked me, although I did not know that I had been saying 
 anything of any account." 
 
 This is an index of the man who loved the poor and 
 the lowly, whenever he came in contact with them. Throughout 
 an entire lifetime he was ever moved and drawn to the poor and 
 to the lowly, to the suffering and to those in distress. The poor 
 mother, without any influence, friendless and helpless, when she 
 appealed to "Father Abraham/' had as much success as did a 
 Governor or a United States Senator, and sometimes more. Cases 
 could be multiplied where he did justice to the friendless and to 
 the helpless who were turned away with their petition by Stanton, 
 by the General in command, or by the Governor — he, Lincoln, 
 
saw a way, found a way. The woman waited for an audience 
 for days with the baby in her arms. A cry from the baby 
 attracted the President's attention. He sent for the mother, heard 
 her petition, and sent her away happy because of the baby. 
 
 One need but see him enter the home of an old friend, a rebel, 
 a Confederate General, George Pickett, whom he knew as a boy 
 in Quincy, Illinois, when he entered Richmond at the conclusion 
 of the War. But let General Pickett's widow tell the story: 
 
 "The name of Abraham Lincoln, wherever it may 
 occur, recalls a s^ene from my window in the old Pickett 
 home at the corner of Sixth and Lehigh Streets in Richmond 
 on a day in early April after the surrender of our armies. 
 A carriage passing by my home was surrounded by guards 
 and followed by a retinue of soldiers. After it had passed, 
 the cavalcade paused and a man alighted from the carriage 
 and came back to our house. Hearing his knock I opened the 
 door with my baby in my arms and saw a tall, gaunt, and 
 sad-faced man who asked: 
 
 'Is this George Pickett's place?' 
 'Yes, sir, but he is not here.' 
 
 'I know that, ma'am, but I just wanted to see the 
 place. Down in old Quincy, 111., I have heard the lad describe 
 the home. I am Abraham Lincoln.' 
 " The President,' I gasped. 
 "The stranger shook his head. 
 'No, ma'am: just Abraham Lincoln, George Pickett's 
 old boyhood friend.' 
 
 ' 'I am George Pickett's wife and this is his boy.' 
 "I had never seen Mr. Lincoln but remembered the in- 
 tense love and reverence with which my soldier always spoke 
 of him. 
 
 "It had been long since my baby had seen a man and 
 being reminded of his own father, reached out his hands to 
 Mr. Lincoln, who took him in his arms, an expression of 
 almost divine love glorifying his face. My baby opened his 
 mouth wide and gave his father's friend a dewy baby kiss. 
 Putting the little one back in my arms Mr. Lincoln said: 
 " 'Tell your father, the rascal, that I forgive him for 
 the sake of that kiss and those bright eyes.' " 
 

 
 ^/ft£^C^<£s 
 
One often wonders how he found time for all these acts of 
 mercy and kindness. But it was not only when seen in person 
 that he was aroused to deeds of mercy. Let a record from the 
 army approved by the Secretary of War reach him, for final dis- 
 position, and he will instinctively discover whether the sentence 
 of the military court is just, whether the proper consideration 
 was given to the accused soldier. Read the following and see what 
 he has to say when an officer was to have been discharged without 
 a hearing: 
 
 "Executive Mansion, 
 Washington, Jan. 25, 1865. 
 
 Hon. Secretary of War, 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 About Jews, I wish you would give Dr. Zacharie a pass 
 to go to Savannah, remain a week and return, bringing with 
 him, if he wishes, his father and sisters or any of them. 
 This will spare me trouble and oblige me — I promised him 
 long ago that he should be allowed this whenever Savannah 
 should fall into our hands. 
 
 Blumenberg, at Baltimore, I think he should have a 
 hearing. He has suffered for us and served us well — had the 
 rope around his neck for being our friend — raised troops — - 
 fought, and been wounded. He should not be dismissed in 
 a way that disgraces and ruins him without a hearing. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 A. LINCOLN." 
 
 This was not an exceptional case. We find him fighting for 
 the poor old widow of the Revolutionary hero, who was swindled 
 by a local claim agent. We find him fighting for the Catholic 
 priest who was "framed" by crooked witnesses. We find him 
 refusing to be retained by a claimant against a widow, although 
 the claim was recoverable on its face. It was the same Lincoln 
 who prevented the expulsion of all the Jewish people, from 
 
Grant's military district, for the sins of a few, by revoking 
 Grant's order No. 12. Little wonder, then, that this man grew 
 in stature day by day. He became the beloved commander of a 
 sorely tried army. He became the idol of the workingman, not 
 only in our land, but in England overseas, where the workingmen, 
 though severely tried by the lack of cotton which was kept from 
 reaching the mills in Manchester by Lincoln's blockade, were 
 nevertheless solidly for "Father Abraham," and elected him a 
 life member of their craft. 
 
 And when the final test came in 1864, which everybody, 
 including Lincoln, dreaded, he was re-elected by an avalanche of 
 votes and by an almost unanimous vote in the Electoral College. 
 The qualities of heart and mind, which are the foundations upon 
 which our Organization rests, were the characteristics of him who 
 freed more people than did Moses in hoary antiquity. He, too, 
 saw the low estate of the slave, as did the lawgiver after he had 
 gone out among his people. The two men. three thousand five 
 hundred years apart, lived by the same principle: "Love thy 
 neighbor as thyself," and "Do not unto others what is hateful 
 to thee." That, to both, was the whole law; all the rest was 
 superfluous. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
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 LINCOLN AND THE GRAND STREET BOYS 
 
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