Excerpt from Lincoln's Diplomacy: An Unwritten Chapter

And the result has been detrimental to Lincoln in the ex treme. He has been pictured as a small, local country lawyer with petty causes; a narrow-minded selfish politician; an in significant legislator; an inept executive; the plaything in thehands of a trio of dominant members of his Cabinet. His military qualifications have been overlooked, when not scoffed at; his advice rejected. Even our late scholarly Mayor Gaynor stated that Grant says he would not reveal his plans to Lincoln for the reason that he was kind-hearted, that some one would pick them out of him, and in that way they could become known to Lee. His contacts with the world at large remained unknown, his unprecedented services in the Presidency be littled; his many-sided mind and towering genius ignored; his literary ability narrowed to a few documents which have, by their own outstanding worth, become famous; but a great num ber equally great have nor been revealed in spite of their in trinsic excellence and resplendent glory. It would have been less than human had I ignored the call to do this work to help unravel the marvelous historical figure which was knocking at the gate, the many-sided person ality which came in contact with all the great men and women of that great era and which towered above them all in mental stature and in unfathomable ability. And once the possibilities became apparent, it would have been short of crim inal to neglect the alluring task.

While I might talk on this his one hundred and twenty second natal day upon a variety of phases of the life of this messenger of God to our people in their great est emergency, while I could discuss Lincoln the alert legis lator, Lincoln the superb politician, Lincoln the great lawyer, flincoln the ablest joint-debator of his day, Lincoln the neighbor in Springfield, Lincoln the literary man and stylist - only lately pronounced by Lord Curzon as the author of the two masterpieces of modern English eloquence - the gloriesand treasures of mankind while I could dilate about Lincoln and the newspapermen of whom there are a score with whom he came in contact and the like of whom no Other era can boast - Lincoln the President - a combination of Jefferson and Jackson Lincoln the military strategist and Lincoln the mas ter of his Cabinet, Lincoln the universal man, the pardoning President could keep us all occupied the rest of the evening; Lincoln and his official contacts with his two Vice Presidents and with the leaders of the 37th and 38th Congresses, Lincoln and his control of, and work with the War Governors in the danger fraught borderland of the Civil War, Lincoln and the problems of holding the border states, seething with rebellion, Lincoln's great contributions to universal education by bringing about the endowment of all State Universities, Lincoln's work for railroads and farmers, Lincoln's inventive mind and his interest in naval and military inventions, Lincoln's tolerance and his love of his fellowmen, while there is sufficient new material for a complete thesis on any one of these phases, I will simply refer to a few items just come to light, which demonstrate that he became the great diplomat of his day and generation. Lincoln the diplomat has had scant consideration from his biographers, and even from his very competent secre taries. Lincoln's diplomatic performances which kept a hostile world out of our fratricidal war have had practically neither commentator nor historian.

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