Excerpt from Lincoln's Jewish Contacts

Among the many phases of that many sided American - the first American - as he has justly come to be known since Lowell so named him in his classical Commemoration Ode Lincoln's Jewish contacts have at last become the subject of investigation and have begun to be studied and traced in every direction, after that first, and for a long time solitary, printed effort in 1909 by the late Isaac Markens and which appeared in the publications of The American Jewish Histori cal Society. We have salvaged a few Striking documents and letters, as well as reliable memorabilia, from contemporaries and their descendants. It is indeed to be deplored that this phase was so long neglected and the compilation of his deal ings with the Jewish people individually and as a class, as lawyer and as Chief Executive, has become a task scarce begun, and that, too, seventy-five years too late. But even as it is, we are to be congratulated upon what has been done, ' meager though the effort has been.

Lincoln, even if he would, could not help coming in contact with the few Jewish people in the part of the country which was then the Middle West. They were the same hardy pio neers as those Others who pass in retrospect in the pages of the history of the Wesr. These migrations contain similar heroic figures of Jewish pioneers, who trecked along with the Others to open up the country, ever westward bound, and mostly all of whom fought to keep the country free on theside of freedom and against slavery. You find some of them with John Brown, of whom Jonas Bondi was the most pic turesque character. You find them further south in Kentucky and Tennessee, and Lincoln came to know them and their leaders, or rather the more prominent ones; with some a life long friendship sprang up. They became his-ardent admirers and staunch supporters. A number of them, after a successful pre-convention fight, were delegates to the Chicago Conven tion which nominated him and as a result of the first success at Chicago, had charge of the Republican campaign in their localities. Some were called upon by Lincoln to perform cer tain delicate campaign tasks. To them he wrote Confiden tial letters and they helped as much as they could. It seemed to have been a labor of love from the start with all of them.

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