Nagel, C: Lincoln Night, Middlesex Club, Boston, February 12

Excerpt from Lincoln Night, Middlesex Club, Boston, February 12, 1921: Addresses by Hon. Charles Nagel, Hon. Wendell Phillips Stafford

And now for the absent. First of all we miss four of the members of this Club, all paying members Of this Club, not honorary: the next vice-president of the United States, the next Secretary of War, the leader of the United States Senate, and the Speaker of the National House of Representatives. [applause] I doubt whether any Club of any size in any State in the Union, Republican or Democratic, contains within its membership four active members like unto these. We miss, too, Edwin U. Curtis [applause], Police Commissioner of Boston, the hero of the police strike [applause], the man whose courage and foresight and vision, standing all alone for weeks and months, brought to a head the issue of law and order which has so run through the United States and brought an end we hope to attempts by private organizations to control public government in the United States. And the reason he isn't here to-night is that for two years he has not gone out once in the evening be cause his health will not permit it. He stays on the job all the time, Ned Curtis. [great applause, all standing] I have a letter here from John Drinkwater who, better than any other Englishman, has given us a living picture of Lincoln. No Englishman can really understand Lincoln. He could not have grown in English soil. He could not have blossomed in English air. Lincoln is our man, way down, fundamentally, but Drinkwater comes very close to understanding him. I asked Mr. Drinkwater to speak here to-night. He cannot come but he says he will come next year if he is in the United States, and I think he will be in the United States. [applause.

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