He was never a favorite
candidate of mine, no matter what he was in the eyes of the world.
Impressions will remain in spite of facts. The faces of all our
presidents and their lives are as familiar to me as the faces of all
the masters of music.
[Illustration: Sam Booth
Conspicuous in the Seventies as a writer of political lyrics and a
campaign singer of great popularity.]
President Lincoln came first upon my list of successful candidates and
was the sixteenth president of the United States. I was one year old
when he became a member of the bar in 1837. He was twenty-eight when I
was born in Illinois. When he was inaugurated, March 4, 1861, I was
twenty years old and at that time in Boston when the mighty civil war
began. When he was elected the second term I was in Santa Cruz,
California and in the midst of the campaign. I wonder how many times I
sang Vive l'America and the Star Spangled Banner before the victory
was won and the hurrahs filling the air at our successes. But our joy
was turned into mourning when he was assassinated on April 14, 1865.
He had only a short time to serve the nation that honored him. He was
succeeded by Andrew Johnson, the vice-president. The eighteenth
president was U.S. Grant, who served two terms, 1869-77. I was in San
Francisco then and both times I was in the campaign and won. I saw him
also in 1879 as he returned from the tour of the world. The nineteenth
president, R.
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