[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 11 (Thursday, February 12, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H485-H487]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         THE 189TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to rise in honor of our 
country's greatest president whose birthday we celebrate today.
  We Republicans honor Lincoln as a founder of our great political 
party and the first Republican president. We are right to this. But 
this is not the source of Lincoln's greatness.
  Lincoln used the Republican party and the presidency as vehicles to 
achieve three magnificent things. He preserved this great union of 
ours. He ended slavery on this continent. He extended to the American 
entrepreneurial spirit to millions of people of all walks of life. We 
have a word for that on a subcommittee I chair. We call it 
``empowerment.''
  Without a strong union, the United States would not have become the 
economic power it is today. Because of Lincoln's work, this nation 
produced the highest standard of living of any in the history of the 
world. And because the United States remained one nation, it was able 
to assemble the moral military might that liberated millions this 
century from three of the worst tyrannies in all of history: nazi 
Germany, imperial Japan, and the Stalinist ``evil empire.''
  Throughout the world, the name ``Lincoln'' connotes compassion--and 
for good reason. Slavery sickened him. ``If slavery is not wrong, 
nothing is wrong'' he said. He worked to restrict its expansion before 
the civil war; used that military emergency to end it; and forced 
through the thirteenth amendment to the constitution to prevent its re-
instatement.

  As Commander in Chief, he made merciful use of his pardoning powers. 
He was particularly sympathetic to young offenders. ``Must I shoot a 
simple-minded soldier boy, who deserts, while I must not touch a hair 
of a wily agitator who induces him to desert?'' he said, ``* * * to 
silence the agitator and save the boy is not only constitutional, but 
withal a great mercy.''
  There was one group of lawbreaker, however, to whom he showed no 
mercy, slave traders. In one celebrated instance, he refused to commute 
to life in prison the sentence of person who had committed that hideous 
crime. Before Lincoln's presidency, that law had gone enforced. After 
it, there was no need to have it at all.
  It was also during Lincoln's administration that homestead 
legislation became federal policy and land grants to states for the 
establishment of colleges became law. These measures, along with the 
example of Lincoln's life story, came to characterize the American 
entrepreneurial spirit.
  As the ``empowerment subcommittee'' continues to explore ways to 
assist individuals and communities achieve their full potential, we 
will carry Lincoln's spirit with us. Lincoln was the personification of 
``empowerment'' in America. Here is how he described it:
  ``The prudent penniless beginner in the world labors for wages for a 
while, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, 
then labors on his own account for another while, and at length hires 
another new beginner to help him.''
  I urge all Americans to pause on this day and all through the year to 
reflect upon the words and deeds of this extraordinary human being. 
They do this by visiting the Lincoln Memorial and Ford's Theater, here 
in Washington, and the Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The March 
issue of Civil War Times contains an article about that museum's 
fascinating exhibits. It is my pleasure to submit it for publication in 
the Congressional Record.

                 [From the Civil War Times, March 1998]

                         A New Lincoln Memorial

                            (By Al Sandner)

       In Fort Wayne, Indiana, one man's admiration gave birth to 
     the largest private collection of Lincoln-related materials 
     in the world. The two-year-old museum that houses the 
     collection combines modern technology with 19th-century 
     artifacts to create a hands-on, in-depth examination of 
     ``Lincoln and the American Experiment.''
       For generations the people of Fort Wayne, Indiana, have 
     cherished the legend that Abraham Lincoln stopped here on the 
     fateful trip that catapulted him into the race for the 
     presidency. They've cherished it and hoped it was true, but 
     couldn't be sure.
       Legend had it that Lincoln changed trains here on his way 
     to deliver a speech at the Cooper Institute in New York, 
     where his son, Robert, was a student. The speech made a deep 
     impression on the audience and caught the attention of 
     Northeastern power brokers, vaulting him into the elite 
     company of men regarded as potential presidential candidates. 
     On his journey eastward, he was a regionally known lawyer, 
     soldier, surveyor, and politician. On the return trip his 
     name was being whispered in the halls of power as a contender 
     for the highest office in the land. The Fort Wayne train 
     switch--if it really happened--was related closely enough to 
     a pivotal moment in American history to make any city proud.
       Recent research has laid the legend to rest and replaced it 
     with historical fact. ``We have determined that on February 
     23, 1860, Abraham Lincoln did change trains in Fort Wayne 
     while on his way to the Cooper Institute speech,'' said 
     Gerald Prokopowicz, Lincoln scholar and director of programs 
     for the Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne.
       In the years since 1860, working on faith and dedication 
     alone, one local businessman and Lincoln admirer created in 
     this mid-sized northeastern Indiana town (closer to Knute 
     Rockne country than to what is usually thought of as the land 
     of Lincoln) what was to become the largest private collection 
     of Lincoln materials in the world, housed in a $6 million, 
     30,000-square-foot museum that is both a tribute to Lincoln 
     and an interactive multimedia essay on his impact on America 
     as we know it.
       Fort Wayne, a 203-year-old city also known as the final 
     resting place of Johnny Appleseed, doesn't really need an 
     excuse for housing the Lincoln Museum. The institution stands 
     on its own merits, combining relics and reconstructions, 
     videos and period documents, the deadly serious (for example, 
     a slave's manacle) and the whimsical (the tail end of a 1970s 
     Lincoln Versailles with its trademark wheel on the trunk lid 
     and a collection of bands from ``Lincoln'' brand cigars).
       The museum's 11 exhibit galleries ingeniously incorporate 
     hundreds of Lincoln-era artifacts and art works--including 
     the inkwell Lincoln used in signing the Emancipation 
     Proclamation, Lincoln family photos and handwritten 
     documents, the president's legal wallet, and his pocket 
     knife. Its research library, with 18,000 volumes and 5,000 
     photographs, draws Lincoln scholars from across the country.
       Traveling exhibits have included one of the few surviving 
     signed copies of the Emancipation Proclamation (the Leland-
     Boker Edition, which was sold during the Civil War to benefit 
     war relief work) and one of 13 copies of the resolution for 
     the 13th Amendment, which banned slavery. More recently, an 
     exhibit called ``White House Style'' displayed 9

[[Page H486]]

     original and 24 replica formal gowns worn by first ladies 
     from Martha Washington and Mary Todd Lincoln to Nancy Reagan 
     and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
       You enter under a painting of the U.S. Capitol dome whose 
     construction held such symbolic importance in Lincoln's mind 
     that he insisted the work continue unabated throughout the 
     Civil War. Lincoln's words--prophetic at the time, cautionary 
     and virtually mythic today--are written, painted, and 
     engraved on walls and other surfaces.
       Lincoln's words also ring in your ears as you absorb the 
     man and the times he shaped. Throughout, the voices of 
     narrator Ossie Davis and Sam Waterston as Lincoln guide the 
     visitor through Lincoln's life, and the fit seems totally 
     comfortable, perfectly natural. Davis is an actor, writer, 
     producer, and director. Waterston played Lincoln in a 
     television miniseries and gave Lincoln a voice in Ken Burns's 
     landmark Public Broadcasting Service special on the Civil 
     War.
       Davis narrates the video that introduces the visitor to the 
     permanent exhibit ``Abraham Lincoln and the American 
     Experiment.'' The five-minute film sets the stage, tracing 
     the times and events that shaped the man who soon shaped the 
     times and events around him. America in Lincoln's day was the 
     world's only large-scale experiment in democracy, and many 
     doubted it could long survive. As the film ends, Lincoln 
     addresses the press corps just after his election to the 
     presidency: ``Your troubles are over. Mine are just 
     beginning.''
       So begins your journey to explore the tensions over slavery 
     that threatened the experiment in democracy, the war that was 
     ignited by the tensions, Lincoln's role in guiding the 
     democratic nation through its greatest trial, and the way 
     people have since remembered Lincoln.
       Leaving the theater, you step into ``Lincoln's America,'' 
     divided like Caesar's Gaul into three parts: ``The Dynamic 
     North,'' where a single state, New York, runs more factories 
     than the entire South; ``The Expanding West''; and ``The 
     Prosperous South.'' Now, as then, the South seems to 
     dominate, to attract more attention than its size and 
     economic power should warrant.
       The focal point of the room is a full-scale, rough-hewn 
     Mississippi River flatboat. You walk under the vast tiller, 
     manned by a life-size, six-foot-four-inch Lincoln mannequin 
     standing on the deckhouse's flat roof. A pass under the 
     boat's keel places you in the South; cotton bales and barrels 
     stand around the dock. Touch the rough wood, finger the cold 
     steel of a slave manacle. Read a list of slaves for sale. 
     Read Lincoln's words: ``If slavery isn't wrong, nothing is 
     wrong.''
       Just as the debate over slavery led the nation to war, so 
     are you led into the next galleries. ``Prairie Politician to 
     President'' and ``Speaking Out.'' In this general area is a 
     reproduction of the sort of room where Lincoln grew up, read, 
     and worked out his sums. His copy of Parson Weems's Life of 
     Franklin is on display here. Somewhere in this area, you 
     learn (if you didn't already know) that Lincoln was 
     fascinated by technology and held the only patent ever 
     granted to a president of the United States--for a system he 
     invented to refloat boats. Artifacts here include an 
     invitation to the dance where he met his future wife, Mary 
     Todd.
       The ``Speaking Out'' gallery reproduces the Chicago meeting 
     hall where the Republicans nominated Lincoln for president. A 
     life-size statue of Lincoln stands at a podium on the 
     bunting-draped stage, while a dramatic re-creation of the 
     Lincoln-Douglas debates play on a large video screen behind 
     him and his words fill the air.
       It is here, too, that you can sit at an ingeniously 
     arranged desk between like masks of Lincoln and Douglas, 
     and--thanks to cleverly arranged mirrors--see yourself 
     sitting at eye-level with these two great orators. You may 
     suffer by comparison, but it is a fascinating experience.
       Nearby is another interesting comparison--the earliest 
     known photographic portraits of Lincoln, take in April and 
     May of 1846, followed by photographs of him during the war 
     years. He grew haggard under the strain of his wartime 
     presidency, but not as drained and devastated as you might 
     expect.
       Next, the visitor is thrown into the cauldron of war. The 
     events and battles of the most critical years of U.S. history 
     are described in a time line that circles the walls of the 
     ``Civil War'' gallery. A bank of six touch-screen computer 
     monitors allows the visitor to read Lincoln's mail, 
     redecorate the White House as Mary Todd Lincoln did, take a 
     trivia quiz, or refight major Civil War battles. In the game 
     ``You Be the General,'' Union and Confederate positions are 
     mapped out on the computer monitor, and you are allowed to 
     make the moves: sort of a computer-generated chess game based 
     on actual events. One player reported reversing history and 
     winning the First Battle of Bull Run for the North. Another 
     refought Gettysburg, but was never quite sure what he was 
     doing--or whether he won or lost. (Fortunately for the Union, 
     this would-be general was born a century too late.)
       ``The Fiery Trial'' is the name given to the next mini-
     theater presentation. In a small, comfortable auditorium, 
     three seven-minute multimedia programs explore different 
     facets of Lincoln and the Civil War. In ``Lincoln's 
     Soldiers,'' the letters of Corporal George Squire of Fort 
     Wayne are used to describe life in the Union army. ``Lincoln: 
     Commander-in-Chief'' explains the problems the president had 
     in finding a general to bring victory to the North. And 
     ``Lincoln and Emancipation'' tells about his role in ending 
     slavery. Again, the voices of Davis and Waterston create an 
     aura of warmth and familiarity--in deadly contrast to the 
     stereo booms and strobe flashes of cannon fire. Outside the 
     door of the theater are a cavalry officer's sword, which you 
     can draw partly our of its scabbard; an infantryman's heavy, 
     black leather backpack, which you can heft onto your 
     shoulders; and--as a symbol of this first modern war--a half-
     scale model of an early Gatling gun, precursor of the machine 
     gun. The Gatling gun was introduced during the war but was 
     rarely used.
       Like Billy Pilgrim, visitor from another time and another 
     war in Kurt Vonnegut's anti-World War II novel Slaughterhouse 
     Five, it's easy to get ``unstuck in time'' here. In the free-
     flowing layout, you could wander into, say, ``Ford's Theater 
     and Beyond'' and then into ``A Lincoln Family Album.'' The 
     former displays a replica of the theater box the president 
     occupied that ill-fated Good Friday night while describing 
     the conspiracy that led to his death and transformed him from 
     controversial politician to American legend. The latter 
     displays Lincoln's own photographs of his children while an 
     upright piano plays recordings of Mary Lincoln's favorite 
     songs, including ``Skip-to-Mi-Lu.'' Children's attractions in 
     this area include games, clothes for dress-up, and an 
     interactive Lincoln family portrait.
       Stepping back just a bit in time, you can revisit the 
     fringes of the Civil War gallery, sit at a desk much like 
     Lincoln's, and face some of the same problems he did during 
     his regular public sessions (which he called his ``Public 
     Opinion Bath''). You sit in a chair looking into a faithful 
     reproduction of Lincoln's office, are presented with pleas 
     the president heard during these sessions, decide how to 
     handle the request, and then push a button to learn what 
     Lincoln did. Letters of discharge from the army, original 
     notes, and other documents are used to illustrate how he 
     handled callers and their pleas. After making all these 
     decisions, you may have the leisure to sit back and notice 
     how meticulously Lincoln's office has been re-created--right 
     down to the wallpaper and the width of the carpet stripes.
       Now things lighten up. Blinking lights outline a movie 
     theater marquee that announces today's attraction: ``Lincoln 
     at the Movies.'' On screen, television movie critic Gene 
     Siskel teams up with Pulitzer Prize-winning author and 
     historian David Herbert Donald to critique movies that depict 
     the life of Lincoln--using the format Siskel and fellow 
     Chicago critic Roger Ebert use on their television series, At 
     the Movies. They discuss actors and interpretations over the 
     years--from Henry Fonda's Young Mister Lincoln to Waterston's 
     interpretation in the television miniseries Gore Vidal's 
     Lincoln. Walter Houston, Raymond Massey, and Mary Tyler Moore 
     (as Mary Todd Lincoln in Gore Vidal's Lincoln) are also 
     discussed from historic, theatrical, cinematic, and purely 
     personal points of view.
       The fun continues. In ``Remembering Lincoln'' a trail of 
     red lights crosses an oversize map of the United States from 
     coast to coast. This, the ``Lincoln Highway,'' was America's 
     first transcontinental thoroughfare. It serves as the 
     backdrop for a collection of things named for Lincoln over 
     the past 160 years--from an automobile to cities and towns, 
     schools, manufacturing companies, fruit growers, and a 
     surprising number of cigars. Sticking out of the wall below 
     the map, as though the brakes had failed while someone was 
     backing up, juts the tail end of a Lincoln Versallies.
       Across the aisle is ``Dear Mr. Lincoln,'' a station where 
     children are given pencil and paper and encouraged to add to 
     the exhibit by writing a letter or postcard to the 16th 
     president. The good ones can become part of the exhibit. ``I 
     regret to inform you they are still assassinating people,'' 
     one young person reportedly wrote early on. Even parents join 
     in. ``My son was a reluctant reader until he read a story 
     about you in the 2nd grade,'' wrote one mother. ``Thank you. 
     I live in a better place because of you.''
       Wall-sized photographs of history as it was made at the 
     Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., illustrate the theme of 
     the next-to-last gallery, ``The Experiment Continues.'' It 
     seems to show Lincoln's moral beliefs still have an impact on 
     American society today. Here is Marion Anderson, barred by 
     the Daughters of the American Revolution from other 
     Washington venues, performing outdoors for hundreds of 
     thousands of enthralled Americans in 1939. Here is Martin 
     Luther King, Jr., telling America ``I have a dream'' in 1963. 
     And there are Vietnam veterans opposed to the war struggling 
     unsuccessfully to seize the memorial in 1971.
       Now the museum visitor is truly drawn into the American 
     Experiment--by voting on four key questions: (1) Is the 
     American Experiment a success? (2) Is it still alive today? 
     (3) Does it work for most Americans? (4) Are you confident of 
     its future success?
       The tally? In the two years since the museum opened, some 
     27,000 visitors have said ``yes'' to each question. However, 
     the ``no'' votes have varted notcieably Questions 1, 2, and 4 
     have received about 19,000 ``no'' votes. Meanwhile, number 3 
     has drawn about 16,000 ``no'' votes--indicating a large 
     number of absentions.
       The museum tour ends on a colorful note as the visitor 
     passes through ``A Lincoln Gallery,'' which displays art 
     inspired by Lincoln. The art works are taken from the 
     museum's own extensive collection.
       In the lobby, opposite the 23-foot-long ``A. Lincoln'' 
     signature and his 12-foot-high portrait is a well-stocked 
     gift shop with books,

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     video tapes, CD-ROMs, games, statues, and replicas of White 
     House china. Under the signature, on the lower level, is the 
     library, with more than 200,000 newspaper and magazine 
     clippings regarding Lincoln; more than 5,000 original 
     photographs (including those from Lincoln's own family 
     album); 200 documents signed by Lincoln; 7,000 19th-century 
     prints, engravings, newspapers, and music sheets; 18,000 
     books; scores of period artifacts and Lincoln family 
     belongings, and hundreds of paintings and sculptures. Here, 
     too, is the traveling exhibit area--most recently the site of 
     the ``White House Style'' show.
       So how did this $6 million, 30,000-square-foot tribute to 
     Lincoln and interactive multimedia essay on his impact on 
     American life come to be created in a mid-sized northeastern 
     Indian city? In 1905, Arthur Hall was forming an insurance 
     company in Fort Wayne. A great admirer of Lincoln, he wrote 
     to Robert Todd Lincoln, the son whose attendance at the 
     Cooper Institute had provided Abraham Lincoln with a platform 
     for his watershed 1860 speech, for permission to use his 
     father's name. Along with his approval, Todd sent a 
     photograph of his father--the same one that is the basis for 
     the engraving on the $5 bill today.
       The company grew into what is today one of the nation's 
     largest financial services organizations. The Lincoln 
     National Corporation opened its first museum on Lincoln's 
     birthday in 1928. The new museum, now owned by the nonprofit 
     Lincoln National Foundation, opened October 1, 1995, in 
     Lincoln National headquarters--less than a mile from the site 
     of the railroad station where Lincoln, we now know, changed 
     trains on February 23, 1860.

                          ____________________