I
always wanted to run. I have no sympathy with the old man who says, "I
would just as soon march up to the cannon's mouth as eat my dinner." I
have no faith in a man who doesn't know enough to be afraid when he is
being shot at. I never was so afraid when the shells came around us at
Antietam as I was when I went into that room that day; but I finally
mustered the courage--I don't know how I ever did--and at arm's-length
tapped on the door. The man inside did not help me at all, but yelled
out, "Come in and sit down!"

Well, I went in and sat down on the edge of a chair, and wished I were
in Europe, and the man at the table did not look up. He was one of the
world's greatest men, and was made great by one single rule. Oh, that
all the young people of Philadelphia were before me now and I could say
just this one thing, and that they would remember it. I would give a
lifetime for the effect it would have on our city and on civilization.
Abraham Lincoln's principle for greatness can be adopted by nearly all.
This was his rule: Whatsoever he had to do at all, he put his whole mind
into it and held it all there until that was all done. That makes men
great almost anywhere. He stuck to those papers at that table and did
not look up at me, and I sat there trembling. Finally, when he had put
the string around his papers, he pushed them over to one side and looked
over to me, and a smile came over his worn face. He said: "I am a very
busy man and have only a few minutes to spare. Now tell me in the fewest
words what it is you want." I began to tell him, and mentioned the case,
and he said: "I have heard all about it and you do not need to say any
more. Mr. Stanton was talking to me only a few days ago about that. You
can go to the hotel and rest assured that the President never did sign
an order to shoot a boy under twenty years of age, and never will. You
can say that to his mother anyhow."

Then he said to me, "How is it going in the field?" I said, "We
sometimes get discouraged." And he said: "It is all right. We are going
to win out now. We are getting very near the light. No man ought to
wish to be President of the United States, and I will be glad when I get
through; then Tad and I are going out to Springfield, Illinois. I
have bought a farm out there and I don't care if I again earn only
twenty-five cents a day. Tad has a mule team, and we are going to plant
onions."

Then he asked me, "Were you brought up on a farm?