Benevolence Is Beautiful
Thaddeus Stevens accompanied a lady of his constituents to beg a pardon of the President, her son being under death sentence of a court-martial. The senator backing up the petition, it was granted. The grateful woman was choking, and was led away by her escort, without speaking in thankfulness. But at the exit she found her voice, and burst forth feelingly:
“Mr. Stevens, they told me that the President was homely looking! It is a lie! He is the handsomest man I ever saw!”
“IT WAS THE BABY THAT DID IT.”
A young mother came to Washington to sue for the life of her husband, a deserter, condemned to die. Such was the crowd of besiegers for grace, offices, and simple greeting by the host of the White House that she was kept out in the hall. But one day, the master passing through the corridor “to hold the show,” heard a baby’s pitiful wail. He halted, listened again to make sure, and on entering his reception-parlor asked his favorite usher if he had not heard that odd thing—there—an infant’s cry.
The attendant promptly related that a woman with a babe was without, who had been losing her time three days.
“Go at once, and send her to me,” he ordered, expressing regret that she should have been overlooked.
As there were several extenuating points in her plea, or the benign official leaned that way, he wrote his pardon and gave it to the woman, whose still plaintive smile shone through tears of gratitude.
“Take that, my poor woman, and it will bring you back your husband,” he said, going so far as to direct her to what authority to apply for the action.
In showing her forth, the old usher, who knew his employer’s tender heart where children were concerned, whispered:
“It was the baby that did it!”—(Told by “Old Dan’el,” the good-natured Irish usher.)
“IT RESTS ME TO SAVE A LIFE!”
Schuyler Colfax, then Speaker of the House, pleaded with Lincoln for the life of an elector’s son, sentenced to be shot. Though he intruded on the arbiter very late after a long spell of official duties, Lincoln accorded the boon.
“Colfax,” explained he, “it makes me rested after a hard day’s work, if I can find some good excuse for saving a man’s life, and I go to bed happy as I think how joyous the signing of my name will make him, and his family, and his friends.”
“A FAMILY MAN WANTS TO SEE HIS FAMILY.”
Superintendent Tinker, of the Western Union Telegraph Company, vouches for the following:
A woman came to the Honorable Francis Kernan, member of Congress, with a pitiful tale, with which he went to the President. Her husband was a soldier who had been away from home a year. He deserted in order to have a glance at the family, and was captured on his way back to the front. But the rules of war are imperative, and without compassion. The President was interested, as in all such cases where a deserving life and a sorrowing woman were at stake. He said:
“Of course, this man wanted to see his family! They ought not to shoot him for that!” He telegraphed for action in the matter to cease, and finally pardoned the deserter.
“A fellow-feeling”—for all his thoughts reverted to his family life at Springfield.