Word: weike
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Washington (Weik) 4, Philadelphia (Brissie...
...until the Lincoln romanticists were debunked did William Herndon, Lincoln law partner and biographer (with Jessie Weik), get his due. He loved and respects Lincoln, but he insisted on telling what he believed to be the truth: about the illegitimacy of Lincoln's mother; Lincoln's religion, or lack of it; his feeling about his shrewish wife. Herndon's theory was that Mary Todd helped Lincoln to success by driving him from the house to the sanctuary of office and politics. Of course, Mary Todd disliked Herndon intensely, and didn't help when he, trying...
...Glory. Robert Lincoln himself was embittered by Herndon's now-it-can-be-told approach, and reportedly bought the whole shipment of the Herndon book in England to destroy it. Always broke, William Herndon wrote to Collaborator Weik of their book: "I hope it will be success in the money line, particular! The money line is my line & not the glory line. I need the dollars. Glory may go to thunder if I get the dimes & this you ought to know...
...Herndon was also a provincial lawyer, cranky and crude, unable to develop his ideas systematically. Consequently when he came to write his own biography in 1888, he leaned on a young collaborator named Jesse Weik to put it into publishable shape. The book contained enough of Herndon's insight and first-hand knowledge to make it a masterly record, but Weik picked and chose over Herndon's materials as he saw fit; the publishers revised the manuscript, and 70-year-old Herndon got only $300 for his share of the work and for his collection of Lincoln documents...
...papers, in Weik's possession, were locked up. When the late Senator Beveridge wrote his life of Lincoln, he drew on them, paid a glowing tribute to Herndon, but advised Weik to refuse permission to other biographers. Weik took his advice so literally that for 30 years students could not get access to the 8,000 pages of material. Now in the Huntington Library in California, it has been drawn on by Emanuel Hertz, author of Abraham Lincoln-A New Portrait, in editing The Hidden Lincoln. A belated testimonial to Herndon's integrity, The Hidden Lincoln...
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