“Mr. Lincoln then said:
“‘Now, gentlemen, I will tell you, what it is; I have thousands of applications like this every day, but we cannot satisfy all for this reason, that these positions are like office seekers—there are too many pigs for the teats.’
“The ladies who were listening to the conversation placed their handkerchiefs to their faces and turned away. But the joke of ‘Old Abe’ put us all in a good humor. We then left the presence of the greatest and most just man who ever lived to fill the Presidential chair.’”
GREELEY CARRIES LINCOLN TO THE LUNATIC ASYLUM.
No sooner was Abraham Lincoln made the candidate for the Presidency of the Republican Party, in 1860, than the opposition began to lampoon and caricature him. In the cartoon here reproduced, which is given the title of:
“The Republican Party Going to the Right House,” Lincoln is represented as entering the Lunatic Asylum, riding on a rail, carried by Horace Greeley, the great Abolitionist; Lincoln, followed by his “fellow-cranks,” is assuring the latter that the millennium is “going to begin,” and that all requests will be granted.
Lincoln’s followers are depicted as those men and women composing the “free love” element; those who want religion abolished; negroes, who want it understood that the white man has no rights his black brother is bound to respect; women suffragists, who demand that men be made subject to female authority; tramps, who insist upon free lodging-houses; criminals, who demand the right to steal from all they meet; and toughs, who want the police forces abolished, so that “the b’hoys” can “run wid de masheen,” and have “a muss” whenever they feel like it, without interference by the authorities.