A Day That Nearly Left Him Speechless

The sky was blue with scattered white clouds on Lincoln’s Birthday at the Los Angeles National Cemetery in Westwood. It was Lincoln’s real birthday, Feb. 12, not the composite Presidents’ Day.

We felt blessed. The weather had threatened rain all week. But there were other perils yet ahead.

It was to be the third annual celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, an observance arranged solely by my friend, the lone wolf Duke Russell.

The first such observance is lost in history. I attended the second one last year. It was held in the Hollywood Bowl. Duke read Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address before an audience of exactly two--me and his daughter, Colleen. Duke is a patriot. He felt it was a shame Los Angeles had no official observance of our 16th President’s birthday and decided to do something about it.

Duke is something of a dreamer. He is also an honest man. He is best defined, perhaps, by the fact that he is an alumnus of Hollywood High School.

Duke is also the founder of Operation Sports Page, a scheme for teaching young people how to read. Duke arranged for daily newspapers to send their sports pages to the athletic departments of high schools, where students are urged to read them. And they do, Duke says. Many have never had a newspaper in their homes.

Athletic boys are not the only students, and sports pages may not be high literature. But it’s a start. What the heck, I learned my craft from reading pulp fiction.

Duke asked me if I would read the Gettysburg Address at the celebration. He can be very persuasive in his low-key way. I had reservations about reading the famed address, but I thought it was the least I could do. After all, the speech only takes about two minutes to read. It is, of course, a masterpiece of eloquence and brevity, and I knew I would be proud to read it.

Duke predicted there would be at least 200 people in attendance. Actually there were about 100 people sitting in the white chairs when the ceremony started. But that was 50 times the number last year. A good many of them, however, were members of Duke’s and my families.

I scanned the crowd in vain for Charlton Heston. He had told Duke he might attend. But on that Sunday we were told that Heston was in Texas and wouldn’t be able to come.

How sad, I thought. Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if Heston could have read the speech instead of me. Lincoln was called the Great Emancipator; Heston might be called the Great Enunciator. Well, maybe next year.

Tom LaBonge, Mayor Riordan’s director of field operations, was to introduce me. A minute or two before LaBonge mounted the podium, my daughter-in-law Jackie approached me. “Do you want this?” she said, handing me a brown leather briefcase. My heart sank. It was the briefcase in which I had carried my copy of the speech. I wasn’t even aware that I didn’t have it in hand.

I realized how embarrassed I would have been if I had been introduced to read the address and had to say, “Sorry, folks, I don’t seem to have my copy.”

My daughter-in-law told a harrowing story. After dropping us off at the site, she had driven off to find a restroom. On the way she saw in the rearview mirror something flapping off the roof. She thought maybe she had hit an animal. She stopped and looked on the ground, and there was the briefcase.

How close a call! Evidently I had placed the briefcase on the roof of the car while my son Doug was helping me get out, and forgot it.

We pledged allegiance, then the Salvation Army Long Beach Temple Band and the Notre Dame High School Band played the national anthem while we sang. LaBonge introduced me, and I mounted the podium on Doug’s arm. After a few introductory remarks, I began to read it.

“Fourscore and seven years ago. . . .”

My son told me that I had read one line twice, but I could hardly be blamed, considering I was in a state of shock from the briefcase incident.

The audience applauded graciously and the Salvation Army Band played “‘Dixie,” “The Battle Cry of Freedom” and several other Civil War tunes. How those songs can still touch us. It is interesting that a Philadelphia newspaper quoted one of Lincoln’s lines--”The world will little note nor long remember what we say here . . . “ only to agree that Lincoln was right. His speech was a dud. In fact, the Gettysburg Address is the most quoted of any speech in American history.

I hope I’m around for the celebration next year. The success of this year’s may draw an even larger crowd. And, of course, Charlton Heston will be there to read the address.

I have read it for the last time.

* Jack Smith’s column is published Mondays.