“This is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.””
“A human being lives out not only his personal life as an individual,” remarked Thomas Mann in The Magic Mountain, “but also, consciously or subconsciously, the lives of his epoch and his contemporaries.””
“personage was formally identified upon entrance: Acclaimed eighty-seven-year-old poet Robert Frost; father of antibiotics Selman Waksman; literature Nobel Prize winner Pearl Buck; astronaut John Glenn; immunologist Thomas Weller, whose virus research enabled the polio vaccine; J. Robert Oppenheimer, Manhattan Project director; celebrated novelists James Baldwin and William Styron”
“As the crowd responded with yells and cheers, Lincoln “gave way to intense and scathing ridicule,” mocking still further the “ludicrous” way Thomas spoke. Seated in the audience, Thomas broke down in tears, and soon the “skinning of Thomas” became “the talk of the town.” Realizing he had badly overstepped, Lincoln went to Thomas and gave him a heartfelt apology, and for years afterward, the memory of that night filled Lincoln “with the deepest chagrin.” Increasingly, though not always, he was able to rein in his impulse to throw a hurtful counterpunch. He was after something more significant than the gratification of an artfully delivered humiliation.””
Thomas KearnsThomas Kearns was an influential American businessman and politician known for his significant contributions to the mining, banking, and railroad industries in the early 20th century. Born in 1862, Ke...