On a Partnership

Partners in any business can be a tricky situation—law partners especially. Take the case of Will Herndon and his partner.

Will was a more than competent attorney. He understood that law is sometimes a business that requires a quick turnaround on the case so you can get to the next one. Better to be paid five times handling five quick cases than one time handling one long one. At least that was the way Will saw things.

That’s what frustrated him so about his older law partner. The older man seemed to have a deliberate nature when it came to both researching a case and arguing it. Even on the simplest case, Will‘s partner would pursue it like a bulldog, researching arcane rulings that may or may not apply to the situation, and then taking his own sweet time in the court room to talk to witnesses, dragging out the process, it seemed. It was all sometimes maddening to Will.

In addition, this partner would often allow opposing counsel‘s points to go unchallenged. Why don’t you ever object, Will asked the partner. The man told Will that it was better sometimes to concede six or seven small points as long as you won the last big one.

Perhaps the greatest strain on the relationship between the two partners was Will’s frustration with his partner’s and his partner‘s wife’s inability to discipline their children. You see, the older man’s young children were often in the offices and underfoot. The partner didn’t seem to mind that his sons had free run there, and they often disrupted meetings with clients. It was like having a bunch of wild animals in a place that Will thought should observe at least a modicum of decorum and seriousness.

Yet, despite their differences, the law partnership survived for over 15 years. It dissolved only when the elder partner decided to pursue political office.

And in all that time together as partners, Will Herndon was never invited to his partner’s house for dinner or to meet for any social event. Apparently, the animosity between Will and his partner‘s wife proved too great an obstacle to overcome.

Will’s partner went on to great success in public life, and that success was fueled largely by the same dogged practices that made him such an able litigator. The man served well, and he even died in office.

Years later, Will decided he would write a book describing the man he had come to know over those years as his law partner–a biography from the man who knew him better than anyone else except his wife.

The book’s title?

Herndon’s Lincoln.

On an Urban Legend

Today marks the 60th year since Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. The history of the world, arguably, changed in those few moments when three shots were fired in Dealey Plaza on that November morning. In the intervening years, our culture has parsed and picked and delved into every nook and cranny of the event in an effort to make sense of something so absolutely senseless.

The purpose of this post isn’t to argue any of the theories about who actually pulled the trigger (There are certainly several red flags about the whole affair and about Oswald himself). Rather let’s compare the shooting of Kennedy in 1963 with the shooting of Abraham Lincoln 98 years prior, because the similarities between the two events have become the stuff of an urban legend.

Let’s start with the men themselves. Kennedy was elected in 1960, while Lincoln first was elected in 1860. But when they first ran for congress, both men were elected in ’46–one hundred years apart. They both were military veterans. Both men were heavily invested in civil rights. Each one was in his 30s when he married a woman in her 20s. Both lost a son while serving as president. Same number of letters in their last names. Both were shot on a Friday. Each was seated next to his wife. The presidential couples were with another couple at the time of the shooting (The Kennedys with Gov. and Mrs. John Connelly, the Lincolns with Major John Rathbone and his fiancé). The other man of the two couples was also injured in both attacks.

The vice-presidents who assumed the office after the shootings also have some things in common according to the legend. Both men were named Johnson. Both were from southern states starting with a “T”–Texas for Lyndon Johnson and Tennessee for Andrew Johnson. Both Johnsons were born 100 years apart, 1808 for Andrew and 1908 for Lyndon. Both men have the same number of letters in their names. They served in the House of Representatives and in the Senate as well before becoming vice-presidents.

The circumstances of each assassination also reveal some urban-legendary coincidences. They were both shot in public view, from behind, and both died from shots to the head. Lincoln was shot in Ford’s Theater, while Kennedy was shot in a car made by the Ford Motor Company, in a model called a Lincoln. Both shooters carried out their dastardly deeds from places where they worked (John Wilkes Booth worked as an actor often at Ford’s Theater). Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and was later apprehended in a theater; Booth shot Lincoln in a theater and was apprehended in a storehouse barn.

Finally, the assassins themselves have some shared characteristics or events. For example, each one has the same number of letters in their full names (15 letters each). They were both shot and killed before they could stand trial for the murders they committed. They were both southerners. Each was living in a boarding house when they shot the president.

Of course, like most urban legends, coincidences are just that–coincidence. One historian, to prove this point, made connections between Kennedy’s tragic death and the assassination of Mexican President Alvaro Obregon in 1928, for example. And some can argue that the trivialization of presidential murder dishonors the men who died and the lives which were forever altered by the heinous acts of violence.

But, 60 years on, perhaps the deep angst that still hangs around the death of John F. Kennedy might lead us to look for something less tragic, less disastrous, and, well, less sad to divert our gaze from that moment. And you have to admit that this particular urban legend has plenty to distract.

And, sometimes, especially on days like these, we desperately need distraction.

On a Mysterious Photograph

William Mumler started his professional life as a jewelry engraver, but he changed careers in the early 1860s and became a photographer. That was a great time to be a photographer in New York; the industry was new and burgeoning, and the American Civil War provided the impetus for many people to photograph their loved ones before they went off to battle. Mumler managed to make a decent living for some time.

In 1872, the war had been over for 7 years. His business had changed from photos of soldiers to family groups and individual portraiture. One day that year, a woman entered his photography studio and requested a sitting. The woman introduced herself as Mrs. Lindall, and she paid in advance.

There was something familiar about her, Mumler thought. The woman, whom Mumler judged to be in her late 50s, wore the black clothing of a widow. Mumler assumed that she had lost her husband during the war. It wouldn’t be the first time he had photographed such a woman. However, it would be far too impolite of him to ask.

The session was not remarkable, Mumler would later recall. The only thing he could remember with certainty was that the woman in black’s thin lips were straight across in almost a grimace. Photographs in those days took several minutes for the image to be transferred to the negative, and, as he always did, he reminded his subject to stay perfectly still so that there would be no shadows or “ghosts” in the image. After the session was over, he thanked the woman and told her to return in a few days for a copy of the print. He turned the glass negative over to his wife for processing.

When the chemicals washed over the glass negative, Mumler’s wife let out a loud gasp of surprise. She yelled for her husband to come see the photograph–quickly. When Mumler came into the room, he, too, exclaimed with a gasp.

There, behind the seated woman in black, was the clear image of a man. The man seemed to have his hands on the shoulders of the woman. The Mumlers looked at each other. “Is that who I think it is?” Mrs. Mumler asked her husband. “Yes,” he said, turning back to the photo. “It’s definitely him.” Mumler’s attention then turned to the image of the woman. “And that means…” he began, pointing to the seated figure in black. “Yes. I think she is,” his wife answered.

When the woman who had called herself Mrs. Lindall returned for the photo a few days later, Mumler handed the photo to her without a word at first. The woman looked at the photo, and, for the first time, she smiled broadly.

“You are her, aren’t you?” he asked. She nodded.

“And that man?” Mumler asked, pointing to the shadowy figure behind her in the photo, a figure that was not in the room when the photo was taken.

“Yes,” she said in a sweet, almost southern accent.

“That’s my husband, Mr. Lincoln.”