Whitney Version
In 1896, Chicago attorney Henry Clay Whitney published his account of the speech in an issue of McClure's Magazine. Whitney claimed he had taken notes during the speech and based his version of the speech upon those notes. Initially, Whitney's version was given some credibility. Ida Tarbell sought out Joseph Medill, who was present at the Lost Speech, and he claimed that Whitney's version displayed "remarkable accuracy".
Tarbell was unwittingly carried away by the story, but others were skeptical. Former Lincoln private secretary John George Nicolay declared Whitney's version devoid of Lincoln's style and a fraud. Robert Lincoln, Abraham's son, agreed with Nicolay's assessment. In 1900, the McLean County Historical Society declared their skepticism. In modern times, Lincoln researcher and Director of the Chicago Historical Society Paul M. Angle exposed Whitney's version of the speech and his claims of its validity as a "fabrication".
Read more about this topic: Lincoln's Lost Speech
Famous quotes containing the word version:
“Truth cannot be defined or tested by agreement with ‘the world’; for not only do truths differ for different worlds but the nature of agreement between a world apart from it is notoriously nebulous. Rather—speaking loosely and without trying to answer either Pilate’s question or Tarski’s—a version is to be taken to be true when it offends no unyielding beliefs and none of its own precepts.”
—Nelson Goodman (b. 1906)