Gettysburg Address ... easy question? maybe

[David Lockmiller]

(12-26-2017 08:57 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  Mr. Defrees, the government printer, told me that, when the message was being printed, he was a good deal disturbed by the use use of the term "sugar-coated," and finally went to the President about it.

"Defrees," replied Mr. Lincoln, "that word expresses precisely my idea, and I am not going to change it. The time will never come in this country when the people won't know exactly what sugar-coated means!"

(Francis Carpenter, "Six Months at the White House," pages 126-27)

Last night, I was watching the local news here in San Francisco. The news reporter began the reporting of the first story (which is usually the most important story to the local community) with these words: "There's no "sugar-coating" it . . . ."

This morning I read online the coverage of the same story in a different publication which I copy here:

"Each winter, California officials trudge up the Sierra Nevada to measure the snowpack, with news cameras watching closely. Last year, there was a thick blanket of white. This year, the blanket had turned to a crunchy brown.

Roughly one-third of California’s water supply comes from runoff in the Sierras — snowpack measurements are critical to help plan how much water cities and agricultural areas will receive."

So, a century and a half later, President Lincoln was proven right once again. As usual, Abraham Lincoln was "right as rain," or, in this case, "snow." (Sorry about that!)