Johnson, in the saying of the countryside, "out-married himself." His wife was a plain woman, but came of good family. One day, when a child, so the legend ran, she saw passing through the Greenville street in which her people lived, a woman, a boy and a cow, the boy carrying a pack over his shoulder. They were obviously weary and hungry. Extreme poverty could present no sadder picture. "Mother," cried the girl, "there goes the man I am going to marry." She was thought to be in jest. But a few years later she made her banter good and lived to see her husband President of the United States and with him to occupy the White House at Washington.
Much has been written of the humble birth and iron fortune of Abraham Lincoln. He had no such obstacles to overcome as either Andrew Jackson or Andrew Johnson. Jackson, a prisoner of war, was liberated, a lad of sixteen, from the British pen at Charleston, without a relative, a friend or a dollar in the world, having to make his way upward through the most aristocratic community of the country and the time. Johnson, equally friendless and penniless, started as a poor tailor in a rustic village. Lincoln must therefore, take third place among our self-made Presidents. The Hanks family were not paupers. He had a wise and helpful stepmother. He was scarcely worse off than most young fellows of his neighborhood, first in Indiana and then in Illinois. On this side justice has never been rendered to Jackson and Johnson. In the case of Jackson the circumstance was forgotten, while Johnson too often dwelt upon it and made capital out of it.
Under date of the 23rd of May, 1919, the Hon. Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, writes me the following letter, which I violate no confidence in reproducing in this connection:
I can't tell you how much delight and pleasure your reminiscences in the Saturday Evening Post have given me, as well as the many others who have followed them, and I suppose you will put them in a volume when they are finished, so that we may have the pleasure of reading them in connected order.
As you know, I live in Raleigh and I was very much interested in your article in the issue of April 5, 1919, with reference to Andrew Johnson, in which you quote a story that "used to be current in Raleigh, that he was the son of William Ruffin, an eminent jurist of the nineteenth century." I had never heard this story, but the story that was gossiped there was that he was the son of a certain Senator Haywood. I ran that story down and found that it had no foundation whatever, because if he had been the son of the Senator reputed to be his father, the Senator was of the age of twelve years when Andrew Johnson was born.