Coincidence: Lincoln & Kennedy
The two presidents coincide again
Many amazing coincidences have been already noted between Presidents Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy. Both men had a vice president named Johnson. Both men were significantly involved with civil rights and both were assassinated on a Friday in front of their wives.
Lincoln was in Ford’s Theater and Kennedy in a Lincoln made by Ford. (Car maker Henry Leland said the car was named after Lincoln).
While many coinciding features of their lives exist, many individually are not statistically significant, nevertheless, the shear amount of coincidences (maybe 50 or more) is the thing that is significant.
Now, I have discovered two more coincidences. First, both were extremely witty, more so than other presidents and had an almost comedic sense of timing. Secondly, shortly before becoming president, both men are almost magically transformed to become more presidential appearing.
Carl Sandburg was a Pulitzer Prize winning author whose books include Lincoln: The Prairie Years (1926). Sandburg (born in 1878) grew up in the same county as Lincoln (Lincoln was born in a log cabin in Kentucky and moved in 1830 to Illinois where he lived until 1846.)
Lincoln was an active lawyer, following the complete judicial circuit and appearing before the Illinois Supreme Court 44 times. He traveled a lot, and in those days, it was often necessary to eat at peoples’ houses along the way. In his book about Lincoln, Sandburg explains that he met people personally who had known Lincoln. One fella said Lincoln was so funny, he could make a cat laugh!
During Lincoln’s run for the U.S. Congress in 1846 he was in a series of famous debates between himself and Stephen Douglas. They would meet on an out-door stage and just about everyone in the county would show up.
At this point Lincoln did not have a beard, and with his great big ears he was kind of funny looking, with a high-pitched voice. Many letters written by people who had met Lincoln said, “he wore just one suspender on his pants, and the bottom of his pants never reached the top of his shoes!”
At one point in the debate, Douglas accused Lincoln of being hypocritical, saying, “You’re two-faced!” Without missing a beat, Lincoln turned to the crowd, and in his high-pitched voice said, “If I had two faces, do you think I’d be wearing this one?” as he pointed to his head.
Kennedy at Rice University
President Kennedy was also quick and witty with a sense of comedic timing. After touring the Johnson Space Center south of Houston, he gave a speech at Rice University in Houston, a sort of elite Ivy League type of school. Kennedy delivered the speech outside in the University quadrangle to about 30,000 people in the crowd.
In his New England accent, he talked about his idea for landing a man on the moon saying, “Why, why go to the moon? Why did man cross the great oceans? Why did he climb the tallest mountains?” And then with a comedic pause, he looked around the group and asked, “Why does Rice play Texas?”
The second coincidence between these two men is when both men undergo a transformation in the period just before becoming President. Lincoln receives a letter from a little girl who says she has six brothers and she thinks she can get them to vote for him, if he grows a beard. Lincoln goes for the suggestion and grows a beard.
Now the proportions of his face change, elongating the face and chin and making those big ears less obvious. Suddenly, he is more presidential looking.
Kennedy suffered from Atkinson’s Disease and twice almost died. Because of this, doctors decided to give him steroids. When he marries Jacqueline Bouvier, he is skinny, thin in the face and looks like a college freshman. Steroids can be dangerous, but it was reasonable given his medical problem and they built up his muscles and filled out his thin face.
A famous photo of him getting out of a swim in the ocean shows a bulky, athletic Kennedy with a face filled out slightly and more mature looking. He is now also almost magically transformed and appears more presidential.