[Hoot Gibson]

Dearest Hoot, I suggested (at least twice) that to my mind, after researching, was satisfied that the quote is legitimate, as it still is. Lincoln said other things in other places that suggested his distrust of big money, concentrated in few hands, with the potential to thwart democracy. I saw a cartoon where a dad was shining a light under his kid's bed, the caption read, "See, son, no socialists." Was it a tableau of your childhood?

Socialists seem quite desperate to claim Lincoln as one of their own. Lincoln's contemporary biographers who forcefully claimed that the quote you cited was fraudulent were better placed to know the truth than you are and they had no motive to claim Lincoln as one sympathetic to the socialist creed. Alas, you have not found the successful socialist that you seek in Abraham Lincoln. I again suggest that you look elsewhere to validate your political beliefs.