On April 15, 1879, the Tribune carried a two-column
report of Whitman's Lincoln address—"A Poet on the Platform" (p.
2, cols. 3-4). The first paragraph of the "news report,"
The poet Walt Whitman made his beginning as a lecturer last
night at Steck Hall, in Fourteenth-st. His subject was the death of
President Lincoln. He reads from notes, sitting in a chair, as he
is still much disabled from paralysis. He desires engagements as a
reader of his own poems and as a lecturer. The following was last
night's discourse. . . .
draws upon a letter sent to Reid the preceding day:
