The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-02-13
As Speaker at Great Banquet at
Waldorf Astoria.
FIVE HUNDRED THERE.
A Scholarly Address on the
Great Emancipation.
Senator Depew and Two Others
"AIsO Spoke"


coin" was responded to by James Willis
| Gleed of Topeka, Kansas The other
4 toasts and speakers We're:
"A Tribute to Mckinley" Senator G.
! NJ. Depew; THE Republican Party,
Lieutenant Governor Woodruff; THE
Conquerors.' Creswen Mclaughlin.
The audience was a magnificent one
of the best people here and from neigh
boring cities. The decorations were ex-
traordinary and the music a great fea-
ture. The banquet was one of the most
successful of a remarkable series.
Mr.. Gleed was the first speaker and
said in part:
]. W. GLEED'S ADDRESS.
Mr.. Lincoln in a marvellous way en-
bodies the history and character of the
American people. The tragedy of his
takes root a long way back 1t was in
| Virginia that the first African slaves
were landed.
When the national punishment came.
it was Virginia that suffered most. In
Virginia the great tragedy came to an
end; and it was in Virginia that the
father and mother of Abraham Lincoln
were born. Thus the tree of healing
springs from the Old Domain, where
the national disease was first planted.
Fifty-four marks the beginning of the
last decade of Lincoln's life. 1t marks
the beginning of his ministry. Now we
are to find what manner of man ne has
become and what place he is to hold in
the history of the nation and of the
world.
Biography should be read backward
first find what. at maturity, man was
and did-al1 else is northumberland Mr..
Llncolns should begin here. From this
on, he stands always in the white light.
From this on. we can see for ourselves
the great patient purpose driving, the
great intellect executing, the great heart
suffering. From this on we need take
no mans word for him; we may study
Lincoln direct; we have an authentic
record-twelve hundred printed pages of
his own words-his letters, speeches.
messages and proclamations-
And what marvellous record 1t is!
Let any young American of this or flu
ture generations who seeks the true
image, the unbroken melody, take up
this record first-and last.
A MARVELLOUS RECORD.
He viii rise up with the feeling that
those twelve hundred pages. re-
purposes, triumphs and sufferings
of the last decade of Lincoln's life.
make book n atchleSS since the Bible.
1t will be to him like a spiritual bap-
after, when he listens to the words of
any man, however great, however elo-
quent. about Lincoln, he will feel that
he has the measure of the speaker or
the writer, perhaps, but never the meas
ure of Lincoln; he will feel ever more
deeply that Lincoln, looked at through
the eyes of any man, however sympa-
thetic, is simply Lincoln diluted, Lin
coin lessened: and be will turn back
unsatisfied to Lincoln's own printed
pages and recorded words
Oh, the strength and the grandeur OF
that record, Oh. the beauty, the gen
tleness, the tenderness of it. 1t seems
today, forty years after, freSh-wet with
tears; the blood stains are not dry; the
layers still beat up to heaven-or are
but just now hushed! The meanest of
us rises from it aWe-stricken, with
bated breath, humbled, comforted, in
ST ired-with something of that herolc
heart new-growing in his own; with
something of those melancholy eyes
neW-sha dowed in his, with something of
that dauntless courage and invinclble
purpose knitting itself into his inner
most being There shines the mind.
there throbs the heart, there moves the
divine Underwriting purpose! Twelve
like drops of blood and sweat by
great civil struggle-burned out in the
fiery furnace of warl No hatred, no
SCOrn, no pride, no eXultat1on, no sell
fisEness, no weakness of any kind any
where to be foundI Every page with
something to moiSten the eye, to stiffen
tie will, to eXalt the aspirations, to il
lunine the intellect, to set the heart
tiI- obbing or the nerves tingling! On
every page some sentence that flashes
like a search-ight or rings like a rifle
shot, No other such record to be found
in all uteraturei
THE UNION WAS EVERYTHING.
He appreciates the value of the
union. The union was everything The
extreme abolitionists, hating slavery.
were demanding immediate, universal
ema ncipation; otherwise, disunion. The
ex treme southern leaders, understand
ing slavery-that it must be extended
or die-were demanding extension or
disunion. Mr.. Lincoln saw that to give
up the union was to confess the failure
of free institutions before the world
the ina bility of democracy to maintain
itself in a crisis. 1t meant the negro
aba ndoned. 1t meant weakness. waste
and perpetual warfare-if not chaos
TO north and south. The anti-slavery
cause, the cause of the Constitution
ard of the Declare ton all hung on the
preservation of the union.
Thus Mr.. Lincoln, understanding
slavery and hating it. understanding
the Declaration the Constitution and
the Union. and loving them, framed the
issue Slavery is wrong; it shall not be
extended. but restricted and left to
destroy itself The Declaration IS right
and shall be restored. The Constitution
shall be preserved and the Union for
ever maintained. This was the broad |
issue. Lincoln made it in fifty-four;
he made it broad; he kept it broad. On
this issue the battle was fought from
fifty-four to Appomattox.
THAT PATHETIC FAREWELL
With that pathetic farewell to his
friends at Springfield, he journeyed down
to Washington. We know what he
finds there. Mr.. Buchanan, willing. as
was said, to give up part OF the Con-
stitution or even the whole of it, if per-
chance he might save the rest, had left
everything undone that ought to have
been done. A great rebellion had been
inaugurated. Mr. Lincoln confrontS not
mere Uncontrolled mobs raised against
the very idea of government, but seven
sovereign states-later eleven-fully
organized. differed. armed, equipped
with all the machinery of government
running smoothly and all compact and