Bisbee daily review., 1904-07-08

be deprived of the tender pride of call ing ourselves his disciples, and. of do- ing in his name the work allotted to us by Providence And I hope l amviolating neither the confidence of a friend nor the proprieties of an oe- casion like this when I refer to the ardent and able young statesman who is now, and is to be, our President to let you know that in times of doubt and difficulty the thought oftenest in his heart is, What, in such a case, would Lincoln have done?"
 As We are removed further and fur ther from the founders of our party and their mighty work, their names and their fame rise every year higher in the great perspective of history. The clamor of hatred and calumny dies away. The efforts made to weak en the hands of Lincoln and his as- sociates are forgotten. The survivors of those who so bitterly attacked him and his cause. which was the cause of the country. are now themselves astonished when confronted with the words they then uttered But it was against a political opposition not less formidable and efficient than the armed force beyond the Potomac that the Union men of that day. and their President had to struggle. It was not merely the losses in battle. the waste Of our wealth, the precious blood Of our young men. that filled Lincoln's heart with anguish and made him cid before his time, but il was the storm nf r-rs hlnc him, filling the air with islanders and thwarting his most earnest and un- selfish efforts fer the country's good. But in spite of it all he preserved, never for a moment tempted by the vast power he wielded to any action not justified by the moral and the or sanic law. l have always liked the inscription on the medal which the workmen of France, by one-cent sub scriptions, caused 10 be struck after his death: Abraham Lincaln. the hon est man. Waged war. Abolish slavery. Twice elected President without yelling the face of liberty" This was an achievement new to the world: that a man and a party. armed with an authority so unquestioned and oO 5lGP-A0uOQc- III ilt Ol a vast war, should have submitted themselves so rigidly 10 the law-and never have dreamed there was any thing meritorious about it. Then, if never before, We proved We were as fit to be free as the one who achieved our freedom.
 The world learned ether lessons in
 
 army-sent them home 70 earn their nvings as simple citizens of the land they had saved, without terms or con- uitions; they asked none; they want ed peace; they were glad 10 get to work. And there were no reprisals, not man punished for rebellion or treason; not an act Of violence sul- lied the glory of the victory. The light had been fierce, but loyal; We at least wished the reconciliation to be perfect. They came the paying or our debts. To whom is the credit due or that enormous task, that sub- lime effort of common honesty. if not 10 the party which against every assault of open and covert repudia. ton stood by the contry's honor and Kept il free from stain?
 Let me hurriecly enumerate a few of the events in the long and faithful ca reer of the Republican party which seem to us to entitle it to the con- tdence of the country and the final approval of history. After the WAT was ended and peace re-established with no damage to the structure of the Government, but, on the contrary, with added strength and with increaS ed guaranties of its perpetuity, it re- mained to be shown whether the DOW CT and success Of the Republican party were to be permanent, or whether, born of crisis. it was fitted to cope with the problems of daily national life It had destroyed slavery, or, perhaps we might better say, it had created the conditions by which slavery had committed suicide. In the absence Of this great adversary could the party hold To gether against the thousand les ser evils that beset the public life of modern peoples-the evils of ignor- ance, corruption, avarice, and lawless- ness, the prejudices of race and class, the voices of demagogues, the cunning of dishonest craft, the brutal tyranny of the boss, the venality of the man? l think it is not too much to say that the last forty years have given an answer. full of glory and honor, to that question. The Republican party in mass and in detail has shown it's ca- pacity to govern. By the homestead Jaw. with equal generosity and wis dom:it distributed the national domain among the citizens who were willing to cultivate it and who have converted wide stretches of wilderness into smil- ing homes. It built the Pacific Rail- road, which has bound the Union to- gether from East to West by bands of steel and made the States beyond the mountains among our most loyal and prosperous commonwealths. It re- deemed our paper currency and made all our forms of money of exactly equal value. and our credit the best in the world. By persistent honesty in our finances-in the face of ob- stacies which might have daunted the hardest statesmen-it has redeemed our interest charges so that in any mart on earth we can borrow money