The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-03-06
RscoIIsetions and Reflections
of Thomas Fitch.
Copyright FitchI
"ABRAHAM LINCOLN"

Copyright 1873 by Thomas Fitch ]

OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
that the anthem of her march to great
ness has ever been the CHEEKY music
of contented and well paid toll
A A
The great wigwam in Chicago near
the river. where the Republican Ma
tional Convention assembled in 1860
! lacked the appointments and conven-
fences now possessed by almost every
public hall. Electric lights were then
unknown; the telephone girl, with
gum in her mouth and a sutton at her
: side, did not respond to the calls of
3 impatient customers with the irritat-
Ing words. line busy" The motorman
had not been evolved, and street cars
were still propelled by impenitent
mules. and the fremont House-six
| feet below the level of the street was
4 the leading hotel of the Northwest,
with rates at two dollars per day.
The wigwam, with its ten thousand
cheering auditors, fiuttering banners,
and its platform on which were seated
as delegates hundreds Of the brightest
intellects in America, presented a pic
ture which will never fade from the
eyes of those who We're privileged to
behold it. As a local reporter of the
Milwaukee Free Democrat, 1 was ac-
! corded place at a long table in the
center of the platform, only a few feet
from where the white-haired abolition
leader, Joshua r. Giddings of Ohio.
sat by the side of his colleague. the
trumpet-voiced David K. Carter.
The Seward forces were represented
by the suave and masterful William
NJ. Evarts of New York, who in turn.
was counselled by that veteran of eau
Gus and Observation-Disclosures Weed
the head Of the Albany regency.
Pennsylvania presented an apparent
candidate in the person of Simon Cam
eron, but his delegates never Sc
riousIy expected his nomination, and
his followers were marshalled and kept
together really for the purpose of OBJ
tanning promises. the fulfllment of
which would enure to the advantage
Of the clan.
Before the Chicago convention of
1860 assembled, slavery had been
routed in its efforts to capture Kansas
and Nebraska. Nevertheless. the "pe-
culiar institution" refused to accept de- !
feat. Its avowed motto was rule or
ruin" and it girded its loins anew for I,
the contest of 1860. The result of that ,
contest was no longer doubtful. The
Democratic party was rent in twain, |
the great North had broken its shack +!
les, and the very air was electric with
the presage of the coming triumph of
freedom.
Yet to achieve triumph the members
of the Chicago convention felt that |
there was needed not merely leader, I
but a leader of leaders. A man for
the times was demanded. and the God
of the Eternities presented him in the
person of Abraham Lincoln.
"A
He was the child of poverty and toll.
Not the hopeless poverty and cringing
toll of those who labor amid the din of
European marts, but the manly sub
mission to privation and unmastered
toll of the western pioneer, whose eye
of fate beholds the star of
hope shining above the clouds
and who in his dreams of the
future, Grapes himself with the
senator's toga or the judges gown.
He was self-made and self-reliant, but
never self-seeking or self-sufficient. He
was honest, not with that nurtured in
tegrity which too often proves an ex-
otto that dies with the first blast of
but he was honest by in
stinct and because it never occurred
to him to be other than honest
He was in spirit and in fact one of
and one with the people, and he need
ed no guide to find the way to their
hearts. He loved liberty of action, of
speech, and of thought, and in so far
as his generous and chivalric soulwould
suffer him to hate anything, he hated
tyranny and meanness, and shams. He
was a master of speech. His passion I
and pathos and humor were matchless,
md as a Iogician he was peerless. His