The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-02-13
LINCOLN STORIES
They Form the Nucleus of Gen.
L. H. Waters, Address.
Orator Was a Close Friend of
Great President.
A COMPLETE SUCCESS
Crowded With Lin
coins Admirers.
Gen. Miles, Address Is Read to
the Audience.

That there are people in Topeka, and
many of them, to whom the name of
Abraham Lincoln is a thing to rever-
ence was amply attested last night by
the full attendance at the Lincoln Day
exercises at the auditorium, the first
elaborate observance of the anniver-
sary ever held in this city. Patriotic
music, an address by General L. H.
Waters OF Kansas City, Mo-, the read
ing of the address of General Miles and
the adoption of resolutions of patriotic
tenor, made up the programme of the
evening. Before the assembly dis
persed it Joined in singing the song
America lead by the Misses Wyatt
and the members of the Modoc club.
General Miles address was read by
Charles Martin of this city
II is prominently fitting that an event
Oh this kind should be conducted under
the direction OF the Grand Army of the
Republic. Great credit is due the old
soldiers of Topeka that they should
nave lnaugurated SO successfully an
observance which will undoubtedly pass
into custom, keeping before the youth
OF this locality. at least, the memory
Of the great president, and intoxicating
an appreciation for the services of the
men who preserved the United States
through the greatest crisis of it's exist
ence. Children and grandchildren sat
beside veterans of the civil war in the
auditorium last night and listened with
appreciation to the stories told by
General Waters of the life of Lincoln
1t is seldom that the opportunity of
listening to such an address is afforded
the present generation. Through the
narratives of the speaker his audience
came to see more clearly the man
Lincoln as he lived.
Although an orator of wide distinc-
ton General Waters, in his address last
night, exerted no effort toward rhetor-
zeal effect He wasted little time in
eulogy, but told the Lincoln stories as
he had heard them told, described the
tall, uncouth and awkward boy of
Sangamon county, the forceful lawyer
at the early Illinois bar, and the ready
campaigner with whom he had himself
Travelled over the prairieS during the
famous campaign against Stephen A.
Douglas. One story he told of that
campaign, of how Lincoln's friends had
questioned his ability to answer the
questions propounded by Douglas re-
garding the Kansas Nebraska territor-
ial problems which figured prominently
in the campaign, the question of the
right of the south to send her slaves
into the new country. When,-after the
questions had been answered by Lin
coin in one of his most famous speech
eS, Douglas ignored the refutation of
his assertions about Squatter sovereign
ty and proceeded with his campaign of
fisherman and his wife. Once, during a
freshet, the fisherman, who lived be-
side a dam, fell in above the dam and
was drowned. The neighbors Joined in
the rescue, tore out the dam, found the
fisher and carried him to the house.
There they proceeded after the fashion
recommended in the first aid-to-the-
injured manuals, to roll him on the
floor to get the water out of him. But
instead of water flowing from his
mouth there came a procession of cells.
When the widow observed the cells she
thriftily gathered them up and put them
in one of her husbands baskets while
the neighbors worked over his body.
When, finally, the cells quit coming and
the neighbors gave up hope of resusci-
tating the dead man, they asked his
wife what they had better do with the
body. she replied:
sWen, seein' as he has done so well