The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-02-14
Makes Notable Address at the Lincoln Day Banquet Given
 at Waldorf Astoria
QUOTES FAvORABLY FROM
 EMINENT SOUTHERN DIVINE
Says Elevation of Moral and Domestic Life of Negro Is Absolutely Es- sentlaI to Ills Future
 Welfare.

New York. February 12-As the guest of honor at the Lincoln dinner of the republican club of this city tonight, Pres ident Roosevelt made a speech on the race problem. He appealed to the north to make It's friendship to the south, all the greater because of "the embarrass- ment of conditions from which she is not alone responsible''; declared that the heartiest acknowledgements are due to the ministers, law officers, grand juries, public men and great daily newspapers in the south, who have recently done such effective work in leading the cru sade against lynching," and said that the problems was to ESQ adjust the relations between the two races of different ethic type, that the backward race be trained so that it may enter into the possession of true freedom, while the forward race is enabled to preserve unharmned the high civilization wrought out by its fore fathers'
 The President said:
 Tn his second inaugural in a speech which will be read as long as the memory of this nation endures, Abraham Lincoln closed by saying:
 With malice toward none; with char ity for all; with flrmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves. and with all nations
 " Immediately after his reelection he had already spoken thus:
 "'The strife of the election is but hu- man nature practically applied to the facts of the case. What has occurred in this case must ever recur in similar cases. Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good Let us, therefore, study the incidents of this as philosophy to learn wisdom from, and none Of them as wrongs to be revenged. May rot all having common interest reunite in a common effort to (serve) our com mon country? For my own part, l have striven and shall strive to avoid placing any obstacle in the way. So long as l have been here I have not willingly planted a thorn in any mans bosom. While I am deeply sensible to the high compliment of a reelection, and duly grateful as I trust, to Almight God for having directed my countrymen to right conclusion. as I think, for their own good, it adds nothing to my satisfaction that any other man may be disappointed or paned by the result
 May ask those who have not differ ed with me to join with me in this same spirit toward those who hayeg
 Spirit of Mighty Lincoln.
 .This Is the spirit in which mighty Lin coin sought to bind up the nations wounds when its soul was yet seething with fierce hatreds, with wrath, with ran cor. with all the evil and dreadful pas sions provoked by civil war. Surely this is the spirit which all American should shov now when there is so little excuse for malice or rancor or hatred, when there is so little of vital consequence to divide brother from brother.
 Lincoln, himself a man of southern birth. did not hesitate to appeal to the sword when he became satisfied that m no other way could the Union be saved, for high though he put peace he put righteousness still higher. He warred for the Union; he warred to free the slave; and when he warred he warred in earnest, for it is a sign of weakness to be hal1- hearted when blows must be struck. But he left only love, love as deep as the tenderness of his great and sad heart, Tor all his countrymen alike in the north and in the south, and he longed above every thing for the day when they should once more be knit together in the unbreakable bonds of eternal friendship.
 Strive for His Qualities.
 ..We of today, in dealing with all our fellow citizens, white or colored, north or south should strive to show just the qualities that Lincoln showed. His stead fastness in striving after the right, and rbao ppa " those who saw that right less clearly than he did: his earnest endeavor to do what was best, and yet his readiness to accept the best that was practicable when the ideal hest was unattainable; his unceasing effort to cure what was evil. coupled with his refusal to make bad situation worse bv any ill-judged or ill-timed effort to make it better.
 .sThe great civil war in which Lincoln lowered as the loftiest figure left us not onIv A reunited country but a country which has the proud right to claim as it's own the glory won alike by those who w j the blue and by those who wore the
 ay. by those who followed Grant and ov those who followed Lee; for both fought with equal bravery and with equal sincerity of conviction, each striving for the light as 1t was given him to see the light; though 1t is now clear to all that the triumph of the caus of freedom and of the Union was essential to the welfare of mankind. We are now one people, neople with failings which we must not blink. but people with great qualities in which we have the right to feel just pride.
 Friendship for South.
 "All good Americans who dwell in the north must, because they are good Amer .ax,- faaI the most earnest friendship for their fellow countrymen who dwell in the south. friendship all the greater because 1t is in the south that we find in it's most acute phase one of the gravest problems before our people: the problem of so deal ing with the man of one color as to secure him the rights that no one would grudge him if he were of another color. To solve this problem it is, of course, necessary to fContInued on Seventh Pagel