The Roswell daily record. [volume] (Roswell, N.M.) 1903-current, 1905-02-14

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 half-hearted when
blows must be struck. But he felt
only love, a o as deep as the ten
derness of his great and sad heart, for
all his countrymen alike in the North
and in the South. and he longed above
everything for the day when they
should once more be knit together in
the unbreakable bonds of eternal
friendship.
We of to-day. in dealing with our
fellow-citizens. white or colored, North
or South, should strive to show the
just qualities that Lincoln showed:
His steadfastness in striving after
the right. and his min patience
and forbearance with those who saw
that right less clearly than he did;
lLlo SoI 1901 CIIICdfoI " w mAdI was
best, and yet his readiness to accept
the best that was practicable when
unceasing effort to cure what was
evil, coupled with his refusal to make
a bad situation worse by any ill-judg-
ed or ill-timed effort to make it bet
ter.
The great civil war in which Lin
coin lowered as the Hottest figure left
rs not only a reunited country. but
to claim as it's own the glory won
alike by those who wore the blue
and by those who wore the gray, by
those who followed Grant and by
those who followed Lee; for both
fought with the equal bravery and
with equal sincerity of conviction,
each striving for the light as it was
given him to see the light; though it
is now clear to all that the triumph
of the cause of freedom and of the
Union was essential to the welfare
of mankind. We are now one people,
a people with failings which we must
not blink, but a people with great
qualities in which we have the right
to feel just pride.
All good Americans who dwell in
the North must, because they are
good Americans, feel the most earn
est friendship for their f~elIow-country
men who dwell in the South, a friend
ship all the greater because it is in
the South that we find in its most
acute phase one of the gravest pro-
blems before our people: the problem
of SO dealing with the man of one col
or as to secure him the rights that
no one woul grudge him if he were
of another color. To solve this prob
cate him to perform the duties, a fail
ure to perform which will render him
him.
Most certainly all clear-sighted
and generous men in the North ap-
preciate the difficulty and perp1exity |
of this problem, s~ympathize with the
South in the embarrassment of con-
ditions for which she is not alone re- |
.sponsible. feel an honest wish to help
her where help is practicable, and
have the heartiest respect for those
brave and earnest men of the South
who, in the face of fearful difficulties,
are doing all that men can do for the
betterment alike of white and black.
The attitude of the North toward the |
negro is far from what it should be
and there is need that the North also
should act in good faith upon the prin
cipIe of giving to each man what is
justly due him. of treating him on
his worth as a man, granting him no
special favors, but denying him no
proper opportunity for labor and the
reward of labor. But the peculiar cir |
cumstances of the South render the
problem there far greater and far
more acute.
Neither | nor any other man can
say that any given way of approach
ing that problem will present in our
time yer an approximately perfect