New-York tribune., 1905-02-14

among ourselves and with all nations.
Immediately after his reelection ne mad al
ready spoken thus
.HThe strife of the election is but human nat
ure practically applied to the facts OF the case
What has occurred in this case must ever re-
cur In similar cases Human nature Will not
change. In any future great national trlal,
compared with the men of this, we shall have
aS weak and as strong, as SHY anu as WISE as
bad and good. Let us. therefore, study the
Incidents of this as philosophy TO learn wisdom
FROM and none of them as wrongs to be re-
venged. May not all having common
interest reunite in common effort TO (serve)
our common country? For my part, 1 have
striven and shall strive TO avoid placing any
obstacle IN the way. So long as l have been
here l have not willingly planted thorn IN
any mans bosom. While l am deeply sensible
to the high compliment Of reelection, and
duly grateful, I trust, to Almighty God for
having directed my countrymen to right con
clusion. l think, for their own good. 1T adds
nothing to my satisfaction that any other man
may be disappointed panied by the result.
May l ask those who have not differed with
me to join with me in this same spirit toward
those who haVe?
This is the spirit in which mighty Lincoln
sought to bind up the nations wounds when It's
soul yet seething with free hatreds, with
wrath, with rancor, with all the evil and dread
full passions provoked by civil war; Surely this
is the spirit which aH-Americans should show
now, when there is so little excuse for malice or
rancor or hatred, when there is so little of vital
consequences to divide brother from brother.
LINCoLN's LOVE FOR HIS CoUNTRYMEN.
Lincoln, himself man of Southern BIRTH did
not hesitate to appeal to the sword when he be-
came satisfied that in 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 1t is
a sign of weakness to be halfhearted when blows
must be struck. But he felt only love, a love
deep the tenderness of his great and sad
heart, for 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 eter-
nal friendship.
We of to-day, in dealing with all our fellow
citizens, white or colored, North or South,
should strive to show just the qualities that
Lincoln showed His steadfastness in striving
after the right, and his infinite patience and
forbearance with 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
best was unattainable; his unceasing effort to
cure what was evil, coupled with his refusal TO
make a bad situation worse by any i'll judged
or III timed effort to make it better.
Tne great Civil War, in which Lincoln lowered
as the loftiest figure, left not only a reunited
country, but country which has the proud
right to claim as its 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 Lec for both fought with
equal bravery and with equal sincerity of con-
Yiction each striving for the light 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 L
people with failings which we must not blink
but people with great qualities in which we
nave the right TO feel just pride.
NEGRO PROBLEM A GRAVE ONE.
All good Americans who dwell in the North
must because they are good Americans, feel
the most earnest friendship for their fellow
eountrymen who dwell in the South, friend
snip all the greater because it is in the South
that we find in its most acute phase one of the
gravest problems before our people, the problem
OF so dealing with the man of one color as to
rights would
him II he were of another color. To solve this
problem 1t is. of course, necessary to educate
MIN 10 perform the duties a failure to perform
winch VIII render him curse to himself and to
all around him.
Most certainly all clear sighted and generous
men In the North appreciate the difficulty and
perplexity of this problem. sympathize with the
South in the embarrassment of conditions for
which she is not alone responsible, feel an
honest wish to help her where help is prac-
ticabe, and have the heartest respect for those
brave and earnest men of the South who, IN
the face of fearful difficulties, doing all that
men can do for the betterment alike of white
and of black. The attitude of the North toward
the negro is far from what it should be, and
there is need that the Nol tn also should act in
good faith upon the principle Of giving to each
man what is justly due him, of treating him
on his worth as man. granting him no special
favors, but denying him proper opportunity
for labor and the reward of labor. But the
peculiar circumstances of the South render the
problem there far greater and far more acute.
Neither L nor any other man can say that
any given way of approaching that problem will
present In our time even an approximately
perfect solution, but safely say that
there never be such solution at all unless
we approach it with the effort TO do fair and
equal justice among all men, and to demand
from them in return just and fair treatment
for others Our effort should be to secure to
each man, whatever his color, equality Of op
portunity, equality OF treatment before the
law. AS people striving to shape our actions
in accordance with the great law of righteous
ness, cannot afford to take part in or be in
different to the oppression or maltreatmeEt OF
any man who, against crushing disadvantages,
has by his own industry, energy, self-respect
and perseverance struggled upward to a posi-
tion which would entitle him to the respect of
his fellows If only his skin were of different
hue.
BLACK MAN MUST BE HELPED UP.
Every generous impulse in us revolts at the
thought of thrusting down instead of helping
up such a man. To deny any man the fair
treatment granted to others no better than he
is to commit a wrong upon hm-a wrong sure
to react in the long upon those guilty of
such denial The only safe principle upon which
Americans can act is that Of all men up not
that Of some men down." If in any community
the level of intelligence, morality and thrift
among the colored men can be raised, 1t is.
humanity speaking, sure that the same level
among the whites will be raised to an even
higher degree and it is no less sure that the
cebasement of the blacks will in the end carry
with 1t an attendant debasement OF the whites
The problem is SO to adjust the relations be-
tween two races of different ethnc type that the
rights Of neither be abridged nor jeoparded;
that the backward be trained so that it
may enter into the possession of true freedom,
while the forward race is enabled to preserve
unharmed the high civilization wrought out by
Its forefathers. The working out of this prob
lem must necessarily be slow; it is not possible
in offhand fashion to obtain or to confer the
priceless boons of freedom. industrial efficiency
political capacity and domestic morality. Nor
is ii only necessary TO train the colored man;
# is quite necessary to train the white man,
for his shoulders rests a well nigh n
paralleled sociological responsibility. 1t is
problem demanding the best thought, the utmost
patience, the most earnest effort, the broadest