The morning journal-courier., 1908-01-24
FEW TRUE coMMoNERS
The Speaker Foresees Equal Honors in Store for the Memory
 of Stevenson.

1eSSlon Tn lnlS state II not III all NeW England"
 Col. Osborn took for his subject Burns" T read the other day in a newspaper" he said in beginning. "of little girl who returned from Sunday school to be asked by her kind parents what she had learned? She replied that the lesson had been all about the Garden of Eden and added: And if had been God. wouldn't have let that story get out either Just so. upon grave consideration. Isuppose the wiser plan would have been for Mrs. Osborn not to have let me out this evening. For though I have that license as newspaper man that Burns enjoyed in a greater degree IS poet, still l do not feel equal to standing up before an au- dience of Scotch-born and Scotch bred and criticizing Burns for you, who no doubt know far more about him than do l.
 But I can admire with you the gift that God gave Burns After saying that I hesitate when realize how in frequently even our great philosophers and literary men agree in their estima- tions of great men, I sometimes wonder whether there are standards of liter ature by which to measure mems work anyway. Peoples angles of vision on such things are so different.
 Just as we are told that the great ness of Sir William Wallace and Rob- ert Bruce made the highlands of Scot land, so too. I believe did Rober Burns and his successor, Walter Scott have part in their making. I was born with a reverence for all men that can do what myself cannot. For that reason l like to think of Burns as the poet-commoner who understood the hopes, the ambitions, and the needs of | his country so much better than it did itself. I love to think of him as the | singing, loving sympathetic night ingale of his country Scotland. like to wonder if he had lived in Connecti- cut or New Haven. where we could have met and known him. whether we could not have grasped much more ir | his writings. Something seemed to give him an insight into the ignorant needs of his people about whom he wanted tc sing. My favorite German poet Goethe, said of him that he was fortified at his cradle with all the poetry and en- thusiasm that his predecessors hat poured into his ears
 Every country has its commoner such as was Burns to Scotland: its spokesman, poet, and writer The needs Of the hour produce the man. We have had our commoners. Such a man was l our Abraham Lincoln (Applause ] His Gettysburg speech contained the same lovely thoughts and sentiment. i that Burns poetry did, They lift us out of ourselves; they express that in us that we feel but cannot express be cause of inability or that we do no, express because we do not have the 1 courage of our convictions wonder sometimes if Kipling, when he wrote his Lest We Forget did not express the spirit of the commoner in reaching down to express something to hi countrymen- that they could not them. ? serves tell in words
 An intense love of country charac terized Burns. Every lover of his coun. try is a commoner but all do not ey. y press or interpret the thoughts n their countrymen because they do no, nave the eyes. the agencies and force, 10 concentrate upon what the peopl, need Our national trouble, it seems f, me IS that we have too many who ar, looking out for and singing of tho needs and wants of the few, while ", have too few who are looking out sim itlrly for the many. This country vii always need some men to sing if, needs. The qualification of needs re auires no poet or gifted writer but thei singing does Burns grasped thai yearning in the heart of every homes man.
 Personally I think that Burns voul, nave his same loves and thoughts an, ihsignts, had he not been more forum ate than most of his fellow-countrvre, in his education, which we are told h was l doubt whether any seat n learning could have given him thos, characteristics
 We should remember that ever commoner should be encouraged If i Tar easier to tear down than to buil up We should not lack the eene~os ny to encourage those who say thing that can square themselves with in common rules of honesty. And wasn' II MT. Ross who said Of Burns that h suffered most from the hands of thos meant to criticize him only for th good? How unfortunate that Rurns
 all men should have been permitted
 pass his closing hours in real want H . must have felt it dreadfully. Two , three days after his death the genero, 2 lty of his countrymen in Dumfries M. 2 shown in every manner but ii was S little late. And yet his life is ,ln,
 trated in multitudes of men who ha,
 dared to speak out their honest convi
 tlons. It is serious thing to be stric
 " and absolutely honest Ii is a di
 fcult and dangerous undertaking
 many cases as we in the newsnanar Ii, 1 often find. That thought makes ,
 wonder what Burns would have don
 what he 'would have accomplished. h.
 he been able to lead free life"
 At this point in his remarks Colon
 Osborn paid high compliment to |
 memory of Stevenson He said;
 hope it is not out of place to remir
 you of what your descendants may
 doing years from now-celebratins
 think probably the kindliness Of Bur
 as well as that of another Scotchms
 whose sun is just arising above u
 horizon I refer 10 Robert Louis Ste