Polk County observer. (Monmouth, Polk County, Or.) 1888-1927, 1909-02-12
LINCOLN THE Man.

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ne z7sas-ss.1s tapestry wEs-a tc5
Fs.ss embroidery from Years cad 20
years end the story Of the nations
Around the name aud history OF
Washington, the hero OF our nation :
beginning, has clustered SO much OF
tradition and fable, that, despite our
wholesome American contempt for
superstition, we have come to regard
him not so much as a man Of natural
human impulses, but rather as a sort
of half mythical demigod, like the
heroes Of old Greece, until his great
ness is augmented by the superhuman
halo which all of us, half shame
facedly, yet unfailingly bestow upon
him.
Not 80 with Lincoln. Tradition may
garble the story Of his life and fable
add tinge Of unnaturalness to tit
is SO with the lives Of all who have
been truly great-but the broad sym
pathetic humanity of his gentle
nature, glowing down through the
years, in spite of fable and tradition,
steadfastly denies the demigod and
declares him first of.all man always
a man; but the mightiest man that
the Fates have ever bred and reared
TO face great issues in the world.
While Washington was perhaps
more brilliantly great, it is this sim
plicity in the character of Lincoln that
makes men who accord.to the former |
a species Of alteration, add to it in |
their reverence for Lincoln, the warm
straight forward love Of man for man.
The cycle Of ages can never carry
Lincoln into the mists Of a national
mythology; he will stand to the people
Of America hundred years hence
just as real, just as vital, just as
human, as he stands 10 now; as he
stood to the people who saw him at
the dedication OF the burying ground
at Gettysburg, when he spoke simply 4
and quietly, the few sentences that
have since been and always will be
among the greatest that
have ever been uttered:
Pour score and seven years ago q
Dur fathers brought forth on this COZ Ii
iuent new nation, conceived 10 lib
.rty and dedicated to the proposition G
hat all men are created equal
Now We are engaged in a great
;iyil war, testing. whether. that nation,
y any. nation so conceived and so ;
dedicated. can long endure. We are
net on a great battlefield Of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion Of
hat field as a final resting place for
hose who here gave their lives that |
hat nation might live. It is alto
yethera fitting and ,proper that we l
should do this.
But, IN Z larger sense, we cannot
We icannot, hallow this
ground. The brave men, living and
lead, who struggled here, have con-
secrated it far above our poor.power to
add or detract The world will =. little
note nor long remember, what we say
here, but it can never forget what they
did here. 1t is for us, the living,
rather to be dedicated here to the |
unfinished. work which they who
fought here have thusafar so nobly
advanced. 1t is rather for US to be ,
here. dedicated the great task remain
ing before Us; that from the same
honored dead We take increased devo-
lion to that cause for which they gave
The last full l.measure Of devotion that
We here highly resolve that these dead
should not have died in vain that this
nation under God, shall have a new
birth offreedorn. aud that government
II the people, by. the people. for. the
people shall not perish from the earth.