The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-06-01


 which are constantly shiftng that there is usually a certain amount of truth and error on both sides of our popular conten- tions, that we strive in the ultimate equa- ton to reach the least objectionable of the sum totals: that. in short. disputing among ourselves as partisans at home, we are instantly ready when pressure comes from abroad to unite as Americans: and that, after election, the fighting being over, it's passions are laid under the genial influence of a political system organieally resting upon public opinion and party re- sponsibility.
 Love For the Union.
 grew to manhood in the mid period of the republic. Tn keynote of the popular aspiration was love for the union. It was intense overmas- tering, all pervaslve. The merest hand full at the north, scarcely more than a group at the south. yentured a dis cord. But when the final trial came the one American who held to the key note was Abraham Lincoln. He could not be diverted from it. He stood. Dorc, the embodiment of the union. We owe it's preservation to his wisdom to his integrity. to his frmness and his eour- age. As none other than Washington could have led the armies of the Revo- luton from Valley Forge to Yorktown,
  maintained the government from Sum ter to Appomatox. All of Us now unionists; and though upon the south side of the school room the educational process was somewhat warming. seemed extra disciplinary, partaking overmueh. some of us thought, of birch and ferrule, We are none the less unionists that We ranged ourselves in Confederate ranks and made faces at the schoolmaster!
 God Rules the World"
 God rules the world, the winds and tic waves. He raises mortals to the skies and He casts them down be- meath the surface of the earth In Abra- ham Lincoln He gave us a symbol of American liberty and a type of Amer ican manhood which might be marked and known of all men and seen from afar; gnarled of bark, fine of grain, of fiber, solid and of texture rare; adapted to all uses and capable of ex- quisite polish. In his career we may learn what an American partisan ought to be as distinguished from what he ought not to be. We only need to 1 read the documentary history of his administration to discover that he was not merely in intellect the foremost man of his time but that in character l he ranks with the few great men of all time. In collision with him the rest appear but as pasteboard men. He grows in length, breadth and thickness the longer We survey him.
 Saved the Union.
 True to his ideal, he never missed the cue of the momenti though facing a constant stress of weather, sorely tried from hour to hour he never lost his balance, or tore passion to tat ters. His was the genius of common sense, the soul of common honesty. Knowing the people he put his hand to the pulse of the nation, judged its dis temper, and was ready with a remedy. I have said that he was a republican partisan. In point of fact he was an old conscience whig, commissioned by God to steer the bark of the union through the two extremes and to res cue 1t from shipwreek. He was an anti-slavery man; but he was never an abolitionist. He became a war com mander; but he still stood in awe of the constitution and his oath as a mag istrate. His one aim, his single pur- pose, was 10 save the union, with or without slavery.
 Freedom From Danger.
 He did save it; yielding not at all to party clamor too often contrived by scheming zealots and whooped up by noisy minorites; and today 1t Is his example which moves d calm, enlight- ened and patriotic occupant of the Presidential office-lke himself a life long republican and a republican par tsan-to reach forth hIs arms as if to clasp in their embrace the whole peo- pie. seeking to win the good opinion, yearning for the approval, of each and every one of them. Whether they give 1t in detail or divide upon the incl dental issues of the time they will not withhold 1t in the aggregate, and since a vigorous opposition Is indispensable to good government, his wise modera- tion and transparent integrity give rs the promise of an opposition based upon principle rather than faction self-re- specting and respectful, upright clean and kind. From such partyism nothing is to be feared; because it leaves us free, when dangers come, to forget that we are republicans, to forget that we are democrats, remembering only that we are Americans.
 Tribute to Lincoln.
 Mir Watterson closed with the con- cluding passage of the oration upon Ab- raham Lincoln delivered by him in 1885 to the Lincoln union of Chicago. as fol- lows:
 Born as lowly as the Son of God, in a howell reared in penury, sqador, with no geam of light or fair surrounding; without graces, actual or acquired without name or fame or official train ing; 1t was reserved for this strange being, late in life, to be snatched from obscurity, raised to supreme command at supreme moment and intrusted with the destiny of a nation.
 The great leaders of his party. the most experienced and accomplished public men of the day were made to stand asdei were sent to the rear. whilst this fantastic figure was led by unseen hands to the front and given the reins of power. It Is immaterial whether we were for him, or against him; wholly immaterial That, during four years, carrying with them such a weight of responsibility as the world never witnessed before, he filled the vast space allotted him in the eyes and actions of mankind is to say that he was inspired of God. for nowhere else could he have acquired the wisdom and the virtue.
 Where did Shakespeare get his ge- nius? Where did Mozart get his mu- sic. Whose hand srnot the Tyre of the Scottish plowman and stayed the life Coa