The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1909-02-13

insist on the prosecution of war in
which every day meant tears, heart
break. orphanage, widowhood, an
suish, pain. With patient courage,
with never whine, or complaint, with
never flutter of coward heart, but
with an infinite sadness he lived those
years-and grew in greatness as the
days went on.
Elected second time 10 the presi
dency. he came TO its duties and to its
heavy honors with new hope and cour-
age. Already the day was dawning
/ for which he had longed and prayed
and waited-the day when the war
drums would be muffled and the battle
flags furled and the armies of con-
tending brothers disbanded to the ac-
/ tivities of peace.
What spirit it is which speaks
in the closing words of the second in
augural With malice toward none;
with charity for all; and tirmness in
/ the right as God gives us to see the
right, let us strive to finish the work
we are in, to bind up tae nations
wounds; to care for him who shall
1 have borne the battle. and for his
| widow and his orphan-to do all which
may achieve and cherish a just and
I lasting peace among ourselves, and
with the nations of the earth"
/ On, that he who had that in his
heart, had not lived to make it effec-
tive by his longer life! What shame
and bitterness, what anger and mis-
understanding, what folly and crime
might we have been spared if Abra-
ham Lincoln had guided into peace
as he had guided amid the storms of
\ war!
We cannot read Alright the mys-
teries of Providence, nor guess why
4 Lincoln was smitten to death in the
moment when he seemed about to
reap the glad reward of his years of
suffering and pain. We do know that
the hand which struck him down to
! death was not guided by nor express
4 sive of the sentiment of those engag-
ed in open warfare with him. The sol
/! ders in gray as the soldiers in blue,
knew that when Liucoln fell, there
| fell the one man needed by friend
4 and foe alike, fittest to teach them
anew the lesson of brotherhood, and
bnd the warning people into one.
The shock, the horror, the sense of
personal loss in this hour were never
better voiced than in Walt Whitman's
poem:
4 o Captain, my Captain. our fearful
trip is done,
The ship has weathered every wrack,
the prize we sought is won.
The port is near, the bells ! hear the
people all exulting,
4 While follow eyes the steady keel, the
vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart,
o bleeding drops OF red.
4 Where on the deck my Captain lies
Fallen cold and dead.
o Captain, my Captain, rise up and
hear the bells;
/ Rise up-for you the flag is flung, for
you the bugle tlills,
\ For you bouquets of rbbon'd wreatbs,
for you shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass,
their eager faces turning;
Here. Captain! dear Father,
This arm beneath your head;
1t is some dream that on the deck
You We faliGn c0lu ana ueau.
Ny Captain does not answer, his lips
are pale and still,
4 My Father does not feel my arm, he
has no pulse nor will
The ship is anchored safe and sound,
its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship
comes in with object won;
Exult o SHORES; and rings o bells;
But | with mournful tread
!, Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead
Amid the tears of continent they
bore him back to lay him among the
friends of his earlier years, among the
people with whom he lived while he
grew to greatness and they knew ii
not; through the groves of Indiana
) and across the prairies of Illinois they
bore him while not the nation only
but humanity lamented the death OF
prince and a leader, hero and q
J commander, fitted to be numbered
with the great, to take his place un
challenged by the side of the great
est.
And here we'll might close.
5 But | am compelled TO ask mysel
: and you-a and find the answer if W.
J can-as to the elements of Lincoln'
: attractiyeness and greatness-why i
is that this man grows larger to tn,
5 thought of men as time takes him
!, farther from us, reversing the usua
r law of perspective
There We're other men who wer
S counted greater than he while the
!. lived and moved together, Their
S We're others who thought that the