The Black Hills union and western stock review. [volume] (Rapid City, S.D.) 1904-19??, 1909-02-19

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from the problems set for solution
to Washington when he founded thi
nation, to Lincoln when he saved i
and freed the slave, yet the
qualities they showed in meeting
these problems are exactly the same
as we should show in doing our work
today.
Lincoln saw into the future with
prophetic imagination usually vouch
safed only to the poet and the seer
He had in him all the lift toward
greatness of the visionary, without
any of the visionary's fanaticism OF
egotism, without any of the vision
arys narrow jealousy of the practi,
can man and inability to strive in
practical fashion for the realization
of an ideal. He had the practica
mans hard commonsense and will
iingness to adapt means to ends; but
there was in him none of that NOR
hid growth of mind and soul which
blinds so many practical men to the
higher things of life. No more prac-
teal man ever lived than this home.
ly backwoods idealist: but he had
nothing in common with those prac-
teal men whose consciences arc
warped until they fail to distinguish
between good and evil, fail to under.
stand that strength, ability, shrewd
ness, whether in the world of bust
ness or of politics, only serve tic
make their possessor more noxious
a more evil member of the com
munity, if they are not guided and
controlled by fine and high moral
| sense.
1--WE of this day must try to solve
many social and industrial prob
lens, requiring to an especial de-
gree the combination of indomitable
resolution with cood-headed sanity
We can profit by the way in which
Lincoln used both of these traits as
he strove for reform. We can learn
much of value from the very attacks
which following that course brought
upon his head, attacks alike by the
extremists of revolution and by the
extremists of reaction. He never
wavered in devotion to his principles
in his love for the union, and in his
adherence of slavery. Tmid and
lukewarm people were always de-
nouncing him because he was too
extreme; but as matter of fact he
never went to extremes, he worked
step by step; and because of this
| ,iStc hnt n Il
him with fervor which now seems
to us fantastic in its dedication of
the unreal and the impossible. AT
the very time when one side was
holding him up as the apostle of So
cial revolution because he was
against slavery, the leading aboli-
tionists denounced him as the "slave
hound of Illinois," When he was
the second time candidate for pres
ident, the majority of his opponents
attacked him because of what they
termed his extreme radicalism, while
a minority threatened to bolt his
nomination because he was not rad
ical enough. He had continually to
check those who wished to go for
ward too fast, at the very time that
he OVERRIDE the opposition of those
who wished not to go forward at all.
The goal was never dim before his
vision; but he picked his way cauti-
ously, without either halt or hurry,
as he strobe toward it, through such
a morass of difficulty that no man of
less courage would have attempted
it, while it would surely have over
whelmed any man of Judgment less
serene.
yet perhaps the most wonderful
thing of ALL and, from the stand
point of the America of today and
of he future, the most vitality impor-
tant, was the extraordinary way in
which Lincoln could fight valiantly
against what he deemed wrong and
yet preserve undiminished his love
and respect for the brother from
whom he differed. In the hour of
triumph that would have turned any
weaker mans head, lin the heat OF a
struggle that spurred many good
man to dreadful vindictiveness, he
said truthfully THAT so long as he
had been in his Office he had never
willingly planted thorn in amy
mans bosom, and besought his sup
porters to study the incidents of
the trial through which they were
passing as a philosophy from which
to learn wisdom and not as wrongs
10 be avenged; ending with the SOL
emn exhortation that as the strife
was over, all should reunite in a
common effort to save the common
country.
He lived in the days that were
great and terrible, when brother
fought against brother for what each
sincerely deemed to be right In a
contest so grim the strong men who
alone can carry it through are rarely
able to do justice to the deep con-
victions of these with whom they
grapple in mortal strife. At such
times men see through a glass dark
ly; to only the rarest and loftiest
spirits is vouchsafed that clear vi
sion which gradually comes to all,
even to the lesser, as the struggle
fades into distance, and wounds are
forgotten, and peace creeps back to
the hearts that were hurt. But to
Lincoln was given this supreme vi
sion. He did not hate the man
from whom he had differed. Weak
ness was as foreign as wickedness to
his strong, gentle nature; but his
courage was OF a quality SO high that
it needed no bolstering of dark pas
sion. He saw clearly that the same
high qualities, the same courage
and WILLINGNESS for calfcoor;fco and