Tonopah bonanza. [volume] (Butler City [i.e. Butler], Nev.) 1901-1909, 1909-02-13

Lincoln saw into the future with
the prophetic Imagination usually
vouchsafed only to the poet and the
seer, He had in him all the life
toward greatness of the visionary,
without any of the visionary's
fanaticism or egotism, without any
of the visionary's narrow jealousy
of the practical man and inability to
strive in practical fashion for the
realization of an ideal. He had the
practical mans hard common sense
and Willingness to adapt means to
ends; but there was in him none of
that morbid growth of mind and
SOU which blinds so many practical
men to the higher things of life.
No more practical man ever lived
than this homely backwoods idealist;
but he had nothing in common with
those practical men whose con-
sciences were wrapped until they fail
to distinguish between good and evil,
fail to understand that strength,
ability, shrewdness, whether in the
world of business or of politics, only
serve to make their possessor a
more noXious, a more evil member
of the community if they are not
guided and controlled by a fine and
high moral sense.
We of this day must try to solve
many social and industrial prob
lens, requiring to an especial degree
the combination of indomitable reso-
luton with cool-headed sanity.
We can profit by the way in which
Lincoln used both 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 princi-
pies, in his love for the Union, and
in his adherence Of slavery. Timid
and lukewarm people were always
~denouncing him because he was too
extreme; but as a matter of fact he
never went to extremes, he worked
step by step; and because of this the
extremists hated an denounced him
with a fervor which now seems to us
fantastic in its dedication of the un-
very time when one side was holding
him up as the apostle of social revo-
luton because he was against slav-
cry, the leading abolitionist de-
nounced him as the slave hound of
Illinois, When he was the second
time candidate for president, the
majority of his opponents attacked
him because Of what they termed
extreme radicalism, while a minority
threatened to bolt his nomination
because he was not radical enough.
He had continually to check those
who wished to go forward 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 Wis.
ion; but he picked his way eau
tiously, without either halt or hurry
as he strobe toward it, through
such a morass of difficulty that ne
man of less courage would have at
tempted it, while it would surel,
have overwhelmed any man of iudg
ment less serene.
Yet perhaps the most wonderful
thing of all. and, from the stand
point of the American of today ant
of the future, the most vitality i'm
portant, was the extraordinary wa,
in which Lincoln could fight vail
antly against what he deemed wrony
and yet preserve undiminished hi
love and respect for the brothe
from whom he differed. In the hou.
of a triumph that would hav,
turned any weaker mans heat
in the heat of a struggle whicI
has spurred many a good man t.
dreadful vindictiveness, he SAT-
truthfully that so long as he hat
been in his office he had never will
ingly planted a thorn in any man
bosom, and %besought his supporter
to study the incidents of the tria
through which they were passing a
philosophy from which to lear
wisdom and not as wrongs to b.
avenged; ending with the solemn ex
hortation that as the strife was ove
all should reunite in a common eff
fort to save their common country
He lived in days that were grea
and terrible, when brother Tough
against brother for what each sin
cerely deemed to be the right. In
contest so grim the strong men VIII,
alone can carry it through are rarel,
able to do justice to the deep con
v%ictions of those with whom the,