Omaha daily bee., 1909-02-13

toot ct n quarter OF noon announced to
the waiting hundreds surrounding the
station the presidents train. and when It
pulled in and the distinguished citizen
alighted. the air cracked with cheers.
President Heads Procession.
when the president. his wife and daugh-
ter. with Secretary Loeb had entered the
closed carriages reserved for them and
the band and company OF the first Ken
lucky regiment had formed at the beginning
OF the line. the parade was ready to move
on 20 the cabin site.
Following the band and soldiers came
Governor Wilson and his staff, a score Of
Kentucky's first citizens in uniform and
after these the centenary committee.
No traffic was permitted on the road
during the passage OF the procession. but
its sides, policed by mounted officers, were
lined with the legions of tie curious.
The parade drew up AT the side Of the
cabin and the governor. the president, Mrs.
Roosevelt. Miss Roosevelt. Mr.. Loeb and
members Of the centenary committee entered
the tent to the applause OF its occupants
and took there seats in ar improvised
platform near the flower mantled cabin.
Close by lay the cornerstone of the new
memorial temple in it's bed Of mortar and
a derrick was manned, ready to raise the
huge stone into place when the president
had spread the cement on its broad side
with the silver trowel which lay upon the
rostrum.
President Lays Cornerstone. B
Following the delivery OF the impressive
Invocation, former Governor Joseph Folk
Of Missouri, who is president of the Lincoln
Memorial association. uttered some intro
ductory remaks. telling the purpose of the
association.
He was followed by President Roosevelt,
who laid the cornerstone, putting into its
receptacle appropriate papers, which were
sealed by Nicholas Koenistein of Hodgen-
vile, and the stone raised into place.
In his address President Roosevelt said:
1--WE have met here to celebrate the hun
dredth anniversary Of the birth of one of
the two greatest Americans; of one Of
the two greatest men OF the nineteenth
century; of one of the greatest men in the
worlds history. This rail splitter, this boy
who passed his ungainly youth In
the dire poverty of the poorest
Of the frontier folk, whose rise was by
weary and painful labor, lived to lead his
people through the burning flames of a
struggle from which the nation emerged,
purified as by fire, born anew to a loftier
life. After long years of iron effort, and
of failure that came more often than VIC
tory, he at last rose to the leadership of
the republic, at the moment when that
leadership had become the stupendous
world-task of the time. He grew to know
greatness, but never ease. Success came
to him, but never happiness. save that
which springs from doing well a painful
and a vital task. Power was his, but not
pleasure. The burrows deepened on his
brow, but his eyes were undimmed by
either hate or fear. His gaunt shoulders
were bowed, but his steel thews never
faltered as he bore for a burden the des-
TIMES of his people. His great and tender
heart shrank from giving pain; and the
task allotted him was to pour out like
water the life-blood of the young men.
and to feel in his every fiber the sorrow
of the women. Disaster saddened but never
dismayed him. IS the red years of war
went by they found him ever doing his
duty In the present. ever facing the future
with fearless front, high of heart, and
dauntless of soul. Unbroken by hatred,
mistaken by scorn. he worked and suffered
for the people. Triumph was his at last;
and barely had he tasted il before murder
found him, and the kindly, patient, fear
less eyes were closed forever.
Washington and Lincoln.
LAS a people we are indeed beyond meas
ure fortunate in the characters of the two
greatest OF our public men, Washington
and Lincoln. Widely though they differed
In externals, the Virginia landed gentleman
and the Kentucky backwoodsman, they were
alike in essentials, they were alike In the
great qualities which render each able
to render service to his nation and to all
mankind such as no other man of his gen
GRAFTON could or did render. Each had
lofty ideals, but each In striving to attain
these lofty ideals was guided by the sound
est common sense. Each possessed inflex-
ible courage In adversely, and a soul
wholly unspoiled by prosperity. Each pos
sessed all the gentler virtues
exhibited by good men who lack rugged
strength of character. Each possessed also
the strong qualities commonly exhibited
by those towering masters of mankind
who have too often shown themselves
devoid OF so much as the understandings
OF the words by which we signify the
qualities OF duty, of mercy, of devotion to
the right, of lofty dlsinterestedness in bat
Ting for the good Of others. There have
been other men as great and other men
as good; but in all the history of mankind
there are no other two great men as good as
these, no other two good men as great.
widely though the problems of today differ
from the problems set for solution TO
Washington when he founded this nation.
TO Lincoln when he saved 1t and freed the
slave yet the qualities they showed In
meeting these problems are exactly the
same as those we should show i'm doing
our work today.
Lincoln saw into the future with the
prophetic Imagination usually vouchsafed
only to the poet and the seer. He had in
him ali the hft toward greatness of the
visionary, without any Of the visionarv'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 soul which blinds so
many practical men TO the higher things
OF life. No more practical man ever lived
than this homely backwoods idealist. hut
he had nothing in common with those prao-
tleal men whose consciences are warned
until they fail TO distinguish between Sood
and evil, fail to understand that strength
ability. s~hrewdness, whether in the world
OF business or of politics, only serve IN