Arizona republican., 1909-09-23
ANNIVERSARY OF FREEDOM
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You may not know it, but as good i a friend of the colored man as was | President Lincoln, so abhorrent to him | was the thought of so much blood | shed that he was anxious to have it | stopped, even at the price of continued | slavery. one proposition he made was | to pay for all the slaves and set them free. His advisers secuted the idea ] because of the cost They made the l calculation that it would cost billions l of dollars. The war went on and at it's close it had cost billions of dollars. about as much as to have paid for the freedom of all slaves, beside costing us the lives of 100000 of our brave soldier boys.
 Looking back we may well query. was not President Lincoln's plan the better one? With or without money freedom had to come. Slavery in this fair land was doomed. The decree had gone forth from heaven that the time had come when the bondman should go free. and so it was.
 Under Washington, the father of his country it had been decreed that all men were created free and equal. endowed with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But our national life was a travesty on this declaration, until the proclamation of President Lincoln. the hberator.' Then had come the time when the declaration of independence and our national life harmoniZed. And you are the inlreritors of this inestimable boon. I entreat you today, by all that is sacred and dear to you, to forget not this trust, nor the responsibilities which it imposes upon you. Be active, be dilligent, be faithful to every trust. When General Grant heard of General Sheridan's victory in the Shenandoah he telegraphed him, Push things No better motto for us today than this. No idler or loafer can win in the race. And. then let our energy be coupled with the honesty of Aunt Sophie the only person who ever received a life appointment as a laborer from Presi- dent Lincoln. Aunt Sophie was sweeper in the treasury department in Washington. One day in January, 1863, at the usual hour of 4 o'clock, when the clerks were leaving. she commenced her sweeping in the money department. Among the waste papers she found a large package of money, which she hastily covered over with rubbish and kept on sweeping. She knew the secretary of the treasury al ways entered that room before leaving. so she swept on, one, two, three hours, until at last he came and cried out, Sophia. what are you doing?' when she showed him the package. which proved to contain a quarter of a mill lion dollars
 Tt was then dark and Sophia was sent home in the seeretary's carriage. The next day he reported it to Presi- dent Lincoln, when she was suitably rewarded and given a life employment in the treasury. When the secretary asked her if she wasn't tempted to keep the money, she replied: No. no: it never entered by head. All the money in this treasury ain't nothin to leave my little black children com pared with the value of a pure white heart
 "A rich landlord once cruelty op- pressed a poor widow. Her son, only s years old, saw it. It fixed his after life. He became a great painter and painted a life likeness of that dark scene He placed it where the man who had oppressed his mother could not fail to see it daily. The picture and his remembrance of his meanness became torture to him. He offered a large sum of money for the painting. so that he might destroy it.
 Listen to me. There is an invisible painter drawing on the canvas of the soul a likeness reflecting all the pas sions and actions, the aspirations and ambitions, the good and bad of your life.
 Eternity will reveal them all to us. We must meet our earth life again. What will that picture be to you, and you, and you? If your life be gov erned by Abraham Lincoln's code of