The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1909-02-12
ROOSEVELT PAYS
TENDER TRIBUTE
Continued from Page one.)

passed his ungainly youth in the dire
poverty of the poorest frontier folk,
whose rise was by weary and painful
labor, lived to lead his people through
the burning flames of struggle from
which the nation emerged, purified as
by fire, born anew to effort, and of
failure that came more often than
victory, he at last rose to the leader
ship 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 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
we're bowed, but his steel thews never
faltered as he bore for burden the
destines of his people. His e.
Great and Tender Heart
shrank from giving pain; and the task
allotted him was to pour out like wa
ter the life-blood of the young men,
and to feel it 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 it before
murder found him, and the kindly,
patient, fearless eyes were closed for
ever.
AS people we are indeed beyond
measure; fortunate in the character
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 rendered
each able to render service to his ma
ton and to all mankind such as no
other man of his generation could or
did render. Each had lofty ideals, but
each in striving to attain these lofty
ideals was guided by the soundest
common sense. Each possessed inflex-
lbie courage in adversely, and a soul
wholly
UnspoiIed by Prosperity
Each possessed all the gentler virtues
commonly exhibited by good men who
lack rugged strength Of character
Each possessed also all the strong
qualities commonly exhibited by those
towering masters of mankind who
have too often shown themselves de-
void of so much as the understanding
of the words by which we signify the
qualities of duty, of mercy, of devo-
ton to the right, of lofty disinterest-
edness in battling 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 men as great. Widely
though the problems of today differ
from the problems set for solution to
Washington when he founded this ma
ton, to Lincoln when he saved it and
freed the slave, yet the qualities they
showed in meeting these problems are
exactly the same as those we should
show in 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 all the
lift toward greatness of the visionary,
without any of the visionary's fanat-
icism 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 willing
ness to adapt means to ends; but
there was in him none of that morbid
growth of mind and soul which binds
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 COM
,,,a., x.,sfb tAaaa oro o4toaI ,,,n,, x.xboan