Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1909-02-12
his GAUNT SHOULDERS WERE BOWED
BUT H|SsTEEL THEWS NEVER FALTEREO'
Powerful and Eloquent Tribute to Lin
coin by Roosevelt
HONOR TO MARTYRED PRESIDENT At HIS BIRTHPLACE
Throughout the Entire Length and Breadth of the Land
the Centenary is Being Observed

DISASTER sduuehed Dul never QlSmayed
him. As the red years of war went
| by they found him ever doing his duty
in the present, ever facing the flu
/ ture with fearless front, high of heart,
/ and dauntless of soul. Unbroken by
| hatred, unshaken by scorn, he
worked and suffered for the people.
+! Triumph was his at the last; and
barely had he tasted it before mur-
der found him, and the kindly, pa
tient, fearless eyes were closed for
ever.
AS the people we are indeed be-
yond measure fortunate in the char
acters of the two greatest of our pub.
lie men, Washington and Lincoln.
Widely though they differed in exter-
nails, 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 nation 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
/ those lofty ideals was guided by the
soundest common sense. Each pos
sessed infexible courage in adversity,
and soul wholly unspoiled by pros
perity. Each possessed all the gen.
tier virtues commonly exhibited by
good men who lack rugged strength
of character Each possessed also all
the strong qualities commonly exhib.
tied by those towering masters of
mankind who have too often shown
themselves devoid of SO much as the
understanding of the words by which
we signify the qualities of duty, of
mercy, OF devotion to the right, of
lofty disinterestedness 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 man
kind 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 Washing.
/ ton when he founded this nation. 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 to-
ward greatness of the visionary, with.
out any OF the visionary's fanaticism
or egotism, without any of the vision
ary's narrow jealousy of the practical
man and inability to strive in prac.
tical 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 back.
woods idealist; but he had nothing in
common with those practical men
whose consciences are warped until
they fail to distinguish between good
and evil, fail to understand that
strength, ability, shrewdness, whether
in the world of business or of poll
tics, only serve to make their posses
sor a more noXiOus, more evil men,
Der of the community, if they are not
guided and controlled by fine and
high moral sense.
We of this day must try to solve
many social and industrial problems,
requiring to an especial degree the
combination of indomitable resolution
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 fol-
lowing that course brought upon his
ASttu, ollelSho olihC Wy IlC CALL
of revolution and by the extremist Of
reaction. He never wavered in devO-
tion to his principles, 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 and de-
nounced him with a fervor which now
seems to us fantastic in it's deitication
of the unreal and the impossible. AT
the very time when, one side was hold
ing him up as the apostle of social
revolution because he was against
slavery, the leading abolitionists de-
nounced him as the slave hound Of
Illinois" When he was the second
time candidate for President, the ma
jorty Of his opponents attacked him