Daily Arizona silver belt., 1910-02-12
ABE LINCOLN


 The first won for us our independence.
 The last wrought out our manhood and self respect. -
 Let us give to each the glory due him.
 There is enough for both and for our nation
 This is the day of Lincoln. And as he has filled the century, growing from humbest birth to highest place, to martyred death and world wide fame, so will he go on growing, through all the centuries that are to come, as an inspira- ton and hope for all mankind.
 That is, if we keep the Lincoln as he was-if We stand faithful at the sepulcher of this cruel fled one and see that no false spirit issues forth in his stead
 In the adulation that is being given to Lincoln on this centenary day of his birth there is danger of his being taken from us as the human that he was and deiied to the unknOwable
 Thus has the world been robbed of the real Achilles, the real Caesar, the real Washington, who have passed from human sembance to fan ciful shadows.
 Let us not thus be robbed of the plain Abe Lincoln!
 Let us keep the man as he was-a man-one of the noblest of earth, and, as such, one of the most precious possessions of the people.
 The unfortunate Hector is, after all, the hero of the Iliad, and not the invulnerable Achilles and by our popular process of eliminating all human weaknesses from our great men We de- stroy them as heroes we can emulate and exam ples we can comprehend.
 Look at Abe Lincoln s face
 Nature never gave that face as an indication of any character to be sentimentally etherial- ized His habits of life nodded it's lines in steel
 One may control ones voice and discipline ,11 l...A Al Day and night, waking and sleeping, one's char acter IS being traced there, to be read by all who care to read
 And as we must hold to the sad, rugged, home ly, intensely human face of Lincoln, and love it for what it is let us hold to him, too just as he was-the grandest, most really human figure looming up in our history as a nation.
 With all his awkwardness of figure, with all his homeliness of manner, with all his simplicity of speech-that was Abe Lincoln.
 And let us keep him-plain Abe-infnitelv greater and infinitely more sacred than any mythOlOgical god, or historians fancies or poets dreams
 Coming from nearest to nothing he rose to nearest to everything.
 Born of the poor whites of a slave state. and inheriting the hatred held by his class for the ~iCSiOj IlS HdnI IIeeu JllG Mll10nS or black slaves.
 A self-made man with scarcely one winters schooling from books, he contributed some of the finest gems to the worlds literature. His Gettysburg speech and his letter to Mrs. Bixbv are unequalled in all the classics for depth and Lmpidity of sentiment. They ought to be read with reverence today by every American
 The man who could open a cabinet meeting, called to discuss the emancipation proclamation, by reading Artemus Ward and could call for a comic song on bloody battle field was the same man who could guide, with clear mind and iron hand, the diplomacy that kept off fatal interfer- ence of Europe, while conducting at home the most horrible of civil wars that ever afflicted q people.
 He reached with ease the highest and lowest human levels, and on the very field that he shamed with ribald song he left a record of elo- qGence never attained by human lips before.
 But let us not forget that he was human.
 Master in mind, in body, in spirit-yes; but only a man.
 In his brain the eagles of inspiration had their eyrie.
 In his heart dwelt infinite love for all the on. pressed of his time.
 In his soul was pure spring of promise for all human kind.