The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1910-02-17
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Speaker Cannon tells of the Martyr
ed President, in a speech at
Pittsburg.

Abraham Lincoln, as Speaker
Joseph G.. Cannon knew him, as
the young lawyer travelling through
the frontier of illinois, then the
commanding figure in the debates
with Douglass, the presidential
nominee of the newborn Republi-
can party, and finally leader of the
nation through four years of civil
war and the starting of reconstruc-
ton, was pictured OH the screen Of
memory Saturday night before the
Pittsburg Chamber of Commerce,
at its Lincoln memorial dinner.
Speaker Cannon's address was
merely few leaves from his me-
moirs of the martyred President, a
few glances and side lights upon
association which began when both
were young lawyers practicing be-
fore the same bar.
FIRST GREAT REPUBLICAN LEADER.
Ouce the reference to politics en-
tered the Speakers words and that
was when he declared the Republi-
can party of today was the party
of Abraham Lincoln and that Lin
coin was one of the founders of the
party and it, first great leader.
The most fitting monument to
Lincoln is the party he helped to
organize and the achievements Of
the party he helped develop for the
lasting benefit of the whole country,
east and west, north and south,
white and black, bond and free,"
declared the Speaker.
The principles embodied III the
first platform are still the principles
of the party. Lincoln will always
be known as the first and foremost
Republican. He was a party man,
battling for principles which his
party represented and which he be-
lieved to be of vital interest to the
American people. He led in the
contest when, for the first time, a
majority of the electors endorsed
the principles and policies laid
down i'll the Republican platform.
PLATFORM OF 1908 THAT OF 1860.
"The young man who read
the Republican platform Of 1908
will find in it the platform of
Lincoln in 1860. The majority of
the people have fail.d only twice in
fifty years to sustain this platform.
And after each of these expert
ments they have come back like
the prodigal son, chastened by their
experience and glad to see the old
home again.
when Lincoln returned from
the Black Hawk war and became
candidate for the Illinois Legisla-
ture, though the State was over
whelmingly Democratic, he pub
lished his PLATFORM
81 am for National Bank;
am for high protective tariff and
the system of international improve
ments. These are my sentiments
and my political principles
CARDINAL DOCTRINE OF PARTY.
"Those became the cardinal doc
trine of the Republican party, and
Lincoln probably more than any
other one man, by his consistent
battle in the West developed public
sentiment and quickened the public
conscience that created the Repub-
lican party twenty years later"
Turning back the leaves of his
memory to 1858, the Speaker re-
called the time when he removed
from Indiana to Illinois and became
resident of one of the counties in
which Lincoln practiced law. A
young lawyer without business,
seeking acquaintance of members
OF the bar, he met Abraham Lin
coin and found in him, the first
lawyer on the circuit, a kindly man
ready to make helpful suggestion
to any one of the young lawyers.
OF which the Speaker was one.
Again when the Speaker was a
delegate to the Republican State
convention of 1860 at Illinois at
which Lincoln was made the presi-
dental candidate of the State, the
men met.
Mr.. Cannon drove across the
prairie from where he lived to the
convention in a wagon-railroads
were few and then only building.
The convention was held in a
wigwam," said the Speaker,
"erected between two buildings,
but it was out of doors, covered
ed with green boughs cut from a
nearby forest and the ends of the
wigwam were open to permit the
crowd outside to hear.
10 L.