El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1911-02-11

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manship which called for his profound
est, thought. He was an orator of the
highest type-one who could crowd
food for a days thought into few elo-
| quent sentences. He delighted in the
opportunities, and probably equally as
much, in the excitement of the forum.
When raw youth in Indiana he
walked u miles every court day to the
| county seat to attend court; his ambi-
| tion was stirred by the speeches he
/ heard, and his determination to be a
| lawyer, and no doubt a politician also,
| had its beginning in those days.
! The difficulties he overcame. in the
! shape of his apparently unpropitiOus
Surroundings and immediate environ
ment are often referred to. But are
not those things exaggerated? What
| did they mean but food for effort to
this great raw-boned western youth?
How far more unpropitious TO him
would have been surroundings of wealth
and luxury.
The greatest drawback to an Amerf-
can boy todays as in past times, is to
be so situated that he cannot know his
fellow men-especially his lowly fellow
men-their struggles, their hardships,
their trials their discoura gements,
! their deprivations. Fortunate Lincoln.
to have been one of the plain people"
The man of destiny is not simply
called-he is prepared for his work.
Governor Hughes in his speech at
Rochester on Lincoln day says: The
surroundings of his early life were not
only obscure but disheartenng. It was
not simply that he was a child of pow
erty. That may be a blessing. The real
deprivation was not in the rudeness Of
the home or in the Iowliness of the es-
tate, but in the lack Of those incentives
to endeavor and stimuli to ambition
which are the heritage of most of our
American boys"
That is the opinion of a town bred
man. Lincoln was country boy; he
lived close to nature and he had first
of all the subtle inspiration and the
stimulus that comes from such assO-
citation. Again he bad the quiet. the
absence from turmoil. the opportunity
for unmolested thought, the best en-
vironment for his ripening. 1t was alb
solutely essential that he should be
UNIV worldly.
Imagine Lincoln. with his alert eager
mind, his persistent intelligence. placed
in childhood in large city. He would
have satisfied his curiosity on every
hand; he would have been filled full
with the affairs of the world He
would have been educated and trained
as city boys are-too much to think
the thoughts of other men. to imbibe
ideas false and true of what should be
his part in the world. For many this is
the only possible training for useful
ness-and we may believe that it would
have made Lincoln useful man. He
would no doubt have been good man,
but he would have been, in a sense at
least, worldly man-his point Of view
would have been. more or less. q
worldly point of view. His very acute
ness and capacity for judging human
nature would have made this newt
able.
Fortunately for US he grew up away
from the distractions of the world. In
the field. in the woods. resting from
his healthy toll. blowing or wood chop
ping, or other rural labor. or before
the cabin fire in his lowly home, he
read and thought and grew in intel
lectual stature to the highest measure
of a man. Lincoln did not need the
school and university training He did
not need access TO we'll filled libraries.
In his lowly, lonely life on the from
tier. sharing the conditions and expert
ence of a western pioneer, Lincoln
learned many lessons that he could
never have obtained from books. HIS
life to US seems, in a degree, at least.
mean and sordid. It could not have
been So however, to Lincoln-from
nothing mean and sordid could have
sprung the sweet and wholesome nature
of the greatest American.
It may have been that his early life
had something to do with his ever
seeming sadness. But it has been saIo
with truth, Great men are lonely men:
and their loneliness and natural alOOf-
ness have a tendency to make them
sad. Moreover, Lincoln was a genius
in whom tears and laughter are closely
akin. Through his life he was sensi-
tive-not apparently to any woes of his
own but to the woes of other men. /
This sensitiveness, a rich asset of his /
nature and character, made him es-
pecially ready for the work he was des-
tined to do for humanity 1t increased |
his burden of responsibility, no doubt, |
but it showed him also how best to /
meet that responsibility.
This sensitiveness was an element |
of Lincoln's unwOrldliness; it was also /
the ingredient of his nature that made /
possible all that was best and highest /;
in his career. Through his sensitive |
ness his sympathies were made broad /
and keen. Through the privations of /
his early life, and the hardships, which /
those nearest and dearest to him had to 1
endure, he learned the lesson taught by
sympathy. He knew how to sympathiZe /
with the lowly, the plain people-aye,
with the man in bondage. Lincoln's
life of poverty and toll taught him an
other Iesson-the value and dignity OF
labor. the rights of the laborer
But the crOWning element of Lin
coins greatness sprang, too, in part |