Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-02-13
Time to Remember Lincoln.

| efItE upon the dttB-tliitdt Ilpiii'AS AetNt
which every year sinks its influence 81
| love- and tolerance and kindness more
deeply into the hearts of Americans
But reference TO the crisis in this
nations affairs when only a Lincoln
could have saved the Union. may be
applied To present conditions with
good effect.
IL that campaign of 1860 when Lin
ccIn and Hamlin, Douglas and john
son. Breckenridge and Lane. and Bell
and Everett represented the sets or
divided opinion as candidates for
President and President need we
speculate on What the result might
have sbeen had other than Lincoln
been sent to the White House. But
that Providence, which seems TO have
lowered over the American people,
wrought wisely and the greatest legal
crime of the century was wiped out.
We heed not go back TO those days
Of depleted treasury, impaired credit.
civil war on our hands and the coun-
try. even in the most northern towns
of the northern states, honey-combed
with eopperheads. southern sympa :
tnizers, obstruetionists and towards.
But even in that terrible hour the
greet soul of an honest, merciful man
was lifting men above their selfish
motives and reminding the flame of
humanity and the fear of God. In
spite of northern sympathy for south
ern Shareholders who would lose all
with the freedom of the black people,
their sense of right and justice toward
oppressed human beings triumphed
Honest Abe
Never, in the history of any nation.
has the wonderful progress of our PEG
pie since the Civil War been equalled--
since the party of progress and peo-
pies rights (Republican) took the reins
of government March 4. 1861. We have
had mighty set-backs and haltings
but each of them has but stayed the
tide for a period when it has arisen
and flowed on-the mighty force of an
unconquerable people whose aims and
inspirations ever have been toward a.
higher plane of civilization.
Evils have crept in, and evils of old
which in other years were regarded
as necessary are now being uprooted
and thrown away. There are still the
towards and obstruetionists and their
sympathizefs, but the selfish interests
which crafty their own tastes for lux
uries, and their passions, at the ex-
pense of the blood and souls of their
victims, must in turn go to the wall.
The saloon men of today are the slave
drivers of the wears preceding the six
ties. Some day Lincoln will rise up
from the monster alcohol.
But alcoholism is only one, While
chief, Of the isms which threaten the
fabric which Lincoln preserved. Null
tiple political cure-alls now menace the
very foundations of our government.
The great masses are confused by the
claims, pretensions and shoutings of
progressiveisms and other isms. Some
of these are advocated by men VINO
are honest enough but who are in
capable Of grasping more than their
own narrows views, and are intolerant
Of argument. They openly condemn the
very institutions which, through all
those trying years of the Civil War,
We're preserved to this country by the
sanity, tolerance, breadth of character,
perseverance, tact, wisdom and heart
full of love of Abraham Lincoln.
Many of the reformers of today are
disgruntled politicians or malcontents,
whose doctrines, shouted from one end
of the country to the other, serve only
to arouse the passions of the classes
and the greed of the illiterate and I'M
scrupulous. These "progressives," self
styled, run largely to fantastic expert
ments, many Of them already discred-
tied BY. enlightened nations.
In the midst of these dangerous ele-
rhents let us turn to the sane precepts
of Honest Abe; let US not be too
hasty in hurting aside those policies
that have guided this nation to the
most powerful on earth; let no whim
oil the hour on the part of agitators
draw MS away from the sound doc
trines that our Constitution repre-
SCENTS. When we have done away with
few of the greatest KNOWN evils
then will be time enough to revise Tho
policies that have been our bulwarksot
success.
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