The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1914-02-12
BIRTHDAY OF MAR
TYRFD PRESIDENT

T0day is the 1O4th anniversary OF
the birth of Abraham Lincoln and is
being generally observed in Winnie
mucca as holiday.
A recent writer has given the fol-
Lowing epitome of Abraham Lin
coins biography: Errand boy; farm
hand; flatboatman; raii splitter;
clerk; storekeeper; soldier; Surveyor; ;
postmaster; congressman; country
lawyer; politician; statesman; presi-
dent; hero; martyr
Struggling up through difficulty and
through the years of preparation, Mr..
Lincoln began the practice of law in
1897. Viewed from today, it would
seem that there was something in the
general atmosphere of those times to
which his nature responded. The
world IS thinkers were on good terms
Nations were at peace. England was
the central sun in the political skies
Queen Victoria, gentle, kind and tact
full, was just coming to the throne;
Napoleon was sleeping in the Island
of st. Helena, and the duke of Well
ington was still alive. Emerson was
lecturing and writing in America;
Carlisle in England was publishing,
unhindered, the "French Revolu-
tion;' Victor Hugo was establishing
in France the romantic school of the
nineteenth century; Heinrich Heine
was singing his German songs;
Frederika Bremen was weaving into
pretty romance the peasant life of
Sweden and Norway; and the Irish
melodies of Thomas Moore were find
ing their way to the universal heart.
II is any wonder that the genius of
Abraham Lincoln should begin to
bloom at that time? Is il any wonder
that even in the swish and swirl of
the river on its way to the sea, he
heard song of liberty and freedom
that filed his sould with enthusiasm
and lovef
The story of his wonderful develop
ment in forensic power, and in popu-
lar and political advancement, is one
of the most remarkable in history
He appears to have felt disinclined to
accept the estimate which authors
placed on his character. Men whom
God selects for great achievement
soon learn that what they WANT TO
DO has but little relation to what
they MUST DO. He could never
quite understand why he was called
from time to time to greater things.
There was such an absolute absence
of self-confidence in his character,
and he so conscious of his lack of ed
ucation, his homely appearance and
awkward manner, that the demands
laid upon him, calling him to greater
achievements, seemed humorous at
times to him and in this fact per
haps lay his aptness in the matter of
story telling for which he is so well
known
Abraham Lincoln, more than all
others of our public men, repudiated
the diction of hereditary, and lifted
his ancestry from obscurity to
creditable place in our country's his
tory. Was he educatedf His life
and work answer eyes, and leave
those who hold diplomas to prove that
he was not. His Gettysburq address
bears the mint-marks of the scholar.
1t was the profoundest utterance of
the worlds spoken thought, save one
the Sermon on the Mount. He stood
there among the graves of the heroic
dead and this is what he said
"FoIrseere and seven years ago,
our fathers brought forth on this con
tinent a new nation, conceived in lib
erty and dedicated to the proposition
that all men are created equal. Now
we are engaged in great Civil war,
testing whether that nation, or any
nation so conceived and so dedicated
can long endure. We are met on a
great battlefield of that war. We
have come to dedicate a portion of it
as a final resting place for those who
here gave their lives that that nation
might live. 1t is altogether fitting
and proper that we should do this.
"But in larger sense we cannot
dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we
cannot hallow, this ground. The
brave men, living and dead, who
struggled here, have eonsecrated it
far above our poor power to add or to
detract. The world will little note nor
long remember what we may say here,
but it can never forget what they did
here. It is for us, the living, rather
to be dedicated here to the unflinch-
ed work which they who fought here
have thus far so nobly advanced. 1t
is rather for us to be here dedicated
to the great task remaining before us
that from these honored dead we
take increased devotion to that cause
for which they here gave the last
full measure of devotion-that we
here highly resolve that these dead
shall not have died in VAN, that this
nation, under God, shall have a new
birth of freedom and that govern
ment of the people, by the people, for
h.. l..I Il H..