Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1915-06-01
MEMORIAL day F|TT|NG[Y
OBSERVED IN WEBSTER CITY

/ II. g b.
Lincoln invited to deliver the dedi-
catory address. Thousands were
present and two hours Grafton was
delivered by Hon. Edward Everett.
He was a profound thinker and one
of the most gifted orators of the per-
4 od. For long time he held the
throng fast in the closest attention.
When Everett had concluded, Lin
coin arose, walked to the edge Of the
platform in his shambling loose
jointed way, pulled a scrap of paper
from his pocket and read brief
speech. BY contrast to Everett's
speech it seemed but sentence or
two. Lincoln was very melancholy
about it afterward and remarked to
a friend "That speech fell on the au-
dience like wet blanket. I am dis
tressed about it. / ought to have
prepared it with more care" Ever
EFT, too, although he was not jeal-
Gus, was disappointed. He thought
it had been failure and was sorry
about it!
That is usually the way with great
achievements. The individual is in
capable of judging his own produc-
ton. How surprised st. Paul would
be today if he came to this Metho-
dist church and found some of his
personal letters bound up in vol
ume we call the Bible! Lincoln died
unconscious of having delivered at
Gettysburg one Of the half dozen
greatest of all orations. Recogni-
ton came by Europe, before Ameri-
ca awoke to the beauty and dignity
of the speech.
t It is a great speech because per-
|haps it is the unveiling of soul Of
greatness. Nothing is falser in the
popular understanding of Lincoln's
life than that he was an uneducated
man. The truth is, that he was one
Of the best educated men of his day.
In those years of his early manhood
he was not loafing, he was burning
the midnight candle until one and
two o'clock in the morning in his
herculanean effort to fit himself for
life. His genius was not gift from
the goddess OF. Luck!
He climbed the road to intellect
ual power by way of toll. But
the greatest thing in Lincoln was
not his intellect, it was his soul;
that shines through his Gettysburg
address like sunshine after shower.
Lincoln himself had no son lying
buried in one ofsthose graves, but he
was the chief of sufferers, for they
were all his sons, as he loved to
speak of them. Even to his enemies
his charity extended. The North
had sinned against his love almost
as much as the South as the diff
Guilty he had in securing a re-elec-
tion will prove, but all this was for
gotten as he stood there on that day,
as simple, sad-hearted man. Little
wonder Count Tolstoi spoke of him
as "a Christ in miniature.
For Lincoln the phrase call men
are created equal embodied our nat
ional ideal. This doctrine is being
attacked from many angles today.
Prominent professors of universities
have pronounced the doctrine a
meaningless child's jingle. That a
government of the people, by the
people and for the people," could
not exist. Lincoln knew quite as
well as any of these wiseacres that
men come into the world differently
endowed; what he had in mind was
a political equality and the equality
of opportunity to gain a livelihood.
There are many things today to
show that our ideal is in danger.
The. inequality of our laws. All men
should stand before the bar of JUS
tice on an equal footing whether mil
lionaire or sneak-thief.
We may disagree with President
Wilson in his proposed remedies but
we must agree that he is sincere.
(Applause). One of the pieces OF
sl,nfinished work" of which Lincoln
spoke is the menace Of the city.
There are few things when we go
abroad of which we boast more than
the cities of New York, Chicago.
San Francisco. Bryce said we could
not go on in our cities for the next
twenty-five years as we have been
doing. The corruption, political in
efficiency, immortality of the artific-
ial life is one of the gravest menaces