The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1915-02-13

ing that II was unjust or hopeless,
Only the most sublime moral courage
could have sustained him as president
TO hold his ground against hostile
criticism and a long train of disaster;
to issue the emancipation proclama-
ton, to support Grant and Stanton
against the clamor of the politicians
and the press.
Everybody who knew him felt that
he was every inch a man. a large.
hearted, generous friend, always ready
to help everybody out of their troubles,
whether 1t vas a poor widow in dis
tress or a farmer who needed advice.
He had a frank, transparent mind. He
never covered up anything, never had
secrets, He always left the doc of
his heart wide open, so that anyone
could read his inmost thoughts.
Abraham Lincoln inherited no op-
portunities, and acquired nothing by
luck. His good fortune consisted SIM
ply of untiring perseverance and a
right heart.
Yet the and achievement
Of his marvellous life have no match
in fiction or history. We shall search
the biography of the world in vain for
a man who reached such heights OF
power, and yet has graduated from
such humble beginnings and such an
iron environment.
Instead of a school and university
training. Lincoln had little else than
h%ardships, trials and struggles to lift
him above relentless circumstances.
Behold him as a lank, awkward
youth, Telling trees on a little
claim, building his homely log cabin.
without floor or windows, teaching
himself arithmetic and grammar in
the evening by the light of the fire.
In his eagerness to know the contents
Of Blackstone's Commentaries. he
walked "A miles to procure the
precious volumes, and read 100 pages
while returning.
Yet it was this man, born in a log
cabin, without schooling, or books, or
teacher, or Eel ordinary opportunt'
ties, who won the admiration of man.
kind by his homely, practical wisdom
while president, and who e~mancipated
1000, 900 slaves.
What an inestimable blessing to the
world, what an encouragement, an iu-
%spiration to the poor and lowly born,
that his great achievements can be
accounted for by the triumph in his
character of those qualities which are
hpVnnd tho raoah nf nnnnu Of 70 M
lily. of influence, but are given freely
to the lowest as we'll as to the high.
est. There is no quality of integrity.
perseverance, or industry that distin-
guished Lincoln, that any one, no mat
ter how poor and humble, how hardly
circumstanced, cannot cultivate.
His career is a rebuke to the indo-
lent, faint-hearted youth of today, who,
in this age of opportunity, dares to
cry mo chance!"
Abraham Lincoln is becoming more
and more our national hero, and he
would drop into oblivion, we're we to
discover that he had ever bartered
that most precious attribute-his man
hood, his character-or ever offered
it for sale.
die, when I may" said this king
among men, 81 want 1t said of me by
those who know me best, that l always
plucked a thistle and planted a flower,
where l thought a flower would grow"
What a glorious ideal, and how glo-
riously realized!
No man ever lived of whom it could
have been more truly said that
THE elements
So mixed in him that Nature might stand
up
And say to all the world. This is a
mani"