Connecticut western news., 1916-09-07


 A little Kentucky farm of rock ribbed soil and "crawtish land" became q ma. tion's shrine at Hodgenville on Labor day when President Wilson accepted on behalf of the people of the United States the memorial park into which the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln has been transformed.
 Standing on platform under the folds of the flag which flies daily from the staff in front of the beautiful me morial building built to shelter the rude pioneer cabin in which the future president was born, the address of President Wilson was delivered to an audience of several thousand assem. Died from all parts of the United States to take part in the ceremonies marking the transfer to the government of a spot which will be held in patriotic reverence with Mount Vernon.
 President Wilson drew a wonderful picture of the great emancipator in his speech. He said:
 No more significant memorial could have b an presented to the nation than this. It expresses so much of what Is singular and noteworthy in the history of the country: It suggests so many Of the things that we prize most highly in our life and in our system of government. How eloquent this little house within this shrine is of the v1gor of democracy! There Is nowhere in the land any home remote, so humble that 1t may not contain the power of mind and heart and conscience to which ma tions yield and history submits its processes
 Nature pays no tribute to aristocracy subscribes to no creed of caste, renders fealty to no monarch or master of any name or kind. Genius Is no snob. It does not run after titles or seek by preference the high circles of society. It affects hurn- ble company as well as great It pays no special tribute to universities or learned societies or conventional standards of greatness. but sereney chooses it's own comrades. its own haunts. it's own cradle even, and its own life of adventure and of training. Here is proof of It.
 This little hut was the cradle of one of the great sons of men. a man of singuIar. delightful, vital genius who pres .itly emerged upon the great stage of the na- t1on's history. gaunt shy, ungainly, but dominant and majestic a natural ruler of men, himself inevitably the central figure of the great plot. No man can explain this but every man can see how 1t dem- onstrates the vigor of democracy, where every door Is open in every hamlet and countryside, in city and wilderness alike for the ruler to emerge when he will and claim his leadership in the free Iife Such are the authentic proofs of the validity and vitality of democracy.
 Mystery of Democracy.
 Here, no less hides the mystery of democracy. Who shall guess this secret of nature and providence and a free poity? whatever the vigor and vitality of the stock from which he sprang it's mere v1gor and soundness do not explain where this man got his great heart that seemed to comprehend all mankind in it's catholic and ben1gnant sympathy, the mind that sat enthroned behind those breeding, mel ancholy eyes. whose vision swept many an horizon which those about him dreamed not of-that mind that comprehended what it had never seen and understood the lan- guage of affairs with the ready ease of one to the manner born-or that nature which seemed in it's varied richness to be khe familiar of men of every way of life This Is the sacred mystery of democ- racy, that It's richest fruits spring up out of soils which no man has prepared and amid circumstances amidst which they are the least expected. This is a place alike of mystery and reinsurance.
 It Is likely that In a society ordered oth- erwfse than our own Lincoln could not have found himself in the path of fame and power upon which he walked serenely to his death. In this place 1t is right that we should remind ourselves of the solid and striking facts upon which our faith in democracy Is founded Many another man besides Lincoln has served the nation in its highest places of counsel and of ac- tion whose origins were as humble as his ThorGt the greatest example of democ- racy he Is only one example among many The permeSting and all pervasve virtue of the freedom which challenges us ir America to make the most of every gift and power we possess every page of oul history serves to emphasize and illustrate Standing here in this place, 1t seems al most the whole of the stirring story
 Here Lincoln had his beginning. Here the end and consummation of that grea life seem remote and a bit incredible And yet there was no break anywhere be tween beginning and end, no lack of natu ral sequence anywhere. Nothing really in credible happened. Lincoln was unaffect ed as much at home In the White Hous as he was here. Do you share with m the feeling, I wonder, that he was per manently at home nowhere?
 FEN Calls Lincoln Spirit"
 It seems to me that in the case of man. would rather say of a spirit-lik Lincoln the question where he was Is o little significance that 1t is always wha he was It Is the spirit always that sovereign. Lincoln, like the rest of u! was put through the discipline of tn word-a very rough and exacting disc dine for him, an indispensable disciplin for every man who would know what h is about in the midst of the worlds al fars-but his spirit got only its schoolin here It did not derive its character or il vision from the experiences which brougl it to Its full revelation.
 The test of every American must a ways be not where he Is, but what he That also Is of the essence of democraC and Is the moral of which this place most gravely expressive.
 We would like to think of men like Lii coin and Washington as typical Amer cans, but no man can be typical who is unusual as these great men were. It WI typical of American life that 1t should pr duce such men with supreme indifferen as to the manner in which 1t produc them and as readily here In this hut
 amidst the little circle of cultivated ge tlemen to whom Virginia owed so much leadership and example.
 And Lincoln and Washington were ty ical Americans in the use they made their genius. But there will be few su
 men at best, and we will not look into t