Iditarod pioneer., 1916-02-12
LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY

of the Great Emancpator. rev men nave been SUD- jected to such ridcule, vtuperatlon and venomous attacks as was Lincoln No man ever emerged from such an ordeal less emblttered and with more enhanced reputation than he. The more one reads of the life and work of the home y-visaged martyr President, the more one wonders at the immense obstacles that this man, se-taug ght and unalded, met and overcame, in preparation for the great destiny IF store for him. Born of humble parentage in the backwoods of Kentucky, and reared to life of toll in that state and the adjacent commonweaths of Indiana and Illinois, he grew up practically without education. In a modest and brief autobiography he says: There was absolutel nothing to excite ambition for education Of course, when l came of age did not know much Still, somehow, could read write and cipher to tie rule of three but that was all have not been to school since. The little advance now have upon this store of education l have picked up from time to time under the pres sure of necessity.
 From such humble origin and surroundings sprang the man whom Robert lngersoll, himself pre-eminent al the bar and on the forum, poetlcally designated as the greatest of our mighty dead. whose memory Is as gentle as the summer air, when reapers sing mid gathered sheaves." As long as the American nation shall endure the life of this great man will be an inspiration to its youth, 1t has been during the past half century In him IS represented the con- summation of that dream of the founders of the nation-a land of equal opportunity and equal rights; land where manhood IS accepted at its true worth
 Lincoln was many-sded man. The casual reader IS apt to associate his life work entirely with the emancipation of the negro. But liberty with Lincoln meant more than striking the shackles from the limbs of bondmen-lt meant also freedom of mind, of soul Today there will be reprinted in hun dreds of publications throughout the land that loves to do him honor the wonderful speech delivered at Gettysburg ln 1865 Who can listen unmoved to the recital of those solemn words wherein the resolve is made that these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth"? But other phases of liberty as understood by him given prominence in his speeches and writings He was the champion of the poor against oppression, the sympathetic adviser of labor in its fight for better conditions His attitude on the question of temperance was typical. It was not the economic side that most appealed to him, 1t was the suffering and prlvatlon visited upon inno cent women and children because of the liquor evil that wrung his great heart His speeches upon the evils of the liquor traffic have almost the solemn note of prophecy which marks the books of the Old Iesta- ment. At this time, when the prohibition question Is uppernost in the minds of large portion of the peo- pie, notable speech delivered by Lincoln at Spring field on Washington's birthday, l842 will not be n- appropriate Throughout that speech the enslave- ment of the mind by the vice of intemperance seems te have been the point at which most of his shafts were aimed. He said:
 Of political revolution of l76 all justly proud It given degree political freedom exceeding that of any other nation of the earth In it the world has found sou on of the long mooed problem to the capaby of himself In the that has vegetated and still is grow and expand in the universal liberty of mankind
 But with all these glorious results and to it has its evils breahed forth famine blood and rode in e and long, and long after the orphans and the widows wall continued break the sad silence that enued These the price, the inevitable price paid for the blessing bought
 Turn the temperance revolution. In shall find stronger bondage broken ver slavery manumtted greater deposedn of want supplied disease healed assuaged By it, orphans starving widows weeping by wounded in feeling injured in interest Even the and seller will have gded into other pations gradually have felt the change and will stand ready all others the universal of gadnes And what noble ally this the of political feeling; with such aid its march fail to be and till every of earth shall drink rich on the quenchng daughts of perfect liberty Happy day when, all appetite controlled all passion ubdued all subugaed mind aconquerng mind shall live and move the monarch of the world Glorious summation! Hail fall of fury! Reign of reason all hail!
 And when the victory shall be competewhen there shall be neither slave drunkard the earth-how proud the title of that land which truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of both those revolutions that shall have ended in that toy How nob distinguished that people who shall have planted and nurured to maturity both the political and moral freedom of their specest
 CHILD LABOR