The Kadoka press and Kadoka reporter. [volume] (Kadoka, S.D.) 1910-1923, 1918-02-08


! | | schoolhouseS cut on the prairie, from
NJ ~ the Gag-dCcorated stands at Fourth or
July celebrations from the solemn
rOS Srums of the centers of learning the EettyShurs
address has been repeated times without numDer
and doubtless will continue to be as long as the
spirit of democracy lives on
Yet. with the strangely limited view OF those al
hand the great address was considered failure by
many ut the time ii delivered. Lincoln him
self believed that he had failed to speak any hing
worthy of the occasion and was greatly downcaSt.
The sense of his failure at such Il momentous event
added no little to the intolerable burdens that
weighed upon him in 1863
The daily newspapers of the North generally
took little notice of LincolnS words nj Gettysburg,
but were lavish in their praise of the long address
delivered by Edward Everett, the great Boston
orator on the same occasion The Patriot and
Union, an influential newspaper published at Har-
risburg, Pa. with an ability for misjudgment al
most beyond all belief, said Of the address:
The president succeeded on this occasion be-
cause he acted without sense and without con-
strant in a panorama that gotten up for the
benefit of his party more than for the glory of the
Nation and the honor of the dead. We pass
over the silly remarks of the president for the
credit of the Nation willing that the veil of
oblivion be dropped over them and that they shall
no more be repeated or thought Of.
Even the usually keen-vsiOned John Hay, then
Nr. Lncons assistant secretary, erred in his judg-
ment of the comparative importance or the ad-
dresses made that November day at Gettysburg.
Said Hay In his diary
Everett spoke as he always does. perfectly;
and the president, in firm, free way, with more
grace than is his wont, said his half dozen lines of
| conservation"
In Mr.. Hays mind as in the minds Of nearly all
! present, Edward Everetts address overshadowed
! all else on the program. Yet who today remembers
] Il half dozen lines of the two-hour long speech
! made by the Massachusetts orator?
! Edward Everett almost alone of all the thou
sands who had gathered at Gettysburg that day.
! caught the deathless purpOrt of the presidents
words. He wrote to Mr. Lincoln congratuatory
/ note, saying:
81 should be glad if could natter myself that /
came to the central idea of the occasion in
my two hours you did in two minutes"
Even this praise from the man who cOnSid-
cred the master speaker of his day did not wholly
convince Mr. Lincoln that his own utteranccs had
| not fallen short In his reply 10 Mr.. Everett he
said;
In our respective parts yesterday you could not
have been excused to make a short address, nor
a long one. | am pleased to know that, in your
Judgment the little did say not entirely a
failure"
There is every evidence that the president wrote
his address hurrcdly and at the scant moments
of leisure given him in those troubled days. That
he did not compl te it until few hours before il
was delivered is certain. In fact he did not know
until about two weeks before the date that he
was expected to talk AT all. The committee that
had charge of the arrangements for the cOnseCra
! ton of the national cemetery at Gettysburg asked
Mr. Everett II long time in advance and had post
pOned the date of the conservation from OctObe,
10 to November 10 at Mr.. Everetts request.
David Wills, public-sprited citizen of Gettys
, burg and the originator of the idea of nationa
cemetery there, wrote TO President Lincoln on No
vember ., six weeks after Mr.. Everett had been in
vited to speak, as follows:
The states having soldiers who killed a
: Gettysburg have procured grounds on promnen
part of the field for cemetery and are havn;
the dead removed to them and properly buried
, These grounds will be consecruted and set apar
! to this sacred purpose by appropriate ceremonie
ON the 18th. Hon. Edward Everett will deliver tn
g | oration | am authorized by the governors of tn
different states invite you TO be present and par
ticipate in these ceremonies, which will be yer
imposing and solemny impressive. II Is the de
sire that, after the oration you, rs chief executive
set apart these grounds to their sacred use by
| few appropriate remarks. :.