The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1918-02-14

~ - From the platforms of little white
schOOlhOuses out the prairie, from
~ - the fag-decOrated stands at Fourth OF
July celebrations from the solemn
rOstrums of the centers of learning the Gettysburg
address has been repeated times without number
and doubtless will continue to be long the
spirit of democracy lives
Yet with the strangely limited view of those at
hand the great address considered failure by
many at the time it delivered. Lincoln him
self believed that he had failed to speak anything
worthy of the occasion and greatly downcast
The sense of his failure at such momentOus event
added no little to the intOlerable burdens that
weighed upon him in 1868.
The daily newspapers of the North generally
took little notice of LincOlns words at Gettysburg
but were lavish in their praise the long address
delivered by Edward Everett, the great Boston
orator, on the same occasion The Patriot and
Union, influential newspaper published at Har-
risburg, Pa, with ability for misjudgment al
most beyond all belief, said of the address:
THE president succeeded this occasion be-
cause he acted without sense and without
straint in panorama that gotten up for the
benefit of his party 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 we willing that the veil Of
Oblivion be dropped over them and that they shall
no more be repeated or thought Of"
Even the usually keenvfsioned John Hay then
Mr. Lncolns assistant secretary erred in his judg-
ment of the comparative Importance of the adj
dresses made that November day at Gettysburg
Said Hay in his diary:
Everett spoke, he always does perfectly;
and the president, in firm, free way with more
grace than is his wont, said his half lines of
conservation"
In Mr.. Hays mind; in the minds of nearly all
present, Edward Everett'S address overSha doWed
all else on the program. Yet who today remembers
a 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 dav
lOrf tho
words. He wrote to Mr. Lincoln a cOngratuIatorv
note, saying:
Il should be glad if I could fatter myself that I
came as near TO the central idea of the occasion in
my two hours as you did in two minutes"
Even this praise from the man who was constd-
cred the master speaker of his day did not wholly
convince Mr.. Lincoln that his own utterances had
not fallen short. In his reply to Mr.. Everett he
said:
In our respective parts yesterday you could not
nave been excused to make short address nor l
long one. L am pleased to know that, in your
Judgment, the little 1 did say was not entirely a
failure
There is every evidence that the president wrote
his address hurriedly and at the scant moments
of leisure given him in those troubled days. That
he did not complete it until few hours before it
was delivered is certain In fact, he did know
until about two weeks before the date that he
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 long time in advance and had post
poned the date of the conservation from October
10 to November 10 at Mr.. Everetts request.
David Wills, pubc-spirited citizen of Gettys-
burg and the originator of the idea of national
cemetery there, wrote to President Lincoln on No
vember six weeks after Mr. Everett had been in
! vited to speak, follows:
THE states having soldiers who were killed at
Gettysburg have procured grounds prominent
part of the field for a cemetery and are having
the dead removed to them and properly buried.
These grounds will be eonsecrated and set apart
TO this sacred purpose by appropriate ceremonies
on the 10Th. Hon. Edward Everett will deliver the
grafton. 1 am authorized by the governors OF the
different states to invite you TO be present and par
tcpate in these ceremonies, which viii be very
imposing and solemnly impressive. 1t is the de-
sire that after the Grafton you, chief executive
set apart these grounds to their sacred use by
few appropriate remarks. -