The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1921-02-10
WHO WILL STAND WITH LIN.
CoLN-AND BELIEVE IN
THE UNITED STATEs7

SC01s ago this week, a
taib gaunt, kindly faced man stood on
the station platform of a little c;tv in
central Illinois and said good-by to his
neighbors.
My friends, no one, not in nv
position. can appreciate nv. FEELING
OF sadness at this parting" he began.
TO this place, and the kindness of
these people, owe everything. Here
have lived for a quarter of a CEN
tury and have passed from a
young TO an old man. Here
my children have been born and
one is buried. I now leave not
knowing when or whether ever
may return. with a task before me
greater than that which rested upon
Washington.
de did not exaggerate; 1t would
have been almost impossible to exag-
gerate the difficulties of his task. The
nation was weighed down with anx-
ieties; there were those, even among
his own neighbors, who doubted
whether the United States was
destined to survive. Certainly many
of the best and most patriotic Amer
leans felt that the reins of power
ought to have passed to other hands
than his.
The war came, and the nation did
survive. For sixty years it has sur
vived both panic and wars at home
and abroad. And again, in a time of
trial. new man is coming to the
White House. It is easy to think
about him, to expect much from him
or little. It is both easy and unpro-
fitable; for what we need to think
about is ourselves. We ought to ask:
What has a President the right to
expect from us? What would Lin
coin ask if he were assuming again
today the burdens of the greatest Of
fee in the world?"
Would he not adjure us first of all
to the practice of solid common
sense?
We have the word Of his associates
for it that he never thought of him
self as great man. Great men did
not awe him; he had scant reverence
for those who thought themselves
great. 81 have talked with great
men, he once remarked, "and can
not see wherein they differ from
others" His trust was not in the
super-qualities of the few, but in the
common sense OF the average man.
To the problems of the nation he
applied the simple straightforward
ness of the ordinary walks of life.
Men were men, and nations merely
collections of men, with the same
ambitions, weaknesses, strength, pas
sions, hopes and fears. He had
studied men in Springfield; he did not
find them different in Washington nor
IN the chancelleries of Europe. His
simplicity was disarming; even the
clever Disraeh bore witness to the
strength which frankness gave him.
There was in his character, Disraeli
said, something so homely and inno-
cent that it takes the question, as it
were, out of ali the pomp of history
and the ceremonial of diplomacy"
He himself would have called it
merely common sense; and from US,
as citizens today, he would ask that
first Of all.
He would ask US, too, for new
spirit of tolerance and for a patience
that can wait for the solutions which
cannot be hurried. How amazingly
he could forbearI He formed a cab
met of men who despised his capac-
tiles, each one regarding himself as
the instrument by which God would
save America.
ST know that can save the country
and I know that no other man cam -
wrote Seward.
''I viii make Abe Lincoln president
OF the United States" Stanton con-
fded to a friend who asked him what
he expeeed to do as a member of the
Cabinet.
In the Cabinet were others who
were contemptuous of him, making
no secret of their conviction that they
were far ADLER than he.
Yet Lincoln kept them all, using
each man to the limit of that mans
capacity, refusing to be hurried into
decisions, declining to allow personal
affronts to influence his public course.
SQUARED not at ALL" he said once
to 3 young man. ''No man, resolved
to make the most Of himself, can
spare time for personal contention.
still less can he afford to take the
consequences, including the vitiation
of his temper and the loss of self
control. Yield larger things to which
you show no more than equal right,
and yield lesser things though clearly
your own. Better give your path to
a dog than be bitten by him in con-
testing for the right. Even killing
the dog would not cure the bite"
We are at period when much pre-
iudice must be yielded, when many
allowances must be made for the