The Washington times., 1921-02-12
A CROSS the void of years the
~ spirit Of Abraham Lincoln still
- offers teachings wise and safe.

temperance society III PiihShS
ILL.,, he said something that extreme
reformers yet need to hear:
"When the conduct of men is to be in
fluenced. persuasion, kind. unassuming
persuasion, should ever be adopted. Ii Is
an old and true maxim that a drop Of
honey catches more flies than a gallon of
gall
so with men. If you would win man
to your cause, first convince him that you
are his sincere friend. His heart is the
great high-rOad to his reason.
"On the contrary, assume to dictate TO
his Judgment, or to command his action, or
to mark him as one to be stunned and
despised, and he will retreat within himself,
close all the avenues to his head and his
heart; and though your cause be naked
truth itself, transformed to the heaviest
lance, harder than steel and sharper than
steel can be made, and though you throw
Il with more than herculean force and pre-
cisiOn, you shall be no more able to pierce
him than to penetrate the hard shell OF
tortoise with a rye straw.
"Such is man, and SO must he be under
stood by those who would lead him, even
TO his own best interests
All his life Lincoln climbed the
heights by aid Of this staff. His
place in history depends less on his
appeal to the mind, keen and clear
though that was, than upon his
marvellous mastery of the human
heart.
Ten years earlier, in his first pub
lie address, made when he was only
twenty three, he thus laid down the
law of mental honesty and progress:
Holding it a sound maxim that it is
better only to be sometimes right than at
all times wrong, so soon as l discover my
opinions to be erroneous l shall be ready to
renounce them"
Thirty years after the date of this
youthful utterance, under the heavy
burdens of the Presidency, with the
nations very life at hazard, in his
reply to petulant letter from
Horace Greeley, he repeated the
thought, showing how steadily he
held to his matured policies:
81 shall try to correct errors where shown
to be errors and l shall adopt new views
as fast as they shall appear to be true
views"
His rebuke to a shiftless friend
who wanted to borrow money for a
trip to the foot of the rainbow has
become classic, is applicable to every
age, but has especial significance in
view of prevalent restlessness:
"If You intend to 60 to work, there is no
better place than right where you are;
IL you do not intend to 60 to work, you
cannot get along anywhere. Squirming
and crawling about from place to place can
do no good"
However, it is his counsel upon
public issues that has widest value.
He put in a sentence the whole
meaning of democracy when he said,
in the debate with Douglas:
mo man is good enough to govern
A truth which applies in moro
fields than politics.
The true rule Of effective associa-
ton he stated in the same debate:
STAND with anybody that stands right.
Stand with him while he Is right, and part
With him when he goes wrong"
For troubled times what advice is
wiser than this:
1--WE must not be led by excitement and
passion to do that which our sober judg-
ments would not approve In our cooler
moments, In grave emergencies
moderation Is generally safer than radi-
caiism."
Yet by moderation Lincoln did not
mean timidity. For he also said.
Neither let us be siandered from our
duty BY false accusations against us, nor
frightened from Il by menaces Of destruc-
ton To the Government, nor Of dungeons to
ourselves, Let us have faith that right
makes might, and In that faith let us to
the end dare To do our duty as we under