The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-02-11
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

SO much has been said Of Abraham
Lincoln that it seems crowding the
columns to print anything more. Yet
the compliment of a paragraph voic-
ing a thought of him is not out Of
place.
Sunday, February u, will mark
11S years since Lincoln's birth. In
the fifty-seven years since his death
generation has come and gone to
whom he was but name. Today the
small boy is told of him in his first
months at school He reads of him in
his first reader. He comes to link him
with the heroes of his boyhood and
think OF him as one apart. But there
has been no one who was more thoro-
ly human than Abraham Lincoln.
There are in this country today mil
lions who lived when he was working
out his visions of what he wanted the
world to be. The man whose sim
plicity was so great as to become
grandeur was reared in a school Of
hardship. privation and toll. In the
mother so directed and moulded his
mind and tastes that her impress
never left him and in his manhood
her influence guided and sustained
him.
Plain, straightforward, with a di-
rectness born Of intense purpose, Lin
coin could not be other than he was.
His speeches and writings are simple
and Understandable, and well illus
trate his homely nobility. The Lin
coin of half a century ago belonged to
the United States. The Lincoln of to-
day belongs to the world. From his
birth in the log cabin to his death as
president is a long stretch, but it well
illustrates the power of the man.
He was a real representative of the
democracy of America, and as such
will be known to history.
The following story of Lincoln's
start on the road to the presidency
is told in Leslie's Weekly:
Once there was a mid western "cir-
cult riding" lawyer who resolved to
provide for his eldest son something
that circumstances mad denied the ia
Their 1t was a good school and col
Iege education. At IS the boy was
sent to a school in the east for prepa-
ration to enter Harvard. That was IN
1859.
Early in the following year the IA
Their greatly desired to visit the boy.
But he hesitated on account of the
expense of the trip. for the fathers
means were not large. Then there
came to the country lawyer an offer
of a fee of 5000 to make one speech in
a lyceum course conducted by A
Brooklyn, n. Y, church. He readily
accepted, for it meant full expenses
for the visit to the son at school. On
second thought the lyceum managers
decided that the country lawyer out
of the west wouldn't draw sufficiently
in the blase city of the east to make
the venture a safe one for them. A
political club in New York City took
over the contract
The speech was staged at Cooper
Union. It attracted national atten-
ton and proved to be a great political
and historical event. 1t caused the
country lawyer to be asked to speak
at other places on the way to and
from the school in New Hampshire.
where he visited his son. And thus
crystalliZed a movement which car
ried the country lawyer to the White
House to serve as president during
the most critical era in the country's
history.
The lawyer was Abraham Lincoln
The son, Robert Todd Lincoln. is said
to be the last survivor in the male line
of the family from which Abraham
Lincoln sprang.