Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-02-10
BECK PAYS TRIBUTE
|NL|NCOLN'S HONOR
Former Solicitor General De-
Iivers Address Before
Church Audience.

Abraham Lincoln was compared with
George Washington by Representative
James M. Beck, former solicitor
general, in a patriotic address last
night in the Metropolitan Methodist
Episcopal Church.
Beck was the principal speaker IN
the program arranged in observation
of the anniversary of Lincoln's birth
day Wednesday. The meeting was helo
under the auspices of the League OF
Republican Organizations for the Dis
trict of Columbia.
Lincoln has reached that stature
among the immortalS that any eulogy
would be an idle superiority" Beck de-
clared. "One need only say OF him as
he said of Washington: In solemn awe
pronounce the name and in its NAKED
deathless splendor leave 1t shining on.
Termed Great Moralist.
The speaker declared Lincoln not
only was a great statesman but The was
a great moralist, and when inspired by
his divine sense of justice ne often
reached a sublimity of thought that Is
comparable with that of Holy Writ.
"Of all his speeches the one the
world has most wildly acclaimed was
his speech at Gettysburg. II II were
possible to test the sense OF thousand
of the most cultivated men of the Eng
lish speaking world as to its five great
est orations, the Gettysburg address
would be on almost every list. The
late Lord Curzon, himself great
orator, commended it to the students
of oxford as the noblest speech in the
English language. Even if this were
too high praise, the world has ranked
it in epic beauty with the Grafton OF
Pericles over the fallen Marathon"
Beck asserted that the central
thought of Lincoln's Gettysburg ad-
dress was the holiness of just wal
and the sacredneSs of martyrdom on
the field of battle.
There was in this address no sug-
geStion of that spirit of excessive
pacif2n, now so audible in the world
which, condemns war without dis
eliminating between the just and the
unjust. In the eternal and irrepreSsible
conflict between good and evil, occa-
sions will arise when man must strug-
gle and if necessary die to secure that
righteousness which 'exalteth a nation.
Lincoln loved peace and strove vainly
to preserve it without resort to arms
but when that became impossible, he
issued his call to arms and thus showed
his belief that a just war has its la
mentable. but necessary, place in the
moral life of man."
Works Must Be Judged.
racy, Beck commended, democracy as a
form of government means merely the
rule of the majority and such rule has
no more by divine right than the power
of the king. Each must be judged by
its work and the only sanction of
democracy is in its beneficial effects
upon the true welfare of mankind.
when the greatest war of history
had ended and the roar of the last gun
on the long battle line had died away
in distant echoes, it seemed indeed
that government of the people, for the
people and by the people had been
indicated and the the world had been
made safe for democracy Never in a
thousand years had there been such a
dissolution of ancient forms. Crowns
had fallen thick as autumnal leaves
that strew the brooks of Vallambrosa.
Ancient dynaStieS persisted; kingdoms
fell and empires of a thousand years
vanished into thin air. Indeed, as
President Wilson passed through Eu-
rope and the masses arose to acclaim
him with historical enthusiasm, it
seemed as If the existing governments
of even the victorious nations were
crumbling.
"And then a mighty change came
over the worlds dream of democracy.
A reaction, swift and terrible against
parliamentary governments through
which alone democracy can function,
swept over the world like the shadow
OF a huge eclipse. Russia destroyed
the rule of the Cars, but rejected de-
mocracy in accepting class tyranny
infinitely worse than the rule of the
worst of the cars"