The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-02-12
A Thought for Today
Philosophy of Lincoln

Waterbury, like the rest of the nation, will today commemorate the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. Such commemoration is not aniSS, as few presidents of this country ever knew war as did Lincoln For four years he was practically an eye witness of the slaughter of countrymen by loW-countrymen.
 In these days of wars sadness there is much of Lincoln that remains to guide us. A man whose adult life was blighted by a burden, which today is classified as a server neurosis and which in his day was referred to as "hypochondria" Lincoln knew few days which were not heavy with sadness and depression. The towns most ''well-known" failure at the age of 30 and more, an emotionally tossed and mentally distressed man he strOve constantly to forsake his own personal self and seek out the ultimate in what our purpose in this world was meant to be.
 The introversion and deep-purple self study that he constantly indulged in, perhaps accounts mostly for his keeen perceptiveneSs of human nature, his deep sympathy and kinship toward his fellow man. AS result of his almost abnormal revulSioll toward pain and suffering for others and himself, the aWareness of the Civil War that ragged about him for four yeas was terrible burden for any such man to carry.
 Yet out of all this and other personal tragedies came the mans true greatness. A greatness that today, in many ways, can aid all of us in carrying our personal burdens brought on by this war.
 We think of the words he wrote to a friend il. letter in which he reminiSced on the loss of those things during his lifetime that brought so much sadness and grief to him. He spoke of the death of Ann Rutledge, whose untimely death made him grief-crazed for two years and his friends worried for his mental health; of the loss of his son, and of the unful- filled and frustrated demanding ambitions that wrenched his heart constantly and for which for so many years he could find no outlet.
 He wrote of the loss of these things and of the lonely absence of them as brought on by their loss and he summed them up this way; Ut teaches you - to lose things. It teaches you to grow when you don't want to grow, and to become tough enough to wait life out, like the fields and grass beneath the snoW''.
 It was the mans whole philosophy of
 
 not the words of an idler "To grow when you don't want to grow'' diSproved any such connotation. Instead it was the wisdom of man who had seen and known all the facets of suffering and pain and the grief of personal loss and refused to let them become negative things that stunted ones growth. The wisdom of a man who knew this life was but an ap- prenticeship towards the ElySiumS for which all men dreamt and for which they worked.
 It wasn't necessarily philosophy that brought him happiness. It is given to few men to resolve such philosophy. Rather it was one that brought him a great measure of strength to carry the burdens, M6tn their grief and sorrows.
 The war today demands philosophleS Ike that for many of us. There is today tut many as for Lincoln the loss and ab- sence of loved ones, and the memory of those loved ones should demand that we "grow when we don't want to grow, and become tough enough to wait life out".
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