Evening star., 1945-01-11

SCanQ1ng OF the LoweH meiiett.
Job the Allies are doing.
Of course we would have to read
the enemy papers intelligently, with
some knowledge of what each rep
resented, and we couldn't believe
everything we read. But making
proper allowances, we could learn a
lot.
In January of 1865 the Charleston
rs. c. Mercury published an edi-
torial which read as follows:
When Abraham Lincoln took the
chair of the Presidency of the
United States, he promised in his
flat-boat lingo, to run the machine
as he found it, Whether he has
strictly kept his promise, those may
doubt who choose to consider the
subject. 1t is enough for us to know
that whether running his machine
In the pathway of his predecessors
or not, he has run it with a stern,
inf1exible purpose, a bold, steady
hand, vigilant, active eye, a sleep
less energy, fanatic spirit, and an
eye single to his end-conquest-
emancipation.
Had Able Leaders"
He has called around him, in
counsel, the ablest and most earnest
men of his country. Where he has
lacked in individual ability, learn
ing, experience or craftsmanship, he
has sought it, and has found 1t in
the able men about him, whose as
sistance he unhesitatingly accepts,
whose powers he applies to the ad-
dertaken. In the cabinet and in the
field he has consistently and fear
1essly pressed on the search for men
who could advance his cause and
has as unhesitatingly cut off all
those who clogged it with weakness,
timidity, imbecility or failure. Force,
energy, brains, earnestness, he has
collected around him in every de-
partment. Blackguard and buffoon
as he is, he has pursued his end with
an energy as untiring as an Indian
and singleness of purpose that
might almost be called patriotic. If
he were not an unScrupulous knave
IN his end and fanatic in his po-
Nt1cal views, he would undoubtedly
command our respect as a ruler"
Nothing could have foretold more
clearly the end of the war than these
sentiments appearing in a leading
Southern newspaper. 1t confessed
defeat but sought comfort in the
fact that it had been beaten by a
great man.
What was being said about Lin
coin in the North was of little i'm
poTtance at that moment compared
with this estimate from the enemy.
In the North he could be, and was
on occasion, called a despot. liar,
thief, braggart, uSurper. monster.
ignoramus, scoundrel, perjurer, rob-
be-, Swindler, tyrant, butcher and,
in one sustained outburst of free
speech, "a long, lean, lank, lantern
jawed, high-cheek- -boned, spawned.
rail-splitting stallion"
Something Happened.
Those epithets didn't really signify
o4IF e!lIlS eACtpG GIldG one OF LIle
four freedoms was going strong in
America. But when a newspaper
which had led in the secessionist
movement four years earlier
reached the conclusion thaf"black-
guard and buffoon as he is" Lincoln
was a very great man, something
had come to pass in the South.
So, it would be helpful to hear
from the tageblatts, beobachters,
zeitungs and freue presses of der
Reich-if they could be free for
moment of the Nazi party's muzzle.
More Illuminating than anything
that is said about Mr.. Roosevelt
ir this country or Mr.. Churchill in
Britain, would be a frank estimate
of the Allied leaders at this stage
from a free press in Germany.
For the matter of that, if their
editorial souls didn't belong to the
Emperor, it would be equally en-
tightening to hear, on the same sub
ject, from the Toxic Asahi Shin