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Show NATION NEEDS LINCOLNS AT a public dinner in New York last year, in commemoration of Lincoln, Lin-coln, Miss Ida M. Tarbell, author of a "Life of Lincoln," spoke as follows: "I think I can say Abraham Lincoln is the only man, living or dead, with whom I could have spent five years and not known boredom. "Lincoln was a man who never pretended to be anything he really was not. He never found time to conform to the usages of society. He did not understand or care for its amenities. He never learned to wear his clothes properly. His trousers bagged. His coats did not fit. "You may remember the eminent Massachusetts statesman who spent an hour with Lincoln, and the only entry he made in his journal after this discussion of great national affairs was that Lincoln Lin-coln wore yarn socks. "Lincoln was always anxious to get things just right. Sometimes, in consequence, he seemed slow to the country, but he always insisted with himself him-self that his acts must conform to the moral law. You cannot conceive of Lincoln trifling with his concience. "He wanted to be sure always that his decisions should ever stand as just in the annals of the world and the history of human endeavor. "There are several instances to prove this. He was told by his supporters he would lose an election elec-tion by taking a certain stand. He did lose, but he said: 'We are right. The people will recognize it by and by.' And they did, and four years later he was in the White House. "Lincoln had real goodness not the kind of . goodness that preaches only on Sunday, but the kind of goodness that reaches out and embraces all one's fellow men. He was the tenderest man that ever lived. No one suffered more than he during the awful four years of civil strife. "Lincoln was the best man American institutions institu-tions ever, produced. It would be, indeed, a sad thing if our institutions failed at any future great crisis to produce such as Lincoln." |