Show LIFE AND WON ni PRAISE NATIONS MEN OF WORTH IN TRIBUTE TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN PRESIDENT MAKES ADDRESS qua t es and deeds of the great pres ident set forth by the ch ef exec ut ve in impress ve speech im mense concourse gathered io to W wit I 1 t vess less exercises in connection with lay ng of corner stone of memo rial hall hodgenville Hodg enville ky the corner stone of the splendid memorial to be erected d to the memory of abraham lincoln was laid by president roosevelt the exercises were participated in by many of the nation s leading men cardinal cardin al gibbons and ex GOT gov folk polk of missouri being among those who made ad dresses from all points by train and over roads not riot particularly smooth at this season of the year the people gathered to the exercises A building four times the size of the tent provided could not have accommodated the crowd the corner sione slone of the memorial hall was mas laid by president roosevelt in an impressive address the chief e ex x eulogized the life and work of the great statesman he spoke as fol lows we have met here to ce abrate the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of 0 one of the two greatest americans of one ot of the two or three greatest men of the nineteenth century of one of the greatest men in the world a history this rail spi tier this boy who passed his un gainly g youth in the dire poverty of the poorest of the frontier folk whose rise was by weary and painful labor lived to lead his people through the burning flames of a struggle from which the na tion emerged purified as by fire born anew new to a loftier life after long years of iron effort and t failure that came more often than victory he at last rose to the leadership leader lea dersi slip ip of 0 the republic at the moment when that lea dersi ip I 1 ad beco ne a as great and other men as good but in all the history ol 01 mankind there are no oti er two great men as good as these no other two tao gnoj nen as great tude nide ly th ug the problems of to day differ from the e s set for a solution 0 lution to wash v ash n arion ato n I 1 n he foun founded led this nation L v n I 1 e el sa ed it and treed freed e save et the ua us aties t ey showed in meeting t ese problems ire exactly the same as those we me should sa s1 slow ow in do s g our worl to day L a deeo fores line lincoln in saw into tl e future with the prophetic prophetic imagination usually vouchsafed on y to the poet and tl a e seer he had in bra all the lift toward greatness of the visionary without any of the vision ary s banat cism or agot sm without any ot of t e visionary a narrow jealousy of the bract pre t cal al man and inability to strive in practical practical fash on tor for the realization of an ideal idea he I 1 ad the practical man mans s hard common sense and willingness to adapt a means to ends but there was in him none of that morbid growth of mind and soul which blinds so act many practical men to tle ti e eigher I 1 tl ti ings of I 1 ate fe no mo rno e practical man ever lived than this homely bad baci woods ideal st at but I 1 e had nothing in common with those practical men whose consciences are carped until they fall to distinguish between good and ev en I 1 fail fall to understand that strength ability shrewdness whether in the world of business or of politics only serve to make the r possessor a mare more noxious a more e 11 member of the community it if they are not guided and controlled by a fine and high moral sense lessons from lincoln s life we of this day mut must tra tr to solve many social and industrial problems requiring to an especial deg ee the comb nation of bindom table resolution with cool headed san ty V N e can profit by the way in which lincoln used both these traits as he strove for or reform we can learn mu much h of value from the very attacks wl ich following that course brought upon hia his head attacks al ke by the extremists of revolution and by the extremists of reaction he never way ered in devotion Notion de to his principles in his love for the union and in his abhor rence of slavery timid and lukewarm people were always denouncing him be cause he was extreme but as a matter of fact he never went to extremes he worl ed step by step and because of tl s the extremists hated and denounced him with a fervor which now seems to us tan fan in its deification of the unreal and the impossible at the ver very tin tine e when one side was hold ng him bim up as the apostle of social revolution because be was against slavery the lead ng abo lit denounced him as the sla 4 hound of HI III wl wi en he be was the sec see ond time cand date for president the ma bority of his opponents attacked I 1 irn be cause of what they termed his eitrem radicalism while a minority threatened to bolt his nomination because he was nol radical enough he hal continually to ta check those who wished to go forward too fast at the very time that he over rode the opposition of those who wished not to go forward at all the goal wai was never dim before his vision but he picked his way cautiously without either halt 01 hurry as he strode toward it through such a morass of d that no man ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1 4 the stupendous world task ot of the time he grew to know greatness but never ease success came to him but never happiness save that which springs from doing well a painful and a vital task power was his but not pleasure the furrows deepened on his brow but his eyes were und named by either hate or fear his ills gaunt shoulders were bowed but his steel never faltered as he bore tor for a burden the destinies of his people his ills great and tender heart shrank from giving pain and the task allotted him was to pour out like water the life blood of the oung men and t to feel in his every fiber the sorrow of th the e women disaster saddened but never d s bayed him As the red years of war went by they found him ever eer doing his duty in the present even facing the tu fu ture with fearless front high of heart and dauntless of soul en by ha tred unshaken by scorn he worked and suffered tor for the people triumph was his at tl e last and barely had he tasted it before murder found him and tl e kind ly patient tearless fearless eyes were closed for ever i wash agton and lincoln As a people we are indeed beyond measure fortunate in the characters of 0 the two greatest of our public men wasi waal ington and lincoln widely though they d tiered in externals the virginia landed gentleman and the I 1 kentucky backwoodsman they vere alike in es ent laI they were alke al ke in the great qualities witch wl ich rendered eacel able to render service to h s nation and to all mankind such as no other man of his generation could or d d render each had lofty ideals but each in striving to attain these lofty ideals was guided by the soundest common sense each possessed inflexible courage in adversity and a soul wholly unspoiled by prosperity each possessed all the gentler virtues commo I 1 1 exhibited by good men who lack rus rug ged strength of character each pos hessed also all the strong qualities corn com conly exhibited by those towering mas of mankind who have too often slown sl own themselves devoid of so much as the understanding of the words by which we s unify the qualities of duty of mercy of devotion to the right of lofty dist in battling tor for the good of 0 others there have been other men of less courage would have attempted it while it would surely have overn overwhelmed helmed any man of judgment less serene man of great toleration tet yet peri perl aps the most wonderful thing of all and from the standpoint of the american of to day and of the future the most vitally important was the extraordinary way in which lincolia could ficht valiantly against what he deemed wrong and yet preserve andl mini shed his love and respect tor for the brother from whom he differed strong sense of justice he I 1 ved in days that were great and terrible when brother fought against brother for what each sincerely deemed to be the right in a contest so 0 grim the strong men who alone can carry it through are rarely able to do justice to the deep convictions of those with whom tl ti ey grapple in mortal strife at such tin es ea men see through a glass dark ly to only the rarest and loftiest spirits Is vouchsafed that clear vision which gradually comes to all even to the lesser as the struggle fades into distance and wounds are forgotten and peace creeps back to the hearts that were hurt but lincoln was given this supreme vision he ile did not hate the man from whom he d offered weakness was as foreign as w eked to his strong gentle nature but his courage was of a quality so high tl ti at it needed no bolstering of dark pas slon he saw clearly that the same agh h gh qualities the same courage and willingness tor for self sacrifice and devo tion to the right as it was given them to see the right belonged both to the men of the north and to the men of the south As the years roll roil by and as all of us wherever we dwell grow to feel an equal pride in the valor and self devo tion alike of the men who wore the blue and the men who wore the gray so this whole nation will grow to feel a peculiar sense of pride in the mightiest of the mighty men who mastered the mighty days the loer ioner of 0 h s country and of all mankind the man whose blood was shed tor for the union of his people and for the freedom of a race abraham lincoln it doesn doean t take a wonderful mind to scheme but it does take one to keep from it |