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Show Howe About: Lincoln Cause of Humiliations Genius . Boll Syndicate. WNTJ Servlco. By ED HOWE J BRA HAM LINCOLN was President during a critical time, and worried wor-ried a good deal. He once said : "If to be the head of h 1 Is as hard as what I have had to undergo. I could find It In mv heart to pity Satan himself." him-self." Still Lincoln was far better off than millions of his fellow citizens during the Civil war. Think of the thousands of good Union men starved in Libby and Andersonville prisons; of the hundreds hun-dreds of thousands who were targets for enemy bullets; of the millions who suffered war privations. Lincoln wns at least occupying a public office paying pay-ing $50,000 a year, and lived in a palace provided at public expense. Whether his judgment was good or bad, his salary went on, and all the time he was accumulating great fame. The war hopelessly mined many millions, mil-lions, but made Lincoln rich and famous. We have heard of the poverty of his widow ; I read the other day she-was she-was a rich woman when she died ; and how little she deserved ! I have no sympathy for the woes of statesmen on the public payroll. From iSGO to 1S04 millions of Americans had bad luck that Abraham Lincoln might have their share of good luck. During his four years in the White House, Lincoln should have daily thanked the gods, instead of complaln- fng. I had an uncle George, with a-young a-young wife and baby at home, who had hard luck at Pittsburgh Landing that Abraham Lincoln might get $50,- 000 a year and endless fame. Let any man think of the greatest degradations and humiliations throughout through-out his life, and I believe he must decide sex was at the bottom of most of them. It is the one thing we should endeavor to subdue and regulate, yet it Is the thing we regulate least, and' let run wild. Our social system, our literature, encourage wildness in sex rather than regulation. The man bull Is forever permitted to bellow his lust, Instead of locking him up until his services are needed. And instead of trying to keep him quiet, the objects ob-jects of his bellowing aggravate him all they can. An envious dull man once said' genius is insanity, and other dull men have made the saying famous. It was never true, for genius has always meant special ability. There are millions mil-lions of geniuses; thousands climbing to distinction, hundreds to great distinction. dis-tinction. I have known several promising prom-ising candidates in small towns where 1 have lived. Among cats, dogs, cattle, and the lower animals generally, a scrub never won a blue ribbon, but it is characteristic in the human family that scrubs oftener achieve great distinction dis-tinction than thoroughbreds. Probably Prob-ably this comes about because there is no stud book among men. Goethe had fourteen mistresses and no great progeny. Mozart attracted attention all over Europe as a musician when six years old. Before he died at thirty-five he had written symphonies and operas now performed somewhere every week in the year. He never sat down to display his genius that he was not disturbed by a bill collector, by the screaming of a woman in labor, a row with relatives, or some other incident of love affairs-Had affairs-Had he been as free to devote his time to music as "Iteigh Count" was to-devote to-devote his time to winning races, there is no telling what heights Mozart might have easily reached. Many pampered pam-pered race horses have won a quarter of a million dollars in two years. Mozart received less than a thousand thou-sand dollars from "Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and the Requiem, and, when he died, was so poor his funeral cost under five dollars. Except In the case of the late Thomas Thom-as A. Edison I do not at the moment recall another American who became widely popular, and really deserved it. Mr. Edison was quiet, well-behaved, and a great worker; what little he said was proper for both young and old to remember, but somehow he attracted at-tracted the popular fancy. ... It is a very rare case. Millions of other popular men have been unworthy of popularity, as they have acted badly, and taught bad lessons. Look at Jean Jacques Rousseau. He was scarcely a respectable man, yet his popularity Is growing a long time after his death. Millions of people in. all parts of the world regard him as almost a saint, and his teaching as very important. Rousseau was once "kept" by a woman. When she threw him over, he took up with a kitchen wench, and sent their children to orphan asylums: he never later saw one of them. - All my life I have heard men clamoring clam-oring for more rights. It has always seemed to me I exercise more rights than are good for me. I have the right to eat three enormous meals a day, and too frequently exercise it to my detriment. I am at liberty to do a hundred things I should not do. 1 have always been too much of a freeman free-man ; my greatest mistake lias been I have not been more of a slave t" duties that, followed with reasonable effectiveness, would have made nie n more useful, successful and hia:tl.-i'' man. |