OCR Text |
Show LINCOLN'S CENTENARY. Today is Jthe centenary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. The martyred ' president's presi-dent's character Is one the American people find pleasure In dwelling upon. From humble beginnings, Lincoln reached to the .greatest station In life. His biographer, F. T. Hill, records re-cords how Lincoln was not blessed with surroundings other than those of austerity, yet, what Is remarkable, he made of those opportunities the stepping step-ping stones to greatness. Mr. Hill says Lincoln's development is not Infrequently described as though it were the progressive triumph of a man something more than moral 'who, though acquainted with poverty and misfortune In his childhood, took advantage of his first opportunity In life, an'd whose career therefore steadily stead-ily spelled success. 'This man of fixed purpose and indomitable will undoubtedly undoubt-edly makes a stirring appeal as a hero, but he has nothing In common with those who, after repeated attempts to "find themsclvos," discover failure btarlng them In the face." As a matter of fact, however, the whole of Lincoln's early manhood Is a record of failure from a material point of view, and few men have less to show for their first years of effort than he had at the age of 24. As a field laborer he was far from a success, for he took ho Interest In farming and never cared to work at It a day longer than was necessary to put himself in funds. - Moreover, his employers looked decidedly askance at the "hired man" who read as he followed fol-lowed the plow, even if his - furrows did not rim true. As a clerk in Offutt's country store he did little better, and beyond the fact that he served the customers conscientiously with full weights and measures, he did nothing to prove himself indispensable. Neither Neith-er his heart nor his mind was in the work and he watched the business "wink out" with no perceptible regret. Then he sought glory at the cannon's mouth In the farclal "Black Hawk war," where he never saw an Indian, and where the "bloody encounters with the mosqultos" and the "fierce charges on the wild onions" were the most glorious episodes of the campaign. Then, Bomewhat as a forlorn hope, he turned to political life, presenting himself him-self as a candidate for the legislature, only to meet with defeat and to find himself, at the end of several profitless months, utterly destitute of resources. This was not a very promising record rec-ord for a man of 23. He had, It is true, all this time a more or less vague idea of becoming a lawyer, but he had not pursued it systematically and he finally fin-ally drifted back into the grocery business, bus-iness, this time as part proprietor of a store bought on credit without much prospect of making the venture pay. Indeed, the manner In which he and his associate, Berry, conducted the enterprise en-terprise almost Insured its failure, for the senior member of the firm Idled away his days in dissolute living, while the Junior member studied law, and between them their slender stock of merchandise disappeared, Berry drinking and Lincoln eating it up. |