DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 76, 21 June 1927, Page 3

DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

WHY LINCOLN WAS GREAT (Copyright. 19 £ 7.) EVERYBODY knows that Lincoln was great, but there has been a persistent effort to ascribe conventional reasons for this. Lincoln was great, however, simply because has was not great. That is, he was the apotheosis of the common man. He could not play the piano like Chopin, he could not read Greek like Gladstone, nor was he a great warrior or commander like Napoleon. He simply had common sense and brought to bear upon each problem the same kind of intelligence which you I in a measure possess. He was not a handsome man, although efforts have been made to idealise him. He was like the man of whom the prophet speaks, “without form or comeliness.” His figure was ungainly and his face homely. It was told by him that when he was a boy he was wandering in the woods when a hunter saw him and pointed his gun at him. “Hold on there,” said Abe. “What are you doing?” The hunter replied, “I made a solemn vow to my mother upon her death bed that if I ever say a man uglier than myself I would shoot him on sight.” Then, said Lincoln, after looking carefully at the hunter, “I guess you had better shoot.” Just as Napoleon and Alexander were not tall men and as Dr. Johnson was a gross and fat man. so Lincoln was not a handsome man. The -secret of his greatness was not in his personal appearance. He was clear-headed and his feet were firmly rooted in common sense. In fact, he had no other kind of sense except the common kind*