ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 18, 15 February 1909, Page 4

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

CENTENARY 01'' HIS BIRTH. MEMORIAL TO THE MEMORY Ob' THE GREAT PRESIDENT. Last Friday was the hundredth anniversary 01 tile birth of Abraham Lincoln, statesman, jurist, and emancipator, President of the United States, born in the State of Kentucky in ijSOS, and murdered' at Washington on 14th Auril. 1805.

Recognising the patriotic significance of this centennial, a group of American citizens two years ago organised and incorporated the Lincoln Farm Association, which proposed to make of Lincoln s humble birthplace (the famous "log cabin") a national shrine,, and on the hundredth anniversary of his birtli dedicate it to the American people as an abiding symbol of his memory. The association almost at its inception was able to acquire, full title to the birthplace farm and the rude little hut in which lie. was horn. That some sort of enduring memorial should be placed on this historic spot all Americans were agreed. It was decided by the executive committee to build on the birthplace farm, which is in the geographic centre of the State of Kentucky, a 'memorial museum,' which is to cost about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and which will tell the story of the early yeomanry life out of which , Ijincoln came. This museum will house, as its central object of interest, the weather-worn little cabin in which Abraham Lincoln was born. The farm, a rough little patch of one hundred and | ten acres, bisected by the old Louisville f and Nashville Pike, will be kept a farm, growing corn and' squash, hluegrass ana grain, as it has always done since the day that Thomas Lincoln took his little > family to venture into the wilderness beyond the broad Ohio. On these broken and uneven acres Lincoln's countrymen will pay their tribute; a broad green plaza, with the Memorial Hall at one end and a simple shaft at the other, to mark the ground on which stood the first home of hint "whose memory is the strongest, tendercst tie that binds all hearts together now and holds all States beneath the nation's Hag." The building will be of marble. In a central court will be the log cabin. President Roosevelt has called it "a. national temple of patriotic righteousness.'' The work begun two years ago has inspired the widest interest in tire Lincoln Centennial; The State of Kentucky,, through the last Legislature, appropriated four thousand dollars, to which the United States Congress added ten thousand dollars, to be spent in creating a new statue of Lincoln, to Im* set up in the courthouse square of Hodgenville, Kentucky, Lincoln's native town, which is hut two miles from the Lincoln birthplace farm. The statue lias been modelled by Adolph A. Wei-.iman, one of America's foremost sculptors and a former student of the late Augustus SaintGaudcns, who was Lincoln's greatest delineator and a most enthusiastic member of the Board of Directors of the Lincoln Farm Association. The State of Kentucky lias planned to build a boulevard or broad roadway, which will be known, as the Lincoln Pike, and which will connect the Lincoln Farm with the city of Louisville. The Governor of Kentucky asked the Legislature of that commonwealth for an appropriation and 1 the adoption of plans for the suitable j celebration of the Lincoln Centennial ' throughout the. State, and for the State's proper representation at the dedication of the .Memorial Hall and the Lincoln Birthplace Farm. A year before this Governor Denecn sent a similar message to the Legislature of Illinois, which was instantly and unanimously put through. The Govermors of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York,' Xew Jersey, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Wisconsin made similar plans and ippcals to the people of their respective States.. The people of Indiana not only 20-op</ratcd with the Lincoln Farm Association in its national work, but they have also through their State Legislature appropriated ,tea thousand dollars and appointed a special commission co properly care for the grave of Nancy Hanks, Lincoln's brave nUmccr mother. LESSON OF HIS LIFE.

■ William Allen White, in a recent address on Lincoln, said:—The lesson of L/ineoln is the old, old lesson of life that what we do worth doing in the world only helps ourselves, because nothing is worth doing that does not help others. It is as true of nations as of men. And democracy grows strong only as it is altruistic. And we wax strong nationally only as we are able to choose leaders like Lincoln, men of heart and courage and devotion, who are pledged not to help those who are strong among us, but to help become strong those who aro weak. Class rule for the benefit of 'class, whether it be the upper class or the lower class, is selfishness, and sin is a '-reproach to any people." The party, the faction, the class, or the state that seeks its own advantage inevitably must lose it. The class that -eeks privileges loses not only its privileges, but its good name goes with them. Whatever alliance there is of selfish interests, fighting however adroitly •against the universal demand In America to-dav for distributive justice, will follow the slave holder to defeat and d - struction as surely as there is a God in Israel. For democracy under Lincoln proved its ability to select its fittest leader—by meant the one most nearly of" its heart and' of its spiritual kin.

The thing works this self-govern-ment of ours. The Divine purpose often is checked, often diverted, often ignored'; but with the persistency of a Hood it finds its course and moves onward; moreover, it moves through those vory dirty channels of ordinary grimy politics that good citizens are so prone to deplore. So sure must one be who reads American history carefully that (luring any considerable series of years, in our polities—as in all politics, for thjrt matter—"God moves in a mysterious wav, : ' but does actually move, so ,sure must one be of right winning in (the long run, that one feels bound to declare that a fundamental faith in (he people—such as Abraham Lincoln had—is an essential part in a man's working faith hr God. Lincoln's whole life epitomised that dual faith in the people and in God as one. His life made it manifest, more, obviously than has any other American's. And, indeed, without that faith a man in American politics is bound to be a freebooter, bound to count, for nothing in the game of life, for through the spread of popular education democracy as an expression of the Divino purpose is growing more and more casllv bent to the Divine, will. The vision of the people is broader, clearer, and stronger, because they know more than iinv other people ever knew on tins planet before. And faith in Uiem, in their ultimate, righteousness, should be a politician's first weapon against the iniquities 01 his generation. He need be no demagogue. He may disagree with the people of to-day tind teach them this right for to-morrow. But he must not deceive them; be must meet error with courage, not with tricks. And then, he will find what Lincoln found.—Times.