FROM POVERTY TO WORLDPOWER.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 January 1922, Page 8

FROM POVERTY TO WORLDPOWER.

THE INSPIRING ROMANCE OF A NOBLE LIFE.

Many years ago, UF a lanky and ungainly youth had persevered in his ambition to become a blacksmith, history would have been robbed of one of its noblest and most amazing personalities

There is no finer romance in living memory than that of this boy who was afterw’ards to become President- Lincoln of America.

So wonderful is his life story that John Drinkwater’s great play. “Abraham Lincoln,” in which Mr. William J. Rea so ably impersonates ‘'Fathe - Abraham,” seems more like an imag.native drama than one of historical fact.

From a. log-cabin in the backwoods of Kentucky Abraham Lincoln came out to face the world—young, and with a very limited knowledge of life.

HARD ROAD TO FAME. The picture we have/ of him is that of a giant and ungainly lad, with, clumsy hands and a head six-foot four in the air. But he had a heart of gold, a character so strong that it broke down all barriers, and a fine love of truth and honesty. Lincoln lived in a time of oppression. As a young man he saw a slave girl illtreated by her master. “If ever I get a chance to hit that thing, I will hit hard,” he said.

All his life he remembered that scene; from that time forth he was a deadly opponent of the slave traffic; and, as events showed, this led to the greatest and most momentous decision of his life, if not of American history. It was by a hard road that Lincoln came to fame. He had tried various things; he wanted at one time to be a blacksmith, but at last he decided it favor of the law. Then he was elected to the State Legislature of Illinois. He was twenty-five, and. the shackles of poverty still bound him; and we are told that when he went to take his seat in Parliament he had not enough money to buy a bed.

It was in 1860 that his achievements were crowned. The Republicans asked him to stand for the Presidency. He did so, and was elected. Soon after his election to office Lincoln saw that he would have to make a decision on slavery. But there was lack of cohesion in his Cabinet. He found himself beset by jealous rivals; his actions were hindered by intrigue and petty jealousies. Many a man with a weaker character would have given up. A FATEFUL DECISION.

Lincoln was made of different mettle. Believing he had a great mission in front of him, he held to his purpose. When the time came lor action he took it. He went to war with the South, although the knowledge that he was condemning a million men to death at the hands of their fellow-men wrung his heart. So the Civil War came. It dragged through four weary years. The issue hinged on the right of the .South to secede from the Union, but behind that was the spectre of slavery. Seventeen months after the starting of the war—when the South had been winning all the time-—Lincoln signed the great Emancipation —the death-knell of the slave traffic. A hundred thousand Negroes rallied to the North. Then, suddenly, the tide seemed to turn in favor of the North. On the night of April 9, 1865, General Lee surrendered to General Grant, and the war was over.

IDEALS OF A GREAT MIND.

Lincoln’s greatest speech was at Gettysburg. One can imagine his queer figure and his sonorous vo)ice ringing out: “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall a new bifth of freedom;! and that the Government of the people, shall not perish from the earth.” On the evening of April 14th the President went ■ d the theatre and made a fine speech m response to the public applause. He had just finished, when a man entered the box and shot him. So passed Abraham Lincoln, one of the noblest figures in the history of the world.