THE PITTSBURG COMMEMORATION

CHOOL celebrations marked the day at Pittsburg, Penn

SCH

sylvania, as elsewhere in the United States, a hundred and twenty-five thousand school children taking part in this memorial tribute to Lincoln. In the evening there were special celebrations held in the Western Pennsylvania School for the Blind, and the Pittsburg Home for Deaf Mutes.

A convocation celebration by the various departments of the University of Pittsburg was held in Carnegie Music Hall in the afternoon, while the women of Pittsburg's church organizations gathered together in the afternoon to commemorate the day. Here Lincoln souvenirs were given to everyone in attendance.

The Pittsburg Association of Credit Men held a banquet in the evening, but the important event of the day was the celebration by the Chamber of Commerce, which took the form of a banquet. The newly elected Vice-President-to-be, Hon. James S. Sherman, was the guest of honor, and the orator of the occasion. The audience was in a rollicking frame of mind, and subjected the Vice-President-elect to much affectionate raillery, singing "Sunny Jim," up and down the hall, and hailing the procession of the guests of honor with the softly whistled score of "Here Comes the Bride." The audience was an enthusiastic one, and Mr. Sherman's speech, “Lincoln: The Greatest American," was received with feeling and applause.

The banquet room was decorated with the Stars and Stripes, and the black and gold colors of the city. The banquet was preceded by a reception at seven o'clock, where more than a thousand people came to shake hands with the guests of the day. Besides Vice-President-to-be Sherman, Congressman James Eli Watson, of Indiana, and the Hon. James Scarlet were on the programme. The Chairman in charge of the ar

rangements for the reception and banquet was the Hon. John B. Barbour, Jr., while President Lee S. Smith, of the Chamber of Commerce, presided at the banquet, Judge J. J. Miller acting as toastmaster.

LINCOLN: THE GREATEST AMERICAN

WHAT

HON. JAMES SCHOOLCRAFT SHERMAN

WHAT a personality was Lincoln's-What a task he performed-What results he achieved! The life, the work, the end, are exhaustingly fascinating in their pathos. His heredity and environment offered no hope for his career. It has been said he was not brought up; he came up. Through hardest struggle, through dismal lack, through stark necessity, he came; but up, up, he came, and stands distinctively, the American nobleman.

No need to repeat his biography. History tells that he rose unaided from nothing to the executive head of this great nation, and his life has been the favorite illustration of authors and orators to emphasize the possibilities of American citizenship.

It has been said that Napoleon, Washington, and Lincoln were children of destiny. True, mayhap, of Napoleon, but not of Washington and Lincoln. Napoleon did little which, in remembrance, endears him to his people. He was a warrior, not a philosopher. Washington was, to a degree, both. He assumed command of the armies, sustained and encouraged by a united people smarting under the yoke of a monarchy, thirsting for independence and individual liberty. Washington was aware of his strength in his own country, and the possibilities and probable results of a strong resistance. He had studied military methods; he knew frontier warfare. He had the advantage of birth, of education, of early association with cultivated people. More, he was schooled by contact with the brightest and best men of the age, and by severe and trying campaigns. He had learned the lesson of experi

ence, had seen the grand future possible for this country with her affairs properly directed. After seven years of a successful warfare, he came to the presidency, equipped by study and experience, with wisdom and enlightenment, and it is small wonder that he stands "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."

When Lincoln was discovered and nominated-not as the unquestioned choice of all the people, but rather of the minority of a party, a minority made into a majority, apparently, by means of political tactics-the situation was far different. The nation was rent asunder, opinion was divided, and a grave constitutional question was involved. In the South the dark cloud of secession had already appeared, while in the North there were mutterings of sympathy. Men were being persecuted for their beliefs; the right of freedom of thought and expression was questioned, and a whirlpool of discord and dissension was gathering. It threatened to engulf the nation in its mighty rush.

At such a moment Lincoln was brought forward. How different from Napoleon, whose victories on the field of battle, whose brilliant achievements wherever the force of arms was tried, had made him for the nonce the idol of his impetuous people! How unlike the introduction of Washington, when a united, harmonious people, desperate from long suffering, were ready to sacrifice, to do and die, that their descendants might enjoy the privileges of freedom unfettered by a government not in sympathy with their aims, their purposes, or their needs!

Lincoln had none of the advantages or encouragements of many of his predecessors. He was untried, almost unknown. The crisis was approaching; he must meet it or fall. That is the situation pictured by the after-lights; and surely by intuition or inspiration he so viewed it. Not the liberty of the defenders of the Stars and Stripes which floated victoriously over Bunker Hill, and Saratoga, and Bennington, and Oriskany, was at stake, but the liberty of a race foreign to the country-a race brought here for bondage or reared in slavery. Was it worth fighting for? Many in the North said "No!"

Was it a question which could be constitutionally acted upon! The entire South said "No!" and then Abraham Lincoln, with dignity, with firmness, and with a spirit which could have been inspired only of God, grasped the helm of the Ship of State and pointed its course directly into the teeth of the storm. His Proclamation of Emancipation unforged the fetters of the slaves, united the North, sent a thrill of joy and patriotism in reverberation over the land-until the hundreds of thousands of boys in blue swore by their flag and by their country that slavery should cease, and that their nation should be reunited though it were cemented by blood.

A child of destiny? No! An American boy, a man of America. Born, bred, and reared in an atmosphere of liberty, of justice, and of truth, made possible only by Washington and his compatriots; broadened, ripened, and educated under the sun of freedom; endowed with physical capabilities brought to their greatest perfection by years of toil and industry and self-denial; possessing mental strength developed by the same rigorous discipline-he was fitted to lead, and the situation brought him forward.

His appearance was at the most critical time in the nation's history. He met his responsibilities superbly. Gentle, mild, and forbearing, his private and official careers are filled with pictures of prose and poetry which throw about him a charm most delicate and delightful. His homely, quaint humor brightens with age, and will never be disassociated from his name, or copied by another.

That Lincoln was perhaps the greatest American will not be denied, but his individuality was greater than his personality. It was not merely because he was President during the Civil War; not because he solved its stupendous problems with a mildness and gentleness and without the least display of physical power or authority; not because he marshalled armies in the panoply of war or sent navies to battle against almost impregnable strongholds. It was not because of any of these things that his memory is more and more revered, and his name more and more cherished, as we of this nation annually meet to pay homage to him, to impress upon our

children that America produced, developed, and honored such a man. It was because he had within him more than statesmanship, more than fervid patriotism, more than a calm, dispassionate element of judgment. It was not because he sought preferment; not that he considered the effect upon personality, or what the future might say of him. He saw no shadow on future popularity, so anxiously looked for and so carefully avoided by the politician. He is not to be measured by the craft or the selfish sagacity of a statesman. It was because he had within him that stern, unyielding sense of duty. He saw his path before him clearly outlined, and he followed it regardless of obstacles-patient, untiring, possessed of no thought of what the morrow might have in store for him personally-confident in his rugged honesty and homely but true philosophy, that though perhaps misunderstood and wrongly criticised, sooner or later his mission would be accomplished and his country once more stand forth reunited and rejuvenated, the greatest nation of all time, glorifying in her strength, her broadness, her humanity, and her achievements.

Gentle beyond compare, patient beyond belief, his country and his duty were his creed, and for them he labored unceasingly and suffered patiently. "It is not a question of Lincoln, of Democrat or Republican, but a question of our country," he once said when reproached for a contemplated action. It was that sentiment, "our country," which guided him. For that country he gave himself without reserve, his rare talents, his immeasurable love, his remarkable sagacity— his life. All were freely laid upon the altar of home and country.

Careful and close inspection of his life reveals no single act which would bring him forth as a hero, or a man to be revered in after years. No one of his acts beckons posterity to cherish his memory or to applaud his name. Still, there he stands, gentle, yet firm; calm, yet unyielding; facing the storm of revolution; meeting defeat on bloody battlefields; earning victories at the expense of thousands of lives and millions of treasure; steadfastly facing the storm, unmoved by protest, denunciation, or praise, unwaveringly and persistently