glad that he had a myriad of contacts with the growing and vehement life of this country, and that, because of that multiple contact, he was, more than any one else of his generation, the spokesman of the general opinion of this country? Why was it that Mr. Lincoln was wiser than the professional politicians? Because the professional politicians had burrowed into particular burrows and Mr. Lincoln walked on the surface and saw his fellow-men. Why could Mr. Lincoln smile at lawyers and turn away from ministers? Because he had not had his contact with life as a lawyer has, and he had not lectured his fellow-men as a minister has. He was detached from every point of view and therefore superior,—at any rate in a position to becoming superior,—to every point of view. You must have a man of this detachable sort. Moreover, you must not have a man, if he is to be a man of the people, who is standardized and conventionalized. Look to it that your communities, your great cities, do not impose too arbitrary standards upon the men whom you wish to use. Do not reduce men to standards. Let them be free. Do not compel them by conventions. Let them wear any clothes they please and look like anything they choose; let them do anything that a decent and an honest man may do without criticism; do not laugh at them because they do not look like you, or talk like you, or think like you. They are freer for that circumstance, because, as an English writer has said: "You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius, but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your nextdoor neighbor. There is no tyranny like the tyranny of being obliged to be like him,"-of being considered a very singular person if you are not; of having men shrug their shoulders and say, "Singular young man, sir, singular young man; very gifted, but not to be trusted." Not to be trusted because unlike your own trustworthy self! You must take your leaders in every time of difficulty from among absolutely free men who are not standardized and conventionalized, who are at liberty to do what they think right and say what they think true; that is the only kind of leadership you can afford to have. And then, last and greatest characteristic of all, a man of the people is a man who has felt that unspoken, that intense, that almost terrifying struggle of humanity, that struggle whose object is, not to get forms of government, not to realize particular formulas or make for any definite goal, but simply to live and be free. He has participated in that struggle; he has felt the blood stream against the tissue; he has known anxiety; he has felt that life contained for him nothing but effort, effort from the rising of the sun to the going down of it. He has, therefore, felt beat in him, if he had any heart, a universal sympathy for those who struggle, a universal understanding of the unutterable things that were in their hearts and the unbearable burdens that were upon their backs. A man who has that vision, of how "Now touching good, now backward hurled, a man like Lincoln-understands. His was part of the toil; he had part and lot in the struggle; he knew the uncertainty of the goal mankind had but just touched and from which they had been hurled back; knew that the price of life is blood, and that no man who goes jauntily and complacently through the world will ever touch the springs of human action. Such a man with such a consciousness, such a universal human sympathy, such a universal comprehension of what life means, is your man of the people, and no one else can be. What shall we do? It always seems to me a poor tribute to a great man who has been great in action, to spend the hours of his praise by merely remembering what he was; and there is no more futile eulogy than attempted imitation. It is impossible to imitate Lincoln, without being Lincoln; and then it would not be an imitation. It is impossible to reproduce the characters, as it is impossible to reproduce the circumstances, of a past age. That ought to be a truism; that ought to be evident. We live, and we have no other choice, in this age, and the tasks of this age are the only tasks to which we are asked to address ourselves. We are not asked to apply our belated wisdom to the problems and perplexities of an age that is gone. We must have timely remedies, suitable for the existing moment. If that be true, the only way in which we can worthily celebrate a great man is by showing to-day that we have not lost the tradition of force which made former ages great, that we can reproduce them continuously in a kind of our own. You elevate the character of a man like Lincoln for his fellow-men to gaze upon, not as if it were an unattainable height, but as one of those conspicuous objects which men erect to mark the long lines of a survey, so that when they top the next hill they shall see that mark standing there where they have passed, not as something to daunt them, but as a high point by which they can lengthen and complete their measurements and make sure of their ultimate goal and achievement. is the reason we erect the figures of men like this to be admired and looked upon, not as if we were men who walk backward and deplore the loss of such figures and of such ages, but as men who keep such heights in mind and walk forward, knowing that the goal of the age is to scale new heights and to do things of which their work was a mere foundation, so that we shall live, like every other living thing, by renewal. We shall not live by recollection, we shall not live by trying to recall the strength of the old tissue, but by producing new tissue. The process of life is a process of growth, and the process of growth is a process of renewal; and it is only in this wise that we shall face the tasks of the future. That The tasks of the future call for men like Lincoln more audibly, more imperatively, than did the tasks of the time. when civil war was brewing and the very existence of the Nation was in the scale of destiny. For the things that perplex us at this moment are the things which mark, I will not say a warfare, but a division among classes; and when What is Where do a nation begins to be divided into rival and contestant interests by the score, the time is much more dangerous than when it is divided into only two perfectly distinguishable interests which you can discriminate and deal with. If there are only two sides I can easily make up my mind which side to take, but if there are a score of sides then I must say to some man who is not immersed, not submerged, not caught in this struggle, "Where shall I go? What do you see? the movement of the mass? Where are we going? you propose you should go?" It is then I need a man of the people, detached from this struggle yet cognizant of it all, sympathetic with it all, saturated with it all, to whom I can say, "How do you sum it up, what are the signs of the day, what does the morning say, what are the tasks that we must set our hands to?" We should pray, not only that we should be led by such men, but also that they should be men of the particular sweetness that Lincoln possessed. The most dangerous thing you can have in an age like this is a man who is intense and hot. We have heat enough; what we want is light. Anybody can stir up emotions, but who is master of men enough to take the saddle and guide those awakened emotions? Anybody can cry a nation awake to the necessities of reform, but who shall frame the reform but a man who is cool, who takes his time, who will draw you aside for a jest, who will say: "Yes, but not to-day, tomorrow; let us see the other man and see what he has to say; let us hear everybody, let us know what we are to do. In the meantime I have a capital story for your private ear. Let me take the strain off, let me unbend the steel. Don't let us settle this thing by fire but let us settle it by those cool, incandescent lights which show its real nature and color." The most valuable thing about Mr. Lincoln was that in the midst of the strain of war, in the midst of the crash of arms, he could sit quietly in his room and enjoy a book that led his thoughts off from everything American, could wander in fields of dreams, while every other man was hot with the immediate contest. Always set your faith in a man who can withdraw himself, because only the man who can withdraw himself can see the stage; only the man who can withdraw himself can see affairs as they are. And so the lesson of this day is faith in the common product of the nation; the lesson of this day is the future as well as the past leadership of men, wise men, who have come from the people. We should not be Americans deserving to call ourselves the fellow-countrymen of Lincoln if we did not feel the compulsion that his example lays upon us-the compulsion, not to heed him merely but to look to our own duty, to live every day as if that were the day upon which America was to be reborn and remade; to attack every task as if we had something here that was new and virginal and original, out of which we could make the very stuff of life, by integrity, faith in our fellow-men, wherever it is deserved, absolute ignorance of any obstacle that is insuperable, patience, indomitable courage, insight, universal sympathy,with that programme opening our hearts to every candid suggestion, listening to all the voices of the nation, trying to bring in a new day of vision and of achievement. |