bar. The speeches given are included in this volume because it is believed they give interesting material on a side of Lincoln which has only recently come to be appreciated. It should not be forgotten, either, that if the ideals of Lincoln are to be preserved for our children, they will only be continued through the thought and vision of the American bar of to-day.

At a luncheon of The Irish Fellowship Club during Lincoln week, an impressive speech was delivered by Judge Peter Stenger Grosscup, of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals. The statue of Lincoln by Saint-Gaudens, to which Judge Grosscup refers, is a sitting figure, and has been procured by the Crerar Fund Trustees, of whom Judge Grosscup is one, to be placed in Grant Park, Chicago.

The Abraham Lincoln Center, a community house, held a celebration, lasting throughout the week, under the direction of Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones. Here was exhibited the famous Fay collection of pictures of Lincoln, numbering more than one thousand portraits.

One of the most unique meetings of the week was that held on the evening of the Centenary at Dexter Park Pavilion, with Arthur Meeker as Chairman, to whose unstinted efforts and able generalship is due the unusual interest it created. It was a great patriotic song meeting, with a chorus of a thousand voices, and orchestra, leading the great audience in the singing of the patriotic songs of the country. One of the features of the evening was an illustrated lecture by Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones. More than fifteen thousand people crowded into the building to hear and join in the exercises, and as many more were turned away from the doors, the building being packed to suffocation.

At the Chicago Historical Society, on Friday evening, February 12, Col. Clark E. Carr, of Galesburg, Illinois, delegate to the Dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, in 1863, delivered an address on "Lincoln at Gettysburg"; while during the entire Centenary week, the Society exhibited a special collection of Lincolniana, consisting of original manuscripts, portraits, and relics, which the public was cordially invited to view.

Countless other meetings were held during Centenary week, under the auspices of similar societies, of fraternal organizations, and through private initiative; and of the many meetings thus held in the city during Lincoln week, more than one thousand were the outgrowth of the work of the Committee of One Hundred.

Ceremonies in the Jewish churches of the city were held on Saturday morning, February 13, and at the various residential clubs in the evening. The week's celebration closed on Sunday, February 14, with the churches of the city, of all denominations, devoting the morning services to ceremonies and sermons commemorative of the life of Lincoln.

The Committee secured a very general interest in the decoration of the city; the streets, every public building, and all of the important private buildings were appropriately and beautifully decorated. Of the nearly forty thousand business houses in Chicago having show windows for display, it is safe to say that few, if any, were without some tokens of the significance of the week. The Proclamation issued by the Mayor was posted everywhere, on the streets, in the show windows, and in the street cars; and for three weeks previous, the programmes of all the playhouses of the city had cuts of Lincoln, with announcements of the impending celebration. ers, too, were used in all of the surface, elevated, and suburban trains of the city. These had a picture of the Saint-Gaudens statue of Lincoln, and carried announcements of the celebration, with the location of the various meetings.

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Beautiful bronze tablets were prepared by the Committee, containing the Gettysburg Address, which were placed on the walls of the two hundred and sixty-seven public schools, and one hundred and eighty-four parochial schools of the city, that the four hundred thousand school children of Chicago, and their successors through the coming years, might have ever before them the words of the greatest of American utterances. These tablets were presented, also, to numerous other private and public educational institutions, on the Centennial Day; while memorial tablets were placed on the site of the Wigwam where Lincoln was nominated, and on the Tremont House,

where Lincoln gave his first speech in reply to Douglas-a speech which led to the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates-and where Judge Douglas afterward died.

Thousands of copies of a very interesting and instructive pamphlet on the "One Hundredth Anniversary of Lincoln,' were distributed throughout the city and the State, by the Hon. Francis G. Blair, the Superintendent of Public Instruction of Illinois; the book stores and libraries had on special exhibit books and pictures relating to Lincoln and his time; the Chicago Public Library, upon the suggestion of the Lincoln Committee, prepared, and issued to the public a "Lincoln Bibliography," with a very complete classification of all published works relating to the different periods of Lincoln's life. This was widely distributed, and proved of great interest and value in connection with the plans of the general Committee. The compilation of the Bibliography was the work of Mr. Charles A. Larson.

The editors of all the foreign papers of the city took an active interest in the celebration. The Gettysburg Speech, and the Mayor's Proclamation were translated into the various foreign languages, printed in foreign papers published in the city, and posted in the foreign quarters, in order that the life and work of Lincoln might be brought home to every man, woman, and child in the community, whether they read the English language or not.

Chicago remembered with pride that it was within her boundaries that Lincoln received his nomination for the Presidency; and her celebration, starting on Sunday with exercises in the churches of every denomination, lasted throughout the week with a sustained interest that the most experienced observer of public celebrations would have in advance declared utterly impossible. The city in which Lincoln was nominated and in which he spent much of his time, showed by every evidence, that it thoroughly appreciated the honor which had been conferred upon it by that association.

THE

THE UNITY OF THE NATION

(A Speech of Introduction)

HON. WILLIAM J. CALHOUN

HE progress of nations towards a more perfect civilization is often attended with great social convulsions, with revolutions, and wars. It is in such times, when the need of the people is the sorest, when their cry for leadership is the loudest, that the great man appears. From obscurity he sometimes comes, and to the wondering eyes of men seems divinely commissioned for the needs of the hour and for the work he has to do.

Such a time in the history of this country was the Civil War, and such a man was Abraham Lincoln. The time was one of great excitement and of intense passion. The air resounded with the clamor of angry voices, with the tramp of armed men, and with the thunder of the great guns of war.

Lincoln, when called to the head of the Nation, was comparatively unknown and inexperienced. Many doubted his capacity for the emergency, and questioned the wisdom of his policies, but he continued to be the central figure of that great struggle. Around him men, strong men, fought and died, while women and children wept. Through it all, he was masterful in control, resolute and inflexible in purpose. But his resolution was always tempered with patience, with moderation, and with pity.

I lived in that time; I was but a boy, and vaguely understood the things I saw and heard, but I remember well the angry passion of the hour, the abuse and the epithets that were heaped upon him. But just as the bugles were blowing the sweet notes of victory, just as the sunshine of peace was breaking through the clouds of war, he too fell dead-the War's last and most precious victim. It was then the American people, North and South, seemed to awake to the realiza

tion that a great and good man had fallen. A wave of sympathy and love swept over the land, and removed every trace of bitterness. Friends and former foes alike crowded around his grave and covered it with laurels of fame and with flowers of praise.

The War bore heavily upon him. Its responsibilities were great. His rugged cheeks were furrowed with care. His heart was wrenched with the misery, the suffering, and the pity of it. But all through that dark and desperate night, his greatest hope, his greatest aspiration was to save the Union; for it he prayed and labored and suffered. Regardless of every cost and every sacrifice, his hope, his trust, his faith, was in and for the Union.

I do not know whether the immortals look down upon the earth and remember us as we remember them. I do not know whether Abraham Lincoln takes note of what is said and done here to-day. If he does, the fact that the Union which he loved is safe; that the warring sections which threatened its perpetuity are now closer together in personal relations, in common sympathies, and in purpose, than ever before, must gratify him.

The War is long since over. Its battle flags, blood-stained and tear-stained, have been furled and laid away, never again to wave in the battle front. Its forts are dismantled and levelled. Its guns and swords have turned to rust. Its dead quietly sleep in grass-covered graves. But the blessing of a profound peace rests upon the Republic. The prayer of Abraham Lincoln has been answered; the Union is saved. If I may be allowed the figure of speech, the North and the South now stand, as it were, side by side, with clasped hands, the heart of each full of sacred memories of the past, of courageous endeavor and heroic sacrifice. But their backs are turned upon the past; their uplifted faces are turned to the future, illuminated with a love of country that knows no North and no South, no East and no West. Their aspirations for the future are the same. Their common purpose is, that the American people shall meet the emergencies of the future with the same high resolve that distinguished