Bemidji Daily Pioneer Newspaper, February 12, 1920, Page 3

. instrument of mastery. TIME ADDS T0 ~ LINCOLN'S FAME _Passing Years Bring In- ‘creased Acknowledgment . of His Wise States- j manship. N the mere recital. of the facts of Lincoln’s life there is little to account for his being the only American except Washington |whose birthday has been made a na- itfonal holiday. His origin was Eng- illsh. as he descended from English iQuakers who settled in Pennsylvanja. |His own branch of the family went to 'Virginla, and thence to Kentucky, In- ldiana and Illinois. His birthplace, though rud- ‘vas not unlike those .about him, "e= ;ye roomed cabin of |the Western pioneer, situated in a rwild region and with only the rudest mecessities. There was little in his boyhood to mmark it out from his fellows save in {the thorough use he made of his scanty opportunities for improvement. He ossessed onlv a handful of books— ithe Bible, “Aesop’s Fables,” Pilgrim’s Progress,” “Robinson Crusoe.” the lives lof Washington and Henry Clay—but of these, by continual study, he made ‘himself complete master. Meanwhile the difficulties of his daily life made im strong and vigorous, stimulating |a wholesome growth of body and mind. !The importance of this foundation of ‘health can hardly be overestimated, {ln view of the strain he was to bear 4 n later life. That he retained this iearly vigor 1s evident from anecdotes his delight in feats of strength even jafter he attained the presidency. By hmeans- of farm work that in those |days included every form of bodily jexercise, by a short experience as a ntry storekeeper, by an almost ri- ldiculous military training, Lincoln jeaw in essence something of every form of life and saw each form In its ‘barest simplicity. From these crudest facts he drew the homely directness lof thinking, a readiness in analysis, a simplicity of view and a keenness of ‘humor that tinctured his whole mind. His Early Studies. There is nothing that gives us a bet- ter insight into the origin of his great- iness than the story he tells of his early methods of study. Even as a boy, he says, he was accustomed to lhear discussed public questions of .every sort. The language and rhetoric of his elders was far beyorid his com- prehension, but with the true pioneer "“spirit the boy Lincoln. educated to overcome difficulties by his daily life, not tired by a multiplicity of subjects, 'was never willing to abandon a sub- ject without understanding it. He -would, after hearing a knotty debate, go over the whole controversy by him- 'self untll he was satisfied that he had extracted from it every root and gist |- of the matter. This done, Lincoln says, he strove to put into the simplest Janguage what he had learned. in or- der that it might be within the under- standing of any hearer. . Thus it was that he learned to an- alyze and solve political questions. and, having solved them. to present the matters in such form as to be under- stood Dby the splest of his hear- ers. In the d,;\,\‘s when personal su- premacy came mainly from the power of oratory or convincing speech there * was no surer road to leadership. Sure to Become a Power. With a mind thus self-trained and ‘kept from the world until mankood. iLincoln was sure to come into $rom- Jnence as soon as he could in any way isecure a public hearing. As Woodrow ‘Wilson puts it, “He had had- the in- stinct of the student in the midst of affairs, and had made himself a mas- ter of ideas and, of language as an He had de- vised for himself siraight thrusts of -speech and the use of words that acted always like the application of light.” :Such a man will ever be put forward as champion by any party to which ‘he lends his services. When, there- fore, in the days of controversy be- tween North and South over the great ‘issue of whether the mew territories ishould be slave or free, the Dred Scott THURSDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 12, 1920 deciston declared that the people or a territory had no power to keep a slave owner from bringing his “prop- erty” into their community, and this became the burning question of the day around which gathered those who were opposed as well on a dozen oth- er grounds. Lincoln was put forward as the champion of the Free Soll party against Senator Douglas, who upheld the constitutional sanction of slavery. Lincoln’s plain way of putting things was evident in his famous declara- tion, “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this country cannot endure half slave and half free. I do not expect the house to fall, but-I do expect it will cease to be di- vided.” Put Douglas In Dilemma, By a clever set of questions Lincoln put Douglas into a dilemma that re- quired him to lose elther his following in Tllinois or his following among the southern party. Douglas made his choice, antagonized the South, won the senatorship against Lincoln, bhut put himself out of the running for the presidency. Then came the insurrec- tion led by John Brown, and the feel- ing excited by this event still ran high during the next presidential elec- tion. Douglas had been forced to stand for the right of the people of a territory to exclude slavery, and thus set himself against the Dred Scott de- cision permitting slave owners to bring their property into the territories. Up- on this question the Democratic party split. ‘The Republicans met in Chica- go, and here the Illinois men so ably presented and advocated their new champion, Lincoln, that Seward lost the nomination and Lincoln won it. In the following election Lincoln ) succeeded over his rival by a narrow majority, and really represented, so far as votes were concerned, a minority of the nation. Having staked upon this election the whole doctrine of state rights and the extension of slavery. the leading southern states looked up- on Lincoln’s election as a deflance of the whole course of legislation looking to the upholding of the southern view. Determined on Secession. The war followed, for the South con- sidered state rights and slave labor as l the foundation of their prosperity and power, especially since the invention of the cotton gin had made, as they phrased it, cotton the king of the world of commerce. Woodrow Wil- son points out that in the northern | opposition to slavery the South felt a keen sense of injustice. They believed that the worst side of the Institution was willfully presented, that its neces- sities and its better side were willfully suppressed. In the election of Lincoln they saw the beginning of an attempt to dominate them completely. It seemed the outcome of a continual bat- tle against them and their institutlons, and they saw no escape except by se- cession from the Unjon. As president. Lincoin disappointed the abolitionists and the more rabid opponents of the South. He waited until he believed that there was armed resistance to the federal laws, but when this crisis came acted promptly and effectively. The long conflict fol- lowed and belongs to history. Ever since those days Lincoln's fame has been growing, and the best students agree that his was the broad- est statesmaoship and the wisest brain of all tested in those troubled times. More and more the country has come to see that he best understood the problems and best solved them. Ilis assassination was a blunder for which the country. both North and South, paid dear. His speeches, his public doce- uments, his state papers, reveal a greater man as they are studied more deeply, and today the leaders of thought, hoth North and South, pay to his memory due mee2 of reverence. [BUSINESS AND | PROFESSTONAL VETERINARIANS e J. WARNINGER VETERINARY BURGEON ..Oftice and Hospital 8 doors west.. of Troppman’s. Phone No. 309 3rd Street and Irvine ave. \ act quickly. GET B emidji I.'HE[!FM 2 fgw‘ da&s unlyFH[[! Every purchaser of a Pennsylvania Vacuum Cup Tire will, regardless of size, be given a tube free of charge. Tires are going up in a few days, so Olaf Ongstad BUSY Auto Co. THE BEMIDJI DAILY PIONEER Dr. W. K. Denison—Dr. D. R. Burgess DRNISON & BURGESS / Veterinarians Phones: Office 8-R; R Bemidji, Minn. BUSINESS DRY CLEANING Clotbes Cleaners for Men, Women and Childven 7/, - A ! TORY CLEANING NOUSE UraGANSON BR0S Ba220 H. C. NELSON Piano Tuning and Piano and Violin Rep.iring—how Filling 216 Beltrami Ave. Phone 573W ——————————————————————————— E. M. SATHRE Buys Small Houses for cash and sells them on small monthly payments o ————————— e D. H. FISK, Attorney at Law Office, Northern National Bank Bldg. Phene 181. Collections a specialty. — FIRE INSURANCE REAL ESTATE REYNOLDS & WINTER 212 Beltrami Avenue Phone 144 DENTISTS DR. J. W. DIEDRICH Offfee—O’'Leary-Bowser Bldg. Phones—Oftice 376-W. Res. 376-R DR. H. A. HASS DENTIST Office Over Boardman’s Drug Phone 447 Store. DOCTORS DR. EINER JOHNSON Physician and Surgeon Bemidji, Minn, | DR. E. H. SMITH Physician and Surgeon l Office Security Bank 8leck ————————————————— DR. L. A. WARD Physician and Surgeon Bemidji, Minm. DRS. GILMORE & McCANN Physicians and Surgeons Oftice Miles Block A. V. GARLOCK, M. D. Eye—Ear—Nose—Throat Glasses Fitted SPROIALIST DR. E. A. SHANNON, M. D. Physician and Surgeon Office in Mayo Block Phone 396 DR. G. M. PALMER Dentist and Orthodontist Barker Building Bemidji, Minn. Res. Phone 337 .oy PAGE THREE C. R. SANBORN, M. D. Physician and Surgeon Oftica: Miles Blosk House Phone 44y——Office phone 6§ Chiropractors e Phone 401-W 1st National Bank Bldg. DR. E. H. MARCUM | Office hours, 11 a.m. to 12 m., 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Schroeder Block. Office phone 18, Res. phone 211. AND SURGEON [bertson Block They couldn't be built now What Lincoln said (From an address by Abraham Lincoln to the Workmen's Asso ciation in 1864) “Property is the fruit of labor; preperty is desirable; is a positive good in theworld .. .. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, butlet him work dili- gently and build one for himself, thusby ex- ample assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.” for twice*71.000 ‘Whenthe talk turns from politics to railroads, and the traveler with the cocksure air breaks in with, “There’s an awful lot of ‘water’ in the railroads,” here are some hard-pan facts to give him: American railroads have cost $80,900 a mile—road- bed, structures, stations, yards, terminals, freight and passenger trains—everything from the great city terminals to the last spike. A good concrete-and-asphalt highway costs $36,000 a mile—just a bare road, not counting the cost of culverts, bridges, etc. Our railroads couldn’t be duplicated today for $150,000 a mile. They are capitalized for only $71,000 a mile—much less than their actual value. Seventy-one thousand dollars today will buy one locomotive. English railways are capitalized at $274,000 a mile; the French at $155,000; German $132,000; even in Canada (still in pioneer development) they are capitalized at $67,000 a mile. The average for all foreign countries is $100,000. Low capitalization and high operating efficiency have enabled American railroads to pay the high- est wages while charging the lowest rates. dhis advertisement is published by the Yssociation of Railway Executives Tlm.w-' r!miring information concerning the railroad situation may oblain literature by writing to The Assaciation of Railway Exccutives, 61 Broadway, New York LUNDE and DANNENBERG Hours 10 to 12a.m.;3 to 5,7 to 8 p.ma. i Calls made Bemiap |/ DR. H. A. NORTHROP OSTEOPATHIC PHYSIOIAN Office phone 183 J. P. LAHR andidate for Assessor February 17th, 1920 For Impartial and Fair Valuation of all Property. The amount of property you own will regulate the amount of taxes you will pay. Endorsed by the Labor League Iy aF ot ] 1 l H i i i