IV. REMEMBRANCE AT THE END OF A HUNDRED YEARS
The centennial anniversary of Lincoln’s birth called forth expressions of appreciation from over all the world. His memory and his meaning had not grown dim in the interests of humanity. A few typical examples illustrate the love and reverence inspired by his great work in the human cause.
James Oppenheim, in his poem in praise of the Lincoln child, says,
“Oh, to pour our love through deeds——
To be as Lincoln was!
That all the land might fill its daily needs
Glorified by a human cause!
Then were America a vast World-Torch
Flaming a faith across the dying earth,
Proclaiming from the Atlantic’s rocky porch
That a New World was struggling at the Birth!”
James Whitcomb Riley, writing of Lincoln, the boy, says in the last stanza:
“Or thus we know, nor doubt it not,
The boy he must have been
Whose budding heart bloomed with the thought
All men are kith and kin——
With love-light in his eyes and shade
Of prescient tears: Because
Only of such a boy were made
The loving man he was.”
Ambassador Bryce of England, speaking at Lincoln’s tomb before a vast gathering at the centennial anniversary of Lincoln’s birth, said, “To us in England, Lincoln is one of the heroes of the race from whence we sprung. Great men are the noblest possession of a Nation, and are potent forces in the moulding of national character. Their influence lives after them, and, if they be good as well as great, they remain as beacons lighting the course of all who follow them. They set for succeeding generations the standards of public life. They stir the spirit and rouse the energy of the youth who seek to emulate their virtues in the service of their country.”
Vice-President Fairbanks in an address at Harrisburg on that occasion said, “His life was spent in conflict. In his youth, he struggled with nature. At the bar of justice he contended for the rights of his clients. In the wider field of politics, he fought with uncommon power to overthrow the wrong and enthrone the right. He fought not for the love of conquest, but for the love of truth. By nature he was a man of peace. He instinctively loved justice, right, and liberty. His conscience impelled him to uphold the right whenever it was denied his fellowman.”
S. E. Kiser ended a centennial poem with the following stanza:
“Lo, where the feet of Lincoln passed, the earth
Is sacred. Where he knelt we set a shrine!
Oh, to have pressed his hand! That had sufficed
To make my children wonder at my worth——
Yet, let them glory, since their land and mine
Hath reared the greatest martyr after Christ!”
Virginia Boyle, in her poem for the Philadelphia Brigade Association, said in two of her stanzas:
“No trumpet blared the word that he was born,
No lightning flashed its symbols on that day:
And only Poverty and Fate pressed on,
To serve as handmaids where he lowly lay.
“And up from Earth and toil, he slowly won,——
Pressed by a bitterness he proudly spurned,
Till by grim courage, born from sun to sun,
He turned defeat, as victory is turned.”
Edwin Markham concluded a centennial poem as follows:
“He held his place——
Held the long purpose like a growing tree——
Held on through blame and faltered not at praise,
And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down
As when a lordly cedar, green with boughs,
Goes down with a great shout upon the hills,
And leaves a lonesome place against the sky.”