Goodwin's weekly : a thinking paper for thinking people. [volume], February 12, 1910, Image 1

About Goodwin's weekly : a thinking paper for thinking people. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1902-1919

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I 111
j : Goodwin's Weekly 1
'"'' Vol. XVI SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, FEBRUARY 12, 1910 No. 17 fifl
3 , - Abraham Lincoln
! p'HIS is the Lincoln anniversary. It is one
r' J of the anniversaries that with each return
there is increased sacredness added to It.
( The man recedes with the years; his work is
f more and more magnified. There is not much
, to show that the masses of men have any special
( i ' mission in this 'world. They come up out of the
' silence, they begin life with a cry; they struggle
through It; it ends with a moan, they go back to
the silence, and forgetfulness soon closes over
j ? their very names. With a few of the lace, their
lives are such as to stamp their work upon the
world, and they are remembered in bronze and
A marble and in the literature of their age. A very
J ' few others leave behind them records which make
t clear that they, when, on earth, were instruments
through, which men were to be taught new lessons
j in duty, to be re-called to loftier thoughts; to be
u made to see that, plan as they may, God rules,
hnd that "The judgments of the Lord are true and
righteous altogether."
In the case of Lincoln there was even more.
As if to teach men that birth and culture were not
essential to the working out of divine plans. Ab-
'l raham Lincoln was born In squallor and spent his
i childhood and youth in such poverty as can hardly
i be comprehended by the average American youth. -
Thinking of it one Is reminded, instinctively, of
how the Messiah, selected to tell the world His
' , t name and mission, not the scholars of His age,
not the mailed warriors who at that time ruled
the -syorld, but the bare-footed, unlettered fisher
men whom lie picked up on the shores of Gall
lee anfl of the ocean. And when the Pharisees
and Sadducees asked him to show them, a sign
from heaven, He answered: "When it Is evening
ye pay it will be fair weather, for the heaven is
red, And in the morning It will be foul weather
for, the heaven is red and lowering. Yerknow how
to cllspern the face of the heaven; but ye cannot
4 discern the signs of the times." Think or the
' cultured men who surrounded Lincoln when ho
f went to Washington as President, and see how
L tjie ab'ove applies. Not only was he born in the
5 extreme of poverty, bu.t there was a shadow on
his name, and he was, too, one of the most un
L piMnjy of men physically. He lacked every grace
pf person, every grare of society, every grace of
tjie schools. Who for the first forty years of his
jjfe ever dreamed that he was the chosen one to
k jf-ad his countrymen up into the light, and then
I .a give his life to consecrate the work he had
performed?
' Nevertheless, a good angel had bent above his
5? f rude cradle and touched his lips with a seal of
Fy majesty, for his was a heroic soul and his heart
'. was great enough to take in a measureless patrlot-
ism and a love that included his whole country
- and all his countrymen. Moreover, he was given
I I an Intellect to grasp everything and make second-
F class all the wisdom of the schools.
I pj So he fought out the fifty-six years of his life;
tthe struggle from the cradle growing more and
more severe, the years bringing ever new bur
ij. dens for him to pick up and bear, and, uncom-
t plainlngly, he bore them until, as sometimes
Lqomes to a dying man a surcease of pain, and he
' talks of his childhood, of blrd&'and of flowers and
'$ of the delicious memories that are his, and then
f suddenly, sinks Into the last sleep, so to Lincoln
fr there came a day when It seemed to film his blt-
P ' ter trials were at an end, that henceforth there
1' was to be rost and peace and good will, but In
If the next hour, his great work finished, his call
it-
Game, and out of the tragedy of a night, with the
dawn, immortality opened its gates for him, and
in the .radiance that followed his spirit's flight,
men, through, their tears, saw, for the first time,
how really great lie was, what their loss was, how
surely he had been the instrument in God's hands,
to teach his countrymen that "the judgments of
the Lord are true and righteous altogether," and
that native land and its free Institutions were
sacred enough for men to live Tor and if needs be,
to die for.
Differences in Methods
IT is conceded that Germany, since the Franco
Prussian war has forged ahead faster than any
other foreign power, and today disputes with
Great Britain the prestige of the commercial and
military world. Moreover, in forty years, she has
doubled in material wealth.
One would think that these facts and their
causes would be the profound study of the Ameri
can statesmen. With half the population of the
United States, on a not very productive soil; how
In it possible that a country has been able to so
advance in material strength, as to cause shud
ders to run up and down the spine of France and
to give Great Britain hysterics at least three times
a year surely should be a study.
When her war closed with France she re
ceived 1,000 millions of .dollars as Indemnity for
the war's losses. That, according to Secretary
'Wilson, was equal to about one-eighth of the value
of the agricultural product of the United States
last year. It was only about four times the
amount of one of J. Pierpont Morgan's purchases
a few days ago.
But the statesmen of Germany figured that the
only way their country could sustain their increas
ing population and accumulate money to meet the
demands of the government and people, would be
through foreign trade. She had always before
bought her ships from Great Britain. She at once
established her own ship-yards and dug canals
from them to the open sea. She established steam
lines between Germany and the world's important
ports, and she instructed the commanders of her
merchant ships to miss no freights that could be
utilized at home, promising at the same time to
make good any losses they might be subjected to
through such freighting. To keep-, rugged the
health of her young meijfo-teacllAherntneeded
discipline, to Incite their patriotism, to awaken
their self respect and to fit, them -to meet the
duties of life with broadened mlridsand withouK.
fear, either in peace or war, she Insisted that they
should undergo for a sufffcient time the discipline
of the army or navy. She impressed upon her
manufacturers the fact that to sell goods in for
eign lands, they should be of the very best quality,
put up in the most attract! vq forms, and especially
adapted to the wants and tastes of the people
where they were to be sold. So university gradu
ates were engaged to make new designs and to
make new chemical combinations to improve both
the quality and attractiveness of their wares to be
sold abroad. Merchants wore encouraged to es
tablish trading houses In foreign countries, by
the promise that German ships should not fall
them, but at regular short intervals should give
them a sight of the flag of fatherland and should
carry to them any goods desired. She soon dis
covered that the difference betSveen 'buying and
building ships was that, In the first case, the cost
of them went out of Germany into the coffers of
foreign shipbuilders, and was lost to Germany
forever, whereas, when ships were built at home, jflH
the money all went to her own miners, ship-build- mM
ers and artisans and still remained a part of the H
volume of German money. She soon found, too, !B
that the ships built at home cost less than as MM
though purchased abroad, and the encourage- II
ment given her ship architects and artisans "lH
caused them to build finer and fleeter ships than 1
had ever been produced abroad. She found, too, 11
that when a load of German manufactured goods i
went to a foreicn country and was traded tliero IH
for the raw products of such country, which was IH
in the homeward voyage carried to Germany, she IH
had traded a small amount of cheap material, IH
which had been illuminated by German brains, IH
for a large amount of raw material which lef H
own manufacturers needed, and that the freight IH
money out and back, was safe in her own coffers. IH
This all cost muoh money, but she was able IH
to meet the cost without raising the rate of taxa- IH
tion, for her manufacturies had to be enlarged H
and improved, more laborers by thousands and H
tens of thousands had to be employed, the taxable H
property advanced In value faster than the amount H
needed to pay current expenses, Increased; the H
rush of her subjects to foreign lands was checked H
b the increased demand for laborers at home. H
The above outlines the means adopted to meet IH
the increasing population, and the intelligent poli- JjH
cles which have caused the transformation of Ger- IH
many and made her the commanding nation of H
Europe in forty years, on land and on sea. JH
Our nation has watched this transformation, H
and has seen,, at the same time, our flag disappear IH
from the sea, and -at every proposition to 1ml- 11
tate her methods have cried out, "You want us j
to vote money to make men already rich, richer,"
and this while $200,000,000 of the people's money, j H
has gone out annually to pay the fares and
freights of Americans to foreign ship owners, and
when our war navy goes on a junket we have to iM
employ foreign ships to supply them with coal.
And despite the immense wealth from mine and M
field and factory which has come to us during the 11
past twelve years, when the boosters In Now York, 11
two years ago, precipitated a panic upon the coun- 11
try, we had to rush frantically to England, M
France and Germany for loans to' help our coun- jl
try out. Who says the American people are a M
bright people? H
The Chance of Half a Century .'H
N 1857 the old steamship Georgia Low was put lM
Jhjlnjji'the dockys.repalred, re-christened the Cen- M
ftral" America and put in the California trade, M
beuveen New York and Aspinwall. She was com- H
manded by Captain W. L. Herndon, one of the IH
most accomplished of the old-day naval officers, M
one of the most winsome of gentlemen. The Cen- H
trai America was an old side-wheel steamer. She M
left Aspinwall with 550 souls on board and $2, H
500,000 in gold dust from California. She caught H
a West India hurricane in tho Gulf of" Mexico and H
was beaten to death by the storm. The captain H
and crew made a heroic struggle to keep the H
ship afloat, but when it was clear that the ship H
was doomed, all the passengers possible were ' H
set adrift in boats and on rafts. Ot tucau i82 H
were Anally saved, some after they had floated H
600 miles on rafts. The ship went down, carrying jH
the captain and 397 others. The steamer Ken- 9
tucky was almost a parallel case. She was an old H
wooden steamer, bought, patched up and re-chrst- H
ened and started around the continent to be. H
placed In the Yukon trade, where only the H
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