Dearborn independent. [volume], February 07, 1920, Page 6, Image 6

About Dearborn independent. [volume] (Dearborn, Mich.) 1901-1927

Image provided by: Central Michigan University, Clark Historical Library

                
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Enduring as Earth's purest marble and highest art can make it, the Lincoln Memorial is not more enduring than the name and fame of Lincoln. Like the
marble, his character was the product of crushing burdens nobly borne, whose Sculptor was the portentous hand of destiny.
NOWHERE on earth has a more beautiful monument ever been erected to the
memory of any man than the Lincoln Memorial at Washington, D. C. This
national shrine, placed to the memory of the immortal Abraham Lincoln by the
grateful people of the United States, will be formally dedicated and opened to the
public either on February 12, the one hundred and eleventh anniversary of his birth,
or on April 15. the fifty-fifth anniversary of his untimely death.
This colossal white marble edifice, designed by Henry Bacon of New York, is
now entirely completed, and all that remains to be done is the placing of the mon
ster statue of Lincoln, designed by the great sculptor, Daniel Chester French,
of Xew York.
The great paintings, twelve by sixty feet in size, by Jules Guerin, America's
noted artist, were placed at each end of the building some weeks since. They
typify the charity, patience, intelligence, patriotism, devotion to high ideals and
kindly humanness of the martyred Chief Fxecutivc.
The total cost of America's tribute to its great leader will be $2,594,000 Its
location if ideal, being situated at tin e xtreme end of Potomac Park on the bank
of the Potomac River, in a direct line with the Washington Monument and the Capitol
Work was commenced on the structure in 1014. Former President i iam
Howard Taft had the honor of digging the first shovelful of dirt. The foi nida
tion goes to bedrock and required one year to build. The superstructure 201
feet 10 inches long by 132 fed wide. The interior of the building is 146 feet 6
inches long and 63 feet wide. The columns surrounding the outside of the I ''.Hid
ing are 44 feet high and 7 feet in diameter at the base. The columns on the in
side of the building are 50 feet high and five feet six inches in diameter the
MORE than a century ago on February 12, in a
log cabin on the edge of the Kentucky wilder
ness, was born a man who was to embody for
all time the true principles of America, Abraham Lin
coln. Throughout the world, wherever the United
States is knwn. Lincoln personifies its noblest thought.
His is a high standard to live up to. If ever the ideal
was made real in life, he did it. If ever knowledge
of human nature grew through faith in human nature,
his did. Our present political leaders who are busy
defining Americanism with an oratory equalled only
by their uarrown- is would do well to ponder upon
this simple man and his great thought.
We ate re-living the unhappy days of disillusion
ment and reaction that followed the Civil War. The
effect of war is always dehumanizing. It does not
make heroes but kills them; and the devastating ef
fectl of hate propaganda and of the years of violence
are felt today far more strongly than after the Civil
War, for our recent war theater was the whole world
and the process of dehumanization has been a uni
versal one
All real students of Lincoln believe that, had he been
spared from the assassin's hand, much of the terrible
suffering of the South during that reconstruction pe
riod would not have been. For Lincoln's great heart
and vision would have held back the greed and ven
geance of the North from its conquered foe. His wide
tolerance would have prevented any setting up of car
pet bag rule over the South and would have avoided
the terrorism of the Ku Klux raids. In other words, he
would have led us more surely and more rapidly from
darkness into light.
During these past five years there has been an
other idealist t had us, a man whose creative faith
and vision are as strong as were those of Lincoln,
though he is less fortunate in the warm human appeal
of personality. And just as surely as Lincoln was cut
d wn by a maniac's hand of violence at the end of
u.ir. just s, surely is Woodrow Wilson's breakdown
of physical health the result of war's strenuous labors.
His high dreams of world democracy and peace were
spun from the very thread of his existence. His League
of Nations is an outcome of prayer and vision as
much as was Lincoln's Fmancipation Proclamation.
Racial and party hatreds, political scheming and
provincial selfishness have struck Wilson down, for
the moment, as surely as the fanaticism of John Wilkes
Booth struck Lincoln. But for all of Lincoln's suffer
ing and loneliness during our national struggle, kind
destiny granted him peace without having to plod
through the weary stages of disillusionment and reac
tion. And so our tender and beloved Abraham Lincoln
was spared what Woodrow Wilson has had to en
counter in the bitterest way.
But even as Lincoln's belief and ideals became the
guiding star of his country will Woodrow Wilson's
vision become a shining reality in the future; and
Lincoln's free union of America will grow into Wood
row Wilson's free union of the world.
At this moment We stand in crying need of a new
Fmancipation Proclamation. At this moment we need
to read with hearts, as well as minds, Lincoln's great
words :
"The real issue is the eternal struggle between two
principles right and wrong throughout the world.
They are the two principles that have stood face to
face from the beginning of time and will ever continue
to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity
the other the divine right of kings. It is the same prin-
ciple in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the
same spirit that says: 'Yon work and toil and earn
bread and I'll eat it.' "
Never was there a time when these principles stood
out more belligerently against each other than now
the divine right of kin as opposed to the common
right ot humanity. And America who claims to have
been fighting against tin divine right ot kings is. in the
present disheartening moment, Upholding that which
hef sons died to banish, Let us measure the present
standards, legal and economic, with the ideals of the
great American, Lincoln
Take, tor example, the question of labor. Would
he he in sympathy with the present alignment of the
wealthy and employer lass with so called law and
order? On which side would he stand, think you, in
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the argument between capital and labor? On mor than
one occasion he spoke against the idea of COnsi rfng
labor as a commodity and declared for the ibsoluH
freedom of the working man. How can we
right relationshin he
WJ i do not have the true principle of representa
either side for conference? Lincoln declared
the slavery of the Negro; but. in so doing, he d
tor freedom of all races and all classes.
Ana conceniiiur th
I - O --. I ' i i I i I i I I III J I it l ill. li
Itary leaders and of our own war obstructionists, uhcre
woiun Lincoln stand.' All who have read his ln ana
speeches realise that a wide and generous tolerance
was one of his greatest attributes. Again and again we
"il -t his pardoning men who, according to the mili
tary standards, were deserving of death. We know
Mjt lie was solicitous f,,r the sensitive pride of K"bert
. A' w,un he surrendered to Grant We know that
e persistently refused to listen to arguments for Pn'
'Munent and vengeance on the part of many of his cabi
" t and advisers, and that, when the Southern arim W
capitulate, he would have no murders, no carrying out
of revenge upon the conquered foe, saying that the
;' ;ar, la(1 been "a war for freedom and not
MOOd feud.
Though he did not live long enough to show what
's policy would have been toward Southern rebels, K
had remained true to his faith and principles,
ml n NVMU,(1 havt' !"'" characterised by
t v ,b .aTi(,1,r,st,:ini,-v "f " "i Hf. The touch
ws h, V; (' ,Vr,rrt Tribute" by Mar shi,man AZ
lrws. the Mory ot his beautiful kindness and sympathy