Ottawa Hills High School - Legend Yearbook (Grand Rapids, MI)

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.,,. .L -- - . , '49 f V gil f vf 0 , ' 1 f - ' 5 Q , 01, Y . Q- Q 0 V I - ' I - I -gi - ' - g - 1 . I 4 I - f in ffm' cf 'We cgfuf' cgzlxn- :ia-s L il derision and ridicule, suspicion and misrepresentation, burdened with a thousand trials and crushed under the weight of a thousand nerve-shattering responsibilities, and finally look upon himself, the mortal victim of a crazed secessionist, would he still have been agreeable, I know that his voice would not have faltered in the words, I accept . It was while the nation was in the throes of civil strife that the soul of Lincoln displayed itself in all its real grandeur. Steadfast as the ideal he represented, he was the defender, the protector, the mediator, the friend. The attacks upon the ever retreating Union forces were no less depressing than the attacks made upon him by disappointed office seekers, repulsed politicians and an inimical press and even by members of the cabinet. Through it all he maintained a magnificent tran- quility. Tales of his conduct during this period are almost legendary in the height of their motive and the breadth of their intent. With a soul which knew not north or south, but only Union, with a faith which knew not black or white, but only the people, he went on to the fulfillment of the great task which destiny had given him. During the momentous period which followed his second election to the presi- dency, Lincoln wrote this letter to Mrs. Bixby a widow who had suffered deeply in the loss of five sons slain in battle,- My dear Madam: I have been shown in the files of the War Depart- ment a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom. Out of such a soul came the life we admire and the memory which we bless today. Without it we have not a Lincoln, with it we have all that was Lincoln. A heart which knew only the beats of human kindliness, a heart which uplifted and made better all who came within its touch, a heart which stretched out its illustrious influence and impressed its benign virtue over all. At the zenith of his career he was called. I will not trouble you with the painful details of that event in Fordls theatre on the night of April 14, 1865. Gently they carried him to the little house across the street. Reverently they laid him upon the bed. In the privacy of that apartment there had gathered only the intimate friends of the family and members of the Cabinet. Everywhere there was tumult except in the quietude of that small room. Let us think that in those last few moments there came to him a divine assurance that by the shedding of his blood, by the giving of that last full measure of devotionv, a new nation should arise, reunited in spirit, regenerated in ideal, reconsecrated in faith, re- deemed in right, which in his name and by his example should plead at the bar of the world for a nobler humanity, a higher civilization, for an awakened social conscience. Perhaps a thousand years from now, the memory of Lincoln, the Constitution- alist, Lincoln, the Defender of the Union, Lincoln, the Emancipator of the Slaves, will have vanished from the thoughts of men, but the superb character, the infinite sympathy, the inspired soul of Lincoln, The hfan, belongs only to Eternity.

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'f i t-1' , ' ' L. r . - ' 1 Q. , V fi ew cas- L ff su Lf on c4 Qn flu, :flaw c-X in JW The Soul gf coin Prize Winning Omtion in Lincoln Contfftfof Senior High School Hfld Ffbrnary II, 1927 HARRY E. GLASS, '28 NO man's life has been the subject of such comprehensive analysis and thorough research in the last half century as has Abraham Lincoln's. Every phase of his career has found publication in the works and through the efforts of universally famous historians, biographers and playwrights. Therefore it is my intention to deviate from a reiteration of what everyone knows to an explanation of that which is least known, but is still more intriguing-the soul of the man. When we reflect that it was in a rude log cabin on the wide western slopes of the Appalachians that he was given birth, born without a distinguished ancestry, reared without an education save that gleaned from a few cherished books, sent out into the world in poverty, a youth spent in the squalidness of privation and oppressed with the stigma of an ungainly appearance, a young manhood that knew only the dint of onerous labor, when we reflect that it was a man born under such circumstances and grown in such an environment, who later was to hold the des- tinies of the nation in his hand, guide it to safety through the greatest crisis it had ever faced, and himself attain by force of character alone the summits of the sublime, perhaps we can comprehend the spiritual significance of the name!Lincoln. I-Ie was, both of necessity and preference, sympathetic with the feelings, ideas and aspirations of the common people. In him burned their desires and their hopes together with their hatreds and dislikes. There is nothing which inculcates in one a love for and an appreciation of liberty so much as to gaze upon a spectacle of unmitigated oppression. Lincoln had barely attained his majority when that experience was to be his. While in New Orleans he witnessed the unwilling sub- jugation of one race to another and the misery attendant upon such a process. Whereas his opinion regarding slavery had previously been that it was wrong, what he witnessed in the slave market of that great southern city aroused in him an emotion which he had never felt before. Turning to the friend who was with him he said, If I can ever hit that thing I will hit it hardlw How little did he realize that that chance was soon to be his, that in thirty years he would lead the forces which would sweep that institution from the face of American civiliza- tion. Charity must surely be given a high place in the character of Lincoln, charity tempered with sound judgment and a wealth of human understanding, charity which was no less gracious and beautiful toward the simple people from which he sprang as the charity which later decreed the pardoning of the South and the forgiving of its infidelity. A great star was set for him and a great task to be given him. As I picture Lincoln standing in his home, confronted by the delegation offering him the nomina- tion and certain election to the presidency, had it been given him at that moment to peer into the future, gaze upon the nation in arms, see himself the center of

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