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of the stock from which he sprang, its mere vigor and soundness do not explain where this man got his great heart that seemed to comprehend all mankind in its catholic and benignant sympathy, the mind that sat enthroned behind those brooding, melancholy eyes, whose vision swept many a horizon which those about him dreamed not of that mind that comprehended what it had never seen and understood the language of affairs with the ready ease of one to the manner born-or that nature which seemed in its varied richness to be the familiar of men of every way of life. This is the sacred mystery of democracy, that its richest fruits spring up out of soils which no man has prepared and in circumstances amid which they are the least expected. This is a place alike of mystery and of reassurance.

"It is likely that in a society ordered otherwise our own Lincoln could not have found himself or the path of fame and power upon which he walked serenely to his death. In this place it is right that we should remind ourselves of the solid and striking facts upon which our faith in democracy is founded. Many another man besides Lincoln has served the nation in the highest places of counsel and of action whose origin was as humble as his. Though the greatest example of the universal energy, richness, stimulation, and force of democracy, he is only one example among many. The permeating and all-pervasive virtue of the freedom which challenges us in America to make the most of every gift and power we possess, every page of our history serves to emphasize and illustrate. Standing here in this place, it seems almost the whole of the stirring story. "Here Lincoln had his beginnings. Here the end and consummation that great life seem remote and a bit incredible. And yet there was no break anywhere between beginning and end, no lack of natural sequence anywhere. Nothing really incredible happened. Lincoln was unaffectedly as much at home in the White House as he was here.

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"Do you share with me the feeling, I wonder, that he was permanently at home nowhere? It seems to me that in the case of a man-I would rather say of a spirit-like Lincoln, the question where he was is of little significance, that it is always what he was that really arrests our thought and takes hold of our imagination. It is the spirit always that is sovereign.

"Lincoln, like the rest of us, was put through the discipline of the world-a very rough and exacting discipline for him, an indispensable discipline for every man who would know what he is about in the midst of the world's affairs; but his spirit got only its schooling there. It did not derive its character or its vision from the experiences which brought it to its full revelation. The test of every American must always be, not where he is, but what he is. That, also, is of the essence of democracy, and is the moral of which this place is most gravely expressive.

"We would like to think of men like Lincoln and Washington as typical Americans, but no man can be typical who is so unusual as these great men were. It was typical of American life that it should produce such men with supreme indifference as to the manner in which it produced them, and as readily here in this hut as amidst the little circle of cultured gentlemen to whom Virginia owed so much in leadership and example. And Lincoln and Washington were typical Americans in the use they made of their genius. But there will be few such men at best, and we will not look into the mystery of how and why they come. We will only keep the door open for them always, and a hearty welcome-after we have recognized them.

"I have read many biographies of Lincoln; I have sought out with the greatest interest the many intimate stories that are told of him, the narratives of nearby friends, the sketches at close quarters, in which those who had the privilege of being associated with him have tried to depict for us the very man himself in his habit as he lived,' but I have nowhere found a

real intimate of Lincoln's. I nowhere get the impression in any narrative or reminiscence that the writer had in fact penetrated to the heart of his mystery, or that any man could penetrate to the heart of it. That brooding spirit had no real familiars.

"I get the impression that it never spoke out in complete self-revelation, and that it could not reveal itself completely to any one. It was a very lonely spirit that looked out from underneath those shaggy brows and comprehended men without fully communing with them, as if, in spite of all its genial efforts at comradeship, it dwelt apart, saw its visions of duty where no man looked on. There is a very holy and very terrible isolation for the conscience of every man who seeks to read the destiny in affairs for others as well as for himself, for a nation as well as for individuals. That privacy no man can intrude upon. That lonely search of the spirit for the right perhaps no man can assist. This strange child of the cabin kept company with invisible things, was born into no intimacy but that of its own silently assembling and deploying thoughts.

"I have come here today, not to utter a eulogy on Lincoln; he stands in need of none; but to endeavor to interpret the meaning of this gift to the nation of the place of his birth and origin. Is not this an altar upon which we may forever keep alive the vestal fire of democracy as upon a shrine at which some of the deepest and most sacred hopes of mankind may from age to age be rekindled?

"For these hopes must constantly be rekindled, and only those who live can rekindle them. The only stuff that can retain the life-giving heat is the stuff of living hearts. And the hopes of mankind cannot be kept alive by words merely, by constitutions and doctrines of right and codes of liberty. The object of democracy is to transmute these into the life and action of society, the self denial and self-sacrifice of heroic men and women willing to make their lives an embodiment of right and service and enlightened purpose.

"The commands of democracy are as imperative as its privileges and opportunities are wide and generous. Its compulsions are upon us. It will be great and lift a great light for the guidance of our own feet. We are not worthy to stand here unless we ourselves be in deed and in truth real democrats and servants of mankind, ready to give our very lives for the freedom and justice and spiritual exaltation of the great nation which shelters and nurtures us."

A DEVELOPMENT.

In a special article published in a local paper, Samuel Seabury, associate judge of the New York Court of Appeals, declares that courts have given the word "liberty" a different meaning from that intended by the authors of the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution.

"After the Civil War," he says, "the fourteenth amendment was adopted primarily to secure the rights of the freed slaves, and this amendment was, of course, applied to the States as well as to the federal government. This amendment has been held to include corporations as well as natural persons, and the term 'liberty,' as used in the fourteenth amendment, has been given the widest possible interpretation, with the result that a great deal of beneficial legislation ardently desired by the people has been annulled.

"A long list of really good laws have been lost because the courts have held that they violated that 'liberty' which is a creature of judicial interpretation and not what was intended by the framers of the constitution.

"The courts must recognize that much of the modern social and labor legislation which seems nominally to offend against individual liberty is, in fact, designed to secure a wider and truer freedom than has ever before been known to man."

The splinters in the banister of life are unnoticed until we begin to slide down.

In Memoriam

St. Louis, Mo., February 1, 1917.

Local No. 3, I. U. E. C.

Whereas, It has pleased the Almighty to remove from this earth Brother MICHAEL HUGHES, a charter member of Local No. 3, I. U. E. C.

Whereas, In view of the loss which our organization has sustained, as a just tribute to the memory of the departed, who was always a loyal member; therefore, be it

Resolved, That Local No. 3 share in the condolence of the family of the deceased brother; that the charter to be draped in mourning, and these resolutions be spread on the minutes of the Local.

F. W. DOYLE,
JAS. MCINTIRE,

C. E. LOW,

LOUIS E. VOLK,

Recording Secretary.

OTTO P. KLINE,

President.

The Patternmaker's Rule

By the Rev. CHARLES STELZLE

My chum was an apprentice in the pattern shop. Sometimes I ate my lunch with him, and then together we roamed about the shop, studying the new machines as well as the old ones. But one of the things that strongly impressed me was his own set of "shrinkage" rules. I discovered for the first time that every pattern was made larger than the mould was intended to be, because when the pattern was put into the sand, and the mould was cast, the casting came out smaller than the pattern, because of the shrinkage of the cooling metal. For cast iron the rule was made an eighth of an inch larger to the foot; for brass, three-sixteenths, and for steel, one quarter of an inch.

But so our models and our ideals always suffer in the work of embodiment. Beethoven tells us that his beautiful symphony is but an empty echo of the heavenly music he heard in his dreams. It lost its divinest charm when he transferred it to manuscript. Emerson says: "Hitch your wagon to a star." It may be easier to build castles in the air than to construct huts upon the ground, but the man who never has a vision cannot even build a hut that will really be worth while. The dreamer has his place in the world's work, for every machine and every great enterprise was dreamed out before it was worked out. But dreaming and doing must go together. Each by itself alone makes man either a drone or a drudge.

Especially should the intensely practical man-that "hard-headed" fellow learn to centre his thoughts on things that are not always to be found in the work-a-day world. It will give him a breader outlook, and it will round off some of those sharp corners that sometimes irritate his fellows.

That pattern-maker's shrinkage rule taught me that if my life was to square itself with the plans laid out for me by God, so that it would harmonize and fit in with other worthy lives and plans, my ideal as to what I should be and do must be higher and better than the average, for those ideals would suffer grievously when transmuted into practical every-day living. If my ideals were higher than the average, perhaps I would make a pretty good, ordinary sort of a fellow.

An art student once fell asleep over the task given him by his master. As he lay there, the master came into his studio, and with a swift glance saw the narrowness of the student's unfinished work. Taking a crayon he wrote across the face of the canvas the single word: “Amplius"-larger. When the young fellow awoke he grasped his master's idea, and as he realized how cramped had been the vision of his work, he received a new inspiration, and later he became one of the world's greatest painters.

As Jesus looks into every man's life, He writes across it the word "larger" -fuller. He Himself said: "I am cone that ye might have life, and that ye might have it more abundantly." It would truly be a fine thing to measure up even to the best that has already come to us in our visions, for if we were one-half as good as we know how to be, we would be twice as good as we are.

WEEPING FOR NON-UNIONISTS.

The two special loves of the pleader for capitalism are the "widows and orphans" who own stock and bonds and the "poor non-unionist" who is not represented by the union leaders.

The New York Times pours out a whole column of editorial tears upon the head of the "non-unionist" who is forgotten when organized labor starts to raise wages.

Strange as it may seem, no one has ever heard the non-unionist complain about union tyranny. He always leaves this to those who are so eager to represent him. Perhaps it has penetrated into his mind that, in spite of what his volunteer defenders have to say, the union is really his only friend.

The non-unionist is a drag upon the labor movement. By hanging on in his disorganized state he cannot help but be dragged up a little as he helps drag down the union membership. It is for his downward drag that he is loved by the Times. It is because of the upward drag that he retains a weak and wabbly friendship for organized labor.

The non-unionist knows that he gets higher wages because the unions exist. He is secretly ashamed of his own lack of solidarity, cowardice and selfishness which prevents him from uniting with his fellow-workers and fighting like a man for better conditions.

In spite of itself the union must fight his battles. Those who praise him for his meekness and point to his miserable condition only call attention to the advantages of organization. They may succeed in rousing him where union organizers have failed.

So far from wishing to exclude the non-unionist from the benefits of organization the unions spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in trying to extend those benefits to wider circles. It is not because they fear that he will be deprived of these benefits, but because they fear he may get them that organs like the Times bewail the fate of the non-unionist.-Duluth Labor World.

THE HARD COAL SHORTAGE.

We know that the anthracite collieries of Pennsylvania can produce as largely as ever in the history of the industry, and heretofore they were able to produce more than sufficient to supply all demand.

However, it may be hidden by changes of names of operating companies, dummy directors and other ways that are dark, we know that there is a close alliance amounting to at least a thorough mutual understanding between the large coal-producing companies and the transportation companies.

Inasmuch as these companies, through their publicity agents, have seen fit to charge that the coal shortage and the high prices that are demanded are due to the few days that the miners lay idle of their own choice, it is well to consider first, whom does the present famine prices benefit.

Unlike the greater number of the bituminous coal operators, the anthracite operators maintain control of the selling price of coal on the retail market, and profit largely by the enhanced prices.

In Philadelphia federal investigations have determined that the shortage of the supply of anthracite coal and the resulting high prices that have been extorted from the consumers was deliberately planned by those who stood to profit thereby.

The exceedingly high prices are certainly not justified by any increase in the productive cost or in the cost of transportation, but are rapidly developing into a real menace.

A TREASURE HUNT.

Mrs. Clarke found her little daughter holding up a protesting kitten by the tail. "How can you be so cruel to the dear little thing?" cried the mother.

"I'm not being cruel," replied the child. "Dad said last night, when he was playing cards, that there was two shillings and ninepence in the kitty, and I'm trying to shake it out!"

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