ABRAHAM LINCOLN BY BOOKER T. WASHINGTON You ask that which he found a piece of property and turned into a free American citizen to speak to you tonight on Abraham Lincoln. I am not fitted by ancestry or training to be your teacher to-night, for, as I have stated, I was born a slave. My first knowledge of Abraham Lincoln came in this way: I was awakened early one morning before the dawn of day, as I lay wrapt in a bundle of rags on the dirt floor of our slave cabin, by the prayers of my mother, just before leaving for her day's work, as she was kneeling over my body, earnestly praying that Abraham Lincoln might succeed, and that one day she and her boy might be free. You give me the opportunity here this evening to celebrate with you and the nation the answer to that prayer. Says the Great Book somewhere, "Tho a man die, yet shall he live." If this is true of the ordinary man, how much more true is it of the hero of the hour and the hero of the century-Abraham Lincoln! One hundred years of the life and influence of Lincoln is the story of the struggles, the trials, ambitions, and triumphs of the people of our complex American civilization. Interwoven into the warp and woof of this human complexity is the moving story of men and women of nearly every race and color in their progress from slavery to freedom, from poverty to wealth, from weakness to power, from ignorance to intelligence. Knit into the life of Abraham Lincoln is the story and success of the nation in the blending of all tongues, religions, colors, races, into one composite nation, leaving each group and race free to live its own separate social life, and yet all a part of the great whole. If a man die, shall he live? Answering this question as applied to our martyred President, perhaps you expect me to confine my words of appreciation to the great boon which, through him, was conferred upon my race. My undying gratitude and that of ten millions of my race for this and yet more! To have been the instrument used by Providence through which four millions of slaves, now grown into ten millions of free citizens, were made free, would bring eternal fame within itself, but this is not the only claim that Lincoln has upon our sense of gratitude and appreciation. By the side of Armstrong and Garrison, Lincoln lives today. In the very highest sense he lives in the present more potently than fifty years ago, for that which is seen is temporal, that which is unseen is eternal. He lives in the 32,000 young men and women of the negro race learning trades and successful occupations; in the 200,000 farms acquired by those he freed; in the more than 400,000 homes built; in the forty-six banks established and 10,000 stores owned; in the $550,000,000 worth of taxable property in hand; in the 28,000 public schools existing with 30,000 teachers; in the 170 industrial schools and colleges; in the 23,000 ministers and 26,000 churches. But, above all this, he lives in the steady and unalterable determination of ten millions of black citizens to continue to climb year by year the ladder of the highest usefulness and to perfect themselves in strong, robust character. For making all this possible Lincoln lives. But, again, for a higher reason he lives to-night in every corner of the Republic. To set the physical man free is much. To set the spiritual man free is more. So often the keeper is on the inside of the prison bars and the prisoner on the outside. As an individual, grateful as I am to Lincoln for freedom of body, my gratitude is still greater for freedom of soul-the liberty which permits one to live up in that atmosphere where he refuses to permit sectional or racial hatred to drag down, to warp and narrow his soul. The signing of the Emancipation Proclamation was a great event, and yet it was but the symbol of another, still greater, and more momentous. We who celebrate this anniversary should not forget that that same pen which gave freedom to four millions, of African slaves, at the same time struck the shackles from the souls of twentyseven millions of Americans of another color. In any country, regardless of what its laws say, wherever people act upon the idea that the disadvantage of one man is the good of another, there slavery exists. Wherever in any country the whole people feel that the happiness of all is dependent upon the happiness of the weakest, there freedom exists. In abolishing slavery, Lincoln proclaimed the principle that, even in the case of the humblest and weakest of mankind, the welfare of each is still the good of all. In reestablishing in this country the principle that, at bottom, the interests of humanity and of the individual are one, he freed men's souls from spiritual bondage; he freed them to mutual helpfulness. Henceforth no man of any race, either in the North or in the South, need feel constrained to fear or hate his brother. By the same token that Lincoln made America free, he pushed back the boundaries of freedom, and fair play will never cease to spread and grow in power till throughout the world all men shall know the truth, and the truth shall make them free. Lincoln in his day was wise enough to recognize that which is true in the present, and for all time: that in a state of slavery and ignorance man renders the lowest and most costly form of service to his fellows. In a state of freedom and enlightenment he renders the highest and most helpful form of service. The world is fast learning that of all forms of slavery there is none that is so hurtful and degrading as that form of slavery which tempts one human being to hate another by reason of his race or color. One man can not hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him. One who goes through life with his eyes closed against all that is good in another race is weak |