o see the right, let us strive on to finish
the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him
who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and for his
orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting
peace among ourselves, and with all nations.

The war ended on April 9th of this same year, and on April 14th, the
President, weary with the cares of state, but with the burden of the
war clouds lifted, had gone to Ford's Theatre in Washington for an
evening's entertainment and pleasure, accompanied by Mrs. Lincoln. The
box which the President occupied had been most elaborately decorated
with the flag of the country. His coming had been heralded abroad and
the audience that had assembled in his honor was large, brilliant, and
joyously happy over the assured preservation of the Union. In the
midst of the play, the assassin, J. Wilkes Booth, entered the box and
fired the fatal shot. The body of the bleeding President was taken to
a house across the street where the next morning at 7:20 o'clock he
died. Thus the emancipator of the slave, the friend of the whole
people and the savior of our country died, a martyr to the cause of
freedom.

Washington has been called "the aristocrat," and Lincoln "the man of
the people." The one had culture, wealth, and social position; the
other lacked all of these in his early years. Lincoln's early life was
cradled in the woods, and all of life out of doors had been his in the
new and pioneer states of the {338} wilderness. He grew up not knowing
many people, but somehow in his up-coming there was developed in his
life a great heart full of tenderness and kindly feeling. Doubtless it
was the very hardships of life that made him what he was. At any rate,
he was one of the greatest and noblest figures in all history. He was
called "Honest Abe" by those who knew him because always, even in
little things, he wanted to see perfect justice done; and thus it was,
when he came to things of large importance, that the man was only a
boy grown tall, not only in stature but in the things that make for
righteousness in a nation.

The Spanish-American War--1889

The war with Spain was not of this country's seeking. The island of
Cuba, whose distress had aroused the sympathy of the whole world, was
our near neighbor, and to sit idly by and witness the inhuman
treatment practised by the Spanish soldiery upon the helpless
islanders would hardly be a