JUDGE CREIGHTΟΝ Lincoln, the Citizen MR. PRESIDENT-I thank you and, through you and the committee, I thank all the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution, for the honor conferred upon me by placing my name on the program for this occasion. The announcement made by your president suggests to my mind that but for the fact that the venerable Judge Zane, so respected and so loved by all, is unable by reason of the weight of years to make the long journey from his present home in Salt Lake City, the place assigned to me would have been assigned to him; and after Judge Zane our distinguished fellow-citizen, General Orendorff, would have received this honor but for the fact that he is confined to his home by severe illness. Concerning the subject assigned I want to make this statement: "Lincoln, the Citizen," comprises all there was of Lincoln-all his life, all his labors, all his achievements. It is apparent that no discussion in detail within the time here allotted to this subject could greatly enlighten or entertain an audience composed almost wholly of Springfield citizens at so early an hour upon a day so filled with world-wide interesting exercises as our program for this day discloses. No one can recognize this more than I. I shall detain you but a short time and hope to keep within the limit of time allotted me. This occasion is an epoch-marking occasionthe celebration of the centennial of the birth of Lincoln in the city where he spent substantially, all of his mature life and in the very shadow of the monument that marks his resting place. More than a year ago a number of patriotic Lincolnloving Springfield citizens begun to plan a Lincoln centennial celebration that should be something more than local a celebration that should be State-wide, Nation-wide, World-wide in its scope. They procured the Congress to make Lincoln's birthday a national holiday; they procured the General Assembly to create a commission to make arrangements for the celebration and they organized and incorporated the Lincoln Centennial association. This association is a perpetual associa tion and now consists of five hundred and ten life members. Its purpose is to be an immortal guard of honor to the memory of Abraham Lincoln. Today in every state of this Union of States, in every country upon which the sun shines, the centennial anniversary of the birth of Lincoln is being celebrated and in every language that has a literature. I remember when I was a boy at school I was assigned to compose and deliver an oration on Abraham Lincoln. While Judge Cartwright was speaking the opening sentence of that oration recurred to my mind: "If the question were to be asked 'What one man has engrossed the attention of the civilized world above all others for the last seven years?' the answer must be Abraham Lincoln." And today if the question were to be asked, "What one character is engrossing the attention of the civilized world above that of all others?" the answer still must be that of Abraham Lincoln. I never personally knew Mr. Lincoln. The tragedy of his death occurred when I was yet a boy. But the name of Lincoln was a household word in my father's home from my earliest recollection. I shall not go into all the interesting history of why that was so. I shall simply state a few conclusions and take it for granted that a Springfield audience knows all the evidentiary facts. Soon after I came to full manhood I became a citizen of Springfield. I came here with a mind and heart hungry for every scrap of truth that I could glean concerning any feature of his life. It was my good fortune to know Major Stuart, his preceptor and first law-partner; Judge Stephen T. Logan, his second law-partner and, in a sense, a preceptor after the lines of whose mind Lincoln trained his own to think; William H. Herndon, his partner for the seventeen years that preceded his election to the Presidency and his nominal partner during all the years he held that office; Hon. Ninian Edwards, in whose house Lincoln wooed and won and wedded; Captain Kidd, the crier of the court, who remembered more of the stories that Lincoln actually did tell than any other man; Judge Benjamin F. Edwards, James C. Conkling, Judge James H. Matheny, Judge S. H. Treat, Milton Hay, Governor Palmer, General McClernand, Col. John Williams, George Black and many more who have since gone home-whose names will readily occur to all of you as personal friends of Mr. Lincoln. All these and many others throughout the city and country were my personal friends with whom I was on social terms and, with respect to all that pertained to Lincoln, I think on intimate and confidential terms. And of the men who knew Lincoln -these still living in this community-I have had the good fortune to know such men as Dr. William Jayne, John W. Bunn, Senator Cullom, Dr. Pasfield, Dr. Converse, Clinton L. Conkling, Charles Ridgley, and many others. I believe I have come in personal contact with almost every man that has lived in this city or this county since my coming here who really ever had any personal acquaintance with Mr. Lincoln and have talked with them about him by the hour, by the day-in the aggregate I believe I might say-by the year. I have gathered every scrap of available information bearing upon every feature and act of his life; and the consensus of it all is that Abraham Lincoln was in very truth, in all the petty details of private life as well as in his public career, a Model Citizen. He was in every respect and in every true sense of the word a moral man; he was diligent and painstaking in business; he was honest; he was kind; he was loyal to his friends without taint of selfishness; he was just, |