held in his keeping the Proclamation of Emancipation until his
friend President Lincoln was ready to issue it. I remember the
talk he gave at Hull-House on one of our early celebrations of
Lincoln's birthday, his assertion that Lincoln was no cheap
popular hero, that the "common people" would have to make an
effort if they would understand his greatness, as Lincoln
painstakingly made a long effort to understand the greatness of
the people. There was something in the admiration of Lincoln's
contemporaries, or at least of those men who had known him
personally, which was quite unlike even the best of the devotion
and reverent understanding which has developed since. In the
first place, they had so large a fund of common experience; they
too had pioneered in a western country, and had urged the
development of canals and railroads in order that the raw prairie
crops might be transported to market; they too had realized that
if this last tremendous experiment in self-government failed here,
it would be the disappointment of the centuries and that upon
their ability to organize self-government in state, county, and
town depended the verdict of history. These men also knew, as
Lincoln himself did, that if this tremendous experiment was to
come to fruition, it must be brought about by the people
themselves; that there was no other capital fund upon which to
draw. I remember an incident occurring when I was about fifteen
years old, in which the conviction was driven into my mind that
the people themselves were the great resource of the country. My
father had made a little address of reminiscence at a meeting of
"the old settlers of Stephenson County," which was held every
summer in the grove beside the mill, relating his experiences in
inducing the farmers of the county to subscribe for stock in the
Northwestern Railroad, which was the first to penetrate the county