HERALD Official Organ Of The Slavonic Benevolent Order Of The State Of Texas. Founded 1897. BENEVOLENCE
VOLUME 55 — NO. 6
HUMANITY
BROTHERHOOD
Postmaster: Please Send Form 3579 with Undeliverable Copies to: SUPREME LODGE, SPJST, FOB 100, TEMPLE, TEX. 76501
FEBRUARY 11, 1967
FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK LESSONS FROM LINCOLN
QUOTES .. .
Each year around this time, newspapers and magazines around the world turned their attention to the birth of one of America's great sons, Abraham Lincoln. Bo much has been written, so much has been spoken about the man, that one would think there is scarcely anything left that has not been said or written by somebody somewhere.
"If you want to gather honey, don't kick over the beehive." • • I learned 30 years ago that it is foolish to scold. I have enough trouble overcoming my own limitations without fretting over the fact that God has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of intelligence." —John Wanamaker
The story of Lincoln's rise from the humble log cabin of his birth, his humble background, his career as railsplitter, storekeeper, lawyer and congressman, and, finally, as President, is known to all Americans. His tolerance, compassion, and belief in the dignity of man, his common sense and humor, have all made Lincoln a symbol of our type of democracy and a revered figure wherever free men live.
Here lies the body of William Jay, Who died maintaining his right of way.. He was right, dead right, as he sped along, But he's just as dead as if he had been wrong.
Lincoln's tolerance of others was best demonstrated during the Civil War, when he rightfully had reason and cause to be bitter against bad luck and fate. His topnotch generals had all blundered, one after another, and the tide of war was going against the Union forces. Those blunders drove Lincoln to pacing the floor in despair. He could have fired them all. Half the nation savagely condemned the generals, but Lincoln, "with malice towards none, with charity for all," held his temper, or, in modern parlance,
"If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent's good will." —Benjamin ranklin his "cool". One of his favorite quotations was "judge not, lest you be judged." When certain factions in his government bitterly criticized the South, he admonished with: "Don't criticize them; they are just doing what we would under similar circumstances." One of the times Lincoln had a genuine unquestioned right to be furious
and criticize was when one of his generals, General Meade, disobeyed Lincoln's orders in an attack against General Lee. General Meade, did the very opposite of what he was supposed to do. He hesitated and procrastinated. He made all sorts of excuses. The final result was that the bulk of General Lee's forces escaped unharmed. Lincoln was furious. He raged that he could have done better himself. In bitter disappointment, he sat clown and wrote General Meade a conservative but nonetheless bitter letter expressing his disappointment with him. What did general Meade do when he read the letter? He never received it. Lincoln never mailed it. It was later found among Lincoln's personal papers. Most scholars' guesses hinge on the premise that Lincoln, after writing the letter in a fit of rage, later pondered over the implications of the letter. He tried to place himself in General Meade's predicament and began to conclude that perhaps he would have done what the general had done under the circumstances. President Lincoln had learned from bitter experience that biting rebuke and criticism almost invariably end in futility. There is a lesson here for all of us. We would do well to heed Lincoln's passion for tolerance and understand-