And on April 12, 1921, President Harding, in his speech in the South, felt called upon to declare that

"Congress ought to wipe the stain of barbaric lynching from the banners of a free and orderly, representative democracy." Think of these and of their significance! May not one well wonder whether America did not really forget its Lincoln, even though it profess to honor his memory? And is there not good reason for true Americans to be uneasy, and is there not justification for a yearning on our part to see more of that spirit of Americanism, of that American devotion which was ever Lincoln's even at that early day, when in 1837, in Springfield, he warned against

"the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute wild and furious passions in lieu of the sober judgment of courts; and the worse than savage mobs for the executive ministers of justice."

And is there not cause for our longing to witness a greater manifestation in America of that patriotism which was Lincoln's when he pleaded, in that same Springfield speech:

"Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap; let it be taught in schools, in seminaries and in colleges, let it be written in primers, spelling books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpits, proclaimed in legislative halls and enforced in courts of justice, and in short let it become the political religion of the nation."

But is lynching the only manifestation of a defection from that supreme ideal Americanism which was Lincoln's? The question is no sooner asked than there comes to mind a picture of so-called Americans whose Americanism is so perverted that even they have not the courage to let a long-suffering Heaven look upon their hideous faces, persons who are as anti-American as Kaiserism in full bloom ever was, and as anarchism ever could be. One thinks of people who spell Americanism in the alphabet of terrorism, of people who confuse mediaeval superstition with American idealism, to whom loyalty means bigoted selfishness, for whom our American republican form of government, established as it was in the full view of mankind and for the good of all, proving irksome

and unsatisfying, have proceeded to create the gargoyle of an "Invisible Empire," and, robbing the English alphabet of its "K's," have proceeded to spread these letters throughout the land at the premium of "ten dollars per bonehead," for the financial good of "Wizard" and "Kleagle" and to the dishonor and disgrace of America!

Idiotic as the whole thing appears, the enormous growth of this infamous organization's membership, of its ominous power and its threatened control of the vital machinery of government in many sections of this country, is alarming indeed, threatening as it does the very foundations of democracy, by attempting to make of this land an exclusively native, white, Protestant dominion.

It is not because I am a Jew that I object and protest against this organization. As a Jew I rejoice at the compliment paid American Jews by excluding them from any conceivable identification with this body's lawlessness. I protest against it because of that American idealism which I imbibed from the life and service of a Lincoln. It is as an American that I raise my voice in indignation against the high-handed attempt to endanger America's being, America's continuance, as the land of the free, against the attempt to subject it to the mercies of a bullying, government-subverting, secret crowd of irresponsible mercenaries, who trade in bigotry, barter away America's honor, and commercialize that genuine patriotism which is expressed in our love for, and fidelity to, all that is lofty and true in American life.

We, in America, have a very deep-seated objection to that theory of government which goes under the name of Bolshevism. To us the term has become synonymous with tyranny, with discord, with group-autocracy, with undue restraint, with an impossible and damnable suppression of individual rights. But bear in mind, that Bolshevism has at least the merit of being based upon some semblance of a socio-economic theory. And justified as we may be in our condemnation of Russian Bolshevism and its underlying theory, and mindful as we should be of the dangers to our institutions of Bolshevistic propaganda, I submit, in all earnestness, the fact that the real

agitators on behalf of all that is vicious and vile in Bolshevism, are not the much-abused foreign residents in this country, not they in the foreign settlements of our cities, not they who have come here to find protection under the beneficial sway of American law and institutions, not they who have come here in search of justice and fairness, not they who have fled from the injustice and oppression of European decadence, but they, however distinguished their American ancestry and antecedents, who have encouraged and are encouraging the tarringand-feathering parties in American communities, they who resort to intimidation, to force, to threats and to actual violence, to gain their unholy, contemptible ends. These are the American Bolsheviki, these the ones who constitute the real menace to America, these the elements that are undermining and endangering America's existence!

And so, my friends, when one thinks of the anti-immigration movement and of the elements and causes that are in back of it, elements which I discussed in my discourse last week (Is America a Family Matter?), when one thinks of the curse of lynching and its disgrace, when one thinks of the Ku Klux Klansmen and the menace they constitute, and of the rival of the K. K. K., known as the Royal Red Riders, who differ from each other not at all in essence but only in their desire to reap the golden harvest which the gullible and the simple and the unthinking are willing to provide, when one thinks of the infamies and crimes perpetrated in the name and under the guise of one-hundred-per-centism, one cannot help but fear that many have forgotten Lincoln, and that even though his name be honored by lip utterance, his spirit is not abroad in the land, and that his life and the lesson of his life, the ideals for which he lived and died, are not motivating factors in our midst. They may be oratorical shibboleths, but as such they are only as sand cast into the eyes of the simple, to blind and to deceive, utterly devoid of meaning and significance.

It is well, therefore, for us to pause thoughtfully on the twelfth day of February, and to give a thought to Lincoln, the man and the American, so that we may, perchance, from the example he set, take increased devotion to the cause of Amer

ica to which he gave to the last a full measure of devotion. It is well for us and for America to think of him earnestly, and to resolve, that he shall not have lived and died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have, indeed, a new birth of freedom, and that, conceived as it was in liberty and dignity, it may continue from generation to generation, a beacon light unto the nations, the hope and inspiration of the oppressed and the persecuted, yea of all who dwell in darkness, a nation of warmhearted, generous-inspired, liberty-loving men and women. Then shall Lincoln's life gain new meaning, greater significance, and he shall become for us not Lincoln the forgotten, but in a new and glorified sense, Lincoln the emancipator, America's redeemer!

THE FRIEND OF GOD AND MAN

L

BY REV. M. S. KAUFMAN

IKE leaves of the forest, generations of men have come and gone. The vast majority of them slumber in nameless graves. Sceptered monarch and fettered serf share the same fate. Today they are only dust. Their names are forgotten; their memory has perished. From the deluge of oblivion which overspreads every land and rushes on through the ages, only a few favored souls find refuge in the ark of earthly immortality. Among these few towers the commanding form of Abraham Lincoln, Friend of God and Man. No other is more lofty than he in moral stature; not one more radiant with the brilliancy and beauty of symmetrical character. Shakespeare's tribute to Julius Caesar fits our American hero still more perfectly: "His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him, that Nature might stand up and say to all the world-THIS IS A MAN.”

Fractional men are numerous; unit or whole men are exceedingly scarce. If any son of Adam ever attained unto fullorbed manhood, surely Lincoln did. It was the completeness of his physical, intellectual, moral and spiritual equipment that qualified him so thoroughly for every exigency of his eventful career, however gigantic in its proportions or intricate in its perplexities. How delighted must have been the Creator, our Heavenly Father, when one such actual man stood among his fellows so closely approximating God's own ideal of genuine manliness.

It is my conviction that Lincoln was born great-that is, that he inherited from his ancestors the qualities just suited

Sermon preached at the Pacific Branch, National Soldiers' Home, California, on Lincoln Sunday, Feb. 12, 1922, before a congregation, chiefly composed of Civil War Veterans.