side, he had no trace of that kind of intellectual or moral pusillanimity which shrinks from a severe course because it means at the moment fearful hardship and suffering. He could always take the long view and detect the cases in which an easy and apparently indulgent accommodation would lead to greater misery in the long run. Thus he never faltered in his belief that the war must be won outright. He knew that if he yielded to those who deplored the slaughter-though no one could possibly deplore it more than he himself did-and patched up a compromise, he would have sown the seeds of unceasing trouble in the future. In the same way, when he had become convinced that conscription was necessary, he was not for a moment intimidated by the Irish rising. "Apply the Draft," he ordered. And when hundreds of rebellious Irishmen were killed and wounded in the riots, he saw that what had happened could not have been otherwise. In his loyalty to his colleagues and his generals, in his perception of the occasions when it was necessary to be adamantine and when it was permissible to yield, in his faculty for comforting while he was compelled to keep in being the forces that daily administered terrible bereavements, Lincoln was a very great gentleman. In bringing our brief appreciation to an end we must not omit to mention Lincoln's superb gift of language. We have so often and during so many years quoted from Lincoln's letters to his generals, from his memorable Second Inaugural, from his dedicatory speech on the battlefield of Gettysburg, and so on, that we must not return to the subject now except in a very few words. Students of litera ture and oratory know that the golden tongue and the inspired pen are not often possessed by the same man. Lincoln could write as well as he could speak. One hardly knows which he did the better. His models were the simplest, most dignified and most. austere founts of the English language. He probably read little, but what he did read he read with amazing discrimination, with affectionate regard and with an infallible selective taste. An eminent representative of the American people has been good enough to say that Westminster Abbey, almost under the shadow of which the Lincoln statue stands, belongs not only to this country, but to the great offshoots of this country. It is not only ours but theirs. In giving us the statue of Lincoln-and, what is very much greater than that, the whole example of Lincolnthe Americans have enabled us to say that what is theirs is also ours. INTERNATIONAL CONCILIATION Published monthly by the American Association for International Conciliation. THE DRAFT SCHEME OF THE PERMANENT COURT OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE WITH A REVIEW BY JAMES BROWN SCOTT AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR INTERNATIONAL CONCILIATION EDITORIAL OFFICE: 407 WEST 117TH STREET, NEW YORK CITY PUBLICATION OFFICE: GREENWICH, CONN. |