When they had the second funeral, I was invited among others, and went out to see that same coffin put back in the tomb at Springfield. Around the tomb stood Lincoln's old neighbors, to whom he was just ``Old Abe.'' Of course that is all they would say.
Did you ever see a man who struts around altogether too large to notice an ordinary working mechanic? Do you think he is great? He is nothing but a puffed-up balloon, held down by his big feet. There is no greatness there.
Who are the great men and women? My attention was called the other day to the history of a very little thing that made the fortune of a very poor man. It was an awful thing, and yet because of that experience he--not a great inventor or genius--invented the pin that now is called the safety-pin, and out of that safety-pin made the fortune of one of the great aristocratic families of this nation.
A poor man in Massachusetts who had worked in the nail-works was injured at thirty-eight, and he could earn but little money. He was employed in the office to rub out the marks on the bills made by pencil memorandums, and he used a rubber until his hand grew tired. He then tied a piece of rubber on the end of a stick and worked it like a plane. His little girl came and said, ``Why, you have a patent, haven't you?'' The father said afterward, ``My daughter told me when I took that stick and put the rubber on the end that there was a patent, and that was the first thought of that.'' He went to Boston and applied for his patent, and every one of you that has a rubber-tipped pencil in your pocket is now paying tribute to the millionaire. No capital, not a penny did he invest in it. All was income, all the way up into the millions.
But let me hasten to one other greater thought.
``Show me the great men and women who live in Philadelphia.'' A gentleman over there will get up and say: ``We don't have any great men in Philadelphia. They don't live here. They live away off in Rome or St. Petersburg or London or Manayunk, or anywhere else but here in our town.'' I have come now to the apex of my thought. I have come now to the heart of the whole matter and to the center of my struggle:
Why isn't Philadelphia a greater city in its greater wealth? Why does New York excel Philadelphia? People say, ``Because of her harbor.''
Why do many other cities of the United States get ahead of Philadelphia now? There is only one answer, and that is because our own people talk down their own city. If there ever was a community on earth that has to be forced ahead, it is the city of Philadelphia. If we are to have a boulevard, talk it down; if we are going to have better schools, talk them down; if you wish to have wise legislation, talk it down; talk all the proposed improvements down. That is the only great wrong that I can lay at the feet of the magnificent Philadelphia that has been so universally kind to me. I say it is time we turn around in our city and begin to talk up the things that are in our city, and begin to set them before the world as the people of Chicago, New York, St. Louis, and San Francisco do. Oh, if we only could get that spirit out among our people, that we can do things in Philadelphia and do them well!
Arise, ye millions of Philadelphians, trust in God and man, and believe in the great opportunities that are right here not over in New York or Boston, but here--for business, for everything that is worth living for on earth. There was never an opportunity greater. Let us talk up our own city.
But there are two other young men here to-night, and that is all I will venture to say, because it is too late. One over there gets up and says, ``There is going to be a great man in Philadelphia, but never was one.'' ``Oh, is that so? When are you going to be great?'' ``When I am elected to some political office.'' Young man, won't you learn a lesson in the primer of politics that it is a _prima facie_ evidence of littleness to hold office under our form of government? Great men get into office sometimes, but what this country needs is men that will do what we tell them to do.
This nation--where the people rule--is governed by the people, for the people, and so long as it is, then the office-holder is but the servant of the people, and the Bible says the servant cannot be greater than the master. The Bible says, ``He that is sent cannot be greater than Him who sent Him.'' The people rule, or should rule, and if they do, we do not need the greater men in office.
If the great men in America took our offices, we would change to an empire in the next ten years.
I know of a great many young women, now that woman's suffrage is coming, who say, ``Iam going to be President of the United States some day.'' I believe in woman's suffrage, and there is no doubt but what it is coming, and Iam getting out of the way, anyhow. I may want an office by and by myself; but if the ambition for an office influences the women in their desire to vote, I want to say right here what I say to the young men, that if you only get the privilege of casting one vote, you don't get anything that is worth while. Unless you can control more than one vote, you will be unknown, and your influence so dissipated as practically not to be felt. This country is not run by votes. Do you think it is?
It is governed by influence. It is governed by the ambitions and the enterprises which control votes. The young woman that thinks she is going to vote for the sake of holding an office is ****** an awful blunder.
That other young man gets up and says, ``There are going to be great men in this country and in Philadelphia.'' ``Is that so? When?'' ``When there comes a great war, when we get into difficulty through watchful waiting in Mexico; when we get into war with England over some frivolous deed, or with Japan or China or New Jersey or some distant country. Then I will march up to the cannon's mouth; I will sweep up among the glistening bayonets; I will leap into the arena and tear down the flag and bear it away in triumph.
