“Abraham Lincoln, the spirit incarnate of those who won victory in the Civil War, was the true representative of this people not only for his own generation, but for all time, because he was a man among men; a man who embodied the qualities of his fellow men, but who embodied them to the highest and most unusual degree of perfection; who embodied all that there was in the nation of courage, of wisdom, of gentle patient kindliness, and of common sense.

And great, sad, patient Lincoln led us to victory from '61 to '65 because he did not trust to any mere trick or device because he drove deep down to the heart of thousands and based his reliance on the fundamental virtues of mankind–the old virtues of mankind.

That is the spirit we have to show in facing the problems of today. If we approach those problems in a spirit of hysteria, we will fail as we well deserve to fail, if we approach them in a spirit of envy and rancor and malice toward our fellows. We will not only fail, but we will drag them and us in a common ruin.”