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 67th Congress, ) HOUSE OE REPRESENTATIVES. ( - Report 
 
 1st Session, j \ No. 31 j # 
 
 LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY A HOLIDAY IN THE DISTRICT OF 
 
 COLUMBIA. 
 
 July 29, 1921. — Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be pri .tea 
 
 Mr. Focht, from the Committee on the District of Columbia, submittt^ 
 
 the following 
 
 REPORT. 
 
 ? -^ [To accompany H. R. 2310.] 
 
 The Committee on the District of Columbia, to which was referred 
 the bill (H. R. 2310) to declare Lincoln's birthday a legal holi- 
 day in the District of Columbia, having had the same under con- 
 sideration, report the same back with the recommendation that it 
 do pass. 
 
 In support of the passage of the bill the following historical data 
 was furnished the committee by Mr. E. W. Oyster. 
 
 The effect of the passage of this measure would be the observance 
 of Lincoln's birthday as a legal holiday in the District of Columbia 
 in the same manner as is now provided for the observance of Wash- 
 ington's birthday. 
 
 The legislatures of 26 States have passed laws making Lincoln's 
 birthday a legal holiday, as follows : 
 
 California. 
 
 Colorado. 
 
 Connecticut. 
 
 Delaware. 
 
 Illinois. 
 
 Indiana. 
 
 Iowa. 
 
 Kansas. 
 
 Kentucky. 
 
 Michigan. 
 
 Minnesota. 
 
 Missouri. 
 
 Nebraska. 
 
 Nevada. 
 
 New Jersey. 
 New York. 
 North Dakota. 
 New Mexico. 
 Oregon. 
 Pennsylvania. 
 South Dakota. 
 Utah. 
 
 Washington. 
 West Virginia. 
 Wisconsin. 
 Wyoming. 
 
 A similar bill, unanimously reported from another committee 
 during the second session of the Sixty-sixth Congress, passed the 
 House by a large majority on March 17, 1920, but was not reported 
 to the Senate from the committee to which it^had been referred in 
 that body. 
 
Ci-3 
 
 7 
 
 BIRTHDAY A HOLIDAY IX DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.^ $ 
 
 T , ■ ]M Jg been unanimously mdorsea 1 by the Department of the 
 D bs bl1 1 Tatid \nnv of the Republic, oil several occasions. 
 1 ". ', ,m! f C il , • gresomtion was unanimously passed bn February 12, 
 
 1921: 
 
 , ,,. DpDftrt men1 of the Potomac, Grand Army of the Republic, in 
 I : " ' J , ! ■',!,„, Relational Church, Washington, D. C. tor the 
 :•„},' ■ name and principles of Abraham Lincoln 
 
 purpose oi ' ul r 1 , f,. ,' i I en bis birthday should be declared a ega 
 
 lIM l • ,,i: " ' " ' , : iDgton'sbirihdayb^beenmadealeml 
 
 Uda> in ft} ffiSK bu5 Urv earnestly petitions Se 
 
 »"'"' hl >' u , : 1 -,..!l State SSSwci ■ ES declaring the birthday ol Lmcoln a legal 
 
 I 
 
 .: ' re is no doubt in the minds of the majority of your committee 
 1 h , immense majority oi the American people who love him and 
 fchat £ KruicipS would heartily approve the aetion of Congress 
 Ens honoring the name of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 ! .', , 1 f thi> DistrTcl have not the power to declare Lmcoln b 
 
 1 , , ii.. Tl,.,t BMtliranfv nniW the Constitution 
 
 mil' 
 in 
 
 rfhp iir i> lis 1'lMlin unvo uui ui« F v.„ ^. — ,7; ,-, ,• 
 
 !,.,,,! holiday. That authority under the Constitution 
 
 to alone ' ,v,.' In view of the fact that h.s greatest work 
 
 ,,\ l ",,,,,, fc hS his life was, sacrificed here as a martyr to the 
 
 'rmciDles of liberty and self-eovernment "A government oi the 
 
 O bv he people, and for the people £ it seems both fitting and 
 
 D ?oper tSat In' name and memory should I be honored as Washing- 
 
 ,„, ~ name and memory have been honored. . 
 
 V Washington is revered and Honored as the Father of his Country, 
 
 £ Abraham Lincoln enrolled as the greatest maxtyr to human 
 
 Uberty who^ve his life in Bupport and defense of that Government 
 
 ToSer their names are blended in one immortal wreatii-both 
 
 ,,,,,,,,- the names that were not born to die. 
 
 T ,7 , Imous crime of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin, caused 
 , rrI 11( " : „. lt( .l, ..now throughout the civilized world, and many 
 Hue beautiful tributes of love and sympathy received bv_ our 
 rnment from foreign Governmente, ™"F^^^.E££ 
 individuals, which were printed in a Large volume entitled In bute 
 of the Nations ... A-braham Lincoln." Several ot hese tributes bav« 
 been selected and incorporated in this report, as Eollows: 
 
 [From Appendix to Diplomatic Correspondon • 
 
 A.BRAHAM LINCOl N. 
 
 Bj Hon. Baj • u>ob Camacho Roland. 
 
 ted tn m La Opinion Bogota) 1 
 
 I which we head these lin« *rill be one of the most gjngj**^ 
 fruitful in great men and til transmit to i beadnnn 
 
 men w] ' ; V-v .\ , 
 
 . M wil enjo 5 a histoi y,a 1. . e 
 
 lie who, controlling the turbulenl waves of _to 
 od order with liberty, and maintaii 
 I. the l dsof Ltesocietj were being brown 
 
 presenl luni brandishing a naming 
 potic councils the [ate o 11' 
 , putting his foot on the .1 •■ 
 truth ton 
 „ humble being and inspi 
 ranee to draw U Bafelj from W 
 
 inn 
 
 
 
LINCOLN S BIRTHDAY A HOLIDAY IN DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 3 
 
 ocean, through breakers and in spite of hostile winds, to the port of safety and of 
 triumph. 
 
 * # * # * # * 
 
 When, in 1863, propositions of peace were talked of by the South, Mr. Lincoln 
 did not hesitate to declare his willingness to submit the validity of the emancipation 
 proclamation to the Supreme Court and the approval or disapproval of Congress, 
 it was only after so much blood had been shed that it cried to heaven for recompense, 
 that he judged the only price of this was the irrevocable, complete, and absolute 
 extermination of slavery, and on that ground alone he manifested a disposition not to 
 yield. 
 
 The last phase of his public character, and which most appeals to our lively sym- 
 pathy, was his magnanimity. The formidable and groundless insurrection, which had 
 threatened to destroy the unity and force of the country, subdued, his first and only 
 purpose was to reorganize the conquered territories, returning them their existence 
 and their own governments, without retaining for a moment longer than necessary 
 and just the discretionary power with which the rebellion had armed him. He 
 never thought from the first of humbling and punishing, or of showing that healthy 
 energy which is always the inevitable source of armed reaction. The stupid assassin, 
 more stupid than his murderous bullet, without doubt did not think that, amidst the 
 dangerous fermentation of passions which follows a day of victory over brethren, the 
 surest guaranty of restoration and liberty to the South was the noble life of Mr. Lincoln . 
 In the vulgar sense of human language, Abraham Lincoln was certainly not a great 
 man. He had not the dazzling prestige of victorious achievements in war; he was 
 not a conqueror of peoples and countries; he never enveloped his plans in the gloomy 
 obscurity of mystery or dissimulation; he never took to himself the credit of results 
 which followed from the inscrutable decrees of Providence; he was free from that 
 satanic pride which, in others, supplies the want of true greatness. But he possessed 
 something greater than all these, which all the splendors of earthly greatness can not 
 equal. He was the instrument of God. The Divine Spirit, which in another day of 
 regeneration took the form of an humble artisan of Galilee, had again clothed itself 
 in the flesh and bones of a man of lowly birth and degree. That man was Abraham 
 Lincoln, the liberator and savior of the greatest Republic of modern times. That 
 irresistible force, called an idea, seized upon an obscure and almost common man, 
 burnt him with its holy fire, purified him in its crucible, and raised him to the apex 
 of human greatness, even to being the redeemer of a whole race of men. 
 
 He whose boyhood was passed at the plow handle in the then solitary prairies of 
 Illinois, whose early manhood was dragged out in fatigue at the oar of a Mississippi 
 River flatboat, and the only repose of whose maturer years was the noisy labors of 
 the forum, that man was called to be the arbiter of the fate of his country — the great 
 man of state, whose destiny it was to manage the rudder during the most frightful 
 storm of the age. In the critical hour of trial and danger all rested on him. * * * 
 There is in his last words something of the fire of the old prophets. ''Fondly do we 
 hope," he said in his inaugural address of the 4th of March last, ''Fondly do we hope, 
 fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may pass away. Yet if God 
 wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's 250 years of unre- 
 quited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash be paid 
 by another drawn by the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said, 
 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'" And that nothing 
 should be wanting to complete the true grandeur of his life, the hand of crime 
 snatched it from him in the midst of the triumph of his cause and bound his temples, 
 already pale from the vigils and anguish of four years, with the resplendent crown of 
 the martyr. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln is dead, but his work is finished and sealed forever with the 
 veneration which God has given to the blood of martyrs. He who was yesterday a 
 man is to-day an apostle; he who was the center at which the shots of malice and 
 hatred was aimed is now consecrated by the sacrament of death; he who was yesterday 
 a power is to-day a prestige, sacred, irresistible. His voice is louder and more potent 
 from the mansion of martyrs than from the Capitol, and the cry which was boldly 
 raised among the living is mute before the majesty of the tomb. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln passes to the side of Washington — the one the father, the other 
 the savior of a great Nation. 
 
 * • * * * * * * 
 
 This great work has cost a great price. Humanity will have to mourn yet for many 
 years to come the horrors of that Civil War; but above the blood of its victims, above 
 the bones of its dead, above the ashes of desolate hearths, will arise the great figure 
 of Abraham Lincoln as the most acceptable sacrifice offered by the nineteenth cen^ 
 
IX DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 
 
 tury in expiation of the great crime of the sixteenth. Above all the anguish and 
 tears of that immense hecatomb will appear the shade of Abraham Lincoln as the 
 symbol of hope and pardon. 
 
 (Mr. Motely to Mr. Seward.) 
 
 Legation of the United States, 
 
 Vienna, April SO, 1865. 
 Sik: The news of the great tragedy which lias brought desolation upon our country, 
 in the very momenl of our highest joy, reached this place on the LMith. This is the 
 61 which leaves Vienna since the receipt of the intelligence. 
 I Bhall not even attempt to picture the consternation which the event has caused 
 throughout the civilized world, nor to describe the anguish which it has excited in 
 my own hear!, as in that of every loyal American, whether at home or abroad. 
 ******* 
 
 1 do not fear t<> express the opinion that the nain<' of Abraham Lincoln will be 
 cherished, as long as we have a history, as one of the wisest, purest, and noblest 
 magistrates, as one of the greatesl benefactors to the human race, that have ever lived. 
 
 1 believe that the foundation of his whole character was a devotion to duty. To 
 borrow a phrase from his eloquent inaugural address of this year, it was hie "firmness 
 in tin- right, as God gave him to see the right," which enabled him to discharge the 
 function of In- greal office, in one of the most terrible epochs of the world's history, 
 with Bucfa rate Bagacity, patience, cheerfulness, and courage. And God, indeed, 
 him to see the right, and lie needs no nobler epitaph than those simple words from his 
 own lips. 
 
 So much firmness with such gentleness of heart, so much Logical acuteness with such 
 almost childlike simplicity and ingenuousness of nature, so much candor to weigh the 
 wisdom of others, with BO much tenacity to retain his own judgment were rarely before 
 united in one individual. 
 
 Never was there such vasl political power placed in purer hands; never did a heart 
 remain more humble and more unsophisticated after the highest prizes of earthly 
 ambition had been obtained. 
 
 < ertainly "Government of the people, by the people, for the people'' — to quote 
 again his own words -shall never perish from the earth so long as the American people 
 i mbody itself in a character so worthy to represenl the besl qualities of humanity— 
 ity, patience, sagacity, and integrity as these have been per- 
 sonified in him who has been "in- of i he he.st of rulers and is now one of the noblesl of 
 martyrs. * * * 
 
 1 have followed bis career and every public act and utterance with an ever-increas- 
 ing •• eneration for a character and intellect which seemed to expand and to irrow more 
 l in' greater tin- demand that was made upon their strength. 
 
 And this feeling, 1 belie\ e. is shared not only bj all \ ricans worthy of the came. 
 
 but bj all inhabitants of foreign lands who ha\ e gn en themselves the trouble to Btudy 
 our hlsion in this mosl eventful period. * * * 
 
 hole diplomatic corps, with scarcely an exception, have called upon me as 
 
 representative of the I oited BtateB, and their warm and sincere expressions of sym- 
 patic at our national loss, of cordial good will for the ! uiou. and. more important 
 than all, of decided respect and admiration for the character of our lamented President, 
 been mosl grateful to mj heart 
 The journal.- of Vienna ha\ e vied with each other in eloquent tributes to the virtues 
 of Mr Lincoln, in i inaffected Bympathj for the great cause of which 
 
 nation, and of horror at the accursed crime by which one of the 
 en taken from the world. 
 
 On Juno 3, 1903, at Freeport, 111., on the site of the Lincoln-Douglas 
 debute in 185S, where .i monumenl commemorating the event was 
 being unveiled, President Roosevelt, in praise of Lincoln, said: 
 
 We meet to ,la\ to commemorate the BD01 oil which ocrlirred o| M ' Of tllo-e 1 llel iloral >h' 
 
 rdance with which the whole future historj of nations is molded. 
 Hon •,'. ■ I words that flew through immediate time and that will 
 
 fly through that portion of eternity recorded in the history of mir race, 
 it. inded the keynote of the struggle whit h, after convulsing the Nation, 
 
 hat it had only been in name, at on< e united and free. 
 
It is eminently fitting that this monument, given by the women of this city in 
 commemoration of the great debate that here took place, should be dedicated by the 
 men whose deeds made good the words of Abraham Lincoln and the soldiers of the 
 Civil War. [Cheers and applause.] 
 
 DEEDS FOLLOWED WORDS. 
 
 The word was mighty, but had it not been for the word the deeds could not have 
 taken place. But without the deeds, the words would have been the idlest breath. 
 
 It is forever to the honor of our Nation that brought forth the statesman who, with 
 far-sighted vision, could pierce the clouds that obscured the sight of the keenest of 
 his fellows and could see what the future inevitably held. 
 
 And, moreover, that we had back of the statesman and behind him the men to whom 
 it was given to fight in the greatest war ever waged for the good of mankind, for the 
 betterment of the world. 
 
 I have literally but a moment here. I could not resist the chance that was offered 
 me to stop and dedicate this monument, for great though we now regard Abraham Lin- 
 coln, my countrymen, the future will put him on an even higher pinnacle than we have 
 put him. [Applause.] 
 
 HIS ORATORY ENDURING. 
 
 In all history I do not believe that there is to be found an orator whose speeches will 
 last as enduringly as certain of the speeches of Lincoln. 
 
 And in all history, with the sole exception of the man who founded the Republic, I 
 do not think there will be found another statesman at once so great and so single- 
 hearted in his devotion to the weal of his people. 
 
 We can not too highly honor him. 
 
 And the highest way in which we can honor him is to see that our homage is not only 
 homage of words; that to loyalty of words we join loyalty of the heart, and that we pay 
 honor to the memory of Abraham Lincoln by so conducting ourselves, by so carrying 
 ourselves as citizens of this Republic, that we shall hand on undiminished to our chil- 
 dren and our children's children the heritage we received from the men who upheld the 
 statesmanship of Lincoln in the council and who made good the soldiership of Grant in 
 the field. [Cheers and applause.] 
 
 Lincoln greatly admired Washington. On February 22, 1842, just 
 after he had passed his thirtv-third birthday, he delivered a lengthy 
 address on temperance before the Springfield (111.) temperance 
 society, at the close of which he delivered the following eloquent 
 eulogy of him who was " First in war, first in peace, and. first in the 
 hearts of his countrymen." 
 
 This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the birthday of Washington. We 
 are met to celebrate this day. Washington is the mightiest name of earth — long since 
 mightiest in the cause of civil liberty, still mightiest in moral reformation. On that 
 name no eulogy is expected. It can not be. To add brightness to the sun or glory 
 to the name of Washington is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe 
 pronounce the name, and in its naked, deathless splendor leave it shining on. 
 
 In the same address on the temperance question he said: 
 
 Although the temperance cause has been in progress for nearly 20 years, it is apparent 
 to all that it is just now being crowned with a degree of success hitherto unparalleled. 
 The list of its Mends is daily swelled by the additions of fifties, of hundreds, and of 
 thousands. The cause itself seems suddenly transformed from a cold, abstract theory 
 to a living, breathing, active and powerful chieftain, going forth "conquering and to 
 conquer. " The citadels of his great adversary are daily being stormed and dismantled ; 
 his temple and his altars, where the rites of his idolatrous worship have long been per- 
 formed and where human sacrifices have long been wont to be made, are daily dese- 
 crated and deserted. The tiiumph of the conqueror's fame is sounding from hill to 
 hill, from sea to sea, from land to land, and calling millions to his standard at a blast. 
 For this new and splendid success we heartily rejoice. * * * 
 
 Of our political revolution we are all justly proud. It has given us a degree of 
 political freedom far exceeding that of any other nation of the earth. In it the world 
 has found a solution of the long-mooted problem as to the capacity of man to govern 
 himself. In it was the germ which has vegetated, and still is to grow and expand into 
 the universal liberty of mankind. * * * 
 
6 LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY A HOLIDAY IN DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 
 
 Turn now W the temperance revolution. In it we shall find a stronger bondage 
 h X . a vi.-r t ;L,.r , y 1 nnu,Mn,ii,.-<l. a greater tyrant depose, 1: ;n ;t ™ore « ..ant 
 
 £n? SadnS. And what a a'oble ally tins to the cause o pohtica freedom With 
 
 ^ISd whe^h^victoS shall be complete-when there shall be neither a slave nor 
 
 nunuredTo niaturitv both the political and moral freedom ot their species. 
 
 The majority of vour committee, believing that -Washington and 
 Lincoln are America's most illustrious citizens and statesmen, alike 
 w rt I v • i id .Ir.rrv.n- of the highest honors oi then: country; which 
 M so wS a..«l believSg that both should be honored alike 
 ■n-the matter of a Legal hoUdly bearing their respective names, 
 earnestly recommend that the House again pass if not unanimously at 
 
 day a legal holiday in the District of Columbia. 
 
 O 
 
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