Beschreibung:

HARDING, WARREN G., President. Autograph manuscript (unsigned) of a speech to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, a draft, with many corrections and deletions, n.p., n.d. 27 pages, 4to, in pencil on foolscap paper, browned, edges brittle and chipped in a few places, accompanied by a complete typed transcription. "LINCOLN WILL LIVE IN HISTORY AS A MARTYRED EMANCIPATOR.." A lengthy, very flowery disquisition on the nature of greatness and the enduring quality of true goodness: "Memory for the departed, mindfulness for the living. This is the doctrine of the Elk fraternity...Today we give to memory, dwelling in the garden of recollection...Life, all intelligent life, is founded on memory and hope. One is its compensation, the other its inspiration. Memory brightens in hope, and hope is aglow with memory...I would rather set aglow a spurt of grateful memory in a living fellow than set a torch aflame in history... "Men are measured from different points of view...Lincoln will live in history as a martyred emancipator and saviour of the American Union, but so long as the world recalls his name it will recite the tales of his transcendant sympathy and tenderness of heart. William McKinley has an abiding place in history, the martyr to a viper nursing at the breast of liberty, but so long as his lofty statesmanship is recalled there will be more loving references to his unfailing devotion to an invalid wife and his wholesome reverence for a proud mother....They have lived and have left a memory. And just as we live, so shall our memories endure....Let us rear living, shining, enduring monuments in the hearts of fellow men..."