And State Papers 331 



trying of some patent scheme things can be made 

 permanently better. Now, something can be done 

 by law. A good deal can be done by law. Even 

 more can be done by the honest administration of 

 the law ; an administration which knows neither fear 

 nor favor, which treats each man exactly as that 

 man's record entitles him to be treated ; the kind of 

 enforcement of the law which I think I may prom 

 ise that you will have while Mr. Knox remains At 

 torney-General. But more than the law, far more 

 than the administration of the law, depends upon 

 the individual quality of the average citizen. The 

 chief factor in winning success for your State, for 

 the people in the State, must be what the chief 

 factor in winning the success of a people has been 

 from the beginning of time the character of the 

 individual man, of the individual woman. 



I have spoken of the homage we should pay to the 

 memory of Grant. It is the homage we should pay 

 to the memory of Lincoln, the homage we should 

 pay to all of our fellow-countrymen who have at any 

 time rendered great service to the Republic, and it 

 can be rendered in most efficient form not by merely 

 praising them for having dealt with problems which 

 now we do not have to face, but by facing our prob 

 lems in the same spirit in which they faced theirs. 

 Nothing was more noteworthy in all of Lincoln's 

 character than the way in which he combined fealty 

 to the loftiest ideal with a thoroughly practical ca 

 pacity to achieve that ideal by practical methods. 

 He did not war with phantoms ; he did not struggle 



