Saturday, Feb. 12, 1916

Today is Lincoln’s Birthday, an occasion observed with speeches and celebrations all over the country. Today’s Saratogian asks whether a youth of Lincoln’s humble origins could rise to Lincoln’s heights in the society of 1916.

“In the many addresses given at celebrations in honor of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday one thought that is always emphasized is that of the humble origin of the great war President,” an editorial writer notes, “The lesson is enforced that lowly surroundings are no bar to advancement, and that they often stimulate the ambitious boy to surmount obstacles.”

The editorial writer isn’t so sure of that. “While this is perfectly true in rare cases,” he writes, “yet usually the boy from the home as humble as Lincoln’s starts in under a heavy handicap.”

The biggest handicap in 1916, compared to Lincoln’s time, is that poor boys in the early 20th century are more likely to be “put to work after meager schooling, at sweeping up floors in some mill, picking up coal in a mine, or at any task where brains are not called for.”

A working- class boy in 1916 often finds “nothing in his work to stir his ambition or develop his mental powers…. If a spark of ambition exists in such a mind it is soon blotted out.”

By comparison, “Lincoln, even in his humble home, lived a healthful, open- air life, which many of our children never have. “If this was to Lincoln’s advantage, then conversely “Lincoln might never have been heard from, had he been put into a mill at twelve or fourteen years of age.”

While families often take children out of school and put them to work for economic reasons, the editor believes that “A child at this period can add but little to the means of his family.”

But if keeping children in school imposes hardship on a household, the community should step in.

If fully- educated youth add to the welfare of a community, the editorial concludes, “A wiser generation will keep its children longer in school, even if it has to extend aid more freely for the support of humble homes.”

HAIL COLUMBIA. Saratoga’s most ambitious child right now may be Marie Burdo, the little girl who recently began a fundraising campaign for a new U. S. Navy battleship.

Burdo is part of the Lincoln’s Birthday celebration at the Curtis store, her fundraising headquarters. For two hours this afternoon Burdo, dressed as Columbia, the female embodiment of the United States, greets customers while standing on a table.

“Despite the storm a large crowd visited Marie and added to the fund,” The Saratogian reports.

– Kevin Gilbert