The Commandery of the State of Pennsylvania at the ceremonies to commemorate the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of on the evening of Friday the twelfth of February 1909 at right aclock American Academy of Music Philadelphia Commemoration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of Abraham Lincoln. Rear Admiral GEORGE W. MELVILLE U. S. N. Presiding. COMPANIONS, SHIPMATES, AND LADIES: It is not necessary for me to announce to you the reasons for our meeting here tonight. I am pleased to say that the Nation has set apart this day in commemoration of the birth of the greatest American of modern times. We have had our Washington, Hamilton, Calhoun, and Webster of more modern times. Men of all shades of politics and policies, but it remained for the greatest glory to fall upon the head and shoulders of the great emancipator, and though republican in name, the greatest democrat in all that it means as a man of the people, Abraham Lincoln. We are here to add our meed of praise and show our appreciation of America's greatest statesman, and who is better qualified, or more appreciative of Abraham Lincoln, than these old warriors of the Army and Navy. Men old and worn, who in the glad young days of their youth gave all we had, of life and limb, to uphold the hands of our President and save a Nation and the Liberties of our people for all time. |