Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Presidency 20160912 : vimarsana.c

Historical park in kentucky. Coming up next on the presidency, a commemorative ceremony site with actors for drink three of the five president s who visited the birthplace delivering speeches. And we will hear from Abraham Lincoln. This is about 55 minutes. [applause] good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests. I am the superintendent of Abraham Lincolns birth Place National historic site. I would like to welcome you all today for this great event. Before we get started, i would like to give a round of applause to the heartland Brass Quintet to have been providing the music. [applause] you all can be seated. Sorry. [laughter] i just realized that. This is a special day for us and we truly appreciate your presence. Before we get started into the formal ceremony, i would like to recognize a few the dignitaries we have in attendance today. Congressman brett guthrie, [applause] acting deputy regional director for the Southeast Region of the National Park service. Larue county judge executive, tommy turner. Mayor of hodginville. Kenny davore. State representative terry mills. [applause] and, of course, samuel clemens, president roosevelt, president roosevelt, president eisenhower, and president lincoln. [applause] i would like to thank the community. To the Lincoln Museum and many other local organizations, we could not this without your support and your partnership. We deeply appreciate that. Thank you. [applause] we have gathered here today to mark the 100th anniversary of the establishment of Abraham Lincolns birth Place National historical park. It was president lincoln that led our nation through its most emotionless time, tumultuous time, worked tirelessly to preserve the union and abolished slavery in the United States. It is only fitting that we honor president lincoln, who without his wisdom and leadership throughout the times, the country we live in today might very well be very different. Today, we will hear from distinguished guests, president ial living historians who will speak of Abraham Lincoln, the sinking springs, the farm in which he was born and the significance of this memorial and the National Park honoring president lincoln. Each of the president ial living historians will deliver a speech given by their respective president when that president visited the site here. Our first speaker today represented the 32nd Senate District of kentucky from 20002008 before he was elected to the United States house of representatives from kentuckys second district. He still proudly serves the people of kentucky. Please warmly welcome congressman brett guthrie. Guthrie thank you. And original representative here is from the second district. Welcome back. Welcome home and for this celebration. How important is it to be here . This of the 100 anniversary of our National Park service and also the 100th anniversary of the site. It means a lot. Something not missed on me is that leaders and people who came before all of us decided they wanted to preserve the great heritage of our country for us to use and for our posterity. To use a lincoln term. Whether it is the beautiful sites, the wonderful caves, the great National Parks or the Historic Sites, this is important. I want to share two quick experiences. I was here one day. I got a phone calls and it would be a Conference Call with Speaker Boehner and mike pence was conference chairman. I was here i wasnt here. I drove up to make sure i get so coverage. We were talking about votes we were going to take. Some pretty take votes. We were lamenting about what we had to do. It was one of the debt limit kind of moments. As a were all feeling a sense of the moment, i left here. I said im glad its not 1861. Can you imagine what the congress and the president born on this site . I thought about what his life had led him and what decisions he had to make. And lots of people say, when people say this is the end of america as we know it, just remember, they said that in 1789, 1861. It is important that we remember history. One thing i want to share since im here, at the Vietnam Memorial theyre putting an education center. A memorial represents those who pass away. There were a lot of people who served in vietnam. They wanted to put something for those who served and the history of the war. In the meantime, they asked if we would bring something to signify or represent someone from our district who had died in current wars. I was standing there with a picture of matt hansen. About three or four miles he is buried there. What i said, if you think about it, if you think of the Vietnam Memorial, right next to it is the Lincoln Memorial. As i was standing there i threw my speech out ahead igo offthecuff. It really struck me that we were honoring that they met hansen, a son of our county right next to the most magnificent memorial in our country. Abraham lincoln, a son of this county. Only in america within 200 or 300 yards could you celebrate i will give someone george washington. The greatest american who ever lived and a Great American who did not have the chance to live a long life because he sacrificed his life. Who knows what he would become. He was a Great American and is a Great American. But think about our country on the same spot, the most sacred land in our nations capital, we honor two sons of this county. Matt hansen and Abraham Lincoln. It is a great place and a great heritage to be from. Im so proud. I stopped the other day with a group of people and the superintendent said let me know when you stop. They were trying to come incognito because i do not what to pass by here with anybody who has never been here who is traveling with me from washington and not take a moment to see someone born in that cabin or replica something similar to that kevin and rose to be the greatest american in our history. Thank you for having me here. It is great to be here. Judge, always great to be in larue county. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you, congressman. Our next speaker has over 30 years in the National Park service, during which he has served many different capacities including superintendent of the ,eath valley National Park wachita battlefield, and she has since returned home to horse cave, kentucky becoming the superintendent of mammoth cave National Park. Please welcome the acting deputy regional director of the Southeast Region for the National Park service and superintendent of mammoth cave National Park, sarah craighead. Craighead one might argue that i just cant keep a job. [laughter] it is such a great honor to be with you today representing the regional director. It is an honor for many reasons. One of those is that jake gratz has been a friend with me for many years and be able to commemorate this special time. 100 years ago, the National Park service was created. There is no more Perfect Place i think to celebrate the centennial of the National Park service than right here at Abraham Lincoln National Historical park. Which was created in a month earlier than the National Park service. But the National Park service and the birthplace were born from the idea that our nations treasures should be preserved and enjoyed for all americans, both now and in the future. Here in this place we pay homage to a man who gave this country a future. It is up to you and to me and all of us americans to make sure that it is a future that we are proud of. All of us who visit and love these parks give them significance and meaning, this centennial gives us the chance to reflect and look forward to the future. And to look for to what our children and grandchildren have to look forward to as they visit these National Park. One of the things we are doing at the National Park service is make sure that every fourthgrader has the ability to get into a park for free. Passes for all fourthgraders. We are hoping to connect our youth with 412 National Parks across the system. We are challenging everyone to find your park. I know a lot of the members that i look back to as a child, memories that i look back to as a child involving in a part. I remember coming here as a kid and seeing the spring and the cabin. All of that made a huge impression on me. I think these places define us as americans. They are our touchstones. They help us remember where we came from and give us hope for the future. I hope you will take a minute to ensure that the kids in your life have the ability to find their park and make those connections. Thank you and congratulations to Abraham Lincoln National Historical park on your 100 year anniversary. Thank you. [applause] thank you, sarah. Our next speaker demonstrated support for establishing the sacred place as a National Park in his article published on january 13, 1907, in which he stated it was no accident that planted lincoln on a Kentucky Farm. Samuel clemens was an american author and humorist who wrote such works as the adventures of tom sawyer, the adventures of Huckleberry Finn under a pen name. Please give a warm welcome to mr. Mark twain. [applause] thank you. I must admit im somewhat embarrassed. They told us we had about one hour and 15 minutes. Ive only prepared for 45. As a member of the Lincoln Farm Association which was newly formed, i was a member of that organization. As a member and as a writer i was encouraged and did an article for the new york times, january 13, 1907. The purpose of the article was to help find a group of people who would unite together to save the lincoln farm. I wrote the article and i will read it to you or tell it to you to the best of my remembrance. As a natural human instinct that is gratified by the site of anything hallowed by association of a great man or great work, so many people make pilgrimage to the town whose shakespeare, the streets were trotted by shakespeare. Hartford guarded the charter oak for centuries because it was that housede in it the article that preserved the liberties of a colony. It was no accident that lincoln in a kentucky, planted planted lincoln and a Kentucky Farm in rural america. Lincoln was halfway between the great lakes and the gulf of mexico. This association there had substance in it. If the union was to be saved, it needed to be by one of such origin. It did not need a witty yankee person from connecticut. It needed no farm at yankee. It needed no torrid cotton planter from the south who regarded the yankee has been obnoxious species. It needed a man of the border , where civil war met the grapple ofer brother and brother. It needed one who knew the good of the slavery mixed with the evil. The evil not only as it obtained to the negroes but also to the poor whites. It needed one who understood how human, both parties of the quarrel were. How much alike they were at bottom. If the union was to be saved, it needed one of that nature. It needed one who understood the reflections and the dissensions and the tearing apart of the soul. When the war came, georgia sent forth an army of gray. Connecticut sent an army of blue. But kentucky sent an army of both sides. Man sprang from southern rural whites, born on a Kentucky Farm. Transported, transplanted to an illinois village. This man in whose heart knowledge and wisdom and charity left no room for malice. This man was the one destined to heal the wounds of the nation. Thank you very much. [applause] on february 12, 1909, the centennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, our next speaker came to the community of hodginville for the laying of the cornerstone of the Lincoln Memorial hall as it was first known. He had served as United States Civil Service commission or, president of the Police Commission of new york city, assistant secretary to the United States navy, colonel of the first United States volunteer cavalry, governor of new york, Vice President of the United States and president of the United States all by the age of 42. Please give a warm welcome to the 26th president of the United States, theodore roosevelt. [applause] president roosevelt has he mentioned, i was here on and i february 12 will tell you it was cooler that day. Im going to give this speech and it is powerful and as important as it was back then. I hope you pay close attention. We have met here to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of the two greatest americans. One of the two or three greatest men of the 19th century, one of the greatest men in world history. This rail splitter, the one who boy who passed his life from a poor start whose rise was by weary and painful labor lives to lead his people through the burning flames of a struggle from which the nation emerged. Peer five purified if i fire. After long years of iron effort and a failure that came more often than victory, last rose to the leadership of the republic at a moment when that leadership had become the stupendous task of the time. He grew to know greatness but never ease. Success came to him but never happiness. Save that which springs from doing well a painful and vital path. Task. Power was his. But not pleasure. Deepened furrows deepened in his brow but his eyes were undimmed by either hate or fear. His shoulders were bowed but his steel fuse never faltered. His great and tender heart shrank from giving pay. The task allotted him was to pour out water the lifeblood. The sorrow of the women. Saddened but never dismayed by disaster, the red gears of war went by and found him ever doing his duty in the future with fearless front, high apart and dauntless of soul unbroken by hatred, unshaken by scorn. He worked and suffered for the people. Triumph was his at last had barely had he tasted it before kindly,ound him in the fearless eyes were closed forever. As a people we are indeed beyond measure fortunate in the characters of the two of our greatest public men, washington and lincoln. Widely though they differed in externals, the video landed gentleman and the kentucky backwards and. Backwoodsman. They were alike and essentials. They were alike in the great qualities which make each able to service his nation and all mankind such as no other could or did render. Each had lofty ideals and each striving to gain those ideals was guided by the most common sense. Each possessing flexible courage of adversity and soul. Holy unspoiled by prosperity. Each possessed all the greater virtues, the exhibited by goodman who lacked strength of character. Each possessed also the strong qualities, and commonly exhibited by those towering masters who have shown themselves to often devoid. As so much understanding of the words by which we signify the qualities of duty, mercy, lofty disinterestedness in battling for the goods of others. There have been other men as great and good, and all the history of mankind, there are no other two great men as good as these, no other two good men as great. Widely though the problems of today differ from the problems set forth by solutions of washington when he founded this nation and lincoln when he freed the slaves, yet the quality they showed in meeting these problems of the same as those we should show in doing our work today. Lincoln saw in the future with the prophetic imagination usually found only in the poet. He had in him all the list towards greatness of the visionary without the visionary fanaticism or egotism, without any of the visionary narrow jealousy of the practical man and an ability to strive in practical fashion for the realization of an ideal. He had the practical mans hard common sense. But there was in him none of that morbid growth of mind and soul which binds so many practical men to the higher things in life. No more practical man ever lived in this homely backwoods idealist. He had nothing in common with those practical men is consciouses are worked until they feel to distinguish between good and evil. Fail to understand that strength, ability, shrewdness, whether in the world of business or that the politics only serve to make their possessor a more evil member of the community if they are not guided and controlled by a fine moral sense. We of the state must try to solve many social and industrial problems requiring to a special degree accommodation of indomitable resolution, of coolheaded sanity. We can profit by the way in which lincoln used both of these traits as he strove for reform. We can learn much of the value from the very attacks by which that course brought upon his head. Attacked alike by the extremists of revolution and extremists of reaction. He n