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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">"TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE" MINISTRIES</font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Jim & Marie Watt</font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">PO Box </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">25116 Federal Way</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">WA</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">98093-2116</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></span></b></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Tel: 253.874.4265 Email: </font><a href="mailto:jmbetter@gmail.com"><font face="Times New Roman">jmbetter@gmail.com</font></a></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Web: </font><a href="http://www.2rbetter.org/"><font face="Times New Roman">www.2rbetter.org</font></a><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></b><font face="Times New Roman"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">April 16, 2008</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></span></b></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><u><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">"</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><u><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">LINCOLN</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><u><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> GOES TO </span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><u><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">GETTYSBURG</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><u><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">"</span></u></b></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">(From: Carl Sandburg, Reader's Digest, 1936)</font></span></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">When Governor Curtin of </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Pennsylvania</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> set aside </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">November 19, 1863</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">, for the dedication of a National Soldiers' Cemetery at </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Gettysburg</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">, the only invitation President Lincoln received to attend the ceremonies was a printed circular.</span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">The duties of orator of the day had fallen on Edward Everett. An eminent figure, perhaps the foremost of all American classical orators, he had been Governor of </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Massachusetts</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">, Ambassador to </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Great Britain</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> and President of Harvard. There were four published volumes of his orations. His lecture on </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Washington</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">, delivered 122 times in three years, had in 1859 brought a fund of $58,000, which he gave for the purchase of </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Mount Vernon</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> as a permanent shrine.</span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Serene, suave, handsomely venerable in his 69<sup>th</sup> year, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Everett</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> was a natural choice of the </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Pennsylvania</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> commissioners, who gave him two months to prepare his address. The decision to invite </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Lincoln</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> to speak was an afterthought. As one of the commissioners later wrote: "The question was raised as to his ability to speak upon such a solemn occasion; the invitation was not settled upon until about two weeks before the exercises were held."</span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">In these dark days </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Lincoln</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> was far from popular in many quarters. Some newspapers claimed that the President was going to make a stump speech over the graves of the </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Gettysburg</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> dead as a political show. Thaddeus Stevens, Republican floor leader in the House, believed in '63 that </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Lincoln</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> was a "dead card" in the political deck. He favored Chase for the next President, and hearing that Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward were going to </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Gettysburg</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">, he commented: "The dead going to bury the dead."</span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">On the day before the ceremony a special train decorated with red-white-and-blue bunting stood ready to take the presidential party to </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Gettysburg</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">. When his escort remarked that they had no time to lose, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Lincoln</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> said he felt like an </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Illinois</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> man who was going to be hanged, and as the man passed along the road on the way to the gallows, the crowds kept pushing into the way and blocking passage. The condemned man at last called out: "Boys, you needn't be in such a hurry; there won't be any fun till I get there."</span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Reaching </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Gettysburg</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Lincoln</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> was driven to a private residence on the public square. The sleepy little country town was overflowing. Private homes were filled with notables and nondescripts. Hundreds slept on the floors of hotels. Bands blared till late in the night. When serenaders called on the President for a speech, he responded: "In my position it is sometimes important that I should not say foolish things." (A voice: "If you can help it.") "It very often happens that the only way to help it is to say nothing at all. Believing that is my present condition this evening, I must beg of you to excuse me from addressing you further." The crown didn't feel it was much of a speech. They went next door with the band and blared for Seward.</span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Beset with problems attendant on the conduct of the war, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Lincoln</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> had little time to prepare his address. About </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">ten o'clock</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> that night before the ceremony he sat down in his room to do more work on it. It was </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">midnight</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> or later when he went to sleep.</span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">At least 15,000 people were on Cemetery Hill for the exercises next day when the procession from </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Gettysburg</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> arrived afoot and horseback. The President's horse seemed small for him. One of the commissioners, riding just behind the President, noted that he sat erect and looked majestic to begin with, and then got to thinking so his body leaned forward, his arms hung limp and his head bent far down.</span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">The parade had begun to move at eleven, and in 15 minutes it was over. But the orator of the day had not arrived. Bands played till </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">noon</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">. Mr. Everett arrived. On the platform sat state governors, Army officers, foreign ministers, Members of Congress, the President and his party.</span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">When Edward Everett was introduced, he bowed low to </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Lincoln</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">, then stood in silence before a crowd that stretched to limits that would test his voice. Around were the wheat fields, the meadows, the peach orchards, and beyond, the contemplative blue ridge of a low mountain range. He had taken note of these in his prepared and rehearsed address. "Overlooking these broad fields now reposing from the labors of the waning year, the mighty Alleghenies dimly towering before us, the graves of our brethren beneath our feet, it is with hesitation that I raise my poor voice to break the eloquent silence of God and Nature."</span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">He proceeded: "It was appointed by law in </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Athens</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> --" and gave an extended sketch of the manner in which the Greeks cared for their dead who fell in battle. He gave an outline of how the war began, traversed decisive features of the three days' battles at </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Gettysburg</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">, denounced the doctrine of state sovereignty, drew parallels from European history, and came to his peroration quoting Pericles on dead patriots: "The whole earth is the sepulcher of illustrious men." He spoke for an hour and 57 minutes. It was the effort of his life, and embodied the perfections of the school of oratory in which he had spent his career.</span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">When the time came for </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Lincoln</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> to speak he put on his steel-bowed glasses, rose, and holding in one hand the two sheets of paper at which he occasionally glanced, he delivered in his high-pitched and clear-carrying voice. A photographer bustled about with his equipment, but before he had his head under the hood for an exposure, the President said "by the people and for the people," and the nick of time was past for a photograph. The ten sentences were spoken in five minutes, and the applause was merely formal a tribute to the occasion, to the high office, by persons who had sat as an audience for three hours.</span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">That evening </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Lincoln</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> took the train back to </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Washington</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">. He was weary, talked little, stretched out on the seats and had a wet towel laid across his forehead. He felt that about all he had given the audience was ordinary garden-variety dedicatory remarks. "That speech," he said, "was a flat failure, and the people are disappointed."</span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Much of the newspaper reaction was more condemnatory. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Patriot and Union</i> of nearby </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Harrisburg</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> took its fling: "The President acted without sense and without constraint in a panorama that was gotten up more for the benefit of his party than for the honor of the dead
. We pass over the silly remarks of the President: for the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them and that they shall no more be repeated or thought of." And the </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Chicago</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Times</i> fumed: "The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat and dish-watery utterance of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">United States</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">." Wrote the correspondent of the </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">London</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Times</i>, "Anything more dull and commonplace it would not be easy to produce."</span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">A reporter for the </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Chicago</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Tribune</i>, however, telegraphed a prophetic sentence: "The dedicatory remarks of President Lincoln will live among the annals of man." The </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Philadelphia</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Evening Bulletin</i> said thousands who would not read the elaborate oration of Mr. Everett would read the President's few words, "and not many will do it without a moistening of the eye and a swelling of the heart." And a writer in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Harper's Weekly:</i> "The oration by Mr. Everett was smooth and cold
The few words of the President were from the heart to the heart. They cannot be read, even, without kindling emotion. 'The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.' It was as simple and felicitous and earnest a word as was ever spoken."</span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Everett</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">'s opinion of the speech, written in a note to </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Lincoln</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> the next day, was more than mere courtesy. "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes." </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Lincoln</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">'s reply: "In our respective parts you could not have been excused to make a short address, nor I a long one. I am pleased to know that, in your judgment, the little I did say was not entirely a failure."</span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><u><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">NOTE:</span></u></b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>"He Loved Me Truly" were the words of </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Lincoln</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">'s Step-mother on behalf of her Step-son at the time of his assassination.</span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">In mid-war he was asked to give his famous 5 minute </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Gettysburg</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> address of 10 sentences. Here is an account of that day, and the context for one of the most unusual and famous speeches of all of history.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Jim Watt</span></font></p>
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