Shribman: Two candidates mired in the past

One candidate worried about the country being a “house divided” by slavery but saw a future where “it will cease to be divided.” Another spoke amid the wreckage of the Great Depression, declaring, “I decline to accept present conditions as inevitable or beyond control.” A third said the country required “a new generation of leadership.” And one campaigned for a second term to have a chance of “building a bridge to the 21st century.”