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The Last Home-Coming to Canton
THE last chapter of the sad ceremonial, the removal
of the remains of the late President to the grave at his old home
at Canton, Ohio, began on Tuesday evening, September 17th, when
the funeral train left Washington over the Pennsylvania Railroad.
The great bronze doors of the Capitol
in which the body had lain in state had closed while there were
still thousands of people waiting to get a last glance at the casket.
The guards at the Capitol, who had
patiently throughout the long day held the crowd in leash, were
permitted a hurried look at the face of the deceased. The cover
of the casket was screwed down by the undertakers, it was lifted
once more upon the shoulders of the body-bearers, and by them borne
to the hearse at the foot of the east steps of the Capitol.
The escort from the Capitol to the
train consisted of a committee from the army and navy and two squadrons
of the Eleventh Cavalry. The route was down Pennsylvania Avenue,
which was lined on either side by troops of the District of Columbia.
It was a quiet, noiseless journey,
without music. Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note. Nor was
there a sound from the crowd which lined the broad street. Notwithstanding
the hour was late, the air chill and a light mist was falling, hats
were uniformly removed as the cortege passed.
At the railroad station there was
a dense throng, and the remains were received by large delegations
of army and naval officers. There the soldiers and seamen carried
the casket from [365][366] the hearse
to the observation car placed in the second section of the funeral
train.
The casket was placed on standards
draped with the national colors, and was covered with floral emblems.
No less than twenty cars were required for the transportation of
the funeral party to Canton.
Remarkable demonstrations of a stricken
people’s grief marked the last home-coming of the martyred President,
William McKinley. All along the path of the sombre funeral train,
from Washington, on the Potomac, to Canton, in Ohio, mourning thousands
stood to bid their dead chief a last, sad farewell. Although the
journey was made in the dead of night, not a city, town or hamlet
but contributed its quota. Silent they stood in the black darkness
as the cars bearing the beloved dead flashed by in the gloom, unlit,
except that bearing the remains of the President. Illuminated by
lights within the car, the casket stood out in bold relief, visible
to the watchers in the night.
Daylight was dawning
as the train arrived at the foot of the eastern slope of the Alleghenies.
But through the semi-darkness the forms of many people could be
seen strung along the track.
Extra engines were coupled on, and
the train was pulled laboriously up the mountains. The morning was
raw, foggy and cheerless. Mountaineers, with axes on their shoulders,
came down from the steep slopes to pay their homage with uncovered
heads.
Men, women and children all were there.
Miners, with lamps in their caps, had rushed forth from the tunnels
at the train’s approach, and the steel mills along the Conemaugh
River were emptied. These were men who felt that their prosperity
was due to the system for which the dead statesman stood, and their
loss seemed of a personal character. Four women, with uplifted hands,
were noticed on their knees and handkerchiefs were at the lips of
others; and from the smoke-covered city came the sound of the church
bells clanging out the universal sorrow. [366][367]
A little further on the train passed
a string of coke ovens, the tenders standing at the mouths of the
glowing furnaces with their hats in their hands. The train slowed
down that the people might better see the impressive spectacle at
the rear of the train within the observation car, the elevated flag-covered
casket with its burden of flowers and the two grim, armed sentries
on guard at the head and foot and outside, on the platform, a soldier
with his bayoneted gun and a sailor with drawn cutlass, both at
salute. So rigid they stood they might have been carved out of stone.
As the train passed through Harrisburg,
Altoona, Pittsburgh, Allegheny, and other Pennsylvania towns and
cities in the route of the sad cortege, people were seen in thousands,
standing in silence and with bared heads as the train passed.
The climax of the great sorrow was
observed when the train reached the Ohio line and entered the President’s
own State. The signs of grief and mourning were evident on every
hand. The people were grieving the death as of their well beloved
son.
Church bells tolled most mournfully,
and the train slackened speed. The humblest cottage was draped in
mourning, and thus was McKinley’s return heralded with silent and
deeply-felt sorrow.
Canton received the remains of the
late President McKinley shortly before noon on Wednesday, the 18th.
Two weeks previous, upon the same day, and almost at the same hour,
in the full vigor of life and the buoyancy of health, surrounded
by loving friends and admiring neighbors, who cheered his departure
for Buffalo, he started upon the journey that terminated in assassination.
The same friends and neighbors, augmented by a vast multitude that
included nearly the entire population of Canton, patiently, silently,
with hearts overshadowed with grief and heads bowed in humiliation,
awaited the coming of the train that brought to them the lifeless
form of the President. There was no lack in the preparation for
this sad duty. No detail was omitted, and the entire service was
performed with a thoroughness which so strongly marked the bringing
of the body to Washington. There was a degree [367][368]
of simplicity and tenderness that gave it additional impressiveness
and left no doubt as to the depth of the affection of the people,
and the sincerity of their grief.
Canton’s little railroad station and
the streets in its vicinity were crowded with people. Infantrymen
of the State National Guard performed patrol duty in the inside,
and Troop A, of Cleveland, which had twice escorted President-elect
McKinley from the White House to the Capitol at Washington, sat
erect and motionless on their horses on the outside. A reception
committee of citizens, including men of all parties and sects, at
the head of which was Judge Day, an intimate friend, close associate
and near neighbor of the late President, was at the station, not
only to tenderly receive the remains of the dead President, but
to care for the comfort and look after the safety of his successor
and the Cabinet Ministers, who were among the chief mourners.
There was no apparent need for the
services of soldiers and police. There was no crowding or pushing
among the people, no fretting or fussing on the part of those charged
with the conduct of affairs. All were seemingly impressed with the
solemnity of the occasion and actuated by the common purpose to
assist in successfully carrying out the object for which they were
assembled.
The casket was borne
from the funeral car to the hearse by the soldiers and sailors who
had performed this service since the departure from Buffalo. The
funeral procession moved between lines of sorrowing people to the
Court House, in which the remains reposed in state until evening,
when they were escorted to his late residence. During the hours
the remains were exposed the people passed continuously in two lines
on each side of the casket.
The casket rested in the main corridor
of the Court House, with the head toward the south entrance, by
which the people were admitted to view the remains. The walls and
ceiling were completely covered with a black fabric, which gave
it the appearance of an [368][369]
immense vault, dimly lighted by incandescent electric lamps. Entering
this long chamber from the clear sunlight of the outside the effect
was awe-inspiring upon the visitor. This was heightened by the presence
of the dead President, resting upon a plain black catafalque, surrounded
by the military and naval guards, standing rigidly at the head and
foot and on either side. The people passed into the building, upon
entering which the men divided to the right and left and walked
past the remains on either side, moving to the exit on the north
of the building. The entire proceeding was conducted with the utmost
good order and without any crowding.
When the lying in state was terminated,
the line of people awaiting admission to the hall extended several
blocks. At the request of Mrs. McKinley, the casket remained at
the residence from Wednesday evening until Thursday afternoon, when,
after the services in the church, it was removed to West Lawn Cemetery
and deposited in a vault.
Thursday opened with
lowering clouds that threatened to envelop the closing scene with
a pall and deluge the vast multitude of sorrowing spectators. Fortunately,
as the sun rose in the sky, the clouds were dissipated; the atmosphere,
which had been damp and penetrating, became bright and cheering,
bringing assurances of better weather than that which had been experienced
at Buffalo and Washington. All through the night and early morning,
trains loaded with pilgrims to Canton rumbled into the stations.
Before the morning was far advanced, the streets were packed with
people of both sexes, all sizes and conditions, who moved in solid
mass about the Court House and passed in orderly procession through
the vault-like chamber, with its mournful drapery and its oppressive
funeral light, where the remains had reposed in state and had been
exposed to view for the last time.
As the noon hour came and passed,
preparations were completed for the funeral procession, which soon
formed and took up [369][370] its mournful
journey, passing under the sweep of giant arches robed in black,
between two living tides of humanity massed along the streets, covering
house-tops and filling windows. The church bells still were tolling,
mingling their dismal tones with the cadence of the funeral dirge.
The Methodist Church in which the
services were held was filled to its utmost capacity, and was surrounded
on the outside by a vast multitude, which was held back by the military
escort, formed in line to await the closing of the religious exercises
and to make the last march to the cemetery with the pomp and ceremony
befitting the occasion. Mrs. McKinley did not go to the church.
She was desirous of being with her beloved to the end, but was finally
prevailed upon, by her relatives and her physician, to remain at
home. President Roosevelt and the members of the family were in
position directly in front of the hearse as the representatives
of a stricken nation and mourning people. The funeral procession
reached the church about 2 o’clock. The relatives and officials
of State and Nation were shown to seats reserved for them. The McKinley
pew, four seats from the communion rail on the right central aisle,
was vacant and covered with black. Abner McKinley and his family
and the other relatives sat immediately in front and to the rear
of it. President Roosevelt and his Cabinet were to the left of the
central aisle, just across from the relatives. Admirals and generals
were in the front row. Members of the Senate and House of Representatives
were present in large numbers.
The services conducted after the manner
of the Methodist Church were wholly appropriate, their simplicity
adding to their impressiveness. The music was by a quartet, two
male and two female voices. There was no organ accompaniment to
conceal the sweetness and tenderness of the voices, which filled
the edifice, floating harmoniously across the groined ceiling and
through the auditorium. The delivery of the eulogy by Rev. Dr. Manchester,
the pastor, friend and neighbor of the late President, was a most
touching and beautiful tribute to the public services and personal
worth of the [370][371] deceased. The
services closed with singing “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” by the quartet.
When the benediction was pronounced by Father Voltman, of Chicago,
the organ began in murmuring tones Chopin’s funeral march, which
swelled into a volume of melody as the congregation slowly moved
from the church after the removal of the casket.
Upon emerging from the church the
remains were again received by the troops with the prescribed honors,
the column of march was resumed and, passing between two lines of
solid humanity that stretched from the church to West Lawn Cemetery,
every constituent unit of which stood reverently and mournfully
as the cortege passed, they were borne to the tomb.
No greater reverence has ever been
shown to any man, living or dead, than was exhibited toward the
dead President. As the funeral car passed men and women sobbed convulsively.
When the casket had been born[e] to the catafalque at the door of
the vault, all realized that the last and saddest moments were upon
them.
There was a moment’s
pause, then Bishop Joyce, of Minneapolis, read the burial service
of the Methodist Church slowly, but in a voice that could be heard
distinctly by all who were grouped around the vault. As his words
ended there was a brief silence, and then eight bugles sounded out
the notes of the soldier’s last call—“taps.” The notes of the buglers
died away so softly that all who heard them remained listening for
a few seconds to hear if the dying strain was really ended. When
the final note had died away, Secretary Wilson and Secretary Root
were weeping, and President Roosevelt was gazing mournfully at the
walk. It was the last moment for the men who had been so long and
closely associated with the deceased President, and the thought
seemed greater than most of them could bear.
Nature has been kind in selecting
the last resting place for President McKinley. West Lawn Cemetery
is on a high knoll [371][372] overlooking
the peaceful valley, with the busy little city of Canton laid out
below. If it were not for an intervening church spire, one might
get from this elevation a glimpse of the McKinley home. On this
elevation, looking out on his native city and his native State,
the body of William McKinley was laid to rest. The beauty of the
grounds has attracted the attention of the country’s best landscape
gardeners, who have journeyed here to study its attractions. On
this funeral day it was doubly beautiful, with the rustling trees
shedding the first yellowed leaves of Fall and adding a golden touch
to the green-clad slopes. Just inside the stately entrance stands
the gray stone vault where for a time the coffin will repose. Its
dreary exterior was relieved by great masses of flowers, banked
all about until the gray walls were shut out from view. But in due
time the body will be taken from the vault and committed to the
little plot of ground further on. This is the McKinley lot, and
here lie his father, whose name he bore, the mother he guarded so
tenderly in life, his brother James, his sister Anna, and his two
children. When that time comes a stately shaft of granite will rise
above the grave, telling of the civic virtues, the pure life and
the martyr death of William McKinley.
DR. MANCHESTER’S EULOGY
“Our President is dead.
“‘The silver cord is loosed, the golden
bowl is broken, the pitcher is broken at the fountain, the wheel
broken at the cistern. The mourners go about the streets.’ One voice
is heard—a wail of sorrow from all the land; for ‘the beauty of
Israel is slain upon Thy high places. How are the mighty fallen.
I am distressed for Thee, my brother. Very pleasant hast Thou been
unto me.’
“Our President is dead. We can hardly
believe it. We had hoped and prayed, and it seemed that our hopes
were to be realized and our prayers answered, when the emotion of
joy was changed to one of grave apprehension. Still we waited, for
we said, ‘It may be that God will be gracious and merciful unto
us.’ It [372][373] seemed to us that
it must be His will to spare the life of one so well beloved and
so much needed. Thus, alternating between hope and fear, the weary
hours passed on. Then came the tidings of defeated science and of
the failure of love and prayer to hold its object to the earth.
We seemed to hear the faintly muttered words: ‘Good-by all, good-by.
It is God’s way. His will be done,’ and then ‘Nearer, My God, to
Thee.’ So, nestling nearer to his God, he passed out into unconsciousness,
skirted the dark shores of the sea of death for a time, and then
passed on to be at rest. His great heart had ceased to beat. Our
hearts are heavy with sorrow.
“The cause of this universal
mourning is to be found in the man himself. The inspired penman’s
picture of Jonathan, likening him unto the ‘beauty of Israel,’ could
not be more appropriately employed than in chanting the lament over
our fallen chieftain. It does no violence to human speech, nor is
it fulsome eulogy to speak thus of him, for who has seen his stately
bearing, his grace and manliness of demeanor, his kindliness of
aspect, but gives assent to this description of him? It was characteristic
of our beloved President that men met him only to love him. They
might, indeed, differ with him, but in the presence of such dignity
of character and grace of manner none could fail to love the man.
The people confided in him, believed in him. It was said of Lincoln
that probably no man since the days of Washington was ever so deeply
imbedded and enshrined in the hearts of the people, but it is true
of McKinley in a larger sense. Industrial and social conditions
are such that he was, even more than his predecessors, the friend
of the whole people.
“A touching scene was enacted in this
church last Sunday night. The services had closed. The worshippers
were gone to their homes. Only a few lingered to discuss the sad
event that brings us together to-day. Three men in working garb
of a foreign race and unfamiliar tongue entered the room. They approached
[373][374] the altar, kneeling before
it and before his picture. Their lips moved as if in prayer, while
tears furrowed their cheeks. They may have been thinking of their
own King Humbert and of his untimely death. Their emotion was eloquent,
eloquent beyond speech, and it bore testimony to their appreciation
of manly friendship and of honest worth.
“It is a glorious thing to be able
to say in this presence, with our illustrious dead before us, that
he never betrayed the confidence of his countrymen. Not for personal
gain or pre-eminence would he mar the beauty of his soul. He kept
it clean and white before God and man, and his hands were unsullied
by bribes. ‘His eyes looked right on, and his eyelids looked straight
before him.’ He was sincere, plain and honest, just, benevolent
and kind. He never disappointed those who believed in him, but measured
up to every duty, and met every responsibility in life grandly and
unflinchingly.
“Not only was our President brave,
heroic and honest; he was as gallant a knight as ever rode the lists
for his lady love in the days when knighthood was in flower. It
is but a few weeks since the nation looked on with tear-dimmed eyes
as it saw with what tender conjugal devotion he sat at the bedside
of his beloved wife, when all feared that a fatal illness was upon
her. No public clamor that he might show himself to the populace,
no demand of social function was sufficient to draw the lover from
the bedside of his wife. He watched and waited while we all prayed—and
she lived. This sweet and tender story all the world knows, and
the world knows that his whole life had run in this one groove of
love. It was a strong arm that she leaned upon, and it never failed
her. Her smile was more to him than the plaudits of the multitude,
and for her greeting his acknowledgments of them must wait. After
receiving the fatal wound, his first thought was that the terrible
news might be broken gently to her. May God in this deep hour of
sorrow comfort her! May His grace be greater than her anguish! May
the widow’s God be her God! [374][375]
“Another beauty in the character of
our President, that was a chaplet of grace about his neck, was that
he was a Christian. In the broadest, noblest sense of the word that
was true. His confidence in God was strong and unwavering. It held
him steady in many a storm where others were driven before the wind
and tossed. He believed in the fatherhood of God and in His sovereignty.
His faith in the Gospel of Christ was deep and abiding. He had no
patience with any other theme of pulpit discourse. ‘Christ and Him
crucified’ was to his mind the only panacea for the world’s disorders.
He believed it to be the supreme duty of the Christian minister
to preach the word. He said: ‘We do not look for great business
men in the pulpit, but for great preachers.’
C
“It is well known that
his godly mother had hoped for him that he would become a minister
of the Gospel, and that she believed it to be the highest vocation
in life. It was not, however, his mother’s faith that made him a
Christian. He had gained in early life a personal knowledge of Jesus
which guided him in the performance of greater duties and vaster
responsibilities than have been the lot of any other American President.
He said at one time, while bearing heavy burdens, that he could
not discharge the daily duties of his life but for the fact that
he had faith in God.
“William McKinley believed in prayer,
in the beauty of it, in the potency of it. Its language was not
unfamiliar to him, and his public addresses not infrequently evince
the fact. It was perfectly consistent with his lifelong convictions
and his personal experiences that he should say, as the first critical
moment after the assassination approached, ‘Thy kingdom come; Thy
will be done’; and that he should declare at the last, ‘It is God’s
way. His will be done.’ He lived grandly; it was fitting that he
should die grandly. And now that the majesty of death has touched
and calmed him, we find that in his supreme moment he was still
a conqueror. [375][376]
“My friends and countrymen, with what
language shall I attempt to give expression to the deep horror of
our souls as I speak of the cause of his death? When we consider
the magnitude of the crime that has plunged the country and the
world into unutterable grief, we are not surprised that one nationality
after another has hastened to repudiate the dreadful act. This gentle
spirit, who hated no one, to whom every man was a brother, was suddenly
smitten by the cruel hand of an assassin, and that, too, while in
the very act of extending a kind and generous greeting to one who
approached him under the sacred guise of friendship.
“Could the assailant have realized
how awful the act he was about to perform, how utterly heartless
the deed, methinks he would have stayed his hand at the very threshold
of it. In all the coming years men will seek in vain to fathom the
enormity of that crime.
“Had this man who fell
been a despot, a tyrant, an oppressor, an insane frenzy to rid the
world of him might have sought excuse. It was the people’s friend
who fell when William McKinley received the fatal wound. Himself
a son of toil, his sympathies were with the toiler. No one who has
seen the matchless grace and perfect ease with which he greeted
such can ever doubt that his heart was in his open hand. Every heart
throb was for his countrymen. That his life should be sacrificed
at such a time, just when there was an abundant peace, when all
the Americans were rejoicing together, is one of the inscrutable
mysteries of Providence. Like many others it must be left for future
revelations to explain.
“In the midst of our sorrow we have
much to console us. He lived to see his nation greater than ever
before. All sectional lines are blotted out. There is no South,
no North, no East, no West. Washington saw the beginning of our
national life. Lincoln passed through the night of our history and
saw the dawn. McKinley beheld his country in the splendor of its
noon. Truly he died in the fulness of his fame. With Paul he could
say, and [376][377] with equal truthfulness,
‘I am ready to be offered.’ The nation was at peace. We had fairly
entered upon an era of unparalleled prosperity. Our revenues were
generous. Our standing among the nations was secure. Our President
was safely enshrined in the affections of a united people. It was
not at him that the fatal shot was fired, but at the very life of
the Government. His offering was vicarious. It was blood poured
upon the altar of human liberty. In view of these things we are
not surprised to hear from one who was present when this great soul
passed away, that he never before saw a death so peaceful or a dying
man so crowned with grandeur.
“But our last words
must be spoken. Little more than four years ago we bade him good-by
as he went to assume the great responsibilities to which the nation
had called him. His last words as he left us were: ‘Nothing could
give me greater pleasure than this farewell greeting—this evidence
of your friendship and sympathy, your goodwill and, I am sure, the
prayers of all the people with whom I have lived so long, and whose
confidence and esteem are dearer to me than any other earthly honors.
To all of us the future is as a sealed book, but if I can, by official
act or administration or utterance, in any degree add to the prosperity
and unity of our beloved country and the advancement and well-being
of our splendid citizenship, I will devote the best and most unselfish
efforts of my life to that end. With this thought uppermost in my
mind, I reluctantly take leave of my friends and neighbors, cherishing
in my heart the sweetest memories and thoughts of my old home—my
home now, and, I trust, my home hereafter, so long as I live.’
“We hoped with him, that when his
work was done, freed from the burdens of his great office, crowned
with the affections of a happy people, he might be permitted to
close his earthly life in the home he loved. [377][378]
“He has, indeed, returned to us, but
how? Borne to the strains of ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee,’ and placed
where he first began life’s struggle, that the people might look
and weep over so sad a home-coming
“But it was a triumphal march. How
vast the procession! The Nation rose and stood with uncovered head.
The people of the land are chief mourners. The nations of the earth
weep with them. But, oh what a victory! I do not ask you in the
heat of public address, but in the calm moments of mature reflection,
what other man ever had such high honors bestowed upon him and by
so many people? What pageant has equaled this that we look upon
to-day? We gave him to the nation but a little more than four years
ago. He went out with the light of the morning upon his brow, but
with his task set, and the purpose to complete it. We take him back
a mighty conqueror.
“The churchyard where his children rest,
The quiet spot that suits him best,
There shall his grave be made,
And there his bones be laid.
And there his countrymen shall come,
With memory proud, with pity dumb,
And strangers far and near,
For many and many a year,
For many a year, and many an age,
While History on her ample page,
The virtues shall enroll
Of that paternal soul.”
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