Later Years in the Senate. 1899-1905 [excerpt]

     The re-election of McKinley was peculiarly gratifying to Burrows, for between the two men existed a deep friendship which had begun during the Civil War. Burrows’ admiration for him was unbounded. His confidence in him as an exponent of Republican principles was supreme. With four years more in which to carry out the epochal program which Destiny had planned for him, Burrows believed that McKinley would go down in history as the greatest President the Nation had ever had. And beyond all this, opportunity had already come, and the glory was sure to fall upon this man, his friend! When, therefore, the assassin’s bullet accomplished its awful purpose in Buffalo on September 6, 1901, Burrows felt the blow more perhaps than any one outside the family. The [212][213] pain of Garfield’s tragedy came back to him with redoubled force, for McKinley was even more intimately his friend than the former martyred President. With the first news of the sad event Burrows hastened to Buffalo, remaining by McKinley’s side throughout the falsely-hopeful period, and being the only one outside the family except Senator Fairbanks who was at his bedside when he died.