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Address Before the District of Columbia Commandery
of the
Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States
C C:—
We met here, last spring, and said
good-bye to one another, looking forward to the pleasures of vacation
and of distance from the city during the summer, and looking forward,
also, with genuine pleasure to coming here, at the opening meeting,
and grasping hands fraternally and with affection. How little did
any one suspect at that meeting that this first meeting of the series
would be devoted, as it is here to-night, to a subject in which
our hearts well up with grief! Truly, “God moves in a mysterious
way, His wonders to perform.”
We must look through all the sadness,
[145][146] and all the grief, and all
the trouble, and see the meaning behind. As Companion Hawley said
at the beginning, it is easy to speak of William McKinley. You have
got to speak right out of your heart, and “tell you that which you
yourselves do know,” and you speak into other men’s hearts who have
the same feeling. It is nothing new you tell; and it meets with
a quick response, because fortunately here, in this audience at
least, we all knew William McKinley.
One of the wonderful characteristics
of the man was that God gave him opportunity to come into personal
contact, and into affectionate relations, with a larger number of
his countrymen and countrywomen, probably, than any other American
who ever lived. It was not simply that he was President of the United
States, but because he had a heart that went out to every citizen
of the United States, high or low.
We like, when we try to dwell in memory
on the character,—and that is what lives of a man after the body
has passed away,—we like to try and analyze that character, and
see if we can find some one salient point that seems to typify the
man. When we come [146][147] to apply
this process to William McKinley, we shall find that if there were
one quality he exhibited above all others, it was that of sincerity.
I was thinking this over, this afternoon,
and walking in company with my chief, Secretary Long, who was dear,
I know, to President McKinley. I spoke to him of it, and I asked
him if it were not so, that there were two characteristics of our
late President which were very marked—the one simplicity and the
other sincerity. “Yes,” said the Secretary to me; “but are not those
two the same thing?” I reflected a moment, and I replied, “Yes.”
It is the sincere man who is simple—simple in his character and
simple in the expression of that character to others. He told me—and
he had a right to tell me because of his friendship with the President,
for no man knew him better—that I was right in attributing to him
as a predominating trait that most excellent quality of sincerity.
Now, William McKinley—and many of
you here knew him as well, and some of you better, than I—had this
peculiar habit: When you went to him, aside from business, [147][148]
and even on business, you found very quickly that he was turning
the subject from himself to you. Almost the first question he put
to you was regarding yourself and your dearest interests; and that
was spontaneous and natural with him, because he was a man who found
his happiness in making others happy.
I suppose that we have never had in
public life a man who exemplified that trait as President McKinley
did. This curious result has followed: I think if you talk about
President McKinley to any man who knew him, that man will, you shall
find, venture to believe that somehow the President was a little
closer to him than to anybody else. I believe he impressed you,
when you were with him, with that feeling. It was not an illusion;
it was born of the relations which existed at that time between
you and him; he had so loving a heart.
Now this I am sure is not mere sentiment.
It is true, genuine, and real; and that very thing, it seems to
me, in the character of William McKinley is bequeathed to his countrymen
as a precious legacy, that will be fruitful of good to this country
for years and years to come. [148][149]
Just think of the influence, upon
the country at large, of the death-scene, which has been spoken
of so feelingly by those who have preceded me. The last words, or
almost the last words, of that man were “Good-bye”—not that alone—“Good-bye
all! ” That little word; how significant! It took in everybody,
and everybody in the land felt that he was thought of by the President
in that supreme moment.
The other day, as I was passing near
the White House, I saw one of the faithful attendants coming along,
grief depicted in his countenance, and I shook hands with him for
the second time (for I had done it only a few days before), and
sympathized with him. I spoke to him of these words. His face lighted
up, and he said: “That was the remark that the President made to
all of us when he left the White House.” So I infer that it was
a common remark with him. But how beautiful at such a time was that
one word “all.” It was typical of the man’s nature.
I see placed here on these walls most
appropriately pictures of the three great Americans on whom we shall
rely in future [149][150] generations
as exemplifying the best traits of the American people. How dissimilar,
and yet how alike are they! Washington—and the interesting fact
in regard to Washington is that we to-day know him better than our
forefathers did. The real Washington is depicted to us as he was
not to them; Washington, who seems to have been selected by Divine
Providence to bring this country out of its trials and place upon
a firm foundation a free people.
Then Lincoln, that wonderful man with
an infinite fund of practical sense, yet with a vein of poetry and
womanly tenderness in him; a strange mixture, raised up at that
period; the only man, probably, who could have guided us through
those perilous times. It would seem as though Washington and Lincoln
had exhausted all those qualities of greatness possible to Americans,
as their country’s representatives in the chair of the Presidency.
And then the face of McKinley!
It was the fortune of William McKinley,
strangely enough (for there were no signs of it when he entered
upon his office), to guide this country through the perils of [150][151]
another war. He was at the head of the government; a peril greater
than war confronted this country, for a new departure had come upon
us. The wisdom and the capacity, the patience and the practical
good sense that characterized every act of his proves that he was
the right man in the right place, though the time has not, perhaps,
come yet when we fully understand it.
Had McKinley living gone out of office,
it would have been to look back upon a remarkably successful and
wise administration. God willed that it should not be thus—that
there should be the story of his wonderful death. In generations
to come those scenes will be rehearsed. Nothing can ever surpass
the heroism, the Christian fortitude, the thoughtfulness and unselfishness
with which William McKinley met his fate, and passed from this world
to another.
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