Chapter Twenty-Two [excerpt]

     It will be remembered that McKinley fell victim to the inchoate rage of a crazy anarchist, sensational journalism having fed the frenzy of the assassin who sought revenge on society by destroying its accepted head. As I said at the time:

     There is a cowardly discontent which leads a man to blame all failure on his prosperous neighbor or on society at large— [575][576] as if a social system existed apart from the men who compose it. Under Democracy all violence is treason. Whosoever heaves a rock at a scab teamster, whosoever fires a shot at the President of the United States, is an enemy of the Republic, guilty of high treason. The central fact of all Democracy is agreement with the Law. It is our law and we made it. If desirable we can unmake it, but by compact of Democracy, any change must be brought about by the methods of peace and order.

     On September 13, 1901, I stood for a moment at the corner of Market and Third streets in San Francisco, reading the posted bulletins from Washington foreshadowing McKinley’s death. A little old crone of a woman, similarly engaged, remarked: “The President will die.” “Yes,” I answered sympathetically; “he is dying.” At this she turned on me savagely: “You did it! You know you did; you look it!” She then backed off in front of a moving car and would have been instantly crushed had not a young man in naval uniform jerked her away as quick as a flash—after which they both melted into the moving crowd.