President McKinley’s Assassination

     PRESIDENT MCKINLEY and Mrs. McKinley visited the Buffalo Fair in September, 1901. On the 5th the President delivered a memorable address in the Fair Grounds. He called for a greater participation in world affairs and putting an end to isolation.
     He held a reception in the Temple of Music—one of the Fair buildings—on September 6, and shook hands with hundreds of men, women, and children. A man approached with a handkerchief covering his hand. As the President held out his hand, a shot startled the crowd. Under the handkerchief was a pistol. McKinley was shot in the arm and stomach. The Secret Service men grasped the lunatic, Leon Czolgosz, and were treating him roughly. When McKinley saw it, he asked them not to hurt him.
     After examination the President was taken to the home of John G. Milburn, president of the Buffalo Fair. For several days it seemed as if he had a chance to recover, as the following telegrams would indicate:

Buffalo, September 8, 1901.     

H. H. KOHLSAAT,
     Chicago.
     I wish to contradict false despatches that I predicted the President would not live. His condition this morn- [93][94] ing greatly improved. If this continues a day or two we may hope for speedy recovery.

M. A. HANNA.     

 

Buffalo, September 9, 1901     

H. H. KOHLSAAT,
     Chicago.
     All now firm in belief that the President will speedily recover.

MYRON T. HERRICK.     

     Secretary Cortelyou wired me the doctors’ bulletins daily. The last two telegrams received from him were as follows:

Buffalo, September 14, 1901     
1:40, A. M.               

H. H. KOHLSAAT,
     Chicago.
     The President is dying.

GEORGE B. CORTELYOU.     

 

Buffalo, September 14, 1901     
4:34 A. M.               

H. H. KOHLSAAT,
     Chicago.
     The President passed away at a quarter after two o’clock this morning.

GEORGE B. CORTELYOU.     

     If the President’s physical condition had been good he might have survived his wounds, but the doctors said, after his death, they doubted if he would have lived two years, as several organs were badly diseased.
     McKinley made a brave fight, but became weaker daily, and passed away early Saturday morning. In semiconscious moments he repeated several times: [94][95] “Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee.” Once he had said to me: “If it was not for Ida [his wife], I should like to go the way Lincoln did.” He had his wish.
     I left Chicago Saturday night, arriving in Buffalo Sunday morning, and telephoned Senator Hanna, who was a guest of his friends the Hamlins.
     I asked him how to get into the Milburn residence for the funeral exercises, as the house was surrounded by militia. He asked me to go with him. We went in the rear gate and entered the house through the kitchen, where I took a seat until Secretary Cortelyou took me into the small library where the casket was placed.
     Among the few men in the library when I entered was Charles G. Dawes, whose grief could not have been greater had his own father been in the coffin.
     President Roosevelt, who had been sworn in the day before, came in with six out of eight members of his cabinet. They were Elihu Root, Secretary of War; Ethan A. Hitchcock, Secretary of the Interior; John D. Long, Secretary of the Navy; James L. Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture; Charles Emory Smith, Postmaster-General; Philander C. Knox, Attorney-General. The other members of the cabinet, John Hay, Secretary of State, and Lyman J. Gage, Secretary of the Treasury, were in Washington.
     As the President and his cabinet seated them- [95][96] selves beside the casket, poor, broken-hearted Mark Hanna limped in and took a chair at the foot of the coffin. For a while he rested his head on his hand, with elbows on knees. Finally he sat up straight and, with folded arms, put on a brave face.
     There is an impression that Mark Hanna controlled William McKinley. That is not so. His attitude was always that of a big, bashful boy toward a girl he loves. It was not the power that it brought Mr. Hanna that made him fight for McKinley’s nomination and election; it was the love of a strong man for a friend who was worthy of that affection.
     Before the services began President Roosevelt came to me and said: “Come to Ansley Wilcox’s house on Delaware Avenue at 3 o’clock. I want to see you.”
     After the services in the Milburn residence the casket was taken to the City Hall, where thousands passed the bier before midnight.
     At 3 o’clock I gave my card to the colored man at the Wilcox home. The house was old-fashioned. A hall with rooms on both sides. My card was carried into the room on the right. Across the hall were the members of the cabinet. I was soon shown in; after I had shaken hands with Roosevelt, he turned to a gentleman by his side and said: “Woodrow, you know Kohlsaat, don’t you? Mr. Kohlsaat, let me introduce you to Woodrow Wilson.”
     After a moment or two Roosevelt said: “Wood- [96][97] row, would you mind stepping into the library for a few minutes? I want to talk to Kohlsaat on an important matter.” In 1901 Mr. Wilson was professor of political economy and jurisprudence, Princeton University. A year later he was made president of the institution.

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     After Mr. Wilson left us, Roosevelt said: “I am going to make two changes in my cabinet that I know will please you. I am going to let John Hay go and appoint Elihu Root Secretary of State. I am also going to ask Lyman Gage for his resignation.” I answered: “Why do you think it would please me to have Hay go?” He said: “Why, Hay’s position on the Hay-Pauncefote treaty was what brought you and me together.” I said: “John Hay is a warm friend of mine. Instead of sulking when the treaty was defeated, he was man enough to amend it to allow fortifications, and it was finally ratified. And,” I continued, “what have you against Lyman Gage?” Roosevelt snapped his teeth and said: “He always gets his back up against the wall, and I can’t get around him.” I said: “Don’t you know I am responsible for Mr. Gage being in the cabinet? McKinley did not know him. He appointed him inside of five minutes, after a long-distance telephone from Chicago to Canton, in January, 1897.” [97][98]
     I continued: “Yesterday, when you were sworn in, you issued a statement that you were going to carry on McKinley’s policies, and now you propose to fire his Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury! Saturday the stock exchanges of the country closed when the news came of McKinley’s death. To-day’s papers report there is great uneasiness as to what will happen when they open to-morrow. Why? Because you are considered a ‘bucking bronco’ in finance, and now you propose to let Gage out of the Treasury Department, and Heaven only knows whom you will appoint. It will probably cause a panic, and it will be known for all time as the ‘Roosevelt panic.’”
     Roosevelt looked at me a moment, made one of his characteristic faces, and in one of those falsetto notes of his said: “Old man, I am going to pay you the highest compliment I ever paid any one in my life. I am going to keep both of them!”
     He then insisted I go to Washington with him on the funeral train at 8.30 the next morning. I told him it was impossible, as I had to be in Chicago Monday morning to borrow $10,000 for my Record-Herald pay-roll. He said: “Do you remember what you said to me a few minutes ago?—‘You must!’ Well, you ‘must’ go with me to-morrow. The only friend I have on the train is Elihu Root. If I talk to him all the time it will make the other fellows [98][99] mad. Telephone your banker that I say you must go to Washington, and to take care of your pay-roll.” That night I telephoned Ernest A. Hamill, president Corn Exchange National Bank, and was told to go ahead. “I will take care of your pay-roll.”
     Roosevelt continued to talk of his cabinet. He said: “Gage does not like me. I want you to wire him to meet you at your hotel on our arrival and tell him he must stay for a while, at least, and I want you to see the Associated Press man and ask him to send a despatch that when we reach Washington to-morrow night I am going to ask Hay and Gage to remain in the cabinet.”
     In 1904, during the Republican convention in Chicago, I met Secretary of Agriculture Wilson at the Chicago Club. He said: “What did you say to Roosevelt the day of the McKinley funeral in Buffalo at that house where we stopped?” I said: “Why, Uncle Jimmie?” “Well,” he said, “when Roosevelt went to the door and you went down the steps, he rushed into the room where we six cabinet fellows were and said: ‘I have changed my mind. I am going to keep all of you!’ He had asked us for our resignations that morning, which, of course, is customary!”
     Monday morning at 8.30 the funeral train left Buffalo. The President and cabinet preceded the casket to the special train, Mrs. McKinley, her [99][100] friends, and George B. Cortelyou following. When the casket had been placed in the private car of some railroad official, President Roosevelt stepped up to me and said: “Did you send that telegram to Gage?” The newspaper men were very curious to know what Roosevelt whispered, and sent some wild conjectures to their papers.
     The railroad officials had entirely cleared the depot of all cars, both sides of the track. Not a soul was to be seen on either platform, with the exception of the crew of the funeral train. In the thirteen hours it took to go to Washington, no cars of any sort were on the track next to our train. The railroad arrangements were perfect. The train consisted of a baggage, dining-car, three Pullman sleepers, and a private car. One coach was occupied by the President and cabinet; another by friends, including Senator Hanna, Charles G. Dawes, Charles W. Fairbanks, Cornelius N. Bliss, John G. Milburn, and Elmer Dover, secretary to Senator Hanna; the third by newspaper correspondents.
     Roosevelt occupied a drawing-room. He asked me to sit with him. His mind was working like a trip-hammer. He talked of many things he was going to do.
     Part of the time I was in the second Pullman. An hour or two after leaving Buffalo Mark Hanna came to my seat. He was in an intensely bitter state of [100][101] mind. He damned Roosevelt and said: “I told William McKinley it was a mistake to nominate that wild man at Philadelphia. I asked him if he realized what would happen if he should die. Now look, that damned cowboy is President of the United States!”
     I tried to reason with him; told him Roosevelt did not want to be “shot into the Presidency,” but could not mollify him.
     A little later I asked Roosevelt how he and Mark Hanna got along. He said: “Hanna treats me like a boy. He calls me ‘Teddy.’” I asked him if he realized what it meant if he and Hanna quarrelled, and told him Hanna held the Republican organization in the hollow of his hand; that he was the leader in the Senate and could defeat any measure that he, Roosevelt, proposed, and make his administration a failure. I cited the Garfield-Conkling row.
     Roosevelt said: “What can I do about it? Give him complete control of the patronage!” I said: “Hanna would resent any such suggestion.” I told him Hanna was heart-broken. He saw his best friend gone. All his hopes crushed.
     Finally I made the suggestion he invite Hanna to take supper with him alone in his drawing-room. That he must not say anything in the presence of the waiter that could be repeated, as the newspaper men would pounce upon the poor colored boy when [101][102] they arrived in Washington. That after the plates and cloth were removed, to let the table remain, calling his attention to the awful gap between the front and back seat of a Pullman sleeper. When they were alone, to say: “‘Old man, I want you to be my friend. I know you cannot give me the love and affection you gave McKinley, but I want you to give me just as much as you can. I need you. Will you be my friend?’ Then put your hands, palms up, on the table. If he puts his hands in his pockets, you are a goner, but if he puts his hands in yours, you can bet on him for life.” Roosevelt said: “All right, I’ll try it!”
     Later, as I sat in the forward coach, I saw the waiter whisper in Senator Hanna’s ear. He hesitated a moment, and then nodded his head. He came to my seat at the other end of the car and said: “That damned cowboy wants me to take supper with him, alone. Damn him!” I said: “Mark, you are acting like a child. Go and meet him half-way.”
     Shortly after, he disappeared into Roosevelt’s car. I was very nervous, but as an hour passed and thirty minutes more, Hanna came in, and I knew by his face, as he limped toward my seat, it was “all right.” With a smile which the late Volney Foster said “would grease a wagon,” Hanna said: “He’s a pretty good little cuss, after all!” When I asked him what took place, he told me of Roosevelt’s putting his [102][103] hands on the table, and as near as one man can quote another, he told what Roosevelt said, repeating what I had told Roosevelt to say. “What did you do, Mark?” He answered: “Putting my hands in his I said: ‘I will be your friend on two conditions: first, that you carry out McKinley’s policies, as you promised.’ Roosevelt answered: ‘All right, I will.’ ‘Second, that you quit calling me “old man.” If you don’t, I’ll call you “Teddy.”’ ‘All right. You call me “Teddy” and I’ll call you “old man.”’” From that moment Roosevelt and Hanna were stanch, loyal friends. The only rift was for a few weeks late in 1903, when some anti-Roosevelt people tried to get Mark Hanna into the race for the Presidency.
     All of Roosevelt’s own writings and his numerous biographers tell of his friendly relations with Hanna, but are silent as to how it came about.
     As the funeral train left Buffalo, the streets through which it passed were filled with men with bared heads, women, and children. As we went through the towns and cities, the station platforms were crowded with school-children, singing: “Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee.” The day was bright and warm for September. The windows of the car were up. As we neared the stations the engineer slacked speed and slowly passed the singing, weeping crowds. Before the day was over every one on the train was in a highly strained condition. Tears [103][104] came easily. It was an exhausted party that reached Washington at 9 o’clock that night.
     For days after that trip, awake or asleep, I heard that “Near-urr, my God, to Thee, near-urr to Thee”!
     At Harrisburg thousands of people in the depot shed were singing McKinley’s last words.
     As we neared Washington darkness came on; the negroes in Maryland lighted fires near the track. As the train passed we could see their dark forms and faces in the glare of the burning brushwood. Here, too, their song was: “Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee.”
     During the entire day, in the last coach a little, frail figure in black kept tender watch over her beloved dead.