Conclusion—President M’Kinley—General Daniel Morgan [excerpt]

     In conversation with President McKinley at the Executive Office, to which I have referred, he gave evidence of the spirit that animated him in the administration of the affairs of this Government until the bullet of the miserable anarchist destroyed his noble life. He said: “Thank God we hear [355][356] no longer the words Northerner and Southerner. If the sections were not united heart and soul already, this trouble has united them. In my appointments to places in the Army, far be it from me to inquire whether an applicant comes from the North or South, or whether his antecedents are secession or Union, except so far as it may be necessary in order to apportion the appointments among the different States.”
     By his every act and expression from the day of his first inauguration to his sad and tragic death, his determination and purpose were clearly shown to be, in truth and not merely in name, a National President, without enmity for the South, without bias for the North. His wearing of a Confederate badge at a Confederate reunion, and his suggestion that the United States Government should make appropriations for the care of Confederate Cemeteries, showed how full was his soul with the milk, not of human kindness merely, but the spirit of fraternal love.
     This was an exhibition of moral courage and superb manhood that will link his name forever with the names of the world’s most courageous and manly, most generous, magnanimous, and patriotic public servants. No President from the birth of this Republic to the present hour ever grew more rapidly in the hearts and affections of the American people than did William McKinley, and when he was lying, hovering between life and death, the prayers that ascended to the Throne of Grace for his recovery from every section of this Republic were as countless as the leaves of a forest.
     William McKinley was truly a National President. He had as much faith in the patriotism of the South as he had in the patriotism of the North. He would have trusted a Virginia Division to lead a forlorn hope as soon as he would have trusted a Massachusetts Division. There was not a spark of sectional feeling in his soul.
     He loved the whole constellation, and one star was as dear to him as another.
     He loved his American soil, and the cotton-fields of Georgia and wheat-fields of Tennessee delighted his eye with [356][357] their opening bolls and golden sheaves as much as the ore beds of Pennsylvania and the pine clusters of Maine. He loved his country’s oceans, lakes, bays, and rivers, and the white sails of commerce on their bosoms filled him with pride from whatsoever clime they came, North, South, East, or West.