War and Expansion [excerpt]

     Every index seemed to point to a prosperous administration. But a few months later the country was called, for a third time, to mourn the death of the chief magistrate at the hand of an assassin. On the 6th of September, while holding a public reception at the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, the President was shot twice by an anarchist named Czolgosz, who had concealed a revolver under a handkerchief, which appeared to cover an injured hand. One shot penetrated the stomach, but it was believed for some days that the President would recover. At length, however, he began to sink, and on the 14th he died.
     No President since Andrew Jackson had, after a four years’ service, been so popular with all classes as was McKinley. It is hardly probable that history will pronounce him a statesman of the first rank. His great popularity doubtless rested on a twofold basis: first, he possessed surpassing ability as a politician and party manager, and he had the skill to conceal this fact from the public; second, he was personally a man of sincere, pure life, of a great, generous heart, and of upright motives. It may be added [904][905] further that his tact in winning friends, and his power to grapple them to his soul with hooks of steel, would be difficult to parallel.
     On the day of McKinley’s death Theodore Roosevelt, who had been elected Vice President, took the oath of office at Buffalo as President of the United States. Mr. Roosevelt had attracted public attention as a fearless public official in his native state of New York and in Washington, and as a dashing soldier in Cuba. He now declared his intention to carry out the policy of the late President on the great questions of the day, and he requested the members of the Cabinet to retain their respective places. They all agreed to do so; but various changes were made within the following two or three years.