Chapter XLVI [excerpt]

     While President M’Kinley had been on a visit to the Pan-American Exhibition at Buffalo, on the 6th of September, an Anarchist assailant drew a revolver on him and fired two shots, one bullet of which lodged against the breast-bone and was soon extracted, but the other entered the abdomen and could not be found after a surgical operation. Covered with blood, the President fell desperately wounded into the arms of surrounding friends, while the would-be assassin was at once seized by the indignant bystanders, and was only rescued from their summary vengeance by interposition of the police, who with difficulty succeeded in locking him up for the purpose of further examination.¹ With alternate fears and hopes for his recovery, the President lingered on for a week, when he expired early on Saturday morning, September 14th, to the great regret, not only of the people of the United States, but to those of the most distant nations.² Immediately afterwards, the Vice-President, Theodore Roosevelt, in accordance with provision made by the Constitution, became the succeeding President, and took the usual oath of office.
     The First Session of the Fifty-seventh Congress opened on Tuesday, December 3rd, with President Roosevelt’s Message to Congress.³ It opened with a reference to the assassination of his predecessor in office, to whose high qualities a warm tribute was paid. It stated, that no matter called more urgently for the wisest thought of Congress than the treatment of Anarchists. By international treaties, all civilized powers should declare the crimes of Anarchists offences against the Law of Nations, like piracy and the slave trade; so that the Federal Government might with the fullest efficacy deal sternly with such miscreants.