President Roosevelt’s Administration [excerpt]

WHEN Theodore Roosevelt was yet Vice President and had no thought that he would succeed to the Presidency of the nation through the death of William McKinley, he said:—“I am going to be a candidate for President. I shall do the very best I can to obtain that nomination. But if I do not get it I shall accept the result cheerfully, and although it will be a great disappointment to me should I fail to be the candidate of my party, I shall not sulk nor let it embitter my life.”
     Mr. Roosevelt made this statement at the house of Mr. Ansley Wilcox at Buffalo, in September, 1901, when he was packing up, preparing to leave for the Adirondacks. President McKinley had been shot a few days before and on that day the physicians had given the opinion that he would recover. The whole country breathed a sigh of relief and no one felt more joyful than Mr. Roosevelt. The man was supremely happy that the Presidency was not going to come to him through the assassin’s bullet.
     “To become President in this way,” he had said, “means nothing to me. Aside from the horror of having President McKinley die, there is an additional horror in becoming his successor in that way. The thing that appeals to me is to be elected President. That is the way I want the honor to come, if I am ever to receive it.”
     Mr. Roosevelt went to the Adirondacks. When there, Mr. [171][172] McKinley took a sudden change for the worse and died while the Vice President was on his way back to Buffalo to take the oath and assume the responsibilities of the office of President.