McKinley Assassination Ink: A Documentary History of William McKinley's Assassination

Publication information

Source: Letters of Richard Watson Gilder
Source type: book
Document type: letter
Document title: none
Author(s): Gilder, Richard Watson
Editor(s): Gilder, Rosamond
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
Place of publication: Boston, Massachusetts
Year of publication: 1916
Pagination: 340

Citation

Gilder, Richard Watson. [untitled]. Letters of Richard Watson Gilder. Ed. Rosamond Gilder. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916: p. 340.

Transcription

full text of letter; excerpt of book

Keywords

Richard Watson Gilder (correspondence); Richard Watson Gilder; William McKinley (death: personal response); William McKinley (at Pan-American Exposition).

Named persons

Rodman Gilder; William McKinley [in notes]; Theodore Roosevelt.

Notes

The poem referred to below as “The Comfort of the Trees” can be viewed by clicking here.

The editor precedes the text of the letter below with the following (p. 340):

My father was not in Buffalo at the time of President McKinley’s assassination, but, like every one in the country, he was deeply moved and shocked by the tragedy. A friend who had been in constant attendance on the President during his visits to the fair grounds wrote to my father: “I remember distinctly on two occasions when we were driving about the grounds, the President called my attention to the inscriptions, reading some of them as we passed along. He was deeply impressed by them and knew that we owed them to you. He read some of them aloud on his last ride to the Temple of Music as we passed along the Liberal Arts Building.”
On the day of the funeral, my father wrote to a friend:—

From title page: Edited by His Daughter, Rosamond Gilder.

Document

[untitled]

September 19, 1901.

What a strange day! This morning Rodman and I were at the Church of the Ascension. This afternoon, at the time of silence, we were singing “Nearer, My God, to Thee” with the crowd in front of Trinity.
In the President’s great speech he quoted, I was delighted to find, from my poem on the “City of Light.” In the speech of Vice-President Roosevelt, in opening the Exposition, he quoted from six or seven of my inscriptions on the buildings. The other night I wrote a poem about the President and the trees, “The Comfort of the Trees,” which I hope you will like. What a noble ending he made.