The Assassination of President McKinley
IN 1900 President McKinley was nominated and elected
to succeed himself. The intimacy and friendship between the Senator
and the President continually increased, and so highly did the President
regard the abilities of his Indiana friend that he gave him notice
that it was his intention in the near future to invite him into
his Cabinet. On the sixth day of September, 1901, a terrible blow
fell upon the American people, and for the third time within a third
of a century an American President was stricken down by the hand
of an assassin. This great calamity touched all Americans. It was
a blow at law and order.
For six years Mr. Fairbanks had been on
terms of the closest intimacy with Mr. McKinley. The President relied
much on the judgment and sagacity of the Senator; the Senator had
an exalted estimate of the ability and patriotism of the President.
Under these circumstances the blow fell with peculiar force on Senator
Fairbanks. To the nation it was the President who had been slain;
to Senator Fair- [154][155] banks it
was a loved friend. When the bullet of the assassin had found its
mark all thought the end had come, but a few days later it was announced
that the stricken President would recover. Senator Fairbanks had
been at the bedside of his friend and chief, but when this cheering
word from the surgeons was received he left Buffalo to fulfill an
engagement to address a Thanksgiving service of the Grand Army of
the Republic at Cleveland, Ohio, to be presided over by Senator
Hanna. That great body of patriotic men, who had served their country
on the field of battle in the hour of the country’s direst need,
held a Thanksgiving service over the announcement that the President
was to yet live. Senator Fairbanks paid a glowing tribute to the
character of the President, and said:
“Fellow citizens, it is a source of gratification
to know that in the solution and settlement of the great problems
and great questions which are yet pending before the American people,
undetermined, we shall have the wise statesmanship of William McKinley.
We not only want him, and wish him to live for that, but we wish
him to live as the American people wished that Abraham Lincoln might
live, until he can see the full fruition of his administration,
and live many years to receive the grateful homage of a grateful
republic. . . . . My friends, let
us retire to our homes with a profounder reverence for law and order;
let us return to our [155][156] homes
and continue at the fireside our supplication to the Allwise [sic]
Ruler that He speed the hour when the brave President of the United
States will leave his bed of pain and walk again among the people
he loves so well, in the full possession of his health and his magnificent
manhood.”
Hardly had these words died away on the
air when the startling news came that the great President was dead.
The country was shrouded in grief, and all the nations of the earth
joined America in mourning over the awful crime.
In October, 1901, he addressed a campfire
of the Sixty-ninth Indiana and paid a tribute to the memory of the
late President, and thus spoke of the crime that took from the country
its Chief Executive:
“I speak only the truth when I say that
when the tragedy occurred at Buffalo Democrats and Republicans felt
that a crime had been committed against them each alike. It seems
yet like a horrid nightmare. What had this man done to deserve such
a fate? One of the kindest, one of the bravest, and one of the best.
. . . . The blow was not struck alone
at him; it was a blow struck at the state. Anarchy! What a hated
word! Anarchists—how at war with all our conceptions of right, of
orderly government! Anarchists! There is no room in this Republic,
great and splendid as it is, for anarchy! The red flag must go down
in the face [156][157] of the Stars
and Stripes! The anarchist is the enemy of all governments, monarchial
and republican alike. There ought to be treaties between the various
governments in the civilized world leaving no spot for anarchy to
place its foot short of perdition itself.”
President McKinley worshiped at the Metropolitan
Methodist Church at Washington, and a few months after his death
a tablet to his memory was placed in the church. On that occasion
Senator Fairbanks was one of the speakers. His short speech was
a generous tribute to the worth of the martyred President. Because
of its correct estimate of the character of Mr. McKinley, and because
it evidences the sincere feeling and affection of the Senator, it
is reproduced here:
“My friends, we are met to perform a most
gracious service—to dedicate here, in this house of God, a tablet
to one of the few names that was born to never die. We stand upon
ground made sacred by the presence of William McKinley. Unto this
shrine the Christians will come in the unnumbered years before us
and derive new hope and inspiration. It seems but yesterday that
our friend occupied yonder pew, brave, strong, in the very plenitude
of power, the most beloved of our fellow-men. We can yet almost
hear his voice as it was raised in song and thanksgiving. Here he
came upon the Sabbath day to pay tribute to his Maker, for he was
a sincere believer in religion, a devout Christian and a doer [157][158]
of Christian deeds. He not only taught but carried the great truths
into every act and deed of his life.
“It was here he found solace from the great
and arduous responsibilities which rested upon him, and drew courage
and inspiration to meet and discharge them. It does not seem that
it was but a few months ago, less than one brief year, that our
friend was here. It is, indeed, but a short time, measured by the
calendar, but measured by events how long it is. What mighty events
have come and gone; how the great heart of the nation has been wrung
with an uncommon sorrow. The tragedy at Buffalo was the master crime
of the new century. We could not at first believe the awful truth—it
was so unnatural. We stood bereft of speech. Who could be so dead
to all sense of pity as to strike down one who so loved his fellow-men?
About us everywhere were the ample evidences of peace. Sectional
differences were dead; a fraternal spirit was everywhere, and under
the guidance of our great President we were moving on to a splendid
national destiny.
“The theme which this occasion suggests
is a great one—too vast for the brief hour in which we are assembled.
There is in all the world nothing so great and beneficent as a good
name. It raises our poor humanity to a more exalted plane. It lifts
us into an ‘ampler ether and diviner air.’ William McKinley was,
in the fullest and best sense of the word, ‘of the people.’ He rose
by the force of his genius [158][159]
from an humble beginning to stand among the greatest of men. He
sought to interpret the public will, knowing full well that the
wisdom of the people is unerring, that their voice is indeed the
voice of Almighty God. He inspired confidence among men in the integrity
of his purpose and in the wisdom of his policies. He was a total
stranger to arts by which weaker men seek to attain place and power.
He did not attempt to rise upon men; he preferred to rise with them.
His mind and heart were filled with no shadow of hate; the sunshine
of love, affection and human sympathy filled them to overflowing.
He was in the truest and best sense a patriot. He gave the best
years of his life—he gave life itself to his country. . .
. . In the National House of Representatives he
won enduring fame by his intelligent service and complete consecration
to the interests of his fellow-men. His every act was characterized
by a high conception of his exalted trust. When summoned by the
voice of his countrymen to the chief office in the Republic he entered
upon its grave and difficult duties with a full consciousness of
the tremendous responsibility that rested upon him. He reverently
invoked wisdom from on high that he might well discharge the task
that had come to him.
“When others sought to plunge the Nation
into war he stood against it with all his power. He abhorred it,
although knowing full well that victory [159][160]
must crown our arms if war should come, and that the prestige of
his name would fill the earth. He thought not of that, but of the
loss and suffering the war must bring. And not until all pacific
means had been exhausted and the national honor commanded did he
consent that his country should draw the sword. When obliged to
strike he struck rapidly and with terrific power, and upon the ruins
of monarchy he planted republican institutions.
“The multitude will come and look on yonder
tablet and in time it will crumble away. Monuments will arise throughout
the land and disappear. Canvas will seek to perpetuate and be forgotten,
but the name of our friend will live. His enduring tribute will
be found in the hearts of the people so long as this great Republic
endures. Long after we have lived our brief hour and the physical
monuments we have raised have been resolved into the dust, the pure,
patriotic and holy influence of William McKinley will continue to
be an inspiration and benediction among men.”
So well was the intimate friendship that
existed between the Senator and the President known that on several
occasions where a tribute was to be paid to the memory of the President
Mr. Fairbanks was invited to deliver an address. The most notable
of these occasions was the unveiling of the McKinley monument at
Toledo, Ohio, on September 14, 1903. On that occasion the Senator
delivered an elaborate [160][161] address
in which he reviewed the life and public services of Mr. McKinley.
The soldier, the man, the Representative in Congress, the Governor,
the President, all passed in review before the audience. It was
not alone the tribute of an eulogist, but the tribute of one acute
mind to the public services of another. As a citizen Mr. Fairbanks
had lost his President; as a party man he had lost his political
chief; as a friend he had lost a brother; and in paying his great
tribute at Toledo to the dead he spoke as a citizen and a friend,
but not as a party man.
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