After Four Years [excerpt]

     The part he [James V. Ellis] played in an incident in connection with the assassination of President McKinley at Buffalo had figured next in the papers. On the evening in question, when the martyred president was lying near to death, [13][14] a group of anxious citizens of Buffalo had gathered around a bulletin board where news of the sinking man’s condition was posted. When it was learned that McKinley had only a few hours to live, some one in the crowd, for the pleasure of hearing himself talk and the more doubtful one of shocking the others, voiced the sentiment that the country was “well rid of him.” The scoffer met swift punishment for his unfeeling and unpatriotic remark at the hands of Mr. Ellis, who happened to be among the bystanders, and who promptly knocked him down—a deed which won no little applause for Mr. Ellis and much exploitation by the press.