| Publication information |
|
Source: Reconstruction and Union, 1865-1912 Source type: book Document type: book chapter Document title: “The Golden Age of Materialism” [chapter 8] Author(s): Haworth, Paul Leland Publisher: Henry Holt and Company Place of publication: New York, New York Year of publication: 1912 Pagination: 195-209 (excerpt below includes only pages 207-09) |
| Citation |
| Haworth, Paul Leland. “The Golden Age of Materialism” [chapter 8]. Reconstruction and Union, 1865-1912. New York: Henry Holt, 1912: pp. 195-209. |
| Transcription |
| excerpt of chapter |
| Keywords |
| McKinley assassination; William McKinley (personal character); William McKinley (political character). |
| Named persons |
| Leon Czolgosz; Marcus Hanna. |
| Notes |
| From title page: By Paul Leland Haworth, Ph.D., Author of “The Hayes-Tilden Election,” “The Path of Glory,” etc.; Collaborator on “A History of the United States and Its People;” Sometime Lecturer in History, Columbia University and Bryn Mawr College. |
| Document |
The Golden Age of Materialism [excerpt]
On the following day he held a
public reception in the Temple of Music and shook hands with all who came to
greet him. While thus engaged he was shot twice in the body by a young anar-
[207][208] chist named Leon C. Czolgosz, who was
subsequently executed for the deed. The wounded man survived for a few days,
and the physicians held out hopes of his recovery. But one of the wounds proved
more serious than they had supposed; on the 14th the president died, the third
American president to be assassinated in less than forty years, a record of
which the nation has no reason to be proud. He was buried at his old home in
Canton, and at the hour of the ceremonies, by universal agreement, all business
activities throughout the country were suspended.
In the dead man’s private life there had been
much to commend. He was religious, devoted to his wife, temperate, dignified,
kindly, gentle. Intellectually he was not endowed with originality, but he possessed
shrewdness, tact, and the faculty of taking advice. Although no orator, he always
secured a hearing. As a politician, he knew how to hold his ear close to the
ground and understood the immense advantage to be derived from the support of
great financial interests. An opportunist rather than a statesman, he was consistent
only in that he shaped his action to the party’s wishes and demands. Yet he
was not truly democratic nor did he guard carefully the true interests of democracy.
His complaisance towards men of wealth and interests representing wealth and
the influence exerted over him by the corruptionist Hanna form blots that time
will hardly efface, yet in his behalf it can be urged that probably he did not
thoroughly understand the tendencies of the times. It was [208][209]
his fortune to be president at a period that was epoch-making, and hence his
place in history will probably be larger than that of some abler men. Under
him the United States definitely forsook its time-honored policy of isolation
and became a world power. He also ruled in the golden age of American materialism.