Congress Presidential Address [excerpt]

THE LATE MR. MCKINLEY.

     The death of another exalted personage, by the hand of a dastardly assassin is also greatly to be lamented. Though not directly connected with India, the Indians have a genuine love and regard for the Americans, who are, after all, the kith and kin of the English beyond the Atlantic. We are specially grateful to them for their generous sympathy and support during the dark days of the two severe famines which closed the nineteenth century. It was an act of international sympathy which we Indians can never forget. The death of Mr. McKinley, late President of the United States, is, therefore, greatly deplored by us. It is indeed mournful to reflect that so good, so capable, and so popular a President should have fallen by the hand of one of the bands of that fanatic brotherhood, who entertain the frenzied cult that Society and Order are best served by anarchy and shooting down or stabbing princes, potentates and presidents. That such ideas should now and again take practical shape is deplorable. They sully the fair fame of the West, which, it is to be hoped, Civilization and Humanity may soon put an end to.