Assault on the President

     The dastardly assault upon President McKinley by the assassin Czolgosz, thanks to the promptness with which the President was taken in hand by the surgeons, failed of its purpose, and the nation is spared the horror of a consummation of the assassin’s purpose. It is also spared any business complications that might have followed an unexpectedly sudden change of administration. By the time the next issue of this paper is ready, then, so rapid seems now the President’s convalescence, the incident, save for the scoundrel’s punishment, will, let us hope, have been closed by the President’s entire recovery and a resumption of his official duties.
     Were any good gift to be found in so untoward an event, it would be gratification to the law-abiding in the instantaneous and spontaneous expression by all classes, save a few incorrigible partisans, of admiration for the splendid personal qualities of the man William McKinley so swiftly uncovered by this awful test of the hidden springs of the man’s true character. His forgetfulness of self, his tender and thoughtful regard for others—first of all for the miserable wretch who would have destroyed him[—]all mark him as a man apart and unite to drown all mere partisan differences in the inspiring thought that Mr. McKinley’s entire purity of character and nobility as a man exalts him in public regard as surely as his public position as President demands the public respect and consideration.