Held McKinley’s Hand

Did Col. Frank Bostock, While the Surgeons Probed for the Fatal Bullet.

     A story comes to “The Billboard” from Buffalo to the effect that Col. Frank Bostock, of the Bostock-Ferari Carnival Company, enjoys the distinction of having held President McKinley’s hand while the physicians at the Exposition Emergency Hospital were probing for the bullet which cost the President his life.
     Colonel Bostock, it seems, had prepared for a visit from the President the day the latter was shot. The performance had been held, to allow the President to finish his hand-shaking in the Music Building. Mr. McKinley was scheduled to visit the Bostock show immediately after the public reception was over. Col. Bostock was waiting for the President to arrive, and was in conversation with one of the Emergency Hospital surgeons when a messenger arrived, urging the surgeon to hurry to the Emergency Hospital and prepare it for the President’s reception, adding that the chief executive had been shot. The surgeon, who is a friend of Col. Bostock, urged the latter to accompany him to the hospital, which he did, and both had just put the operating table in position when the stricken President was carried in. Col. Bostock, who was near him, took his hand and held it while the surgeans [sic] laid him on the table, and he continued to hold the President’s hand while the probing process went on. During all the excitement Col. Bostock is said to have kept his head, and to have rendered the operating surgeons valuable assistance.