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At McKinley’s Bier
E D
B:
Little did I think when casting my
vote for William McKinley as President of the United States that
he would be the third in that great office to be stricken down by
the assassin’s bullet; that our fair land was nourishing a reptile
so vile, so treacherous, and so devilish as he who has slain our
Chief Magistrate; or that the annals of American history would again
be blackened by so hellish a crime.
Nature mourned in sympathy with the
grief of a nation. The sun withheld his light; dark clouds veiled
the sky. The rain as it fell might well have been tears from the
overflowing eyes of the angelic throng [602][603]
above. Thus the very elements contributed to the mournfulness of
the occasion while the funeral services were in progress at the
Milburn residence.
At the City Hall, where the remains
are to lie in state from one to six ..,
is a vast throng of mourners awaiting their turn to view the body.
Six o’clock passes, and still the dense mass of people press onward
in a double line towards the bier. Three persons a second, one hundred
and eighty a minute, ten thousand an hour, gaze hurriedly, silently,
and sadly upon the beloved form; and while this living stream of
humanity moves onward thousands turn away unable to gain admission.
Children scarcely four years old were
borne on the shoulders of their fathers; war-scarred veterans of
the Grand Army of the Republic, gray-haired men and women, matrons,
maidens, and young men alike stood for hours in the pouring rain
awaiting their turn to enter City Hall. I stood among them for three
hours drenched with rain. Never did the people of America appear
more worthy of their heritage of freedom; never was a grief-stricken
people more orderly or patient than those who through long hours
waited to take a last look upon and pay the last honors to a true
and noble man, a wise statesman, a beloved ruler.
The face of the dead President was
calm and peaceful, not changed or wasted by disease, for death came
shortly upon his mortal hurt. It was a face which will ever linger
in the memory, for it was that of one at peace with God and man.
As the funeral cortège passes onward
to the capital of the nation and thence to the home of the honored
dead in Canton, Ohio, the martyr’s dying words will be echoed throughout
the land,—“It is God’s way. His will, not ours, be done.”
Stricken down while offering and receiving
the hand-grasp of friendship and good will [sic], like his Master
who was betrayed with a kiss, still like his Master his uterance
[sic] was, “Do not deal harshly with the man.” Thus answering the
gospel of murderous anarchy with the gospel of tolerant charity,
McKinley passed to his reward. But though dead, his spirit lives
and his memory becomes a priceless heritage to the nation and to
mankind.
A I,
D.D.S.
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