President William McKinley

     The nation is in mourning. President William McKinley has passed away. The assassin’s blow was not struck at him as an individual, but was struck because he represented the American people in their governmental form of organization. President McKinley died for the American people and the American idea. He was a typical American, an intense lover of his country, a patriot, a manly, broad, loving and lovable man. Aside from pre-eminence as a patriot and a statesman, nothing so endeared him to the true American as his love and devotion to his invalid wife and his home. In the best sense of the word he was a clean man, a pure man, a man whose life, public and private, the parent and teacher can hold up to the American youth as worthy of imitation. His death is the nation’s loss. All the people mourn.