William McKinley

For the third time in the history of our country, the sacrilegious hand of Hate has struck at law and liberty by laying low the nation’s chief executive.
     For the third time, the victim was the best and noblest the country had to give: a man of wisdom and discretion, of courage and fortitude, honorable, charitable, loving and merciful—in every way a gentleman. As a result of this loss, our nation—indeed, the nations of the world—are plunged in gloom.
     It is altogether fitting and proper that every thinking man and woman in this broad land should be affected by this loss, for, to a certain degree, we are each accessory to the crime which has been committed. It is only owing to the combined selfishness or thoughtlessness of the community, that the national body could have become infected with the moral disease germs which have produced this terrible disorder. In this country, the might of public opinion is irresistible, and the right to help form public opinion is one of our proudest privileges.
     In the hour of our prosperity, we forgot that the price of safety is eternal vigilance, and public opinion was not directed in time against those forms of sociological heresy imported from Europe, which disregard the sacredness of human life. If, as a result, business is deranged, and the people suffer, it is only another instance of the working of that immutable law which has found expression in the inspired utterance: “They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”