Publication information

Source:
Western Electrician
Source type: journal
Document type: editorial
Document title: none
Author(s): anonymous
Date of publication: 21 September 1901
Volume number: 29
Issue number: 12
Pagination: 186

 
Citation
[untitled]. Western Electrician 21 Sept. 1901 v29n12: p. 186.
 
Transcription
full text
 
Keywords
McKinley assassination (news coverage); William McKinley (death: news coverage); McKinley assassination (public response); McKinley assassination (use of telegraph); technology (impact on society).
 
Named persons
Ida McKinley; William McKinley.
 
Document


[untitled]

     During the 10 days that elapsed between the shooting of the president at the Pan-American Exposition and the departure of the remains for Washington the attention of the country was centered on the sick chamber in Buffalo. Every detail of the attack, of the president’s condition and the physicians’ hopes, of the effect on Mrs. McKinley, of the stream of anxious inquirers, and of the end of it all, was read with consuming eagerness. The newspapers and the telegraph companies made extraordinary efforts to meet this demand for information. Special wires were strung to tents erected across the street from the Milburn House, where the president was lying, so that in a very few seconds the bulletins could be sent all over the country. A very heavy volume of business was thrown on the wires by the newspaper correspondents and was accepted and successfully handled. It is said that the Postal company alone transmitted over a million words from Buffalo during this trying period. The amount of business sent over the Western Union wires was at least as large. The resources of electrical communication, so highly praised by Mr. McKinley himself in his speech of September 5th, were severely taxed, but they proved to be adequate.