President Roosevelt Summoned

Vice-President Roosevelt, confident of the President’s recovery, basing his confidence on explicit statements of the highest authorities, had gone after his family, some of them convalescing from illness, to the remote Adirondack Mountains. As soon as it was known that the President could not live, the president-to-be was summoned by telegraph and rapid riding messengers; and his rush out of the woods toward Buffalo as soon as he heard the awful—and for him solemnizing—news was characteristically strenuous and fearless. Arriving at Buffalo thirteen hours after the death of the President, on the afternoon of the 14th, he took the oath of office at the residence of a mutual friend. Prior to this solemn act he had made the following statement to the Cabinet and for the public: “I wish to state that it shall be my aim to continue absolutely unbroken the policy of President McKinley for the peace, prosperity and honor of our beloved country.” He has requested all the members of the dead President’s Cabinet to retain their places for the present; and his every act and word from the time the President was shot down to this time has revealed him as a man of sobriety, good taste and deep feeling.