McKinley National Memorial

     Republics are sometimes ungrateful; they are more often forgetful. It took years of soliciting and even scolding for the American people to contribute enough to raise fitting memorial tombs over the graves of Lincoln and Grant. William McKinley will be more fortunate, for an active, comprehensive movement is now well under way for his memorial at Canton, Ohio. The McKinley National Memorial Association has undertaken the work, and reports a strong and widespread interest in the movement. This association, which is duly incorporated under the laws of Ohio, is composed of twenty-one trustees, appointed by President Roosevelt at the request of Mrs. McKinley. Senator Hanna, Hon. William R. Day, ex-secretary of state and now a United States judge, and Hon. Cornelius N. Bliss, ex-secretary of the interior are among the members, and the others are men of prominence throughout the land. They were all dear friends of the dead president. The officers of the association are William R. Day, president, Marcus A. Hanna, vice-president, Myron T. Herrick treasurer, to whom subscriptions should be sent at Cleveland, Ohio, and Ryerson Ritchie, secretary. The purpose of the association is to erect a memorial tomb over the grave of Mr. McKinley at Canton, Ohio, where he lived for so many years, the present home of his wife, and where his children lie buried. Other memorials have been of a local character, but this is national in the interest it has excited. Indeed, it is more than this, for the American consular service through- [358][359] out all the world reports practical financial sympathy from Americans abroad and from appreciative foreigners, who, even at long range, realized the worth of William McKinley as a man and a magistrate. Every state and territory in the union has its auxiliary committee and its local associations actively at work; the soldiers in the Philippines are giving generously; Hawaii, which owed him much, remembers the debt and, aside from raising a grand monument in Honolulu, will send a large offering to the Canton fund; and Porto Rico’s contribution, according to Governor Hunt, will be very large numerically, though from the general poverty of the people it will not aggregate a large sum.