The Shooting of the President
THE President is shot by an anarchist. This was the startling and
sobering announcement made to the country last Friday as the day
was drawing to a close and men and women were in happy anticipation
of a peaceful and quiet evening. As the sudden revelation of the
stupendous events recurs, the picture of the happy republic on the
approach of the serene evening plunged into gloom by the pistol-shot
of an assassin is most impressive. The President was spending a
happy day at the great fair. He was surrounded by a group of charming
and kindly people. Throngs of sight-seers greeted his approach and
cheered him as he walked through the buildings. There seemed to
be nothing to mar his enjoyment of a beautiful scene, of welcoming
friendship, of a great enterprise whose importance he had himself
advanced by his speech of the day before—a speech whose echoes were
even yet stimulating respectful and approving comment in two hemispheres.
Throughout the country there prevailed the carelessness of the hour
following the end of the business day. If the people thought at
all of their President it was to wish him enjoyment of his holiday.
No dream of danger on his account invaded their contentment, for
was he not among his countrymen who loved him, who had chosen him
to be their Chief Magistrate, who loved peace also, and law and
order? Was he not the guest and comrade, at one of its best communities,
of the democracy whose law is supreme and the guardian of its liberty?
But who can foresee what a moment will bring forth? Who can reckon
with chance? Who can count on the vagaries of a mind overturned
by long brooding upon criminal visions and intentions?
In a moment, the anarchist, approaching
the President under the guise of friendship, has sped his treacherous
bullet into the body of the head of the republic. At once the personal
equation of the victim occurs to every sympathetic American. In
the long line of Presidents who have held this high office, no one
of them was so popular as Mr. MK
is. There are Presidents in the list, some of whom we look back
to with a feeling of reverence for their greatness, or of admiration
for their astuteness, or of sincere regard for their courage and
independence, but not one of them all, especially during his term
of office, has enjoyed so completely the affection of his fellow-countrymen.
Whether men believed with him or opposed his views, they liked him
personally. He was possessed of a singular power of winning affection.
His amiability was never ruffled. One who knew him well, and who
was opposed to one of the President’s policies, said one day, impatiently,
“His amiability is his strong point.” Not altogether true, because
it was exaggerated, this remark had the heart of the truth in it,
for the graciousness of the President won strong men to his way
of thinking; it obtained for him and for the cause which he advocated
a considerate and a friendly hearing. It nearly always inspired
those who came in contact with him a desire to please him. Aiding
his amiability, the President has always been captivating and persuasive
in argument, and thus it is true that his amiability has been strength.
But aside from the power of it, his amiability has been the index
of a lovable nature. There is no man who ever had much intercourse
with him who has not felt that Mr. MK
was tender and affectionate—a man to whom hatred and revenge were
strangers, in whose expansive heart there was room for all mankind.
To parade domestic affections and to display the virtues of the
home is something from which a sensitive man shrinks, but we must
allude to the President’s devotion to his wife, for the unhappy
circumstances of her invalidism have necessarily made the country
familiar with a phase of his character, the special virtue of which
he would doubtless be the first to disclaim. For many years the
invalid has been the first in the husband’s thoughts, and after
he was shot, it was of her that his first thought and first words
were. “Break it carefully to Mrs. MK,”
is his first reported sentence.
The personal virtues of Mr. MK
are those dear to the American people. A kindly people themselves,
they are quick to respond warmly to an amiable and lovable man.
In no country in the world are the domestic virtues more highly
esteemed and honored than here. The man who lives up to the high
standard of the American home is a knight of the order of modern
chivalry compared with whom the armored knights of old fade out
of poetry and sink into the social marshes of the Middle Ages. To
say that W MK
has enjoyed the love of men in a singular degree is to express mildly
a truth which cannot be fully appreciated except by a personal experience,
or by observation of the attitude towards him of those habitually
nearest to him. But beyond and even richer than the affection of
men like the members of his cabinet were the love and kindly feeling
for him of the great masses of his countrymen, many of whom had
never seen him, while most of those who had seen him had merely
looked at him from a distance, or had listened to him as he spoke
from a platform. So it was the common friend of all his countrymen
that the anarchist struck down, and the solemn silence of the land
betrayed the personal character of the grief which was felt by all.
There is no blow more dastardly than that which is struck at the
kindly heart.
But awful and inexplicable as is the
crime against the individual, there is a sterner and a higher point
of view from which to regard this anarchist’s act. It was not only
W MK
that was struck; it was the President. It was not only the President;
it was the Presidency. It was not only the headship of the republic;
it was the sacred majesty of the law. The blow of the mad deed was
aimed not only at the law, but at the liberty which the law shelters
and maintains. This makes the crime larger and blacker than the
crime against the man, or his office, or against the government,
for it becomes a crime against humanity. This government was established
in order that, under it, men might rule themselves and enjoy that
more abundant liberty which a hundred years ago, and now, has been
held to be only possible under a democracy. The essential purpose
of the government is the establishment and maintenance of liberty,
and this purpose it seeks to accomplish by law—law under which,
as M said, no one can be constrained
by an individual’s will or whim; under which there can be no tyranny,
on the one hand, or license on the other. The attack upon the President
was not directed against W MK,
not so much against him as was the murder of the King of Italy an
assault upon H, not nearly so much
as the murder of the Russian Czar was a hostile act against the
house of R, for the Czar is the
state itself, and the President is but the servant of the state.
The President stands not only for our government, not only for our
social system, not only for the law whose machinery is in daily
operation before us, but for liberty and the right of self-government,
the right to prescribe the rules which shall guarantee to every
man dwelling in the land that complete freedom of action which is
consistent with his duty to his neighbor, and which shall protect
him against the passions and lawlessness of criminals, and the irresponsible
fury of the insane. At the head of the institutions which guard
these human rights is the President, and it was because he was President
that Mr. MK
was shot, and the end sought was confessedly the destruction of
the Presidency and the republic. There is no blow more treacherous
than that which is aimed at the head of a democratic state. This
shot was fired against our chosen trustee, and, therefore, against
the country.
Anarchists are the common enemies
of humanity. Their theory is that laws must be overturned, and that
government must cease to exist. Astonishment is expressed that the
Pole, coming from a country where the people are oppressed, should
extend the hostility which he has felt for emperors to the President
of a republic; but there is nothing wonderful in the attitude of
this anarchist, or of his fellows who, for several years, have been
plotting against the republic as if it were a despotism, a cruel
and unjust despotism. The anarchist is not only the vermin of the
human race, but he is guided, if it is proper to speak of guidance
in respect of one so wholly unrestrained as he, by the same moods,
passions, whims, caprices, vanities, and poor ambitions that govern
despots and all absolute rulers who are not of the impossible good
kind of which modern political philosophers are wont to talk. The
anarchist thinks that he wants liberty; but he really wants what
the tyrant wants—license for his own passions and desires, a community
where he and his kind may live as they please, unhampered by any
government, or by their fellows, even to the offence of those fellows
whom they would constrain to adopt and follow their notions, and
to obey their decrees. It is said that there is no place for anarchists
in a republic, but this is only true if we assume that there is
a place for anarchists anywhere. In such a republic as our own there
is, it is true, no place for revolutionists who want a larger liberty,
for their is ample liberty already, and laws for the protection
of liberty. But anarchy is insanity. The belief that liberty is
possible without law is a delusion, and anarchists will continue
to be found here as elsewhere, as long as law reigns, and is therefore
an offence to their disordered minds. These minds breed their criminal
delusions in other minds. The man who shot the President, and whose
name, at this writing, is uncertain, confesses that his inspiration
came from the works of E G.
This form of insane delusion can be inculcated, and therefore the
anarchist becomes a pest, a constant menace of danger, a standing
threat to the head of the state, and the state, consequently, owes
it to itself, as well as to its faithful servants, that the pest
of anarchy be stamped out; that anarchists be treated like dangerous
insane persons, but not with that leniency, when murder is committed
by them, that is shown to ordinary insane murderers; for, while
an anarchist is insane enough to be confined, he is not irresponsible
for his criminal acts. According to the laws of this State, the
President’s assailant may be punished at the utmost by imprisonment
for ten years. It is not enough. He should be confined for life;
and all who believe with him, and whose beliefs are made public,
should be confined with him. There is no place for anarchists anywhere,
but least of all should a republic tolerate them. Disregard of them,
neglect of them, lack of precaution against them, have made W
MK the
victim of a murderous assault, because he is our President, and
so long as anarchists are permitted their liberty, every President
will be in danger from them.
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