McKinley’s Clerical Defamers

There are quite a number of preachers who have uttered most disgraceful sentiments on the murder of the President, and who have not escaped the just anger of their hearers. They have dared to say that the assassin’s act was the judgment of God in punishment for the President’s shortcomings. These preachers appear nearly all to be readers of a certain intemperate temperance press which has not wearied to put the blame of the vice of Manila on the President, nor even to [2372][2373] blackguard him with charges that he was personally responsible for a profit from a saloon, and as a drinker of wine and a supporter of drunkenness was a disgrace to the Christian Church and to the nation. The language of these sheets has been malicious and utterly disgraceful. Of course Czolgosz was no Prohibitionist, but the spirit of Czolgosz has found an echo in the uncharitable and demagogical utterances of such papers. Even after the event one of them says:

     “Mr. McKinley’s policy in general was economic rather than moral. Prosperity among the people he regarded as a more important object of political action than great moral ideals among the people.”