The Nation Mourns

The fatal termination of the patient struggle in that silent chamber of the Milburn home has come with a new and terrible shock to the American people, whose hopes had been buoyed up by encouraging bulletins from the attending physicians. Of William McKinley none but the kindliest recollections will be [153][154] cherished by his fellow citizens of whatever political faith and whatever section. As an upright citizen, a faithful and firm friend, a devoted husband, a just and honorable statesman, his life was blameless and his career untarnished. He stood while he lived a pattern of American manhood representative of the best citizenship in a free and enlightened republic, wisely chosen to be its ruler, and the gradual broadening of his intellectual horizon, the larger development of his statesmanship, showed the real calibre of his mind and its capacity for growth and achievement. The wisest and most patriotic of his speeches was that delivered on the day before the foul deed that cut him down in the flower of his manhood and deprived his countrymen of the high service he was still to render them. Nothing will endear him more to his people than the manner of his taking off, and his name, already glory-crowned, will shine with added lustre through the generations for the deadly blow that, aimed at law, order, and popular liberty, fell on him.