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The Week
GOOD-BY ALL. Good-by. It is Gods way. His will be done, not ours.
These were the last words of President William McKinley as his life
left the body torn by the assassins bullets. Mr. McKinley died
early in the morning of September 14, after a week of suffering,
during which hopes of his recovery had been steadily encouraged
by the reports sent out by his physicians. The immediate cause of
death was gangrene, possibly from a poisoned bullet, which followed
the course of the wounds. The funeral train with the body of the
dead president left Buffalo on Monday for Washington, where the
body lay in state at the Capitol until Wednesday. Then the body
was taken to Canton, where the interment took place on Thursday,
appointed a day of mourning by President Roosevelt.
EULOGY of the dead president we leave to others; there is no lack
of it, nor of sincere sorrow, in any part of the world. Here this
was to be expected, but judging from the messages received from
abroad, the Vienna Neues Weiner Tageblatt does not exaggerate
when it says: The ocean is not wide enough to hold all the sympathy
that streams from the old world to the new.
IT seems as though William McKinley had to die as he did in order
that the people of this country and others might know him. Nothing
could have been more plain than that President McKinleys one rule
of conduct was the conscientious performance of his duty to the
people. This did not secure immunity from the harshest criticism
which sometimes amounted to villification. Now his death and the
way in which he met it has shamed those who have called him weak,
an oppressor and tyrant abroad, and a conspirator against rights
and liberties at home.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT, the constitutional successor to the presidency,
took the oath of office at Buffalo on Saturday afternoon less than
twelve hours after the death of President McKinley. The oath was
administered by United States District Judge John R. Hazel at the
home of Mr. Ansley Wilcox. Of great importance is the statement
which President Roosevelt made just before he took the oath. I
wish, he said solemnly to the cabinet officers and others who were
gathered in the room, to say that it shall be my aim to continue
absolutely unbroken the policy of President McKinley for the peace
and prosperity and the honor of our beloved country.
THUS while the people of the United States have lost one highly
esteemed public servant they see him replaced by another whose character
and experience justify the belief that he will in every way be a
worthy successor to President McKinley. President Roosevelts courage
has never been questioned; good administration is with him a passion;
he has preached it and enforced it throughout his public life. For
these reasons there is every reason to expect that the progress
and prosperity of the country will continue under the new chief
executive, who has asked the McKinley cabinet to remain in office
and secured their promises to do so for the present.
NATURALLY the avoidance of a repetition of crimes of the kind which
have deprived the nation of three of its presidents is the subject
of most earnest consideration, but no practicable suggestions have
yet been made. It is to be presumed that the assailant expects to
accomplish the death of his victim; what then is to be gained by
making an attempt upon the presidents life punishable by death
without regard to the actual outcome of the attempt? Probably nothing
can be done to preclude the possibility of such attacks upon the
heads of nations, but the preaching if not the mad practise of anarchy
can be stopped, and it doubtless will be until we again grow careless
of the safety of our highest state officials.
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