The Presidency: Its Possibilities, Limitations and Responsibilities [excerpt]

     There is one other item of a personal character I would like to speak of, and that is the necessity of having secret service men following the President. Congress has said it is a necessity, and the assassination of three Presidents doubtless justifies them; but it is not always pleasant to have two or three men dogging your steps, following you everywhere, so that even as you slip out of the White House and get away for a little while, especially if you are not a rapid walker, you hear steps behind you and you find your guardians on duty. They are gentlemen. They know how to conduct themselves, and they are very useful if the President comes in contact with a crowd. They, of course, could not succeed in keeping a man away who is determined to kill the President, if he is willing to give up his own life, but they do serve the most useful purpose of keeping away those whose minds are affected. The President never comes into any community where he is not in the habit of living that the wheels do not begin to buzz in the brains of those who have wheels. That makes it essential there should be somebody at hand.
     I speak with caution, but I feel that if the rules which now obtain and the care that now obtains with respect to the Presidency had been in force at the time of the tragedy at Buffalo it could not have occurred. That assassin had a revolver in his pocket under a handkerchief. Under the rules that now obtain, he would not have gotten within fifty feet of the President before somebody’s fingers would have been inside that pocket to see what was in his hand.
     This, however, is one of those presidential burdens that the President must bear which has never brought about a resignation as yet, and is not likely to. Still you do have a feeling before you get thru [sic] that instead of being protected you are being watched.