Our Martyred President

     The assassination of President McKinley by a fiendish anarchist has stirred the American nation to a profounder depth of grief than it has ever before been moved in this generation. This is due to the fact that the atrocious crime was without shadow of cause or reason, and to the amiable and exemplary character of the victim, whose kindness, courtesy and forbearance was proverbial, and whose private life, as well as every official act, was not only above reproach but pure and free from every taint or stain. He was not assassinated because he was William McKinley or as a result of any personal or political animosities, but simply and solely because he was the President of the United States, and, as such, the head of the nation.
     This the people realized, and every man, woman and child (anarchists excepted) felt a personal grief and a personal loss in the untimely death of this great and good man who was so basely shot down because he was our highest officer, representing law and order—government—for eighty millions of intelligent, prosperous and happy people.
     Hence we mourn our martyred President and will ever cherish the memory of his virtues, and extend our deep and sincere sympathy to his stricken and bereaved widow.
     We also mourn his as a Brother, Companion and Friend, for he was one of our mystic fraternity, and we have kept watch and ward with him in scenes to which the world was not witness, and where the bitter enmity of war, the strife of business competition, the jealousies of politics and parties, and the clash of creeds and religious opinions are all laid aside and the better feelings of humanity left free to develop the higher attributes of the soul under the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. His work was not finished yet his column was broken, and as the laurel crown of martyrdom is placed upon his brow we bid him good night but not farewell, for we know that his noble soul still lives, and in due time we shall meet and greet him again. “It is God’s way; His will, not ours, be done.”