Mr. C. S. Sparks, of Cincinnati

On the Death of McKinley and the Anarchists.

     The alleged dying declaration of President McKinley is certainly not his words, because, in the first place, the Christians announced them and they mean to profit by them; secondly because the sentence is architecturally perfect, properly punctuated and capitalized, and such a sentence could no more come from a dying and decaying man than a perfect rose could come from a dying rose bush.
     I firmly believe that the Christians or perhaps only the Catholic branch of them, feeling confident of his approaching death, or knowing, long in advance, of the intended assassination, and having one, or several, of their adherents in charge of the patient and knowing and desiring the great influence such an utterance, coming from a man so good and so near to the hearts of the people, constructed that sentence, and if President McKinley ever uttered those words he did so at the request of an attendant, and then only repeated them after him like a child learning to talk.
     Of course some of the Doctors will say that he uttered them because it cannot be proven by competent testimony that he did not, and because it would be worth as much as their practice to refuse to confirm the report that he did. Besides it would cause them to lose caste and would force them to retirement.
     Mrs. McKinley did not hear her husband say them but, like many good women, will hope that he did, and will finally be convinced that he did.
     President McKinley was not a believer in the Bible nor in the tenets of Christianity.
     Had he been either he would on the 22nd day of October 1897, the day he made his will, and while his good old mother was in life, and whose name is so tenderly and lovingly mentioned in that testament, and to whom he owed more than to any other person in the world and while still in possession of the thought and knowledge that he had been so graciously favored as to enjoy a privilege which had only been enjoyed by one man (Garfield) theretofore—that of kissing his dear mother upon receiving the oath of office of the President of the United States, have attributed his success and this special privilege to “divine providence,” and, as a believer in miracles, would have acknowledged “His” existence and paid him homage in his last will and testament.
     We are familiar with the stereotyped form of the introduction to the wills of Christians, which is as follows: “In the presence of Almighty God, and being in the full possession of all my faculties, I now make and declare this to be my last will and testament.”
     Had President McKinley been a Christian he would have made use of the above language, or that of similar import, in his will, instead of the sensible introduction that he used and which is as follows: “I publish the following as my last will and testament, hereby revoking all former wills.”
     Had he been a believer in the supernatural he would have followed the Christian precedent by making use of the following language: “I hereby devise and bequeath to my beloved wife all of my personal and real property, provided she does not re-marry;” thus exemplifying the belief that this is the place to be miserable—a place of sickly countenance; that the dead are alive.
     The Catholic church, that nightmare, that destroyer of virtue, home, hope, promise and ambition; the seducer, the infernal inquisitor, the inventor of means of hellish torture, the retarder of progress, the consort of ghosts and hobgoblins, the advocate of the delusion that the way to heaven is by the “hearse” road, the pretender of regret over the assassination of McKinley, Garfield and Lincoln, the originator of the brutal lie that the killing of McKinley was an anarchistic plot, the user of McKinley during his first term of office, the possessor of the knowledge that he would assert his independence and true American manhood during his second term and that it could not longer use him, the dispension [sic] of ignorance, the conglomerated phantasmagoria, the provider of body guards [sic] for the president who stood by and saw him shot, the Catholic church in the ignorant precincts of which the murderer of the President was “educated,” cast the dead President aside, mentally, in the same manner as one of its foolish and ignorant members would a sucked orange.
     The Catholic church that “educated” and furnished the men to assassinate Lincoln and Garfield also “educated” and furnished the man to assassinate McKinley and will absolve his sins and send him on his way to “heaven” rejoicing, at the time of his execution.
     The Catholic church whose adherents recognize no power or government higher than the church, whose head is the dried up Leo,conspired [sic] to lay the taking off of our beloved President to the Anarchists, so that it might thereby delude and fool our lawmakers to restrict emigration and free speech and free press hoping that, thereby, the inroads upon its “sacred teachings” would be blockaded.
     The Catholic church an advocate of restructed [sic] emigration! Yes, so long as it restricts those opposed to religious rule; so long as the lawless tribe—the Catholics—who are now being forced to leave France, may be admitted. It would have the public forgot [sic] that [all the?] assassins of our public officers were citizens as pure and patriotic as a Catholic can be, of the United States.
     The Catholic church, like a slimy snake is endeavoring by every available method, to obtain control of the United States government, and the assassination of President McKinley was one more step toward the desired end. The idea of a sensible public listening to the howling of the Catholic church, the enemy of all governments unless under the supervision of the Pope, is, to me, most absurd.
     The Anarchist—that is the evolutionary anarchist—had no more to do with the assassination of President McKinley than the dead Grant had. The evolutionary anarchists believe, as I understand them, that man is the highest type of animal life, and that he can be so educated and trained that he can live in peace and harmony with his fellow-man without being compelled to pay any man a higher salary to rule over others.
     They believe in ideal life which at our present slow progress, could not be reached in ten thousand years. Yet I believe them to be honest and sincere and that their method is not violence but education.
     But there is another kind of anarchists [sic] who believe in force and violence and this to kind [sic] belong the assassins of Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley.
     They are believers in God, Christ, the Holy Virgin Mary and the Catholic church.
     I am not an anarchist of either of the above described varieties, but being an Agnostic I have learned the spirit of fairness and occupying this position can assert that in all my researches I have been unable to find the record of one death caused by the teachings of evolutionary anarchy, but have found the record of countless thousands caused by the teachings and instructions of all religious denominations.
     It has been said Anarchists do not vote. Of this I am not advised, but if it be true then they do no harm by the ballot. I do know that the members of all religious denominations do vote is [sic] usually cast with the party or person, which, or who, will make the greatest sacrifices in their behalf. Their votes are seldom cast in the interest of and for the preservation of a Republican form of government, but in the interest of an ecclesiastical form of government and to that end all such denominations are working.
     In the face of the facts it behoves [sic] every Liberal to exert all honorable influence in an effort to preserve our government in the form designed by our fathers. We should do all in our power to combat the spread of ignorance and superstition, all we can to combat the influence on susceptible minds of the alleged dying utterances of President McKinley, and on that we may in the interest and advancement of enlightment [sic] and, in order to accomplish this, as many of us as possible must unite and move forward in this noble work.
     If it is not possible to work harmoniously under the A. S. U. let us organize a new national society at once and go to work in earnest.
     Above all let us impart to our children the knowledge we have gained while they are yet children, and, to this end let us organize Sunday Schools all over the country, and select an organizer of the same to act under the supervision and direction of the national body.