How to Protect Our Presidents

IT may not be true that William McKinley in the supreme moment of his agony expressed a solicitude for the safeguarding of the miscreant who assaulted him, but those who are familiar with the character of the man cannot doubt that his serene soul was asking that the law should be permitted to take its course.
     THERE IS NO PUNISHMENT SO ADEQUATE FOR SUCH A CRIME AS THE EXECRATION OF MANKIND. The fear of sudden death has never yet deterred certain abnormal classes of criminals from the execution of their diabolical purposes.
     THE CALM, DELIBERATE, RESISTLESS ENFORCEMENT OF THE LAW IS THE BEST PROTECTION THAT SOCIETY CAN HAVE.
     To fall upon and exterminate the whole viperous brood of anarchists now domiciled in the United States would not crush out anarchy, but would rather give new madness and inspire to more awful purposes the hordes of lawlessness throughout the world.
     LET VENGEANCE BE METED OUT AS SWIFTLY AND TERRIBLY AS POSSIBLE, BUT LET IT BE THE VENGEANCE OF THE LAW.

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     The publication or utterance of anarchistic sentiments, the inciting or counseling of murderous and unlawful acts, should be prohibited under penalty of death, imprisonment or banishment from the country, AS THE GRAVITY OF THE CASE MIGHT DEMAND. In addition to this, we ueed [sic] more drastic laws and a more rigid enforcement of existing laws against the admission of all whose blood, whose birth, whose teachings, whose practices, would degrade the social status of the country or menace the integrity and perpetuity of free institutions.
     The hope of the world must not be disappointed through the powerlessness of the republic to protect its officials and citizens in their lives, their homes, their liberties and their property. Despots and monarchs can protect themselves by armed legions, by arbitrary exercise of power, by suppression of free publication and free speech and by the ruthless destruction of even those who counsel together for the amelioration of most grievous wrongs.
     IF OUR CIVILIZATION IS TO STAND, OUR PRESIDENTS MUST BE SAFE IN THE MIDST OF THE COMMON PEOPLE. THEY MUST BE SAFE THROUGH THE ENCOURAGEMENT AND NOT BY THE SUPPRESSION OF LEGITIMATE PUBLIC DISCUSSION. THEY MUST BE SAFE THROUGH THE INFLEXIBLE ENFORCEMENT OF THE LAWS WHICH THE PEOPLE MAKE FOR THEMSELVES.