McKinley Assassination Ink: A Documentary History of William McKinley's Assassination

Publication information

Source: New York Times
Source type: newspaper
Document type: letter to the editor
Document title: “A Clergyman’s Rebuke”
Author(s): B., W.
City of publication: New York, New York
Date of publication: 27 September 1901
Volume number: 51
Issue number: 16138
Pagination: 6

Citation

B., W. “A Clergyman’s Rebuke.” New York Times 27 Sept. 1901 v51n16138: p. 6.

Transcription

full text

Keywords

McKinley assassination (religious response: criticism); McKinley assassination (public response: criticism); McKinley assassination (religious interpretation: criticism).

Named persons

W. B.; William McKinley.

Document

A Clergyman’s Rebuke

To the Editor of The New York Times:
I am a clergyman. I have noticed with humiliation your not infrequent allusions to the attitude and utterances of Christian ministers in connection with the murder of President McKinley. I am humiliated because what you say is too true. It seems to me that some of the most extreme and dangerous public utterances that have been made have come from the pulpit.
Another thing I have noticed. In the endeavor to account for the Providential character of the event each public speaker reads into it his own interpretation drawn from his own particular hobby. If he is an anti-imperialist, it was imperialism that did it. If he is a temperance reformer, it was rum that did it. If he is an anti-trust man, it was the multiplication of trusts that did it or it was yellow journalism, etc. If God rules the world it must have been Providential. God is good and wise. What He does or allows to be done must in the end prove best; but God is inscrutable and no one can or ought to try to tell why He acts as He does.

W. B.

New York, Sept. 24, 1901.

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