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Rejoicing in Buffalo
ROOSEVELT AND HANNA DISCUSS THE GOOD NEWS—
SCENES IN THE STREETS.
Buffalo, Sept. 8.—Senator Hanna is
to-day more confident than ever that President McKinley will live.
He came to Buffalo on Saturday morning broken in spirit and fearful
that his almost lifelong friend would die from the effects of the
anarchist’s bullet. To-day he is strong in the faith that the President
is winning the grim fight with pain. Senator Hanna’s solicitude
has been like that of a father for a stricken son. Saturday morning
the Senator at the earliest practicable hour sought the Milburn
house. All the information possible was laid before him, and he
left the house a little more buoyant. Again and again he sought
the latest details from the sickroom. At 6 o’clock on Saturday night
he got hold of Dr. Rixey, and had his first satisfactory talk with
the doctor. It was then that he gave The Tribune correspondent the
statement used yesterday. Senator Hanna was one of the earliest
visitors at the house this morning. The President’s comparatively
comfortable night greatly encouraged him. He told his friends he
was sure his stricken friend would survive. This afternoon he was
again at the house with Vice-President Roosevelt. When he stepped
out on the sidewalk in Delaware-ave. he looked up at the sky, and
then benevolently returned the inquiring glances of the newspaper
men.
“I notice,” said Senator Hanna, “that
there are suggestions that the physicians are coloring and withholding
the truth in their bulletins, and that the bulletins do not show
the President’s real condition. These stories are outrageous, and
they should not be circulated. The physicians are giving the facts
to the public.”
Vice-President Roosevelt, with evident
earnestness, here laid his hand on Senator Hanna’s arm.
“Senator,” said he, “let me put it
this way. The doctors’ bulletins are made with a scrupulous understatement
of the favorableness of conditions—a scrupulous understatement,”
added Colonel Roosevelt with emphasis.
“That expresses the idea,” said the
Senator.
“It is a fact,” reasserted Colonel
Roosevelt, “that the doctors, if anything, understate the hopefulness
of the situation.”
Again Senator Hanna asented [sic],
and added that it required from forty-eight to seventy-two hours
for conclusions of an absolutely trustworthy character to be reached.
No physician, he said, pending such a period, would state absolutely
final conclusions. The doctors were inspired by the sincerest effort
to give the best judgment that medical science could render.
As Senator Hanna and the Vice-President
were leaving the house Robert T. Lincoln, son of President Lincoln,
was chatting with Mr. Milburn in the hall. Mr. Lincoln soon came
out and expressed a hopeful view of the situation.
“My visit,” said he, “has given me
great encouragement. I feel more hopeful now than I have at any
time.”
Mr. Lincoln reached Buffalo on Friday
in a private car with his family and a number of friends. The attempted
assassination of the President deeply moved him, and led him to
postpone his departure.
Senator Hanna returned to the Milburn
house at 1:30 o’clock, and was there again at 5 o’clock. He was
intensely interested in the sleep which the President took in the
afternoon. He almost beamed as he left the house, shortly after
5 o’clock.
“Now, young men,” said he, “I want
to be conservative. Get me straight. If the present conditions continue
for the next twenty-four hours the surgeons will be able to give
us news as satisfactory as we could wish. So far as any human agency
can predict, this state of affairs will be brought about. The four
restful hours of sleep the President had to-day is evidence of his
almost normal condition. His mind is clear and his condition is
most hopeful.”
GRATIFICATION EVERYWHERE.
An aged man wearing a Civil War
veteran’s button, accompanied by his wife, walked out from the New-York
Central Station after an all night ride from the West.
“I’ll know, Maggie,” said he, “jest
as soon as I see the flag on the fust buildin’.”
From a hotel flagpole floated the
Stars and Stripes.
“Bless the good God, Maggie,” he exclaimed,
“there’s Old Glory! Look up, Maggie, look up—an’ she’s at full mast,
too! He ain’t dead yet, Maggie; he ain’t dead yet,” sobbed the old
man as he dropped his big satchel and sank on a horse block. A lad
stopped running to see what was “doing,” and began to laugh. He
was checked by a bystander, who told him what it all meant, and
the little fellow turned red in the face and tiptoed away.
On a Main-st. car were a young husband
and wife and their little boy. They were discussing the uppermost
topic. “Papa,” said the youngster suddenly, “don’t you think, if
it didn’t hurt the President any, that Mrs. McKinley would be kind
of glad he’s sick?” Seeing a frown coming, the boy continued: “You
know, papa, Mrs. McKinley has been sick, and the President tended
her; now, don’t you think, if it didn’t hurt him, she’d be glad
he’s sick, so she could tend him?”
“You’re a queer little Dick,” was
all the youngster got from his father.
At the Iroquois Hotel the bulletins
from the sick room were posted up as fast as received. The lowering
temperature was quickly noted, and laymen, who would find it difficult
to tell the difference between rhubarb and arsenic without tasting,
talked wisely about temperature, pulsation and respiration. A prosperous
looking countryman heard a newsman shout The Tribune for sale in
front of the Ellicott Square building. He passed the vender, hesitated,
spoke to his wife, and then went back to the newsman. “Gimme a Try-bune,
I never bought a Sunday paper before,” he said apologetically, “but
I guess it won’t be laid up agin me to-day, seein’ as I want to
know how the President is gettin’ on.” Soon the old couple were
gazing at the picture of the President on the first page, and they
forgot about the Exposition for at least ten minutes.
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