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.