William McKinley

A DARKNESS has come over the English-speaking world. A great and good man, though no titled monarch, has been bled to death by a cowardly assassin’s hand; killed by a dastard, the lives of a thousand of whom would be worthless compared with that of William McKinley.
     It is merciful to humanity to be merciless to Czolgosz and such as he. It is no nice work to shoot hawks, kill rats, and destroy vermin generally; yet what is to be done when such interfere with, and terrorise wholesome human life. We read a week ago of a meeting of 200 sympathisers with Czolgosz. The whole of these people should have been taken out and exterminated just as rats at plague time.
     The horrible part of the thing is that the best and greatest of men—the men who do good to the race—are at the mercy of the most loathsome and vile. We must meet terror with terror; it is not merciful to the race to be merciful with these horrible miscreants.
     The three greatest (barring Washington) of America’s choice, Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley, have gone down before men who were as dirt to them. One feels almost inclined to recommend the tortures of Torquemada. Even those would be too good for such as Booth, Garteau and Czolgosz.
     “Don’t hurt him,” said the wounded President. Aye, but they will find a different man in Rooseveldt, Vice-President, now President. Such assassins as Czolgosz should be shot on sight, and Rooseveldt’s little gun has been generally handy in his hip pocket.
     The world’s sympathy goes out to the memory of the Great Dead, and if there is any power in a world’s detestation, it will be a poor sort of Hell that is not yawning for Czolgosz. There is no use for a Hell that doesn’t want him and his sort.