Well Done, Ebony

     When President McKinley was shot by Czolgosz, it will be remembered that a negro played a prominent part. This Hercules in bronze, 6ft 4in tall, had been grinning in pleasant anticipation of shaking the President’s hand. Like a thunderbolt he fell on Czolgosz. With one blow he knocked the pistol to the floor; a left hander spun the assassin round like a top, a punch from the negro’s right arm broke the wretch’s nose, and a fourth blow dislodged two of his teeth. “If I only could have had ten seconds more,” bewailed the black, but the detectives and soldiers were rushing the prostrate assassin, who was dragged to a room at the rear of the building, where he remained until a guard, consisting of a company of marines, just returned from Tientsin, arrived to save his life from the maddened crowd outside, and bear him away to prison. Ten minutes more would have been too late, for 20,000 men were crying for Czolgosz’s blood and surging around the walls. With much difficulty the wretch was taken away, an angry crowd following in pursuit for half a mile, while he cowered in a corner of the carriage shivering, and white with terror.