While in the Depot at Syracuse, N. Y.

     THERE were many reporters around me and as in every place the devil has one to speak for him, one man said:
     “What did you say of McKinley?”
     I replied, “I never said I wish he would die!” I never thought it. If I had three grains of sense I would never have uttered the sentence, even if I had thought it. I am not favorable to the Republican administration. I have come in contact with it in Kansas where I have had to submit to every indignity and insult from the “rotten, riotous, ruinous rum-soaked Republican rule.”
     The man who shot McKinley belongs to the very fountain head [sic] of all that is ruinous and riotous. This government, that has been such a friend to the oppressed of all nations, has been insulted, protection is menaced and no innocent person is safe. Yes, this anarchist should suffer the severest penalty of the law.
     Still I am not in favor of the administration because this same government that gives protection to foreigners does not protect the homes of its own people, so long as the rum traffic is protected by the government which, by the revenue license takes this blood money, the price of peace, prosperity and the pursuit of happiness. If our homes are not protected by this government it is because it is an anarchist, for the constitution guarantees to us home and national protection. The fear of the mother now is that her boy will fall into one of these traps protected by a government license; this liquor is a greater menace to us than even the bullets, for bullets can not send any one to hell but the liquor power is in league with hell and with death are at agreement. Someone said: “She is a Democrat!” “No,” I said, “the devil controlls [sic] both parties. Both esteem greed in all its forms above humanity. They must have revenue to go into the pockets of the corrupt administration—must have the life blood [sic] of thousands of souls whom Christ died to save. The home must be robbed to keep in business this traffic whose sole effect is to destroy men[,] women and children.”