“From across the ocean, from countries which are scarcely known to many of us, came cablegrams full of sympathy, messages that told what a mighty monument for honor and justice William McKinley had built for himself throughout both the civilized and the uncivilized world.”

“His life was a beautiful poem in many cantos, exhibiting every phase of the best and noblest attributes of human character.”

“The years draw on when his name shall be counted among the illustrious of the earth. William of Orange is not dead. Cromwell is not dead. Washington lives in the hearts and lives of his countrymen. Lincoln, with his infinite sorrow, lives to teach us and lead us on. And McKinley shall summon all statesmen and all his countrymen to purer living, nobler aims, sweeter faith and immortal blessedness.”

“He lived grandly; it was fitting that he should die grandly.”

“William McKinley was one whose name, even if misfortune had not overtaken him, would have gone down to posterity as one of the greatest Presidents of the United States. This is conceded by all, those who opposed him politically as well. He was really the idol of the nation.”

“As a wise, just, pure-hearted statesman, William McKinley achieved imperishable fame. In the Chief Magistrate the man was never lost. Modest, equable, benign, patient, and magnanimous, he won esteem and inspired love. Of all our Presidents, he was the most popular for his human qualities, and no man could better deserve the regard of his countrymen. Posterity will acclaim him one of the greatest Presidents of our Republic, and in the hearts of Americans McKinley will be enshrined with the lamented Lincoln.”

“Over his bier the entire nation bends in agonizing sorrow.”

“. . . it seems to us certain that future historians will assign to McKinley a high place among the Presidents of the United States.”

“There never lived a man of more kindly disposition, with a more loving and affectionate heart, more tender and sweet in his sympathy, and in his private life more devoted to his family and his friends. In these regards he is the most remarkable man I ever have met in public life.”

“. . . I have not now the slightest reason to doubt that he will recover and very rapidly, too. He will be back at his duties at Washington before long.”

“. . . if he recovers his life can be credited to modern advanced surgery and the fact that the operation was resorted to without delay.”

“The doctors do not feel like coming out bluntly as a layman would, but they tell me there is no doubt about the president’s speedy recovery. They do not expect any serious complications.”

“The country cannot afford to lose him.”

“President McKinley has probably not an enemy in the world. Rivals he has, and of opponents and critics his share—but personal enemies, no. He is a singularly lovable man. We who oppose many of the policies with which his name is identified, feel that President McKinley has made serious mistakes; but no man questions his personal rectitude, or doubts that he tries to do right. Perhaps to no public man in our history as a nation have good intentions been so generally, and so cheerfully, attributed.”

“. . . Mr. McKinley is everywhere regarded as a man of moral worth and high intelligence, as a true patriot and an exemplar of honorable citizenship. He has endeared himself to the people of this country by manifestations of goodwill toward all classes of citizens, and it is to be hoped there are few who do not feel deep detestation for the dastardly crime of which he has become the victim.”

“He had reached the summit of earthly ambition for an American and was sincerely trying with all his immense ability and unrivaled experience and profoundly patriotic spirit to serve the nation that had called him to administer its affairs. He had succeeded to a degree that gave him rank with Washington and Lincoln among the greatest three of all our Presidents.”

“William McKinley, grandson of an Irish rebel of 1798, will be remembered as a true, amiable, high-minded gentleman personally,—no matter how much one may have differed from him politically.”

“. . . every sign points to assured speedy and complete recovery. If the President were younger by twenty years it would be possible for him to be up and around in ten days. As it is his reaction all through the course of the affection has been that of a man much younger than his years. There is, then, really very little danger of sepsis developing and its possibility is held out by the surgeons merely in order not to seem too sure of the distinguished patient’s recovery, for, after all, stranger things have happened than a turn for the worse in cases that have apparently progressed as favorably as this.”

“We believe that posterity will ratify the higher judgment, and that history will rank President McKinley more highly than his contemporaries have done, not only as an astute politician, but also as a popular leader and a broad-minded and cautiously progressive statesman.”

“Mr. McKinley is a model man and President. Whoever strikes such a man is a madman or a depraved offender.”

“Few men, indeed, have advanced more rapidly in the world’s high opinion than Mr. McKinley during the four and a half years that he has occupied the White House.”

“In his sickness he suffered, as in his health he had lived, in an atmosphere of piety.”

“. . . the memory and influence of his life as a poor boy, a struggling student, a patriotic citizen, a brave soldier, a wise statesman, a unifier of the nation, a beloved leader of his countrymen and, best of all, the loving, chivalric, faithful husband, are still ours.”

“Ah, no, this President is not dead! Not only in the bosom of God does he live forevermore, but also in the heart of the nation.”

“His services will be more and more appreciated as time advances and as men look at his achievements dispassionately; and when the few great names are mentioned of those who are esteemed greatest for what they have done, prominent in the list as a faithful and helpful servant of his country will be the name of William McKinley.”

“We doubt if any Administration was ever marked by so much secretiveness as his, although the events directed by it were of transcendent and revolutionary importance.”

“His mouth betokened the ready speaker, and his gift of speech was, indeed, nature’s passport to distinction in a country where oratory has such a hold on the popular affection as it has in ours; but his imperfect education deprived his addresses of all grace or literary quality. The one collected volume of his speeches shares the unreadability which even the greatest orators seldom escape.”

“Now his death and the way in which he met it has shamed those who have called him weak, an oppressor and tyrant abroad, and a conspirator against rights and liberties at home.”

“His life is his monument. His deeds are his epitaph.”

“President McKinley gave to the American people as his final legacy the memory of a death as quietly heroic as any in history. He made a good fight while there was hope; and when there was none he surrendered like a brave man and a Christian.”

“Stainless amid all the temptations of public life, without blot under the fierce light which has beat upon him in these recent years, with a devotion to his wife as dignified and touching as anything in the annals of chivalry, President McKinley, in the first place of the Nation, stood for the noblest qualities of the men of the English-speaking race. He had the purity of Washington and the sweetness of Lincoln; and in the supreme hour his dignity and strength sustained at the highest levels the tradition of personal character which has never departed from the White House.”

“President McKinley crowned a life of largest love for his fellow-men, of most earnest endeavor for their welfare, by a death of Christian fortitude; and both the way in which he lived his life and the way in which, in the supreme hour of trial, he met his death, will remain forever a precious heritage of our people.”

Nay, in the strong, bright noonday of thy life
     Darkness fell on thee, and death’s silent pall;
E’en in the thick and glory of the strife
     Came the sharp, sullen signal of recall.

“He had nothing of the Napoleon or the Bismarck in him, happily both for himself and for the people whose elected chief he was. For in the constitutional ruler of a free people the qualities that mainly distinguished these two eminent men would have been altogether out of place. In all his instincts and habits of mind he was an American to the heart’s core, with that happy combination of useful qualities which has enabled most of the American Presidents to rise to the height of their great responsibilities.”

Thine was the glory of successful rule,
     Thine, in thy manly youth, the warrior’s wreath.
For what of thy good service might a fool
     Aim at thy breast, unarmed, the stroke of death?

“I never had the honor of knowing Mr. McKinley personally, but from his past career and the progress made by the United States during his term of office I have stamped him as ‘The ruler of the century’. . . .”

“I have known him not only as a statesman, but I have known him, through the public press and otherwise, as a citizen, a man of irreproachable character, a loving husband, a grand man in every aspect that you could conceive of, and his death has been the saddest blow to me that has occurred in many years.”

“So apparently commonplace were the virtues of the man, so unassumingly flawless his democracy, so little was he badged with the conventional markings of greatness, that time must go before we sense his worth.”

His has become a rare, illustrious name,
   To shine, till time is hoary,
With Garfield’s and with Lincoln’s unforgot,
   For this Republic’s glory.

“. . . there was that about the man that disarmed personal hostility, and seemed to make almost every one who came to have personal relations with him, his friend. He was full of good will to men, was exceedingly amiable, and had great charm of manner. The sweetness of temper, the buoyancy of his spirit, his patience, his courtesy, his tact, his ready gift of pleasant speech made him beloved in a way that no President has been beloved since Lincoln. It was those qualities, largely, that made him so remarkably successful in his dealings with Congress; that made warm personal friends of thousands of his political opponents and critics, and stirred such a wail of grief and lamentation over his death. Whether he will rank among the greatest of Americans we must leave it to history to determine. That he will rank high among the best beloved of Americans there is no question.”

“The popular and official mourning abroad for President McKinley was on such a scale as to imply a solidarity of nations like that dreamed of by the revolutionists of 1848.”

“I served with the President in Congress six years. He was one of God’s noblemen. He is a clean man, an honest man, and a great man. A Federal soldier, all Confederate soldiers respected and honored him. He has done more to bridge the bloody chasm between the sections than any man since Lee and his veterans surrendered.”

“The end has come so far as death can put a period to any great life.”

“The asperities which afflict a public servant during his official career will quickly be forgotten, and the calm, just verdict of history will pronounce him a man of ideally pure, true character, a patriot of single and disinterested devotion to his country, and a statesman unexcelled for tact, prudence, and practical competency. His domestic life is one of the precious sanctities of American sentiment.”

“It needed not the shadows of death to make the figure of the late President loom large in the estimate of mankind.”

“He kept his soul pure and white before God and man.”

“All our people loved their dead President.”

“Like some of the knights of ancient tradition, his character seemed to bear a charmed existence. Through all the vicissitudes, trials and allurements of an environment which we may well believe expose all the weak points of any character, his emerged without taint or blemish. Every experience through which he passed seemed only to broaden, chasten and purify it.”

“The crucial test of his character came in his cruel and apparently useless sacrifice. Calmly, bravely, nobly, he met his fate, prepared by his long years of faithful devotion to his ideas of right. He did not flinch when put to the test, and in such a calm and holy faith he sealed the influence of his life to the upbuilding of a sorrow-stricken nation.”

“In all that occurred from the beginning of his fateful visit to Buffalo, through the days of alternate hope and fear to his dying moment, Mr. McKinley had exhibited a right-mindedness so perfect that human nature seemed capable of nothing better.”

“President McKinley had not only fewer enemies, but he also had a greater number of attached and devoted friends, than any other man who has ever been in American public life.”

“. . . historians of the future will probably agree that his death came at a rare moment of culmination, when his policies had been vindicated and accepted, and his high rank among American statesmen had been unassailably achieved.”

“The assassin has done for him what all his friends could not do in bringing out clearly his greatness and in placing him beyond the power of enmity or accident.”

“In all his hours of suffering, no word of petulance or complaint escaped his lips. His sweet nature showed itself sweeter than ever in the last hours. He met his fate bravely, forgiving his murderer, resigned, at peace with his God and himself.”

     “We all rejoice in the example of Christian manhood manifested in the life of our dead President, and especially in the simple, impressive and peaceful manner of his death.
     No better and more valued legacy could have been left the people of this nation than that. Its influence will not soon pass away.”

“He died a martyr to the cause of order, right, and truth; he will receive a martyr’s honor.”

“. . . it is certain that as the chief figure in recent crises of national policy he will be accounted as an international factor of first importance.”

“Of William McKinley none but the kindliest recollections will be cherished by his fellow citizens of whatever political faith and whatever section.”

His work is done, his toil is o’er;
     A martyr for our land he fell—
     The land he loved, that loved him well;
Honor his name forevermore!

“He had endeared himself to the people through his labors, his patriotism, his wisdom, his purity of life, and his lofty career.”

“His memory will long be cherished with affection and increasing veneration.”

“He has come very near realizing the ideal of a President of the whole people and not of a party or section, and his administration has given to his nation a new significance in the world’s history.”

“Then again there was the honesty of the man. His purity of character none can seriously question, while his sense of honor was as keen as that of any knight of old. He despised the low arts of the politician. No one could live long in Washington without realizing who was the real master of the White House. And in an age so largely given over to ideals quite the reverse of those his long and industrious career bore witness to, well may we laud his integrity, his singleness of purpose, his unexampled disinterestedness and self-abnegation.”

“President McKinley’s life is the story of the true American, and it will ever be held up by the mother as a model for her son to follow.”

“Not more saintly or chivalric was the passing of King Arthur or any of his knights than that of the kingly soul of William McKinley.”

“McKinley’s life as a man, citizen, patriot, and president embodies all that is truly American. A better example to teach our children the meaning of true manhood and true patriotism we can not find.”

“Great parties may have doubted Mr. McKinley’s intellectual strength and differed with his policy, but the country knew him as a tender husband, a kind, honest man, a faithful servant of Christ, and so honored and loved him.”

“His tragic death in the midst of a time of national prosperity and victory has exalted his place in history and materially enhanced his fame.”

“. . . no president ever regarded himself more directly under Providential destiny, as ruler of the nation, than William McKinley.”

“If any one could know what it is to have a wife sick, complaining, always an invalid for twenty-five years, seldom a day well, he knows, and yet never a word of unkindness has ever passed his lips. He is just the same tender, thoughtful, kind gentleman I knew when first he came and sought my hand.”

“He made friends always—enemies never.”

“Fate seemed to have decreed the tragic end, to have prepared a glorious life for a martyr’s death.”

“. . . William McKinley died as he lived, the crowning glory of his time—the ornament of the opening 20th century.”

“. . . the manner of his death should awaken in the breasts of our people a keen anxiety for the country, and at the same time a resolute purpose not to be driven by any calamity from the path of strong, orderly, popular liberty which as a nation we have thus far safely trod.”

“Nay, not in the grave art thou, O beloved President, but warmly nested in the heart of the great republic!”

“Altogether, he was a man who in theory and in practice stood for the best interests of all the people as he understood it, and for everything that was praiseworthy and progressive in our national life.”

“No man ever broadened out more than William McKinley after he reached the Presidency, and if he had no other record to leave as a legacy to the country than his spontaneous addresses delivered during his journey to the Pacific coast, and his grandest of all deliverances at the Pan-American Exposition the day before he fell by the bullet of the assassin, he would stand out in American history as among the most lustrous of our statesmen.”

God grant this martyr’s blood may prove
     A healing balm to cure dissent!

“William McKinley will live in history, not only as a man whose private life was stainless, and whose Administration of the Government was beyond reproach, but as one brilliant, progressive, wise, and humane.”

“His task is done; his fame is secure; and his example remains with us to show us what a true American should be.”

“If he was great in life he was sublime in death.”

“William McKinley is added to the roll of those whose name and memory are most carefully guarded and cherished most tenderly for the grievous manner in which they were deprived of their inheritance of life.”

“He stands first in the public thought as a Christian gentleman of kindly feeling and most winsome personal qualities.”

“It was its moral quality which gave to his life its supreme distinction.”

“As a practical politician in the better sense of the word McKinley was a master.”

“No President since Andrew Jackson had, after a four years’ service, been so popular with all classes as was McKinley.”

“There is not one of us but feels prouder of his native land because the august figure of Washington presided over its beginnings; no one but vows it a tenderer love because Lincoln poured out his blood for it; no one but must feel his devotion for his country renewed and kindled when he remembers how McKinley loved, revered, and served it, showed in his life how a citizen should live, and in his last hour taught us how a gentleman could die.”

“He died at an hour that was friendly to his fame. A foreign war had ended in the triumph of the American arms. The Republic of the West had at last assumed its place among the greatest nations of the earth. Political bitterness had spent itself in the electoral contest of the preceding year, and there had succeeded a lull which brought with it good will and tolerance. Extraordinary material prosperity had enriched the nation, so that men might at some future day look back upon those years as to a Golden Age. And finally, the tragic ending of a useful, honourable life stirred all the chords of human sympathy, and seemed to cast upon that life itself the pathos and the splendour of a consecration.”

“McKinley personified at once social corruption and political servility. Indeed, he was the ideal President of the secret kings of the republic; both in character and appearance a Jesuit, he was eminently fitted to shield the traitors of the country. He always reminded me of the typical porter, whose severe, dignified appearance proclaims his master’s gilded respectability, veneering a rotten core.”

“His death was universally regretted: he had been singularly pure and blameless in his private life, honest in his public service, kindly and gentle in his contact with men, and skilful in handling them.”

“No matter what came up in his official duties, he always remained true to his character and convictions as a Christian gentleman.”

“The future historian, if free from prejudice and plutocratic influence, will stamp McKinley as the pliant tool of trusts and monopolists.”

“Men of the McKinley type can never be forgotten by any Republic that, avoiding ingratitude, would endure.”

“And he died; not as a martyr, but as a gambler who had won a high stake and was struck down by the man who had lost the game: for that is what capitalism has made of human well-being—a gambler’s stake, no more.”

“Fidelity to friendship, the exquisite grace of a husband’s devotion, the honor of manhood, the beauty of the forbearance of unwearied patience, endeared William McKinley to the hearts of his fellow citizens, and in their memory eclipse the glories of an administration flattering to American pride.”

“He was not an aristocrat but a plain man of the people, plain in origin and in manner of life up to the time of assuming his high office, and his sympathies were ever with those of humble position and small means, rather than with the wealthy and fashionable classes.”

“President McKinley was the most beloved of our Presidents. Beyond any of them he possessed the affection of the whole American people. Parties and partisanship had ceased to have any enmity toward him personally. He was not only the best friend of the workingman and the wage-earner who ever filled the place of ruler of a great country, but they all knew it and so regarded him.”

“He was a soldier of the cross without cant or rant or fads or fanaticism.”

“. . . the most servile and willing agent the plutocracy of America ever had in the White House.”

“He was sweet-natured and a born manager of men, and no one who ever filled the Presidential chair left behind him a more fragrant memory.”