“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“Mr. McKinley had always been a strong partisan, and yet he had been so gentle in manner, so courteous even to his opponents, and so manly and honorable in his business and social life, that there was no bitterness in any heart toward him. Those who had differed with him in policy cheerfully conceded his uprightness and sincerity. But, above all, there was a sentiment, more evident here than in any other case, that this man was the President of the whole nation; that he was, in some sense, the expression of the purpose and the dignity of every law-abiding man and woman. It was the perfection of the national sentiment; and every citizen felt a personal sense of bereavement. . . .”

“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.”

He’s the noble hero of the present age,
Written not with ink on our history’s page.

“. . . his career speaks to us on behalf of a broader life. It is a call to more religion and more patriotism; more composure and more kindness. Nobody can think quietly of his life as we have been forced to do during these past days without feeling that he teaches us something that we individually need; and that not only on the active side of life, but also on the passive side. How to take trouble; how to stand before the sudden stroke that shatters hopes; how to hold one’s self when the fondest dreams are broken. That message has come home to us all from these last days of our beloved President’s life. And how to die. We have seen how a good man dies; we have seen the strong arm of faith clinging to the cross. Simple, genuine, unfaltering trust in the eternal love of the Father.”

“He has left us a priceless gift in his example of a useful and pure life, of his fidelity to public trust, and his demonstration of the value of the kindly virtues that not only ennoble mankind, but lead to success.”

“William McKinley is his own eulogy.”

“May his exalted and pure faith, his sublime devotion—home and national—pass like particles of iron into the blood of our higher life!”

“He was an idealized American.”

          Now lift our martyr up
          Who hath drained the bitter cup,
          Who hath said, “God’s will is best”;
          Let us bear him to his rest,
          Give him all the honors due
          To a soldier tried and true,
          To a statesman broad and great,
To a father of the people and a chieftain of the State.

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

“Mr. McKinley was probably the most popular President the Nation has had.”

“In the best sense of the word he was a clean man, a pure man, a man whose life, public and private, the parent and teacher can hold up to the American youth as worthy of imitation.”

“He was the greatest man of the age, and the sweetest.”

“No man ever won the hearts of the American people as William McKinley has won them. No President ever possessed kindlier, more pleasing, more engaging qualities than this superb gentleman and Christian magistrate.”

“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.”

“His life is an example to the people of his country, who in William McKinley have an honest, capable and hardworking executive—a man who has the interests of his country sincerely at heart.”

“. . . Mr. McKinley has in this great crisis of his career revealed yet more virtues which endear him to the popular heart. The private, personal excellences of public men are often thrown into the shade by the light of publicity and are not seen or appreciated. But in this case the man, not the President, was put to the test and all the world knows the patience of the illustrious sufferer, his magnanimity, his heroic calm.”

“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.”

“He has written his name large on the history of the Republic.”

“His example and life seem very fine and lofty; more in keeping with an ideal character than a successful candidate for political honors.”

“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.”

“Mr. McKinley might have enemies of his politics; that he should have enemies of his person seemed quite unbelievable. What brain so muddled, what heart so malign, as to cherish deadly hatred against a man whose generosity and tenderness are admitted even by his most zealous opponents?”

“He died the death of a hero.”

“In the long line of Presidents who have held this high office, no one of them was so popular as Mr. McKinley is. There are Presidents in the list, some of whom we look back to with a feeling of reverence for their greatness, or of admiration for their astuteness, or of sincere regard for their courage and independence, but not one of them all, especially during his term of office, has enjoyed so completely the affection of his fellow-countrymen.”

“Whatever else Mr. McKinley is, he is a brave man—a man who has exhibited in this critical moment the dignity of a Christian and a soldier.”

“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.”

“Mr. McKinley bore himself with beautiful dignity and simplicity in his high office.”

“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.”

“Mr. McKinley has achieved a deservedly high place in the hearts of his fellow-citizens, and the esteem in which he is held is hearty, sincere and universal.”

“It seems like mockery to attempt to eulogize him. No words can carry from one mind to another a proper understanding of that unique personality.”

“His domestic virtues and the simplicity of his life endeared him to a nation among whom, in spite of the vast development of wealth and of the growing temptations to luxury, the Puritan tradition is still a powerful force.”

“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.”

“It is the opinion of many that William McKinley as president of the United States has displayed more of the ability of a statesman than any president since the days of Abraham Lincoln.”

“The greatest tribute to the integrity of the late President’s public career and the spotlessness of his private life is to be found in the loud and long lament with which the news of his death has been greeted. . . .”

“The United States, the whole world, could not afford to spare William McKinley for he was a man whose influence reached to every part of the globe. His work not alone elevated the United States through the careful and liberal exemplification of a policy that had for its object the greatest good to his fellow citizens, but commanded the respect of the nations of Europe where there had been formerly only villification. Those nations later sought his good will and pronounced his praises as a statesman without stint. He had reached the highest pinnacle in the affections of his fellow countrymen and brought the nations of the earth under the influence of his greatness.”

Though senseless Anarchy made him its mark
     His mortal death was but immortal birth!
Each freeman’s heart shall be his memory’s ark,
     While Liberty extols his peerless worth!

“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.”

“It is left for the people of the United States to love him. This they are doing with greater love and more universal than ever fell to the lot of a president.”

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

“. . . it is on Mr. McKinley’s private life that the American people will dwell most affectionately. They think of him as the kind husband, the loyal friend, the forgiving enemy, the good citizen. No public man in our generation has more closely approached the ideal of the simple, pious, domestic life which we like to think is the foundation of all our power as a nation.”

“May the memory of his gentleness and strength, of his patience and fortitude abide in this land as an inspiration to noble living.”

“. . . Mr. McKinley has won the confidence of the American people as a whole as no other president during his lifetime ever has done.”

“He accepted his fate with a noble and simple courage. . . .”

“His name is given to history and interwoven and commingled with the philosophy of our momentous times.”

“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.”

“He was not a man of towering genius; not a philosopher; not a profound reasoner, but he had that which was far better as qualification for successful leadership than genius, philosophy or logic, he had PRACTICAL TALENT in pre-eminent degree.”

“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.”

“Few rulers, crowned or uncrowned, have ever been the objects of such respect, affection and solicitude as were displayed for him during the week he lay battling with death.”

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.”

“President McKinley was a good officer of the government and carried out the policy of his party with fidelity and intelligence, and at the same time moderately. So far as the representative of a party with distinct principles can be, he was the President of the whole people. That he entered upon some projects and courses that a large part of the people disapproved was the fault of his party rather than of the man. Personally he was above reproach, and his tender affection for his wife and his blameless life endeared him to the people as a man, whatever they thought of his political actions.”

“. . . it is not too much to say that Mr. McKinley fell not far short of the attributes of the ideal president.”

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?

“. . . the greatest and most patriotic president the United States ever had.”

“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.”

“President McKinley I loved and revered as the highest type of American citizenship we have as yet had presented to us. It is with a glad heart I look into the future and know that in years to come there will be no more illustrious name in American history than that of William McKinley.”

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.”

“Dust unto dust;” in solemn state he lies
     Who bowed to Death, yet won a deathless name,
And wears in triumph on his marble brow
     The martyr’s crown, the hero’s wreath of fame.

“Mr. McKinley had a larger political following than any statesman of our generation and more personal friends than any President who had ever held the office. He possessed the rare qualities that make friends and the rarer qualities that keep them friends in success.”

“The profoundness of Mr. McKinley’s belief in the country, the warmth of his manifest affection for it, his dreams of the future and his mastery of men explain his long career and its crowning glory.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

A man whose soul went back to meet its God
As white as when His angel sent it forth
Upon its mission to a doubting world.

“No President, no man, could have enjoyed to a greater degree the respect and esteem of his fellow-citizens than did President McKinley.”

“His noble character and generous, lovable nature had endeared him to the multitude.”

“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.”

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

     “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.”

“Having lived a life that was blameless, full of love and reverence for his family, and peace, law and order,—a life of energy, earnestness, study and application, worthy of emulation by the wisest, and an inspiration to the youths of this country, it is difficult to understand what excuse the most rabid Anarchist or even Nihilist can make for so dastardly a deed.”

“We have had other Presidents, grand men too, who filled their office to the full, but they came much short of McKinley.”

“Mr. McKinley was not a great figure, but he had a perfect genius for attracting devoted friends and conciliating opposition.”

“. . . 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.”

“He may have been to some minds only the political ‘opportunist,’ but he did not miss his opportunity.”

“The man whose purity of life, whose kindliness to all men, made all civilization kneel when his dust was consigned to dust, was the antipode of all that Anarchy represents.”

“President McKinley’s heart was big with love and kindliness.”

“William McKinley was the obedient son, the true friend, the good husband, the brave soldier, the able statesman, ‘the noblest work of God, an honest man,’ respected and honored by his own political party when living, loved and mourned by all when dead.”

“In private and domestic life he was such a man as we could wish all our public men to be, in simplicity, loyalty, purity. These virtues were universally granted to be his, but his noble behavior in his last hours, so full of bravery, consideration for others, and resignation to the Power which disposes of all human affairs, has raised him into a character of heroic mould in the memory of a great nation.”

“His was the life of a true American, builded upon the civilization and christianity of the nineteenth century and one the guardian angel of mankind may look upon without a blush for any dereliction.”

“William McKinley ever grew with occasion, and showed himself to be a truly great leader, always being just enough ahead of the times not to lose touch with them.”

“. . . as an example of symmetrical manhood, of a personality combining a high order of intellectuality with those gentle and gracious qualities which singularly endeared him to all within his sphere of influence, and with a moral integrity that was unimpeachable, the character of William McKinley merits your earnest attention and your emulation.”

“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!

“One who reviews McKinley’s life, from his entrance into the army on through its widely varying activities and responsibilities to his death, is struck with the steady development which characterized him. He grew, and grew steadily broader and better.”

“Aside from all his pre-eminent genius as a statesman, William McKinley’s memory has a halo of purity, gentleness and harmony.”

“The close range of vision makes William McKinley’s life and career a more positive and vitalizing influence upon the young minds of to-day than even Washington or Lincoln, because William McKinley is not on a pedestal, lent glamor by the lapse of years, but was only yesterday a living, breathing presence—a force—coming into personal touch with this time and this people.”

“It is fortunate for the rising generation that in McKinley there were all the elements that make a Man rather than simply those elements which make a Hero. He was every inch a Man! Wise as a statesman, prudent as an executive, strong in council and valiant in political conflicts, he was yet everywhere, and at all times, the gentlemanly gentleman, the manly man, and it is this which has drawn all the world unto him.”

“Unlike any of his predecessors, and unlike great men generally, he had won by moral worth, political sagacity, and his power to fathom the will of the people. In the hearts of the people he had secured an affectionate regard never before accorded a chief magistrate during his lifetime. This man of lofty patriotism, large and clear administrative ability, with boundless love for the weakest and humblest American citizen, had a sublime Christian character which will shine in the hearts of all lovers of truth and liberty with a luster which shall grow as the years of the Republic increase.”

“He was a popular President, and history will record him as a great President. His democratic sympathies, his sincere good will towards all men, his readiness to give public credit to public rivals, his native urbanity of manner, his compliant temper and his tact in all public and private relations combined to make him a successful ruler.”

“He made the flag respected where it had been lightly esteemed. He conducted the nation through a foreign war that reflected honor upon it. He met questions arising out of that war without flinching. He found the United States a second and left it a first-class power. That is his best monument. He broke our fetters of national isolation, and taking the manumitted Columbia by the hand led her into the charmed circle of world powers.”

“History will accord him high rank not only because he was a martyr, but also because he was a just man.”

“Whatever enemies Mr. McKinley may have had, partisan hatred, envy, and cavil ceased at the bedside of the stricken man. Both the North and the South, Republicans and Democrats, see in him the representative of the nation, and all unite in their admiration of his courageous behavior in the hour of trial and in the face of death.
     The halo of martyrdom now surrounds his head, and history will gladly and fully recognise the merits of his administration. His memory will be kept sacred by the side of his predecessors Abraham Lincoln and James A. Garfield.”

“A more unselfish man never lived.”

“Death robbed him of the earthly realization of his cherished ideals, but it revealed to us the nature of the man-become-king.”

“. . . we venerate the example and career of the President as that of a great American.”

“. . . to the young men of this generation his life should prove a most powerful incentive to the attainment of the truest manhood.”

“Socrates did no better. McKinley died like a Man.”

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

“He is not ill-starred in his death who is honored and loved and mourned by a Nation.”

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

“In the coming years when the eulogist seeks a name to fire the heart of right ambition and teach the truth that real greatness springs from virtue, loyalty and love, he will turn away from those crowned kings and throned monarchs, from dusty archives and fallen nations of the past, to point to our illustrious martyred President whose memory we bless.”

“The lessons of his life and of his death are as guiding beacons.”

“We must believe that mankind will be better for his having lived as he did and died as he did.”

“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.”

“Mr. McKinley was a lover of humanity—a friend of the common man, of whatever race or color.”

“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.”

“As an executive he was modest, his aim and desire the will of the people rather than that of McKinley.”

“A man whose life, in the widest range of condition and service, was simple, consistent, sincere. No man’s life was ever more fully revealed, or showed more honorably in the full revelation. No life more perfectly fulfilled the duties of those relations which bind us in homes, in neighborhoods, in wider communities. His life was sound and pure in all that gives stability and honor to states.”

“The bright star of his example shall never grow dim.”

“Many of his achievements will rank him among our truly great.”

“. . . there is little fear that the future will not prove him the equal of any statesman of his times.”

“In public and in private life he lived without reproach. As a constitutional ruler he will take a high place. A great man in many ways, he had risen from a humble position—schoolmaster, soldier, lawyer—to be the head of a great nation. Deservedly popular and respected and growing daily in the esteem of his people, the last days of his life told of a man even greater than his record. In his words of pleading for his murderer, his brave patient endurance, and his resignation to the Divine will, he breathed the spirit of his Master, whom he loved and sought to serve.”

“It has been inevitably said that William McKinley was not great as Washington and Lincoln, or even as some others between and after, were great. But it would be irrelevant to emphasise the inevitable. The important point is that if he was less memorable as a man he was not less memorable as President. Fundamentally sound in ability and character and full of homely excellence, he was as completely the apt representative figure of his own epoch as were even the founder and the saviour of the Republic of theirs.”

Thy great, strong, tender soul has passed beyond,
To bind the nations’ hearts in firmer bond;
Humanity is weeping by thy bier
And feels no shame at touch of falling tear.

“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.”

“He was abnormally a financial President. He was the best servant the corporations ever had in the White House.”

“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.”

“He was a great example of onward and upward ascent. He climbed from the valley of small things, by noble efforts, to successful heights. His career illustrates the power of a life purpose.”

“Beset by difficulties such as have beset few rulers, he overcame them all and brought his country to a condition of unprecedented peace and prosperity. If such is an element of greatness, then William McKinley was great.”

“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.”

“No man has ever stood so near to the heart of the people; had their universal love and respect and gracious trust as did McKinley.”

“Never a man has lived whose political senses were more acute than Mr. McKinley’s; he could detect a coming political change before it touched the uttermost north of Alaska; the uttermost south, the Dry Tortugas, or the uttermost east of Maine; and quickly he trimmed to take advantage of the coming political force.”

“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.”

“. . . President William McKinley, who, in the zenith of his power as a man, was acknowledged by people of all nations as a careful guardian of the interests of the citizens of the republic; a wise, just and true ruler, an ideal Christian gentleman, loyal and loving to a superlative degree.”

“‘A nation rebuilt’ may almost be the description of what was done under Mr. McKinley’s administration.”

“His magnanimity toward a treacherous assassin, his consideration for friends, his quick regret at having brought embarrassment to the enterprise at Buffalo which it was his errand to assist, his calm fearlessness and resignation in the face of death—all these but glorify those engaging personal characteristics which have continuously been felt by those nearest the late President.”

“Make every allowance for the ambition which every public man feels for success and fame and popularity; make every allowance for the selfish motive that enters into every act even when it is good, and yet there remains in President McKinley the instinctive, inherent impulse to do good for its own sake, to serve his country, to better the condition of its people, to help those who labor, to lighten toil, to promote human happiness.”

“. . . 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.”

“It was the lurid flash of an assassin’s revolver that has lighted up the unseen elements of Mr. McKinley’s character, and because he possessed so many of the virtues which American manhood and womanhood admire, has placed him in the temple of immortality.”

“. . . he possessed those qualities of heart which made him despise the wrong and do the right; which made him broad in his views and extend charity to all; which made him true and lovable in every position in life.”

“People of all shades of political opinion had learned to love him, not alone for his patriotic statesmanship, but for his beautiful private life and his exemplification of lofty Christian virtues.”

“He was noble, pure and patriotic.”

“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.”

“There has been but one voice, the wide world over, breathing a fervent recognition of his immense personal force for good.”

“. . . 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.”

“. . . a man of whom history will probably say his worst fault consisted in a too great deference at times to the counsels of others, where his own better judgment should have prevailed. . . .”

“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.”

“. . . there is no fitting tribute to noble William McKinley, other than the enduring love of the American people. . . .”

“. . . his memory shall be green for ever in the hearts of our loyal and expansive race, in the hearts of all English-speaking people.”

“It was often said that he kept his ear close to the ground, listening for the voice of the people. It may be as truly said that he kept his ear open to hear the command of his Maker, for he had triumphant Christian faith.”

“He was apparently entirely without malice.”

“. . . we see in the virtues of the life of the late President McKinley so many of those qualities which have been seen in our late Queen, a sort of loadstar to draw every good Briton, and I will say every good citizen of the world, the highest sense, towards the ideal. . . .”

“Our consolation is that, in death as in life, he bore himself nobly as a patriot, a Christian and a gentleman, leaving an unsullied name as a legacy to his countrymen.”

“. . . it will be universally conceded that his character was singularly free from qualities that excite personal hostility or animosity.”

“He left behind him a record of spotless citizenship, superb ability, and beautiful simplicity and loyalty in his private life.”

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.”

“Never have the precepts and the doctrines of true Christianity been more forcibly exemplified than in the daily life of our late President. . . .”

“I was somewhat disgusted to hear many of those who condemned Mr. McKinley in most emphatic and savage terms when alive eulogize him to a state of godhood when dead. The fact is, he was neither a devil when alive nor a god when dead, but only a man trying to do his duty as he saw it—failing, no doubt, as we all do to live up to his highest ideals, but nevertheless struggling to do the right as he perceived it.”

“His life in its private relations was respected and admired by all who knew him, and there was never any ground upon which to question his patriotic desire for his country’s welfare.”

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

“Our lamented President showed a Christ-like spirit when he said of the vile wretch that fired the fatal shot: ‘May God forgive him.’ And he showed a deep and abiding sense of the sanctity of law when in the agony of a mortal wound ho remonstrated against any acts of personal violence toward his assailant. If there were no other reason for cherishing the memory of President McKinley it ought to be handed down in high esteem to coming generations because of his dying plea for the sanctity of law.”

“No president except Lincoln has had to face more difficult problems involving the unity of the people and the prosperity of the country than did William McKinley. Yet since the days of Washington no president had fewer personal enemies. There is an entire lack of bitterness toward the late head of the nation; for his beautiful character there is an admiration not limited by the artificial boundary of class or party. Behind McKinley the president stood McKinley the man. In all his public life, whether as soldier, lawyer or statesman, whether as a representative, governor or president, he was an exemplary citizen. There was not a time when he could not look the world in the face and say, these hands are clean.”

“He was as good and kind as he was great and wise. His gracious and considerate course drew to him the hearts of his countrymen of all parties and every section. He had not an enemy in the world. Oh, irony of Fate, that such a man should be singled out for slaughter!”

“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.”

“There is no use guarding me or any one. A desperado may take my life, any life, in a moment, if willing to pay his life as the price. I cannot give attention to self-protection. If I did it would be vain; recent examples show this. I am not disposed to change my ways, and indeed do not think there is reason to do so. I must take the chances of my duties.”

“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 from the birth of this Republic to the present hour ever grew more rapidly in the hearts and affections of the American people than did William McKinley, and when he was lying, hovering between life and death, the prayers that ascended to the Throne of Grace for his recovery from every section of this Republic were as countless as the leaves of a forest.”

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

“Long after we have lived our brief hour and the physical monuments we have raised have been resolved into the dust, the pure, patriotic and holy influence of William McKinley will continue to be an inspiration and benediction among men.”

“Mr. McKinley . . . may be said to have ended the line of the familiar school of American presidents. His physical appearance was of that character for which the people are accustomed to look in the selection of their presidents. His manner and his speech were modeled after the presidential type. And yet he bore some resemblance to Augustus Caesar. Like the latter, Mr. McKinley was a dissembler; he was plausible; he was crafty.”

The rock-bound road that leads to fame is lined
With vicious footpads of assorted kind,
And he that sheds a light amid the dark
For murd’rous miscreants makes a shining mark.

His part is done, trust God to do the rest,
Hush, World, he sleepeth—“Ite missa est.”

“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.”

“Mr. McKinley was a man of charming personality, and, take him all in all, the best and most astute politician that ever occupied the Presidential chair.”

“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 was not a great man, nor a brilliant man, but he was a good man and was beloved by the people.”

“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.”

“He began for his country the great work of civilising the dark places of the earth, and before the twentieth century closes the policy that President McKinley adopted in dealing with Cuba and the Philippines will doubtless be generally adopted by the great Powers.”

Let us sing the Song of a Soul
     That was sent up too early to God,
     And torn like a flower from the sod,
Torn up in its fulness [sic] of bloom,
In the height of its perfect perfume
     As a weed is torn up from the clod.

“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.”

“. . . the fact that within a half dozen years of his tragic end so many grand and truly beautiful works of the architect and sculptor have been erected in his honor and as continual reminders of his services to his countrymen, is surely proof that his place in the heart of the nation is secure.”

“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.”

“No man ever sat in a high place who was of a more kindly nature or freer from enmity of his fellow men than William McKinley.”

“He had achieved the most exalted station of political power in this government, the loftiest eminence, the very keystone of the tallest arch of American honor that ever sprung from the basic foundations of our Constitution. Other men before him had occupied that high position, had risen, reigned, and fallen. Other men had reached those towering heights and returned again to the walks of private life, to pass their days in peace among their families and friends. But not so with him. He came down no more. The departure of this spirit from this proudest pinnacle of earthly honor and power to realms yet higher still may be likened to the eagle’s flight, as standing upon the peak of some splintered crag, lifted above the storm-swept summit of some lonely mountain height, he plumes his pinions in the sun, unfurls his mighty wings, then boldly launching upwards to the sky, he cleaves his gallant way beyond the clouds of earth.”

“. . . McKinley as a President in his private and domestic life was a living lesson to all Christian civilization. His daily walk and conversation was a living lesson constantly exemplifying the real strength of the national character—the purity of individual conscience, the strength of personal will, the reverence of Divine power. As a President of eighty millions of free people he measured up to the most exalted standard for him who fills that office. He loved and served all sections and all classes, and was an exemplar worthy of all imitation. He lived and died a manly man.”

“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.”

“The theory that Mr. McKinley subordinated his judgment to the will of Senator Hanna, or of anybody else, is a delusion. He was always the master. He had the gentle persistency of Lincoln. I was with him night and day and I know that he was always the master. No will controlled him but his own.”

“William McKinley had a soul who loved to see women grow and progress and mount to the highest part of civilization; he would protect their honor and virtue with his life; his was a spiritual soul, working for the benefit of his fellow men and women, but alas, he had to be cut off from this noble life in which he was an example to our nation.”

“He had neither the austere mastery of men of Washington, the constructive genius of Hamilton, the philosophic breadth of Jefferson, the brilliant magnetism of Clay, nor the profound reasoning of Webster. His nearest analogue is Lincoln. Like Lincoln, he had the genius of common sense, that instinctive sense of and regard for the just relation of things to each other; like Lincoln, he had profound sympathy with the inmost thoughts, the deepest feelings, the loftiest aspirations of the American people; like Lincoln, he had the gift of grasping the fundamental principles underlying a controversy and interpreting them to the masses in convincing phrases. Above all, like Lincoln, he had that greatest of all dynamic powers, a great, loving, sympathetic heart.”

“You have been told that he did not possess the matchless eloquence of a Webster, the deep learning of a Sumner, and the unique power of a Lincoln, but that he was an all-round, symmetrical man with his faculties completely under his power; a born leader; a clean gentleman, so that after he became president he grew and developed himself and has exhibited a power in his actions that no one could foresee at the time of his election.”

“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.”

“A son, loving, thoughtful, obedient, he secured the blessings of a happy mother and the blessing of Almighty God. A husband, devoted, faithful, pure, tender, and watchful as the stars, he exalted the American home. A soldier, brave, vigilant, prompt, he performed every duty with alacrity and courage. A scholar, thoughtful, industrious, he was practical, mastering the departments of knowledge involved in his pursuits. A leader in Congress, he illumined every subject he discussed with the fullness and accuracy of his information and secured the attention and retained the confidence of his colleagues by the clearness of his statements and the candor of his convictions. An exalted politician, he harmonized his party, conciliated his rivals, pacified his opponents, and justified his measures by their success. A Christian, he illustrated the saving power of grace, and retained the favor of God. A man, he represented the typical American on the Mount of Transfiguration. He has gone into history, to be catalogued with Washington and Lincoln and Grant, and to be loved and honored forever.”

“He was the one man in this country against whom no breast could harbor malice; and his probity and rectitude of purpose and nobility of character will serve as an example to young American manhood for all time.”

“William McKinley was perhaps as near a model man as ever sat in the Presidential chair.”

“I had the closest revelations of William McKinley’s character, I think, in our quiet hours of smoking and chatting when all the rest had retired. For past midnight we have sat many times talking over those matters which friends always discuss—and the closer I came to the man, the more lovable his character appeared. There was revealed the gentle growing greatness of the man who knew men, respected them and loved them. These pleasant episodes of a purely personal nature are emphasized more and more as I think of him, and it is these that I most cherish in the memory of the man. His greatness as a statesman was but the reflection of his greatness as a man.”

“It was his fortune to be president at a period that was epoch-making, and hence his place in history will probably be larger than that of some abler men.”

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

“As for Lincoln, so for McKinley—the hour of supreme good fortune was the hour of martyrdom.”

“He bore his illness and such pain as he suffered with beautiful, unflinching and Christian fortitude, and no more tractable or agreeable patient was ever in charge of his physicians. No harsh word of complaint against his assassin was ever heard to pass his lips. As the days went by, the peculiarity of his Christian character became ever more apparent, and was particularly noticeable at the last, up to the very moment of his lapsing into unconsciousness. Up to this time I had hardly ever believed that a man could be a good Christian and a good politician. His many public acts showed him to be the latter, while the evidences of his real Christian spirit were most impressive during his last days. His treatment of Mrs. McKinley during the many trying experiences which he had with her fortified a gentleness in his manly character, while the few remarks or expressions which escaped from him during his last hours stamped him as essentially a Christian in the highest and most lovable degree.”

“His kindly, sympathetic and noble personality will always remain an ideal inspiration to American youth, and leave its impress upon the centuries.”

“It is early yet to estimate the value of William McKinley’s life and its effect upon American history. Even now, however, great statesmen and world historians have agreed that the McKinley administration marked a most important epoch in American statesmanship, in its far-reaching influence upon the future of all nations.”

“A descendant of Irish, Scotch-Irish, English, German and Dutch ancestry, McKinley was a typical American. He had charity and sympathy in his soul. He possessed a wealth of humor, a charm of manner, depth and purity of thought. He was kind and affectionate, tender as the petal of a flower, gentle as a dove, but when the occasion demanded that the Bengal tiger be loosed he became inflexibly defiant, but no provocation could goad him into the vicious rudeness and relentless rage of the cultureless man. With his latest breath, Christ-like, he forgave his slayer. All of which attest that within him were blended the moral virtues of the royal blood of his progenitors.”

“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.”

“He became, whether by decree of Providence or circumstances beyond his control, the central figure at the close of the nineteenth century, and created conditions for the betterment and advancement of the United States which can never be destroyed.”

“Every one whose privilege it was to know him, was irresistibly drawn toward him by his companionable qualities.”

“His name and memory will live in the minds and hearts of his surviving countrymen as ‘A blessed martyr.’”

“McKinley was one of the gentlest, most modest, most diplomatic, and most gracious of all our public men.”

“When history dips its pen to inscribe the long list of his virtues and the annals of his righteous life, it will declare that in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation he was unsullied; when surrounded by the foam and turbulence of human passion and hatred, he loved much; when assailed by seething temptation, he yielded not.”

“In William McKinley, Twenty-fifth President of the United States, was crowned a fortunate life by an immortal death; and the last moments of his earthly career showed him to be one of those who live their best in order to die worthily.”

“Perhaps for his place in history it was well that his career should have closed when he had reached the summit of success.”