The Shooting of President McKinley
The news of the shooting of President McKinley, at a public function in Buffalo, September 6, shocked and inexpressibly pained the whole country. It was not as the assassination of Lincoln, at the close of a great civil war, when the fierce strife of contending parties was not yet allayed; it was not engendered by fierce political strife, as was the shooting of Garfield by the wretched assassin Guiteau. The shooting of President McKinley came in a time of peace, in premeditated cold blood, by a man who had suffered no wrong from the president, and who emphasized the darkness and devilishness of his deed by the peaceful act of shaking the president's hand in order to get a better opportunity to take his life. Indignation, sorrow, sympathy, regret, will take possession of true hearts throughout the country. Hearts everywhere will beat in sympathy with the frail wife, who will suffer even beyond her husband. In all probability if he dies, she will die, and the tragedy will prove a double one. It is devoutly to be hoped that the bullet will be found and extracted, and the president will recover. The last reports are hopeful, and serious complications seem past.