Anarchy Strikes Its First Blow.
Just as we were closing up the matter for the new edition of “Marvel of Nations,” President McKinley was assassinated at Buffalo, N. Y., Friday, Sept. 6, 1901. It being not too late, then, to notice that memorable event, the following was inserted as an “Appendix” to the work. It is significant as a symptom of the evil times that are now upon us, and it was thought best to embody it, in this manner, in a permanent record:— “The most serious blow against the existence of this government, perpetrated by violence, occurred at Buffalo, N. Y., at the great Pan-American Exposition, at four o’clock in the afternoon, Friday, Sept. 6, 1901. At that hour, Wm. McKinley, President of the United States, was standing in the Temple of Music, in the presence of three thousand persons, while ten thousand others stood without, waiting their chance to enter and shake hands with the President. In this line of friends stood a fiend named Leon Czolgosz (pronounced Sholgotz). In his left hand, wrapped about with a handkerchief, as if laboring under some injury, he concealed a pistol, the weapon of murder; and as he approached Mr. McKinley, and was apparently about to shake the hand proffered in kindness and good will, he discharged two shots point-blank at the President’s person. The first bullet struck the breastbone, and glanced off, with no apparent harm; but the second went through both walls of the stomach, and lodged in the fleshy tissues of the back. The best medical and surgical skill was immediately summoned, and the physicians labored earnestly to beat back the power of the destroyer. “When the news of what was done spread through the crowd, their rage was such that repeated attempts were made to lynch the assassin on the spot; and only by the most strategical movements of the police was he spirited away to escape their power. The whole country was shocked and stunned into a condition of paralysis by this revolting crime. Encouragement was at first held out that the wound would not prove fatal, and the President would survive; and thus the feelings of the nation vibrated between hope and fear, as they watched with breathless anxiety the hourly reports of the President’s condition. But at length nature gave up the struggle, and a few hours over a week from the dastardly attack, at half-past two on the morning of September 14, Wm. McKinley, the twenty-fifth President of the United States, breathed his last, struck down by the hand of an anarchist, who gloried in the deed and the principles which led to it. An autopsy was held, from which physicians concluded that no human power could have averted the fatal result. Probably no President, not even Washington or Lincoln, ever enjoyed so wide-extended and continuous a degree of popularity among the people as did President McKinley. Not only this country, but the whole civilized world, bowed in horror and shame before this diabolical deed. Expressions of public sentiment everywhere, and from all classes, joined in unanimous execration of the foul frenzy. President Roosevelt proclaimed Thursday, September 19, as a day of mourning for this country; and Edward VII of England ordered thirty days’ mourning of his court in token of sympathy with this stricken nation. “Theodore Roosevelt, the Vice-President, immediately assumed his place at the head of the government, in accordance with the suffrages of the people who had elected him to that place should occasion demand his services. Mr. McKinley had not completed the first year of his second term of the presidency, and the duties of that office for the three and a half years that remain will devolve upon Mr. Roosevelt, he being the youngest man (aged forty-three) called to that position in the history of the government. He took the oath of office as President of the United States in the afternoon of September 14. He enters upon his duties with the cordial support and good will of a vast majority of the American people. But he will need to surround himself with every safeguard for his protection, for, as a new feature of these later times, anarchy is in the land. Judge John R. Hazel, of the United States Circuit Court, administered the oath, and immediately after the ceremony, President Roosevelt, addressing the members of the dead President’s cabinet, most of whom were present, outlined his policy in a few brief words, as follows:— “In this hour of deep and terrible national bereavement, I wish to state that it shall be my intention and endeavor to continue, absolutely unbroken, the policy of President McKinley for the peace, prosperity, and honor of our beloved country.” “We have called this the first blow of anarchy, and the most serious blow that violence has dealt against the existence of the government. In this we do not overlook the assassination of two noble presidents in the past—the lamented Lincoln in April, 1865, and Garfield, July 2, 1881. But the assassination of these men was owing to the acrimony of political partisanship. But this case is entirely different, and furnishes a new symptom of the terrible disease that has seized upon society. In a time of profound peace, a time of unprecedented prosperity, when no one, not even the assassin himself, had any personal grievance against the President, nor any fear of injustice or oppression from his policy, an anarchist, with a foreign name which no English tongue can readily pronounce, and feelings against liberty, against society, and against humanity which no English heart could entertain, lifts his hand in public and deliberate murder in the name and in behalf of anarchy, and for the sake of anarchy and its hellish purposes. Nowhere can society be safe while such a spirit rules. It is a crime against humanity, fostered by a spirit breaking out just now in new virulence from the bottomless pit. It is a sign of the evil times that are upon us. “This is the first time that anarchy, as such, has raised its hand against this nation; and it must continue to grow worse, unless that spirit can be eradicated from society. This is the disease. How can it be remedied?—By keeping as far as possible from the political and social conditions of the Old World. These conditions suggest and foster anarchy. Our history has shown that this country is not a favorite home for anarchy. Anarchy has, to be sure, flourished theoretically here for many years, but not overtly against the life of this nation. But anarchists have found this a free country, and so a convenient place for them to plot and conspire against their rulers in the Old World. Now there is a great outcry for the suppression of anarchy here. But how shall it be done? Shall it be by making this country less free than it is? That would be simply to make our society more like that in the Old World, which is the home of anarchy. It would be to deal only with the symptoms, and in so doing, to aggravate the disease.”—Pages 309–312: