of New York. Was elected Vice-President in November, 1900, and took the
oath of office March 4, 1901. President McKinley was shot September 6,
1901, and died September 14. His Cabinet announced his death to the
Vice-President, who took the oath of President at the residence of
Mr. Ansley Wilcox in Buffalo, before Judge John R. Hazel, of the United
States District Court, on September 14.




VICE-PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS AS VICE-PRESIDENT.

The history of free government is in large part the history of those
representative legislative bodies in which, from the earliest times,
free government has found its loftiest expression. They must ever hold
a peculiar and exalted position in the record which tells how the great
nations of the world have endeavored to achieve and preserve orderly
freedom. No man can render to his fellows greater service than is
rendered by him who, with fearlessness and honesty, with sanity and
disinterestedness, does his life work as a member of such a body.
Especially is this the case when the legislature in which the service is
rendered is a vital part in the governmental machinery of one of those
world powers to whose hands, in the course of the ages, is intrusted a
leading part in shaping the destinies of mankind. For weal or for woe,
for good or for evil, this is true of our own mighty nation. Great
privileges and great powers are ours, and heavy are the responsibilities
that go with these privileges and these powers. Accordingly as we do
well or ill, so shall mankind in the future be raised or cast down.
We belong to a young nation, already of giant strength, yet whose
political strength is but a forecast of the power that is to come.