On the sixth of September, President McKinley was shot by an anarchist
while attending the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, and died in that
city on the fourteenth of that month.

Of the last seven elected Presidents, he is the third who has been
murdered, and the bare recital of this fact is sufficient to justify
grave alarm among all loyal American citizens. Moreover, the
circumstances of this, the third assassination of an American President,
have a peculiarly sinister significance. Both President Lincoln and
President Garfield were killed by assassins of types unfortunately not
uncommon in history; President Lincoln falling a victim to the terrible
passions aroused by four years of civil war, and President Garfield
to the revengeful vanity of a disappointed office-seeker. President
McKinley was killed by an utterly depraved criminal belonging to that
body of criminals who object to all governments, good and bad alike,
who are against any form of popular liberty if it is guaranteed by even
the most just and liberal laws, and who are as hostile to the upright
exponent of a free people's sober will as to the tyrannical and
irresponsible despot.

It is not too much to say that at the time of President McKinley's
death he was the most widely loved man in all the United States; while
we have never had any public man of his position who has been so wholly
free from the bitter animosities incident to public life. His political
opponents were the first to bear the heartiest and most generous tribute
to the broad kindliness of nature, the sweetness and gentleness of
character which so endeared him to his close associates. To a standard
of lofty integrity in public life he united the tender affections and
home virtues which are all-important in the make-up of national
character. A gallant soldier in the great war for the Union, he also