shone as an example to all our people because of his conduct in the most
sacred and intimate of home relations. There could be no personal hatred
of him, for he never acted with aught but consideration for the welfare
of others. No one could fail to respect him who knew him in public or
private life. The defenders of those murderous criminals who seek to
excuse their criminality by asserting that it is exercised for political
ends, inveigh against wealth and irresponsible power. But for this
assassination even this base apology cannot be urged.

President McKinley was a man of moderate means, a man whose stock sprang
from the sturdy tillers of the soil, who had himself belonged among the
wage-workers, who had entered the Army as a private soldier. Wealth was
not struck at when the President was assassinated, but the honest toil
which is content with moderate gains after a lifetime of unremitting
labor, largely in the service of the public. Still less was power struck
at in the sense that power is irresponsible or centered in the hands of
any one individual. The blow was not aimed at tyranny or wealth. It was
aimed at one of the strongest champions the wage-worker has ever had; at
one of the most faithful representatives of the system of public rights
and representative government who has ever risen to public office.
President McKinley filled that political office for which the entire
people vote, and no President--not even Lincoln himself--was ever more
earnestly anxious to represent the well thought-out wishes of the
people; his one anxiety in every crisis was to keep in closest touch
with the people--to find out what they thought and to endeavor to give
expression to their thought, after having endeavored to guide that
thought aright. He had just been re-elected to the Presidency because
the majority of our citizens, the majority of our farmers and
wage-workers, believed that he had faithfully upheld their interests for
four years. They felt themselves in close and intimate touch with him.