Anarchy's Exalted Victim: City Hall and Buffalo

The news was untrue, but it seemed as though it must be the shadow of what was to follow. The President had been sinking rapidly, and his life was despaired of, even by those attending him.

Those who had left Buffalo in confidence on Wednesday were summoned back in all haste, especially Vice-President Roosevelt, whose return was imperative. He had received news early Friday morning that all was going well, and had left the Tahawus Club in the Adirondacks for a day's tramp over Mount Marcy. Some three hours after his start, news of the President's critical condition reached the Club and guides and runners were at once sent in all haste on the track of the Vice-President's party. It was late afternoon before he was found, near the peak of the lofty mountain. All that night a stagecoach rushed through the Adirondack woods, bearing the nation's hope to the nearest railroad station, thirty-five miles away. Not until the reached there, at 5:22 a. m., did he learn that the President had been three hours dead. With all possible railroad speed swift trains bore him to Buffalo, which city he reached at 1:40 on Saturday afternoon.

He reached there as President of the United States. President McKinley had never rallied from the sinking spell that attacked him at 2 o'clock Friday afternoon. The physicians sent out as hopeful bulletins as they could, but hope was dying in the public heart. All, indeed, that could now be done was to seek to keep up the heart's action by injections of saline solution and digitalis. Dr. McBurney arrived a little before 8 o'clock, and shortly after his arrival oxygen was administered. The patient aroused under its influence. He seemed to know that the end was at hand, and asked to see his wife.

Mrs. McKinley entered the room and sank on her knees by the side of the bed, her head bowed and both her husband's hands clasped in hers. Sobs shook her for a moment; then she turned to Dr. Rixey and pleadingly said, "I know that you will save him. I cannot let him go; the country cannot spare him."

The President was conscious of her presence and whispered his striking last words: "Good-bye, all; good-bye. It is God's way. His will be done."

Then he lapsed into unconsciousness, and the physicians led his grief-stricken wife from the room. There was no rallying after that impressive moment. As hour after hour passed the last hope fled. Two o'clock came and it was evident that life was now measured by minutes. At 2:15 Dr. Rixey bent forward and placed his ear close to the President's breast.

"The President is dead," he said.

The martyred chief had passed away from life, without a struggle or a sign of pain.

We must briefly give the succeeding events. An autopsy was held by the physicians in attendance in a few hours after the President's death. The result proved that recovery had been hopeless from the first. On examining the bullet wounds in the stomach it was found that gangrene had attacked the surrounding tissues. "There was no evidence of any attempt at repair on the part of nature, and death resulted from the gangrene which affected the stomach around the bullet wounds as well as the tissues around the further course of the bullet. Death was unavoidable by any surgical or medical treatment, and was the direct result of the bullet wound."

Such was the dictum of science. Recovery had been hopeless from the first. Instead of healing, decay had set in, and life ebbed painlessly away. The bullet was not found. It had buried itself so deeply that it could not be reached without a mutilation of the honored body that the physicians did not think justifiable.

There was one other event of that lamentable day which must be briefly told. Two hours after the arrival of Vice-President Roosevelt in Buffalo he took the oath of office as President of the United States, it being administered by United States Judge John R. Hazel. Before performing this ceremony he made the following remark to Secretary Root, one which had a quieting effect upon the whole community, and made its influence manifest by the strong tone of financial confidence that was manifested on the Stock Boards of the great cities:

"Mr. Secretary, I shall take the oath at once, at the request of the members of the Cabinet, and in this hour of deep and terrible national bereavement I wish to state that I shall continue absolutely unbroken the policy of President McKinley for the peace, prosperity and honor of our beloved country."

He further strengthened public confidence by requesting the members of the Cabinet to remain in office, and all went well with the business interests of the great Republic.

Plans for the funeral of the murdered President were made without delay. It was decided that the body should lie in state at the City Hall in Buffalo during Sunday, after a private religious ceremony at the Milburn house. On Monday it would be taken to Washington, reaching there that evening, and lying in state at the Capitol on Tuesday. It would leave for Canton on Tuesday evening, reaching there on Wednesday morning. There the final funeral services would be performed.

It was a stately procession that left the Milburn mansion shortly after noon on Sunday, the 15th of September, and passed through streets filled with a vast concourse of silent and sorrowing citizens. Reaching the City Hall, the coffin was lifted from the hearse and borne to the catafalque which lay within.