sin's hand. The English throne has been free from these crimes for a thousand years. In France in thirty years one of her Presidents has been assassinated; with the exception of Henry IV, none of her kings or emperors. The immunity of rulers of Continental Europe is ascribed to the care of guards. There are no special precautions surrounding the movements and residence of the English sovereign.

"The murder of Lincoln was not the act of an anarchist and was as deeply regretted by the South, whose wrongs Booth thought he was avenging, as by the North. Had Lincoln lived, the reconstruction of the South on lines satisfactory to its intelligence would have come much sooner. The assassination of a ruler has always defeated the purpose of the attack by intensifying the power of the government assailed. The assassination of Garfield was the crime of an addle-brained egotist seeking notoriety, without accomplices or sympathizers.

"President McKinley was the most beloved of our Presidents. Beyond any of them, he possessed the affection of the whole American people. Parties and partisanship had ceased to have any enmity toward him personally. He was not only the best friend of the workingman and the wage-earner who ever filled the place of ruler of a great coun try, but they all knew it and so regarded him. Notwithstanding these facts, this most popular of Presidents fell a victim to a conspiracy. His death was brought about as a result of teachings of a political school which, so far as they dare, approve and applaud the crime.

"The conditions which give comparative safety to European rulers and make the position of President of the United States the most hazardous place in the world, must be considered in the protection to be given in the future to our Presidents. All Continental governments by concert of action among the police of the several countries locate, identify and exchange descriptions of anarchists and anarchist groups. They arrest them on the slightest pretext, and in various ways endeavor to make life unbearable for them. The reds have in the main fled from these countries to find asylum only in Great Britain and the United States. They work a vigorous propaganda through their publications for use on the Continent. The Scotland Yard police keep the London anarchists under constant surveillance. The anarchist leaders in Russia are all foreigners, as with us, with the exception of one or two. The leaders in Great Britain order that no outrages be committed there. They know that any attempt on the life of the sovereign would lead to the expulsion of them all.

"The reds have discovered that in the United States there is such absolute freedom that there is no law, Federal or State, under which anything worse can happen than brief imprisonment if unsuccessful, and execution only if successful, to the member of their society upon whom the lot falls to assassinate a President, a governor, a judge or a policeman. The chief tenets of the anarchist organization being revolution of society by killing those who carry out its laws, now how can we protect our President and have him as safe from these assaults as European sovereigns?

"In the first place, President Loubet of the French Republic does not attend public meetings, speak from the platform or railway cars, move around in an approachable and conspicuous way to fairs and expositions, nor hold open levees for the shaking of hands. Whenever he appears he is guarded by secret police. They know his route, and, themselves inconspicuous, keep a constant watch on the President and those near him. Our Presidents are in the habit of shaking hands with everybody who wishes wherever they temporarily stop or have been staying. Can we afford, when the life of the President is so important to every interest of the country, to have him continue this ceremony without restriction or limitation? The American people number 77,000,000. It would be almost impossible for a President in his four years in office to shake hands with 50,000 persons. Considering that some one person in this insignificant proportion of our people might precipitate a tragedy that would plunge the whole country into grief and disturb commercial and industrial conditions, the question arises, Can we afford to continue to imperil our Presidents?

"We must begin at the fountain head and stop the reservoirs of European anarchy pouring into our country. Such certification of immigrants must be had as will establish a proper environment and association abroad before they pass our immigrant inspectors. Supplementing this, there should be under proper safeguards the power lodged somewhere to expel known enemies of our laws and country. Legislation should also be adopted by the Federal Government and all States that will take attempts upon the life of the President which fail out of the category of mere assaults."

Senator Depew's remarks about safeguarding Presidents should have the most respectful attention, for they are founded on information.

CHAPTER VI.

MCKINLEY'S BOYHOOD AND EARLY MANHOOD.

McKinley's Boyhood as Told by His Mother-His Steady Rise to Leadership-How He Studied and Grew Strong-His Early Tariff Speeches-The Law that Bears His Name The Object-Lesson He Gave the Country in His Journey Across the Continent-A Story of Him as a Boy-Soldier-His Story of His Own Regiment.

There has been no man of great prominence in our history, against whom the cry of establishing a class of rulers other than our citizens, native and naturalized, and doing something to abridge the liberties of the people at large, was less applicable in reason, than to President McKinley. He always was for the largest extension of manhood suffrage, and for the protection of the ballot and the ballot box-the acceptance of all honest votes and their counting as voted. There never was an utterance of his touching this fundamental theme that was not clear and large in its liberality, and this was a lifelong recognition in the broadest sense of the supreme sovereignty of the people of the United States.

In his boyhood, in the district of manufacturing industries of Ohio, he studied the problem of the protection of American labor as a question that came home to the house of his father, who was a workingman, in the literal use of the word; and one of the first things said of him, as he became known after his war experiences, and was a lawyer, is that he did that unusual thing—made a protectionist speech "interesting." The famous Thomas Corwin, the great wit and orator of his time, found nothing so difficult as to interest the people of the West about the tariff. The tendency of public speakers on that subject was to employ too many figures, and give them in combinations of intricacy. Young McKinley put the mathematics of the matter on the anvil, red hot, and hammered the metal into implements, making the sparks fly. He was strong-handed, and was deeply grounded and minutely informed. He addressed the men of toil in the fields and shops, and had the excellent and commanding quality of sincerity. No man heard him who did not know that whatever errors there might be in his sayings, he was speaking his own convictions and was smiting the iron when it was hot, doing it heartily, and in a masterly way putting a fine finish on his work, beginning with blows

like those delivered by a blacksmith and touching it up at last with strokes that gave symmetry to the blade he fashioned and added an edge,

The mothers of Washington, Grant, Garfield, and McKinley saw their sons Presidents, but Washington parted with his mother never to see her again, when on the way to be inaugurated the first time. Mrs. Grant and Mrs. Benjamin Harrison lived to have the honor of seeing their fathers as guests in the White House. Nancy Allison McKinley gave this account of her illustrious son in a conversation reported by the Journal of December 27, 1896:

"Don't think my bringing up has much to do with making my son William the President of the United States. I had six children, and I had all my own work to do. I did the best I could, of course, but I could not devote all my time to him.

"William was naturally a good boy, but he was not particularly a good baby. He began to take notice of things when very young. He was a healthy boy.

"We lived in a village and he had plenty of outdoor air and exercise. He was a good boy in school and his teachers always said he was very bright. He had his little squabbles with his brothers and sisters, like all other children do. I guess I never paid much attention to that. He was always obedient, however, affectionate and very fond of his home.

"We were Methodists, though we never went to the extent of curbing the innocent sports of the children. William was taken to Sunday school about the same time that he began his studies in the village schoolhouse. He continued a faithful attendant every Sunday till he went away to the war. I brought up all my children to understand that they must study and improve their minds.

"My ideas of an education were wholly practical, not theoretical. I put my children into school just as early as they could go alone to the teacher, and kept them at it. I did not allow them to stay away. As you may imagine, I had little time to help in their studies, though I kept track of their work in a general way through the reports of their teachers. I did most of the household work, except the washing and ironing, and made nearly all the children's clothes; but I saw that the children were up in the morning, had breakfast and were promptly ready for school.

"That was the way the days of every week began for me.

Ours was

a hard, earnest life. My husband was always an early riser and off to his work. I am now speaking of our life at Niles. At Poland he was away from home most of the time, and the whole burden of the family cares fell on me.

"We moved to Poland when William was about eleven years of We went there because the schools were better. My husband was a foundryman and his work kept him at Niles.

age.

"William was a great hand for marbles, and he was very fond of his bow and arrows. He got so that he was a very good shot with the arrow and could hit almost anything that he aimed at. The thing he loved best of all was a kite. It seems to me I never went into the kitchen without seeing a paste pot or a ball of string waiting to be made into a kite. He never cared much for pets. I don't believe he ever had one.

"We did not own a horse, so he never rode or drove. He was always teasing me to be allowed to 'go barefoot' the minute he came home from school. In 'going barefoot,' when he stubbed a toe or bruised his foot, he was as proud as a king in showing the injury to the other boys. When summer came he always had a stone bruise. His shoes came off before the snow had left the ground.

"Although William had no taste for fishing, and rarely, if ever, attempted the sport, he was fond of swimming in the deep pool on Yellow Creek, a little way above the dam. The swimming hole was reached by the left bank of the river, after crossing the bridge, and was shaded by a large black oak that spread its branches far over the water. Here the boys used to go after school on warm summer evenings and splash in the water for some time.

"Our first home in Poland was on the main street, just east of the corner store. It was and still is a frame building, painted slate color, and was not as large as the houses we afterward dwelt in. Our second residence was further down the street, toward the mill, where Dr. Elliott now lives. The third house, now occupied by Mrs. Smithers, was on the other side from the other two, and we had a veranda along the entire front of the house.

"William was promptly entered at the seminary and developed strong inclinations to study. In time he became a member of the literary association in the Poland Union Seminary, and I frequently heard of his taking part in the debates and other literary contests. Mrs.