yet too fresh, our grief too poignant and our indignation too acute for us to contemplate it dispassionately or discuss it considerately.

"But, while we can't now speak becomingly of the murderer and his awful crime, we can fittingly employ this hour to commemorate the virtues of his victim and to recount, in part at least, his great services to his country.

"The allotted age of man is three-score and ten, but William McKinley was not yet 59 when his career ended. In these short years he did a wondrous work. In its accomplishment he was unaided by fortuitous circumstances. He was of humble origin and without influential friends, except as he made them.

"He died proud of his work and in the just expectation that time will vindicate his wisdom, his purpose and his labors-and it will.

THE CROWNING TRIUMPH.

"What he was not permitted to finish will be taken up by other hands, and when the complete, crowning triumph comes, it will rest upon the foundations he has laid.

"Eis great loss to the country will not be in connection with policies now in process of solution, but rather in connection with new questions. What he has marked out and put the impress of his great name upon will receive the unquestioned support of his own party and of the great majority of the American people. He had so gained the confidence of his followers and the whole country in his leadership that practically all differences of opinion on new propositions would have yielded to his judgment.

"And when the dread hour of dissolution overtook him and the last touching farewell had been spoken he sank to rest murmuring 'Nearer, My God, to Thee.' This was his last triumph and his greatest. His whole life was given to humanity, but in his death we find his most precious legacy.

"The touching story of that touching deathbed scene will rest on generations yet unborn like a soothing benediction. Such Christian fortitude and resignation give us a clearer conception of what was in the Apostle's mind when he exclaimed, 'O, death, where is thy sting? O, grave, where is thy victory ?'"

CHAPTER XXII.

Personal Traits of Mr. McKinley-Reminiscences of His Boyhood-Anecdotes and Incidents-His Kind HeartAffection for Old Friends.-Never Swerved from the Path

of Duty.

LOYALTY to old friends, absolutely without regard to their

worldly station, was a conspicuous trait of Mr. McKinley's character. It is related that at the second inauguration among the White House guests were Jack Adams, who runs the President's farm near Canton, and his friend, Mr. Alexander, a tinsmith from Minerva, Columbiana county, O. Mr. Adams came to Washington at the President's invitation, but had no idea of doing more than "eating one meal in the White House," as he expressed it. Here is Mr. Adams' own story of how he happened to be stopping at the White House during the inauguration week :

"Just before the inauguration of 1897, Mr. McKinley asked me if I did not want to come to Washington. Well, I was pretty busy fixing up things on the farm just then, so I said no, I would come to the next one. The President laughed and said to remind him and he would send me a pass. I got it. When my friend Alexander and I went up to the White House the President held out his hand and said: 'I'm glad to see you,' and asked me about my health and my family and how everybody was doing. I told him I had just come to town and got a room.

"He said: 'Not a bit of it. You are to stay right here in the White House, you and your friend.' I said that I did not like to impose upon him, but he replied that it was no imposition, and that I must bring my grip and stay the week out as his guest, and he would see that I had a good time and do everything for me that he could do. He made out a ticket that passed us to the grand stand to see the parade, and also gave us seats at the Capitol and admission to the inauguration ball."

A lady in Ohio has a souvenir of Mr. McKinley which she prizes very highly. It is a stanza written by him when twelve

years old, conveying to this lady, who was then a schoolgirl, a sentiment which impressed his mind at that time. The following is a fac-simile of the stanza, penned, as the reader will see, in the careful handwriting of a schoolboy :

Friend Levey

A heart of heavenly purity. Is laid within thy blast And ever for the weary soul It breathes some tons of rest dr 125/55 Pland Dm MaKinly. H

11

In this little incident we see revealed the character of the man. Probably if Mr. McKinley in his last days had seen the stanza he wrote to his "Friend Lucy," he would have smiled at the innocence of boyhood, but he would not have disapproved of the sentiment he then expressed.

COLONEL BONNER'S REMINISCENCES.

Colonel J. C. Bonner, Collector of Customs, was probably closer to President McKinley personally than any other man in Toledo. When the nation lost a President, Colonel Bonner lost a friend-a friend so near and dear that he does not hesitate to say that to him he owes his success. Colonel Bonner credits the late President with starting him on the road which has led to his present position. When interviewed, Colonel Bonner, deeply affected, paid the President, his friend, a great personal tribute, and, on solicitation, related several incidents, personal recollections, which had been impressed on his memory.

He told of his first acquaintance with Mr. McKinley. Away back in the earliest nineties Colonel Bonner was engaged in the manufacture of brushes. Politics was then with him a pastime, and relaxation from business cares. At that time Colonel Bonner

was Chairman of the Lucas County Republican Executive Committee, and Mr. McKinley was then Congressman McKinley, and Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means.

The tariff bill which bears Mr. McKinley's name was at that time being prepared. Mr. Bonner, in the manufacture of brushes, was painfully aware that the American made goods were kept out of the American markets because of the cheapness with which the German product could be manufactured and placed on sale here. He determined, if possible, to effect a remedy.

He went to Washington, called at the office of Congressman McKinley, which the latter always called his "den," and without ceremony or red tape of any sort, was received. At first sight Mr. Bonner was much impressed with him, and, as afterwards proved, the liking was mutual. Mr. Bonner stated his business. The country was being flooded with foreign made goods; in this instance, toothbrushes, which were sold at so low a price that the American made product could not well compete.

TWICE ACROSS THE OCEAN.

The bones of which the handles were made were sawed up in Chicago, then shipped to Germany, made up and shipped back and sold at a lower price than Bonner and the five other firms in this country could furnish them at.

"But I am told," said Mr. McKinley, "in letters from great houses in Philadelphia and New York, that they are satisfied with the present conditions, and that they do not think it necessary for a tariff on toothbrushes."

He named the firms, and then Mr. Bonner explained that these were great wholesale houses which bought all their goods in Germany when possible, only patronizing the local manufacturers when forced to.

"I see," said the Congressman, "I thought there was something wrong here. How much of a tariff do you believe to be necessary to protect American interests?" Mr. Bonner said forty per cent. would do. "Forty per cent. it shall be," said Mr. McKinley. And forty per cent. it was made and remained.

When President McKinley first ran for governor it was proposed that he should make a speech in Toledo. The candidate had appeared but once before in this city and then only at a banquet at which he had responded to a toast. There were factional differences in the Republican camp in Lucas county at that time, and it was feared that the meeting would have the appearance of a frost, but Mr. Bonner and several others determined that Mr. McKinley should be heard there.

Some thought that a committee of two was all that was necessary to go down to Sandusky and meet him, and escort him. But opinions differed and twenty prominent citizens guaranteed $200 in the way of tickets and the Wheeling & Lake Erie road put on a special train, allowing the local managers to put on whatever crowd it desired.

A GREAT TURN-OUT.

The result of it was that nine carloads of people were taken to Sandusky to greet the candidate and bring him to Toledo. A flat car was fitted up and decorated and festooned and an artillery battery was placed on board. On the way to Sandusky, through the Democratic fastnesses of Ottawa and Sandusky counties the cannon boomed out Republican defiance to Democratic hosts, and it was feared that the return trip would be marred by the assembly of angry crowds and vengeance wreaked in some manner.

Sandusky reached, Candidate McKinley was certainly surprised at the size of his reception committee, and after a street parade the train was boarded for the trip to Toledo. All along the route, where cannon had boomed an hour before, great crowds assembled.

Impromptu platforms had been built and nothing would do but the candidate must make a speech. This was repeated at every station. The news spread to Toledo and when he arrived the streets were crowded, packed, jammed. So great was the crowd that but a small percentage could pack within Memorial Hall, and it was necessary for the candidate to speak at several places along the march to the hall.