CHAPTER XXIII

The Last Home-Coming to Canton

HE last chapter of the sad ceremonial, the removal of the remains of the late President to the grave at his old home

at Canton, Ohio, began on Tuesday evening, September 17th, when the funeral train left Washington over the Pennsyl vania Railroad.

The great bronze doors of the Capitol in which the body had lain in state had closed while there were still thousands of people waiting to get a last glance at the casket.

The guards at the Capitol, who had patiently throughout the long day held the crowd in leash, were permitted a hurried look at the face of the deceased. The cover of the casket was screwed down by the undertakers, it was lifted once more upon the shoulders of the body-bearers, and by them borne to the hearse at the foot of the east steps of the Capitol.

The escort from the Capitol to the train consisted of a committee from the army and navy and two squadrons of the Eleventh Cavalry. The route was down Pennsylvania Avenue, which was lined on either side by troops of the District of Columbia.

It was a quiet, noiseless journey, without music. Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note. Nor was there a sound from the crowd which lined the broad street. Notwithstanding the hour was late, the air chill and a light mist was falling, hats were uniformly removed as the cortege passed.

At the railroad station there was a dense throng, and the remains were received by large delegations of army and naval officers. There the soldiers and seamen carried the casket from

the hearse to the observation car placed in the second section of the funeral train.

The casket was placed on standards draped with the national colors, and was covered with floral emblems. No less than twenty cars were required for the transportation of the funeral party to Canton.

Remarkable demonstrations of a stricken people's grief marked the last home-coming of the martyred President, William McKinley. All along the path of the sombre funeral train, from Washington, on the Potomac, to Canton, in Ohio, mourning thousands stood to bid their dead chief a last, sad farewell. Although the journey was made in the dead of night, not a city, town or hamlet but contributed its quota. Silent they stood in the black darkness as the cars bearing the beloved dead flashed by in the gloom, unlit, except that bearing the remains of the President. Illuminated by lights within the car, the casket stood out in bold relief, visible to the watchers in the night.

THE SILENT PEOPLE LINE THE TRACK

Daylight was dawning as the train arrived at the foot of the eastern slope of the Alleghenies. But through the semi-darkness the forms of many people could be seen strung along the track.

Extra engines were coupled on, and the train was pulled laboriously up the mountains. The morning was raw, foggy and cheerless. Mountaineers, with axes on their shoulders, came down from the steep slopes to pay their homage with uncovered heads.

Miners, with lamps

Men, women and children all were there. in their caps, had rushed forth from the tunnels at the train's approach, and the steel mills along the Conemaugh River were emptied. These were men who felt that their prosperity was due to the system for which the dead statesman stood, and their loss seemed of a personal character. Four women, with uplifted hands, were noticed on their knees and handkerchiefs were at the lips of others; and from the smoke-covered city came the sound of the charch bells clanging out the universal sorrow.

A little further on the train passed a string of coke ovens, the tenders standing at the mouths of the glowing furnaces with their hats in their hands. The train slowed down that the people might better see the impressive spectacle at the rear of the train within the observation car, the elevated flag-covered casket with its burden of flowers and the two grim, armed sentries on guard at the head and foot and outside, on the platform, a soldier with his bayoneted gun and a sailor with drawn cutlass, both at salute. So rigid they stood they might have been carved out of stone.

As the train passed through Harrisburg, Altoona, Pittsburgh, Allegheny, and other Pennsylvania towns and cities in the route of the sad cortege, people were seen in thousands, standing in silence and with bared heads as the train passed.

The climax of the great sorrow was observed when the train reached the Ohio line and entered the President's own State. The signs of grief and mourning were evident on every hand. The people were grieving the death as of their well beloved son.

Church bells tolled most mournfully, and the train slackened speed. The humblest cottage was draped in mourning, and thus was McKinley's return heralded with silent and deeply-felt sorrow.

Canton received the remains of the late President McKinley shortly before noon on Wednesday, the 18th. Two weeks previous, upon the same day, and almost at the same hour, in the full vigor of life and the buoyancy of health, surrounded by loving friends and admiring neighbors, who cheered his departure for Buffalo, he started upon the journey that terminated in assassination. The same friends and neighbors, augmented by a vast multitude that included nearly the entire population of Canton, patiently, silently, with hearts overshadowed with grief and heads bowed in humiliation, awaited the coming of the train that brought to them the lifeless form of the President. There was no lack in the preparation for this sad duty. No detail was omitted, and the entire service was performed with a thoroughness which so strongly marked the bringing of the body to Washington. There was a degree