The Buffalo Tragedy has turned a tremendous searchlight upon the United States. The burning rays that are said to bear upon thrones, are not as searching as those that have poured upon us. The form of our government and the fitness of our people, have been under a storm of fire. A reason for this is, that the assassin of the third of our murdered Presidents, was not, as the murderer of Lincoln was, a melodramatic actor, crazy with vanity, a horrible impersonation of the madness that comes of acting dreams of bloodshed; while Garfield's murderer was a degenerate, a hideous crank, raving for an office in the gift of the President. The murderer of McKinley was an Anarchist, and "Anarchy" has been held to be a "problem" that belongs to Europe rather than to America. Europe and all the world turn to see how the "terrible bereavement" that President Roosevelt named our loss, affects our institutions, what it sets forth of our condition and character. We have done a great deal of boasting, and have gone far to justify it; but the pistol-shot in the Temple of Music, on the ground of the Pan-American Exposition, was aimed at the President as the President. The intention was to assassinate the Republic. William McKinley was a great and good man, a just and pure man; a man of Christian spirit and gentleness, his sacrifice and death, his fortitude in anguish, and resignation when he knew the hand of death was upon him— when he sent for his wife the last time to try to comfort her as he was going; his last words infinite tenderness; his whispered singing with his last breath of the hymn that had comforted him in the trials of life, and his triumph with it in death-why, of all men, should this man be slaughtered while he was extending a courtesy to the Butcher? President McKinley had done more than any other since the beginning to aid the people of his country to be prosperous; and more to help the working-man to his share of the prosperity created by work, than any other statesman who has lived and wrought with us. What hissed the blood-hound upon this man, himself a workingman, the son of a workingman-this unselfish man, who was all charitableness for the erring, with good will for all, hopeful and helpful for all; a man of the people, his household all kindly-this man of generosity? Why does the murderer strike him down in this land of the free, the home of the oppressed; in the very "Empire for Liberty," of the equal rights of men? Whence comes the monster to whom this woeful crime is possible? It is not wonderful that Europe, and all the continents, and the islands of the sea, look aghast upon this spectacle. It is a phenomenon as surprising as it is awful. We have not lost, in the public opinion of enlightened mankind, by the mournful and tragic event at Buffalo; as it and all the associated circumstances have been given a publicity without parallel, in its extent, its thoroughness, and the rapidity of circulation of the truth. All the earth's great cities that take part in current affairs, get the same news at the same time, or so nearly that there is no appreciable difference; and we have heard from all the inhabitants of our planet regarding this assault upon civilization committed in our midst by a barbarian, a savage malignant. There appeared two typical Americans in McKinley and Roosevelt. The assassin had nothing in common with our countrymen but his location. He scoffed at all that is held honorable and holy. He was the product of foreign conditions, and got his idea of vengeance visited upon rulers in an air other than that of this hemisphere. He was indoctrinated by demagogues, male and female, whose voices are as the hissing of venomous reptiles. He was a creature rank with poisons. The world will be the better for the life and death of William McKinley; and it will be stronger, more truthful, brave and ambitious in good works, for a character of such courage of conviction, candor of speech, and capability in action as Theodore Roosevelt. The story of McKinley is one of the few that is for all time. No man has been born for a thousand years whose genius of endeavor in the elevation of humanity, exceeds his, and whose immortality is more certain and radiant than his. America is enriched by his fame. The nations beyond our borders, weighted with their dynasties, burdened by their standing armies, whose greater industry is that of lifting up the sword, have been impressed by the absence of all shadow of doubt upon the constitutionality and popular assent and acclaim of the succession when the Chief Magistrate was removed. The wisdom of our Fathers is seen in what is well called the "automatic" succession of the Vice-President to the Presidency. This is all the more influential because the original framers of the Constitution, as accepted by the States, did not frame the provision that is admired for its simplicity, that makes definite, certain, and peaceable every step. The Electoral College is a conservative contrivance; but the arrangement first tried, yielding the Vice-Presidency to the candidate for President second in the count of electoral votes, came near causing shipwreck; and the change that has saved us more than once in the gravest dangers, resulted from the people, who, undaunted and enlightened, profited by the perils of experience. It is exceedingly satisfactory to be able to say that the judgment of all Abroad, whose favorable opinion is desirable, of the character of the new President, is that we were fortunate to have him for Vice-President. His bearing during the trying scenes at Buffalo, was regarded in the capitals of Europe, and the South American Nations, and in the cities of Mexico and Canada, with constant respect, that rapidly grew to confidence and admiration. The people of general information in all lands regarded, with an interest unusually keen and an intelligence uncommonly acute, the Presidential Electors of 1900, and formed the opinion that it was wisdom in our people to come to the conclusion recorded by the popular electoral votes; and they still think so. The arrival of Roosevelt at Buffalo, summoned when the fatal shot was fired, to retire when there was the highest authority that the President was out of danger, and return when optimism was at an end and the inevitable at hand; and the perfect form with which he took up his task, were gratefully recognized, and with becoming gravity and quiet, commended. The English people are our most intimate acquaintances beyond our boundaries, and the British press our most pronounced friends and critical foes. They quickly knew that Roosevelt was a man of strength and decorum, accustomed to assert for himself, and approve in others, individuality; a "rough rider," as the phrase goes, but never a ruffian; not given to posing as one composed, but always self-respecting in attitudes, and respectful in addressing honest men, and a leader of men when the drums beat the charge. Several of the English monthlies are out with articles of considerable interest. There is a notable one in "The Nineteenth Century and After," for October, by Mr. W. Laird Clowes, who is at once highly eulogistic of the public character of the President, indulgent with his personal recollections, revealing in extracts and with statements direct, that he has been in correspondence with President Roosevelt. The October number of the Contemporary Review printed an article by Poultney Bigelow, who writes with a zest and interest that exceeds the modest claims of accuracy. Mr. Bigelow has been esteemed often to be a man whose coloring matter sometimes exceeded the value of his solid material of fact. This gentleman might approve the story Mark Twain tells as the truth of himself as a writer, and no doubt it is true, but has occasional lapses into exaggeration. The great and good humorist said, when asked why he did not dictate to a stenographer or a phonograph: "I can't do that. I can't talk writing. In fact, I do not write at all. It is my pen that does the writing. I stick it in the ink and put it to the paper, and it goes right at it, and does its work. When it stops, I quit, of course." The pen of Mr. Bigelow plays tricks on him, does the writing, and behaves like a bucking broncho, rises up and paws and kicks, especially kicks. His article in the Contemporary did not seem to be quite the thing wanted on either side of the Atlantic, and another gentleman was called to supplement in the November Contemporary the one about Roosevelt, prepared by the Bigelow prancing pen. The London papers were more careful than our own, as a rule, to say that Mr. Roosevelt was not on a hunting excursion when McKinley's relapse took place, but had gone to bring his family from their summer residence in the Adirondacks to their winter home, and received the summons on Mount Marcy. He had four hundred and forty miles before him and got to Buffalo in |