is one thing we can not conceive will be thought practicable by President Roosevelt-the change of his accustomed independence permitting himself to abate his zeal in a cause because there is war on that line of march. The name of the Cuban battlefield where he so handsomely distinguished himself, is the Place of Thorns, and he never has feared to walk in thorny paths if he heard the call of duty. He did not wait for the drums and bugles. That he will prove one of our most interesting Presidents, there is no doubt, but that he will carefully trim and shape his course to be elected President in 1904, is not to be expected or thought of in this case, for he has attained the popularity that is demonstrative toward him, by his veracities, and he will fight it out on that line through all the seasons. He has been the boldest of men in truthtelling, and perhaps it is the very courage in what commonplace judgment would pronounce imprudence, that has given him progressive success. He is a very human man, and that he could be insensible to the honor of a second term of the Presidency, is most unlikely. At the same time, it is impossible he can be a candidate on any platform or in any character other than his own. He prefers war to a peace that is not "with honor" and has resources, in his books and his ranches, and his friends and his hunting-the free air of the mountains and companionship with the rivers that roll Eastward from the far off Western mountains, that would busy him without regard for a term more or less of the Presidency. The people will presumably like him all the more because he will not be a candidate on any other terms than the "just as I am" platform. They will know where he is and what he is all the time, candidate or not, and if they care to vote for him again, they will know, as heretofore, what for.

There was harmony between McKinley and Roosevelt in their high offices, for the reason, among many others, that they were unlike in their ways, and yet had policies that ran in parallel lines. They were for the protective tariff and reciprocity. Though James G. Blaine was a high protectionist, he added as an elucidation the grateful word reciprocity, and McKinley was early an advocate, as Roosevelt was an opponent, of Blaine for the Presidency; and in the very week of McKinley's assassination, they found themselves agreed to accept Blaine's doctrine. It is one of the fairest chapters of the fame of McKinley that he was the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee that reported the protection and prosperity measure; and McKinley repeatedly, in public addresses, dwelt upon the words, "protection and reciprocity," giving the latter word a gracious emphasis, as if the two were one and inseparable, and united to bring about a perpetual career of prosperity. The inner light of the Farewell Address at Buffalo did not then shine in his speeches for the first time. McKinley was not an idealist and dreamer of protection, but held that it was a measure by and for the people, and that it had not reached a state of perfection. Roosevelt is of like persuasion, but had made less of a specialty

of protection, though that is because he has grasped with masterly hand so many subjects, that he has not so far concentrated his identity on one line.

President Roosevelt is not likely to come in sharp contact with the Repub. lican organization, for he is competent to measure the excellence that he approves. He is in better form to go on without shifting policies than any recent Vice-President, with the exceptions of Mr. Hobart and Governor Morton. There would have been a revolution if Vice-President Hendricks or Vice-President Stevenson had been called to succeed Mr. Cleveland.

The Republican National Convention of 1900 was a body largely composed of actual representative men. The leader and "leaders of leaders" were there. The one open question was the Vice-Presidential nomination; and the word passed through the delegations that the second place on the ticket must be filled as carefully as the first. Not a little was said about a man perfectly agreeable to the Administration, and while there were preferences, there were not antagonisms, but outside Roosevelt's friends, there was no personal sentiment that was formidable. The Convention was deliberate, and its decision not lacking in unanimity. The nomination of McKinley was a matter of course, but if he had not been a candidate, Roosevelt would unquestionably have been the nominee for the first place. There was a time when McKinley thought very seriously about declaring he would not be a candidate for a second term, as when he had a second, he peremptorily closed the conversations looking to pressing him for a third term, and did it in the same spirit that he demanded that he should not be voted for on the floor of the Convention, when he had appeared the leader of John Sherman. There was a time in the third year of the Administration of McKinley, when he was weary, and said he thought he would have had, when his term expired, enough of the great office; and if personal considerations had prevailed, he would have been inclined to step aside, asking, even demanding, that he should not be urged to take the field again. His labor had been most exacting, but the state of the country did not admit of his retirement. The conditions commanded his acquiescence in the call from the people. It was no uncertain sound that ordered him to go on. Those who wanted the White House painted black because he was not rabid for war lacked listeners long before he died.

At the McKinley memorial services, Alabama, September 19th, Mr. Rufus N. Rhodes delivered, in the First Methodist Church, an address that opened with these admirable sentences-most expressive of a feeling in all bosoms that are the homes of true manhood and womanhood, the sympathy all people of honor should feel for Roosevelt under circumstances so pathetic and forlorn as his when the chosen leader fell. "Sometimes," said Dr. Rhodes, "God moves in a most mysterious way His lessons to impress upon mankind. The cruel, cowardly assassination of a President of the United States in the

first year of the new century calls an instant halt;" and in touching terms he expressed the thought of many millions, that "Roosevelt should have sympathy." "Let none of us forget," he said, "that President Roosevelt needs and should receive the sympathetic co-operation of every good citizen. Ungenerous criticism cannot but embarrass his administration of public affairs, which are our concern as much as his. Theodore Roosevelt is capable and courageous, honorable and patriotic; he is thoroughly zealous, and he is pledged to a continuance of the policy of President McKinley for the preservation of the peace, prosperity, and honor of our beloved country. 'God reigns and the Government at Washington still lives.' Another lesson taught by the suffering and death of Mr. McKinley was prayer and the power of prayer. Men who rarely pray, prayed momentarily for him to get well. Since he was shot, the very atmosphere of the world has been saturated and sanctified by the spirit of prayer, and though he died, countless numbers throughout the world have come to know the comfort and the help-giving power of prayer. And, oh, the strength it gave William McKinley as he entered the dark valley of the shadow of death. After giving what consolation he could to his poor, dear wife, turning to the faithful Cortelyou, and the circle of nearest and dearest friends about him, in his last conscious moments he whispered: 'Goodby, all; goodby. Not ours, but God's will be done. 'Tis his way!' Then sweetly dropping into obliviousness, his dying lips gently hummed the tune of 'Nearer, My God, to Thee.' And this was the passing of William McKinley."

As the procession moved in Buffalo, bearing the remains of the President on the long journey to Canton and the longer one, the procession moved between masses of bare headed people. At the depot the soldiers carried the coffin on their shoulders toward the train, and from "Nearer, My God, to Thee," the band went into the grand old hymn, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past." On the curb stood President Roosevelt with Senator Hawley. He had refused the advice of the police to move into the train yard, and with his hat in his hand stood silently watching, and entered the station with Secretary Cortelyou.

He had a call at Buffalo from a committee of the Grand Army, who wished to further offer the services of a committee of five to act as part of the escort to the body on the funeral train to Washington. The committee called on President Roosevelt at the Wilcox mansion on Sunday evening to make this tender and request an acceptance, so that the representatives of the Grand Army might be assigned to this duty The President's greeting to the Grand Army committee was most gracious. He said: "I am pleased, very much pleased, to receive you; and while for obvious reasons, I cannot make an assignment such as you propose, I will write a note to Secretary Cortelyou,

with the hope that he will be able to do so. I know it is what the dead President would have desired, and it is what I desire."

The note written by the President was handed to Secretary Cortelyou, who said: "In making arrangements for the funeral, I thought of the Grand Army officers. In the multitude of my duties I necessarily had to refer many matters, and that of the Grand Army escort was sent to Col. Bingham. Please see him and tell him I sent you to him." Colonel Bingham at once made the necessary arrangements for the Grand Army to follow the hearse to the depot, and an assignment of a committee of five to accompany the body of President McKinley on the funeral train.

The new President was a master of the proprieties. He appointed to office all who had been promised places by President McKinley. There was delicacy called for as to personal effects in the White House, and Mrs. McKinley could not give the help of her personal attention. Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt were not in haste to occupy the premises, but consulted the convenience of the McKinley family. President Roosevelt proceeded at once on returning from Canton, to take up, in a business way, the work waiting for him, first interesting himself in the affairs of the Navy-the Department in which he had experience and his first consultation was with Governor Long, the Secretary whose assistant he once was. The Cabinet officers were warmly received, and when luncheon time came, he walked to the house of Secretary Hay, where he was expected, and paid no attention whatever to the police on the assumption that he needed their attention. He discountenanced the detectives, politely discouraged long discussions of business; and his personal characteristics will, as they should, appear in the course of his Administration, that, in the natural course of events, includes organization and service of two Congresses from start to finish.

One strong point of McKinley was that he was sixteen years in the House of Representatives, and that Roosevelt has not. He has, however, been a member of the New York Assembly, and has the parliamentary accomplishments. He can hardly make his relations with Congressmen as close and in matters of business as free from partizan color as McKinley's were. The first telling stroke McKinley made when he was President, was to call Congress in extra session. It was a bold movement, and many feared, a mistake, but McKinley did not have a misgiving.

He, as a Congressman of extraordinary experience, was glad to meet Congress; and the splendid success of tariff legislation was greatly aided by comradeship between the Chief Executive and the Chief Representative body. There will be lacking in the equipment of the Government in affairs, for the period that the Vice-President chosen by the people is President, the genial and