Mr. McKinley was reelected by an overwhelming majority.  There had been little doubt of the result among well-informed people, but when it was known, a profound feeling of relief and renewal of trust were evident among the leaders of capital and industry, not only in this country, but everywhere.  They felt that the immediate future was secure, and that trade and commerce might safely push forward in every field of effort and enterprise.

He felt that the harvest time was come, to garner in the fruits of so much planting and culture, and he was determined that nothing he might do or say should be liable to the reproach of a personal interest.  Let us say frankly he was a party man; he believed the policies advocated by him and his friends counted for much in the country’s progress and prosperity.  He hoped in his second term to accomplish substantial results in the development and affirmation of those policies.  I spent a day with him shortly before he started on his fateful journey to Buffalo.  Never had I seen him higher in hope and patriotic confidence.  He was gratified to the heart that we had arranged a treaty which gave us a free hand in the Isthmus.  In fancy he saw the canal already built and the argosies of the world passing through it in peace and amity.  He saw in the immense evolution of American trade the fulfilment of all his dreams, the reward of all his labors.  He was, I need not say, an ardent protectionist, never more sincere and devoted than during those last days of his life.  He regarded reciprocity as the bulwark of protection—­not a breach, but a fulfilment of the law.  The treaties which for four years had been preparing under his personal supervision he regarded as ancillary to the general scheme.  He was opposed to any revolutionary plan of change in the existing legislation; he was careful to point out that everything he had done was in faithful compliance with the law itself.

In that mood of high hope, of generous expectation, he went to Buffalo, and there, on the threshold of eternity, he delivered that memorable speech, worthy for its loftiness of tone, its blameless morality, its breadth of view, to be regarded as his testament to the nation.  Through all his pride of country and his joy of its success runs the note of solemn warning, as in Kipling’s noble hymn, “Lest We Forget.”

The next day sped the bolt of doom, and for a week after—­in an agony of dread, broken by illusive glimpses of hope that our prayers might be answered—­the nation waited for the end.  Nothing in the glorious life we saw gradually waning was more admirable and exemplary than its close.  The gentle humanity of his words when he saw his assailant in danger of summary vengeance, “Do not let them hurt him;” his chivalrous care that the news should be broken gently to his wife; the fine courtesy with which he apologized for the damage which his death would bring to the great Exhibition; and the heroic resignation