A conservatory contained a very fine collection of food plants, alive and growing, sent from South and Central America; also eight different kinds of tea plants from South Carolina. A small coffee plantation and some vanilla vines had been transplanted from Mexico. Nearly every country in Spanish America was represented. Cuba, San Domingo, Ecuador, Chile, Honduras, Mexico, and Canada had buildings. Sections in the Government Building were devoted to exhibits from Porto Rico, the Hawaiian Islands, and the Philippines.
The Electricity Building.
The United States Government Building was most interesting. New inventions made its exhibits live. In place of reading reports and statistics, you saw scenes and heard sounds. Class-room songs and recitations were reproduced by the graphophone. The biograph showed naval cadets marching while at the same time you heard the band music. Labor-saving machines were represented in full operation. Pictures by wire, the mutoscope, and type-setting by electricity were among the wonders shown. Every day a crew of the life-saving service gave a demonstration, launching a life-boat and rescuing a sailor. Near by was a field hospital, where wounded soldiers were cared for. Many of the newest uses for electricity were displayed. Never before had lighting been so brilliant or covered such large areas, or such speed in telegraphy been attained, or telephoning reached such distances. The akouphone, a blessing to the deaf, was exhibited, as were also the powerful search-lights now a necessity at sea.
CHAPTER XIX.
MR. MCKINLEY’S END
Upon invitation President and Mrs. McKinley visited the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo. September 5, 1901, the first day of his presence, the Chief Magistrate delivered an address, memorable both as a sagacious survey of public affairs and as indicating a modification of his well-known tariff opinions in the direction of freer commercial intercourse with foreign nations.
“We must not,” he said, “repose in fancied security that we can forever sell everything and buy little or nothing.” ... “The period of exclusiveness is past.” “Reciprocity treaties are in harmony with the spirit of the times; measures of retaliation are not.” ... “If perchance some of our tariffs are no longer needed for revenue or to encourage and protect our industries at home, why should they not be employed to extend and promote our markets abroad?” In connection with this thought the President expressed his conviction that we must encourage our merchant marine and, in the same commercial interest, construct a Pacific cable and an Isthmian canal.
The projects of Mr. McKinley’s statesmanship thus announced were approved by nearly the entire public, but they were destined to be carried out by other hands. On his second day at Buffalo, Friday, September 6th, about four in the afternoon, the President stood in the beautiful Temple of Music receiving the hundreds who filed past to shake hands with him. A sinister fellow, resembling an Italian, tarried suspiciously, and was pushed forward by the Secret Service attendants. Next behind him followed a boyish-looking workman, his right hand swathed in a handkerchief. As the first made way Mr. McKinley extended his hand to the young man’s unencumbered left. The next instant the bandaged right arm raised itself and two shots rang on the air. The President staggered back into the arms of a bystander, while his treacherous assailant was borne to the floor.
President McKinley at Niagara
Ascending the stairs from Luna Island, to Goat Island.
Copyright, 1901, by C. E. Dunlap.