Ascending the Capitol steps at Washington, D, C., where the casket lay in state in the Rotunda.
On the day of the interment, September 19th, appropriate exercises, attended by enormous concourses of people, occurred all over the country, and even in foreign parts. In hardly an American town of size could a single building contain the crowd, overflow meetings being necessary, filling several churches or halls. Special commemorative services were held in Westminster Cathedral by King Edward’s orders.
No king was ever honored by obsequies so widespread or more sincere. Messages of condolence poured in upon the widow from the four quarters of the globe. Business was suspended. For five minutes telegraph clicks and cable flashes ceased, and for ten minutes, upon many lines of railway and street railway, every wheel stood still.
None but the rash undertook, at once after his lamented decease, to assign President McKinley’s name to its exact altitude on the roll of America’s illustrious men. Ardent eulogists spoke of him as beside the nation’s greatest statesman, Lincoln, while his most pronounced opponents in life accorded him very high honor. During his career he had been accused of opportunism, of inconsistency, of partiality to the moneyed interests of the country. His views of great public questions underwent change. One of his altered attitudes, much remarked upon, that concerning silver, involved, as pointed out in the last chapter, no change of essential principle. In regard to protection he at last swung to Blaine’s position favoring reciprocity, which, as author of the McKinley Bill, he had been understood to oppose; but it should be remembered that his final utterances on the subject contemplated an industrial situation very different from that prevalent during his early years in politics. The United States had become a mighty exporter of manufactured products, competing effectively with England, Germany, and France in the sale of such everywhere in the world.
American material supplied in large part the Russian Trans-Siberian Railroad. American food-stuffs and meats wakened agrarian frenzy in Germany. The island-hive of England buzzed loudly with jealous foreboding lest America capture her world-markets. From an average of close to $163,000,000 annually from 1887 to 1897 United States exports of manufactured products reached in 1898 over $290,000,000, in 1899 over $339,000,000, in 1900 nearly $434,000,000, and in 1901, $412,000,000. As coal-producer the United States at last led Britain, American tin-plate reached Wales itself, American locomotives the English colonies and even the mother-country, while boots and shoes from our factories ruled the markets of West Australia and South Africa. For bridge and viaduct construction in British domains American bids heavily undercut British bids both in price and in time limit.
His progressive insight into the tariff question betrayed Mr. McKinley’s mental activity and hospitality, as his final deliverances thereupon exhibited fearlessness. None knew better than he that what he said at Buffalo would be challenged by many in the name of party orthodoxy. Even greater firmness was manifest when, at an earlier date, speaking at Savannah, he ranked Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson as among America’s “great” sons. With this brave tribute should be mentioned his commendable nomination of the ex-Confederate Generals Fitz-Hugh Lee and Joseph Wheeler as Major-Generals in the United States Army. Such words and deeds showed skilled leadership also. Each was fittingly timed so as best to escape or fend criticism and so as to impress the public deeply.
President McKinley’s Remains Passing the United States Treasury, Washington, D.C.
Copyright, 1901, by Underwood & Underwood.
Not a little of Mr. McKinley’s apparent vacillation and of his complaisance toward men and interests representing wealth was due to an endowment of exquisite finesse which stooped to conquer, which led by seeming to follow, or by yielding an inch took an ell. In him was rooted by inheritance a quick sense of the manufacturer’s point of view, for his father and grandfather had been iron-furnace men, and a certain conservative instinct, characteristic of his party, which deemed the counsel of broadcloth wiser than the clamor of rags, and equally patriotic withal. Notwithstanding this, history cannot but pronounce McKinley’s love of country, his whole Americanism, in fact, as sincere, sturdy, and democratic as Abraham Lincoln’s.
Mr. McKinley’s power and breadth as a statesman were greatly augmented by the responsibilities of the presidency. Before his accession to that exalted office he had helped devise but one great public measure, the McKinley Bill, and his speeches upon his chosen theme, protection, were more earnest than varied or profound. But witness the largeness of view marking the directions of April 7, 1900, to the Taft Philippine Commission: “The Commission should bear in mind that the government which they are establishing is designed not for our satisfaction or for the expression of our theoretical views, but for the happiness, peace, and prosperity of the people of the Philippine Islands, and the measures adopted should be made to conform to their customs, their habits, and even their prejudices, to the fullest extent consistent with the accomplishment of the indispensable requisites of just and effective government.”