Many men and women brought with them young children, whom they raised in their arms to see and perhaps remember in after life the face of the President. A tattered and grimy bootblack, with his box slung over his shoulder, leading by the hand his sister, smaller but no less grimy than he, filed by, walking on tiptoe to see.
The Indians came in the late afternoon, fifty chiefs from the Pan-American Indian congress, with squaws and papooses. Geronimo, Blue Horse, Flat Iron, Little Wound and Red Shirt led them. Each red man, little or high, carried a white carnation in his hand, which he laid reverently upon the coffin of the “Great Father.” Two chubby little Indian girls forgot, and went on, each clasping her flower in a little brown hand.
The storm came again after two o’clock, and with renewed fury. The rain fell in torrents, and was driven by the wind in sheets like small cataracts. But the lines and masses of people waiting for a chance to see their President for a last time never wavered. About half carried umbrellas. They served no purpose except to further drench those who had none, until the wind caught them, turned them inside out and whirled them into the gutters. Hats, women’s as well as men’s, followed.
By this time the waiting crowds had reached the most cosmopolitan stage. Silk-hatted men and women in automobile coats waited in line with mechanics and women from the factories and stores. All were drenched, and all seemed alike indifferent.
They came through the city hall rotunda with water streaming from their garments, until pools and rivers formed on the marble floor. Great baskets of sawdust had to be brought in and spread to absorb it lest people should fall on the slippery floors.
The officials of the exposition and the representatives of foreign governments commissioned to attend the exposition with exhibits from other countries were in the lines. Soldiers of the regular army, in their blue cape coats, went by, and also policemen off duty, holding their helmets in their hands. National guardsmen with khaki gaiters; colored men, among them James Parker, who figured in the capture of Czolgosz; little girls in their Sunday dresses, with their braided hair over their shoulders; young men, husbands and wives, mothers with their sons or daughters, went by in the never-ending stream.
Many flowers were sent to the house and others were sent to the city hall. Among them was a large wreath of purple asters, with a card on which was written:
“Farewell of Chief Geronimo, Blue Horse, Flat Iron and Red Shirt and the 700 braves of the Indian congress. Like Lincoln and Garfield, President McKinley never abused authority except on the side of mercy. The martyred Great White Chief will stand in memory next to the Savior of mankind. We loved him living, we love him still.”
On the other side of the card was the following:
“Geronimo’s eulogy. The rainbow of hope is out of the sky. Heavy clouds hang about us. Tears wet the ground of the tepees. The chief of the nation is dead. Farewell.”