Flowers were received at the hall also from Helen Miller Gould Tent No. 8, Daughters of Veterans; from the commissioners of Chile to the exposition; from Manuel de Aspiroz, the Mexican Ambassador to the United States, and his family; from the Cuban commissioners to the exposition; from the Mexican commissioners, and from General Porfirio Diaz, President of Mexico.
Monotonously the streams of people flowed past the coffin while twilight fell and darkness gathered. The interior of the city hall was illuminated by electricity, and the streets in the vicinity were brightly lighted. Toward sunset the sky cleared, and there was an immediate increase in the already enormous crowds.
The endurance of the people finally gave out at 11 o’clock at night. At that time practically everybody who sought the opportunity had seen the dead President and the doors were closed. The military guard detailed by order of General Brooke was left in charge of the body.
A death mask of the President’s face was made by Eduard L. A. Pausch of Hartford, Conn. Pausch has modeled the features of many of the distinguished men who have died in this country in recent years. The mask is a faithful reproduction of the late President McKinley’s features.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE FUNERAL TRAIN TO WASHINGTON.
From the scene of President McKinley’s assassination to the Capital of the nation the hearse of the murdered President made its way. Through almost half a thousand miles, past a hundred towns that had been blessed through his services, between two lines of mourners that massed in unnumbered throngs all the way from Buffalo to Washington, the hurrying train proceeded, anguished mourners within the cars, loving and sorrow-stricken friends without.
President McKinley had left Washington, September 6, 1901, in the full tide of life, in the full flush of hope and power. His cold body, with life extinct, started on the return Monday, September 16, housed in the mournful trappings of woe.
From 7 o’clock in the morning to 8 o’clock at night the solemn progress continued. In the flush of the September dawn the nation’s dead was hurried out of the city, which, waving a sad farewell with its one hand, clutched tight his murderer with the other. The roar of mad Niagara sank to a growl of thirsty vengeance reserved for the wretch that remained, and the mists rose up from the deeps of the dead, and bent in gentle majesty to the south as the echo of departing wheels wore away.
Never was such a funeral procession. Never before was a death so causeless, a chief so beloved so pitilessly laid low, and never was humanity startled from universal peace with a grief so sad.
It was a curious journey for the five draped cars, with their engine banked in black. The half hundred attendants—the widow with her friends, the new President with his advisers, the guards and escort making up the visible government of the nation, hurrying from the threshold of woe to the vestibule of a new administration.