Though no statement was given out, the appearance of every one about the Milburn house indicated that the President’s death was expected any moment. Figures moved about swiftly but noiselessly within the house.
The end seemed at hand when the physicians announced at 5:25 that the condition of the President was very bad—in fact, could not be worse.
The news was flashed to the White House from an official source at Buffalo that at 5:45 the President’s condition was most grave. That his heart was responding but poorly to stimulants. Secretary Root, accompanied by Carlton Sprague, reached the Milburn residence a few minutes after five o’clock. It was said that Secretary Long would arrive at 11:40 o’clock.
To those who were so anxiously waiting for Vice-President Roosevelt or knowledge of his whereabouts, word came from the train dispatcher at Saratoga that at 7:30 p. m. Mr. Roosevelt had not been found, so far as he knew, by the guides who were scouring the Adirondack woods for him. The Vice-President had not reached North Creek, fifty-nine miles north of Saratoga.
At eight o’clock word came that under the influence of oxygen the President regained consciousness for a moment. Dr. McBurney arrived at the house at eight o’clock, and a moment later a guard was placed around the tent in which was located the direct wire to the White House.
CHAPTER III.
DEATH-BED OF PRESIDENT McKINLEY.
William McKinley, twenty-fifth President of the United States, died at fifteen minutes past two o’clock on the morning of Saturday, September 14, 1901, at the age of fifty-eight years. He had lived just six and a half days after receiving his wound at the hands of Leon Czolgosz, the anarchist.
From the time President McKinley was carried to the bed in the Milburn home, at Buffalo, there had been a continually rising barometer of hope. Frightful as had been the shock of his wound, serious as were the consequences in a bullet necessarily retained in his body, the great reserves of courage and of strength had come to the President’s rescue, and he had seemed to mend from the start. As the days passed following the assault, the whole nation emerged from that black pall of gloom which fell in the hour when men first whispered: “The President is shot!” Usual vocations were taken up again. Social activities were renewed. The people in general, scarcely pausing from the pressure of a necessary labor, caught the note of encouragement, and were happy as they worked. Apprehension almost faded away as the days of the week followed each other, and every succeeding bulletin painted but brighter the scene in the sick room. By Wednesday the millions of Americans who were watching with eyes of love at that bedside—however near or remote they might be—had quite dismissed the thought of a fatal ending to the President’s case. They accepted his speedy recovery as a fact to be shared with jubilation, and had forgotten the grip of dismay and fear which seized them when the first news came.
And out of this rising glow of happiness came, late Thursday night, another shock—the bitterer for the hope which had preceded it.
“The President is worse.” That was the message men whispered to each other. After bulletins which exhausted the possibility of variety in statement came one which chilled the warm heart of the nation, and frightened far away the hope which had seemed so certain. The Thursday morning statement of physicians and secretary reported all that could be argued from the sanguine statements of preceding days.