“Nicholas.”
The following message was received from King George of Greece at Fredensborg:
“I rejoice to hear that you so happily escaped the terrible attempt on your precious life, which has horrified the civilized world, but hope to God that you recover for the good and glory of the American people.”
Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria sent an expression of his sympathy at the probable recovery of the President to the United States government to-day. The dispatch was sent through the American Embassy.
On Thursday all was hopefulness; on Friday gloom and fear; on Saturday heads bowed in mourning. Death came with an awful suddenness, notwithstanding the week of suffering. The passionate hope that the President would recover had been followed by a feeling of perfect assurance that he was out of danger, when the wholly unexpected news of Friday put the people on the rack again. There was another torturing day, and when it ended hope and confidence had yielded to universal grief and to a fruitless questioning of the impenetrable ways of Providence. It seemed inexplicably strange that a man so beloved and unoffending and so rich in good works should have been made the victim of the assassin’s bullet.
All day long the bulletin boards in every city were surrounded by crowds waiting in suppressed excitement for the latest word from the Milburn home, and numerous newspaper extras were eagerly snapped up.
Every household in Washington was in mourning. The sorrow was complete. Large crowds assembled about the bulletin boards early in the evening of the memorable day, eagerly awaiting the latest news, hoping against hope that something would happen, in the mysterious workings of the Almighty, to spare the President.
The oldest citizens cannot remember when a calamity brought to the national capital such profound grief. The excitement was more intense when Lincoln succumbed to the bullets of the assassin, Booth, and the people sincerely mourned him, but while he was widely loved, his death did not so afflict the people. Garfield was generally admired, and the calamity that overtook him awakened the sympathy of the people, but he was not mourned as was McKinley.
If the precedents set by President Arthur are followed by President Roosevelt, the coming winter will be entirely devoid of official gayety. The official mourning will extend over six months and will be rigorously observed. This period will include New Year’s and the usual courtesies extended to the diplomatic corps, the Congress, the judiciary and the army and navy. The official mourning will end on March 14, 1902, and as this date falls after Shrove Tuesday, the official social season will be allowed to lapse. Therefore the New Year’s reception of 1903 will in all probability be the first formal gathering of the official and social world at the White House.
Half-masted flags and black column rules mutely proclaimed England’s sentiments touching the death of President McKinley. These symbols of mourning, countless in their multitudes, visibly recalled the country’s grief at the loss of Queen Victoria. Not only on land, but also at sea, the British honored the martyr President. Thousands of buildings, both public and private, and all the shipping around the coast, flew the Union Jack half-way up the staff. Every British war ship within reach of the telegraph displayed its ensign of sorrow.