“Marshall, do you remember meeting me in the Windsor Hotel, New York, and saying you were shaking hands with the future president of the United States?”
“I recall it very distinctly,” I replied.
“I have just been thinking,” he said, “of that—to me, strange prophecy. You must be possessed of some clairvoyant power.” There are some things you can’t tell a man to his face, so I didn’t explain to him that a man with a character like his couldn’t help becoming president, when the whole country had come to know him.
I shall never forget what I saw of his lover-like devotion to his invalid wife, nor her evident gratitude for his every service, nor the sweet solicitude and pride with which she regarded him. One day his brother Abner arrived, went to the portion of the hotel reserved for the president, met Mrs. McKinley and asked:
“Is William in?”
“Yes,” was the reply, “but I shall not let you see him for an hour. He is resting.”
A little incident that was described to me by an eye-witness brought out one of the qualities which endeared President McKinley to his fellow countrymen. While on a brief visit across the lake, in Vermont, he was driving through a small city, followed by a great procession of people who had turned out in his honor. While passing through the main street he noticed an old man seated on the piazza of a modest dwelling, and asked the mayor, who was beside him in the carriage,
“Who is that old gentleman?”
“That is Mr. Philip, father of Captain Philip, of the battleship Texas,” was the reply.