Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 07.djvu/191

 Mckinley

Mckinley

candidate for President, and Theodore Roosevelt of New York received 929 votes for the candi- dacy for Vice-President, the single vote missing being the delegate vote of Theodore Roosevelt. In the election of Nov. 6, 1900, President Mc- Kinley was re-elected by the largest popular majority ever given to any presidential candidate, the Republican electors receiving 7,206,677 p)op- ular votes to 6,374,397 for the Bryan and Ste- venson electors, and the popular votes for the minority candidates standing as follows : Wool- ley and Metcalf, Prohibition, 208,555 ; Barker and Donnelly, Anti-Fusion People's, 50,337 ; Debs and Harriman, Social Democrat, 84,003 ; Malloney and Remmel, Social Labor, 39,537 ; Leonard and Woolley, United Christian, 1,060, and Ellis and Nicholas, Union Reform, 5,698. Tiie electoral vote stood 292 for McKinley and Roosevelt and 155 for Bryan and Stevenson. The successful Republican candidates were inaugu- rated March 4, 1901, and the President made no changes in his cabinet. He visited California with his wife and members of his cabinet in the spring of 1901, making numerous speeches and receiving enthusiastic welcome from the cit- izens of the southern and southwestern states through which he passed, and he intended to make the tour extend to the principal cities of the northwest, but the serious illness of Mrs. McKinley forced him to return to Washington after reaching San Francisco. The management of the Pan-American exposition at Buffalo, N.Y., invited the President to visit that city, which he did, accompanied by Mrs. McKinley and his official family, including part of his cabinet. On September 6, while in the midst of a throng of

THE TEMPLE OF/AUSK.

expectant citizens assembled in the Temple of Music anxious to familiarly greet their Presi- dent, he took the hand of one of the men in line in friendly confidence, when with the other hand the assassin, wlio proved to be an avowed anar- chist of foreign birth, shot the President twice, VII. — 12

producing a mortal wound. He was conveyed to the home of John G. Milburn, president of the exposition, whose guests Mr. and Mrs. McKinley were, and lingered till the early morning of Sept. 14, 1901, when at 2.15 he died. Shortly before his death he said, " Good-bye, all ; good-bye. It is God's way. His will be done, not ours." His last words, spoken to his wife, were '• ' Nearer, my God, to Thee, e'en though it be a cross,' has been my constant prayer." He was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Union Veteran Legion, and other military organiza- tions. He received the honorary degree of LL. D. from Western Reserve university and McKendree college in 1897, from the University of Chicago and Yale university in 1898 ; from Smith college in 1899 (being the second person and the first man to receive an honorary degree from that institution) and from the University of California in 1901 ; and that of D.C.L. from Mt. Holyoke in 1899. He was invited to visit Harvard university in June, 1901, and the corporation voted him the honorary degree of LL.D., to be bestowed on the occasion, but the serious illness of Mrs. McKinley prevented his presence. The notable speeches delivered by Mr. McKinley and not already men- tioned include : the address in Canton, Ohio, before the Ohio state grange Dec. 13, 1887, on " The American Farmer," in which he opposed the holding of American lands by aliens, and urged the farmers to be true to the principles of protection ; the address at the Home Market club in Boston, Feb. 9, 1898, in which he per- suaded the New England representatives to abandon the policy of allowing the introduction of raw material duty free ; the speech at the Lincoln banquet in Toledo, Ohio, Feb. 12, 1891, in which he answered President Cleveland's address on ** American Citizenship," delivered on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the birthday of Allen G. Thurman at Colum- bus, Ohio; Nov. 13, 1890 ; the oration delivered on Feb. 22, 1894, before the Union League club, Chicago, 111., on the life and public services of George Washington, and his last speech, at the Pan American exposition, Buffalo, Sept. 5, 1901, the day before his assassination, in which he outlined the policy of the administration in its efforts to give greater security to the commercial and industrial life of the republic, in the following words : " Our capacity to produce has devel- oped so enormously and our products have so multiplied that the problem of more markets re- quires our urgent and immediate attention. Only a broad and enlightened policy will keep what we have. No other policy will get more. In these times of marvellous business energy and gain we ought to be looking to the future, strengthening the weak places in our industrial