Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. IV.djvu/111

 WILLIAM McKINLEY 83 resolution. Without internal troubles to distract us or jealousies to disturb our judgment, we will solve the problems which confront us untrammeled by the past, and wisely and courageously pursue a policy of right and justice in all things, making the future, under God, even more glorious than the past.&quot; Early in the autumn of 1901 the president, ac companied by Mrs. McKinley and several members of his cabinet, visited the Buffalo (N. Y.) exposi tion. On Thursday, September 5, he delivered an address embodying the ripest wisdom of his long and prosperous political career. It gathered to gether the experience of his many years of service to the country, and announced in clear, strong lan guage the policy which was to guide him in the fu ture, and which his successor afterward publicly adopted as his own. The speech is not merely an expression of the personal views of the president, however statesmanlike these may be ; it is more than that ; it is a sound statement of the actual problems involved in the new position which, under his own wise guidance, our country has assumed in the world. It is in a sense Mr. McKinley s legacy to his native land, and as such it should be appreciated and preserved by every patriotic American. On Friday afternoon, in the music hall of the exposi tion, while receiving his fellow-citizens, he w r as twice shot by an assassin, who was executed for the