Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 10.djvu/264

 HAY

HIS TRIBUTE TO McKINLEY^

(1902)

Born in 1838, died in 1905; Private Secretary to Lincoln in 1861-65; Secretary of Legation in Paris in 1865-67; Charge d' Affairs in Vienna in 1867-68; Secretary of Legation In Madrid in 1688-70; Assistant Secretary of State in 1879-81; Ambassador to England in 1897-98; Secretary of State in 1898-1905.

For the third time the Congress of the United States are assembled to commemorate the life and the death of a president slain by the hand of an assassin. The attention of the future histo- rian will be attracted to the features which reap- pear with startling sameness in all three of these awful crimes: the uselessness, the utter lack of consequence of the act; the ol^scurity, the insig- nificance of the criminal ; the blamelessness — so far as in our sphere of existence the best of men may be held blameless — of the victim. Not one of our murdered presidents had an enemy in the world; they were all of such preeminent purity of life that no pretext could be given for the attack of passional crime ; they were all men of democratic instincts, who could never have of- fended the most jealous advocates of equality; they were of kindly and generous nature, to

' From his memorial address at a joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives on February 27, 1902.

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