s have fled from in
Europe. It will impose upon our peace-loving people a large standing
army, an unnecessary burden of taxation, and would be a constant menace
to their liberties." Such was the tenor of their appeal to the voters.

With the issues clearly joined, the country rejected the Democratic
candidate even more positively than four years before. The popular vote
cast for McKinley was larger and that cast for Bryan smaller than in the
silver election. Thus vindicated at the polls, McKinley turned with
renewed confidence to the development of the policies he had so far
advanced. But fate cut short his designs. In the September following his
second inauguration, he was shot by an anarchist while attending the
Buffalo exposition. "What a strange and tragic fate it has been of
mine," wrote the Secretary of State, John Hay, on the day of the
President's death, "to stand by the bier of three of my dearest friends,
Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley, three of the gentlest of men, all risen
to the head of the state and all done to death by assassins." On
September 14, 1901, the Vice President, Theodore Roosevelt, took up the
lines of power that had fallen from the hands of his distinguished
chief, promising to continue "absolutely unbroken" the policies he had
inherited.

SUMMARY OF NATIONAL GROWTH AND WORLD POLITICS

The economic aspects of the period between 1865 and 1900 may be readily
summed up: the recovery of the South from the ruin of the Civil War, the
extension of the railways, the development of the Great West, and the
triumph of industry and business enterprise. In the South many of the
great plantations were broken up and sold in small farms, crops were
diversified, the small farming class was raised in the scale of social
importance, the cotton industry was launched, and the coal, iron,
timber, and other resources were brought into use. In the West the free
arable land was practically exhausted by 1890 under the terms of the
Homestead Act; gold, silver, copper, coal and other minerals were
discovered in abundance; numerous rail connections were formed with the
Atlantic seaboard; the cowboy and the Indian were swept away before a
standardized civilization of electric lights and bathtubs. By the end of
the century the American frontier had disappeared. The wild, primitive
life so long associated with America was gone. The unity of the nation
was established.

In the field of business enterprise, progress wa