inly the fact that his
administration marked a great climacteric in our national career. His
intimates in office and in public life unanimously testified that in
shaping the nation's new destiny he played an active and not a passive
role. He dominated his cabinet, diligently attending to the advice each
member offered, but by no means always following it. Party bosses
seeking to lead him were themselves led, oftenest without being aware of
it, to accomplish his wishes.

[Illustration]
The Home of William McKinley, at Canton, Ohio.
Copyright, 1901, by Underwood & Underwood.

As a practical politician in the better sense of the word McKinley was a
master. Repeatedly, at critical junctures, he saved his following from
rupture, while the opposition became an impotent rout. Hardly a contrast
in American political warfare has been more striking than the pitiful
demoralization of the Democracy in the campaign of 1900 compared with
the closed ranks and solid front of the Republican array.
Anti-imperialists like Carnegie and Hoar, silver men like Senator
Stewart, and the low-tariff Republicans of the West united to hold aloft
the McKinley banner.

The result was not due, as some fancied, to Mr. Hanna. Nor did it mean
that there was no discord among Republicans, for there was much. The
discipline proceeded from the candidate's influence, from his
harmonizing personal leadership. This he exercised not through oratory,
for he had none of the tricks of speech, not even the knack of
story-telling, but by the mere force of his will and his wisdom.

Mr. McKinley's private character was pure, exemplary, and noble. His
life-long devotion to an invalid wife; his fidelity to his friends; the
charm, consideration, and tact of his demeanor toward everyone; and,
above all, the Christian sublimity of his last days created at once a
foundation and a crown for his fame.

Ex-President Cleveland said: "You will constantly hear as accounting for
Mr. McKinley's great success that he was obedient and affectionate as a
son, patriotic and faithful as a soldier, honest and upright as a
citizen, tender and devoted as a husband, and truthful, generous,
unselfish, moral, and clean in every relation of life. He never thought
of those things as too weak for his manliness."

A special grand jury forthwith indicted the assassin, who, talking
freely enough with his guards, refused all intercourse with the
attorneys assigned to defend him, and with t