, and helped to search him."

Parker told of certain things he was about to do to the assassin when
one of the officers asked him to step outside. Parker refused. He
declared the officers wanted to get him out of the way. He said he
helped to carry the assassin to the carriage in which the wretch was
taken to jail.

"I don't know why I wasn't summoned to the trial," he said.

Parker said Attorney Penney took his testimony after the shooting.

"I was not at the trial, though," concluded Parker in an injured tone.
"I don't say this was done with any intent to defraud me, but it looks
mighty funny, that's all."

The above interviews with officers present agree with Parker's version
of the affair, and whether the afterthought that further recognition of
his decisive action would detract from the reputation for vigilance
which they were expected to observe is a fitting subject for
presumption.

At the time of the occurrence Parker was the cynosure for all eyes.
Pieces of the clothing that he wore were solicited and given to his
enthusiastic witnesses of the deed, to be preserved as trophies of his
action in preventing the third shot. No one present at that perilous
hour and witnessing doubted or questioned that Parker was the hero of
the occasion. This, the better impulse, indicating a just appreciation
was destined soon to be stifled and ignored. At the sittings of the
coroner's jury to investigate the shooting of the President, he was
neither solicited nor allowed to be present, or testimony adduced in
proof of his bravery in attempting to save the life of the Chief
Magistrate of the Republic. Therefore, Parker, bereft of the well-earned
plaudits of his countrymen, must content himself with duty done.

Remarkable are the coincidences at every startling episode in the life
of the Nation. Beginning at our country's history, the Negro is always
found at the fore. He was there when Crispus Attacks received the first
of English bullets in the struggle of American patriots for
Independence; there in the civil war, when he asked to be assigned to
posts of greatest danger. He was there quite recently at El Caney; and
now Parker bravely bares his breast between the intended third shot of
the assassin and that of President McKinley.

If this dispensation shall awaken the Nation to the peril of admitting
the refuse of nations within our borders, and clothing them with the
panoply of American citizenship; if it shall engender