Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1881-09-23
4 NATION IN MOURNING.

A NATION IN MOURNING.
The work of the assassin is complete; the
heart Of agreat nation is almost paralyzed
with grief at the tragic death of its Chief
Magistrate.
On the eighty-frst day after the world
was shocked by the atrocious act of Guiteau,
the President of the United States surrenders
his spirit to the God who gave it. How
bravely, how cheerfully, with what fortitudc
and serene calmness he has borne the terri
BILE sufferings of this protracted period, the
people not only of this country but of all
lands are familiar, and from every part OF
the globe there has come up one expression
of adherence for the foul crime of the as
sassin, of sympathy for the stricken Prcsi-
dent and his family.
Gen. Garfield sprung from the lower walks
of life, and by toll and industry rose to the
head Of great nation. The blow that struck
the President struck the nation. 1t stiled
the voices of party passion and it united the
whole people in common sympathy and
common sorrow. He was the elect of the
people whose sovereignty was menaced when
the miscreant, Guiteau, committed his deed
of bloody treason. 1t is the whole people
who has since watched by his bed of suffer-
ing and witnessed his accomplishing hero
ism. Had the blow proved fatal at once,
one cannot tell to what extremes the pas
sions Of hate and revenge might have led.
Butin the long and weary vigils of these
weeks Of solicitude the wrath of an outraged
people has been soothed and sobered, keep
ing pace with the slow exhaustion of the
President, by which his life was finally
borne away. Now that the President has
gone, and now that another takes his office,
the people turn hopefully to the new Exec
utive, and confidently look to him and his
subordinate officers of the law for certain
and speedy justice upon the most colossal
criminal of the age.
The President was dear To the people, not
only for himself, but because of The tender
views Of his beautiful homc-lire to which
they were admitted. His was u type of the
best American home, from which children
came forth most fully equipped for the great
exigencies of the life battle.
Gen. Garfield had an experience in the
affairs of State such us had characterized few
of our late Presidents. He had endured the
hardship Of perjury and privation. lie had
risked his life on the battlefield in behalf of
a cause which he believed To be right He
was a man OF wide reading and thorough
scholarship, fond Of study and research, and
adding to his American craftsmanship that
sympathy with the broader fields of knowl.
edge and that aptness for literary works
which has been the characteristics of 50
many European statesmen. The President
had only entered upon his work, and had
given only partial glimpses OF what was to
be the policy OF his administration on the
larger questions of our political relations at
home, and OF our relations with foreign pow
ers. In some measures of home policy he
had encountered opposition and a fierce par
tisanship had been aroused. But all this
will be forgotten in the common sorrow that
peryades all parties and fills the whole land.
In such an hour as this criticism is disarmed.
The expectations and promises of great
nation have been cut of. A loving family
has been plunged into the most poignant
grief; the brave wife and the "little mother"
in her Ohio cottage, the young children de-
prived of fathers care, are the sad pictures
which to-day rise up before the American
people.
President Garfield had no fear Of death
he was reared under religious influences that
penetrated and pervaded his whole nature,
and he had that habitual trust in Providence
that enabled him to face the last enemy in
his last attack upon him with that tirmness
with which he had faced him before. He
took the some chance" with cheerful cour.
age, and, alas he lost. A nation mourns
and u thousand cities and towns are draped
with Grape and display the national flag ut
half-mast There is no partisanship to-day.
All who are citizens OF the Republic stand
in solemn silence, sharing with each other
the burden Of national grief