The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1901-09-26
President Mckinley as q Grand Army Com


kASSAee-AS NAShAAAeJ a. O NAoHu A1WJ Soin-
rade.
EDITOR NATIONAL TRIBUNE: With one
lofty voice of praise and sorrow the whole
world echoes with just and eloquent
eulogy of our last President martyr Suf-
fer an humble word from the rank and
file of the Grand Army of the Republic,
his earliest and best friends. Too little
emphasis, it seems to me, is given his rela
tons with the Grand Army, from which
hs was always proud and happy to say
he first stepped into public life. Let others
remember him as a great statesman,
orator and President-to US he is equally
dear and honored in all the many stations
he so well filled, but he is specially en-
deared to us, in death, as he was in life,
as a comrade of the rank and file, who
marched with US in the ranks Of blue, and
drank from the same canteen. We Grape
every Grand Army Post, and bow every
gray head of the vast comradeship over
his sad death.
No one will ever forget how at his last
Inauguration, when the committees were
all at sea about our place in the line Of
the march to the Capitol, how quickly he
closed the debate by directing that his
comrades be given the post of honor, and
made his personal escort. Nor can any
one who was there ever forget that when
the Logan statue was unyalled, and the
arrangements were to be made, he gave
the lEOHL anu pldCe VI uOuOI " LIS SOu4-
rades, even above statesmen and men Of
distinction. His first word was Com
rades," pronounced in tones of respect 1ld
affection no other tongue shall ever utter
He was with US in the field, and when
the war ended, with US in the earliest
days of the sixties in the q. A. r. when
it had not % 900 members out of a then
possible and potential million living. He
was always at our Reunions and Encamp-
ments long before he came to Congress
known to us all years and years before
the country and the world had learned his
name.
The star and flag of the regular badge
of the G. A. r. or the bronze button in
the lapel was all the introduction any
comrade required to his confidence and
favor.
After he rose to Congressional honors
he still chung to US like a brother. He
was never ashamed of his comrade. or
turned his back upon one, however poor,
obscure or ill-clad. A comrade Of COM
rades, the soul of modesty, he never dis
dained to call us comrades even in the
White House, and in the presence of the
greatest and most honored men and wo-
men who surrounded him on great days
at the mansion of power. With him
comrsdeship meant something. By that
sign his affections were always gained, if
the one who made it was in any sense
worthy, anu where he WAS HOI, even IUeu
the largeness and goodness of his charity
dismissed him with smile that made that
one a better man. 1t is impossible to ex
press in words how he lived and hOnored
the comrades from one end of the coun-
try to the other, from the day he was
sworn IN as a private soldier till the day
he died.
Since 1865 we have had one comrade
and another in the White House over q
years. Likely President Mckinley was
and will remain the last one of our COM
rades to fill that great oftice-for we are
growing old, and the last of us must soon
pass away. Be it so-but so long as we
live, the memory dearest to our hearts viii
be the term when Mckinley was Presi-
dent, and stood firmly and kindly for us
to the end.
No comrade was ever so beloved. No
one ever knew so many of us by face and
name. Practically he was personally
known to all of US! We had met him
everywhere-his hand always extended in
friendly fraternal grasp to us ALL Nor is
this the half-almost as well was he per
sOnally known to our families, and could
call by name more of our wives and chill
dren than any other man living or dead.
Therefore is it there is weeping and
lamentation in all our humble homes to-
day from sea to sea, from lands end to
lands end, wherever one of the whole
family of the Grand Army of the Republic
lives-aye, more, wherever lives one of
our kindred of the flag. The world weeps
over his untimely and cruel end, but no
class more sincerely or more tenderly and
lovingly than the million old, gray-haired
comrades whom he left behind to honor
his memory till they lie. down to sleep be-
side him in dreamless rest. And as dear
to us in all ways as to others-as much
revered or sincerely mourned because all
his high and noble qualities of mind and
heart and life. Yet over all and above
ALL we claim the special privilege of claim
ing him as a little closer to us than to any
other except his God and his noble and
devoted wife.-PRIyATE DALZELL.