The Lamar register., 1901-09-11
The Shooting of the President

Thirty six years ago Abraham Lin
coin, then just entering upon his
second term as president of the Unit
cd States, was stricken down by the
bullet of an assassin. In this same
month of September twenty years
ago James A. Garfield, then SIX
months in office, fell before the dead
ly aim of another assassin. The hcr-
ror of both deeds thrilled the country
to the core, but nevertheless each es-
sentially lacked the frightful signifi
cance that attaches to the attempt
yesterday made upon the life of Wi
liam Mckinley at the Buffalo expo
sItion.
Lincoln was killed just after the
close of the civil war. The generation
which has grown up since those
dreadful days can have no adequate
conception of the ranking bitterness
and hate which were engendered BY
that titanic struggle. As we gaze
calmly back through the vista OF the
receding years and contemplate the
majestic figure of Lincoln and feel
the pulsations of,his great warm hu
man heart as history lays it bare, it
is difficult to realize that at that par
ticular period he was regarded with
such malignant hatred by 80 many
of his fellow countrymen, who have
since learned to respect and revere
his memory. Out of such chaotic
conditions it is now conceivable there
should spring up crack Drained en-
thusiast to whose distorted vision the
death of Lincoln would seem not
merely an expiation, but the opening
of the way to the regeneration OF
a distracted and war ravaged people.
With Guiteau, crank, a disap
pointed office seeker, man with
fancied grievance, the crime was in
dividual, and however much deplored
as a crime it carried with it no great
or moral significance than could at
tach to any other unprovoked and
premeditated murder. But In the
case of the Polish anarchist who
struck down President Mckinley
there is opened up broader vista of
horrors. 1t is not the outcome of
temporary ebullition of a crank, nor
the result of fancied grievances dis
torted by the eccentric workings of
crazy brain. Instead it appears to
have been coolly and sanely
planned assassination, not aimed at
William Mckinley the man, but at
William Mckinley, the president of
the United States-a calculated muir
der by the anarchist circles, from
which a member was selected by lot
to commit the crime with the certain
ty that III turn he himself would fall
a victim either to the popular wrath
or the majesty of the law. We seem
therefore confronted by condition
from which we had fondly believed
ourselves to have been free-a condi
ton which can be met by no ordinary
rule of law or procedure, and which
strikes at the very root and mainstay
of our system of government, which
is individual independence.
Few Americans have any trouble
in drawing the line between liberty
and license. OF the former they en-
ioy the fullest measure consistent
with recognition of the rights of
others and the maintenance of the
forms of government. They fully re-
alize that their individual rights end
where the individual rights of anoth
er begin. But there are coming here
from European countries small bodies
of men who, while here enjoying i'm
munity from persecution and the op
portunities open to all to gain live
lihood, are spreading about the per
nicious doctrines of anarchy and
Matching conspiracies aimed at the
lives of the rulers of the world. They
are men who openly boast they Meth
er respect nor recognize any Law