Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1901-09-07
OF AMERICAN PRES.
IDEHTS.

lQTlCe WlInln llJLle more IMAM n
third of a century has the hand of the
assassin been raised against the chief
executive of this nation. In two
former Observation-Disclosures as it may
be to cay that there could be no con-
ceivable provocation for so dastardly
a crime-yet the country was involved
in turmoil such as sometimes arouses
irresponsible people to violence.
When President Lincoln fell un-
der the most tragic circumstances
of all, the United States was
just emerging from the most ter
rible civil war in the world s
history. The nation had bled and
suffered woe and anxiety for a period
of years and was prepared for almost
anything, stunned though as it was by
the shocking fate of the great emanci-
pator who had stood bravely at the
helm throughout the storm.
When Garfield was shot down in the
railroad station in the capital city
after he had passed through a most
severe internecine strife within his
own party and was on his way
to Join his devoted wife and seek the
comfort OF her companionship and the
soothing rest he had so long craved,
the Indignation of the people of the
whole land was hardly second in its
intensity to that which swept over it
when the bullet entered the brain OF
the noble Lincoln in Eord's theatre.
Lincoln gave his life a martyr to the
most glorious precepts that this coun-
try has enunciated since taking its
place among the nations of the earth.
Garfield paid the penalty of heroically
standing by the wing of his party in
whom he believed right reposea. Lin
coin persisted by the hand of a man
of naturally emotional disposition
who had been aroused to the verge of
insanity by the fearful strain that
had been laid upon the country. Gar
field received his death shot from a
notoriety- fanatic and crank
who adopted the pretense of the stall
wart movement within the republican
party that the president had taken
issue with, to commit most heinous
crime.
The scoundrel who attempted Pres
ident McKinley's life yesterday had
not even the shallow circumstantial
conditions that existed on the former
occasions. The country is at this
moment absolutely free from discord
of any serious political nature. In
the midst Of joyous event, with ma
tional peace and concord everywhere
prevailing, president who has no
enemy political or national of any
sort, is attacked and cruelty shot
in the most brutal and cowardly
manner that could be imagined by
one who approached him and was re-
ceived by him as a friend. The wretch
who assassinated Lincoln shot the
president as an enemy; the scoundrel
who took Garfield's life lay in wait
for him and sent the leAden messen-
ger on it's terrible errand as the ex-
ecutive passed. The villain who
sought President McKinley's life
grasped the hand of his victim in
token of good will with one hand,
and shot him with the other while
he still felt the warm clasp of friend
ship. 1t was an act of tiendishness
and perversion of every instinct
of human nature too ignoble
and damnable to awaken any
less charitable impulse, than that
which irresistibly cries for a VEN
geance more horrible than the law
prescribes. Stern and unfiinching as
is the faith of the American people in
the dignity and majesty of the law,
vet it is difficult to repress
the thought at such an hour as this
that the process that we must all re-
spect is merciful beyond the measure
that ought rightfully to be melted out
to the culprit.
Indeed, it is this very view that
makes it the more important that the
law should assert itself with
the greater force and with the
utmost speed. And further than
this if the law would be all
that it is conceived to be, il it
would be equal to such frightful
emergencies, both to punish and to
prevent, it must not be slow in set
ting some terrible example. There
can be no condition under any form
of government that will justify the
spirit of anarchy. There can be no
circumstance even in the most pro-
nounced aud autocratic monarchy in |
the globe that can excuse the taking
of the life of the nations ruler. How |
much less the provocation in coun-
try like ours, where the people rule. |
Yet three of the exalted subjects of
the peoples suffrages have fallen by |
the hand of the assassin in SO years |
of the nations history.
The calm second thought is always |
the best in the moment of excitement, /
and when the crisis comes we feel |
more than ever the need and the |
necessity of the process which civ
ilization prescribes. But the fact is |
not to be ignored that neither this
nation nor any OF those worthy of
the name in the old world has yet |
found the effective mode of stamping
out anarchy and all that it breeds
and dealing properly with dangerous
cranks and fiends with murder in
their hearts.