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

exec 1tlVe OF THIS nation In TWO
former characterization as it may
be to say 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 under the
most tragic circumstances of all, the
country was just emerging from the
most terrible civil war in the worlds
history. The nation had bled and
suffered woe and anxiety for period
of years and was prepared for almost
anything, stunned 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 companionshipa and the
soothing rest he had so long craved,
the Indignation of the people of the
whole land was hardly second in it's
intensity to that which swept over it
when the bullet entered the brain of
the noble Lincoln in Ford'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 reposed. 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
notwithstanding 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 a 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 q Joyous event, with ma
tional peace and concord everywhere
prevailing, a 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 toak Garfield's life lay in wait
for him and sent the leaden messen-
ger on its 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 his right
hand, and shot him with his left while
he still felt the warm clasp of friend
ship. 1t was an act of fiendishuess
and a perversion of every instinct
of human nature too ignoble
and damnable to awaken
any less charitable thought than that
which irresistibly cries for 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,
yet it is sometimes 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 all the |
more force and with the utmost speed. |
And further than this If the law would |
be all that it is conceived to be, If it |
he g.;
emergencies, both to punish and to /
prevent, it must not be slow in set
ling some terrible example. There /
of government that will Justify the |
spirit of anarchy. There can be no
circumstance even in the most pro-
nounced and autocratic monarchy in
the globe that can excuse the taking
of the life of the nations ruler. How
much less the provocation in a coun-
try like ours, where the people rule.
Yet three of the subjects of the peo-
ple's 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
dealing properly with dangerous
cranks and fiends with murder in
their hearts.