The age-herald., 1901-12-04
Pays Tribute to the Life and Character of Late Pres-
 ident Mckinley
SAYS GOVERNMENT
 SHOULD PROBE TRUSTS
But the Corporations Should Be Ap. preached In Cautious Way-lmmi. grafton Laws Unsatisfactory.
 Tariff Commended.

Washington. December S.-The follow ing Is the full text of President Roose- velt's first message sent to the House and Senate today:
 To the Senate and House of Representa-
 tives:
 The Congress assemblies this year un- der the shadow of great calamity On the sixth of September, President Me Kinley was shot by an anarchist while attending the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, and died in that city on the fourteenth of that month.
 Of the last seven elected Presidents, he is the third who has been murdered,
 and the bare recital of this fact is suf-
 acient to justify grave alarm among all loyal American citizens. Moreover, the
 circumstances of this, the third assassi-
 nation of an American President, have
 | peculiarly sinister significance. Both
 President Lincoln and President Gar
 field were killed by assassins of types
 unfortunately not uncommon in history;
 President Lincoln falling victim to the
 terrible passions arounsed by four years
 ,f civil war, and President Garfield to
 he revengeful vanity of a disappointed
 ,ffice-seeker President Mckinley was
 killed by an utterly depraved criminal
 belonging to that body of criminals who
 object to all governments, good and bad
 like. who are against any form of popu-
 ar liberty if it is guaranteed, by even
 he most just and liberal laws, and who ire as hostile to the upright exponent of a free peoples sober will as to the iyrannical and irresponsible despot.
 It is not too much to say that at the
 Axx.A NR Drno e
 vas the most widely loved man in all
 he United States; while we have never lad any public man of his position who Aas been so wholly free from the bitter Lnimosties incident to public life. His political opponents were the first to bear the heartiest and most generous tribute to the broad kindliness of nature, the sweetness and gentleness of character which so endeared him to his close as- sociates. To a standard of lofty integri- ty in public life he united the tender affections and home virtues which are al-important in the makeup of national character. A gallant soldier in the great war for Union, he also shone as an ex- ample to all our people because of his conduct in the most sacred and intimate of home relations. There could be no personal hatred of him, for he never acted with aught but consideration for lI6 WelldIe Ol OLncTS INO OHC COulQ ldli to respect him who knew him in public or private life. The defenders of those criminals who seek to excuse their criminality by asserting that 1t Is exercised for political ends, inveigh against wealth and irresponsible power. But for this assassination even this base apology cannot be urged.
 President Mckinley was a man of mod crate means. a man whose stock sprang from the sturdy tillers of the soil, who had himself belonged among the wage workers. who had entered the Army as a private soldier. Wealth was not struck at when the President was assasslnated, but the honest toll which is content with moderate gains after a lifetime of unre- hitting labor. largely in the service of the public. Still less was power struck at in the sense that power is irresponsible or centered in the hands of any one indi- vidual. The blow was not aimed at ty- ranny or wealth. It was aimed at one of the strongest cham pions the wage workers has ever had; at one of the most faithful representatives of the sys- tenn of public rights and representative government who has risen to public office. President Mckinley filled that political office for which the entire people vote, and no President-not even Lincoln him. self-was ever more earnestly anxious to represent the well though-out wishes of the people: his one anxiety in every crisis was to keep in closest touch with the people-to find out what they thought and to endeavor to give expression to their thought, after having endeavored to guide that thought alright. He had just been reelected to the Presidency because the majority of our citizens, the majority of our farmers and wage-work ara hali "a faifhfiI1lU nm held their interests for four years. They felt themselves in close and intimate touch with him. They felt that he repre- scented so well and honorably all their ideals and aspirations that they wished him to continue for another four years to represent them.
 And this was the man at whom the as- sassin struck! That there might be noth- ing lacking to complete the Judas-like infamy of his act. he took advantage of an occasion when the President was meeting the people generally; and ad- vancing as if to take the hand outstretch- ed to him in kindly and brotherly fellow ship, he turned the noble and generous confidence of the victim into an oppor- tunity to strike the fatal blow. There is no baser deed in all the annals of crime.
 $ The shock, the grief of the country is
 aa.,ter in the minds of all who saw those uapk days while the President yet how cred between life and death. At last the light was stilled fin the kindly eyes and the breath went from the lips that even fin mortal agony uttered no words save of forgiveness to his murderer, of love for his friends and of unfaltering trust in the will of the Most High. Such death, crowning the glory of such a life. leaves with us infinite sorrow, but with such pride in what he had accomplished and In his own personal character that we feel the blow not as struck at him, but as struck at the nation. We mourn a good and great President who is dead; but while we mourn we are lifted up by the splendid achievements of his life and the grand herOisp with which he met his
 When we turn from the man to the na- ton, the harm done is so great as to ex- cite our gravest apprehensions and to de- mand our wisest and most resolute ac- ton. This criminal was a professed an- archist infiamed by the teachings of pro- fessed anarchists and probably also by the reckless utterances of those who. on the stump and in the public press, appeal to the dark and evil spirits of malice and greed. envy and sullen hatred. The wind Is sowed by the men who preach such doctrines, and they cannot escape their share ez responsibility for the whirlwind that is resYed. This applies alike to the deliberate demagogue to the exploiter of sensationalism. and to the crude and fool lsh visionary who, for whatever reason.