Fergus County argus., 1902-04-23
A GRACEFUL TRIBUTE.
Mckinley's Address at Canton After
Death of President Garfield.


Address delivered by William Nc.
Kinley at a meeting in the public
square. Canton, Ohio, the evening af-
ter the death of President Garfield. !
(From the Canton Repository Sept.
81, 1881
Friends and Fellow Citizens:-Did
| consult my own feelings would not
speak to you at this hour and upon
this occasion. With the grief which
is in every heart and home through
out the land today it would seem to
me that silence, not speech, would
be the most befitting and appropriate.
In Difference, however, to the COM
mittee who have in charge these sol
emn services and who a little while
ago requested me to speak, | shall
say word or two touching the life
and character of our dead president.
The melancholy intelligence has
reached us that last night at 10
o'clock and 35 minutes President Gar
field died, and the nation which he
loved so much and which so much
loved him is shrouded in the deepest
and most profound sorrow. The
news, although not wholly unexpect-
ed, fell with awful force upon his fel-
low citizens. We had come, almost,
to believe that with his splendid con-
stitution and magnificent courage,
and in answer to the prayer of fifty
millions of people he would yet sur.
vive the dreadful wound and be
spared to the nation whose heart for
seventy-nine days has been in his sick
chamber and around his bed of suf.
fering. But it was ordered otherwise,
and we can only bow with uncovered
heads and submissive hearts to the
decree of Providence, which is the
supreme law that must govern us all
and the wisdom of which no man
dares to question.
President Garfield had a strong
hold upon the affections of the peo.
pie. No man, not even excepting Mr..
Lincoln, was more endeared to the
masses. He was peculiarly repre-
sentative of the American idea and
product of American institutions
He represented the possibilities OF
every American boy and man, and
his life and work have been the in
spiration and hope of American
youth, and will so continue to the
boys yet to be born, so long as lib
erty lasts. and the love of liberty has
a place in the hearts of men. His
early life, his struggles with poverty
and adverse circumstances, his early
victories and later achievements are
as familiar to all of you as the books
of your childhood. He has impressed
himself upon the country and Its
Legislation and upon the hearts of the
people. He has builded his own mon
ument, he has carved out his fame
and nothing which I can say will en-
hance the immortality of his life and
work. His deeds will live, now he il
gone. When Daniel Webster died and
his remains were lying in state to be
viewed by the admiring multitudes
an old neighbor and friend paused al
| the head of the coffin and, gazing fix
edly at all that was left of the greai
statesman, said: when you arc
gone, Mr.. Webster, the world will bt
lonesome without you" And tonight
as we recall the universal and heart
felt sympathy which has been shown
for our great president during hi
long weeks of suffering. by all parties
and sections and all religions in thii
country and beyond the seas, and wit
ness the sorrow that hangs like a pal
over the nation, we can well exclaim
1.-THE world will be lonesome, Presi
dent Garfield, now you are gone"
He filed a large space in the coun
try's annals, and his influence ant
work are worldwide.
Long shall we seek his likeness, long in vair
And turn to all of him which may remain,
Signing that nature formed but one such maj
Let us not forget tonight to pou
out our prayers for the aged mother
| the bereft widow and the fatherles
children. that God may give them tha
consolation which no human powe
can bestow.
And now permit to close by sayin
of the great and good president wha
nearly twenty years ago he said Of tn
martyred Lincoln in passing an eult
gy upon him in the congress OF tn
United States:
Divinely gifted man
Whose life In low estate began,
And on a simple village green.
Who breaks his births invidious bar
And grasps the skirts Of happy chance,
And breasts the blows of circumstance,
And grapples with his evil star.
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