I believe it to be the key
to unlock many doors to honorable and useful lives heretofore barred
against us.

[Illustration: WILLIAM McKINLEY,

Late Martyred President of the United States.

With a Record for Statesmanship, Patriotism, and Justice
Imperishable--"His Life Was Gentle and the Elements so Mixed in Him,
that Nature Might Stand Up and Say to all the World, 'This is a Man.'"]

CHAPTER XXIX.

Leaving Chicago, and having business with the President, I visited him
at Canton, was kindly received, and accomplished the object of my visit,
little thinking that, in common with my countrymen I was so soon to be
horrified and appalled by an atrocity which bathed the country in tears
and startled the world in the taking-off of one of the purest patriots
that had ever trod his native soil.

The tragedy occurred at 4 o'clock p. m., on the 6th of September, 1901,
in the Temple of Music on the grounds of and during the Exposition at
Buffalo, N. Y. Surrounded by a body-guard, among whom was Secret Service
Detective Samuel R. Ireland, of Washington, who was directly in front of
the President, the latter engaged in the usual manner of handshaking at
a public reception at the White House. Not many minutes had expired; a
hundred or more of the line had passed the President, when a
young-looking man named Leon Czolgosz, said to be of Polish, extraction,
approached, offering his left hand, while his right hand contained a
pistol concealed under a handkerchief, fired two shots at the
President.

James Parker, a colored man, a very hercules in height, who was next to
have greeted the President, struck the assassin a terrific blow that
felled him to the floor, preventing him (as Czolgosz himself avers in
the following interview) from firing the third shot:

"Yesterday morning I went again to the Exposition grounds. Emma
Goldman's speech was still burning me up. I waited near the central
entrance for the President, who was to board his special train from that
gate, but the police allowed nobody but the President's party to pass
where the train waited. So I stayed at the grounds all day waiting.

"During yesterday I first thought of hiding my pistol under my
handkerchief. I was afraid if I had to draw it from my pocket I would be
seen and seized by the guards. I got to the Temple of Music the first
one, and waited at the spot where the reception was to be held.

"Then he came, the President--the ruler--and I got in l