PUBLIC OPINION

Volume XXXI, Number 12
Thursday, 19 September, 1901

THE WEEK

Click to see pp.355-361

"GOOD-BY ALL. Good-by. It is God's way. His will be done, not ours.' These were the last words of President William McKinley as his life left the body torn by the assassin's bullets. Mr. McKinley died early in the morning of September 14, after a week of suffering, during which hopes of his recovery had been steadily encouraged by the reports sent out by his physicians. The immediate cause of death was gangrene, possibly from a poisoned bullet, which followed the course of the wounds. The funeral train with the body of the dead president left Buffalo on Monday for Washington, where the body lay in state at the Capitol until Wednesday. Then the body was taken to Canton, where the interment took place on Thursday, appointed a day of mourning by President Roosevelt.

EULOGY of the dead president we leave to others; there is no lack of it, nor of sincere sorrow, in any part of the world. Here this was to be expected, but judging from the messages received from abroad, The Vienna Neues Weiner Tageblatt does not exaggerate when it says: "The ocean is not wide enough to hold all the sympathy that streams from the old world to the new."

IT seems as though William McKinley had to die as he did in order that the people of this country and others might know him. Nothing could have been more plain than that President McKinley's one rule of conduct was the conscientious performance of his duty to the people. This did not secure immunity from the harshest criticism which sometimes amounted to villification. Now his death and the way in which he met it has shamed those who have called him an oppressor and tyrant abroad, and a conspirator against rights and liberties at home.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT, the constitutional successor the presidency, took the oath of office at Buffalo on Saturday afternoon less than twelve hours after the death of President McKinley. The oath was administered by United States District Judge John R. Hazel at the home of Mr. Ansley Wilcox. Of great importance is the statement which President Roosevelt made just before he took the oath. "I wish," he said solemnly to the cabinet officers and others who were gathered in the room, "to say that it shall be my aim to continue absolutely unbroken the policy of President McKinley for the peace and prosperity and the honor of our beloved country."

THUS while the people of the United States have lost one highly esteemed public servant they see him replaced by another whose character and experience justify the belief that he will in every way be a worthy successor to President McKinley. President. Roosevelt's courage has never been questioned; good administration is with him a passion; he has preached it and enforced it throughout his public life. For these reasons there is every reason to expect that the progress and prosperity of the country will continue under the new chief executive, who has asked the McKinley cabinet to remain in office and secured their promises to do so for the present.

NATURALLY the avoidance of a repetition of crimes of the kind which have deprived the nation of three of its presidents is the subject of most earnest consideration, but no practicable suggestions have yet been made. It is to be presumed that the assailant expects to accomplish the death of his victim; what then is to be gained by making an attempt upon the president's life punishable by death without regard to the actual outcome of the attempt? Probably nothing can be done to preclude the possibility of such attacks upon the heads of nations, but the preaching if not the mad practise of anarchy can be stopped, and it doubtless will be until we again grow careless of the safety of our highest state officials.

Tributes to the Dead President

William McKinley, twenty-fifth president of the United States, was born at Niles, Ohio, January 29, 1843, and died at Buffalo, New York, September 14, from the effects of bullet rounds inflicted by the anarchist, Czolgosz.

Distinguished service in the war of the rebellion, which raised him to the rank of captain at the age of 21; success as a lawyer and politician; great influence in congress, to which he was repeatedly elected; governor of his state, and twice elected president of the United States. This, briefly, is the story of the life of the man who is now mourned in every quarter of the civilized world.

Mr. McKinley first gained a national reputation. in congress, to which he was elected in 1876. He was a delegate to the National Republican convention from Ohio in 1888. It was then that he had his first chance to be a candidate for the presidency, but he refused the offer made by leaders of the convention when they found that they could not nominate Blaine. His refusal was due to a promise he had made to support John Sherman.

The McKinley bill, relating to the tariff, was passed on May 21, 1890, after a debate, in which its sponsor had figured notably. Mr. McKinley was defeated for congress the next time, his district having been gerrymandered against him. But his defeat made him governor of the state. Then the presidential campaign began. He worked for Harrison, refusing for the second time the Republican nomination, when the delegates tried to stampede the convention for him. After his term as governor expired he lived at Canton in quiet for six months, and then it became evident that he was to be the choice of the Republicans for president in the fall of 1896. At the convention of that year he was nominated on the first ballot. His election followed. The important events of his first administration are fresh in the public memory. The war with Spain eclipsed all of them. The second election, last fall, is also too recent to need recapitulation at this time.

From Maine, where the Bangor Commercial declares that "the historian will search the pages of American history in vain for a purer public man than William McKinley," to Florida, where the Jacksonville Times-Union says that the "people mourn his death as a personal loss and bitter pain, because they knew him to be most lovable in all relations of life and of unquestioned sincerity and integrity," the note of tribute to the martyred president is the same-that he was without reproach as a man and one of the most conscientious state officials with which a nation was ever blessed. "It is not to be expected," the New York Journal says, "that his political opponents will be converted by the dreadful tragedy; but supporters and opponents must agree that McKinley was the best-beloved president since Lincoln-perhaps with that single exception the best beloved in our history."

Over and over again this phrase recurs in the eulogies of the late president. "The best and best-beloved of all our presidents," are words used by New York Tribune, the Boston Transcript, the Burlington Free Press in the north, the Louisville Courier Journal, the Norfolk Landmark, the Atlanta Constitution, and the Chattanooga Times, among other papers in the south, and by scores of papers in the middle west, including the Terre Haute Gazette, the Indianapolis News, the Chicago Journal and Evening Post, the Detroit Free Press and News—it were useless to enumerate further.

It is natural that the comments of the Ohio newspapers upon Mr. McKinley's death should display the highest appreciation of the man and a corresponding degree of sorrow at his death. "In the beginning,' says the Cleveland Leader, "it can be truly said that William McKinley was a God-fearing and God-serving man. All else is secondary. He was beloved by a nation because he was virtuous, kind, and faithful in all things. William McKinley's character brought but love and respect. He stood square and true to his religion, to his country, and to his home. His exalted character and his works will live." "Here," comments the Plain-Dealer of the same city, "where McKinley was so well known, where he had so many friends and not a single enemy, his death is something more than the passing away of a president-a friend has departed whose place will never be filled. To sorrow for the loss of president, neighbor, and friend is added a keen sympathy for the stricken wife over whom he watched with such loving solicitude. The hearts of all go out to Mrs. McKinley in this, her how of supreme trial."

Abroad and especially in Great Britain the sorrow occasioned by the president's death is universal and sincere. King Edward has expressed his sympathy in the loss of our "distinguished and ever-to-be-regretted president ;" Emperor William hastened to manifest the German people's sorrow at the death of America's noble son; President Loubet called in person at the United States embassy to express his sorrow at the loss of "a president so justly respected and beloved." An so the whole world joins in tribute to William McKinley, "the best-beloved of presidents of the United States."

President Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt, who has become president of the United States through the death of Mr. McKinley, for two decades past has been one of the most picturesque figures in American public life. His diversified and vigorous activities have not only brought him recognition and advancement in political life, but have won him renown upon the field of battle, in the Bad Lands of the west, as ranchman, hunter, and cowboy, and also in the more peaceful pursuit of honors in the literary world.

In the veins of his ancestors there flowed Dutch, Irish, Scotch, and French Huguenot blood. "He obtained his name," writes one of his biographers, "from the Dutch, from the Scotch his obstinacy, from the French his impetuosity, and from the Irish his 'blarney,' or gift of tongue." These constituent parts of his mental make-up have made the president during his progress from legislator, police commissioner, and cavalry colonel to president the exponent of that vigorous and forceful public life which is popularly termed "strenuous."

Theodore Roosevelt's birthplace was 28 East Twentieth street, this city; the date, October 27, 1858, which makes him the youngest of all the presidents. Eight generations of President Roosevelt's family have lived in New York, and from the middle of the seventeenth century the name has been common in the annals of the city, having been almost equally prominent in political, business, and social affairs.

Young Roosevelt graduated from Harvard in 1880, and after a tour abroad, plunged into politics, distinguishing himself in the New York legislatures of 1882, 1883, and 1884. In 1886 he was chosen to lead a hopeless fight against Abram Hewitt and Henry George for the mayoralty of New York city. Though defeated in this memorable contest, he polled a proportion of the total vote than any other Republican ever received. For a few years following this defeat Roosevelt engaged in ranching in the west. Ranching to him meant study and observation of the country, and that he studied and observed to some purpose is shown by the popularity of his books on ranch life, and "the winning of the west." In 1889 President Harrison appointed Roosevelt a member of the National civil service commission, a position in which he was continued by President Cleveland. In this position he was the bulwark of two administrations against the hordes of office seekers who would have tired out and overcome a less resolute man. In 1895 Roosevelt resigned this office to become president of the New York board of police commissioners. Here he had to contend with a force demoralized by years of corruption and with a large body of public opinion which condemned him for enforcing obnoxious laws. Two members of the board were hostile to him and made every effort to discredit his administration by factious opposition. For these reasons the board presented a very undignified spectacle, but bribery, corruption, and blackmail came to an end. Roosevelt's next field of activity was the office of assistant secretary of the navy, under Mr. McKinley's first administration. To him is due a considerable measure of the credit for the preparedness of the navy in the Spanish war. Resigning his position in the navy department, he organized the Rough Riders for service in Cuba, and his part in the war and his subsequent election to the governorship of New York and the vice-presidency are of so recent date as to be remembered by everyone.

The first official act of the new president was the issuance of a proclamation setting forth feelingly his grief and that of the nation over the death, of President McKinley, and naming Thursday, September 19, as a day of mourning to be observed throughout the United States.

Press Comment

The New York Times recalls the fact that Theodore Roosevelt was nominated for the vice-presidency in response to an almost universal demand of the Philadelphia convention; he was not chosen as most of our vice-presidents have been without regard to the popular will. "We have lost a good president, whom the people loved and trusted," says the Times. "We have a good president, and the people love and trust him also." "Clearly," says the New York Commercial Advertiser, "the country has no apprehension as to the stability and safety of its government under President Roosevelt and needs to have none." "Changes of administration always create some nervousness," the Philadelphia Inquirer admits, "but in the case of Roosevelt we believe that he will have no desire to stray from the McKinley standard, and that a wise conservatism will prevail. The nation mourns, but the nation is safe." The expressions are typical of the east. "The distressing manner in which the office has come to Mr. Roosevelt will counsel strongly against factionalism," the Washington Star thinks, while the Richmond Times expresses an opinion common in the south when it says that the "spirit of McKinley will still be the controlling force in the White House."

In the west a considerable number of papers do not hesitate to say that Mr. Roosevelt's past reputation for "strenuousness" and aggressiveness "cause natural apprehension," as it is put by the Indianapolis Sentinel, but wherever this thought finds expression it is accompanied by a statement of belief that the responsibilities of the presidency will soften the impetuousness of Mr. Roosevelt's nature. The Chicago News says: "It is in the belief that this representative American president will not fail to meet with high ability and courage the duties facing him that the American people bow to the calamity of President McKinley's death-in sorrow, but with unshaken confidence as to the future of the republic." The Chicago Chronicle grants that Mr. Roosevelt has every qualification for the presidency except the right "temperament." "It is to be hoped," the Chronicle adds, "that the dignity and responsibility of the office will have a salutary influence upon his impulsive nature, as like responsibilities have been known to sober others in high state station." "With Roosevelt as their president," says the Chicago Post, "the people know that they are safe, and that order and law at home and prestige abroad will be completely maintained." "Even in its hour of grief the nation turns with hopefulness and confidence to the man who is to take up the burden laid down by William McKinley. Believing in and loving his country, he may be trusted to give the best that is in him to her service," declares the Indianapolis News.

President Roosevelt's declaration that he shall continue unbroken the policies of his predecessor gives no less satisfaction to Democratic than to Republican papers. Even those who have condemned the policies of the last administration can not conceal their satisfaction that these policies are to be continued. "Nothing more could be desired," says the Philadelphia Record, in words that are used by many other Democratic papers in the west and south, "particularly in the words of the incoming executive refer to the later policy of his lamented predecessor."

Mr. McKinley's Buffalo Speech

Kansas City (Mo.) Star (Ind. Dem.)
In his Buffalo speech, the president practically admitted that protection, in its application to certain industries, had outlived its usefulness, and that the time had come for such modifications of the tariff as would be calculated to encourage foreign trade. Never before in his presidential addresses had Mr. McKinley expressed the least lack of confidence in the permanent efficacy of the policy of high protection. In his Buffalo speech he declared that the statistics of trade were "almost appalling"; that it could not be well for the United States or for other countries that one should continue to sell in enormous quantities and buy little or nothing; that the "period of exclusiveness" was past; that "no narrow or selfish policy would subserve" the great business interests of the nation. In other words, that the equilibrium of international trade is essential to the continuous and equitable prosperity of a great producing country like the United States. He spoke frankly in favor of reciprocity treaties. In short, he had come to a stopping place as a national economist, and was unwilling to drift further without pointing out some of the dangers that might lie ahead. The committal recorded in this address may have an important bearing on the future policies of the Republican party.

Chicago (Ill.) News (Ind.)
It is not easy to reconcile these views with those of William McKinley, who as a congressman a few years ago advocated tariffs regardless of their restraining effect on trade and boldly declared that the United States as a self-sufficient and self-sustaining power had no need to seek foreign trade. The president's change of view, however, shows that he has followed the trend of events intelligently, and it is in following opportunities rather than in premising or creating them that Mr. McKinley is strongest. He has learned that as a nation we can not maintain high-tariff barriers if we would hold a commanding position in the world's markets. The policy he now advocates he styles "reciprocity," but the principle which it proposes to apply calls for a broader name. Apparently it looks to a revenue tariff with liberal but incidental protective features rather than to a consistent protective system modified only in special instances to secure a better basis for trade operations. Mr. McKinley has outlived and outgrown the "McKinleyism" of his more callow statesmanship. That is a most hopeful sign of further progress and of enduring greatness for the nation which has also outgrown the protective system so long advocated by Mr. McKinley.

Pittsburg (Pa.) Dispatch (Ind. Rep.)
The point in which the president's address most nearly assumes a striking aspect is in such avowals by the former leader of high protection as: "The period of exclusiveness is past." "Commercial wars are unprofitable." "A policy of good-will and friendly trade relations will prevent reprisals." As an avowal of the future policy, this is significant. There is no doubt that the turning of statesmanship to the purposes indicated will accrue to the benefit of industry. But as the first step in that direction must be to convert the senate from being the morgue of reciprocity treaties the prospect, if these expressions are crystallized into action, has strenuous aspects. In the other propositions for the extension of foreign trade there is a vast amount of detail to be discussed. But that may be postponed in view of the intimation, both directly and by the closing tribute to Blame, that the policy inaugurated by that statesman is to be carried out instead of being nullified, as it was in the fifty-sixth congress.

Tacoma (Wash.) Ledger (Dem.)
In the speech of the president at Buffalo there were many points each of which might serve as a text. He said, among other things: "The period of exclusiveness is past." These were true words. If the United States entertained for a time the idea of being a hermit nation, the idea has been dispelled. It is now recognized as one of the powers of the world. It has not sought the recognition; inherent strength and natural growth have compelled it. Now that it has found its place, to shrink from the duties involved would be the act of cowardice. The nation is in favor of expansion, and it is expanding. The process is not one of war, but of commerce. In this sort of war there is no hostility. On the contrary, the cultivation of good-will is an essential part of progress. While a tariff is necessary and desirable, the plan is to induce reciprocal trade relations. To prevent reprisals is the nice part of trade diplomacy.

Cleveland (O.) Plain Dealer (Dem.)
It was in keeping with the object of the Pan-American exposition that President McKinley's address on the grounds should have for its keynote an argument for freer commerce, to be effected either by reciprocity treaties, or by tariff modification through congressional action. While something of the kind was to have been expected, careful study of the address will bring conviction that it was riot a mere perfunctory expression, a "glittering generality" on the subject of enlarged commerce, but a carefully worded intimation of administration policy, designed as a feeler of public sentiment for the guidance of the majority when congress meets.

The London Standard, commenting on President McKinley's speech at the Pan-American exposition, says it sees in it an expression of the fact that the United States is preparing for future wars, which will be commercial ones. It adds: "The United States as become an imperial power, as the history of her diplomacy for years past conspicuously shows. It is informed by an expansive, even aggressive spirit. Heedless of scoffers at spread-eagleism, the United States will go her way regardless of attempted combinations against her, such as sketched by Count Goluchowski (Austro-Hungarian minister of foreign affairs), and with a certain carelessness as to whether or snot there comes a violent conflict with any European power."

The London Chronicle fixes on the reciprocity passage in the speech as the crux of the address, contending that it outweighs in importance all the rest. It represents the president as letting his audience down gently by giving what is virtually free trade, the conciliatory title of reciprocity. "It sounds very innocent," says the Chronicle, "but if the justice of the president's proposal is admitted, the whole principle of free trade gets a foothold in America and can logically proceed step by step until the fortress is taken. Reciprocity is the first step, and that step Mr. McKinley is taking."

Suggestions for Dealing with Anarchists

New York Press
We need in this land a positive and vigorous antidote for the poison that for years we have allowed to permeate our system in careless reliance upon its invulnerable beauty. We need a capacity for indignation against those who habitually defame the institutions, political and industrial, by which they, have prospered as no other people have prospered. We need a fierce intolerance of the captious criticism which is forever seeking to find flaws in the temple of our liberties that it may point them out to the unreasoning and the intemperate. We need to esteem as an enemy to his country that man who does not at all times and in all places recognize it for what it is-the freest, gladdest, greatest association of mankind on which the sun of heaven has shone since first it quivered out of chaos. These are the measures of all measures to take against anarchy.

Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal
Is it not time that this nation of dearly-won freedom should stamp out these claimants of the rights of free speech who would only employ those noble shibboleths to deny a free people their right to choose and establish their own form of government and institutions? Is it not time that this brood of foreign riffraff and their domestic fellow-conspirators, who take refuge under our government only to plan and direct destruction of all government, our own included, should be crushed? Why longer continue our policy of waiting till they have executed their crimes against public life and order before taking them in hand? It is too late then to do any more than to consign their carcasses to the worms. We do not wait to kill a rattlesnake until his deadly fangs have struck; we should not wait to take anarchism by the throat until it has accomplished its openly avowed ends of assassination.

Indianapolis (Ind.) Sentinel
The fact seems to be, after all, that anarchism can only be expected to disappear through a farther amelioration of social conditions and through the increasing enlightenment and education of the people. It finds its roots in ignorance, in poverty, in filth, and in the instincts of savagery which are the inheritance of centuries of oppression and degradation. It will be a slow process. In the meantime, society must do all it can to protect itself, and good men and women everywhere must strive to spread the light in dark corners, and do what may be done to thwart oppression, promote justice and reduce the sum of human misery.

New York World
The response of the governors of many states to the inquiry of the World shows that the one point of emphatic agreement is that a change alike in our law and practise regarding avowed anarchists is necessary. Acting Attorney-General Beck, ex-Attorney-General Miller, and other lawyers of eminence concur in the opinion that an attempt on the life of the president should be made a capital crime regardless of whether it succeeds or fails. Governor Stone, of Pennsylvania, while a member of congress, introduced a bill to that effect which died in committee. Now that public opinion has been sharply called to the deterrent inadequacy of the punishment provided for a man who unsuccessfully tries to kill the nation's chief magistrate, some such federal law will no doubt be enacted.

Springfield (Mass.) Republican
Every anarchist should be marked and followed by the oversight of the law, and be subject to arrest wherever found. There should be permitted no more publications of their evil teachings; there should be no more meetings allowed, no more street parades with "Death to tyrants" and other angry legends on their banners; they should be driven to holes and corners. We have tried the plan of keeping everything in the open, and it has failed; now it is time to treat these conspirators to rigorous law. It might be well to consider whether the members of an anarchistic society should not be punished on the proof of that fact.

San Francisco (Calif.) Chronicle
Tolerance is abused by a small band of skulking cowards, who lie in wait under the protection of society until they can find some half-crazed dupe to do the deed for which they are responsible. It is true that such deeds avail nothing. Society can not be terrorized by a small band of assassins. There will never be wanting brave men to take the posts of duty which are the more honorable because they are the posts of danger. But the deplorable fact remains that in this free republic, founded in high hopes for the uplifting of mankind, we have lost three presidents by assassination in less than a single half-century. The nation which offered itself as an asylum for the oppressed has been turned, into a lurking place for murderers. It is time for us to consider how far society is bound to extend its protection to infamous beings who hover under the cover of its wings only to mature their plots to compass its destruction.

Birmingham (Ala.) News
The truth of the matter is that this country is too free. Its liberty is used as license by enemies of law and government and open meetings of these creatures in which anarchy and lawlessness were advocated and applauded have been allowed when they should have been suppressed as common menaces to society. Not only are more stringent immigration laws needed, but avowed anarchy should be made treason and punishable as such.

Chicago (Ill.) Skandinaven
The creed of anarchy is per se a conspiracy against society. Anarchy seeks the life of society itself; assassinations of the foremost representatives of law and order are only a means to an end. Hence it should be met with the weapons of war. Its apostles and tools have placed themselves outside the pale of society and should be dealt with in accordance with the principles of the laws of war. Only the swift sternness and vigor of "war-justice" will afford society full protection and exterminate the red monster.

Baltimore (Md.) World
The assassin in this case is a confessed anarchist. There are many of them in this country. They are allowed to come and go, and are accorded the same privileges of citizenship as are enjoyed by good citizens. Our laws should be so amended as to make it impossible for them to land, with a power of deportation of those who are here and bid defiance to the principles of our government. Let justice be swift and sure, as it should be in every such case, and a lesson taught to anarchists that they can not ply their murderous trade in this country.

Boston (Mass.) Journal
It is the clear duty of municipal authorities everywhere to use all the power which existing laws give them to suppress anarchist literature, to break up anarchist meetings, and to jail every anarchist who incites to murder or other crime. If the laws which we have are not enough, sterner laws can be framed. Now that we have learned by this shocking and infamous crime just what these men and women mean, there must be a concerted effort to destroy the anarchists, roof and branch, as conspirators against all order and enemies of humanity.

Cleveland (O.) Plain Dealer
The anarchists form but an infinitesimally small element of the population. So do the insane. But society takes measures to guard itself against outbreaks of the individual lunatic. The anarchist appears to the community in general as little other than a lunatic, but, like most lunatics, his insanity is liable to suddenly take a murderous bent and precautions should therefore be taken.

Cincinnati (O.) Commercial- Tribune
Kings and emperors may be unable to suppress anarchists. But if the American people take the matter up, the suppression will be effective. The anarcist scum hasn't been made aware of the quality of American. An assault on the president of the United States is an assault upon the whole people, whose representative and chief magistrate he is, and it is worthy of death. The law should speedily make it so.

Yellow Journalism and Anarchy

Brooklyn (N. Y.) Eagle
The journalism of anarchy shares responsibility of the attack on President McKinley. It did not mean that he should be shot. It only wished to sell more papers by commenting on and cartooning him as tyrant reddening his hands in the blood of the poor and filling his pockets and those of others with dollars coined out of the sweat and tears and hunger of helpless strikers, their wan wives, and their starving children." Today the journalism or the oratory which may have inspired Leon Czolgosz to his deed is the most tearful, sympathetic, and grief-stricken journalism or oratory in America. It editorializes "interviews" and moralizes on the lovableness of the man whom it lately and long and habitually portrayed as monster, a despot, and a coward. It is very scared very sorry-or very politic, or would like to seem to so. Let us hope it is really sorry. Then let us hop that its sorrow will last long enough to persuade that the selling of more papers or the getting of more votes is not the chief end of journalism or of oratory when it leads one to defamation as a delight, to vilification as an industry, and to printed, pictorial, or platform blackguardism as a trade.

New York Commercial
To what extent license of speech, an uncensored press, and increasingly frequent and insistent appeals to class prejudice in this country have contributed to the creation in recent years of such unnatural villains as the assailant of President McKinley can not, of course, be definitely measured. It is unquestionable however, that a widespread effort to represent men in authority as owing their positions to the use of money, as standing only for the moneyed classes, and as the would-be, if not the actual, oppressors of the masses, is directly responsible for those unwholesome and dangerous sentiments the fostering of which induces men and women an uncontrollable desire to murder Is it to be wondered at, then, that this vicious seed has borne fruit-that here and there it has ripened into a murderer who somehow fancies that he is a public benefactor? Can men go on forever preaching that our government is essentially bad, and painting our governing officials as oppressors, without a belief their misrepresentations taking firm root somewhere The wonder is that the evil consequences of this pernicious propaganda have not manifested themselves more frequently and more disastrously.

Troy (N. Y) Press
It seems to us that the lesson for the America people to learn from this assault upon the president of the United States is the lesson of conservatism. If conditions are bad, let us say so and let us all go work in earnest to reform them. But in order to accomplish this let us be careful not to do harm by making it appear that conditions are worse than they are. The people rule in this country, and there is no danger to the republic and our institutions so long as the people believe in them and stand up for them. One of southern contemporaries says that in its opinion McKinley has done more injury to the cause and of the republic than any other of the men who preceded him in the presidential office. For our part we believe that far more injury has been done by the exaggerated talk in which stump speakers and yellow journals have indulged.

Chicago (Ill.) Post
Cartoons are appearing daily in some newspapers in this country that, as Delegate Farrell, of the New York central labor union says, "are calculated to inspire hatred and contempt for this government." Dr. Allen McLane Hamilton, one of the most noted experts on mental disorders in America, is of opinion that the attempt on President McKinley's life was "largely due to the deplorable influence of certain sensational papers that have worked upon such minds as that of Czolgosz." To hold the nation's head up to ridicule and contempt is disloyal, unpatriotic, and mischievous in the extreme. There is no law, and there can be none, to prevent these cartoons or this sensationalism of the press. But there should be an editorial code of ethics governing every newspaper in the land, and the first article of this code should be due respect for those whom the majority of the people put in high places of trust and authority. Neither by printed word nor picture should the discontented or the ignorant have their worst impulses appealed to.

Chicago (Ill.) Journal
Who is it that makes the Goldmans and the Mosts, the Spieses and the Parsonses whose writings and speeches thus incite men to assassination? From whom do these teachers get their best encouragement in this country? Whose teaching is it that anarchists think they only carry to its logical conclusion when they advise and commit murder? Deliberately and without hesitation we say the "yellow journals" and the men behind them. These are the wellsprings of discontent, class hatreds, and anarchy. Let us place the responsibility for this dastardly crime where it justly belongs. It is due to reckless, unscrupulous, unprincipled journalism such as has been seen daily in the pages of the New York Journal, the Chicago American, and the San Francisco Examiner, since William R. Hearst has controlled them.

From a Sermon by Bishop McFaul, of Trenton
It is beyond question that many the crimes against individuals and against society, such as murder, suicide, divorce, and the social evil, are encouraged and propagated by an unbridled, licentious press, bereft of all sense of justice, honor, and decency. It caters daily to the worst passions for a pecuniary consideration. It behooves parents to keep these immoral sheets away from their homes and out of the hands of their children.

New York Tribune
It is not merely the ravings of the slums that lead to mischief. Those in high stations and eminent walks of life who-though with no personal enmity toward him-have been denouncing the president as a "murderer," a "tyrant," a "criminal aggressor," and what not, and have portrayed him as an oppressor, or as a tool of the oppressors, of the common people-let them look to it that some of his blood be not found upon their gloved but unclean hands.

Philadelphia (Pa.) Press
There is evidence in the utterance of the responsible newspapers of the country that no one is in doubt as to where the indirect responsibility rests for such a hideous crime as that perpetrated in vain wantonness at Buffalo on Friday. Nothing that that unfortunate creature, Emma Goldman, ever said against governments and their executives ever sank to the level of the reiterated note of coarse, vile hatred that has marked the conduct of certain yellow newspapers.

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