and Stripes at their maintops, and also ordered flags to be halfmasted on all German public buildings. German opinion is reflected by the Berliner Neueste Nachrichten, which said:

"The German nation expresses to the American people sincere sympathy in the loss of a leader who was an out-and-out American, and who firmly undertook the realization of aims he deemed worth obtaining, and corresponding with the wishes of a majority of the people."

From Austria

In Austria the hearty feeling was well voiced by the Vienna Neues Weiner Tageblatt, which said:

"The ocean is not wide enough to hold all the sympathy that is streaming from the Old World to the New."

From Russia

In Russia, perhaps the most important editorial utterance was that of the St. Petersburg Boerse Gazette, which said:

"Mr. McKinley was one of the most popular figures in American history and one of the best representatives of American ideals. On account of the extraordinary purity of Mr. McKinley's character, the American people will find sympathy wherever civilized men dwell. Opinion in Europe regarding Pan-Americanism may possibly be divided, but it is comprehensible from the American point of view. Mr. McKinley died firmly believing that the work he had begun in domestic and foreign policy would find suitable instruments for its continuation."

From France

President Loubet, of France, telegraphed as follows to Mrs. McKinley :

"I learn with deep pain that his Excellency Mr. McKinley has succumbed to the deplorable attempt on his life. I sympathize with you with all my heart in the calamity which thus strikes at your dearest affections and which bereaves the great American nation of a President so justly respected and loved."

The Paris Gaulois said :

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'The death of President McKinley will have a greater reverberation throughout Europe than had the disappearance of Garfield, Lincoln, or Carnot. He played a bigger part on the world's stage than any of his predecessors."

From Italy

In Italy the sympathy was specially strong by reason of the late King's assassination a year ago. The Dowager Queen Margherita said on Thursday to a friend, when talking of Mrs. McKinley: "Both of us know what it is to be kept from the bedsides of our dear ones, I by Humbert's instantaneous death, she by weak health. I cannot get her out of my mind. She is constantly in my thoughts and prayers."

From Mexico

The most significant and welcome message from the head of any government in this hemisphere was from President Diaz, of

Mexico:

"I have been deeply shocked by this crime. President McKinley was not a ruler of exclusive or aristocratic tendencies. He was a good friend of the people, a genuine democrat in the best sense of the word. With regard to Mexico, President McKinley had ever evidenced such friendly sentiments that his death will be mourned in this country hardly less keenly than in the United States."

CHAPTER XXVII

Memorial Tributes

HAT William McKinley was a great man, his acts will show

TH

when history has recorded his deeds. It is to his honor to say that political opponents have rated his abilities more highly than his political supporters, and that European observers have rated them more highly than have Americans. Posterity will ratify the higher judgment, and history will rank President McKinley more highly than his contemporaries have done, not only as an astute politician, but also as a popular leader and a broad-minded and cautiously progressive statesman. His death was felt as a personal loss by thousands who knew him only through his public life, and by the entire Nation as a great public calamity. The world itself turned into mourning and joined in expressions of sorrow and grief. With these expressions are many noble tributes of distinguished men and women in all walks of life, and also of the newspaper press of the country where editors speak from the vantage ground of closest knowledge of events. We give only a few of the many memorial tributes which have been uttered.

His Characteristic Virtues

BY CARDINAL GIBBONS

"In the annals of crime it is difficult to find an instance of murder so atrocious, so wanton and meaningless, as the assassination of Mr. McKinley. Some reason or pretext has been usually assigned for the sudden taking away of earthly rulers. Balthasar, the impious king of Chaldæa, spent his last night in reveling and