240 Presidential Addresses 



the popular verdict in his favor was more over 

 whelming than it had been before. 



No other President in our history has seen high 

 and honorable effort crowned with more conspicu 

 ous personal success. No other President entered 

 upon his second term feeling such right to a pro 

 found and peaceful satisfaction. Then by a stroke 

 of horror, so strange in its fantastic iniquity as to 

 stand unique in the black annals of crime, he was 

 struck down. The brave, strong, gentle heart was 

 stilled forever, and word was brought to the woman 

 who wept that she was to walk thenceforth alone 

 in the shadow. The hideous infamy of the deed 

 shocked the Nation to its depths, for the man thus 

 struck at was in a peculiar sense the champion of 

 the plain people, in a peculiar sense the representa 

 tive and the exponent of those ideals which, if we 

 live up to them, will make, as they have largely 

 made, our country a blessed refuge for all who 

 strive to do right and to live their lives simply and 

 well as light is given them. The Nation was 

 stunned, and the people mourned with a sense of 

 bitter bereavement because they had lost a man 

 whose heart beat for them as the heart of Lincoln 

 once had beaten. We did right to mourn; for the 

 loss was ours, not his. He died in the golden ful 

 ness of his triumph. He died victorious in that 

 highest of all kinds of strife the strife for an am 

 pler, juster, and more generous national life. For 

 him the laurel ; but woe for those whom he left be 

 hind ; woe to the Nation that lost him ; and woe to 



