532 Presidential Addresses 



And this was the man at whom the assassin 

 struck! That there might be nothing lacking to 

 complete the Judas-like infamy of his act, he took 

 advantage of an occasion when the President was 

 meeting the people generally; and advancing as if 

 to take the hand outstretched to him in kindly and 

 brotherly fellowship, he turned the noble and gen- 

 erous confidence of the victim into an opportunity 

 to strike the fatal blow. There is no baser deed in 

 all the annals of crime. 



The shock, the grief of the country, are bitter in 

 the minds of all who saw the dark days while the 

 President yet hovered between life and death. At 

 last the light was stilled in the kindly eyes and the 

 breath went from the lips that even in mortal agony 

 uttered no words save of forgiveness to his mur- 

 derer, of love for his friends, and of unfaltering 

 trust in the will of the Most High. Such a death, 

 crowning the glory of such a life, leaves us with in- 

 finite sorrow, but with such pride in what he had 

 accomplished and in his own personal character, that 

 we feel the blow not as struck at him, but as struck 

 at the nation. We mourn a good and great Presi- 

 dent who is dead ; but while we mourn we are lifted 

 up by the splendid achievements of his life and the 

 grand heroism with which he met his death. 



When we turn from the man to the nation, the 

 harm done is so great as to excite our gravest ap- 

 prehensions and to demand our wisest and most 

 resolute action. This criminal was a professed 

 anarchist, inflamed by the teachings of professed an- 



